iFixit has taken apart the new Nintendo Wii U and uncovered all its secrets — from the GPU and the oversized disc drive to its gamepad’s Near Field Communication (NFC) module and a hidden coin slot.
It seems like a compact, clean and mean machine. They say that one third of its weight is its oversized disc drive. The people at iFixit believe Nintendo cut costs when they found out that they had a lot of space in the case thanks to the motherboard’s size. This is actually good news, as a bigger part will be more durable and easier to replace in case it breaks.
The really good news is that not only this is a powerful machine, but iFixit says it is very easy to fix. They give it a 8 out of 10 score, which means that all the parts can be taken apart easily. In fact, no glue is used through the entire design. Only the gamepad’s screen and touch digitizer are fused together. This means that, in case it breaks, you will have to replace that part. But the rest is really easy to fix.
Overall, this is good news for consumers and the lifespan of their new console.[iFixit]
The hidden coin slot is actually a separate mini-drawer that holds the CMOS battery
The gamepad has a NFC card inside. No applications support it yet, but it may be used for some fun stuff, like using physical game cards with NFC chips to pass information to it or gain in-game abilities
The Wii U’s heart is a single part with an integrated AMD Radeon-based GPU and a IBM Power multi-core processor, placed next to each other to reduce latency and power consumption