Nintendo confirmed that they did indeed use GameCube housing, but that the "guts" or internal architecture was certainly from the Wii. "The Wii hardware we exhibited at E3 2006 was made specifically for the E3 show and is not the final mass-production version. Some of this hardware was cased in Nintendo GameCube housing," the company explained.

So if the hardware that was used was not representative of the final mass-production version, does that mean that the Wii graphics we all witnessed could be improved by the time the console launches? "For some of the games that you've seen, the focus for them was not graphics at all, and so by design they were made to have a very broad appeal to them -- something that even your non-gamers can understand," Nintendo of America PR Manager Matt Atwood told us. "It isn't the final hardware, so at this point anything could happen, but this is very typical of what happens at E3; this is something I've seen with every other publisher and Nintendo in the past."

He continued, "So will the system specs change? The answer is they're still finalizing it. But as far as what you saw at E3 we think that was very indicative of the experience Wii will offer... It was Wii hardware."

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