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Next Generation Nintendo Revealed
dwlt writes "I'm sure lots of people have sent this already, but take a look at
the story on videogames.com
for the full scoop on Nintendo's Game Cube (gotta catch 'em all!), and Game Boy Advance. The controller is kind of crazy, though..." Let me tell ya about the countless hours spent in the geek houses drinking and playing Mario Kart 64: Kurt The Pope is a wildman under the influence of alcohol, and the new one looks cool.(thanks to those of you who wasted no time in submitting a new Slashdot icon too ;)
Hrm...this caught my eye:
Developers can use the C programming language to take advantage of this functionality and create software at a low cost. Based on the foundation of a developer-friendly environment and a system configured with few restrictions, developers can create an unequaled level of entertainment and create the kinds with the kind of depth everyone will want to experience.
And the rest of the site focusing mainly on the "Developer Friendly" atmosphere of the new systems. Maybe Nintendo is looking to tap the extensive community of open source developers to overwhelm the market with games for their consoles?
Just a crazy off the wall thought...
Ok, that's them done, let's discuss the damn products can we?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Both the Cube and PS2 have similar technical specs, making a declaration of one as king impossible. To me, it will al go down to which system has the best and easiest to work with development platform. Sure people always says "it's about the games stupid!", but a good deal of how good the games are depends on how good the development platform is, which is mainly why most developers are going crazy about the X-Box even if many gamefans are still skeptical.
I've heard PS2's development system is a nightmare, but t
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Granted, the DualShock would be impossible to use if the people making the controller forget that you can only use the d-pad(directional pad)/left-stick or the buttons(/\ [] O X)/right-stick - but most games keep that in mind (because they also are compatible with the standard controller).
First of all, putting the d-pad where they did seems like a bad idea to me - but I'd have to have the controller in my hand first. I find that my thumbs "work" just about right for the button-use position and the stick-use position on the DualShock - I'm not sure that I'd find myself being able to use the Nintendo controller quite as easily. Although they're probably hoping that all the games will support the analog control as opposed to the d-pad. I'm not sure what they're thinking with the shoulder buttons, either - I think there's only one of each. I wonder if the parts where you'd grip the controller (the white lines sticking down) will have "Z-trigger" like things on them?
The buttons do NOT look like they'd work well with most games - I wonder how easy it would be to play Mario on that thing? The C-buttons worked on the N64 controller because they were not in the middle of the A and B buttons - and they were nicely arranged to make using them somewhat easier.
As always, the start button is in a location that's not overly easy to use, but the DualShock has that problem too (I'd move them closer to the d-pad and the buttons, but...)
All in all, I think I still perfer the DualShock as a control over any other console controller. I wonder if the new Nintendo controller has force-feedback? Force-feedback can be really nice in some games - the controller jerking in your hands when being discovered in Metal Gear Solid is enough to make you jump. Games just don't play the same without it - and Sony did a good thing with the "dual" part, there are two different types of shaking the controller can do - the rumble pack for the N64 seems to have only had one way. Having the motors powered off the PlayStation and not a battery was nice as well.
I'll have to actually get a controller in my hand before deciding, though - I didn't like the look of the N64 controller either, but it turns out to be fairly usable.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Now, while I have not read many of the articles surrounding the n-cube, the "perepherial atattachment area" on the bottom of the box looks very much like a male USB port.
Any comments? I can imagine if this is a USB port the things that can be done!
As much as I have diseregarded nintendo over the past few years (as well as most other console systems), I want one of these to try to hack. Actuall, better make that two, so I still have one to play on!
Shameless Plug! If you like trance, tell me what you think!!
Here. Wireless controllers, online connectivity, Metroid. Could be interesting.
The GameCube tech demo movie is also available as an .mpeg file, playable via your favourite OSS movie player. Die Sorenson codecs, die! P-)
The file is right here, a zipped mpeg. It's a direct download off ZDNET's servers, which should handle the load effortlessly. *grin*
The tech demo shows some nice, although pre-rendered scenes featuring the inevitable Pokemon, a waverace game, some scened from a 3D shooter demo, and an X-Wing.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
The PS2 system is tricky because of two main systems.
Firstly, it's designed with high bandwidth, and low cache. This is very different to the standard 'low' bandwidth and high cache. Whether better or not remains to be seen, but the fact is that by being very different, it is causeing problems for the developers
The other point is that some of it's much vaunted power comes from the vector registers. And (speaking from experinece) these require careful coding to get the best out of (such as doing the sum on 32 memory locations rather than just the required 5 can be faster). As far as I know, the only people who really have experience with this sort of thing are the supercomputer programmers.
Um, how many people write computer games and code on supercomputers too? Not darned many. Thus there is a lack of experienced deveolpers for the platform.
The N-cube specs suggest, to me, a more conventional design, although I would hardly call that page detailed or technical.
A more conventional design, means more deveolper experience, which, as you point out, means better games.
Time will tell, but I am wondering about the disk drive used in the cube. Anyone familer with it?
NINTENDO GAMECUBE Specifications
The peak figures listed are all for maximum instantaneous performance and cannot be achieved with the actual game. However, following the conventions in the game industry they are listed for your reference.
Wow, that's an extremely unusual thing for a hardware vendor to state up front about published specs. Kudos to Nintendo!