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Nintendo Revolution Under Wraps Past E3
The next-generation Nintendo console, codenamed Revolution, may not be shown at this year's E3. Eurogamer reports that the Japanese console maker is going to keep the console under wraps to keep the features of the new system out of the limelight a little while longer. From the article: "Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata is worried about rivals nicking all his best ideas at this early stage. That's how revolutionary the new console is, apparently... and also the exact same line Nintendo used to avoid showing Mario 128 at a previous E3."
Maybe it has.... 3 screens?
...he is definitley the hardest one to beat. I remember that time I played all night long and I made it up to Boss SI (that's what it says above his life bar cause his name doesn't fit on the screen). I was kickin ass, but then my mom came and pulled the stupid plug.
Because of course Sony and Microsoft only hear about features at conferences like E3. While the rest of us get the inside track at Slashdot!
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
I'm so frustrated with Nintendo. It's like they haven't gotten it since the early 90s with the SNES. CDs? Who needs those? Whatever defines their self-made revolution had better be the end all to games for it to fly. PS3 and 360 are going to appeal to the masses and steal away more of Nintendo's turf. I myself am considering jumping ship as Nintendo has failed to inspire me this last generation as it did with the first two.
"I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, spare me the hype."
So I take it that you won't be paying attention to the XBOX 360 or Playstation 3, either?
"Derp de derp."
"That's how revolutionary the new console is Lets just hope that doesn't mean something like "Lets dare to be different, and use annoying mini-disks instead of the standard DVDs. They provide lower quality, AND they don't meet up to modern-day standards. Its brilliant!"
This might be insightful if Nintendo wasn't responsible for the standard 4 controller ports, standard analog sticks, standard 'rumble' functions, the huge portable gaming market, yadda yadda yadda.
"Derp de derp."
"Nintendo has the most to gain by releasing a console based on Linux. In this respect, they could capture some console market and then facilitate for the same apps to be released on Linux."
There are more people with GameCubes than using Linux today. Why would Linux make the next Nintendo system suddenly capture marketshare when nobody even cared that the PS2 had a Linux kit?
"Derp de derp."
They have pulled the exact same trick for the N64 (remember the Ultra64?), Virtual Boy, Game Cube and DS. Meanwhile the consoles that left a significant mark on their generation were the NES and Super NES. What did they have that made a difference? Certainly not the fancy gadgets. Remember that NES robot that was promptly set aside?
What made them special is that they offered the best games and were the most powerful at the time. Mario and Zelda made the NES. They also made the Super NES, along with Street Fighter II and Mario Kart. We would almost cry at the inovation of the gameplay, quality of the graphics and music, and amazing fun they provided.
Today it's all about superficially good looking graphics. Gameplay and fun went the way of the dodo. Meanwhile Nintendo thinks it's okay to have consoles with non standard earphone plugs...
I miss those days spent with the old NES/GB/SNES...
Thats odd, considering the DS has sold more than half a million more units the PSP in Japan, and were released only within a few weeks of each other.
I'll buy it, since I'm a huge Nintendo fan. The casual gamer won't be so accomodating. Nintendo needs to build some hype around the system if they want to actually change the video game industry. Right now, even some hardcore Nintendo fans are skeptical.
Nintendo - shooting ourselves in the foot since 1990...
"They provide lower quality..." AND they reduce piracy, which is excessively rampant for the XBox and the PS2. Go looking for XBox and PS2 game torrents, and you'll find them by the hundreds. You'll be able to count the number of Gamecube torrents on your fingers. Besides...lower quality that's also better than the PS2? Not lower quality, but rather less space.
It's really hard to imagine what these secret features might be. M$ and Sony are about upping the graphics ante, not about incorporating voice recognition, three screens, body sensors or whatever new ideas Nintendo comes up with. Maybe if these features turn out to be a success in the marketplace -- unlikely if the DS is any indicator -- the other console makers would think about incorporating them. I figure Nintendo's secretness is just a way of building hype around the product.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Might they be holding out to unveil it at the Tokyo Game Show, so that they can completely steal the headlines for the entire show instead of sharing space with the other systems at E3?
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
annoying mini-disks
If you're referring to the Gamecube's discs, what the hell are you talking about?
lower quality
In what sense?
don't meet up to modern-day standards
It's true that they don't have as much capacity as DVDs, but how many multi-disc Gamecube games have there been? In fact, the smaller discs are capable of spinning faster than DVDs, providing faster transfer rates (or so I've heard).
Oh you bring a tear to my eye. Oh how you bring back the memories of Slashdot of years past. You know, Slashdot before the Legion of Jobs showed up and proclaimed that Apple had an answer to everything.
Yes. Bring me back my old Slashdot. Please, please bring back:
1. Make it with Linux
2. ??
3. Profit!
Bring back the good old days, when BSD was dead and Red Hat was king.
(and yes I AM serious)
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Great, now I'm bald.
Damn you, Nintendo. I have been a loyal servant of yours ever since I first played Super Mario Brothers 2 on the NES: I've fought for you time and again in the useless internet debates; I've spent my hard-earned college cash to pay for your no-internet system with lacking 3rd Party support; I even still lug around my N64 because it has games I enjoyed enough in the past that I might want to play them again in the future, but I'm not really sure if I ever will!
Doesn't that deserve something? If nothing else, show some footage. I don't need to see the actual system or controllers right now; but damned if I don't see any 'eye candy', and I'm not talking those sweet Ssian numbers you put on display... actually, that's more of a Sony thing.
In any case, I digress. While I can understand wanting to keep industry secrets secret, we're not asking you to reveal every spec of the system. If all you did was hint at what makes this console a 'revolution', and showed a picture of one of the buttons on the controller, that would be enough for many a fanboy.
So, Nintendo, I ask you this: Please, please, won't you show something? Have we not earned at least that?
Someone else modded him down while I was looking for the "-1 Belabored" or "-1 Bad Joke" options in the moderation box. =)
Maybe I should have been looking for "+0.5 Almost Funny"?
Consoles have essentially one hardware configuration. A heavyweight OS like Linux would slow it down horribly. If you want a general-purpose machine instead of one only to play games, go buy a PC. In fact, you can play games on those, too.
English is easier said than done.
Nintendo can unveil it at E3, and go up against Microsoft and Sony's HUGE marketing budget and hype. Magazines would probably have a triple feature, with sections given to each system and the respective company booths.
Or, Nintendo can wait a couple of months until the media coverage dies down a little bit, unveil the console, and get the cover of every non-platform-specific major game magazine in the biz. This decision shows not a lack of preparation or a schedule issue, but a smart martketing choice.
When is the new Nintendo system coming out? Before the next E3? If not, then I'd say they don't want to become old-hat before it does come out. They'll let Microsoft and Sony demonstrate all of their new features that will be seen as "older" when E3 comes around next year when Nintendo announces their new features.
Nintendo can also concentrate on their Online component (which would be ignored even more if the new system was unveiled).
The "stealing our ideas" is just PR bullshit.
Having said that, if the systems are to be released before the next E3, I can see this as being a BIG mistake.
I hate to tell you, but Nintendo has never insisted that mature games not be on their console. They just got that reputation over 10 years ago when they made the creators of Mortal Kombat remove the blood. For example, the Resident Evil series has been pretty much exclusive to Gamecube this generation (including the excellent Resident Evil 4).
When's the last time Rare made a good game?
Why am I not rapping? I am rapping with you in a way.
Nintendo doesn't need to show off their system to let developers get a feel for it. It is 100% backwards compatible with the Gamecube and uses the same development API.
Effectively they can run a more fine grained marketing strategy because of this. No need to shout "you should learn how to program like this." Once Nintendo 3rd parties have the devkits in hand they should already know how to program it.
Remember: This is a TRADE SHOW. You let developers and publishers know what's up. Nintendo has already told them enough to get started. Know your Gamecube and Nintendo DS APIs and you should be good to go for everything Revolution.
The thing people don't realize here is that Nintendo is a hugely profitable company. Even though it's console was a distant 3rd in the last race, it makes so much money off of games and eventually hardware (as it becomes cheaper to produce) that they don't really care about losing big time to sony & microsoft (in the US at least).
Nintendo can really do whatever it wants. No matter what it will make up more then enough in the pure software sales on it's next gen system alone. MS & Sony don't have this advantage. For 1, MS has to buy all second party support, which costs mega $$$, and they don't have many (any?) first party games. Sony has paltry first party games, and the bulk of sales on software is given to third parties (the bulk of software sales being the bulk of profit available from consoles).
That's the economics of Nintendo, and if you aren't used to it by now, you've been naive.
It's not to say you can't do both...... Nintendo isn't saying they're going to go backwards on hardware or something. Just that their philosophy is that a focus should be on fun and enjoyable games, rather than just purely on hardware, etc. used to do more advanced versions of the same basic game types.
Regarding the second comment...... just because something is a sequel to an existing franchise doesn't mean it can't be something new. And conversely, something can be a "new" brand but still basically be just a rehash of old ideas. For the most part, when you look at some of the recent Zelda and Metroid sequels, for example, you see something where they take elements and brands that have existed before, but do pretty new things with them. I don't think I'd blame them though for doing something in the vein of an existing franchise though, rather than creating a completely new franchise, because it can make it a lot easier for someone to pay attention to a completely new game if it is part of a universe and history that people like.
-Tom
"The N64, which was originally the Dolphin, then the Ultra 64 was delayed almost two years"
Actually it was originally called Project Reality, then Ultra64, which was going to be it's launch name until it got delayed.
"Microsoft has Rare and Bungie"
you may have something with bungie, but all of rare's talent left years ago. How many killer games has rare made since selling out to microsoft? I was happy to see them leave, their games were over-hyped, often delayed, all the talent had left anyway.
John 3:16 - The easiest way to a BETTER YOU.
Shame Nintendo isn't third. The Japanese market laughs at the Xbox and it will the next generation of it. Nintendo aim games at real gamers (I mean old school not Madden 83049234 players), they know their market and what they want. Quirky games which play well, have short load times and are generally fun to replace when you don't know where every monster is and what weapon to shoot it with.
As long as Nintendo stick to their guns and keep making fun games their fanbase won't stray too far. They may not make them number 1 in the games market but right now it's been flooded with "Average Joes" who just want the latest EA offering, Halo whatever it is now and don't care about anything except pretty graphics.
I like muppets.
Heh. Well I have a theory. Rumor has it that Nintendo is choosing between two or three systems right now. Assuming that's true, maybe Nintendo's waiting to see what MS and Sony do before making any commitals.
This may seem a little out-there, but if Nintendo is doing something revolutionary like putting a touch screen into the controllers, it stands to reason that the money put into those will result in not as spiffy of graphical specs. If the difference is that noticable, perhaps they're deciding between a $200 system and a $300 system.
Anyway, maybe that's just my imagine working over-time. If I were a bettin man, though, I'd say that Nintendo's big revolution isn't in the system itself, but in the controller. It's probably too late for Sony or MS to mess with the system specs a lot, but tossing in a controller feature may not be out of the question yet.
"Derp de derp."
Look, the X-Box 360 and Playstation 3 are already designed and getting ready to debut at E3. It's not like they can radically change the design in time for their ship dates by stealing Nintendo's ideas at E3.
DS was featured at E3 in May of last year, and had several changes made to it before its launch on September 21st. 4 months sure can make a difference.
I think one thing to remember is that the DS is not nintendo's next generation hand held. That is still coming. The DS was something to throw at the psp to slow it down. I don't know if the Revolution will bring back some of niontendo's lost market share, in fact I doubt it will, but nintendo didn't end up with billions in the bank by being stupid.
That said, I think all of the next consoles are going to have an uphill fight for volume simply because their projected street price brings them awfully close to computers which have more utility and a larger body of games.
Because slashdot just absolutely has to print every single rumor without ever once actually saying the rumor is offered without basis...
Nintendo has said multiple times that they will be unveiling the Revolution at E3. They've given warnings along the lines that it may be at an early stage, or that it won't be playable, or that some of the demos may be behind-closed-doors, at E3. But they at least have said they'll be showing it. And this has been said by Nintendo representatives, speaking on the record.
So, what's the source for this article slashdot links, which is saying it won't be?
"Reports". From "Japan".
You'll excuse me if I take repeated statements by official persons speaking for Nintendo more seriously than "reports from Japan".
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Vibrating controllers came to be standard fare when the Rumble Pak came about.
Not long after the N64 was unveiled, Sony released it's Dual Shock controller (complete with 2!! analog sticks and a built in 'rumble' feature.) to the PS1. Then, the Dreamcast had it's own 'rumble pak'. Then the PS2 came with the Dual Shock Controllers. Then the XBOX came along... etc.
Personally, that little tidbit about the Dual Shock controller is what's making me wonder about Nintendo's secrecy, here. I personally think that they did something snazzy with the controller, but they're trying to prevent an imitation of the feature from making it into the boxes of the PS3 and XBOX02's.
"Derp de derp."
You don't believe Nintendo's ever coming out with another console?
Wow... that's, uh... interesting.
~ Aero
They are diluting themselves in the market. If they launch systems this close, they need to drop support quicker. For example, they should only make only DS and GBA games in 2005.
???? Revolution
2004 DS
2003 Gameboy Advanced
2001 Gamecube
1999 Gameboycolor
1998 Gameboypocket
1996 N64
1995 Virtualboy
1991 SNES
1989 Gameboy
1985 NES
Weren't Sony the ones hyping their system beyond any reasonable expectations of its capabilities? It seems (to me, at least, a compulsieve between-the-lines reader, that) Nintendo is just trying to be wary of not doing the same thing and then getting hosed when the final product fails to meet expectations.
Look at me. I'm bashing my head on the keyboard.
sfdgferbewfrerszt trewrd fgdswerdesbf
Do you really think that showing it to the public is the same as showing it to developers?
Attracting third party developers is not a panacea. Microsoft is certainly losing a lot of money going that route. Nintendo might not compete with Sony for marketshare, but their heavily first party (and thus heavily exclusive) lineup does well at holding on to a core of fiercely loyal customers.
You shouldn't think of Nintendo as Gateway to Sony's Dell... Nintendo is the Apple of the console business.
Think about it: Heavy on concept, low on market share, and with a related consumer product (the Gameboy) whose design has managed to totally dominate its market continuously against technically superior competition.
And Playstation's features that Nintendo later copied? Optical disk format.
Who copied it from 3DO, who copied it from Sega (Sega CD) and NEC (PC Engine CD).
Nintendo has said that they're showing it at E3. They EXPLICITLY said they will have it at E3, but are deciding whether to have it playable or not.
Every big rumor site disagrees about Nintendo not showing at E3 (see Spong). It's only rumors running around that Nintendo won't be there; and there is absolutely NO official sources involved.
I don't believe it.
Uhhh, nice try at sarcasm, but Gamecube outsold Xbox in worldwide totals. Oh, and more importantly, Nintendo MADE MONEY on the Gamecube. Get a clue.
Dude, Ico was awesome. It was... wrenching. Sad and exhilarating, a bit funny in some spots, wistful in others. It evoked emotion better than almost any game I can remember, and it did it almost completely without words. I don't think you can call yourself a gamer if you haven't played Ico. Seriously.
I found out about it very late, and played it only about a year ago, and even going in with high expectations, I was STILL blown away. A year later, I can close my eyes and summon up exact pictures of several locations, to the point that I could sketch them out and be pretty accurate. That's how intensely it impressed itself into my memory... no small feat, when you consider that I'm nearer 40 than 30, and have played so many games over the years.
All the consoles have something to offer. Pick one of each up used, for chrissake. Refusing to buy hardware because it's not Nintendo is cutting off your nose to spite your face. All you're hurting is yourself.
I have all three consoles, and I don't have any real attachment to any of them. I suppose, overall, I like the XBox the most at the moment, because it has had the most interesting games of late, and it may have better 'legs' than the other two. Chronicles of Riddick is really good. Burnout 3 is excellent. Jade Empire is quite good... maybe not as good as Knights of the Old Republic, but good. KOTOR was one of the best RPGs ever done, a true classic. Halo was okay, but tremendously overrated.
On the PS2, there's the Grand Theft Auto series and Katamari Damacy as can't-miss titles. And Ico. And probably a zillion others I can't think of right now.... I guess if you've never owned a Playstation, you must have missed all the Final Fantasy games? Final Fantasy 7 is probably the second-best RPG ever made, and you could argue that it was better than KOTOR in some areas. (freedom and duration, mostly.)
Gamecube has Wind Waker, a true masterpiece, though I do feel it was a bit on the short side. Harvest Moon was good, but got old a bit fast. Animal Crossing was a lot of fun for awhile. The Metroids were excellent. Wario Ware is a completely bizarre, but fun, party-type game. I've often gotten the feeling that the console is underused... it really feels like it has more power than what you actually see.
Nintendo makes great consoles, but cripes, you've missed some unbelievably good games because of your platform-centrism. The platform doesn't MATTER. It's the games that matter. Find the games you want to play, and buy the hardware that plays them best. That's really all there is to it.
If you don't want to play Ico just because Nintendo didn't make it, then you're willfully blind and ignorant. Go away, or I shall be forced to taunt you again.
The irony is that Sony had partnered with Nintendo to develop an optical drive for the Super Nintendo, and when Nintendo got cold feet, Sony took what they'd learned and created the Playstation. Microsoft did the same thing, partnering with Nintendo to learn about game system development, but pulled out of the agreement to create their own game system. The main difference is who broke up with whom: Nintendo dumped Sony, causing Sony to create the PS; Microsoft dumped Nintendo, suggesting they went into the relationship with less-than-honest intentions.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
The XBOX has one profitable quarter after eleven straight losses, and everyone calls them a success.
but they're making up for it in volume!