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Nintendo Revolution Details Emerge
Pyrohazard writes "Nintendo has posted some details on the Revolution to their official site, finally giving us some insight into what the console will be like. From the site: 'It will be about the thickness of three standard DVD cases and only slightly longer.' This makes it the smallest Nintendo console yet! It will also be able to stand up, similar to the PS2, and the Xbox 360. It will be backwards compatible, and it will also play '12cm optical disks in the same self-loading media drive'. It also states that it will have a very quick start-up time, and be very quiet. It finishes by stating 'Get ready for the Nintendo Revolution in 2006!'" C|Net has an article up arguing that Nintendo is making an error in missing the 2005 Holiday season.
I guess the big N are counting on this console once again appealing to hardcore gameplayers, especially since you can't watch DVDs on this.
Are they making an error ?, possibly but depsite selling less consoles than sony and about the same as MS, the gamecube was supposedly very profitable. THe margins were supposedly higher and nintendo reckoned that the gamecube was never sold at a loss despite its low price.
In short Nintendo don't neccesarily have to shift more consoles than Sony and MS to stay in the console game.
I'd argue that Nintendo might be better served waiting until *after* the Christmas season. There's been several "OMG I must have!" Christmas toys that nobody can find, everybody's going onto Ebay and bidding hundreds of dollars for.
Then there's the games/items that come out in say, January, and do well. This strategy has served Blizzard very well with their "ship when its done". In some ways, Summer is actually a better launch date (kids getting out of school) and using that as a steady segway into greater sales.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
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Water cooling doesn't mean the xbox360 is faster. It could be designed crappy, with bad airflow. Hell, if the revolution is that small, it wouldnt need water cooling. Also, the water cooling could've been added to make the xb360 sound that much powerfull, a marketing ploy, which if true, you've fallen for.
i thought this thing would have a dvd drive like the xbox 360 has in it's system. I've been a loyal and avid nintendo fan since i was about 4 years old playing the original nintendo. But I'm sorry to say this could be a big mistake if Nintendo does not include a standard DVD-9 drive in its system. When the N64 came out, companies like Square could not release their games on the N64 due to cartridge format. So intead they went to the playstation with the 3 cd FF VII. In reality, their proprietary format drives up cost for developers to use on their system. And since Nintendo is continually losing market share to the XBox and soon to be XBox 360, I think Nintendo should really re-eveluate their stance on media drives.
Given the size of this beast it may well be that there is practically no air gap inside the box. This would enable Nintendo to use the whole surface area of the box as a heatsink.
If this is designed correctly you could make convection currents work for you and turn the whole room into your air space.
Aside from that it does sound like the big N is going for user experience inplace of raw power. Lets assume that it is a small cute box that will provide maybe twice the performance of the current GameCube (unlike the order of magnitude promised by the xbox 360 and PS3), can be sold at rock bottom prices, say $150, on launch day and acts as a centeral hub for mad multiplayer DS parties.
I'd say thats a winner.
if I wanted a big, loud games machine I'd use a PC.
It's too soon for a new console. The games run fine on the old ones. If it's able to offer some mindblowing new content along with the intro, Nintendo is smart to wait for the 'compelling need' to drive it's sales through the roof.
There's also the aesthetic angle. Cultural preferences are rapidly moving toward Nintendos form factor and will be peaking in 18 months, not 6.
Back when the PS2 was in development, I think DVD players were still $150 and up; so the appeal of having DVD playability was a definite value-add to the game console; it was like subracting $150 off the price of the PS2, because it could serve double duty.
However, nowadays DVD is so common that CompUSA is selling DVD players for $15.
So, why would I care about DVD functionality? To save $15 off the game console? Woot.
Now, if it had something else, like PVR to DVD-R functionality, that would be a value-add worth considering, but basic DVD playing... nah.
I wonder if the real "innovation" we are going to see with the Revolution has to do with the business side, namely that this box will be better focused in its purpose than Xbox360 or PS3. Perhaps in addition to being small, it will be significantly cheaper than the other boxes. I think if you look at where alot of game systems go (with the exception of Slashdot users and gadget freaks), they are not hooked up to the main TV in a house but to some secondary TV in a kids playroom, den, etc. Some of the media hub features discussed for these boxes are really overkill and not worth paying for if you just want a really good game system. I'll let my DVR evolve into a media hub and let the game system do what it does best, play games.
...is pretty clueless. Microsoft are the only console manufacturer rushing to get a machine out this year, as they see it as the only way to steal any market share from Sony. Sony and Nintendo are quite happy to keep pushing the five systems that they have on the market at present, and have no pressing need to rush out new systems to respond to Microsoft's stopgap.
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I'm unconvinced that 2005 launch will benefit MS as much as they think. This holiday season will already be mighty competive with PSP and Nintendo DS. Both handhelds will have a good selection of decent games by Nov 2005, and it will be the first holiday season for the PSP. Atop that, Sony will likely sell the PSP without the "Value Pack" option, which may bring down the price of the console to $199. Plus Grand Theft Auto and Grand Turismo (amoung others) will be out by then.
The Xbox 360 will also have to compete with people's willingness to wait for the PS3 and Nintendo Revolution. This may or may not be a factor depending on what Sony and Nintendo can deliver next week at E3. Remember, an early lauch didn't help Sega much with the Dreamcast (or the Saturn, which they forcefully lauched a few months early in the US to get a headstart on the PS).
If you also consider that the Xbox's life span was relatively very short compared to other consoles (launch 18 months after the PS2, and lauches ~12 months before the PS3). Many consumers that are not hardcore gamers, esp ones that have bought an XB in the last year or two, may feel perturbed that their recent purchase is already obsolete. To compound that, MS (as well as Sony/Nintendo) have to compete with other hot gadgets like the iPod that weren't around during previous console lauches that may appeal more to their core market(young-male adults) than gaming consoles.
This information has been floating around the gaming sites for a few days now, but oh well. The really interesting stuff about what makes the Revolution a "revolution" has yet to be revealed however.
There's some interesting, but not ground breaking stuff that has been confirmed, like wireless controllers, DS connectivity, 802.11 internet connection, and free online gameplay, but the really interesting stuff is still just speculation. For what it's worth, my guess is that the "revolution" part of the console will be that the controllers have built in gyros. I've been playing WarioWare: Twisted since it hit the streets in Japan, and let me tell you what anyone who has played that title can tell confirm: twisting is the future. There's a great part of WW:T where you get to play the original Super Mario Brothers game by turning the Game Boy to the side to move forward while the world spins around under your feet. It's how the game was meant to be played!! I suppose the Nintendo critics will call a motion sensor a gimmick, but I really believe it has the ability to put some fire under the industry's feet.
Of course, there's a lot of other speculation that I'm not too sure about. Broken Saints claims that the Revolution will somehow display real 3-D on your TV screen, I guess using special glasses or something. That sounds unlikely to me. I've also heard that the Revolution will have a DS like touch screen controller or one that is somehow reprogrammable by the game, but I don't want to think about the ergonomics of that all. Pressure sensitive buttons does sound like a good idea, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that.
One interesting thing about Nintendo versus Microsoft is the different things that people focus on in their announcements. With the Xbox 360, everyone is talking about the 3.whatever GHz PPC chip. With the Revolution, everyone is talking about possible changes to the way games are traditionally played. It just goes to show the Microsoft is still more interested in the technology side of things, and Nintendo is more interested in the "innovation" (or, if you believe the detractors, "gimmickry") side.
...is that they treat games as art, rather than cheap entertainment. There's a huge amount of overlap, to be sure, but the difference in emphasis makes all the difference. It could be argued -- probably correctly -- that the masses want cheap entertainment and not art, but still, if Nintendo could cultivate a sort of elite Apple-esque image, rather than their current childish Disney-esque one, that'd work well for them, I think...
They've been saying how they realized that the look of the console matters. Hopefully this means they've grasped the larger concept that *image matters*, perhaps as much as everything else put together (they can have the best games out there, but if it's seen as an uncool thing to own, people won't own it*). However, from the rather narrow stuff I've heard from them (only talking about making it look physically better, nothing about the larger picture of *why* it needs to look physically better), I'm sadly doubtful...
* people suck
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
As I mentioned briefly on the N-Scene mailing group... I'll expand more here.
I really don't think this is video of the "Revolution" system at all, I think this is very likely the special "joystick" that was mentioned briefly a month or so back.
Watch the video closely, the video clearly presents this system as a 3-D proximity controller. They always show it on the floor in the middle of the room, and that it is sensitive to someone approaching it.
Also, I don't think this is specifically a Revolution controller either. Notice that it shows in one segment, output supported for TV and some other type of screened device, then in the next segment it shows that it takes input from the GameCube and a "?" device of about the right dimensions of the Revolution concept art that has been floating around.
Also there have been complaints that I have seen about the Mario art at the end, that it either looks like Luigi, or is bad art. Oddly enough, this is the common design for Mario on most PC and Mac based games. I'm not sure what that means, but there is a precedent for Nintendo to illustrate Mario like that.
No, this video is very much in line with something Nintendo would generate and potentially show at a press event, and the fact that it appeared on the net last week is either a testament that Nintendo is attempting to execute a buzz kill on it's competitors announcements... or a very serious security breach has happened within Nintendo.
Personally, what I would like to see is the end of the video, and I'm hoping we get to see it next week.
Nintendo seem to be doing very well for themselves in the 'pathetic' third place. They're certainly turning a profit on the GameCube, unlike Microsoft for example, and have the best first-party games on any system, bar none.
There's no need to have a games library as large as, for example, the PS2's - how many of that system's games are really worth buying? There are plenty of simply excellent games available for the GameCube, and so long as Nintendo keep it up, I'll gladly buy their next system.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Why do you predict the answer is no for backwards compatibility with the X-Box 1?
Microsoft own a little piece of software called Virtual PC for Macintosh that lets x86 code run on the Power PC chip.
Sure it's a little sluggish on G4 systems but the triple core 3.2GHz PowerPC they announced should surely be able to reach 700MHz Celeron speeds.
The only real issue is emulating the Nvidia video extensions either in s/w or on the ATI card. Nvidia already seem miffed over loosing the XBox 2 deal so they may not be co-operative with details or patents...
[)amien
Quiet and quick startup time? Wow, that sounds like nearly every other game console in history.
Apart from my plastation 2.
There are quite a few mini-itx cases designed this way, where the case acts as a giant heatsink.
Another unexpected side benefit to this is that, if there's absolutely zero free space inside, and, it has to be exactly zero, there won't be space to put an internal modchip. An external modchip is going to be a pretty big turnoff for some people. Of course, this is more then a little unlikely, but, hey, it's possible, considering the formfactor.
Word on the street is that their "watercooling" setup is nothing more than a set of heatpipes - an increasingly pedestrian method of cooling in the PC world. I've actually seen mid-range Dell systems with heatpipe coolers & no marketing hype.
That's the biggest problem with taking console marketing at face value - they tend to blow small technical details out of proportion to make the whole device sound more impressive. A recent example is the current generation of consoles; they were refered to as 128-bit units by marketing when all of them actually ran on 32-bit processors because they had a vector unit or some video-processor with a wide pipe.
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Or the fact that X-Boxes sound more akin to hair dryers than a console.
Access times on the gamecube are imperceivable.. you really never have to wait for a loading screen, unlike the ps2. That was Nintendo's primary motivation for designing small discs.
I'm alarmed by the prospect of the Revolution using DVD discs. Why this fear? I'm afraid that its limited storage space will limit game designers.
Right now you might be thinking, "Are you insane? DVD-9 discs can store 9 gigs of data! What do you mean, limited?" Well, here's what I mean.
As most people probably know, both the Xbox and the PS2 use DVD discs. They both support DVD-5 and DVD-9. The support for DVD-9 indicates something; some games are too big to fit on one DVD-5 disc. This can be conclusively proven by looking at some recent games, like Xenosaga Episode II (see the bottom of the page, "Lasting Appeal"), which use multiple discs. At smallest size, these games are unable to fit on a single DVD-5 disc. At largest, they're too big to fit on a single DVD-9.
That's a lot of data.
I recently read in an article (probably in Game Informer, though I can't find it at the moment) that many recent games, including Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, only barely miss filling a DVD-9.
That this is on the PS2. A current-gen system.
I think that says something.
What I'm getting at here is that games are getting bigger and bigger. There's no way around it. As our technology improves and our systems become capable of bigger and better graphics, we must supply more and more data in order to make said graphics.
If a PS2, whose capabilities are far eclipsed by the next-gen systems, almost requires multiple discs, how will those next-gen systems fit all their data in the same space? Better graphics require more data: bigger textures, more polygons, more custom shaders, etc. So how will it all fit?
And bear in mind that this isn't even taking into account the data needed for the actual game. A lot of code and other data is needed for the actual game. Furthermore, the Revolution is supposed to be, as Nintendo says, "revolutionary". How much extra code will it take to do cool things with these "revolutionary" features? A lot, I imagine.
This poses a problem. Where will all that data go? It has to go somewhere. Sure, wonders can be worked with compression, and yes, Nintendo has somehow managed to shove DVD-5 games from other systems into the 1.8 gigs offered by its proprietary format, but there is a limit to how small things can get. Furthermore, too much compression will result in decreased performance, which is a bad thing.
This is definitely a big problem. Sony got around it by flinging enormous Blu-Ray discs into its next-gen system, aided somewhat by the fact that it partially owns that standard. For Nintendo or Microsoft to use Blu-Ray would require licensing the technology, and you can be sure Sony would charge them up the wazoo for both the drives and the discs.
That's a problem.
The way I see it, both Microsoft and Nintendo are in trouble if they use normal DVD drives on their next-gen systems. Nintendo possibly more so, depending on the "revolutionary" aspects of their device, but this doesn't change the fact that they're both rather screwed.
For Microsoft, it looks like it's already too late; the Xbox 360 specs declare that it has a "12x dual-layer DVD-ROM". There is still some hope left for Nintendo, though, as they've only announced support for "12cm optical disks", which could be nearly anything.
Here's to hoping that Nintendo chooses something better than DVD-9.
I own itburns.net. What should I put there?
If Nintendo can come up w/ some way to top 4 Swords, then it's all good.
I'm not too concerned about consoles or whatnot, but the idea that the Revolution can play GameCube games really appeals to me. This will save me space and money.
[o]_O
In a word: I wouldn't worry about it.
"Apart from my plastation 2."
Have you ever timed how long it takes to start up your PS2 and get to a playable state in San Andreas?
"Derp de derp."
For years, Sega always had to be FIRST FIRST FIRST FIRST when releasing anything, and they always had to hit the holiday system. Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast. First, first, first, first first. Now they don't make consoles anymore.
Being able to hit the holidays is utterly unimportant for the vast majority of console releases. It's much more important to have a library of games available when the 4th quarter hits, and to build up a buzz among the hardcore gamers that should trickle into mainstream interest.
Basically, releasing a console before it's "ready" is always a bad idea.
So if I want to run Samus around for an hour or two, I'll have to run/walk around a large empty floor space myself. The Japanese doesn't have the space, the Americans doesn't have the physical shape to endure hours of walking, running, waveing arms around... Bad market choice.
I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I always thought of my GC as something a little bit different. I use my XBox for 'serious' games and PC Ports because I own a Mac, and to be honest £100 for an XBox seemed a lot more attractive than £1500 for a decent games machine.
I bought my GC for party games and genuine original content. I loved Monkey Ball, Doshin, Pikmin and Double Dash. The GC proved without a doubt that there was more to modern gaming than how many polygons you can process per second and how accurate your AI and physics engines are. I think thats what made it better for adults. When I was a kid I wanted more realism and violence, now I want more fun and originality.
This is why I'm excited by the Revolution as there will be something in there that is not obvious by the hardware specs, that will make it a worthwhile purchase - fun games.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
You never played the dreamcast did you?