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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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.
"When the N64 came out, companies like Square could not release their games on the N64 due to cartridge format."
As pointed out numerous times already, FFVII used all that space for FMV. They very easily could have made that game for the N64. They chose not to. Back in those days, textures were around 4k. Even 8 - 16 megs is a lot of k's. The music was all midi. The characters were simply polygonal, most using goraud shading instead of textures. Etc. There would probably have been a few comporimises, but FFVII could have made it into an N64 cartridge.
"In reality, their proprietary format drives up cost for developers to use on their system. "
True for the N64, negligible for the GameCube. The reason the proprietary format for the N64 was expensive was because cartridges are just plain expensive. Optical media, nah. Make the disc a little smaller, change the format a bit. That wasn't anything but a minor change to the production facility. If it did cost more for the developers, it's doubtful it was by much. It was CERTAINLY nowhere near the difference between producing a CD and producing a catridge.
"And since Nintendo is continually losing market share to the XBox..."
Ugh. I hate getting into this argument. Are we talking world or USA here? The GameCube might be number 3 in the USA, but it's also killing the XBOX quite soundly in Japan. You may be thinking "so?" but imagine what the executives at Nintendo are thinking. Money's money. Even at 3rd place, Nintendo themselves produce AAA titles. Nintendo is going to react to their profit margins, not their market share. If Nintendo were to turn into Sony, would they really make more money? Sell systems at a loss? Produce cookie cutter games? Do nothing to ensure the market doesn't collapse like it did in Atari's age?
"I think Nintendo should really re-eveluate their stance on media drives."
The media drive isn't going to make the difference. It's the games. If Nintendo wants to give Sony hell, they'll need broader 3rd party support. At this point, the media won't make a difference. (assuming it has reasonable storage, anyway.) They need good hardware. They need good marketing. And they need killer apps at launch to get a few million into people's homes. From there, more developers will come out of the woodwork.
That is: IF they want to do that. The downside here is that store shelves get flooded with games. The problem is that Nintendo makes a killing on its first party titles. Less shelf space means less attention to their own products. Don't get me wrong, either way they make money, but they create a huge mess in their wakes.
"Derp de derp."