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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.
Check out this fan made video. It's really well done.
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I do agree with the cnet artical that nintendo are going to miss a major sale period here if it is not out till 2006 but they may as of yet pull it forward .
,Which is a very good thing as we don't need another loud large monster console.
.Though let me put my pundit hat on , besides the normal conectivity ala the GBA and the gamecube i suspect the reveloution may have the ability to download the data from the cards and allow you to play GBA or DS games on the big screen using the DS as a wireless controler (with the touch pad screen perhaps still working as normal ) and perhaps multi player DS games can be played with Reveloution controlers for some titles which dont have a touch screen (unless nintendo take a leaf out of the dreamcasts book and include a screen on the controler , albeit with touch pad functionality. ;) so dont cite me on it.
Looks like they are taking a leaf out of the mac minis book with the form factor
Its wonderfull they have confrimed backwards compatability which will be very important in giving them a good start with a cataloug of games though they may be missing out here if they don't include some form of DVD playback.
I have argued a few times that its not the features that sell a console but the games , but all things being equal otherwise the features can make or break the sale.
I am awaiting news of the conectivity with the DS , this is pure idle speculation
That is pure idle speculation though
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I think it could be a smart move. Think of it. The XBox and the PS3 will be going all out to steal each others' thunder, and the consumer market for consoles will be split. If Nintendo can handle staying out of the spotlight for a little while, and then show up the next year with a console superior to the other two and good lineup of games, all the attention will be focused on them. As it is, you could argue it's too early for a second XBox and a third Playstation. Nintendo's timing could be perfect.
It's interesting that all 3 console manufacturers chose IBM PPC processors this time around. It means that game developers programming in assembly language will only have to learn one. Too bad there aren't many left who do. (A fact of life when the bottlenecks move to memory/art/game-logic).
Because the GameCube used PPC, it looks like Nintendo will be the only one with an (relatively) easy backwards compatability story. The PS2 could perhaps be emulated since it was only a 300Mhz MIPS processor, but I pity the person that has to write the emulator for the pipelining stages on the VUs. Microsoft has not said whether they'll be backwards compatible, but I predict the answer is no.
"(Update 05/13/05) I have had a couple of readers that commented on Microsoft stating that the Xbox 360 was "water cooled." While this might be technically true, it carries a very heavy marketing spin in order to glom onto an enthusiast technology. To be succinct, the Xbox 360 is not water cooled in the way we, meaning just about every computer hardware enthusiast on the planet, tend to think of water cooling. The Xbox 360 motherboard we were shown did have a CPU heatsink in place that utilized a heatpipe. Yes, a heatpipe does have liquid in it and some H2O as well, but is usually primarily ammonia. In a heatpipe, the liquid at the "hot" end vaporizes, and is moved to the "cold" end of the heatpipe by a pressure differential and convection. Once the heat is transferred to the fins in the cold end, the substance condenses and the process repeats. The CPU cooler we saw on the Xbox 360 processor looked very much like this CPU cooler seen at Plycon except the Xbox 360 cooler was taller than wider and only utilized one copper heatpipe tube."
Link -> http://www.hardocp.com/articleprint.html?article_i d=768
I don't think that the addition of a DVD player would add much. When the PS2 was released, not everyone had a DVD player. Now, almost everyone has a DVD player, and if they don't, they're extremely affordable.
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.
You see, not being able to get it makes people want it more. It's fairly standard marketing practice to actually artificially make your product more scarce, because it makes people want it more.
Many of those fad Christmas gifts were hard to find... because it was all planned that way by the people making them. Intentionally making shipments erratic, etc. There's no reason why they couldn't flood the market with the product... but then nobody would want it as badly. Of course once the Christmas season they give up on the charade and just ship them normally.
Remember when Gmail was "invite-only" and everyone that you know couldn't get an invite fast enough? Again, articially-induced scarcity.
Nintendo is losing big by missing Christmas, a time when demand is typically quintupled. They would miss it only if they had no other choice.
It is good to maintain backward compatibility, Nintendo will have an easier time getting people that own a GameCube to buy their new console - just as Sony had an easier time getting people who owned the Playstation to buy the Playstation 2. This will give them an easier time with launching this new system.
Not only that, but as the new console generation pops up starting this Christmas, people will take into account which system has the most enjoyable games - if Xbox 360 doesn't have a solid number of good games at release time and isn't able to play Xbox games, they may find people holding back to get a Playstation 3s or Revolutions because of the already present game catalog.
I'm rooting for Nintendo, they've had some extremely fun games on the GameCube with a massively higher ratio of good games to bad when put alongside the Xbox or Playstation 2. The Mario sports games have all been excellent and enjoyable, rather than a pretty simulation of the sport like the EA and Sega sports titles carried by the competition.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
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.
Uh, EVERYONE has a dvd player now, who cares. Nobody bought an xbox for watching DVD's (not to mention the required 50$ remote) I don't know a single non-gamer (the majority of my friends) who watches dvd's on their xbox or ps2.
Not to mention, adding this drives up the price and drives up the complexity, which drives down the quality (I'm not saying the DVD funtionality is what causes xbox and ps2 drives to break so often, but complexity always makes things less stable)
You don't have a DVD drive already? Their 40$ you cheap basterd, my dvd player was cheaper than the xbox dvd remote. Everyone has a dvd player, and nobody bought a xbox to play dvd movies. Nobody. I heard japanesse people bought the ps2 as a dvd player because it was cheaper at the time, but it wont be this time. The reason some developers didnt like the cartridge format is because n64 carts were like 8mb, and a cd is 700. Square likes cutscenes, which wouldn't fit on a cart. The Revolution uses 12cm discs, and theyre blu-ray discs if I recall. They will have equal, or near equal (possibly higher?) capacity then the xbox (still uses standard DVD's) and who knows for the PS3. Also, 99.99% of games dont use the full DVD disc anyway, so the gamecubes smaller (2GB?) discs weren't much of an issue. As I said before, the Revolution uses 12cm disks, with a higher capacity. Think before you post.
I think you will find that despite the smaller form factor with the Nintendo Revolution, it will probably still be on par with the PS3 and Xbox 360 given the extra time they will have in producing it. I will be amazed if even the PS3 is as large as the Xbox 360. Additionally, I beleive that the addition of multiple numbers of CPUs, all running at different Mgz clouds the overall power of the system, and makes a systems speed difference very negligable. I think this holiday season is the least of Nintendo's concerns. Nintendo has already stated that they are going after Sony as the top dog in the race. Stepping onto the market later is actually a good move and I think the Xbox 360 is coming to the market way too early. We have seen this happen with the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast. I also am strangely getting the notion that Microsoft is aiming its targets at Nintendo, and Nintendo is aiming theirs at Sony. And Sony is just content to be at the top. Why not try to challenge Sony? In the end, it is very possible there will be 2 leaders this time around, Sony and Nintendo.