The Revolution's Power And Launch Date

IGN is reporting on new details for Nintendo's next-generation console. They have discussion of the Revolution's graphical power, and some reflection on when the console might launch. From the former article: "Based on the information studios have relayed to us, Revolution is truly poised to cater to an altogether different game market than either Microsoft or Sony with their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles respectively. Nintendo's machine will simply not deliver the same graphic horsepower as its competitors. Revolution is all about the controller and what it can do for gameplay experiences. When Revolution was initially unveiled, a Nintendo executive said it would be 'two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube.' The company never commented on Revolution's horsepower again and we were later told that the initial statement was incorrect. However, according to development houses, that description accurately sums up Revolution's power. "

Comments

Re:Worried about Nintendo

[BigDork1001]

The controller seams kind of cool, but more of a gimmick than functional.

A lot of people called the DS a gimmick but it has faired very well. Selling a lot of systems and creating a fun handheld with a lot of potential that is being taken advantage of. And I"m sure there's a lot more on the way.

I don't worry about the Revolution being a gimmick. It's innovation. It'll open up whole new possiblities in console gaming. Also having a system only two to three times more powerful is enough. Flashy graphics only get a system and its games only so far. I am not worried about the Revolution at all. While it might not outsell the PS3 I am pretty confident that Nintendo will turn a nice profit off of it and those of us who embrace the Revolution will be thrilled with endless hours of fun gameplay.

The gamecube is good enough

[sycomonkey]

Maybe I'm just not picky, but I haven't really been terribly upset with the Cube's graphics. In fact games like Metroid Prime 1 & 2, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Resident Evil 4, and it would seem the new Zelda are just graphically stunning. (in fact Wind Waker was too, in a completely different way). Three times that is almost overkill. The Xbox 360 I would say, from what I've seen, is barely hitting that metric, except of course it can do HD, which really only matters for 5-10% of gamers anyway. Sure it's early, and I'm sure by the time we're almost done with the 360 it'll far surpassed anything I can differentiate (would anyone have possibly imagined a game that looks as good as Shadow of the Collosus could have come out of the PS2 when it launched in 2000?), but we're hitting the photorealistic barrier pretty hard as it is. There's only so much more graphical power is going to be able to accomplish. However, hype is everything, and having an "underpowered" console isn't going to help Nintendo regain their hardcore group. It seems like they've given up on them anyway. Which is fine, they aren't terribly good gamers anyway. With online I'm going to have to interact with fellow Revolution gamers and it will probably be a good thing that it won't be filled with the sort of people who eat marketing hype like candy and actually care about graphical powers that might possibly result in a fractionally better looking game.

Re:The gamecube is good enough

[Evangelion]

Why do people continue to compare Xbox360's graphics on a 480i NTSC TV to other consoles? It has a native resolution of 720p for a reason.

Because that's what 90% of the population has?

Re:The gamecube is good enough

[Metasquares]

You also don't want to get too photorealistic unless you can manage to be completely photorealistic... otherwise you fall into Uncanny Valley.

Re:The gamecube is good enough

[sycomonkey]

"Why do people continue to compare Xbox360's graphics on a 480i NTSC TV to other consoles?"

Because that's the TV I have. And, for your information, I have seen 360 gaming on an HDTV. Higher resolutions are really nice, I'll agree, but not $1000-for-a-new-TV nice. It looked pretty good, but I wouldn't call it a more than 3xGCN. Possibly twice as good. (this was some basketball game). But the practical issue is that even if the 360 is capable of HD, nobody actually has HD, so it's virtually pointless, at least right now.

Furthmore, my point was that even if it is 3x better of 10x better, it can not possibly accomplish the same jump as the PSX/N64 -> GCN/PS2/XBox/DC jump. We're hitting the ceiling, and graphics power that costs twice is much is going to provide a fractional increase in perceptable graphics improvement.

Survey Says...

[rAiNsT0rm]

Based on my contacts at a few dev. studios, they all seem excited about developing for the system and the overall feel I have received is that it will be about 2x as powerful as a Gamecube powerwise.

However, folks tend to forget that the Gamecube offered 8 layer texture mapping... 8. That is huge, however, the GC was simply not powerful enough to really do anything meaningful with a screen full of 8 layer polys.

If the graphics chip ends up being a slightly updated GC chip, I'm cool with that. I have seen what can be done in demos on the GC and sweet Jebus is it amazing!... yet only graphic demos.

So if the system ends up about 2-3x as powerful with a 1.5x GPU you now have a very capable system that can produce graphics plenty pretty enough to look stunning even on a HD set.

I truly believe that the folks who are mainly concerned with numbers and horsepower will stay away from the Revolution - or maybe buy one in addition to another system - and that is FINE. There are so many families and casual gamers out there clamoring for a simpler system that the numbers will eclipse us "hardcore" gamers. While we are strong, we are few in the grand scheme of things. Realize that more Billions of dollars are pulled in by many forms of entertainment like Barbie dolls annually than out beloved hardcore gaming demographic. When Nintendo taps this wide market, Sony and MS will soon be doing an about face and targeting them too.

I wish Nintendo and the true spirit of gaming nothing but the best, and I will be purchasing a Revolution on day 1 and have my pre-order in as soon as they become available to help show the amount of initial interest and garner as much developer support as possible.