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ATI Talks Revolution Graphics
Via 1up, an interview at the site Revolution Report talking with ATI about the power of the Revolution's graphics. From the article: "What I can say is that ATI is focused, as is Nintendo, in making [Revolution] a great, gaming entertainment platform. I know that a lot of journalists are very focused on specs. It's the big thing; as a geek, I look for that too. The key thing to keep in mind is that Nintendo, with ATI's help, is trying to create a game console where you don't have to look at [specs]."
Nintendo's specs certainly will be worse than the 360 and PS3. However, I don't have a dual-screen 1080i setup, either, just a plain old 21-inch CRT television. In all likelihood, the extra power that I would get from a 360 and in all likelihood will get from the PS3 will go to waste on me. The Revolution is just fine.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
I enjoy a nice drive in the country, putting the top down and feeling the breeze. I don't see how fast I'm going or how quickly I accelerate to change the fun of the ride. How well my car performs doesn't matter- its the surroundings that do. So long as my car doesn't die on me or spew noxious fumes into the car, I'm all good. It just needs to work as expected without problems. After that, things like the music on the radio and the color of the trees matter more to enjoyment than the performance of the car.
Same with a console. It doesn't matter if it can push 5 polys or 5 million. Its how fun the games are to play. I was happy with graphics back on the SNES. Its gameplay that I want now. Specs don't matter, the games themselves do.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Like all the others who have posted, I don't seem to remember any over the top claims of the N64's potential.
In a unique situation for consoles (about a year before the Nintendo64 shipped) you could actually go to an arcade and see the what the N64 could do first hand.
"Killer Instincts" and "Cruisin' USA" were popular arcade games that both ran on the Ultra64 hardware... which was nearly identical to the final shipped Nintendo64 hardware.
Simply put, any hype that was out there at the time could be completely validated by a trip to your local arcade.
Sony, OTOH, has always made outrageous claims of sheer power and have always failed to deliver.
The PS2 was supposed to be able to render "Toy Story" quality graphics in realtime...
(which we all know to be utter bullshit now...)
Yet at the time these claims were enough to make nearly everyone I knew pass up on a Dreamcast and instead opt to wait for the PS2.
Sony's *outright lies* were effective enough that they killed the Dreamcast and
nearly drove Sega out of business altogether.
The PSP was supposed to be a PS2 power to-go, yet I have yet to see a game that even comes close
to looking as good as an average Dreamcast game.
(The PSP *IS* a damn fine portable genesis/snes/gba/tg16/nes/sms/neogeo though...
and Sony has done everything they can to prevent that from being the case with the 'firm-wars' ^_^ )
Anyway, back on topic...
The Revolution will likely be underhyped (compared to PS3 anyway) and over-deliver.
If 'Resident Evil 4' was done with (1x) Gamecube power and the Revolution will be roughly
(3x) Gamecube power, then I am not worried *at all*...and the new input methods make it that much more appealing.