Time With The Revolution

IGN managed to get their hands on a Revolution Developer's Kit, and have put up a tantalizing hands-on impressions article. Folks who are very much looking forward to Nintendo's entrance into the next-gen war may find things of interest here. From the article: "One thing is crystal clear from the controller-based development kits, though: Revolution will definitely operate as an extension of the GameCube hardware. These preliminary kits include only a wired Revolution controller, a wired nunchuck attachment and a wired motion bar, which some studios have labeled the 'wand.' So the obvious question is, how can developers possibly hope to test any of this gear out? The answer is simple: the controller and its attachments plug into existing GameCube development hardware."

Comments

that's ridiculous

[egomaniac]

Nintendo made the controller available to game studios so they could start thinking about how to use it to develop games. Given that the controller is (by far) the most important change in Revolution, it's also the most important thing for studios to come to grips with.

"Oh, and it's also five times as powerful as the GameCube" is also important, but not necessarily something that studios need to experience firsthand at this particular stage of the game. That will come when the hardware is ready. At this point Nintendo is (quite sensibly) concentrating on getting the controller right, because if that doesn't fly, the whole concept is shot.

Sensor bar?

[RyoShin]

I was under the impression that the spacial recognition sensors were two distinct items placed at certain paces from the TV. However, one stationary bar (with the sensors on either end) makes a lot more sense, as you don't have to worry as much about calibration. It would then be a question of where it is in relation to the TV. (On the floor in front of, on top of the TV, right below the TV, etc.)

Where are our pictures? All we have is a promotional side-by-side and an 'artists rendition'. If they went hands on, why not snap a few pictures, even if the tools aren't the final versions? I suppose they could have gotten some developer's janitor to let them in late at night to play with these (and didn't want to blow his cover), but the article is kind of worthless without pictures. "We got some prototypes. They don't plug into the actual hardware, we couldn't do anything with them, and we have no pictures." The only useful piece of information, IMO, was the size in relation to the GCN controller. (And even then, didn't they get a chance to go hands on with it back at E3 '05? Unless major changes happened, they should already know the relative sizes then, right?)

Re:Sensor bar?

[interiot]

We have pictures of the LCD TopGun third-party controller (see the bottom third of the page), which gives you a quick idea of how it might look, at least. Though Nintendo has said it will only be a single sensor bar, with two (three?) sensors on it, so hopefully it will be moderately less intrusive than the LCD TopGun.

Re:Sensor bar?

[kaiser423]

Well, technically yes, but practically no.

Accelerometers drift. They are not perfect devices. They produce integration error, and that would become very large over the course of a gaming session. The controllers would become unusable after an hour or so and need to be re-calibrated. You can buy some amazingly accurate accelerometers, but they're expensive, very finicky and you have to do your design 100% perfectly, and you can't tolerate a single error. It is a serious PITA to design a system to do this, and probably nearly impossible to do it cheaply, and do it such that mass manufacturing in China with only ok quality control won't produce flaky units.

Put in a couple of sensors on a bar to re-zero the accelerometers integration error transparently every now and then, and now you have a very robust system that's easy to design, cheap, simple and pretty fail-safe.

Which would you choose?

I don't care...

[MaestroSartori]

...until I see it actually being used in games. Until then, it's a cool idea with absolutely no proof of how well or badly it works, and everything else anyone says is just uninformed speculation (from people who haven't played a game with it) or hype (from people who are developing a game with it).

Re:Microsoft Odd Console Out?

[Traiklin]

that is what microsofts problem is, they made a PC into a Console, what Microsoft needs to do is try and get games to be truely exclusive to the system, no more PC releases of a game (or atleast try to get a years worth of exclusivity that way people don't say "I'll get the PC version").

Sony & Nintendo have games that would be alittle hard to play with a keyboard and mouse, Microsoft has to many games that could easily be played with a keyboard and mouse (and in some cases play BETTER with a keyboard and mouse).

now I wouldn't count Microsoft out just yet but they did pick a bad time to release the 360 (no one was ready for it, not even microsoft), game publishers are losing money on it, microsoft is losing money on it and everyone who want's one is having a hard time getting one. If they had just waited to start making the system now and release it this winter they would of been in a much better standing (cause you know Sony is going to wait till the last possible minute to start manufacturing PS3's which will result in a massive shortage just like Miscrosoft with the 360) and it will give whomever decides to make a system EASY to make (aka Nintendo) a major advantage cause they can make them in no time cause it's not filled with tons of crap people propably could careless about.

when the PS3 and Revolution comes out Microsoft will have a hard time if they are still having trouble making the 360, Nintendo though might have the advantage, you KNOW there is going to be a shortage of PS3's when it's released (that's a given, after the PS2 that is the trend they will go) and if Microsoft is in the same boat they are in now (problems making the 360) then Nintendo will be the only one there easily for parents to pick up during the holiday season.

Re:Old

[rohlfinator]

Nintendo most likely has a tiered distribution plan for development hardware: Big studios like EA, Ubisoft, and Capcom probably received these "controller dev kits" a long time ago, when smaller studios had nothing. Once Nintendo revised the hardware, the big studios traded their models in for newer ones, and Nintendo passed the smaller dev kits out to slightly smaller developers, repeating the process several times over the course of the year.

Currently, the biggest dev houses likely have the most complete hardware, while others have some lesser version of it, depending on their influence, importance to Nintendo, and level of commitment to the platform. At this point, the developers who still have "controller dev kits" are probably the smaller ones who have shown less interest in the Revolution, but are still curious about it. It's entirely possible that this was the newest hardware at the studio IGN visited.

Re:Microsoft Odd Console Out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nintendo DS is a totally new experience compared to its predecessors. Most people leading up to launch had to experience this for themselves before understanding the fact, but now they get it. (Witness that although the original DS launch was very highly anticipated in Japan after they got the preview news of the U.S. launch models, popularity only grew with time: The DS has on several occasions completely sold out in that country, the limited edition Nintendogs bundles are already highly valued as collectibles here in the U.S., and the DS Lite launch was one of the most successful in recent years.) The DS was followed by another system that was an evolution of past ideas, not of the new ones that the DS pioneered in this space. Therefore, it remains relevant (and is thriving to this day, keeping the attention of publishers, game players, and the media).

Xbox 360 is a slight evolution from its predecessors. Most people are blind to that fact because MS are good spin doctors. It will be followed soon by another system that is more like it than not, and yet another system that is even greater of a thought shift than the DS is, relative to their respective competitors. There are few solid advantages to the Xbox 360 that won't also be had (or surpassed) by these competitors. That, coupled with lower-than-expected sales (for ANY reason you want to attribute it) and a too-early launch, has pushed Xbox 360 into "we already know about this, so what's next" territory. Publishers are playing the waiting game, as evidenced by the low number of titles yet available for the 360, particularly because hardware penetration is so low and development costs are so high. Game players aren't buying 360s (because they can't or because they don't want to is a question Microsoft will never let history answer). And the media is all too happy to ride the wave of interest in what's next at the sacrifice of what people can't and/or won't buy. I think that's what the OP is concerned about. If people aren't talking your product in the game industry, it may as well not exist.

And you don't pay attention

[aitikin]

IGN used it already, about 7 months ago. They found it to be quite responsive, although they were only working with tests and what seemed to be an alpha version of Metroid Prime 3, but they were quite impressed with it.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/651/651275p1.html