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Zelda On The DS, Sega on the Revolution
At the Nintendo Keynote today, Company President Iwata reiterated the same 'think differently' ideas that he espoused at last year's GDC. This time he had concrete data to back up his industry disruption message, detailing the millions in sales their 'Brain Training' line of games have racked up. Along with his message, he announced a new Zelda title on the DS, and the fact that Sega Genesis games will be on the Revolution, a part of the online library of games they're offering.
Too bad it basically rules out having OOT ported to my portable :(
I really really wanted the highest rated game ever to be in my pocket.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
When are we going to actually see the revolution though? before the ps3 or before the xbox 720?
I'm actually in the .1% of people who owned a TurboGrafx (and later a TurboDuo). These systems are emulated wonderfully in Magic Engine. I'm excited about the Revolution's support of Turbo games, but I hope they add in the Konami games from Japan, as most of the American games were just crappy (with some notable exceptions).
There have been three GDC writeups so far, including one from the Sony keynote, and all of them fairly lengthy.
Nintendo's keynote gets what, three sentences?
Here's a link a page where you can view the released trailer for the announced Zelda DS game. Can't wait to get my hands on this!
Revolution to play Genesis and Turbografx games
Zelda on the DS
Kudos to Nintendo! I know a lot of my non-gamer friends are excited to see games from older systems (especially NES and SNES) able to be played on the next gen Nintendo system.
:)
Everyone knows a major factor on if game systems fail or prosper is the number of good titles they have. Sony and MS are pushing developers to make new crazy things for their new crazy system. Nintendo chooses to 'think differently' and use older - already proven good - game content for their new system - in addition to the titles that will be new to the Revolution.
Although something about Sonic the Hedgehog being played on a Nintendo system that doesn't sit right with me.
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If you told me 15 years ago that the Sega Genesis library would be available for Nintendo I'd never believe you. Not because I didn't think it was possible, but because I don't believe in time travellers.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
All innovation takes is a new idea, fostered by a good imagination.
Budget is only somewhat related, in that you have to be able to pay people with good imaginations.
Budget is more involved with the cost of graphic designers, codes, etc. None of that is necessarily needed to implement an innovative idea.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I suspect Nintendo is going to do well in Sales and profits after releasing the Revolution and online services.
As long as the downloadable games are cheap and the console does release as the lowest priced console this year.
Such good news.
While lacking the details some of us were hoping for, such as an official name or any extra info on the Revolution itself, this is still some damned good news.
With all that Nintendo is bringing out this year, such as Metroid Prime: Hunters, The New Super Mario Bros, (supposedly) new Pokemon games, and now Phantom Hourglass, it makes me weep softly at my lack of funds. At least I have even more reason to wait until DS Lite hits the shores. Between all that, Twilight Princess, and the Revolution, Nintendo is most likely going to get all of my free income this year, and rightly so.
The announcement that Genesis games will be on the Revolution is completely awesome; even though Sega has put out the classic Sonic games 18 times over, it will still be fun to play them on the Rev. Plus, you have games like Echo the Dolphin, Road Rash, and more. Even better, this could pave the way for 32X, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn games. I doubt we'd ever see Dreamcast games; while the Revolution will certainly be more powerful than the Dreamcast, would it be able to emulate the Dreamcast?
So, while these might be more minor announcements in the face of other things coming from Nintendo, but it's Good News none the less.
Although, we still don't have a specific state side release date for the DS Lite, do we? Dammit.
Some people probably don't understand the benefits of the 'virtual console' and (probably) assume that it is some sort of gimick that won't help Nintendo. The truth is that in the past couple of christmas' those plug and play coleco/atari units (that have 4 or 5 games on them) have been some of the biggest selling videogames; even though they're not followed by the conventional gaming media. What this shows is there is a certain level of comercial viability in 2D games (in particular formerly popular 2D games) which isn't really being capatalized upon by anyone.
FYI - Dev kits for the Revolution are running about $2k, which, from what I understand, is dirt cheap compared to what N has charged in the past, and what Sony and MS are charging for theirs.
Hopefully, N will allow indie developers to distribute directly through the online system, thus lowering the barriers for publishing a game.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Does that sound like homebrew to anyone else?
So it isn't innovation if they use the same characters, even if the gameplay is completely new and amazing?
Thinking about Mario 64. Pretty much considered a ground-breaking game in terms of 3D on a console. Yet, according to the way you put it, it is just another Mario game.
They can use Mario or any of the others as much as they want as long as they keep making the games fun.
Plus, as a side note, there has been talk of a new franchise being launched with the Rev.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Actually I was totally stoked to see them using cel-shading again and it was one of the first things I noticed on the trailer.
Wind Waker's art was awesome and inspired. I can't say the same about Twilight Princess unfortunately.
What's the difference? Link to the Past had a cartoonish graphical style very similar to Wind Waker, and the animations tended to be exaggerated like in cartoons (think Pegasus Boots related stuff in particular).
Nintendo has already used emulation lots: - Super Game Boy (SNES) - Pokemon Stadium (N64, emulates GB Pokemon Games) - Pokemon Stadium 2 (N64, emulates GB/GBC Pokemon Games) - Game Boy Player (GC) These I'm less certain, because of changes, but the memory card screens in the game as well as the disc loading screens make me pretty sure they ARE emulated: - Zelda Promotional Disc (GC, emulates Zelda, Zelda 2, Zelda OoT, and Zelda MM. Certain graphics and text have been tweaked in the final two.) - Zelda Master Quest (GC, Zelda OoT and MQ. Again, hud graphics and text referring to "Z-Targetting" has been tweaked to match the GC controller.)
I guess Nintendo (and Sega, and Hudson, and anyone else who gets involved) will now be setting their lawyers on all the 'abandonware' ROM sites for outdated consoles...
You must think in Russian.
Now, if there was just a way to be able to download NES/SNES/Genesis games to the Revolution and flash them onto a DS Lite cartridge or however it's done, well, I'd buy a Revolution and DS Lite upon release. I know that NES and SNES emulators exist for the DS, so it's technically feasible, but it would be nice to have a seamless experience.
Gametap already does this for Windows based PCs with an Internet connection somewhat. There are also $10 to $35 video game controller units that play old Genesis, Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, NES, etc games on them, showing that this is a good idea. None of them have tried to do almost a whole library of several classic consoles at the same time, or at least the best of a certain game console library.
Classics like Sonic the Hedgehog my son likes to play on my Sega Genesis system, and Rogue Squardon and Diddy Kong Racing on the Nintendo 64.
I hope that one can buy teach classic console game and save it on a hard drive to play while the system is offline, and this is not just an online only feature. I would hope that it is affordable as well, like 99 cents a game or something, or a low monthly fee for unlimited downloads or something.
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Seriously, why does Disney insist on using Mickey as their mascot. They should like, get with the times.
Besides, the games are fun. That's all there really is to it. It's a somewhat familiar feel with the characters, but almost always with completely new gameplay (not just new levels, new things that happen, new stories, new interactions with the environment, all kinds of innovative things). Say what you want about the characters, but there's a REASON people tout Nintendo as being innovative. It's because they are.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Buy a Game Boy Advance SP and a GBA flash cart, and you can run PCEAdvance, a TG16 emulatarr! for GBA. This will do nicely until Nintendo expands Revolution Live Arcade to include Revolution/DS connectivity.
Uh, dude? Read what you just pasted.
the rumor is that Microsoft plans on announcing Wednesday a developers kit
Wednesday was yesterday. Unless you can find a news report about this actually having happened on wednesday, your rumor was wrong.
At any rate of course DirectX and XNA games will continue to be available to develop dirt cheap-- they're PC games!! You can develop them for free!! But just because the XBox 360 basically runs PC games does not make a PC development environment equal to an XBox 360 or Revolution development kit.
While I agree that it's a very smart business move, I highly doubt that MS allowing homebrewed games would change the chances of their console being compromised.
Not only would making SDKs publicly available increase the amount of information about the system (and thus, increase the chances of someone "cracking" it), very, very, very few of their marketshare plays homebrew games. Just think about their XBox live service; I doubt homebrew would mesh well there - too much room for exploitation.
Of everyone I know with an xbox (about 10 people), 4 have modded theirs. None of them play any homebrew games (unless you count emulators, which I'd hardly call homebrewed). No one I know has expressed intrest of any homebrew games. Maybe homebrew games are the shit and I'm just living in totally ignorance of them, but I have a hard time imagining any homebrewers creating anything impressive enough to really catch peoples' eye. Feel free to disprove me on this count, though (if there's some great homebrew xbox games I'd like to give them a shot).
holy crap, they gamecubed the DS and TurboGrafxed the revolution!
nintendo is pulling a whole lot of good shit out of their asses lately!
compared to the PS3 keynote...well there was just no contest!
Sony: "Uhh yeah the tech specs are awesome, 1080p, PSP is sweet, and there's another God of War game. Yeah. Buy Blu-Ray because it's the best LOL"
Nintendo: "Revolution is now SEVEN FUCKING CONSOLES IN ONE"
Wait... my dreams have finally come true? Sega and Nintendo together at last?
Excuse me for a second... got something in my eye here... *sniff*
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
No, that's not the same crowd Nintendo's targeting at all, not in the least- I don't see why so many people think the tech heads represent such a significant portion of the gaming community. They're marketing the virtual console to the same people they marketed the NES Classic series to, the nostalgic casual/non-gamers who perhaps played some games back in the NES/SNES days but not since.
And if the NES Classic series is any indication, the virtual console will probably turn Nintendo a profit on the Revolution alone.
-Moses
Theres a mystery slot at the bottom (if its not upright, otherwise left side) of the revolution, which could take a DS cartridge...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'm actually excited. I really liked wind waker **ducks**... So this is actually going to get me to purchase a nintendo ds system. It's the straw that just broke this camel's back.
Isn't the very fact that Nintendo will now make available it's SNES library for a charge the very same reason they where so "nazi" about people's downloading and running their stuff for free? The day SNES9x/ZSNES matured, Nintendo tried it and said "hell, our future consoles can also do this, and we can make a fortune off it!"
Apart from this, I must say the Revolution plan is brillian:
1. Make a controller that inspires radical game design for a wider audience
2. Make avilable for that audience games whichh they have fuzzy feelings for from childhood.
3. Tell the same crowd (now parents) the console is safe for kids
Of course they won't "win the console wars", but they will win a market previously sceptical and hard for Sony and Microsoft to gain grounds in. Nintendo were allways a smart company, they actually make money!
Alice has a transcript of the keynote. Missing a couple of phrases and names, but otherwise appears complete if you want to read what Iwata actually said.
I don't believe that. I've seen projects that extract the N64 emulator from the Ocarina of Time/Master Quest Bonus Disc, and I've seen ROM dumps of Master Quest that play on N64 emulators.
I haven't seen dumps, but I've heard reports comparing the emulator found on the compilation disc with the emulator on the Ocarina of Time disc. The compilation disc one supposedly gets better framerates than the older one.
As for the compilation disc, why would Nintendo choose to port the games considering it's well established that they created an N64 emulator the the Ocarina of Time disc? The Compilation Disc was just a free giveaway, so they weren't making money off of it. The N64 and GameCube hardware are very different, so it's wouldn't be just a simple port.
Dev kits for the Revolution are running about $2k, which, from what I understand, is dirt cheap compared to what N has charged in the past, and what Sony and MS are charging for theirs.
To put it in persepective, Sony just lowered the cost of their PSP dev kit to $5k.
Looking at the trailer it seems that the view sometimes switches depending on the scenario. The one dungeon scene almost looks exactly like it would belong in A Link to the Past except it's been fleshed out. Then there are other parts of the video that look like Wind Waker.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
What about the number of buttons? I presume that you would turn the controller on its side to play the old-style games, but there are only two buttons for the right hand. Maybe the other two buttons (A and B, as opposed to a and b) are easy enough to reach in the sideways position?
Seems like it would be an issue for SNES, N64 and GameCube games as well.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Why dont we see more companies making their back catalogs available
Lets see....
1. Atari no longer makes Atari consoles. But you can buy those little Atari like things in any store. I almost bought one just for Yars Revenge
2. The Connecticut Leather Company no longer sells colecos.
3. Sega no longer makes Sega consoles. Although the genisis could play SMS games with an adapter.
4. Hudson no longer sells TurboGraphix consoles.
5. Neo-Geo is no longer sold and no one could afford to buy them when they were sold.
6. 3D0 why bother... 7. Playstation 2 can play playstation 1 games.
8. Xbox is to new to really have a back catalog.
Ninento is smart for getting into the legacy game market. They can most likey provide these games on the cheap and make good money. Kind of like Apple with iTunes. I am definitely going to buy a Revolution just so I can play games with out having to wory about finding roms and dealing with emulation issues. Hell my modded XBOX gets more play time with the nes and n64 emulator than XBOX games.
Don't worry about it. The thing that's made the N64 Zeldas and Wind Waker different from Link to the Past in feel isn't so much the graphics but the fact that it's a 3D-style game. The footage of Phantom Hourglass makes it obvious that while it uses 3D Wind Waker-style graphics, it's still definitely a 2D Zelda. Remember, Wind Waker's graphics were made cel-shaded not just to do something new, but because the style was the best way to have old style character designs and visuals in a 3D world.
How do you figure any of this? They've already announced the wireless wand controller will fit into a shell with GameCube style controls, which will make just about any game playable (it has enough buttons, although they are laid out differently). Plus, Nintendo being the the accessories whores they are will surely release classic controller shells for all the systems they sell games for; it only makes sense.
As for supporting only 2 controllers... it's been pretty well established (I mean I'm not even really following all the Rev news and even I have seen this) that the system will allow for 4 wireless controllers. Plus it has 4 GameCube controller ports on it as well.
So, ya, don't really know where you were going with all that.
From what I've seen, Twilight Princess is more... Standard, but just as visually pleasing to me. Plus, in my mind, it's not the graphics that make a Zelda game great. It's mostly the gameplay, with a couple splashes of story in there.
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
Back to basics...
"Good Night & Good Luck" anyone? Not just because it's black & white, but the movie really feels like a classic that could have been made 50 years ago... simple, elegant, with a lot of depth. Would have been picture of the year in 1959... don't know why it wasn't in 2006, but at least it got its dues.
Same could be said of "Capote".
But neither of these films ARE old films, they're not rehashing old techniques simply to making them feel classic, but use them in order to break new ground in ways that most modern films are not. I think the entertainment industry, as a whole, is beginning to feel the effects of over-complication in aesthetics. There seems to be a revolution afoot in the mainstream of exploring new territory with older, less technical, but more meaningful methods.
This really is an exciting time, and possibly the beginning of the film genre's first neo-classical era, in the history of its existance. Every art/entertainment medium has a neo-classical era (or two, or three) somewhere in its lifetime after it has reached a certain point of maturity. A "back to basics" movement that explores more regimented, and traditional approaches to production. For visual arts, the 17th century looked back to greek and roman procedures for a more mathmatically "precise" approach. Music saw its neo-classical rennaisance in the first few decades of the 20th century, with a return to the more formula-based approaches of the 18th century. Both these genres have seen many similar, smaller movements, though these are two very noticable eras. Film is now at its hundreth birthday, but we may very well be seeing it's "first" neo-classical era.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Legal downloads of NES/SNES/N64/Genesis/TG16 games (and for a decent price, let's hope) is going to be cool and all but am I the only one who thinks there won't be much third-party games? Of all the really good games on the Nintendo and Sega systems, most of them are are first-party, but the rest (about half or them) are third-party. Do they have sufficient rights for those games too? I doubt it. Chances are they'll only get contracts from a few third-parties. I can imagine their catalog looking quite crippled without, say, Capcom or SquareEnix, or any other major third-party developper, which is probably going to happen. Especially SquareEnix, who has released a few titles for Nintendo systems lately but still keeps very close ties with Sony.
Oh and what about all those Rare games? Now that Rare is owned by Microsoft, does Nintendo actually owns the rights to Nintendo/Rare franchises like Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, etc? Okay DKC is very likely, but Perfect Dark isn't, considering the latest title was on the XBox 360...
Anyway, this sounds like a complete legal minefield.