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Revolution Horsepower Revealed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the look-inside dept.

Revo writes "IGN.com unveiled leaked specs for Nintendo's upcoming Revolution console today. The system really is about twice as powerful as a GameCube and a far cry from the Xbox 360 and PS3. Of course, the focus is on the innovative controller and the affordable price."

5 of 774 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What is this susposed to imply? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nintendo has a secret... the average 27-year-old gamer is a kid at heart with a lot more money than a 7-year-old punk with tight-fisted parents. :P

  2. Just like old times by Infidel666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The company has ALWAYS been about revolutionizing controllers - from the NES, to SNES up through the 64 & Gamecube.

  3. Nobody cares by globalar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am not a gamer (no real time for that), but sometimes I want to play a not-to-involved game. There were only two reasons I bought a gamecube:

    1) It was cheap (only $100 with controller and a game, if I recall correctly)
    2) It had some fun games (Metroid, Zelda, Mario, the usual)

    I knew next to nothing else about the thing. I think more about ordering a meal at a resturant than I did about this purchase. Now, my PC is a different story, but consoles are for recreation. Keep it simple, cheap, and fun please.

  4. Re:Clock Rates Aren't Horsepower by DigitlDud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nintendo systems have always had underpowered main processors, going back to the NES. Then they throw loads of custom chips on top of everything.

    The SNES had its unique "color math" capabilities and the famous Mode7 affine matrix transformation mode.

    I believe the N64 let you re-write the microcode in the GPU for custom needs.

    The Gamecube, had lots of unique graphical capabilities like an indirect texture unit. SGI workstations are about the only machines that had indirect texturing. You can do lots of cool effects like fake light refraction and psuedo-3D geometry.

  5. Re:Ugh, this bullshit again. by lysergic.acid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't see what's wrong with what he reported. I don't find it hard to believe that a writer for IGN might be close enough with a few revolution developers to be able to get some basic info such as clockspeeds on the revolution.

    Besides, if you read the article, he isn't trying to make the point that revolution is likely a POS that can't compete with the other next gen consoles. He's simply making a point about their strategy, which clearly isn't trying to design the most powerful console of the three. Even if the architectures are drastically different, the difference in clockspeeds and available memory is very significant.

    I know some of you fanboys might feel emasculated by these specs, but your own assumptions and criticisms of the article are totally off base. I mean, why are those numbers complete crap? How do you know they're crap? Are you a close acquaintance with someone who's working on the revolution? And did the author suggest that the architectures were the same for all the platforms, or that the hardware performance of the system can be perfectly and accurately extrapolated from the clockspeeds? No, he simply gave information that he had, which were the clockspeeds in this case. He leaves it up to the reader to extrapolate what they will by comparing them with the numbers for gamecube, and other consoles, and the author in fact states "numbers don't mean everything."

    So don't rip on the author for simply reporting the information that he has. If hearing the specs for the revolution pisses you off, then just don't read articles reporting on them.