Slashdot Mirror
Revolution Horsepower Revealed
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."
Yeah, like Kidtendo right? I hate this attitude.
The original Xbox is, on paper, much more powerful than the GameCube and yet for my money (and I own many games on both of these systems), nothing on the original Xbox looks nearly as good as Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube.
I'm a lot more excited about the Revolution than either of the other next-gen systems (though I'll probably buy an Xbox360 when more good games come out for it)... in the meantime I'll keep trying to boost my online ranking in Tetris DS.
I dunno about that; what portion of the game 'producers' are going to want to bring games to the table for a system like that?
Yes, perhaps games for younger players, but still.. when they see a side-to-side comparison of the graphics and 'WOW' factor, which will they choose?
Considering that the 'playability' of games has taken a far backseat to graphics and flashy stuff, I see this being the biggest flop since that 3D gameboy thing.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
Matt Casamassina hates Nintendo and takes every opportunity to talk about how weak and worthless their hardware is. Every three months for awhile now he's posted "leaked" specs about the Revolution. Every one of these "leak" stories takes care to talk about how much more powerful the XBox 1 is than the Revolution. In all cases the source is "sources".
Frankly I think it's most likely the Revolution will be the weakest of the three next gen consoles, but I'll believe this when I see , and after the rabid and rapidly decaying lack of journalistic integrity shown by Matt Casamassina in the last couple of years, I personally refuse to believe anything I read on revolution.ign.com at all.
You can feel free to believe what you want of course.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
This might be so BUT for me I preffer to play games like Mario Kart Double Dash then some 3D shootem up or "life like" racing games. I'll play those games but I rather have fun playing the game then get a rush playing the game.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
They aren't aimed 'at' younger kids... They're aimed at casual gamers, more. They're good fun, and many can be played from anyone between about 5 years old and someone who's near-dead.
Just because a game gets an "E" rating doesn't mean people over 13 can't play it...
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
How much can you expect from a sub $1000 USD mass produced, proprietary (not necessarly a bad thing) box? I'm not much of a gamer, but I believe the focus of new generations of gaming consoles is not simply to increase graphics quality. The idea is to provide a computer to play the game that the game designers can be (usually) sure won't play pirated games out of box. This gives companies an incentive to invest in new innovative game for the game console. It is about making companies feel good about investing time to write innovative games, not to provide the latest graphics capabilities.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
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
I don't think there's any implying taking place. The article clearly states that Nintendo isn't trying to battle Sony and Microsoft on raw speed or capacity. They believe that machines are powerful enough already that they don't have to push that particular envelope. They're concentrating on other stuff, controllers, price, making it easy for Cube developers to transition to the revolution.
:)
It's all in the article. This article is interesting because you can see exactly how the revolution is going to match up in terms of power. The fact that you're non-plussed says more about you than nintendo, or this article. It's just saying what's been said all along. we've just got numbers now.
And for the record, i'm nearing 27, and i'm really interested in seeing what's gonna happen on the revolution.
There are lives at stake here!
That's good enough for me. I'm pretty much still in awe of the gamecube. It's this little f@#%@ing thing that rocks, kinda like my mac mini. I don't have a X360 but will get a PS3, so I haven't seen "incredible, PC like" graphics on a console yet. Hell, I'm still in awe when I fire up Shadowrun on my Genesis! It's all about gameplay, I can live without graphics on consoles.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
The company has ALWAYS been about revolutionizing controllers - from the NES, to SNES up through the 64 & Gamecube.
Yeah, hiiiii, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go ahead and, uhhh, ask you to hand over your geek identification card.
It's Link dammit, not Zelda.
The protagonist of the Legend of Zelda series is named Link. Zelda is the princess that he often rescues.
"However, few would disagree with the assertion that Resident Evil 4 - a title developed from the ground-up for Nintendo's system -- was one of the prettiest games of the generation."
Yeah... Because "pretty" is the first word that comes to any one's mind when they hear "Resident Evil."
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
nintendo has alyways made sure that their games are better.
i think it will hold true to this console. i still like pokemon and zelda. call me childish all you will, but they were good games, regardless of the system it was run on.
Seriously, i look at the xbox 360 games, and theres nothing there that excites me. just all this stupid crap that tries to emulate real life. thats not why i play video games, i play them to excape from real life. at least nintendo has an art style.
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.
I welcome Nintendo's new console, it's not just about the fine detail or how many poly's the gpu can process per second... it's about game innovation, and Nintendo has always had well branded games that kids like. I've been impressed with some of the games on the Gamecube, even if it is slower than hell by spec. The fact is they have good selection of games kids love to play, and even some of us older folks. I currently own an XBox 360, PS2, and a Gamecube. My kids play the gamecube more than the others because they enjoy the games more.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
I thought this was one of the few things we "knew" about the revolution? Nintendo have been quite open about not joining the 360/PS3 horsepower bandwagon, and also quite open about not giving a toss about HD. Between that, the prospect of downloadable titles, significant efforts to make it friendlier to non gamers (hey, I *like* the controller) and Nintendo's history of being the best at producing cheaply it looks like they may be going to make really quite a bit of coin this time around.
Coin? Ha! B'ding! B'ding! B'ding!
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
There's a reason that console controllers have evolved into their current form, and that's because they are ergonomic and comfortable.
I think what you meant was "and that's because Nintendo leads the way every time."
Control Stick? That was Nintendo. Rumble [pack]? That was Nintendo. Next to add to that list? Wireless controllers with motion sensors using a nunchuck design.
I don't think a weird controller is going to awe enough people to their platform.
It might. Wasn't it weird when they came out with a touchscreen on the DS? That's selling huge (fastest ever to reach 5 million in Japan), and creating entirely new genres, including Nintendogs, which sold a quarter-million in the first week, and the new Brain Age game which has done incredibly well with people who have never played a video game in their life.
I suppose Nintendo is trying to either fill or a niche market or impress a disappointed crowd.
They made the most money in the last console wars. This time around, Nintendo might be mass-market while Sony and MS are forced into the comparatively "niche" hardcore gamer market.
Reading the article, it seems like most of their "horsepower" statements were just backed up with the clock rate of each systems CPU and GPU. That, really, doesn't mean anything at all. Who cares if the Revolution's CPU is clocked twice as fast as the GameCube's? That doesn't really mean anything at all, unless they're both running exactly the same chip just clocked at different rates. The same thing is true of comparing the XBox 360's 3.2 GHz chip to the Revolution's 750-ish MHz CPU. Does that really tell us anything at all? Not really.
The article is mostly crap. It's just telling us that the clock speed of Nintendo's apples isn't as fast as Microsoft's oranges.
Narrative
I love the author's impliciaction that The revolution's 729MHz PPC is somehow going to be slower than the 733MHz Celeron that runs the original XBox (and the silent implication that the 3-way 3.2GHz chip in the 360 is meaninffully comparable to either of these on clock-speed alone) .
We're dealing with a real technical powerhouse here and he's giving us some insighful hardware analysis.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
No different than a repackaged XBox called XBox 360! I think the PlayStation 3 is trying to hard to be an all-purpose multimedia box.
Is it just me, or are they completely ignoring that the Gamecube had a PPC chip, and Xbox had an x86 chip?
On paper clock speed doesn't put the Revolution between the Gamecube and Xbox. It easily puts it above.
Also, if I recall correctly, the 360 and PS3's processors need to be passed data sequentially, and because of that it makes it much harder to avoid bottlenecks and lag in code, whereas the Revolution's does not.
It could just be me, but looking at stats on paper mean nothing when you're comapring different architectures and chipsets.
I love how you directly compare the horespower. All that's been released is the clockspeed of the processors.
As we all know, from the big AMD vs Intel war, clockspeed isn't everything. Also keep in mind, that IBM usually develops PPC chips - and PPC chips generally are faster per clock speed than PC chips.
Also keep in mind that the revolution won't need to fill a 1024i or whatever resolution - just a standard dvd resolution. So it doesn't need as much power to do the same quality of graphics (in terms of what it's rendering, not what resolution it's rendering at).
My prediction? The step between platform graphics is going to be similar to how the dreamcast fared last time around - ie, somewhere between the two generations of graphics. But also keep in mind that graphics aren't all the revolution is bringing to the table, meaning it probably won't fare the same as the dreamcast did.
Nintendo has made clear their intent _not_ to support hi-def formats on the Revolution, whereas MS and Sony are heavily marketing the 1080i capabilities of their respective consoles. One theory for the viability of this relatively small increase in graphics power: with much fewer pixels to push, the Revolution's hardware will be able to produce framerates similar to what the Xbox360 and PS3 can do in hi-def. And on a non-HDTV, a game on all three consoles may end up looking the same.
From the article:
Whether or not Revolution is, in fact, a vehicle for the new freestyle controller or not, systems specs rarely tell the whole story. We would remind readers that during an era when polygon numbers meant everything, GameCube's polygon peaks were lower than PlayStation 2 and Xbox. However, few would disagree with the assertion that Resident Evil 4 - a title developed from the ground-up for Nintendo's system -- was one of the prettiest games of the generation.
That is blatantly untrue. GameCube's published specs were lower, but they weren't the same theoretical specs that MS and Sony spewed out. Reportedly Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike had the highest polygon count of the current generation at something like 18 million/sec.
while i do think that loads of power, like the ps3 / 360, is awesome... the main reason i'm so anxious for the revolution is to play the old games... so i, for one, don't need mountains of horsepower... i'm just looking to get games like chrono trigger and secret of mana (hopefully square will be good about the licensing) so i can leave my carts on the shelf... because i don't want to think about replacing them (as a sealed chrono trigger recently sold on ebay for $550...)
now is the winter of our discotheque
This is exactly the same story that came out when DS and PSP specs were announced. PSP is so much more powerful and DS is for kids, etc... But look at how well the DS is doing. Not that it is blowing away the competition but I don't think anyone expects the Revolution to "beat" 360/PS3. Nintendo just needs to recover from Gamecube's failure and grow it's user base. If Revolution is anything like the DS then I think they will do quite well.
The company has ALWAYS been about revolutionizing controllers - from the NES, to SNES up through the 64 & Gamecube.
I'll give you NES, Super NES, and N64, but not GameCube. The GameCube controller is just the Dual Shock with no L1, L3, R3, or Select buttons, and the D-pad and left stick are switched, and the L2 and R2 are analog like on the Dreamcast controller and Dual Shock 2.
They didnt produce a less graphically powered console because they couldnt compete with the 360, the did it on purpose. Real gamers know that better graphics dont equate to better games, but I'm fine with this all, I like indie music and indie movies. Now I get to like indie games and I can have scorn for the britney spears of the gaming world. Halo 3.
"Say you love us like i know you will and that our deaths won't be in vain or in the name of gasoline"
just look at the hands on response, http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message? board.id=revolution&message.id=889594
I have up modding this topic to point something out.
Nintendo do something Sony and Microsoft don't get. You'll shit yourself when you ehar what it is.. because it's like EARTH SHAKINGLY AMAZING. Nintendo make fun games, games you can pick up and just play, enjoy them and be done with them. They don't need Mario to be super realistic, or 12 hours of FMV per 3 minutes of gameplay. They just make good games.
If you can't see this or think that's "lame". I suggest you stop playing games and start watching films. Fun comes before the latest greatest graphics engine. If you'd look beyond your biast to maybe try Mario kart or something like billy hatcher you may enjoy something.
I'd also like to point out RE:make, RE0, RE4 and quite a few other games on the cube arn't aimed at children. The cube just happens to be a good console which is afordable and so suitable for games aimed at the new and old. Maybe you should check the PS2 release list and see the 5 million children's games released each year for the thing.
I like muppets.
but how many libraries of congress can it store on a football field?
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
Actually, Nintendo gave dev kits to game development companies, who then gave the specs to IGN.
I think Nintendo probably doesn't want this published, but they can't really do anything about it because they have to give the information to third party game developers. In that sense, it is kind of a "leak", but it's mainly just information that was inevitably going to be released anyway.
Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The queen is their slave
With traditional controllers players can rest their hands on the table, their laps, their stomachs, lying down with their hands on the floor or above their heads. I cannot imagine having to hold my hands in the air in front of me for more than 10 minutes with the new device. Then again, perhaps I am just lazy.
I am of course referring to the completely objective discreet units of fun, per billion.
I know a guy who was roommates with one of the head girlfriends of the 2nd assistant director of ALL OF NINTENDO and they said its a lot. Like, at least ... 9Gf. And it is scientifically proven that the original Xbox only rated a 2.3 Gf (and only with Halo), so this is, like, way better.
Plus, the console itself sort of reminds me of those power crystals that Superman used to control his arctic fortress of solitude, and that's about all the reason I really need to buy one. If I'm being perfectly honest with myself.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
The 1T-SRAM makes it all worth it, even if there's only 24 megs.
the 360 and PS3's processors need to be passed data sequentially, and because of that it makes it much harder to avoid bottlenecks and lag in code
Out of order execution helps primarily when running code that has been optimized for a different microarchitecture, such as single-pipe i486 code or UV-pipe Pentium 1 code on a 411-pipe Pentium II/III/M, or i486 through i686 code on a Pentium 4, or Pentium code on an Athlon. It's important on a PC because of the incremental improvements and multiple hardware manufacturers, and end users expect to see improved performance on the same proprietary binaries even through a completely different microarchitecture. Video game consoles, on the other hand, will have the same microarchitecture throughout a generation, and fine-tuned compilers can produce highly specialized code, especially near the end of the generation.
In addition, the nature of multicore processing is that if a thread running on one core gets stalled, another core will get more bandwidth on the external bus.
Ah, but Nintendo is missing out on Burnout 3+, which is about as fun as Mario Kart.
All the nay-sayers have a serious lack of imagination as to what the revolution controller is capable of. Imagine a sonic-like game where you are controlling the speed of your character by the angle you tilt the controller, as he cascades over hills and obstacles and through turns (--also, tony hawk/snowboarding games). Imagine a soul calibur game which is fully 3d, you control the direction of your attack by "whips" of the axis of the controller, and moves derive from complex curvilinear shapes, but are intutively similar to the motions performed on screen. Imagine any flight simulator/racing/dogfight/war game, all you do is point the direction you want to go. Imagine madden but you pump fake with a whip of the hand, and throw the same way but holding a button. Not to mention whatever Nintendo has in store for mario and such (the revo controller was designed for a new mario concept originally...) So many more things are possible with this controller than were before. (oh yea, of course, FPS's)
**Disclaimer: I am NOT a gamer. I enjoy simple D-pad+four button games.***
My view on this whole Sony/MSFT vs Nintendo war is that Nintendo is trying to be a console, while Sony/MSFT are trying to be full blown entertainment devices. And I think Nintendo has chosen the right niche. Personally, I don't see myself buying an XBox360, or PS3, but I do see myself buying a Revolution. Nintendo has openly said that it will have emulation ability, so that you can play your old games (ie super mario, etc) on the revolution. I see this as the killer app. If the revolution costs 100USD, I'll buy one, just to have the ability to play older nintendo games on my nice tv. I assume they will recompile or do some graphics magic to make it look good on a 16:9 set, and so this is a 'good thing'.
Nintendo has a HUGE library of very entertaining games, and if you look at the demographic, the people who played super mario and had the original NES and SNES are now in the position of making purchases, and they will buy the Revolution. I know that I don't have the time to sit down and play Halo, but I do have the time to sit down and poink around with Mario Cart, or even Contra. The reason those simple Atari games you see at walmart are selling is because people want simple games again.
I guess I'm getting old (I'm 23!!!) but games sure aren't what they use to be.
--sig fault--
Why would you care about hardware stats? Do they guarantee "better games"?
News, MS and Sony fanbois...the answer is "no". Better games come out of better design which are sensitive to the kinds of passtimes people want to pursue.
But, um, Nintendo fanbois? There's another side to that. Hardware horsepower makes it far easier to build games with a wider scope for play. Remember the Halo grenade hacks? Those were damned fun, and, from talking to the dev manager on the product, I can assure you that nobody expected them or planned for them. They made heavy use of the fact that there was physics in the game -- and that depended on the hardware horsepower of the XBox.
So game design isn't
They do milk Mario Party too much though. I am definentally hoping to see an online Mario Party on the Revolution though. Nintendo's multiplayer games are usually really fun. One thing I notice is less online cheating on Nintendo systems. At least, I haven't seen any. Whereas you look at Halo 2, cheaters abound. I'm not quite sure why that is, but I hope it continues with the Revolution. And I'm hoping they won't go all "kid-friendly" and remove voice chat or something.
I'm getting a negative aura from this reporting. I don't think a weird controller is going to awe enough people to their platform.
It worked for the DS. And unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3, you don't have to buy an expensive new TV to get a significant difference compared to the old system.
IIRC, the last I heard from the big cheese at Nintendo is that they are working with augmented reality for their next generation of consoles,
Don't know where you heard that. Probably some random rumor site before Nintendo said anything. The rumor sites predicated practically everything but what Nintendo actually ended up doing.
and now we are getting a speed bump and a hard to use, tiny controller?
Nintendo has been saying for the past few years that we don't need more powerful machines. The controller is small because it's one handed. Once you realize that, it seems to fit well in people's hands - at least in the pictures. As to hard to use, everyone who's tried it has said it was great. Do you know something no one else does?
Is Nintendo still doing the whole "this console is for kids" thing?
Still doing? They never did. Bright colors does not mean kids game. Try something like Mario Sunshine sometime. The difficulty level is way to high for most kids. Things like Smash Bros & Mario Kart are big college dorm games. Pokemon, and to a lesser extent Kirby, are the only major things Nintendo really aims at kids.
I agree with you, and I'd further like to say that at some point all the graphics in the world dont improve gameplay. In fact, games I found fun 5 or 10 years ago that get revamped with "cutting-edge" 3d graphics are less fun to play. Fighting games and puzzle games are actually bogged down by graphics, as it's the intensity of the gameplay that really makes those games.
And for $200 or less, I'd definitely buy a Revolution. I've been waiting for a controller that doesnt rely on the 40 year old meme of arrow keys and buttons to control your avatar. That was acceptable back in the age of sprite-based games, where there was no way to convey a sense of depth. Revolution is an appropriate name for their new system because, with the advent of fast 3-dimensional rendering, it has become possible to completely immerse one in a game, simply by giving them the ability to act out what they want their avatar to act out. The Revolution controller seems to be a step in this direction.
If people dont think that the step is large enough, I'd like to point out that Rome wasnt built in a day.
In games like Armored Core, DOA2, and Soul Calibur 2, I get frustrated by my inability to make my avatar do what I want it to do. Maybe it's just me, but playing a game isn't about tapping a few keys and completing a pre-defined action anymore. I'm expecting something more intuitive from the Revolution. I'll wait and see, but for now they have me interested, and at a price point that I can accept.
And as for the article? There were about two sentences with any real information. The rest of it was drawing wild conclusions based on hardware specs. This wont be news until we see some gameplay. After all, that's what video games are about, right? Gameplay?
SRSLY.
As Nintendo has already announced, there in fact will be a standard controller shell that the Revolution controller can slip into that turns it into something like one of the controllers you see for other consoles. This is for any games that would work better on a standard controller. However, since just about every game can be made more fun and/or easier to control with the new controller, I expect that this will mainly be used for ports between Xbox 360 and PS3. And most games will probably not have lots of flailing your arms around. For example, with a FPS, my guess is that you would just move your wrist to aim, so you would probably be able to play for quite a while without getting tired.
Worker bees can leave
Even drones can fly away
The queen is their slave
on a non-HDTV
Once countries switch off analog broadcast signals near the end of this decade, late adopters who want to watch NCAA Division 1 gridiron football playoffs will rush to chain stores to buy new equipment at the end of 2008. You can bet that Best Buy and Circuit City employees will use high-pressure sales tactics to upsell a new HDTV to people who are looking at ATSC tuner boxes. How many families will still use a non-HDTV as their primary TV by the Revolution's end of life?
Part of the problem with comparing the XBox and the Revolution prices is the fact that they are 2 completely different business models. While Microsoft is content with losing money on their hardware and gaining it back on software, I would presume Nintendo wouldn't have that same 'comfort zone' with their pricing. That being said, I would agree that the best price for this would be around $150... Maybe even $125...
Rogue Squadron III is still the most amazing game I've ever seen in my life (graphically). I think programmers are going to start to hit their limits in a lot of areas, especially on standard res TVs. I wonder if Sony and MS count tvs like mine in the list of 'Hi-Def' tvs, I've got component ins but no 480i or progressive support...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
Nintendo do something Sony and Microsoft don't get. You'll shit yourself when you ehar what it is.. because it's like EARTH SHAKINGLY AMAZING. Nintendo make fun games, games you can pick up and just play, enjoy them and be done with them. They don't need Mario to be super realistic, or 12 hours of FMV per 3 minutes of gameplay. They just make good games.
Few things:
First, Nintendo does make some damn fine electronic entertainment, and only a fool would say otherwise. Nintendo themselves*, as a publishing house I mean.
Sony and Microsoft both own largish arms housing several more-or-less independant development entities, and they both publish a large volume of games. A lot of these games, how shall I say it... they fucking kick ass. Really. These games do exist and are popular. But the volume also contains a helluva lot of crap.
I think you would agree that it makes sense that the platform that is #1 in penetration (by vast amounts) would attract the most crap.
So when you say,
Fun comes before the latest greatest graphics engine. If you'd look beyond your biast to maybe try Mario kart or something like billy hatcher you may enjoy something.
(*Rare, not sure what else).
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
And considering that at least one controller will come with the system, and the development cost alone of that technology, your conclusion is fallacious.
just some guy
How does Nintendo not having the fastest CPU influence who will purchase their product? I think it is far more important to have good titles that are FUN, than good frames per second. I just was playing a racing game on my friends brand new, very expsensive XBox360 and it looked really pretty. The game, however, was TERRIBLE. And I am thinking to myself, did he really just fork out over 600 dollars to play this trash for a game when I will be hopefully playing something awesome (like Super Smash Brothers) for around half the price? And the graphics will still be better than they were. GOOD GAMES == GOOD CONSOLE ONLY GOOD FPS == BAD CONSOLE
I think you are right about positioning, however I feel the need to point out - if backwards compatibility is your killer app, then you must bow to the PS3 in that department - it handles PS2 and PS1 games, which is probably the biggest single-platform games library in the world outside of PCs.
Unless of course this is about the plumber, in which case I will simply say good day and good luck with those mushrooms.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Sounds pretty different to me.
Tell that to the judge in, say, Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music . Apples and oranges are both fruits. Likewise, the GameCube controller's similarities to the Dual Shock and Dreamcast controller outweigh the differences.
I havent bought a game console since they stoped making dreamcasts and sold'em for 50 bucks, and that was only because it was only 50 bucks and the games were free. I have no interest in either the 360 or ps3, but i cant wait till the revolution comes out and will probably get a one right away. that thing looks sweet. (fun)
\.
Ot that stupid Gameboy. That black, yellow and green monstrosity of a brick will never beat the Gamegear. Mark my words.
of one of the funniest things I've ever seen: Barbie Horse Adventures for the XBox, complete with the really hard edged, 'to-the-extreme' box styling that marks the packaging as an XBox title. Somehow I think the designers had Halo more in mind when the box trim was put together.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And as far as I know..... (I don't have the facts in front of me). Microsoft was having to sell 10-15 games per console to break even on the Xbox by the end (assuming they are making $10/game). So Microsoft may have lost money on every console they sold, even after the games were sold. On the flip side: Nintendo's consoles have always made money. The games are just gravy on top.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
It seems to me that Nintendo is targeting anyone who isn't a "gamer." And by that, I mean people that don't care about graphics, don't care about shooting people, don't care about sports simulations or any other simulation, etc. These people are kids and adults alike. They're people that want to play games for the fun of it, games you can get in and out of, not games you can make a lifestyle from. They don't care if they're the best at Game X, they just like to play it. Its fun and its different. These games don't need to run at 1080p because it doesn't make a difference.
Do I think it will be the best selling console in the US? No. But when you can't buy a goddamn DS in japan except USED and for a higher price than retail, I'd say they're doing something right, at least where they are...
The SNES had its unique "color math" capabilities and the famous Mode7 affine matrix transformation mode.
Didn't help team sports games, which relied on raw video memory bandwidth to upload sprite cels for 22 players into the GPU. Those tended to play more smoothly on Sega Genesis.
I believe the N64 let you re-write the microcode in the GPU for custom needs.
The Atari Jaguar had that first.
I'm sorry, but in my opinion, the specs given are still pretty much useless.
This isn't like the Intel/AMD argument, because each of the chipsets has a different ISA
It isn't necessarily true that every command executed in the 3.2GHz cores of an XBox 360 will
constitute one clock cycle. In fact, I'm sure that a method of achieving those awesome frequencies
is by removing as much functionality as possible from each command the 'core' of the CPU performs.
The ON-GPU memory is really significant. 3MBs of in chip memory is more valuable than 15MBs of off
chip memory. It immediatly means that the GPU is able to concurrently manipulate the 3MBs of memory
as close to 'free of charge' as possible.
Since it's a gaming machine and doesn't need an independant os for much more than thread management,
This also means that those 3MBs will probably be dedicated to what is currently on screen.
From a texture memory perspective, one texel (texture pixel) is 4 bytes, assuming 32 bit color with
no compression. This means theres room for a million pixels in that memory at one time, or just shy
of a 1024x1024 pic. That memory can be manipulated quickly too!
For clarification, that is a REALLY COOL THING!!! That is the amount of data that can be played
with for FREE internally.
I don't know about anyone else, but judging by the 'spec' comparisons in the past, Nintendo plays
their resources to the fullest, and compared to the price tags of the other machines, I'm still
thinking Nintendo's box is probably going to be pretty nuts.
On a side note, I'm still not sure I like the idea of the controller...
I'm a 'reality' gamer, so if my natural habit of diving around while playing is a bad thing to have
while using a SDoF controller, the system is going to really let me down...
We'll find out, this is up for grabs for me
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
If they can go with 90nm, this can sell for under a $100, at which point, I'm there. This shouldn't cost more than the gamecube. They might even be able to sell it for $80 if they can fab it in 65nm.
My guess is that they're planning a portable around it as well for the 45nm generation.
I doubt more than 1% of the gaming world even knows what a flop is
E.T., and I'm not talking about Enemy Territory.
I sure don't.
Seriously, the "flops" in "megaflops" stands for floating-point operations per second.
'WOW' factor is far from a direct factor of system power. For starters Nintendo (and they're far from alone in this) have proven in the past that it's very possible to produce a game (much more visually appealing than thought possible on the console (Ocarina of Time springs to mind), especially when you're producing directly for the console, and not working with some massive crossplatform framework (Hi XAN). Along the same lines it's easy to produce an underwhelming game on a powerhouse system. Even Oblivion, a game heralded for its visual beauty (among other things) often seems more like a demonstration of various technologies with no real overall scheme. (Don't get me started, I enjoy the game, I really do, but that makes it flaws so much more obvious).
And ignoring the visuals, though it really remains to be seen what Nintendo will pull out of their weird controller there is a potential for a much bigger WOW there than 'we have HDR lighting'.
Finally you ask what game producers will want to bring games to a 'weak' system. Realize that far from all game producers think graphics and hardware performance the most important factor. Making high-end games isn't just a matter of using big enough hardware, it also takes much more work than working on weaker hardware. I'm sure a lot of producers will see the value in wokring on a console where the graphical expectations/requirements aren't as high, allowing more work on the actual gameplay which is what offers the lasting experience, or lower production costs.
I'm not exactly a Nintendo fanboi, though I did own a N64 and the original GameBoy - but both as a gamer and as a developer I'm watching where the Revolution is going with great anticipation.
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
Yeah this is definately about the plumber... oh and that remote thingy...
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
I cannot imagine having to hold my hands in the air in front of me for more than 10 minutes with the new device.
So don't buy ParaPara Paradise. Many games will use only orientation, not position, and you'll be able to point the controller with your wrist while your hands are on your lap.
Hard to use tiny controller you say ...
Have you ever touched a revolution controller? Are you aware that Game Cube controllers also work with the system? Are you aware that the wireless candybar part of the new controller slides into a more traditional controller housing and provides wireless connnectivity along with additional position information?
First of all: those numbers of course don't make sense, what's next, comparing CPU weights and color?
Anyways.
Will Revolution be as powerful as XBOX360 and PS3, no, it can't handle highdef and this should tell a lot.
Thing is, once you remove high-def support, you suddenly have a lot horsepower left to render great imagery on a 480p / 480i device. So we can't say that Revolution games will look worse than XBOX360 games on an NTSC/PAL TV which most people have out there.
But scrap even that.
Do you think Nintendo accidentally missed the fact their console is slower? And what means this for a game anyway? Does it mean worse gameplay or experience? Nintendo apparently is confident in their vision, enough so not to get into the dick length comparison game Sony and Microsoft are doing with their machine specs.
I mean, they support NES/SNES/Genesis titles for Christ's sake, were those games crappy? They look GREAT on a TV screen, and some titles have gameplay unparalled in modern titles.
Also it has enough power and innovation for great new content, what could a gamer want? Value and entertainment or silly spec numbers?
But... but... no hookers? No violence? What's the point then?
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
nice troll :P
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
But yes, I agree with you, or at least hope that it will happen, that the parents will choose the affordable one for their kids. I believe that the mainstream gaming has gone a little bit to hell as of late (not going to start into a flame-war here now). It'll be interesting to see how the Rev will do, even though there will be lots of gaming zealots screaming bloody murder over the allegedly slow system specs.
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
It will eventually get there, but plan on waiting a few years for it to drop that much. Me, I plan on buying one on launch day. It will be the first time I'm making that type of purchase.
And dammit, 23 isn't old. That's my age and I'm not old!
MS and Sony realise that simple games are selling too. This is part of why MS setup Live Arcade, and why the games there are cheap. Sony has yet to reveil anything more than a "me too!" statement.
-]Phreak Out[-
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
As Lisa Simpson would say, I know what those words mean, but that headline makes no sense.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
To all the fanboys and haters, regardless of what you think, this is a smart move in the part of nintendo. Sure, they may not be the fastest of the bunch, but regardless, it'll profit. And isnt that the reason any business is around, the good old step #4. It'll cost nothing for nintendo to produce, they'll make profit on the consoles, they'll make more profit off the emulation of all the systems they are gonna cover. This will milk the last 20 years of gaming for all that it's worth.
So kudo's nintendo, while microsoft and sony fight it out and lose money on every console they sell, you will stay in the game, and get an extra life to play the next round with.
Seeming they were the only company to not loose money on there consoles from the previous generation and sold very well in europe and japan, as well as owning a large proportion of the game sales rather than 3rd party vendors, i wouldn't be suprised if they made more money on the consoles than sony or ms.
The fact is that the people who really care about mhz and clock speed have either a) already bought an xbox360 and will not buy a Revolution, or, b) will buy all three consoles anyway. Talking about speed and graphic capabilities is useless. It all boils down to: is it fun?
I am used to and highly enjoy playing games in 720p/1080i on my Xbox 360. Its going to be quite a depressing change if I have to play the new Revolution in a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Executive summary: "I like the Xbox. I like the Xbox 360. These arbitrary comparisons of apples and oranges I pulled out of my ass prove the Revolution will suck. Also I have a big penis."
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
480p is not HD. Besides, Nintendo already said they will support 480p but no higher.
Yeah. We have to realize that this should come to no surprise. Nintendo has been saying all along, it's not trying to compete with uber hardware, and that it wants to remain on the inexpensive size. I can't understand why people are so astonished by these figures.
Nintendo has always been about innovation. I still play Mario 64, and it came out ten years ago. Why? Because it's a fun game. As for this article, it really doesn't say much.
I was looking forward to the Revolution's controller to be able to play FPS games such as COD2 and the upcoming UT2007. Since MS is not allowing a keyboard and mouse (I don't know Sony's plans), I was hoping the Revolution's freestyle controller would be what I was looking for. But with lower end specs like this, I'm not so sure. Perhaps I will be upgrading my PC after all.
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
Decent wireless controllers, period, in fact; the WaveBird was among the first wireless controllers to work properly, since Nintendo ditched finicky IR-based wireless and went with a radio-based system.
--- Bwah?
I guess I'm getting old (I'm 23!!!) but games sure aren't what they use to be.
When I was your age we had to walk buck naked through 40 miles of snow... had to sell my internal organs to pay the rent.. blah blah and you never heard us complain. I hear this so often I'm frankly tired of it. Of COURSE games aren't what they used to be, and quite frankly, I would have stopped playing games a decade ago if they were. Arguably, I think most games are better today than they were years ago. Sure we get some real trash released, and more of it than decades ago, but there are far more great games released today than years ago as well. When I had to tollerate garbage like Hydlide on the NES, I can pallette crappy games today. Stories, art direction, sound design, beta testing, translations... this type of stuff was hardly implemented in games years ago "Help Blocky Man grab stuff on a level, fight boss and go to next level and repeat. Get a High Score!"
Sure they are plenty of negative trends today in the game industry, but I'll argue that that game design is of a higher caliber today than it was many years ago.
"Also keep in mind that the revolution won't need to fill a 1024i or whatever resolution - just a standard dvd resolution. So it doesn't need as much power to do the same quality of graphics (in terms of what it's rendering, not what resolution it's rendering at)."
Actually, it will require more power to render the same scene as on an Xbox 360 or PS3, it just doesn't need as high of a fillrate due to the lower resolution.
Nintendo has invented, adapted, and popularized more game controller technologies than anyone else. You list should look lore like:
Control Pad: Nintendo. Shoulder Buttons: Nintendo. Self-centering thumbstick: Nintendo. Rumble feature: Nintendo. First wireless controller that didn't suck: Nintendo. Touch screen gaming: Nintendo.
Sure, most of these technologies had been around for long enough, but it has always been Nintendo and no one else who has taken them, made them fun, and changed console gaming forever. I think, if nothing else, that should make every person who bombs on the Rev controller stop and think for a second, and try not to pass final judgement until November when they can give the real deal a fair shot.
This link is more fun.
All of those were invented and implemented before Nintendo implemented them in "latest Console"(tm). The Vextrex had an analogue Control Stick in 82, "rumble" was available in PC joysticks for years as Force Feedback, and wireless controllers were available for over a decade and not invented by Nintendo. Heck even the Nintendo had the Satellite back in the 80s.
You apparently don't realize how successful the ds is and how much people are craving innovation at the moment.
Gaming has temporarily (yes, Temporarily!) gone mainstream, just as it did in the early 1980's. This too, shall pass, Sony and Microsoft will fall, but Nintendo will remain, cranking out profitable quarter after profitable quarter. The mainstream audience demands tits and ultraviolence, so that's what Sony and Microsoft deliver, but the mainstream is fickle, and doesn't really give a damn about any one type of entertainment fundamentally. This era is going to come crashing down just like the Atari 2600, and Nintendo will be there, AGAIN, to pick up the pieces and move on.
Nintendo has repeatedly said that they weren't going to release the specs to their next console, because it's irrelevant and misleading. IGN just proved their point. Everyone who knows anything about CPUs knows that PPC chips perform better on a per-megahertz basis than x86 chips, yet IGN acts like Xbox's higher clockrate means it was necessarily better than the Gamecube. (Maybe, maybe not, but the MHz tells you exactly nothing about the question.) Similarly, he's comparing the Xbox 360 to the Revolution without noting that they have completely different architectures. It's like saying, "this Japanese guy's phallus is 10cm and this American guy's is only 6", therefore, 10 being larger than 6, the Japanese are more fun in the sack for the ladies."
This article is completely misleading, and further illustrates why Nintendo didn't care to publish their specs. None of these specs have anything to do with whether the Revolution is fun or looks good. For that, we have to wait until E3 when Nintendo shows off the console to the public. Until then, it's all just meaningless dick measuring.
I just turned 22. You 23 year olds are damned ancient by my standards.
It is easy to say that Sony's library is the biggest, but what does that mean when the games are not available to play? Let's say that you want to make use of that library, is Sony making all those games available online? Is there anywhere you can buy even a fraction of Sony's catalogue? And when I say buy, I mean go out and find a specific title that you remember fondly, not hunt through a bargain bin for some random junk.
The whole Sony catalogue is a false argument. Yes, it is compatible, but no, it is not available. Nintendo is making a huge chunk of their legacy library available for the Revolution, and that is a whole other thing.
Don't forget the N64 controller, which was the first to feature the thumb analog stick.
-gjr
Ummm.... you know Nintendo has continuously had greater profits then all other companies in the console and portable gaming markets... right? They have been able to make money just fine in Japan, and have always managed to make money on system sales AND games. Plus theirs that whole Pokemon thing that was spun off into anything kids would bug their parents to buy for them, the returns on that one was practically like winning the lottery.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
All that's been released is the clockspeed of the processors.
And the fact that the architectures are identical to the Gamecube ones. That means the CPU is basically a 730MHz Gecko and the GPU is a 240 MHz Flipper. The per clock performance of the Gecko chip (which is basically a G3 with integrated cache and the ability to use its 64-bit FPU as a 2x32-bit SIMD engine) is probably quite a bit better than the Xenon, but enough to make up for the enormous clockspeed difference.
The G3 is a very ancient chip. It has almost no OOO capability. Per-clock, its probably going to be faster than Cell, but considering that the per-clock of the PIII-based core in the XBox is in line with the G4, it won't match up even to the older console in CPU performance. As for graphics chips --- clockspeed times the number of pipelines is an excellent predictor of GPU performance. Only in a relatively small number of cases (eg: the Geforce FX debacle for NVIDIA), has pure fill-rate proved to be a poor predictor of overall performance in the case of conventional GPUs. The integrated memory helps the Flipper chip quite a bit, but given that it h as about the same clock-rate and the same number of pipelines as the XBox GPU, I wouldn't expect much more than that level of performance out of it. Overall, expect the Revolution to perform somewhat like a slightly improved XBox. Between the 1T-SRAM and the familiarity of developers with the GC architecture, Revolution developers should be able to wring substantially more out of the Revolution than they did out of the XBox, but I'd be surprised if the improvement was more than 50%.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I have all 3 of the current generation (or is it last?) of consoles. The GameCube is definitely most fun to play with friends. Mario Kart, Mario Party and Smahs Bros. Hours of fun and anyone can join in because the games are easy to learn for non-gamers. I cannot see how improving the graphics in Mario Kart is going to increase the fun.
:)
The other thing is I really like the design of the GameCube itself - the distinctive purple colour and the multi-color controllers. And the handle for you to lug it around is a stroke of genius
Thats true, but then wheres the software to take advantage of all this new hardware? There are 3+ GHz processors out on the market for less than $200, yet the most hardware intensive things available are computer graphics, which have unrealisticly high levels for casual use/creation besides video games. Physics usage is new only because of prior software immaturity (UT2k3 had ragdoll physics but you didn't see much showcasing of it especially since most gamers ignored it at the first week) and because most developers really couldn't find a way to implement it into games without it being nothing more than a gimmick. (Which is where a lot of anti-HL2 protesters get their claims about the game being nothing more than a showcase for the game engine.)
They made heavy use of the fact that there was physics in the game -- and that depended on the hardware horsepower of the XBox.
No offense, but have you even played Halo 1 or 2? Physics is that game is really nothing more than eye candy 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time where physics in the game really matters is when you take the time to VERY slowly (the 4 grenades of each limit really bogs things down) move things around the environment to your advantage. (On levels where there were those Covenant crates, it was possible to use them as a source of movable cover, assuming the enemies didn't rush you or have some serious firepower or the fact that you had to move them inches at a time.)
I agree. The "performance" number he's quoting are complete crap.
"IBM's "Broadway" CPU is clocked at 729MHz, according to updated Nintendo documentation. By comparison, GameCube's Gekko CPU ran at 485MHz. The original Xbox's CPU was clocked at 733MHz. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 runs three symmetrical cores at 3.2GHz."
Hmm your copy and paste seems to have malfunctioned:
"IBM's "Broadway" CPU is clocked at 729MHz, according to updated Nintendo documentation. By comparison, GameCube's Gekko CPU ran at 485MHz. The original Xbox's CPU, admittedly a different architecture altogether , was clocked at 733MHz. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 runs three symmetrical cores at 3.2GHz."
I wonder what you were thinking when you decided to omit that part?
"Microsoft was having to sell 10-15 games per console to break even on the Xbox by the end"
That's not a few games, that's a gaming library! Just how many people have mommy and daddy buying them games every month year after year? Isn't that a bit too much gaming?
Sorry, buddy, but a lot of kids would completely own a lot of older gamers. Load up counterstrike for proof.
-gjr
And an Athlon XP is just an i386 with 2 GHz clock speed?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It is the big screen experience that sells.
This is the sci-fi technology Popular Science has been promising the television audience since the 1950's. Television as The Jetsons know it, televison as The Incredibles know it.
We don't have flying cars but we do have this. In color, high definition and in multichannel theater sound. Interactive and affordable. $1700 at Walmart.
I think Nintendo has badly underestimated what HD brings to the market.
Rare isn't supporting the VC, so no Goldeneye or either of the listed DK games. SMB's good, though.
that and having 7000 games to play doesn't mean much if only 150 of them are worth playing
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Some Rare game won't be making it, at least thats their current statement. The ones with Nintendo characters will most likely be available, but the other like Goldeneye won't be available.
Sony is going to make at least part of their catalog avaiable online both for PS3 and PSP. Thus the argument is valid. Sony discussed such a service here at GDC.
*That* my friend is up to interpretation. I'm sure out of 7000 games, I could find more than 150 games that I found enjoyable. I could openly up and say right now that out of the whole PS1/PS2 collection of games that were ever sold, only 10-15 perked my interest from what I've played, and I've played a lot of them (it helps when your friend is a rich SOB who basicly bought every game he could get his hands on). That must mean, that there were only 10-15 games worth playing, period--or does it?
Twice as powerful is pretty damn powerful, and besides, no one reasonably expected them to develop a Cell equivalent. I mean, damn.
Nintendo made the most money in the last console war? Are you counting the revenue from GBA/DS as well? If so, that's not a good comparison.
If you put a higher resolution on the general average of TV screens (say, 24-32"), it will not significantly improve image quality. If you increase the size of the screen without increasing resolution..well we all know it looks like poop.
Death by snoo-snoo!
I've commented earlier that I think Nintendo is tyring to hit a special marked with this console, and this controller, in an attempt to bring gaming to a broader audience. Capturing the old gamer's nostalgia for the old NES/SNES/N64 games is of course also a wise move.
But when I saw these specs, someone poured cold water down by neck. If you where a developer, would you invest in a platform like this? I mean, its basically an XBox. I'm thinking it will smell good for all those strange Japanese games that would not sell well in the West, but not for those who develop the other stuff... for the first time, I'm actually worried. Hopefully Nintendo won't be the only ones developing titles for this system! (like seems to be the state of the GameCube these days... I've not bought a NGC game since Wind Waker...)
But as I've said before, I think Nintendo is a smart company, and they will probably pull it through. Either that or they will be reduced to a Japan-only game company, and fail the next generation console launch in five-six years.
yea, that's what all guys with a low clockspeeds say.
You know, that's an interesting point that I hadn't thought of but it's obvious in hindsight. I'm a 32 year old Nintendo fan with disposable income. I'm a lot more interested in playing youthful games like Mario and Zelda that have great design than GTA and other "mature" games that are actually aimed at kids who are still thrilled by random violence and high polygon counts. No offense intended, I was one of those kids 16 years ago. In fact I even coded a couple ultra-violent games on my C64 back then. No polygons, though :)
But yeah, people like me are probably a better market. And I could care less what kind of horsepower it has. As long as it has good games I'm in. Nintendo must understand this at some level.
Cheers.
You can always use your monitor/LCD panel with Xbox 360 via VGA.
Actually, it'll still have the DK games. The only Rare games that won't show up are for properties Rare actually owns, like Killer Instinct and Perfect Dark.
So, while I admit the loss of Killer Instinct is a blow, the DK games are safe, as they're Nintendo properties.
There's at least one good game for the XBox360. Elder scrolls oblivion.
of course it's not going to make me buy the box cause I play it on my PC. For the kind of complex RPG or strategy games that I like, I think the PC is a better platform because the keyboard provides more flexible controls.
Although in the case of Oblivion they've kind of nerfed the keyboard I think, probably to make it more similar to the Xbox version.
As an example you use the tab key to go in all the character menus, maps and inventory, and do not have keyboard shortcuts such as M for map or I for inventory. And you can only set numbers 1 through 8 as hotkeys: why not 9 and 0??? just to make it similar to the xbox version which (i'm guessing here) uses 4 buttons for this, times 2 by using some modifier button.
This argument, while still speculation at this point since the Revolution hasn't been released, seems to mirror the current predicament of the DS and the PSP.
On paper the PSP is vastly more powerful. It has a 333MHz CPU with 32 MBs of main memory. The DS, in comparison, has an ARM 9 running at 67 MHz and an ARM 7 running at 33 MHz. On the RAM side it has 4 MBs of system memory as well as 32K of processor RAM for both ARM 7 and ARM 9, and 656K of VRAM. This should totally blow the DS out of the water and admittedly the PSP looks very, very nice.
Yet, the DS is well on it's way to making the PSP little more than a portable video player that offers a few games. While there are endless areas of speculation (e.g. the much higher cost of the PSP, the unique controls of the DS) I feel it really comes down to the games. Quite simply the DS has much, much better games and a pretty good library of them. The PSP has... uh... Lumines, GTA:LCS, Mega Man Powered Up and I've heard good things about Daxter. Even among the games available most of them haven't really seemed to inspire people to talk about them nearly as much as the DS's library.
Sure a few games work because they use the unique aspects of the DS (e.g. Kirby: Canvas Curse, Nintendogs) but the vast majority don't. A few (e.g. Castlevania, Phoenix Wright) aren't even first-party titles... though admittedly almost all of the top titles are.
It's just that when it comes down to it the system that people tend to prefer is the one with better games. Not flashier graphics, not more raw power on paper. I can't say that sales figures will necessarily back this up because, honestly, Sony and Microsoft both have their fans and a good enough stranglehold on the market at this point that they aren't likely to be upset very easily. But in the end this battle of specs over games has already more or less been won and the victor clearly seems to be the less-powerful, but more enjoyable machine from Nintendo.
And they will be charging for that library. Which means $$$. Which also means that Sony will be competing against the discount bins of PS1/PS2 games.
The Revolution will only provide backwards compatibility with one console: the Gamecube.
Of course, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will end up selling digital content.
Yeah screw them. I'll make my own console, with blackjack and hookers... on second thought, forget the console... and the blackjack
:x
Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Though my number was 99$. Unless they pack in a game and/or give us two controllers, either of which would be a really good move on Nintendo's part.
The Farewell Tour II
Maybe I should have read the whole article, or some of the comments here, but one thing that caught my eye was the controller and affordable price. It's good to see a company realizing that uber l337 super graphics dont make a good game (not that they hurt), but that innovative ideas, fun, and something people can actually afford lead to fun. (Sorry, but 800$ for the PS3??!! Or something like that, right? To much for me to afford, I have a life to pay for, outside of my play station (What do they say: live in your world, play in ours?))
Anyways, Sony should take a page from nintendo's book. And hopefully nintendo already figured out the region free / no-drm-crap stuff from sony.
</rant>
Scott Swezey
"I think you are right about positioning, however I feel the need to point out - if backwards compatibility is your killer app, then you must bow to the PS3 in that department - it handles PS2 and PS1 games, which is probably the biggest single-platform games library in the world outside of PCs." If you had quoted his whole sentence instead of just a portion like an irresponsible poster, his context for single platform refers to the PS3 not the PS1 and PS2. The PS3 is a SINGLE PLATFORM that would support all those games. To call someone "childish enough" and not have gotten their own facts straight plus the addition of posting as anonymous while the parent poster did use a name is immature in itself.
Videogames made me kill people...I also eat mushrooms to grow bigger.
There will be no component cables for the Revolution. It's weird because the GameCube had them Actually, only the earlier models had Component support. Any of the GameCubes for sale right now do not have the component output. Apparently no one used it so they got rid of it to cut costs.
Fascinating, yet irrelevant. The Vectrex didn't shape the way current controllers are today. The rumble wasn't used by game-console controllers until after Nintendo did it. Wireless controllers that don't suck (as another poster put it) weren't around until Nintendo made them. With the Revolution controller Nintendo will blaze a new trail, adding motion sensors and nunchuck design that works for both right-handed and left-handed people to the list of controller designs that Nintendo makes and every one copies.
I don't think so. It is just that Nintendo sometimes hates risks.
The problem with HD now, is that there isn't one standard. People have lots of different TVs that do HD at different resolutions.
And that just part of the market. About 10% of people now have HD displays. Yes, this can only grow, but the time isn't right for Nintendo.
I'm sure, that, by the time of Xbox 1080 (they jumped 720), Playstation 4 (Sony is boring) and Nintendo Apocalypse Now (People like ominous trademarks!) come, Nintendo will support HD, in whatever form the market has adopted as standard.
So what you're saying is, that the current controller form is the ultimate-be-all-have-all -form that's ever going to be needed, even after say, 30 years (if gaming exists then)? All I have to say for you is; Xbox is hueg. Xbox360 power supply hueg.
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
i never really got to play secret of evermore... and my mates and I had some imagination that we could relive our childhoods via internet play of goldeneye.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
But if you look at the selection of games for nintendo, you'll see for yourself that an old 'wow' and 'hl2' fans don't really have much to play.
...
...
I sometimes run n64 here in the emu, tv consoles are just too cumbersome for me to use. n64 loads the games really fast (compared to psx), and they have good graphics. the visual part is fun, it's nice to see that most games are without any kind of violence whatsoever (a'la you fall on your butt and are just unhappy when you crash in a flying simulator). but sometimes you just want the 'action', and nintendo doesn't really provide it.
If i'd have a kid, a nintendo would be a quite safe bet. PS(x/2/3) & Xbox(/360) would be big nono's
PS. Would you ppl thin that there'd be any kind of chance to talk to the console games developers so they'd rebuild their applications for linux ? We'd get a nice big set of quality games at normal speed (instead of the lagbehind emus)...
Nethack was fun for years but it's beginning to fade
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
I would never consider buying myself a $400+ gaming system, simply will not happen. If the new Nintendo were to cost $1,000 and if all of his friends were going to get one, I wouldn't hesitate to pre-order today.
Wait, wah? Stop contradicting yourself.
I don't own any consoles, all I have is a mac and we all know its short of games compared to windows, it'll never have its depth of titles. However, for some time now I've been hankering over a portable console, two of my friends has the PSP, yeah it looks nice and all but I think I am going to go with the DS simply because its cheaper and I don't plan to buy a lot of games, the cost of entry is much lower and i'm a 25 year old student.
Jonathanjk.com
I am a games player I like to play games, and thats how I choose whether I buy a console, I have what I call my 3 game rule, if there are 3 games on a console I want to play then I buy it, its that simple. Its not about the MHz value or MBs value its all about the games. Nintendo sees that and I think alot of other games players do also. Its going to be intresting to see how it all pans out.
26" CRT HDTVs are pretty common. Small LCD HDTVs are also common. But yes, they are not marketed as much as their larger brethren.
Do not anger the worm.
Nintendo was the only console maker who actually turned a profit from their home console. Yes, they made money on the GameCube. Sony and Microsoft lost money on their offerings.
Clever signature text goes here.
The Real horsepower of Nintendo will come with the new Zelda game. :)
In form of Epona.
Both literally and figuratively
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
if you think about the statement - its clock speeds between intel and amd chips - amd chips tend to round off around 2.2 or 2.4 ghz, and perform better than intel's supposed 3 ghz p4s
As I can easily tell the difference between SD and HD content on my 19" CRT, this is obviously false.
I don't follow hardware much anymore so I'll take your word on that one. But the difference in clockspeeds between the revolution and other next gen. consoles is much larger: 729MHz compared to 3 cores at 3.2GHz. Assuming that the technology is even remotely comparable, that gap represents a significant difference in Nintendo's strategy, if only that they aren't touting hardware figures such as clockspeed and memory as the reason to buy the revolution--which I think was the author's point.
Still doing? They never did. Bright colors does not mean kids game. Try something like Mario Sunshine sometime. The difficulty level is way to high for most kids. Things like Smash Bros & Mario Kart are big college dorm games. Pokemon, and to a lesser extent Kirby, are the only major things Nintendo really aims at kids.
While I agree with you that Nintendo isn't doing the "this console is for kids" thing anymore, those games you cited weren't exactly the best examples. How many 20-something males do you think will happily admit they played and loved Mario Sunshine? As for Mario Kart, yeah it's definately a fun game and I definately played a lot of it in college myself, but you can't deny there's still a lot of a kid-aspect to it. Given Mario Kart or Burnout Revenge, I'm willing to bet your average 20-something alpha male is going to go for Burnout.
Now if you really wanted to prove that Nintendo ain't kiddy anymore, check out BMX XXX. It was released for all three consoles, but it was the PS2 version that was actually censored. Yes, we're long gone from the "Mortal Kombat blood censoring" days of Nintendo.
-- jchenx
I always found the Slashdot attitude about graphics to be strange - more of a reaction against the common wisdom than anything really thought out. Every time a new NVIDIA card comes out, there are 200 comments about how it's unnecessary. About how the old card was just fine.
Let me say this - graphics are important. Of course gameplay is more important, but there's no reason that we can't have both. I want a system that can push an HDTV. I want a system that can push loads of special effects and maintain a constant 60fps. I want more realistic characters, larger environments, and smarter AI.
The Gamecube is a fine system. I one one myself. When the Revolution ships, I'll probably get one - I like the idea of playing 20 years of games on a system. I think that the controller will be cool, and while I'm not sure if it will be practical, I'm willing to bet taht the Big-N will come up with some cool applications. But I do not for a second believe that the Revolution is a replacement for the XBOX 360 or the PS3. I'm glad that Microsoft and Sony are pushing graphics forward. And I'm disappointed that Nintendo isn't doing the same. Having an affordable system is important, but why is the Revolution limited to 83MB of memory? How much does 256M of DRAM really cost? And why can't it output at least 480p? Even my Gamecube could output 480p.
It's looking more and more like the Revolution is just an updated Gamecube. But by the time the Revolution ships, the 'Cube will be more than 5 years old. Can't Nintendo do a little better?
Matt from IGN posted something on the Nintendo forums...
-------------------
So we've posted an updated look at the Revolution specs and the message boards have collectively imploded. A quick browse through some threads shows that Nintendo fans are by and large in an uproar over the console's power. This is an unfortunate eventuality, and also one that stems mostly from a mentality that insists Nintendo is competing with Microsoft and Sony, which it isn't.
As could be predicted, a few stupidly devoted posters out there refuse to budge from their position that Nintendo can do no wrong, and have as a result launched a counter-attack against IGN or, even better, me. Some incredible (nintendo wont let me type the word had to edit it) on another forum even referred to me colorfully as "Assamassina," which I admit is a pretty cool handle; I have used it once or twice myself. This same person then called into question my credibility, saying that my track record speaks for itself. Indeed, it does. If you've read the Nintendo section of IGN for any amount of time, you know that we have our sources, we break stories, and far more often than not, our information is accurate. I don't need to defend myself beyond that.
These Revolution specs should come as no surprise to most people. Back in December we reported more or less the same thing without hard numbers. Let's move past that, though. Nintendo's own leaders have stated more times than can be counted that Revolution is not a console focused on horsepower. Its executives have flat-out dismissed the possibility of high-definition graphics on the system. When Revolution is the topic, three words keep coming up: small, quiet, affordable. Where does massive horsepower fit into this equation?
Even so, I want to be clear on the point that hardware specs rarely tell the full story. We listed Xbox's CPU and GPU speeds compared to Revolution's, but readers should not assume that they are really comparable. These are different architectures. Fact is, GameCube's PowerPC-based Gekko CPU and ATI-developed Flipper GPU held their own against Xbox despite the fact that Microsoft's console's speeds were -- on paper -- dramatically faster. Further, these specs do not account for bandwidth, RAM speed, and other important factors. I expect that when Revolution finally surfaces, it will be a console whose strengths are greater than the sum of the parts we've listed thus far. Please, please keep that in mind.
At the same time, if you're still holding out for the miracle, do me a favor and stop. It seems that every time we write anything hardware related, there are the skeptics with the retaliatory comment, "Why does IGN post hearsay as fact? Nobody has final development hardware!!11111" Yes, the "1s" are there to demonstrate that these people are freak-in' morons. I did not wake up today, roll into the office and write a piece of literary fiction for readers to enjoy in lieu of legitimate news. This is not "hearsay" or rumor. These specs we post, they are copy/pasted to us directly from Nintendo's latest (as in, in the last couple of weeks) Revolution documentation. Quoted to us verbatim. And these quotes do not come from creatures that exist inside my head. I am talking with numerous development sources with hardware; people who have been briefed by Nintendo about what to expect from the final machine. Some of these people are preparing games to show at E3 2006, which is one month away. in short, they know what to expect; they aren't working with old materials; they aren't relaying old specs; and we aren't posting out-of-date information.
Is everything set in stone? Nope. If history has taught me anything, it's that hardware specs can and do change. Xbox 360 had 256MBs of RAM during a major phase of the development cycle. That number only doubled later in the cycle, likely after Sony relayed specs for PlayStation 3 to studios. That being true, there's always the chance that some of Revolution's numbers may change before the system finally hits retail shelv
Actually, Revolution will be quite capable of 16:9, as is the current GameCube hardware:
Source
I wish I could mod you up.
... and more than a few people now have bought their own. Welcome to middle-class splurging people. Coming soon to a Walmart near you.
You'd think that of all sites, that Slashdot readers are future-thinking enough to see that HDTV adoption rate is only going to get better and better. I see it as the next DVD phenomenon.
For one, it's extremely obvious to people the difference between SDTV and HDTV. It instantly has the "wow!" factor. Next, HDTVs are becoming the next big-ticket item to get in a household. It's like the whole "keeping up with the Joneses" scenario. Once you've got a friend/relative/co-worker that has one and keeps boasting about it, it doesn't take that long before others start thinking about it. It's essentially just a huge trophy to brag about. Think status symbol.
So, are HDTVs costly? Sure they are, but the price is constantly going down. Plus, these are things that people do save for, even when they ought to be saving for something more important (house, college tuition, etc.). Every holiday season I run into more and more people bragging about their new sweet HDTV. And now that we're starting to get DVRs and video game systems that actually take advantage of the full resolution, it's only going to get better.
Am I biased? Sure am. After watching movies, HD TV shows, football, amd playing video games on my DLP HDTV, I can't help but think positively about it. Everyone who comes and checks it out always has their jaw drop
That said, Blu-ray/HD-DVD are technologies I DON'T see going very far. Primarily because you don't have a huge leap in quality anymore. It may end up becoming much like the Laserdisc, IMHO. Maybe a decade from now, when virtually everyone has an HDTV, it will really make a come-back.
-- jchenx
A few reasons why I don't give a crap about the specs:
Pikmin
Monkey Ball
Legend of Zelda
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
Just because the graphics aren't the most optomized to play the latest disposable first-person-shooter, doesn't mean it's inferior.
Wow its just like the nintendo powerglove!!!
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
That's the #1 favourite excuse from Nintendo apologists when comparing hardware or market share. Sony, Microsoft and the army of developers for their platforms also make fun games. I don't have to cite the titles because there are so many that it would be a pointless exercise.
If you can't see this or think that's "lame". I suggest you stop playing games and start watching films. Fun comes before the latest greatest graphics engine. If you'd look beyond your biast to maybe try Mario kart or something like billy hatcher you may enjoy something.
It is lame, because because no system has the monopoly on fun. I've owned Nintendo systems over the years and I can't say they were any more "fun" than anything you can get on another platform. There were fun titles of course, but the PS2 has fun titles and so does the XBox. Once you realise that, you should consider which offers the best choice of titles, value and features that suit your pocket. Personally I have a finite amount of space by TV and I want something that is capable of more than playing games, be it playing DVDs, music, browsing or whatever.
Of course, there is another factor to consider. The Gamecube is allegedly more powerful than a PS2, yet it has a fraction of the market share. It's in last place in fact. If it's such a fun console and cheaper, why is that so? I suspect part of it is Nintendo's self-inflicted policy of making predominantly "cute" cartoony, kid friendly games.
I assume Nintendo want their next gen box to do better, but if the hardware is as underpowered as implied, then the games makers are not going to bother with the platform. Porting from XBox 360 to PS3 or vice versa will be a comparitively straightforward job. Porting to the Revolution will be a huge pain in the ass. That means the Revolution stands more chance of becoming a niche than even the Gamecube is. That means even more "exclusive" cutesy games than the current generation box. Nintendo sure as hell had better make their wand system a compelling reason to buy the console or their system will be DOA.
Halo 42 on a zillion terrahertz processor with one google polygons/second.
I want more realistic characters, larger environments, and smarter AI.
and then when you get them, you shout "Ick!". You just fell victim to the Uncanny Valley. If there was one thing to say I hate about TES4:Oblivion is the faces of characters. They fall right at the bottom of Uncanny Valley.
Realistic graphics is a trap Nintendo wants to avoid. Maybe the next one after Revolution will have it. The rest of the tricks can be done already.
They tried new directions and the new controller is really promising. Plus more games "from the era when games were fun".
Revolution really is not. It's more of a 'niche' where you can wait through the ice age where the games are now. It's a safe, fun, pleasant way to wait through the crisis. The 'new generation' consoles will be considered a failure, they don't bring -anything- new except of graphics and swing the graphics from the edge of Uncanny Valley right into its middle. The next generation of consoles will likely take it finally right, and developers will likely wake up and see it's not gfx it's all about. Then you'll get what you want, games with good gfx AND great gameplay. But for now it's either-or, and you have to choose. And wait through the crisis.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
"Help Blocky Man grab stuff on a level, fight boss and go to next level and repeat."
:p ).. RPGs havent really changed since whenever they were brought out =p and most other games havent actually either - the only real differences come from 3D graphics (old games still required skill, sometimes more than current games, sometimes less).
:p Hmm I need to stop reminiscing and get to work.
While some games back then had predefined levels etc, I'm sure a lot of the games actually had more replay value (and just plain addictiveness) than todays games with 'stories' and 'art direction' etc =p I remember a Space simulator on a BBC Micro at school, it did have levels etc, and I never got very far, but I think the universe was randomised (yeah, pretty easy to do with a space game but nevertheless). Wish I knew what it was called. There are soom good games out these days, but most new games just pass me by now, all pretty much ripoffs of other 'good' games I've already played..
I tried getting into RPGs a little recently, and while they have potential, there needs to be more of a need for skill in those types of games, rather than just time investment - for example on any MMORGP if you spend enough time with your character he's likely to get pretty kickass (not that I've played any MMORGPs 'cept MUDs
I think when you try 'too hard' with doing a story and graphics etc then you risk losing the actual fun gameplay experience, and are just making a semi-interactive TV show. Even if you have a few different endings or splitting points in your story, eventually you'll get bored replaying it unless the actual act of playing the game is fun. The GTA series is a great example of a game that is still great fun to play even after you've completed it, just because it's so free roaming and it fits a lot of fun elements in like driving, hand to hand combat, armed combat, etc
which is totally what she said
Unless of course this is about the plumber, in which case I will simply say good day and good luck with those mushrooms.
It's not just about the plumber, the blue hedgehog is making his way onto the revolution as well; I always used to love Sega consoles because of him; a large chunk of the Sega back cvataloge is going to be on the revolution as well. They just need to get some Atari games (like they have with the DS) on board and I'm sold.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
PsOne has 7153 games, 5000+ being japanese. Ps2 has about 5200 titles. So you're So you should count how many games are worth playing out of 13000+ ps2+ps1 titles. How many games have you played?
Actually Nintendo has also stated that the shell is going to be used only to play the older games. All the "proper" Revolution games will use the controller as is and should not contain the support for this standard controller shell.
-Jaakko
and my mates and I had some imagination that we could relive our childhoods via internet play of goldeneye.
I've heard that Timesplitters is a suitable substitute.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Will the revolution be powerful enough to run hl2?
This may sound a little bit zealotly but I back up nintendo's formal commentary that we've(as consumers) have sufficient hardware for quite a while to produce stunning looking, great playing games.
After all when something gets too detailed, you can just pre-render the object onto a more primitive figure (3d users are already familiar with this technique called amongst other titles "surface sampling"). Additionally there are newer 3d engines that use depth based calculations to determine how heavy a polygon should be I.e close up models are polygon rich, further models are not.
With the algorithm advancements we've had in the 3D sector, it's no surprise that the raw performance of the nintendo console hasn't increased significantly.
One final point to make is that nintendo games are usually highly stylised. So for the majority of their bread & butter titles programmers+designers are not seeking photo realism.
I will kill your argument with only one proposition : You start paying the novelty tax, I'll root for you and call you the coolest kid on the block, and I'll buy a HDTV when it's dirt cheap.
We geeks are tech-savvy, not drug addicts. HDTV can wait.
doesn't the picture of that console remind you of Apple's recent products? (iPod, iBook, iMac)? I'll call this thing "iNtendo"... or maybe "NI! ntendo"
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
We're not expecting you to subscribe, just to get an account. Subscribing costs money, an account doesn't.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Exactly. As another example, there is a little known computer based on a 700 MHz PowerPC chip, the PowerPC 440, which seems to perform quite well ...
Nintendo thinks that an adult can play any game, they think only kids can't play all games because they shouldn't play violent games.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The Gameboy was smaller than the Gamegear so calling it "brick" in a comparison doesn't make sense.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Hudson is responsible for Mario Party. Is there anything they don't milk?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Usually all licensees are under NDAs, leaking information would be breach of contract and releasing trade secrets.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I know you were joking around, but some people will not understand that. The 1.2Ghz UltraSPARC in the Sun T2000 has recently set a few world records for performance, outperforming 4 dual core Xeons. It is a multi-cored chip, but that is only one reason why it performs so well. Anyone who has taken any hardware architecutre course quickly learns that clock speed is just about meaningless, in fact if you only increase clock speed and don't change anything else, you'll typically see higher percentages of your processing time being used to handle hazards and other nonsense. Another example is the Pentium M, which often runs at under half the clock cycle of the P4, but leaves the P4 in its dust for just about every benchmark. A high clock cycle amounts to nothing but outrageous amounts of heat and energy when you can be processing the data faster and more efficiently as Intel has learned in recent years. The Mhz myth needs to end.
What's even better for Nintendo is that these chips are custom built for Nintendo's needs, and a chip designed for a purpose always performs very well against generic processors (even if the generic processor is supposed to be several times faster). I mean noone would expect their P4 to match up against any modern Nvidia or ATI GPU for graphics performance, thats just how it is. Nintendo also knows how to squeeze performance out of its hardware (i.e. the often cited Resident Evil 4, if I can get graphics twice as good as that on this new console, then really Sony and Microsoft will have nothing to stand on). The cell processor doesn't even have a good compiler yet, and its developers don't know how to effectively use its resources, same thing goes for the XBox (but not to as bad of an extent). By the time the XBox and PS3 are being effectively used, it'll be time for the 4th gen consoles. I am betting that Revolution will be capable of graphics on par if not better than PS3's release titles.
And as a final point, this is only a dev box we are talking about and not final production specs, so the whole argument is pointless.
Regards,
Steve
The screenshots aren't showing (says "0 bits per pixel") for the games :(.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I think it's more to do with the fact that this risk is an exceptionally big one financially speaking. Sony and MS can afford to take the hit and lose billions if it all goes tits-up. Nintendo would be in more trouble.
I'm 26 and male. I own and love Sunshine. Most of my (male, similarly aged) friends play and love it too, and those who don't play it see absolutely no problem with 26 years old males playing games like Sunshine.
We own both Mario Kart: Double Dash and Burnout 2. Guess which game is being played more often? Not Burnout.
In fact, the game most often played around here is Super Monkey Ball 2. Hardly an "adult oriented" game.
Nintendo games aren't aimed at children. They're aimed at everyone who wants to have fun and isn't so insecure that he can't play games without blood, gore and tits.
People were saying the same thing about the DS, which is a fraction of the power of the PSP, yet on my college campus the DS is goddamn everywhere. If the success of the DS vs PSP says anything, then Nintendo will be laughing at the competition very soon.
Regards,
Steve
Exactly my thought.
I will never buy a console at $400 or more. I'm 30 years old, I play once a week or less. games are usually 4-8 hours long, I buy around 4 games per year, they cost $75 each (if not more). So Xbox made a turnover of -/+ $1500 with me. It looks like that's not enough for them. It will be more With the Xbox 360 and PS3 (I expect a budget of $1800 or more for 4 years with games only, a lot more if I start to play with their video on demand). Too expensive.
This is getting insane. This is precisly why I left PC games, I was tired to discover that after 6 months my configuration was obsolete. (investment in hardware: $600 per year + new games).
If Nitendo provides a console at $100 or more (up to $200), I may consider buying one.
I don't need a super/hyper/ultra video card, with a hyper CPU and Giga RAM. All I need is a device to play entertaining games occasionally. I won't have this new rendering things? Who cares...I'm old enough to know that I just have to wait to get it at a decent price.
I don't need Sony/MS multimedia centre either. What's the point? They will push DRM formats, you will "force" to buy everything for every single device you own. I want to be able to record the things I've paid for, put them on a DVD or a HD, copy them, backup them and play on any of my devices. Period.
Sony and MS will never provide such a thing. I will look elsewhere to get it.
Olivier
Actually, it was 7,743 PS1 and 5,277 PS2 games at the end of March 2005, and Sony will publish this year's figures soonish. To be really pedantic, only 4,907 of those PS1 games were Asian (not just Japanese) releases.
To round out the numbers seeing as how we're on that track, there were 3,181 PS2 Asian releases by this time last year, versus 1,121 (and 1,501 PS1 titles) in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region; and 975* and 1,335 in North America.
*Irritatingly, one of those is Katamari Damarcy
Wow, Nintendo got it right!
Taking a look at the new revolution specs, you can see that it's just a GameCube with a faster processor, and a new video hardware. It seems to be the same overall architeture used on the GC, the fact that reports say that the early devellopment kits were overclocked GameCube consoles seems to confirm that.
Now, the Gekko processor was much the same as an G3 processor, the same used on those old colorfull iMacs. G3 processors, AFAIK, can now go up to little above 1GHz... So Nintendo can create at least one more generation of consoles using this processor, and after that they can demand a G4 clone from IBM, and gain extra float point performance from VMX/Altivec.
When first introduced, the CG Flipper GPU was told to be a little better than a ATI RADEON 7500, IRC. Let's guess that the Revolution GPU is somewhat better than a RADEON 9600. Now, that leaves Nintendo with a nice upgrade path for the GPU as well.
Nintendo doesn't need to expend trillions of money on R&D to come up with a new processor and GPU architeture for each new console they create, IBM and ATI already did it for them, and for at least two more generations!
No wonder why Nintendo can build cheaper consoles, and still make a profit from them...
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Nintendo was pretty much the first on anything anyway.
First on shoulder buttons, first on analog stick, first on rumble, first on standard quad-player interface, first on wireless, first on touchscreen, ...
They created pretty much every hardware improvement to gameplay since they started releasing the NES, and many of the truly original games of the console market.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Are we on Slashdot or what?
Why is no one talking about developement tools for the Revolution, or for any of the other consoles for that matter? I heard that it was/is very difficult to develope for the PS2 for example. That (among licensing issues) forced out smaller developers. Maybe Revolution will have a very good, fast and easy developement platform and we will see many inovative titles from independent shops? Or they took a turn at Sony, or Microsoft ported Visual Basic?
Anyone got a clue? I clicked on comments to get some.
Do you realize that the "current form" of console controllers come straight from nin-fucking-tendo?
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Intel v. AMD???
x _new.htm
I have had funniest experience with Intel itself.
P4 v. Pentium Dual Core: one core at 2.2GHz beats 3.5GHz P4.
P4 v. Pentium M/Centrino: at several benchmarks the notebook chip at 1.5GHz had beaten by 2 times 3.2GHz P4
If you have ever programmed in assembler and read even single spec for CPU and code optimization (Intel has good tradition of releasing such specs) you would definitely know that clock speed itself has only modest influence on overall performance. (To put it simply: exec'ing user's code isn't only task CPU is doing - all communication with peripherals goes thru CPU too. CPU normally do about 30-70% of their peek performance: interrupt latencies, memory latencies, bus access latencies, etc.)
Read on: older http://www.intel.com/design/pentium/manuals/ & newer http://www.intel.com/design/pentium4/manuals/inde
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Sadly Nintendo have been keeping quiet on the pricing of the game downloads. I would hope that they will be quite cheap but given how Nintendo were quite happy to charge full price for classic NES games on the GBA I have an uneasy feeling about the pricing. Obviously there's no cartridge, packaging or shipping costs with an electronic download so that should bring the price down a fair bit.
But I still reckon we might see pricing along the lines of $5 for NES games, $10 for SNES and $15 for N64. Which is too much IMHO. Something like $1 for NES, $2-$3 for SNES and $4-$5 for N64 would probably be OK.
I guess I'm getting old (I'm 23!!!) but games sure aren't what they use to be.
I would really think that the release of classic NES titles would even be a better draw for people that were really old enough in 1986 (when the NES had a US nationwide release) to have had one. I know I had one when they first came out. And 23 is not old. I'm 27, so you'd be making me ancient by those standards!
I do plan on getting one after awhile, though. But then, I said that about the Gamecube, and still haven't picked that up yet.
rm -rf
I think you nailed it.
While I was reading the first few posts I thought "man, can you imagine not only buying a NEW game system every couple of years in your pursuit of the latest Big Thing, but having to discard all your old game (ah, they were so 2007 anyway) and buy new?"
I mean, the software ain't cheap, and likely represents a bigger outlay than the system itself, for those who are "really into games."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
It isn't. DVD versus VHS had MANY advantages: better image quality of course, and that's everything your HDTV gives you, but also sequential AND random access to chapters, bonuses (even though those have dwindled), superior sound quality, no rewind, fast access to your media, much smaller reader, constant quality of image (whereas a VHS's quality will lower every time you watch it), absolutely no chance whatsoever that your DVD will unwind into the reader and half-slaughter it.
HDTV has what? Higher resolution period. Whoa, paint me impressed.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Nintendo has said that their system will not support HD. This includes 16:9 mode.
Adding a 16:9 mode to a game requires no extra hardware. All that happens is the game is rendered all squished-in, so that when it is stretched out by the Widescreen display, it is in the proper aspect ratio. The advantage of this over simply adding borders to the image (letterboxing) is that you are utilizing the full vertical resolution, rather than just 75% of it.
I've got a handful of original Playstation games that do this (Micro Maniacs, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party are a few that spring to mind) - despite the fact that the Playstation was not at all designed with Widescreen gaming in mind.
The article seems to imply that all that is different between the Gamecube and the Revolution are the clock speeds of the processor and GPU, and the amount of memory, both being 50% faster.
:p
So in 5 years, and probably two process shrinks, these components can only be clocked 50% higher (within the cooling requirements of the revolution of course, which is quite thin)? Both processors are 1/4 of the size (assuming 90nm for Revolution and 180nm for the original Gamecube), so they must be pretty damn cheap if they're the same design.
No word on whether or not the graphics chip is wider (more pipelines), something that matters a lot in the graphics world as the task is very parallel. No word on if there processor has more cache, or two cores - stuff that could easily be done and still have a cheaper processor than the original Gamecube's.
I'm going to get a Revolution, simply because it is more affordable than the other options - I don't game that much, nor do I have a HDTV. OTOH if it's not that much faster than a Gamecube then maybe I should just keep on playing that, there's enough good games to last me a few years.
However whilst gameplay is the most important thing in a game (and the Revolution will have a lot of good points here), the impact of graphical splendour shouldn't be ignored. Shaders make a vast difference to a game - realistic water, accurately reflective metals, it adds atmosphere. If the Revolution is not going to have this relatively old technology inside, then we're basically talking about Gamecube graphics with more polygons.
I just worry about 3 years time. By then the 360 and the PS3 will be $200 or less, and they'll be a no-brainer purchase. A $99 Revolution may be a nice bedroom console still. Maybe Nintendo are putting off the really big update for a few years, so they have the first major update next time around. I've always thought that Sony should have clocked the slimline PS2 faster than the original, and allowed games to have a standard version for the original PS2, and a faster, smoother, higher-resolution version for the slimline. Not that Sony ever hurt for income from the PS2
The thing here being that Nintendo probably only plan to release those 150 games.
Nintendo don't HAVE access to a large back catalogue of games. Other people own them; other games companies. They can negotiate to release them but seriously, we are gonna get the Mario games (I hope Mario Allstars ones and not the NES ones) and the original Nintendo classics and a bunch that Nintendo have vied for, but not much else.
We are certainly not getting the whole 7000-title swathe ever released on any Nintendo console ready to buy. They will cherry pick the popular ones.
Unfortunately this means we will miss out on Blast Corps, and possibly Goldeneye/Perfect Dark, because Nintendo own them. But who gives a shit if they don't offer Battletoads?
Missed out Pokémon though... ;^D
Yeah, I know what it stands for, but I'll be damned if I know what it means.
as for me, i just bought a gamecube for christmas, because i wanted a console (where i usually dont like them) and it was cheap. ill probably upgrade my pc at the end of the summer, get oblivion and a few other titles and be happy with it for a couple of years, and *hopefully* dpending on the price of the revolution when it comes out, pick one up when its released.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
When all's said and done about which hardware produces the finest graphics, if you sat and played say "burnout 5" on all three next gen consoles, you wouldn't notice any meaningful difference unless you put all three on simultaneously and scrutinised the screens.
So even if Revolution has lower rez graphics, you won't notice. Console graphics havent improved to any perceptible degree since the dreamcast. The higher poly race isnt worth running anymore. Not that i'm saying graphics wont get any better, just that it isnt crucial for the gameplay experience to stay on the bleeding edge.
I just thank god nintendo have done something interesting and new. I hope this new console is as alien and captivating as the N64 was when it came out. A large part of the mind-blowingly fun experience of Mario64 was having this wierd new controller to play with.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
The game you are referring to is Elite I believe and IMHO one of the best games ever produced. In 32k of RAM. Which is the most anyone should need frankly !
I am absolutely at your side in this - the idea that Zelda and Mario are for kids and violent games are for adults is a myth. From my experience it looks that it is completely opposite. But there is one flaw in this logic - yes the average 30 year old guy has more money than the average kid but the kid has much more time to play games. The 30 year old guy will buy games for let's say 30% of his disposable income - because he doesn't need more than 1-2 a month. A kid will spend all of his money because he will need a new game every week.
When I get a new system all I really care about is the controller. The graphics can be 8-bit for all I care. Thank you Nintendo for realizing this and making a system geared towards 1% of the gaming population because we feel left out when it comes to playing games on current consoles.
Can I bum a sig?
Is there anything they don't milk?
Breasts?
If you're paying $75 for games you're on some serious crack. Go to a Gamestop and pick out some used games. I bought 5 games for $35 around Christmas time. It's not like they wear out, they're CD/DVD media these days and not the awful "blow on them and pray your NES reads them" cartridges. If they're scratched or unreadable they take them back.
Is the space simulator Elite? Screenshot. If so, hand in your geek card now for not knowing the name. ;)
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
I've worked on all three platforms. And while I haven't didn't do the coding myself, I have worked with the coders who did.
The rule of thumb was that if you could do it on the Xbox, you could do it on the GameCube and you would probably have to shave it down to get it to work on the PS2. The problem child you have to worry about in a cross-platform title is always PS2.
I don't know where Casamassina is getting his assertion that GC polygon peaks were less than the PS2. Does he mean untextured polys? Again the PS2 is generally the platform that you have to optimize for.
Using MHz numbers to compare the speed of different processors is like comparing the speed of cars by looking at how much gas they consume. There is a relationship there, but it isn't the primary one. And it isn't the one you care about.
There are all sorts of reasons for performance numbers, such as the PS2's surprisingly fast cache but low ram, etc. I hope someone will do a detailed technical breakdown, because I really should remember this stuff. And also financial pressures play a part: you add optimization time for the Xbox if you think you will sell in North America, and optimization time for the GameCube if you have the possibility of Japan sales. But in general, the Xbox and Game Cube are similar in power, and the PS2 runs to catch up.
I can't really talk about the Revolution, partially because I don't have one, but I've heard other developers use the "2x more powerful than the GC" figure. That puts it somewhere between the Xbox 1 and the Xbox 360.
The ______ Agenda
It is the big screen experience that sells.
Even in the bedroom? A big screen in every room needs more real estate, and not everybody can afford that.
$1700 at Walmart.
And a 19" TV for the bedroom costs one-tenth that.
Nintendo doesn't take risks on things that don't fundamentally enhance gameplay.
DS and Revolution do this. HD does not.
lmao no, not elite, something much simpler and 2D only.. it was basically just a copy of the original enterprise viewed from above, and there were klingon bird-of-prey-alikes .. the game itself was probably very simple, but just great fun, and maybe it had more scope than I realise (just like Angband has much more scope than I realised when I used to play Moria as a kid, and kept getting killed on the 1st dungeon level).
But yes - we need more games like Elite - I remember seeing a demo for Elite: Frontier on my A500, it really kicked ass - being able to fly to different solar systems, land on the planets in 3D (or were they just scripted sequences?). I tried X2, and X3 is out now, but you still can't land on planets in them.. I appreciate it would take a lot of coding effort - but imagine a game combining GTA3 level of detail/gameplay on a planet, in a space sim. GTA3 doesnt actually keep track of much more than the cars around you (even when you use the 'look behind' option things can disappear from in front of you, heh), but with a little more careful planning (so that you always appear to be in a planet where the computer is actually tracking every inhabitant, but in reality the characters are all just randomly generated a couple of blocks away), and some good code for randomising land masses, cities etc, we could have games where you can fly between solar systems, land on a planet, get a job as a taxi driver, etc.. heh.. wonder how long it will be before games get to that level of integration.. and do it well.
which is totally what she said
Look into the claims that sony and microsoft have made about their systems being capable of multiple teraflops. Then go to the top 100 super computers and how much they cost and how many teraflops they can do. I trust none of these specs. I trust gameplay.
My secret word was contempt.
NJ Local Music Scene
as you can see by my other comment, I've known about Elite since my Amiga days, I didnt ever play it, though was quite into Wing Commander for a while, heh. Not quite the same level of sophistication, but I guess I wasn't either back then =p
which is totally what she said
Personally, I think that nintendo's approach has always been an emphasis on game design rather than technological superiority. They're more creative with their game designs so they don't need to rely heavily on photo-realistic graphics or bleeding-edge video hardware to compete with the other consoles. So in my opinion the reason for the lower clockspeeds probably has less to do with the ingeniousness of IBM and ATI chip architecture, and more to do with where Nintendo would rather put its energy--in the design of the games themselves.
And I think trying to argue that the revolution is going to be as powerful or more powerful than the ps3 or 360, in terms of hardware, is a bit of a moot point. Clockspeed might not always reflect the performance of a system, but you can't say that it isn't a factor or indicator. Why else would CPU manufacturers continue to increase the clockspeed of their processors? In the case of Intel vs. AMD, if you look at the processors with similar architectures (same number of cores, equal amount of cache, etc.), AMD CPUs and Intel CPUs with comparable performance will not have clockspeed differences of more than 20-30% As it stands, the 360's clockspeed is more than 4x the revolution's and it also boasts 2 more cores. The 360 also has more than 6 times the memory as the revolution. Unless you're talking about a completely different generation of technology, or atleast technology made by companies with totally disparate engineering capabilities, those numbers should still tell you that nintendo isn't aiming to deliver the most powerful of the next-gen consoles. And all 3 consoles have custom-made, specialized components. We're not comparing PDA CPUs with videocard GPUs here.
Frankly, these specs are in line with the gamecube's relative hardware performance in the previous generation consoles. Nintendo has done well by focusing on the games, not the raw processing power of their hardware. There's no need in trying to argue how nintendo's contender in the next gen console wars could still be the hardware powerhouse despite the numbers published. That isn't their strategy. The DS has less processing power than the PSP, but it's still much more successful. Nintendo doesn't need to be the top contender in every single aspect of the gaming platform, so there's no need making tenuous arguments to try to "defend" them here. If you feel that you need to, then you're missing the point.
Several companies, including Toshiba and Samsung, market sub-30", sub-$600 widescreen HDTV's.
For example, $530 gets you a 26" Toshiba widescreen or 30" Insignia widescreen at Best Buy today.
IIRC they still have a patent on the original cross shaped D-pad, which is why the Playstation has its 4 semi-seperate direction buttons and the XBox has the round one. I've only ever owned 2 consoles, the CD32 and the PC Engine and I'm going to be buying a Revolution to support the underdog and the only real remaining innovator in the console business.
To be fair, the claim by Apple that the Intel machines are "three times faster" isn't really comparing Apples with, err, Apples.
Compare the G4 1.4GHz mac mini with the Core Solo 1.5GHz machine and you'll notice that there isn't much of a difference in performance.
Don't be surprised if Goldeneye and Killer instinct show up as downloads in the Xbox Live Marketplace. I wouldn't compare Nintendo's BC service to Sony's BC feature. While sony claims to be able to deliver their classic titles through their network. CD sized PS1 games and DVD sized PS2 games would take a while to actually deliver, and waste otherwise valuable storage space. MS doesn't have much of a back catalog in comparison but they do seem to be gaining a lot of 3rd party support for the Live Arcade (particularly new indy devs). Acquired companies like Rare offer a lot in terms of what they could potentially provide in that department. I think Nintendo's biggest competition in that arena isn't Sony but the XBL Arcade.
...and that's definitely cheap enough for me to consider picking one up...
As for price point, if Nintendo keeps in tune with their past console pricing it will launch at $199USD.AFAIK every console they've ever had has launched at $199 in the US.
Collector's Edition
...silent.
Sounds like you might've missed the announcement last week that the Revolution will also have Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx16 games available on it.
This guy's the limit!
mario party 8 will be incredibly innovative!
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
If I had $1700, I could pay off some of my wife's outstanding medical bills. Hire someone to bring the ventilation of my bathrooms up to code. Fix the doors to my garage. Pay down the line of credit I used to pay my self-employment taxes on a few years ago. Buy a little more equity in my house. Start setting up a buffer to live off of if something happens to my job. Each and every one of these things is easier for me to justify than buying a new television.
Now, granted, my employer is a startup, and so the cash component of my pay isn't what it would be elsewhere -- but even if I were making $25,000 more than I am right now, I'd still have a huge laundry list of More Worthwhile Things which would take a year or two to pay off, by which time there'd probably be still more of them.
Spending $100-200 on a piece of entertainment equipment which will see extended use (like a low-end console)? Justifyable, so long as other entertainment expenses are kept to a minimum. A $500 console which requires a $1700 television to fully take advantage of it? Not whatsoever.
My point? The Revolution has a market, one that the higher-end next-gen consoles are foresaking.
12 - 18 == "Dude, I don't want no kiddie shit, I'm not buying a DS/Rev it has numbers which are smaller than this other consoles numbers!" - GTA, EA games, Juiced, Need for Speed, Pimp my Noun.Generic FPS N+1, Final Fantasy Semester - whilst scraping money together for a game, and pirating like mad.
16 - 20 == "Dude, this is Old School!" - GTA, Resident Evil N+1, PoP: 1,2,3, Sonic, Mario, Shoot em ups and only the Good RPGs.
20+ == " Fuck my life is busy, stressful and tense, so fun, cool, bright, happy games please!" - Pokemon, Mario, Katamari D, Sonic, Nintendogs, GTA, Resident Evil 4, PoP: Sands of Time, Zelda, (RPG's are too long now.). I've got money, so I'll buy games (but only good ones).
As a 24yr old, I feel Nintendo are the only company that care about making games I would like, rather than the 12-18 brand of player. And now I BUY those games because I can afford to, and because they deserve it.
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
BMX XXX is a bad example. That game was horrible and just because you put boobies into a game doesn't mean that it is instantly cool and all the 20ish gamers want it. I played BMX XXX and Mario Sunshine and both are gay for two completly seperate reasons.
-Dipster
There will be no component cables for the Revolution.
That is a lie (stated with such authority for some reason). 480p display requires no less than component cables, since s-video and lower do not support the required video bandwidth. Revolution supports 480p. So...
It's too early to look at these trolls ranting against my beloved Nintendo. Remember:
NES/SNES graphics may look like a PS/2 286 these days, but IMO they were the MOST FUN of any games ever made (except maybe the old Sierra stuff in the 80's).
I will never spend more than a few hundred dollars for an HDTV. Why? Because unless I am wearing my glasses (which I almost never do) I can't see any difference anyway. So, yeah, I guess I could wear uncomfortable glasses or contacts, and spend more on a TV than I did on my first car...but it seems like an awful lot of work just to be able to count the moles on some actresses chin.
Don't forget...Mario became "Mario" because they lacked the space to define a mouth and used a mustache. Sometimes an apparent limitation becomes a company's strongest asset.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Actually they do ... well almost.
I can go down to best buy here in Canada and buy a 26" widescreen or even letterbox HDTV (1080i even).
This was about a month ago, and they weren't exactly common, but there were quite a few CRT HDTV ranging from that 26" to 36".
Relevant link:
http://netilium.org/~mad/dctf/
And as someone who's actually in a position to buy one of these systems for my 12-year-olds, I think Sony and MS have badly overestimated the share of the population that is desperate to shell out upwards of two grand to play video games which cost another $60+ a pop. The cost of the HDTV monitor becomes part of the cost of playing for their already shockingly priced systems. Otherwise I don't see the benefits of their gaudy specs, do I?
Let's see, I can pay $200-$300 for a console and then the bump for the individual games, and have something that's trying to be a little different and that's about game play, or I can pony up $2000 -- nearly an order of magnitude higher -- to get a wide screen LCD TV and the other console, on which I will see Shaq sweat but still not be able to realistically rebound with him after umpty-lumpty yearly updates to NBA Live. Which one do I want? The picture's pretty and all, I grant you. It won't do near as much to make things fun as the Rev controller if it works out...
I'm a big movie buff too -- Netflix subscriber, University Film Society goer, that kind of thing -- and the lure of an HDTV fell completely flat when I looked at what it would take to get working right. It's not just money, they're still a pain in the butt to fiddle around with. Sony and MS are asking me to bump things up another $500 notch in cost. To play games whose mechanics and basic M.O. haven't changed since, oh, Doom or so.
My money is literally going to Nintendo. It's an easy pick.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If any place should be able to understand the stupid comparisons to the Xbox and how little they mean it should be the /. crowd. The numbers across the board are *better* than the Xbox... and it seems that everyone forgets that the Xbox was NOT streamlined or specialized hardware at all. This is not a bastardized PC tossed together from the spare parts bin, it is a highly specialized dedicated piece of hardware that will easily outpace the Xbox all around.
The Gekko was hands down, the best graphics chip of the last round with 8 texture layers available for *each* poly on screen! It just went majorly unused due to other constraints. Those have been dealt with and addressed, and now the Revolution is able to harness the hardware properly and utilize it.
Comparing the Revolution to the Xbox is about the most useless comparison anyone could have made since they are as similar as cheese and a toothbrush. It is no secret that IGN is receiving MASSIVE dollars from Microsoft for placement and advertising, and not so from Nintendo... if this is how they plan on handling "reviews" and "news" I have officially stopped even glancing IGN's way. How about a in-depth analytical breakdown of these specs and what they really could mean? Nah, lets compare it to the Xbox, talk it down and call it a day.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I know that it seems like it would be easy to believe that the Revolution would be just a suped up gamecube, but do you seriously think that they'd even bother manufacturing a CPU below 1GHz at this point? The difference in price between 750 MHz and 1 GHz in this day and age has got to be microscopic, and it really wouldn't be worth cripling the system that much.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Nintendogs isn't an entirely new genre... it's an offshoot of the pet simulation games of the 90s. It's just been a while since we've seen one. Do a search for Catz and Dogz.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Actually being able to see what's happening in your quarter of the screen in 4-player mode isn't a fundamental enhancement? IMHO, I love the idea of being able to clearly make out what the hell I'm shooting at. I guess some of you crazy types just love your 360x240 screens!
I constantly want to spend money on a new wizz-bang TV, but then I realize there is a mortgage. There are student loans. I have to put tires on my car. The heating bill is astronimical and by next winter, it will be again (thinking ahead).
If I really want HD TV, I could probably just stream it to my monitor with a $200 HDTV card, which I may do, seeing as the only TV in my house has dials that clunk when you turn them. I simply don't watch television, but I love gaming.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
The Top500 benchmark is double precision floating point operations, 64 bit. The platforms boasting seemingly unbelievable teraflop figures are flaunting single-precision (32-bit) performance. Though still boasting Rpeak when only Rmax really counts (theoretical maximum versus acheivable performance), it isn't an outright lie, just not taken in the same context as Top500.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Frankly, while the 360 is capable of producing some beautiful graphics, excellent visuals don't make a game great. I think many here have said that in one way or another. If the Revolution is at a good price point, there is a good chance I will pick one up (probably in addition to a PS3), because the deciding factor for me is not graphics but how much money I can afford to spend on games.
Eleven!
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Ghost Recon? Oblivion? Kameo?
I'm not sure about the life you live but i sure as hell don't get to drive tanks, fight funny creatures and morph into different characters and go on epic journeys in lush forrests and such.
I'm sorry,you are completely wrong. Those number (clock speed) can't be compared _at_all_ on processors with different architectures. For example one CPU can perform only one simple operation during the CPU cycle and need to fetch each instruction from RAM, while other may perform dozen operations of different pipes and stages, take instruction from light-speed fast cache and predict most of the branches. That's just example, but it not far from the truth. CPU clock speed all alone can tell you _nothing_ about performance of the system. Even if you take into account the architecture, clock speed, RAM speed, main board and buses architecture, etc. you can tell nothing, because in order to compare, you have to run real benchmarks, because some architectures outperform others easily on some tasks, and lose on others.
The 360 is designed for the whole experience. Dolby Digital Sound, High Definition Picture and online integration and capabilities that are second to none.
You define nintendo by not behing HD, we define the 360 by being HD. You can't tell me that the experience the xbox 360 generates isn't a "gaming revolution"
I'm sorry, but i invested in great High def video for my pc, my movies and yes now my console and i won't ever look back since the overall experience is mindblowing when you go back and think of how quickly we got to where we are today.
Push the limits
The game you are thinking about was "the game that invented the space trading genre": Elite. It was highly popular on several platforms, and the sequels were nice too, though buggy.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Yeah, and I used to think that way about the back catalogs too. But then I loaded up the emulators on my Xbox, and lo and behold, most of those games were far crappier than I remember. Mario World was still fun, mostly, but I'd already played it through several times in the past and can't bring myself to want to do it again. And Tetris is still addicting. But for me, the nostalgia bubble burst pretty quickly, and I usually end up playing Super Mario War (an open-source game for the Xbox) when people come over while the old ROMS go unplayed.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Having taken a hardware architecture course, I understand that increasing clock speed does not mean an effective use of processing speed. You are correct.
It is often the instruction set of a CPU that makes the difference, especially if they introduce ways to more efficiently process.
I don't know about you, but I sit a hell of a lot closer to my 17" PC monitor than I do to my 32" widescreen TV. Sure, the PC monitor is smaller, but it fills a lot more of my vision, and so the resolution is more noticeable. Also, I use it for staring at black text on a white background, which shows up individual pixels an awful lot more than a moving, photo-based TV picture does.
So it isn't obviously false at all.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
was elite even available on the BBC Micro? The one I'm thinking of was actually a 2D game, more similar to Escape Velocity (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/ is the sequel) (which I also thought was a great game, and I guess could be better than the one I'm thinking of through my rose-tinted spectacles).
which is totally what she said
I'm the same way a lot of times, but I do enjoy the old games every so often. I have quite a few emulators, and mostly play Mario 3. I actually have an old NES hooked up right now, and the only game I play is Punch Out. It had been so many years since I had played it last that I found it provided a challenge again.
One thing I really do like about older games is with a lot of them, I can just sit down and play for a little bit. I don't have time to emerge myself into complex games anymore, I end up mostly playing racing games or Super Monkey Ball on the X-Box with the little time I do get to game. And Monkey Ball is so great as a party game, I haven't even played single player yet.
rm -rf
WTF are you talking about?
Watch a 50" 1080p display, then watch your freaking computer monitor, and tell me which one gives a better experience.
Give me a break.
Not just that. The MHz numbers make no sense either, I don't think going for an integer multiple of the GC's specs there would have cost much and it'd make cycle-perfect execution of GC games easier. The DS's ARM7 CPU that plays the GBA games has exactly 2x the clock frequency of the GBA.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"It's not just about the plumber, the blue hedgehog is making his way onto the revolution as well"
Yeah, those Sony and Microsoft fanboys are really missing out.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
I think they'll also do a lot of tie-ins. I.e. "Buy Zelda Revolution, download SNES A Link to the Past for free". That certainly would endear me to buy more games from them.
Your reading comprehension skills aren't very good. CPU clock speeds themselves may not be enough to make precise judgements about performance, but knowing that the CPUs were designed by the same group of industry leaders, for the same applications on the same generation of consoles, likely using comparable technology, in addition to the huge disparity in available memory as well as clock speeds should allow one to get an idea of where the console stands compared to the other machines. No one is claiming that the output margins are huge, but you're kidding yourself if you think the revolution is going to out-perform the 360 hardware-wise when every piece of evidence points to the fact that nintendo isn't focusing on hardware superiority to compete with the other consoles. Clock rate might not tell the full-story, but given the circumstances, they offer one a vague idea of what to expect.
Look, nintendo makes good consoles and good games, they just don't always push for the most blistering fast machines that can pump out the most polygons or highest pixel resolution--that is the point the author was making.
Man, I was totally with you until you started talking about how "difficult" mario sunshine was. are you frigging retarded?
Why stick up for big business?
Yeah that would be good, I could also see some games being unlockable extras like the way the original Metroid was unlockable in Metroid Prime or the NES games in Animal Crossing.
I searched around some BBC Micro sites and found out that this is the game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Command heh, it sounds very simple, but I remember it being rather good (and by the time I'd played it, I'd also been playing stuff like Mortal Kombat/Wing Commander and the like for years) :)
which is totally what she said
Nintendogs, which sold a quarter-million in the first week
Well the first week sales numbers aren't a good indication of the DS's impact. I mean a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game can break a million in less than 100 hours.... What IS important for Nintendo is the continued sales of these games as discussed in Iwata's TGS 2005 keynote. He said that games like Nintendogs and Brain Training sold well for a number of months unlike PS2 (and most other system's games) that have a burst of sales for a week or three and then fall to the wayside and don't even deserve being on the shelf after two months.
"Important" maybe, but almost never the difference maker for me. The only way they'll be that now is if a prospective HDTV looks sucky without the MS or Sony system. I am not likely to be spending two grand to buy an HDTV and a Microsoft product...
Take for example sports games which are very popular in the US. Graphics are critical for such games to reproduce the realism of a real sports event.
there isn't a whole lot of room to innovate in the gameplay department,
I play mostly sports games (my two 12-year-olds being the main game consumers in the household), and you are completely wrong at least for me. While it's nice that Shaq sweats realistically in the new 360 version, the fact that NBALive hasn't fixed game pacing (170 to 148! I win!) or the rebounding mechanics in countless revisions of the title matters far, far more than any graphics engine. The system for locking into a player over the course of a game matters more than another incremental improvement in image. By far.
Sports titles have added enormous franchise modes to their games over the last, oh, eight years or so, and the thoroughness of those modes is what gets me to buy a new copy sometimes. It's not the graphics, ever. For lots of people it's the updated rosters, pure and simple; if a game franchise made those ratings better or different and more complete, it'd be a big competitive edge.
Also consider the genre of first-person shooters
In which you again seem completely hemmed in by your past experience. Ever considered the implications of the whacky controller for those? Given how big the advantage of mouse play is for PC FPS players? Given how sucky traditional console controllers are for them? You think more lighting effects are going to make as big a difference as being able to swing a sword or whatever?
what would LOTR be without the sweeping views of the New Zealand countryside, or the huge, detailed shots of giant armies?
The idea that RPGs can't achieve an "epic" feel without the extra horsepower is silly. (And Peter Jackson would have done better to include less fields of screaming CGI orcs and a tighter script.) Check out the list of the best RPGs, or just the best games, of all time: graphics are not the edge for any of them, and in many cases they were comparatively primitive graphically even for the time. Ultima III, Ocarina of Time, the Civ series... Not a list about graphical horsepower. All "epic."
It seems very clear to me that the Revolution is destined to be another Gamecube
Again you think the future will be just like the past. The Gamecube was Nintendo's attempt to compete on the other guys' terms. The new one is quite different because of that (moneymaking) relative failure on their part.
in that case, Nintendo isn't really competing in the same sphere as Microsoft and Sony.
We agree!
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Sure, HDTVs are ONLY $1700 or so. That is exactly the difference between MS/Sony's market and Nintendo's. People who spend $1700 on a tv and $4-600 on a video game machine are the type of people who are either very heavy gamers, spending 4 or more hours a day at it, or they are ones who equate quality with dollars. They have their systems prominently displayed in the living room and brag about their setups with their friends (if any). These are exactly the ones Nintendo does NOT target.
Nintendo believes there is plenty more money in the kids, casual gamers, less hardcore types. A $200 system and a $80 19" tv can be dropped into the kids' room without a bother of how they'll end up spilling soda on it and need it replaced within the year. Besides, after spending $300 on this complete setup, guess how much money is left over to buy a few $40-50 games? So, you have $500 for hundreds of hours of fun playing, vs $500 for just a fancy box of hardware buzzwords.
I haven't played much in consoles since the SNES days, really. But I recently picked up a DS and I'm back in the groove. I'll likely be coming down with a couple days of "the flu" on Revolution release day.
I played Mario Sunshine. It was OK, but at the end of the game I found myself feeling like I'd eaten an entire box of chocolates. I put the GameCube away and got out the PS2 and played something less saccharine to take the taste away.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So you get that number by counting all titles for each region they were released in?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That is why I said 'sometimes'.
Some people still can't get their head around analogue control... and he's right, it WAS difficult - I had to do many, many retries on levels, but I still completed it with every Shine. I think your definition of "difficult" might be different to his.
Keep in mind that the cores in the Xenon (the XBox 360 CPU) are very very simple - single order execution, limited number of execution units, only 64k L1 cache per CPU, and only 1024k shared between all three cores. In other words, designed to clock high to compensate for relatively low per clock throughput. Puts me in mind of the design philosophy of Intel's NetBurst architecture in the P4.
There's speculation that Broadway will be dual core, which would make a huge difference, and rumour has it it'll feature 2MB of L2.
I grow impatient waiting, because this thing looks like it will be loads of fun.
<]=)
I like the GC controller. I find it having two major flaws and a few minor ones but it is the most comfortable of the current generation console controllers IMHO.
Really though, there isn't much innovation with the design. The analog sticks are the most sensitive (as pointed out by the Super Monkey Ball series) but this would be evolutionary and not revolutionary. What else? The C stick (second analog stick) doesn't have a lip on it. OK, fine. There is one thing that is interesting in the design; the L and R buttons are analog.
Now I would hardly call analog shoulder buttons revolutionary since the PS2 technically had them, the Dreamcast came standard with them and the Saturn had them as an add-on in 1996 but what made them unique on the GC was that they were not triggers (DC, Sat) or odd pressure sensitive buttons (PS2) but were in fact sliders which also each had a digital button. I suppose that this is revolutionary.
Granted that most games did not take advantage of this very well or they tried to treat the shoulder sliders the same as the shoulder buttons on other consoles. Take Prince of Persia for example; they ignored the sliders and used the digital buttons for actions forcing players to tire out their index fingers fighting the springs while they could have used a system similar to the Xbox's shoulder buttons where once a certain analog threshold was met then the action took place. Clearly there was little playtesting there.
Speaking of insufficient playtesting, one of the GC controller's major flaws was the addition of the Z button. This was clearly slapped on at the last moment after the L/R sliders were already complete. The lip on the R slider, which was designed for exclusive use by the right index finger, prevented quick movement over to the Z button. If the Z button had been placed lower on the controller for use with the middle finger or ring finger then this would not have been such an issue. Yes, the reason that it wasn't was because Nintendo had many problems with casual gamers wondering where the Z button was on the N64 controller and didn't want to have it "hidden". Sadly, this caused the near worthlessness of the Z button.
Just because the Z button was annoying to use didn't mean that developers, especially first party developers, wouldn't force its use whenever possible. Super Smash Bros. Melee used it as the sole button for dropping items despite the fact that "shield" could be performed by both L and R and "jump" could be performed by X, Y, and up! If the Gamecube's controller was revolutionary, it was due to the fact that it was the first time that Nintendo took a step backwards with ergonomics.
On a side note, any poorly executed game could probably cause a player to curse a controller feature. Try playing Gunvalkyrie on the Xbox for a while and you will be convinced that clickable buttons on analog sticks are the worst idea ever.
The low-end tube HDTVs are now around 500 bucks (US). They won't have an HD tuner built-in... but for most people, that isn't an issue (if you have cable/satellite as most people interested in an HD will, the new HD cable/satellite box you get has everything you need).
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Yeah, well, Nintendo owns the Mario franchise.
That being said, I always look forward to renting (maybe buying) each year's Mario Party. I'm not the same with any other annual game (well except DDR and In The Groove).
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
The atmosphere was awesome, the story was awesome, the sanity tricks were awesome, and the gameplay was boring.
Still liked it though.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
If you think GTA is about violence, you're missing the point.
And while I like my GameCube, it needs more games that aren't saccharine-sweet.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I really wish you'd make it more clear this is a 100% rumor. Developers are working with non-final dev kits right now, so nobody's sure of the true final specs. I don't expect them to be amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this "leak" is bull.
It also doesn't help that it's very difficult to find a PSP you can actually try out, and that when you finally do find one the first thing you notice is the horrible load times.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Nope.
;)
But they are not going to have *EVERY* Sega Genesis game on it.
You're gonna get Sonic in every incarnation, a bunch of real Sega classics. A lot of *SEGA* games.
Not a 4000-title Genesis library encompassing every damn game, old, new, rare or popular.
Just (maybe) 50 or so really good ones. I would be surprised, for example, if you ever got to play
Zero Wing on Revolution
DS and Revolution do this. HD does not.
Actually, you don't know what the Revolution is going to do yet. We actually do have a gamecube here, and all it does is sit on a shelf with monkeyball in it. Occasionally it does get turned on, and we do have a good time with it. On the other hand, sitting beside it is an XBox 360 (Yes, I have a 57" HD TV and yes it makes a huge difference. Anyone who says otherwise has never used one.) which has seen more action in the last month than the Gamecube has seen all year. If you want to count the regular XBox, well, then the Xboxes combined have seen more action that the gamecube ever did. Granted, I'll probably get a revolution too when it comes out, assuming it has titles that interest (ex: non-mario-and-firends) me. I'm hoping that Nintendo will examine the Gamecube's failure and learn from it. The Revolution has a lot to do in order to earn it's name
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Nintendo Rules. No DRM means that the platform will be plenty fast enough! The xbox2 needs all the cpu it can get
because of all the DRM crap!
That explains why my damn GameCube won't do progressive scan even with the cable. Fscking Nintendo...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I'm not sure about that, but if you read any of the authour's other 'works' you will notice that he really is full of it. I can't link to other articles he wrote because I'm at work, but you should be able to link to his other stories. Generally he tries to use big words to bash Nintendo and doesn't EVER do real research. And judging by his usual comments, despite what he says, he hasn't likely even seen a Gamecube do it's thing.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
There's this web site called eBay. If you go there and search, you'll find you can pick up thousands of PS1 titles for very little cash.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So basically they have on-chip embedded DRAM, and external DRAM.
So... why do they have embedded DRAM (which isn't as good as DRAM in a process optimized for it) if the external is just as fast (according to TFA)?
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
:) I like bright colours. They make it easier to see what's going on / know where you are.
Take Block Fort from Mario Kart 64. Imagine if the blocks were gray or just near gray. It would be annoying.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Different Structure different performance. The architecture of a Workstation is different than the architecture of a Video Gaming Console.
And i'm not referring only to the Central Processing Unit.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
When exactly did being a kid becoome bad? Did I miss a memo?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
$35 each, or $35? In the latter case, you got a decent deal.
I typically pay about $7-$9 per (not always used) title at Half Price Books.
Ah, well Elite was released first on the BBC Micro actually, IIRC. It's usually the game I think of whenever anyone says "that cool space game from the olden times (or thereabout)".
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
**Disclaimer: I am NOT a gamer. I enjoy simple D-pad+four button games.***
Four buttons==simple?!?!? In my day, we had a two-way controller with ONE button and we liked it, dag nabbit!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The dreamcast looked a lot like an N64 controller to me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I stopped reading at this point.. I'm sure I don't need to explain it to you guys. :)
"The original Xbox's CPU, admittedly a different architecture altogether, was clocked at 733MHz. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 runs three symmetrical cores at 3.2GHz.
Nintendo's Revolution console, as seen on-display at the Game Developers Conference 2006
Clearly, numbers don't mean everything, but on paper Revolution's CPU falls performance-wise somewhere well beyond GameCube and just shy of the original Xbox"
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
You can find relatively small HDTVs. About 6 months ago I was thinking of purchasing a 27" TV, and the HD versions blew away the SDTVs. Even on a NTSC signal, the HDTVs just looked sharper, better color, etc. IIRC, the price was around $500. I just looked on circuit city's website, and they had HDTVs as small as 19" (although it looked like they were all LCD not CRT).
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
GT4 had 1080i output on the PS2.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Failure? They made millions in profits from the GC. It was the most financially successful console of its generation. I doubt that Nintendo shareholders consider it a failure.
Awesome, so we are just now catching up to the fun level of games from ten years ago. Its Lisp all over again.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
Nintendo games aren't aimed at children. They're aimed at everyone who wants to have fun and isn't so insecure that he can't play games without blood, gore and tits.
I probably should have pointed out that I have no problems with the titles Nintendo makes. Although I never got into Mario Sunshine, I play a healthy dose of Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing DS. I agree, Nintendo does a great job of making games that appeal to people of all ages. I'm actually a big fan of casual games overall, which have that same goal.
That said, I was referring to the 20-something alpha males. Think of the frat guys in college who only played those blood/gore/tit games. Or those jocks in high school who picked on anyone in the computer lab. Halo is the b0mb, Burnout is the shitz, and GTA is the best game evah. Unfortunately (at least to me), they make a large part of that hardcore gamer audience. Why do you think GTA sold so many copies? True story: I was channel surfing on the radio, and came across some DJ talking about how awesome and cool GTA was. He got a lot of other folks calling in saying the same thing. At the same time, they dissed anything on Nintendo for being "that Pokemon system".
Do I like that comparison? No I do not. But I'm not blind to it either. That said, I don't think Nintendo needs to change anything. They're already on the right track, since they make games targeted to everyone AND they now let 3rd party developers make whatever titles they want (hence BMX XXX). I'd love to change people's perceptions, but that's not possible.
-- jchenx
I wonder what the relevant success of each console is if one looks at how much these consoles are being pirated. I know its relatively easy to hack the xbox and play games for free. With the Ps2 it is much more difficult and with the gamecube very very hard. So Nintendo loses much less money on titles due to piracy then for example Microsoft.
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
I will kill your argument with only one proposition : You start paying the novelty tax, I'll root for you and call you the coolest kid on the block, and I'll buy a HDTV when it's dirt cheap.
:)
Actually, I was extremely lucky to get my HDTV as a gift (a very expensive one at that), although I was about to purchase one anyway.
Anyway, I think we're both right. I'm not saying that HDTV adoption is going to be huge in the short term. But the cost is going down, so a few years down the line, you CAN buy a decent HDTV for dirt cheap (as you said). I guess what I'm trying to say is that HDTV is not some fad that's going to come and go. Nor is it something that's going to take 20 years to adopt. I give it 5-10 years when a majority of the population now has HDTV in some form. Didn't somebody say it's already 10% now? (Which actually seems high to me)
We geeks are tech-savvy, not drug addicts. HDTV can wait.
I don't know about that. I know plenty of geeks that will drop a grand to upgrade their system with the latest video card, or to buy the newest game console, or to get a shiny 21" LCD screen for their computer, or to get a new laptop, or a new PDA, etc., etc., etc. Most geeks I know that are tech-savvy also make decent money, so they CAN afford it.
I think the reason why most Slashdot geeks are hesitant to HDTV is because we stereotypically don't watch much TV. It's mostly filth, I agree. But I have a wife and thanks to her, I've gotten hooked to shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives (which are surprisingly good). But yeah, most of my other geek friends don't watch that much TV (probably because they aren't married!). Rather, they'd only see a need for HDTV for gaming purposes.
-- jchenx
HDTV has what? Higher resolution period. Whoa, paint me impressed.
... screw analog!
This is what I don't understand. The stereotypical computer geek will rave about his new huge LCD monitor, and how he can now tweak it to astronomical resolutions. At the same time, he has a high-end video card so that he can play Quake 4 at enormously high resolutions. 1024x768? Blegh, that's for n00bs. Crank it up higher! Digital is where it's at
But when it comes to TV, you're fine with the content displayed on your SD screen? As I mentioned in another post, I think this is because the stereotypical computer geek doesn't watch much TV at all, nor sports. As for me, I have a wife so she's gotten me sucked into (some) TV shows again. And my college is a football powerhouse, so I love watching NFL and college football on my HDTV. That alone makes it all worth it.
If that isn't your liking then I can understand. But a geek dissing higher resolution doesn't make sense to me.
-- jchenx
Preface: I buy all the systems, every generation. I have that kind of disposable income. People are going to post that it's moronic. I'm a gamer, this is my hobby, I love my hobby. Now that that's out of the way...
People are entirely missing the real issue. Sony and Microsoft can spin it however they like ("look at all the polys"), Nintendo can spin it however it likes ("we focus on games, not hardware"). The bottom line reason why Nintendo is going with cheaper hardware has nothing to do with gaming philosophies, it has to do with money.
In short: cheaper hardware costs less to manufacture, meaning they can get a bigger profit, faster, on the systems. Every other console is going to be in the "sell for less than it costs to manufacture" phase for much longer. Nintendo thinks they can start at $150-200 and instantly make cash back on this thing. They also save money by relying on emulated titles and spending less on new game creation.
Nintendo is a great gaming company. Their business side is less than stellar. People will argue "they have a lot of cash on hand", but that's just the point -- having cash on hand is the only thing they really focus on. They don't focus on the core business model of consoles, which is to drive market penetration numbers up so they can make more on license fees.
The Revolution model will continue the practice of having more cash on hand while potentially alienating 3rd-party developers (the cornerstone of the license fees model). For all this talk by developers that "the Revolution controller will revolutionize how we create games", it's largely irrelevant. The publishers are the ones that sign the checks, and a majority of them got seriously burned with the N64 and GameCube. Publishers also don't like to take risks.
The business model Nintendo follows (cash on hand, neglect market penetration) is fundamentally flawed. What Nintendo should do, and I know people don't like to hear this, is get out of the console market entirely, focus on the handhelds and publish games for the other consoles. Their strength is first-party titles, not how they handle hardware. If they let Sony and Microsoft duke it out, they can focus on their core competency of making great games.
It would be trivial to design the system to underclock the CPU by 50% rather than 100%, and I'm sure that's what they are planning on doing(485Mhz * 150% = 729Mhz). Clock multipliers are easily adjusted these days.
The article says that the Revolution hardware is just updated versions of the Gamecube hardware. It looks like Nintendo did little or no redesign of the components, other than perhaps a die-shrink that allowed for higher-clockspeeds and lower cost. Consider, for example, the 3MB of memory integrated on the Flipper chip. It would've been quite easy to expand this to something larger if Nintendo was already overhauling the GPU, but the fact that its the exact same suggests that Flipper is more or less unchanged. Also consider the split memory architecture. You think that if Nintendo was just going to put 88MB of 1T-SRAM in the machine, they wouldn't bother splitting it up like that (the original split in the GC was because the secondary memory was of a different, cheaper, type). Since they didn't, that indicates they're keeping the same memory architecture as the GC, suggesting that they haven't updated the supporting chipset much if at all.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
No, but a 2 GHz Athlon XP is just a 1.5 GHz Athlon XP with a 2 GHz clockspeed. Read the article more carefully --- the Revolution chips are not new designs. They're warmed-over versions of the Gamecube chips.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
That's an idiotic reference. The 440-based machines perform well because there are tens of thousands of them hooked up to interconnects that cost more than your house. Each chip itself is a fairly slow, low-power design. The Revolution includes only a single chip, and it appears that even this isn't a newer 440, but a faster-clocked Gecko, which is a 750-based chip.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Personaly I lean tward the latter, but I'm an optimist, and one can clearly get eather opinion out of the article as written.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
If you have to save your progress on a memory card, it's too damn complicated and therefore not fun.
This is why after all the years people are still playing Pac Man and Tetris and not the multitudes of no-name GTA ripoffs or outdated EA Sports schlock.
>> I don't think a weird controller is going to awe enough people to their platform.
> It might. Wasn't it weird when they came out with a touchscreen on the DS? That's selling huge...
I have a feeling the new controller will be more like Nintendo's VirtualBoy in terms of success.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Slashdot: Digg withouth articles like "Great applet for choosing colour themes" or "Apple rocks" with content of "The title says it all!!!11oneoneone"
I'm a "gamer" myself -- but I have my PC for slick graphics, turbo charged, networked mayhem and destruction.
However, when friends come over, or I visit my family, it's the Gamecube (currently) that EVERYONE wants to play.
Whether it's Mario Kart (the hardest game I bring out for non-gamers), Shrek Super Party (a lot of my friends prefer this to Mario Party ___), or the always-requested Donkey Konga -- the gamecube is what gets everyone playing. Even my dear Mother (who has managed to send me an email... once) plays.
There are a LOT more "non-gamers" then there are "gamers" in the world, and Nintendo is going for THAT market as well as a good portion of the "gamer" market. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.
1) Be attracted to the "bigger, shinier" approach to gaming and spring for an Xbox 360 or PS3
2) Buy all three anyway. Why not? He's got $1700 to burn on a TV.
Nintendo has been very consistent on their position to the avoid getting in a power=quality pissing contest with the other two consoles, and full 1080i support is just that.
I feel I have to say this, I've got a little Karma to burn anyway.
But this is an important issue to me, let me be the first to say, fuck tv. No capitals. No hate. Just ignore this shitbox forever. You cannot imagine how many neurons die when you're exposed to this shit. Don't even start with it... It's getting closer to the traditional sci-fi anticipation movies like rollerball, or books like 1984. It's fucking depressing to see so much lost potential in there, truly.
So fuck tv. You'll only be healthier.
Still the case? I admit I threw up the screenshots _after_ I made the post (I've been meaning to for a while). Maybe you caught it in-progress?
Actually, from what I hear GTA is a great all-around game, and is much more than just a violence fest. Having not played it I can't really say. But I think a lot of people get a distaste for violence after 25 or so. I know I did. I can still stomach it fine -- I enjoyed Kill Bill, and even Hostel, but I don't seek the stuff out like I used to. So while I might enjoy GTA if I got into it, it's just not what I'm attracted to. I have a limited amount of time for gaming, and I'm far more inclined to try something with a less overtly violent tone, like Darwinia.
:)
But to each their own. Enjoy what you like
Cheers.
I have done review work as well as freelance writing in the videogame industry, and I can 100% say for a fact that my statement about IGN is correct. In fact this topic was touched on just the other day here on /.: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/29/ 1853255
It is unfortunate but sites like IGN that redesign the entire site around a particular product or company have been paid to do so. No one would pay a number of web dev's to ovehaul their site every week just to stay current or be trendy. They are pushing product. That in and of itself is borderline, the only time it becomes an issue with me personally is when the writting becomes tainted as a result. Stories begin to all slant one way... amazingly the same way as the money coming in.
It is no secret that Microsoft has been tossing big bucks at IGN and a number of other online/print outlets in return for favorable reviews and extra coverage.
Oh, and Matt Cassimassina is I believe the guy you are referring to and yes he is a grade A dick. I've had the "pleasure" of meeting him a couple times and I'd rank him right up there with Seanbaby... who I'd happily hunt for sport if given the chance.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
They're there now. ;-)
This one is just too awesome. I hope you got a mention in the credits for Carmageddon. That was clearly a direct ripoff with some fancied up graphics
I think the 750 is a better chip than the 440 (performance-wise).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Heh, thanks. I should bring a lawsuit against them or something ;)
That screenshot is probably the most offensive pedestrian to kill... the wheelcharir guy. But you get to run over kids, dogs and old folks too.
Cheers.
Funny, I still remember people saying the exact same thing about the DS. Now those people are eating their words. Thats not to say that the new controller is guaranteed to succeed however, but the hands on reports that have been comming from various media outlets (CNN included) make it sound extremelly promising.
But they're not competing. In an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto said that he didn't see it as a competition between Nintendo and any of the other things.
It's still an interesting point. The PS3 can play PS2 and PSOne games, but it won't have the old Sega games*. You'll need a Nintendo Revolution if you want to play those "50 really good ones" amonst the Sega library. Or go garage saling and pick up a used Genesis cheap :)
*Assuming of course, that no one gets an emulator running on the PS3 like we have on the original XBox.
Yes it is, but the 750 is the G3, and the same basic core that was in the Gamecube. It was an impressive processor in 1996, when 300 MHz G3s were competing with 200 MHz Pentiums, but this is 2006.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I can't argue with you on gaming consoles - I have a very weak knowledge at that topic. In fact I won't tell apart 360 from that new Nintendo's box. But I have some knowledge on CPU architectures, and I can tell you, that there nothing like "comparable technology" playing any significant role. The technology more or less is same, but even if you take a look at modern personal computer/server CPUs - there is nothing comparable. Having the same clock speed, processors can give benchmarks _several_times_ different one from another. Just to make my point more clear - you can't compare different platforms only by their CPU clock speed. Period. It will not give you any meaningful results, or something to draw any conclusions of. Well if those clock speeds, were different by order of magnitude, I would say you might use it as measure, because no architecture will give you such performance range, but you are talking about numbers that are almost equal! You shouldn't even be surprised if "slower" (in your terms) platform will outperform other.
I have a palm too, but those games use the touchscreen exactly how a computer uses a mouse. Not innovative. A greater variety of touchscreen uses and FUN games have come from the NDS is under 2 years than the over 10 years that Palm Pilots have been out. Plus, palm pilots are not gaming machines. As for your dual monitor setup, good for you, I never mentioned two screens as being revolutionary. I deliberately left it out of the list because it's a rather minor evolution that hasn't really shaped gameplay that much.
Don't mind them. They are Sony fanboys. The brainwashing has hampered thier ability to make cohesive arguments.
Cool, I didn't know any of that.
Mine was mostly hypothetical with regard to the actual allocation of the 3MBs on chip.
Do you have any links to patents or technical info regarding the allocation? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be interested in it.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
the $300 computer monitor gives a better "eperiance" because it does not come with violent sodomy.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I don't know much about the chip the CPU is based on, but a number of developers have reported that the GPU on the Gamecube was only operating at about 50% percent of it's capability because the CPU was simply too slow to handle what the GPU was capable of. Therefore, Nintendo could have just doubled the clockspeed of the CPU and doubled the power of the system with exactly the same amount of RAM and so forth that the Gamecube had. The fact that they've actually decided to update both the CPU & the GPU is probably indicative of something. I suppose it's possible all they did was change the process to a smaller die to up the clockspeed, but it seems like a waste of time not to add a few new features that have cropped up in the 5 years since the Gamecube was originally released.
just some guy
That's exactly what was confusing, though. The Flipper GPU had no shaders. It was created in the era before vertex and pixel shaders were commonplace. It did have 8 texture combiners, but those were still fixed-function.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
This is another common apologist excuse. Nintendo is a business. It doesn't like being #3, and would rather be #1. Being #1 implies 5x the games, 5x the number of consumers and 5x the profits.
As stated, I'm sure there are "fun" games on the Nintendo, but with the Revolution falling so far behind the other consoles, you can look forward to more cutesy Mario / Pokemon games. Why? Because Nintendo will have shoulder more of the games development because less independent developers will bother with a platform that implies rewriting rather than porting titles.
Personally I see no problem with cutesy cartoon games, but I'd despise any platform that restricts the kinds of game I played, or expected me to be happy about seemingly half the titles being Mario or Pokemon games. I expect that's the reason for many people shunning the platform and its just going to get worse with the Revolution unless the price advantage is totally compelling. It certainly wasn't for the Gamecube.
I'm assuming by OOO they meant Out-of-Order functionality.
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
$35 for all of them combined. Now granted, they were older used titles but who cares if it's an NFL 2004 or NFL 2006 game other than some sports fanatic? Those kinds of people run out and pay $75 for NFL 2006 as soon as it comes out. It's just silly. They've locked us into these stupid upgrade schemes where the majority of stuff that changes, especially in sports games, is the roster. They could easily make that updateable online onto a memory card or something. I know I know, then they wouldn't sell that $75 game each season. Sports games == vampires. :-)
Ah, that makes more sense. Usually games are $50-$60 in US dollars in the USA. I've never seen one for $75 unless it's some uber-collector's edition, but I've never bought Xbox games so I figured they might cost more than PS2 games.
And those were general purpose chips designed to support the bloat of a mainsream OS. Comparing a chip for console use and a chip for PC/MAC use is not really possible. Its not going to perform the same way because its not doing the same tasks.
Hz measurements are useless anyway. Throughput is what should be measured. What that processor gets done per cycle is what is important. If I have a 100 Mhz processor that gets 30 things done per cycle, it is just as powerful as 3Ghz processor that gets 1 thing done per cycle. Both are doing 3 Billion operations every second, but the 100Mhz processor is probably doing it with less power and less heat.
The problem is the chip companies have gotten into a Hz war, and the customers now believe that is an accurate measure of performance, when it isnt.
I love to slaughter the english language.
They still don't work in Opera but show up when I throw them at Photoshop...
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
1) The "bloat" of mainstream OSs really has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this discussion. The Gecko core is still a G3 at heart, in all the ways that matter. It has some tricks like 2-way SIMD in the FPU, but it performs just like a G3 at the same clockspeed.
2) A 30-way 100 MHz processor would not be much faster than a 4-way 100 MHz processor, much less a 1-way 3 GHz processor. The ILP of most code is limited to 2-3 way most of the time, with bursts of 4-5 once in a while.
3) Chip companies have Hz wars because Hz is a first-order impact on performance, and increasing IPC is very difficult. With modern processors, doubling the processor width is likely to net 10-20% improvement in performance. Worse, since many things within the processor scale quadratically with the number of execution units, doubling the processor width effectively quadruples the size of many timing-critical structures. That's why mainstream processors have stuck to 3-4 way designs for the last decade.
4) Hz is a first-order measurement of processor performance. Within similar classes of chip (in-order), it's a good estimator for performance. It's far better, anyway, than any other single property of the processor.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
FASTER THAN SLASHDOT AND A SPEEDING LOCOMOTIVE
http://www.renewamerica.us/bb/viewtopic.php?p=785
The links there includes links to OTHER PAGES TOO,
so you get even more bang for your surfing buck! It's it's
a NEVERENDING STORY's WHAT IT IS.
Then why are AMD processors consistantly faster than their Intel counterparts when their clock speed is considerably lower? Throughput, that is why. The fact you still think Hz matters shows how much you truely know about microchip architecture. In my example, what I stated was exactly true for an ideal world. All things being equal a 100Mhz chip performing 30 operations per cycle would perform at the same speed as a 3Ghz chip doing 1 operation per cycle. Both are performing 3 Billion operations in one second worth of time. But you will never see a 100 Mhz chip with 30 operations per cycle in the real world due to the statistical probability of program code order. Programs usualy contain branching statements and dependant variables, thus you wouldnt get more than 9-10 operations before you encounter a conditional statement or a variable dependant on a prior operation. Which is the whole reason the branch look ahead buffer was created. It was designed to predict when a branch statement would occur so it could pre-emt the pipeline and prevent data corruption. That aside, the example was showing in an ideal world that Hz alone means nothing when you comparing processors performing identical tasks. Infact, as an engineer, you can never use Hz for a lone bassis when deciding how effecient a chip for a product will be when speed is of a critical importance. You seem to be confusing Hz for transistor size, which is more of a measure of chip performance.
I love to slaughter the english language.
There's three things to consider when trying to use megaherts as a performance measure.
Probably some other things too, but those seem to be the real speed-killers. There is no "industry standard" solution. AMD chose a short pipeline, so instructions complete in fewer clock cycles. Intel chose a longer pipeline, so instructions eat more clock cycles. This is why my Athlon-2500XP is actually running at 1.8ghz, but performing slightly better than a P4-2.5ghz. Now, a lot of this performance is also based on cache memory speeds, main memory speeds, and branch prediction. When you go to one of the cheaper chip manufacturers, like Cyrix, they leave out some of the technology that accelerates the performance, in favor of lower cost and lower heat. Big elaborate branch predictors use lots of silicon and consume power. I've seen the inside of a gamecube. There's no processor fan. Same goes for the other consoles. These guys are going to be cutting corners and eliminating bits of standard chip design in favor of low heat output.
As my computer architecture prof. likes to say "The real problem is feeding the beast." If you can't deliver an instruction to the processor, it can compute your answer. In general, you can't ensure that the next instruction is always ready. If you miss your cache on a 1ghz processor, and need to wait 5ns for the next instruction to come from main memory, you just lost 5000hz worth of processing due to a stall. In desktop chips, they have tons of clever technology to help prevent cache misses. In mobile processors and game systems and handhelds, they have to peel some of this off to keep the heat consumption down.
I'll guarantee you that the StrongArm and X-Scale processors running at 600Mhz don't compare to the old desktop models, and they're all made by "industry leaders" ;-)
Mark of the Coder fades from you. You perform Opening on World of Warcraft. Warcraft crits GPA for 4. GPA dies.
I'm a lot more interested in playing youthful games like Mario and Zelda that have great design than GTA and other "mature" games that are actually aimed at kids who are still thrilled by random violence and high polygon counts.
:D
If you don't think GTA has succeeded almost entirely because of its great design, you're no better than the (largely mythical) audience you're attacking. Your judging is entirely based on looks, not substance.
And "high polygon counts" in a GTA game? They are some of the homeliest looking games that were released in the last generation! Even vaguely upgraded N64-ports like Kirby's Air Ride feature better graphics!
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
You can read my other reply to a similar comment, but to summarize, I'm certainly not attacking anyone or even complaining. It's just that I have a limited amount of time to invest in gaming, so I choose stuff that looks interesting to me at first glance. GTA doesn't, and it's mostly because I've been through that phase. The game (which I've never played) may be the best thing ever, but I'll never know. Perhaps my loss, but that's how we all deal with the overwhelming options, right?
Whether there's a large group of people like me is another question, and that's the theory I and the parent poster were proposing.
Cheers.
Then why are AMD processors consistantly faster than their Intel counterparts when their clock speed is considerably lower?
Because AMD chips can sustain more IPC. I never said Hz was a perfect measurement of performance. However, if confronted with a 8 GHz P4 and a 2 GHz AMD chip, you can be pretty sure the P4 will be faster. IPC's are similar enough in range (within a factor of 2 within similar processor classes), that if a processor is clocked 4x higher you can be pretty sure it'll be faster, regardless of IPC. Moreover, if we're talking about processors with the same architecture, you can assume performance scales linearly with clockspeed within a fairly wide range. That's exactly what were talking about here --- the XBox 360 and PS3 chips have a 4x clockspeed advantage, while the Revolution chip is another PowerPC 750 derivative. The PowerPC 750 is not an Athlon-style design. It's got extremely limited out-of-order execution, and architecturally, its prime benefit over the Cell and Xenon are lower instruction and cache latencies, as well as a shorter pipeline. It'll be lucky to sustain 50% more IPC than the PPE, much less the 300% more it needs to be competitive.
The fact you still think Hz matters shows how much you truely know about microchip architecture.
Of course Hz matters! Clockspeed is the first-order differentiator of performance. You clock a design 50% higher, it'll run code 50% faster! Of all the single parameters of a CPU, clockspeed is the one that gives you the best indicator of performance. Its not a fine-enough tool to distinguish the actual performance of a 2 GHz processor from a 3 GHz processor, but it'll certainly be good enough for 700 MHz versus 3.2 GHz. You see, within a processor class, IPC doesn't vary over that wide a range. A state of the art Athlon 64 has an IPC less than 80% higher than an old IBM 604e. When you're talking about clock-speed deltas as high as we are here, the IPC delta won't be high enough to make that big of a difference.
Programs usualy contain branching statements and dependant variables, thus you wouldnt get more than 9-10 operations before you encounter a conditional statement or a variable dependant on a prior operation.
9-10??? The branch density on common integer code is 1 every 4-5 instructions. Dependent integer instructions happen so often that even a 1-cycle delay for dependent integer operations hurts your IPC significantly. You're also forgetting one key factor that limits IPC --- cache latencies. Cache latencies can cause the processor to stall waiting for memory operands. Very deep out-of-order execution can paper over L1 and L2 cache latencies, but the Gecko isn't a deeply OOO processor.
That aside, the example was showing in an ideal world that Hz alone means nothing when you comparing processors performing identical tasks.
We're not talking about the ideal world, however, we're talking about the real-world. In the real-world, you're lucky to get 2-3 IPC, much less 30. In the real world, IPC considerations aren't enough to significantly alter a comparison with a 4x clockspeed gap. On top of all that, you're talking as if the 750 CPU is some sort of IPC monster. It's not. It's one step up from an in-order chip. It has two integer units, one FPU, and one LSU. It has reservation stations that are 1 or instructions deep, and has a OOO window of about half a dozen instructions. Even the PIII in the original XBox is a far more sophisticated chip. It has similar execution resources, though it has more load/store hardware, but a 20-entry scheduler and a 40-entry OOO window. These resources allow the chip to extract a lot more IPC out of the same amount of execution resources than the 750 can. Both chips are a far cry from a modern IPC monster like the Conroe or Athlon 64. Conroe has about twice the number of execution units as the PIII, as well as a 32-entry scheduler and a massive 96-entry OOO window.
So ultimately, you're comparisons of Athlon 64 versus P4 are really not relevan
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Just to note. There is not that big of difference between the 750 (G3) and the 7400 (G4) series processors. The G4 does have AltiVec, but I think the little SIMD hack on the Gekko is more practical for gaming. And the G4 can go multiprocessor, but that's not an issue here.
Also, the 750GX (G3) in my system is clocked at 1Ghz, it's one of those upgrade chips (PowerLogix). G3 is available in perhaps the widest clock range of any particular core. At least the IBM ones.
I'd say a 729Mhz Broadway found in the Nintendo Revolution, if the Gekko's performance is any indication is probably on par with the VIA C3 in terms of performance and "modernness". It would kind of be like running a Pentium II at a high clock speed. It's a solid chip, but it's not as advanced as the latest multicore offerings. But a single Gekko is a more advanced design than a single core out of the Playstation3 or Xbox360, but those super fast chips are not very good with branch prediction or with superscalar instruction scheduling. That's the trade off Sony and Microsoft were willing to accept, multiple cores with less complex cores. It's probably the right choice to make, I know I'd rather take a lot of simple cpus than one smart cpu, but don't act like it's 2006 technology versus 1996 technology.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire