Actually, to be fair, Duck Hunt didn't care how you held the light gun. I frequently held it upside down to increase the difficulty...and because I was a very strange child.
Lately Nintendo has done for me: Tetris DS, Metroid Prime Hunters, Super Princess Peach, Animal Crossing Wild World, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, Advance Wars DS, Kirby: Canvas Curse, Mario Kart DS and Electroplankton.
Okay, I'll give you that in the past year, not much worthwhile has been released for the Gamecube, but in the past 5 months or so, I've not touched a console except to play Super Monkey Ball & Super Smash Bros when hanging out with friends (and recently picked up Grandia III and Kingdom Hearts II, neither of which I've played much because I'm still trying to beat Metroid Prime Hunters).
Nuchuck attachment held in off-hand has an analog stick for movement forward/backward, and strafing left/right.
2 buttons on Nunchuck attachment (one for index finger, one for middle finger) are for ducking and jumping respectively.
Revmote in primary hand used for looking (up, down, left & right). When Revmote is pointing at edge of screen, their is a delay, at which point you begin turning around. You continue turning around as long as Revmote is still pointing at edge of screen, to stop turning, simply point the Revmote elsewhere (much like when using a mouse in UT or Half-Life).
B trigger on bottom of Revmote is used for standard fire, A button under thumb is used for alternate fire (in the case of grenades, while holding A, move Revmote forward in an overhand position to throw a grenade, move it forward in an underhand position to roll a grenade).
I assume (do not know for a fact) that weapon switching is down with control pad on Revmote.
When no button is held, you can move the Revmote forward (towards the screen) to knock over furniture for cover.
That's the basic control setup I've gathered from reading TFA.
While you position is an intelligent and well thought out one, I contend that part of the fun of looking forward to the release of new consoles is speculation. To whit, while I know for a fact that, by the time this next console generation ends, I will almost definitely own all 3 of the major consoles. This does not in anyway lessen the fun of matching fanboys of differnt consoles against each other, looking up specs and information, thinking about fun ways the Revmote can be used, hoping that the Revolution will prove to be fun, wondering what Final Fantasy XIII will be like, and hoping like mad that there will be a sequel to Beyond Good & Evil.
Sure, it's not in the least bit productive, but it's fun, and games are about fun, right?
Normally, I would agree with you. However, the only company ever to successfully switch from one accepted control scheme to another accepted control scheme during the life of a console was Sony. To whit, the original PS1 did not have analog control. It was not until after Nintendo announced an analog controller for the GC, that Sony produced and manufactured the Dual Shock controller for the PS1. They then made it the standard controller that came with the PS1, and had no trouble treating it as the primary controller, with the original, non-analog controller being almost totally ignored within a year.
Of course, copying the Revmote's functionality will probably be somewhat more difficult to pull off, but that still doesn't mean they couldn't do it.
....so what you're saying is, I should instead buy what everyone has, up until now, called an Xbox 1.5 because it failed to impress them with it's next gen-ness, instead of buying the Gamecube 1.5, which will fail to impress in exactly the same manner, but will also let me control games in a new and interesting way?
Hmmm, and if you had read developer comments, as well as comments by IBM who created the main CPU for all 3 systems, you'd know that the GC actually had better potential for improved AI because of it's increased cache. Advanced AI control depends heavily on branching predictions, something PPC based processors are particularly lousy at. To compensate for this, the GC had more CPU cache. Specifically, it had more CPU cache than the Xbox, PS2 or Xbox 360 have, in fact, it had more CPU cache than any high end gaming pc. This was done specifically because Nintendo & IBM knew that PPC processors didn't handle AI very well alone. Rev is going to have as much, if not more CPU cache than the GC. So it will still have potentially better AI than either the 360 or PS3.
As for physics. Do you actually know how much processor time physics calculations take up? Virtually none. You know why physics are so processor intensive? The physics calculations themselves are easy, all that processor time is actually spent on processing the resulting affects on the game's graphical assets. When you have a 100,000 polygon model with full textures and lighting effects and you have to process the affects of gravity, acceleration, impact and such on the model, it's necessarily going to take more time than processing the same effects on a 10,000 polygon model with similar effects. The actual calcuations are still exactly the same, so when people talk about improved physics, they're actually talking about improved graphics.
When you're really talking about improved physics, consider that the Revmote is a true 3 dimensional controller. To be affective, it has to constantly up date location in 3D space, degree of rotation, linear velocity, angular velocity, linear acceleartion and angular acceleration. This is more physics in the controller alone than most games have in the entirety of their gameplay. To presume that the Revolution would be lousy at handling physics is horribly counterintuitive.
Ummm...what? On Gamecube hardware & game sales alone, Nintendo reported a profit every single quarter starting from the quarter after the GC was originally released. Counting their handheld sales, Nintendo has actually recorded greater profit than all of Sony combined (of course, that's because only 3 of Sony's 7 divisions were actually profitable, the other 4 posted a loss). They made more than Sony Games Division alone did, as well. Nintendo, as a company, has somewhere in the range of 6 billion dollars (American) in liquid assets. Why do you think they can afford to keep making consoles and not drop completely out of the race like Sega did?
Nintendo, as a company, does not make M rated games. However, they have never objected to other companies making M rated games for the console. Most developers simply don't make such games because they know that consumers think of the console as 'kiddy'.
This all started back in the NES era, when Nintendo took the blood out of the original Mortal Kombat. Their reasoning was that children were playing games, and with no warnings on the game itself, it was Nintendo's responsibility to limit the violence children were exposed to.
Afterwards, Nintendo went on to help found the ESRB and similar ratings agency across the world. From the point that games were clearly marked not only with a recommended age for consumership, but also with notes that they included animated and/or realistic violence, Nintendo has never prevented a company from making an M rated game for their system. Nintendo has even published M rated games made by their 2nd parties, they just don't make them in-house.
To a very real extent, Nintendo was one of the companies that made it possible to get M and even AO rated games out into the market, and sell, while still giving parents the ability to protect their own children. You know, by parenting (sorry, that's a dig at people who complain about teenagers playing GTA3).
Ultimately, it depends on the consumers. If consumers purchase Revolution in large quantities, and developers can actually sell M rated games on the Revolution, they will make M rated games for the Revolution. The more games you buy, the more you encourage the developer to keep making those types of games.
Mario 128 is the working title of the game, and has nothing to do with a bit count. It was a demo that was originally displayed for the gamecube with 128 Marios running & bouncing around on gamecube hardware. Nintendo has, off and on, claimed that Mario 128 was a working title for a game, but have never officially confirmed it's existence. As a result, most of the people who follow such things just refer to the next Mario Platformer as being Mario 128. That will probably not be it's final name, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with the system being a 128 bit system.
"We don't know if we're going to do a worldwide launch yet, but we don't want you saying we're not going to until we're actually ready to announce it."
If history has taught us anything, it's that when a void opens in an industry, someone rushes in to fill it. Should, somehow, one console reign supreme, and the other two companies cease producing consoles, someone will see the chance to make big bucks, much the way Nintendo did in the 80's, and Sony (to a lesser extent) did in the 90's.
Well, Nintendo is going cheaper on everything this time around. They've already said their system is going to be less than $300. Games will be $50 or less. And the online service will be free. Game downloads will be a charge, but Nintendo hasn't confirmed whether it will be a charge per title, or a subscription deal, but they've considered both methods.
Also, Nintendo has only said online play will be free for first party titles. 3rd party publishers/developers can still charge for their online play. This leaves it open for an MMO style game, but not sure how likely that is with only 512MB of Flash RAM built in for storage.
From what I've been told, the DSLite does actually have a longer battery life when using the lowest brightness setting (out of 4). It has roughly similar battery life to the DSPhat on settings 2 & 3, but actually has much shorter battery life on brightness setting 4.
Of course, the screenshots I've seen show that the level 1 brightness setting is significantly brighter than the DSPhat's backlight, so I can't imagine you'd ever actually need to take it up to brightness setting 4.
No, but the DS does play Meteos, which I personally enjoy more than Lumines. Lumines is a fine game, but not nearly as fascinating as Meteos...but that's a personal preference, so make your own judgement there.
Odd, I've seen plenty of DS commercials. From the ones for Kirby Canvas Curse (quite possibly one of the most surreal commercials ever) to the new Tetris ads. They tend to only play during the day though, or early mornings. I don't think I've ever seen them during prime time. That might be the issue (although, truth be told, I Tivo everything in primetime, so I never actually watch the commercials).
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.
And I'm gonna have to ask you what the hell you're talking about.
The NES Classics thing I understand, those were too high, I never bought any of them either. But DS games are not that expensive. You will, occasionally, find DS games running at $50 US, and that is usually games like Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart DS and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, all of which have enough content and replayability to be worth as much as a PS2, Xbox or GC game. And this comes from a person who buys PS2 RPGs when they first come out on a regular basis. Super Princess Peach ran me $35 and I've spent more time playing it than I did Grandia III (which I beat, and which cust me at least $50, I don't specifically remember). It's one thing if you just don't like the games on the DS. But to say they are priced unreasonably is not representative of the market in which they are sold.
Actually that's partially incorrect. Yes, it was developed by ArtX, a company that was bought out by ATI approximately a month after the Gamecube was originally released.
I don't know about Wreckless being a prettier game, but the Xbox was superior to the Cube, but only just barely. The reasons are twofold, one each for each system. The Xbox was designed like a PC, not like a game console, so despite having really high specs, it underperformed because most of the processor cycles were wasted. On the other hand, the gamecube underperformed because it's processor was too slow to ever utilize more than about 50% of what the GPU was capable of.
That being said, the 360 is built much, much better than the original Xbox. But the Rev has a faster processor, and a GPU based on the GC one that has already proven itself to be superior. Only time will tell how much of a difference this really makes.
Except the Xbox doesn't have comparable specs. The Xbox has comparable specs to the gamecube, and likely would be heavily inferior to the gamecube if the GC's CPU was fast enough to handle the GPU's output.
And considering that at least one controller will come with the system, and the development cost alone of that technology, your conclusion is fallacious.
I have, in my life, owned an NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Sega 32X. None of these systems do I own any longer, nor do I have more than 1 or 2 scattered games for them. I blame the lack of these games & systems on my siblings. Once I moved out and purchased a PS1, n64, PS2, Xbox & GC with my own money, I never had to worry about systems and/or games disappearing on me again, but I would still be interested in playing those games for the older systems I once possessed (as well as the TG16 games I only ever got to play when visiting a friend).
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Actually, to be fair, Duck Hunt didn't care how you held the light gun. I frequently held it upside down to increase the difficulty...and because I was a very strange child.
Okay, I'll give you that in the past year, not much worthwhile has been released for the Gamecube, but in the past 5 months or so, I've not touched a console except to play Super Monkey Ball & Super Smash Bros when hanging out with friends (and recently picked up Grandia III and Kingdom Hearts II, neither of which I've played much because I'm still trying to beat Metroid Prime Hunters).
Nuchuck attachment held in off-hand has an analog stick for movement forward/backward, and strafing left/right.
2 buttons on Nunchuck attachment (one for index finger, one for middle finger) are for ducking and jumping respectively.
Revmote in primary hand used for looking (up, down, left & right). When Revmote is pointing at edge of screen, their is a delay, at which point you begin turning around. You continue turning around as long as Revmote is still pointing at edge of screen, to stop turning, simply point the Revmote elsewhere (much like when using a mouse in UT or Half-Life).
B trigger on bottom of Revmote is used for standard fire, A button under thumb is used for alternate fire (in the case of grenades, while holding A, move Revmote forward in an overhand position to throw a grenade, move it forward in an underhand position to roll a grenade).
I assume (do not know for a fact) that weapon switching is down with control pad on Revmote.
When no button is held, you can move the Revmote forward (towards the screen) to knock over furniture for cover.
That's the basic control setup I've gathered from reading TFA.
Sure, it's not in the least bit productive, but it's fun, and games are about fun, right?
I'm all about the Meta-Game.
Of course, copying the Revmote's functionality will probably be somewhat more difficult to pull off, but that still doesn't mean they couldn't do it.
....so what you're saying is, I should instead buy what everyone has, up until now, called an Xbox 1.5 because it failed to impress them with it's next gen-ness, instead of buying the Gamecube 1.5, which will fail to impress in exactly the same manner, but will also let me control games in a new and interesting way?
As for physics. Do you actually know how much processor time physics calculations take up? Virtually none. You know why physics are so processor intensive? The physics calculations themselves are easy, all that processor time is actually spent on processing the resulting affects on the game's graphical assets. When you have a 100,000 polygon model with full textures and lighting effects and you have to process the affects of gravity, acceleration, impact and such on the model, it's necessarily going to take more time than processing the same effects on a 10,000 polygon model with similar effects. The actual calcuations are still exactly the same, so when people talk about improved physics, they're actually talking about improved graphics.
When you're really talking about improved physics, consider that the Revmote is a true 3 dimensional controller. To be affective, it has to constantly up date location in 3D space, degree of rotation, linear velocity, angular velocity, linear acceleartion and angular acceleration. This is more physics in the controller alone than most games have in the entirety of their gameplay. To presume that the Revolution would be lousy at handling physics is horribly counterintuitive.
Ummm...what? On Gamecube hardware & game sales alone, Nintendo reported a profit every single quarter starting from the quarter after the GC was originally released. Counting their handheld sales, Nintendo has actually recorded greater profit than all of Sony combined (of course, that's because only 3 of Sony's 7 divisions were actually profitable, the other 4 posted a loss). They made more than Sony Games Division alone did, as well. Nintendo, as a company, has somewhere in the range of 6 billion dollars (American) in liquid assets. Why do you think they can afford to keep making consoles and not drop completely out of the race like Sega did?
It's okay. You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind.
Wait, so you're objecting to the mutual destruction of opposing fanboys? That's slightly disappointing.
Nintendo, as a company, does not make M rated games. However, they have never objected to other companies making M rated games for the console. Most developers simply don't make such games because they know that consumers think of the console as 'kiddy'.
This all started back in the NES era, when Nintendo took the blood out of the original Mortal Kombat. Their reasoning was that children were playing games, and with no warnings on the game itself, it was Nintendo's responsibility to limit the violence children were exposed to.
Afterwards, Nintendo went on to help found the ESRB and similar ratings agency across the world. From the point that games were clearly marked not only with a recommended age for consumership, but also with notes that they included animated and/or realistic violence, Nintendo has never prevented a company from making an M rated game for their system. Nintendo has even published M rated games made by their 2nd parties, they just don't make them in-house.
To a very real extent, Nintendo was one of the companies that made it possible to get M and even AO rated games out into the market, and sell, while still giving parents the ability to protect their own children. You know, by parenting (sorry, that's a dig at people who complain about teenagers playing GTA3).
Ultimately, it depends on the consumers. If consumers purchase Revolution in large quantities, and developers can actually sell M rated games on the Revolution, they will make M rated games for the Revolution. The more games you buy, the more you encourage the developer to keep making those types of games.
Mario 128 is the working title of the game, and has nothing to do with a bit count. It was a demo that was originally displayed for the gamecube with 128 Marios running & bouncing around on gamecube hardware. Nintendo has, off and on, claimed that Mario 128 was a working title for a game, but have never officially confirmed it's existence. As a result, most of the people who follow such things just refer to the next Mario Platformer as being Mario 128. That will probably not be it's final name, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with the system being a 128 bit system.
"We don't know if we're going to do a worldwide launch yet, but we don't want you saying we're not going to until we're actually ready to announce it."
If history has taught us anything, it's that when a void opens in an industry, someone rushes in to fill it. Should, somehow, one console reign supreme, and the other two companies cease producing consoles, someone will see the chance to make big bucks, much the way Nintendo did in the 80's, and Sony (to a lesser extent) did in the 90's.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Also, Nintendo has only said online play will be free for first party titles. 3rd party publishers/developers can still charge for their online play. This leaves it open for an MMO style game, but not sure how likely that is with only 512MB of Flash RAM built in for storage.
Of course, the screenshots I've seen show that the level 1 brightness setting is significantly brighter than the DSPhat's backlight, so I can't imagine you'd ever actually need to take it up to brightness setting 4.
No, but the DS does play Meteos, which I personally enjoy more than Lumines. Lumines is a fine game, but not nearly as fascinating as Meteos...but that's a personal preference, so make your own judgement there.
Odd, I've seen plenty of DS commercials. From the ones for Kirby Canvas Curse (quite possibly one of the most surreal commercials ever) to the new Tetris ads. They tend to only play during the day though, or early mornings. I don't think I've ever seen them during prime time. That might be the issue (although, truth be told, I Tivo everything in primetime, so I never actually watch the commercials).
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.
The NES Classics thing I understand, those were too high, I never bought any of them either. But DS games are not that expensive. You will, occasionally, find DS games running at $50 US, and that is usually games like Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart DS and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, all of which have enough content and replayability to be worth as much as a PS2, Xbox or GC game. And this comes from a person who buys PS2 RPGs when they first come out on a regular basis. Super Princess Peach ran me $35 and I've spent more time playing it than I did Grandia III (which I beat, and which cust me at least $50, I don't specifically remember). It's one thing if you just don't like the games on the DS. But to say they are priced unreasonably is not representative of the market in which they are sold.
Actually that's partially incorrect. Yes, it was developed by ArtX, a company that was bought out by ATI approximately a month after the Gamecube was originally released.
That being said, the 360 is built much, much better than the original Xbox. But the Rev has a faster processor, and a GPU based on the GC one that has already proven itself to be superior. Only time will tell how much of a difference this really makes.
And considering that at least one controller will come with the system, and the development cost alone of that technology, your conclusion is fallacious.
I have, in my life, owned an NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Sega 32X. None of these systems do I own any longer, nor do I have more than 1 or 2 scattered games for them. I blame the lack of these games & systems on my siblings. Once I moved out and purchased a PS1, n64, PS2, Xbox & GC with my own money, I never had to worry about systems and/or games disappearing on me again, but I would still be interested in playing those games for the older systems I once possessed (as well as the TG16 games I only ever got to play when visiting a friend).