Um...it's a redesign, not an upgrade. I have never purchased a GBASP or a GBM, and all the newest GBA games run just fine on my original GBA. You have no reason to go out and purchase this new DS version unless: you don't have a DS, your DS breaks, you want a slicker looking system, or you just have to have every new system. If it's the 4th one, then yes, this is something for you to worry about, not just because they will continue to refine the system until they decide it's not going to sell anymore, but also because you have a technology addiction and should seek professional help.
I think Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is actually pretty short, but for a side-scrolling ARPG, it's normal length. It also has optional stuff you can do after beating the game that lengthens it.
Mario & Luigi probably just came out in EU, and it is very fun, and of a decent length. It's definitely one of the better RPGs out there for any system.
Advance Wars DS is turn based, not real time. However, it is great, great fun, you will love it (as everyone should). The main campaign can be beaten in 2 days of straight playing if you're clever and dedicated (ie can't tear yourself away from the game). The Hard Campaign is a lot more difficult. Unfortunately they've added the ability to level your Commanders up for new skills, which is sort of nice, but leads to wasting time playing out simpler missions to level your COs so they actually stand a chance in the Hard Campaign. On the other hand, there are about 100 non-campaign maps which you can play alone or over local wireless that increase playtime as well. So if you have friends with a DS, it can hold your attention for a pretty long time.
Animal Crossing is iffy. It's a game with no dedicated goal, so if you like games like The Sims or even Nintendogs, you'll like it. And it takes at least a full year to see everything the game has to offer, but you don't have to play it more than 20 minutes a day, as long as you play it consistently 4 or 5 times a week.
The thing is, Nintendo has a lot of people working for them who enjoy making video games. As long as they have a home console that makes them money, they'll continue to stay in the home console business to make the larger, higher budget games, cause it's what they like doing.
To answer your second question, Nintendo might change their mind and make the DS the next gameboy, but I don't think they will. For one thing, gameboy has always been backwards compatible, and while DS plays GBA games, it doesn't play older GB & GBC games. Also, handhelds usually have a longer life cycle than home consoles, 10 years instead of 5. If they can do staggered releases, something in the GB line every 10 years, something in the DS line every 10 years, and a home Nintendo every 5 years, with the releases properly staggered, they can sell all 3 and make even more money than just selling any one of them.
So the answer to your question is, no one knows yet if the DS is the next gameboy or not. I'd say Nintendo probably hasn't made up their mind on it yet, and honestly, I'd rather they focus on the Revolution for now before they get into that sort of thing.
I never said the eyetoy wasn't innovative. It's an excellent device, I've played some of the games for it, and if it were better designed (or perhaps the eyetoy is fine, just the games themselves were badly designed) I would pick it up. But the fact remains that if a controller is not standard, few people are going to buy it, which leads to few developers utilizing it.
Nintendo's suffered the same thing with GBA connectivity and even the n64 rumble pack, so this time around they decided to do it the opposite way. Make the innovation standard, and the standard controller an add-on. That means developers will almost have to use the innovative controller, because they can't trust that everyone will have a standard controller handy.
Because Nintendo has never launched with less than 500,00 consoles? I'm not saying they may not randomly screw it up with the Rev and under manufacture it or something, I'm just saying they've never done anything quite so stupid before, so I wouldn't expect them to start now.
The point of the revolution controller is basically to be as transparent as possible. At it's most fundamental, a controller is nothing more than an abstraction. Have you ever actually looked at the manuals that come with a current gen game? I've been playing games for over 20 years now, I know console controllers backwards and forwards, and I still can't really make heads or tails of the controls looking at the manual. Even a simple game like Dynasty Warriors has far too many controls for me to intellectualize just by reading them. But since I'm so familiar with the existing control interface, once I pick up the controller and actually press the buttons, I have no problem. Unfortunately, not everyone has 20 years of experience with this interface and can just pick it up like that.
However, every single person on the planet knows how to move their hands, wrists and arms. By the age of 5 we're doing fairly complex actions with our hands without even thinking about it. The point of the revolution is to simplify controls to the extent that they're so intuitive you don't even need to think about it. It's no longer a matter of, 'press this button, then this button, wait 2 seconds, then press this button', but a matter of, 'move left, move right, wait for opponent to stand, move up and pull back real quick'. No human being is going to have a problem with the second one, we do the same thing every day. There are about 3 billion human beings who would look at the first one, try it out once, and then never go back because it just doesn't make any natural sense.
The problem with this whole controversy is, how precisely do you define art?
And example. One man takes a blank white canvas. He takes paint and in a frenzy of anger, fear, disgust, throws paint about, with no real image in mind, just a need to express. And that is called art.
Another man takes the same canvas, and with a pencil he draws a portrait of a woman. This woman means nothing to him, she is just a model. He uses techniques and skills he's been taught to best capture the natural beauty the woman already possesses. And that is called art.
You have two entirely different processes, one wild and emotional, the other structured and with inherent meaning, and both are considered art, even though they are completely and totally unrelated to each other.
Games are structured and rule based. They have environments, sound, characters and story. Each of those things, taken individually, is considered an art (graphic art, musical art, written art), but somehow, putting it all together in a coherent and believable fashion isn't art?
But really, I think the reason Kojima doesn't consider video games art is a a simple one.
The Art of a Video Game is in the gameplay.
Think about it. Art is about expression and empathy. Remember the original Super Mario Bros.? Hundreds of video games predated it, but it somehow captured our imaginations with simple and inventive, creative gameplay.
Tetris is similar. A work of sheer imaginative brilliance to make a puzzle out of falling blocks in random shapes.
That is art, that evokes a response, even a devotion, in those who partake of it. The reason Hideo Kojima does not see games as art is because most games aren't original creations. They're a thin veneer over something that has been done before. In much the way that a copy of the Mona Lisa is not art, but the original is, the thousands of Pac-Man ripoffs are not art, but the original is. I have no doubt that Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneoux and the like are artists, but most game developers don't create art, they just rehash and improve on ideas.
So, while a game can be art, just because it's a game doesn't mean it is art. Just as not all movies can be considered art, or all books, or all poems.
The problem is you're doing arithmetic calculations, not logarithmic calculations. You're also not taking construction into consideration.
The reason the 360 is more powerful than the Xbox is not because it has a super fast processor and impressive GPU. The reason it's more powerful is that, unlike the original Xbox, it was constructed like a game machine, not like a computer.
The Gamecube is the best constructed game console out currently (even better than the 360). Sure it's processor is only 384MHz, but it runs with about 4% wasted processor cycles. No matter how fast your processor is, you can never output information faster than you can grab it out of RAM. The the GC uses faster RAM than the 360 does, so while the 360 can perform nice physics calculations and whatnot, it's still wasting 30% of it's processor cycles waiting for RAM.
If the RAM on the Rev is twice as fast as the RAM on the GC, the fact that there's only 84 MB of it won't matter, because it'll process just as much data as the 360 does, at roughly the same speed, because it's not wasting it's time waiting to get the information.
Many found it very unappealing at first, I know about 15 people who've since changed their mind. I know even more who are still unconvinced. But so few people have actually gotten to play with it, there's still plenty of time for opinions to change. For better or worse.
Not every game, no. But most of the big 3rd parties (EA, Konami, Capcom, Square-Enix, Midway, Activision and others) are sure to relicense and sell their games. They might be more expensive than the 1st party titles, but they'll be there. I don't know any of those companies that will actively turn down free money.
The only ones you're liable to have trouble with are games no one is sure who holds the rights to, and games made by developers that are now owned by Sony or Microsoft (some of Rare's games, for instance, are up in the air over whether they will be available, most notably Goldeneye, for a plethora of reasons).
Actually, the Revolution controller, even with less buttons, has greater input capability than a standard controller. That's what a lot of people don't notice.
With the revmote alone, without ever touching a single button, you have 12 distinct action triggers. You also have easily reached A & B buttons, as well as a control pad. What's more, the setup of the controller is such that you have access to both buttons and all the movement at all times.
With a standard controller, you cannot use the left analong stick and the control pad at the same time. Nor can you use the right analog stick and the face buttons at the same time.
So you're looking at 14 input options on a revmote, vs 12 on a standard controller (4 options for left analog control, 4 face buttons, and 4 shoulder buttons - giving you the benefit of the doubt that you can press all 4 shoulder buttons simultaneously or individually with equal precision and access, not likely, but some people can mange it).
Add the nunchuck analog controller, and you have your existing 14 input options, plus 4 analog input options, plus 2 additional input options (L1 & L2), giving you a total of 20 input options, all with equal access. This isn't including combinations, as someone mentioned earlier (holding down the A button and moving the controller forward is different from holding down the B button and moving the controller forward, is differnt from moving the controller forward with no buttons depressed). That's 20 as compared to the 12 you can manage on a 360 or PS3 controller.
Of course, let's max out the input options, not just the ones you have equal access to. On revmote you have 18, 24 if you add the nunchuck. On a 360 or PS2 controller you have 22 (some people I forget the L3 & R3 buttons). This is not including start or select or home buttons, which are roughly equal on each system, and usually have no effect on gameplay (except on handhelds where some games are desperate for more buttons to use).
So the difficulty in porting from one system to the Revolution will be a purely conceptual one. But they wont' have to remove options, in fact, they may have to add options to Revolution games to make the control more logical and transparent.
I'm not entirely sure I see what your problem with gimmicks are my friend.
Shoulder buttons were considered a gimmick when they were first announced on the SNES.
Dedicated camera controls were considered a gimmick when they were announced for the n64, as was the controller expansion slot, and force feedback (which Nintendo announced before Sony added it standard to their controllers).
No one called the analog thumbstick a gimmick, but they did call dual screens, and touch screens a gimmick. But so are microphones, bongos, cameras and what-not. Let's not forget the gameboy camera predates the eyetoy by more than 5 years.
Just because something is a gimmick doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. It only remains a gimmick until it becomes the standard. So the Rev controller may be gimmicky today, but I'm willing to bet that many of it's features will be standard in the following generation of controllers.
Well, back in September, 4 months ago, we already had Revolution demos (at least for the press) to test out how the controller plays. No demos of visuals or actual games yet, though.
Not that that's really indicative of anything, but it is relevant to the discussion.
There are 2 differences between the eyetoy and the revmote, and each is important for different reasons.
Eyetoy is an add-on, the revmote is the standard controller for the system. How many people do you know who actually own an eyetoy? I'm going to assume, for the sake of argument, you know at least one, cause I don't know any, including myself. The reason? So far, there have not been any really good games to display what the eyetoy can do. If there was some AAA must have eyetoy title, you would see people picking it up. But there aren't, and there's just no reason to go out and buy the thing for most gamers.
On the other hand, every single person who owns a Revolution will have a revmote. Most will have two. The hardcore gamers, who buy the most games, will have 4. That means: more incentivie for developers to make games that utilize the revmote. Every game, no matter whether it's an F level piece of crap, or the greatest AAA game ever, will use the revmote.
The second big difference is in design. As neat an idea as it is, the eyetoy is a very shoddily designed product. From everything I've heard, it's going to be better integrated into the PS3 designed, and be improved significantly, but as it is currently, it's hardly worth the purchase.
Nintendo, in 20+ years of designing game consoles, has never made a bad controller. What's more, everyone who's actually used the revmote has raved about how responsive and easy to use it is. And that's not even the final design, they still have time to improve it.
You can be as innovative as you want, but if your innovation isn't actually any good, people still won't buy it. From everything I've heard from people who've actually gotten to use the revmote, it's a good innovation, and totally worth the risk Nintendo is taking.
Don't forget the Golf Club. Sell a golf game, and a club with added force feedback tech so when you change what club you're using in game, the club actually feels different, and every wanna be corporate big wig will have a Revolution in their office to practice their putts.
The number of ports Rev gets depends on how many people buy Revs. If there are 10 million Revs out there before the end of 2006, 3rd parties will begin porting games to Rev and adding extra features.
I find that awesome graphics interest me less and less these days. I'd buy a game with awesome features on the Rev over a game with awesome graphics on the PS3/360, even if the graphics are better (which they will only be if you actually have an HDTV, which I hope to purchase sometime this year). But if the game has the same features and same controls, then I'd easily buy the 360/PS3 version, cause, if everything else is equal, then whichever is slightly better wins.
So, the best we can hope for is better ports to the Rev.
Yes, I know, but unfortunately, I'm reading slashdot at work, and about half the sites that contain the source information I'm quoting are blocked.
You're right about the triviality of polygon numbers. What really matters at this point are the effects. I think most of the upgrades from Flipper to Hollywood are to introduce the new technologies ATI has developed in the past 5 years, like combined vertex/pixel shaders, so it should be at least on par with the R5xx architecture, possibly superior (won't kow for sure until someone gets to play around with it).
You can trust sales figures from Japan. Japanese sales figures are compiled by a 3rd party company that does nothing but gather data and release it. They have no stake in what the numbers are, only in how accurate they are. They've been doing it for over 10 years. Japan is the only country that has reliable games sales numbers. In the US we have the NPD, but their numbers are not currently 100% reliable, but they're at least 80% reliable, and they're the best we've got.
Not everyone gets motion sickness. I can read, play 3d games or 2d games, on a bus or in a car, and I have no problems. I know other people who get horrible motion sickness trying to do either.
You're right about the daylight thing, it's a problem with either system, but if you really want to play a game, you can get over it.
All you other arguments are perfectly valid though.
You've got the CPU information correct, but the GPU information is wrong.
The GPU for the GC was designed by ArtX shortly before they were bought by ATI. The GPU for the Rev is going to be an upgraded version of the Flipper GPU, which was already inherently superior to the GPU the 360 is using (specifically, the Flipper was so powerful that it was never fully utilized, the CPU couldn't handle more than 50% of what the GPU could output).
The Rev will only have about 100MB system RAM, but it uses faster RAM for less wasted processor cycles, nothing's been said for certain abotu the video RAM, but most are estimating 64MB or less.
Also, the Rev will probably have at least twice the CPU cache of the 360, possibly more.
So while the Rev will have a slower CPU, won't matter because it won't be wasting processor cycles. It'll have a superior graphics card, with better effects, but less memory for larger scale textures, which it won't need because it won't be outputting higher than 480p, so that may not mean anything. Should have nearly identical polygon counts, and similar lighting effects, probably slightly longer load times. Otherwise I doubt there's much difference between the two graphically at 480i/p. The larger cache will give it better branching predictions for better AI however. 360 with more cores & dual threads will probably handle physics better, unless the Rev also includes a PPU (which has been rumored, but which no one reliable has so far confirmed or denied).
I think the chances of seeing a redesigned DS before the Rev is released are slightly less than 1%. It seems more likely for Nintendo to focus on Rev development to have the best launch possible. Then in the 3 month game drought that usually follows a console release, you'll see a redesigned DS coming out.
I meant older gamers & female gamers have money to spend. The subject was the market, not Nintendo, I may have expressed it with more cryptic grammar than usual.
Animal Crossing is one of a "new" type of game called sandbox games.
The definition, 'It's like playing in a sandbox. There's no goal, there's no pressure, you can pretty much do whatever you want.'
This type of game appeals to a very different mindset than the "standard" video game. Some people, enjoy it, some do not. Much like Nintendogs (which also has no real goal) and the Sims (again, no real goal) it appeals very strongly to female gamers and older gamers, a market Nintendo targets because they also have money to spend.
Well, I'll be honest, I was pretty much just talking about Nintendo's big franchise games. Nintendo puts an awful lot of effort into each sequel. Of course, even with the big N there are exceptions (Mario Party being one hideously glaring example, sure they're all fun, but they're all exactly the same fun).
Myself, I'm fine when a good game has a sequel that cleans up what was wrong with the original, but after that, there's no point in sequels unless you're going to improve gameplay. I don't mind playing the same game twice. I draw the line at playing it three or more times.
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Um...it's a redesign, not an upgrade. I have never purchased a GBASP or a GBM, and all the newest GBA games run just fine on my original GBA. You have no reason to go out and purchase this new DS version unless: you don't have a DS, your DS breaks, you want a slicker looking system, or you just have to have every new system. If it's the 4th one, then yes, this is something for you to worry about, not just because they will continue to refine the system until they decide it's not going to sell anymore, but also because you have a technology addiction and should seek professional help.
Mario & Luigi probably just came out in EU, and it is very fun, and of a decent length. It's definitely one of the better RPGs out there for any system.
Advance Wars DS is turn based, not real time. However, it is great, great fun, you will love it (as everyone should). The main campaign can be beaten in 2 days of straight playing if you're clever and dedicated (ie can't tear yourself away from the game). The Hard Campaign is a lot more difficult. Unfortunately they've added the ability to level your Commanders up for new skills, which is sort of nice, but leads to wasting time playing out simpler missions to level your COs so they actually stand a chance in the Hard Campaign. On the other hand, there are about 100 non-campaign maps which you can play alone or over local wireless that increase playtime as well. So if you have friends with a DS, it can hold your attention for a pretty long time.
Animal Crossing is iffy. It's a game with no dedicated goal, so if you like games like The Sims or even Nintendogs, you'll like it. And it takes at least a full year to see everything the game has to offer, but you don't have to play it more than 20 minutes a day, as long as you play it consistently 4 or 5 times a week.
The thing is, Nintendo has a lot of people working for them who enjoy making video games. As long as they have a home console that makes them money, they'll continue to stay in the home console business to make the larger, higher budget games, cause it's what they like doing.
To answer your second question, Nintendo might change their mind and make the DS the next gameboy, but I don't think they will. For one thing, gameboy has always been backwards compatible, and while DS plays GBA games, it doesn't play older GB & GBC games. Also, handhelds usually have a longer life cycle than home consoles, 10 years instead of 5. If they can do staggered releases, something in the GB line every 10 years, something in the DS line every 10 years, and a home Nintendo every 5 years, with the releases properly staggered, they can sell all 3 and make even more money than just selling any one of them.
So the answer to your question is, no one knows yet if the DS is the next gameboy or not. I'd say Nintendo probably hasn't made up their mind on it yet, and honestly, I'd rather they focus on the Revolution for now before they get into that sort of thing.
Nintendo's suffered the same thing with GBA connectivity and even the n64 rumble pack, so this time around they decided to do it the opposite way. Make the innovation standard, and the standard controller an add-on. That means developers will almost have to use the innovative controller, because they can't trust that everyone will have a standard controller handy.
Because Nintendo has never launched with less than 500,00 consoles? I'm not saying they may not randomly screw it up with the Rev and under manufacture it or something, I'm just saying they've never done anything quite so stupid before, so I wouldn't expect them to start now.
The point of the revolution controller is basically to be as transparent as possible. At it's most fundamental, a controller is nothing more than an abstraction. Have you ever actually looked at the manuals that come with a current gen game? I've been playing games for over 20 years now, I know console controllers backwards and forwards, and I still can't really make heads or tails of the controls looking at the manual. Even a simple game like Dynasty Warriors has far too many controls for me to intellectualize just by reading them. But since I'm so familiar with the existing control interface, once I pick up the controller and actually press the buttons, I have no problem. Unfortunately, not everyone has 20 years of experience with this interface and can just pick it up like that.
However, every single person on the planet knows how to move their hands, wrists and arms. By the age of 5 we're doing fairly complex actions with our hands without even thinking about it. The point of the revolution is to simplify controls to the extent that they're so intuitive you don't even need to think about it. It's no longer a matter of, 'press this button, then this button, wait 2 seconds, then press this button', but a matter of, 'move left, move right, wait for opponent to stand, move up and pull back real quick'. No human being is going to have a problem with the second one, we do the same thing every day. There are about 3 billion human beings who would look at the first one, try it out once, and then never go back because it just doesn't make any natural sense.
And example. One man takes a blank white canvas. He takes paint and in a frenzy of anger, fear, disgust, throws paint about, with no real image in mind, just a need to express. And that is called art.
Another man takes the same canvas, and with a pencil he draws a portrait of a woman. This woman means nothing to him, she is just a model. He uses techniques and skills he's been taught to best capture the natural beauty the woman already possesses. And that is called art.
You have two entirely different processes, one wild and emotional, the other structured and with inherent meaning, and both are considered art, even though they are completely and totally unrelated to each other.
Games are structured and rule based. They have environments, sound, characters and story. Each of those things, taken individually, is considered an art (graphic art, musical art, written art), but somehow, putting it all together in a coherent and believable fashion isn't art?
But really, I think the reason Kojima doesn't consider video games art is a a simple one.
The Art of a Video Game is in the gameplay.
Think about it. Art is about expression and empathy. Remember the original Super Mario Bros.? Hundreds of video games predated it, but it somehow captured our imaginations with simple and inventive, creative gameplay.
Tetris is similar. A work of sheer imaginative brilliance to make a puzzle out of falling blocks in random shapes.
That is art, that evokes a response, even a devotion, in those who partake of it. The reason Hideo Kojima does not see games as art is because most games aren't original creations. They're a thin veneer over something that has been done before. In much the way that a copy of the Mona Lisa is not art, but the original is, the thousands of Pac-Man ripoffs are not art, but the original is. I have no doubt that Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneoux and the like are artists, but most game developers don't create art, they just rehash and improve on ideas.
So, while a game can be art, just because it's a game doesn't mean it is art. Just as not all movies can be considered art, or all books, or all poems.
The reason the 360 is more powerful than the Xbox is not because it has a super fast processor and impressive GPU. The reason it's more powerful is that, unlike the original Xbox, it was constructed like a game machine, not like a computer.
The Gamecube is the best constructed game console out currently (even better than the 360). Sure it's processor is only 384MHz, but it runs with about 4% wasted processor cycles. No matter how fast your processor is, you can never output information faster than you can grab it out of RAM. The the GC uses faster RAM than the 360 does, so while the 360 can perform nice physics calculations and whatnot, it's still wasting 30% of it's processor cycles waiting for RAM.
If the RAM on the Rev is twice as fast as the RAM on the GC, the fact that there's only 84 MB of it won't matter, because it'll process just as much data as the 360 does, at roughly the same speed, because it's not wasting it's time waiting to get the information.
Many found it very unappealing at first, I know about 15 people who've since changed their mind. I know even more who are still unconvinced. But so few people have actually gotten to play with it, there's still plenty of time for opinions to change. For better or worse.
The only ones you're liable to have trouble with are games no one is sure who holds the rights to, and games made by developers that are now owned by Sony or Microsoft (some of Rare's games, for instance, are up in the air over whether they will be available, most notably Goldeneye, for a plethora of reasons).
With the revmote alone, without ever touching a single button, you have 12 distinct action triggers. You also have easily reached A & B buttons, as well as a control pad. What's more, the setup of the controller is such that you have access to both buttons and all the movement at all times.
With a standard controller, you cannot use the left analong stick and the control pad at the same time. Nor can you use the right analog stick and the face buttons at the same time.
So you're looking at 14 input options on a revmote, vs 12 on a standard controller (4 options for left analog control, 4 face buttons, and 4 shoulder buttons - giving you the benefit of the doubt that you can press all 4 shoulder buttons simultaneously or individually with equal precision and access, not likely, but some people can mange it).
Add the nunchuck analog controller, and you have your existing 14 input options, plus 4 analog input options, plus 2 additional input options (L1 & L2), giving you a total of 20 input options, all with equal access. This isn't including combinations, as someone mentioned earlier (holding down the A button and moving the controller forward is different from holding down the B button and moving the controller forward, is differnt from moving the controller forward with no buttons depressed). That's 20 as compared to the 12 you can manage on a 360 or PS3 controller.
Of course, let's max out the input options, not just the ones you have equal access to. On revmote you have 18, 24 if you add the nunchuck. On a 360 or PS2 controller you have 22 (some people I forget the L3 & R3 buttons). This is not including start or select or home buttons, which are roughly equal on each system, and usually have no effect on gameplay (except on handhelds where some games are desperate for more buttons to use).
So the difficulty in porting from one system to the Revolution will be a purely conceptual one. But they wont' have to remove options, in fact, they may have to add options to Revolution games to make the control more logical and transparent.
Shoulder buttons were considered a gimmick when they were first announced on the SNES.
Dedicated camera controls were considered a gimmick when they were announced for the n64, as was the controller expansion slot, and force feedback (which Nintendo announced before Sony added it standard to their controllers).
No one called the analog thumbstick a gimmick, but they did call dual screens, and touch screens a gimmick. But so are microphones, bongos, cameras and what-not. Let's not forget the gameboy camera predates the eyetoy by more than 5 years.
Just because something is a gimmick doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. It only remains a gimmick until it becomes the standard. So the Rev controller may be gimmicky today, but I'm willing to bet that many of it's features will be standard in the following generation of controllers.
Whoa, wait, you're the first person I've heard who's actually held the PS3 controller. How is the analog control on it?
Not that that's really indicative of anything, but it is relevant to the discussion.
Eyetoy is an add-on, the revmote is the standard controller for the system. How many people do you know who actually own an eyetoy? I'm going to assume, for the sake of argument, you know at least one, cause I don't know any, including myself. The reason? So far, there have not been any really good games to display what the eyetoy can do. If there was some AAA must have eyetoy title, you would see people picking it up. But there aren't, and there's just no reason to go out and buy the thing for most gamers.
On the other hand, every single person who owns a Revolution will have a revmote. Most will have two. The hardcore gamers, who buy the most games, will have 4. That means: more incentivie for developers to make games that utilize the revmote. Every game, no matter whether it's an F level piece of crap, or the greatest AAA game ever, will use the revmote.
The second big difference is in design. As neat an idea as it is, the eyetoy is a very shoddily designed product. From everything I've heard, it's going to be better integrated into the PS3 designed, and be improved significantly, but as it is currently, it's hardly worth the purchase.
Nintendo, in 20+ years of designing game consoles, has never made a bad controller. What's more, everyone who's actually used the revmote has raved about how responsive and easy to use it is. And that's not even the final design, they still have time to improve it.
You can be as innovative as you want, but if your innovation isn't actually any good, people still won't buy it. From everything I've heard from people who've actually gotten to use the revmote, it's a good innovation, and totally worth the risk Nintendo is taking.
Don't forget the Golf Club. Sell a golf game, and a club with added force feedback tech so when you change what club you're using in game, the club actually feels different, and every wanna be corporate big wig will have a Revolution in their office to practice their putts.
I find that awesome graphics interest me less and less these days. I'd buy a game with awesome features on the Rev over a game with awesome graphics on the PS3/360, even if the graphics are better (which they will only be if you actually have an HDTV, which I hope to purchase sometime this year). But if the game has the same features and same controls, then I'd easily buy the 360/PS3 version, cause, if everything else is equal, then whichever is slightly better wins.
So, the best we can hope for is better ports to the Rev.
You're right about the triviality of polygon numbers. What really matters at this point are the effects. I think most of the upgrades from Flipper to Hollywood are to introduce the new technologies ATI has developed in the past 5 years, like combined vertex/pixel shaders, so it should be at least on par with the R5xx architecture, possibly superior (won't kow for sure until someone gets to play around with it).
You can trust sales figures from Japan. Japanese sales figures are compiled by a 3rd party company that does nothing but gather data and release it. They have no stake in what the numbers are, only in how accurate they are. They've been doing it for over 10 years. Japan is the only country that has reliable games sales numbers. In the US we have the NPD, but their numbers are not currently 100% reliable, but they're at least 80% reliable, and they're the best we've got.
Not everyone gets motion sickness. I can read, play 3d games or 2d games, on a bus or in a car, and I have no problems. I know other people who get horrible motion sickness trying to do either.
You're right about the daylight thing, it's a problem with either system, but if you really want to play a game, you can get over it.
All you other arguments are perfectly valid though.
You've got the CPU information correct, but the GPU information is wrong.
The GPU for the GC was designed by ArtX shortly before they were bought by ATI. The GPU for the Rev is going to be an upgraded version of the Flipper GPU, which was already inherently superior to the GPU the 360 is using (specifically, the Flipper was so powerful that it was never fully utilized, the CPU couldn't handle more than 50% of what the GPU could output). The Rev will only have about 100MB system RAM, but it uses faster RAM for less wasted processor cycles, nothing's been said for certain abotu the video RAM, but most are estimating 64MB or less. Also, the Rev will probably have at least twice the CPU cache of the 360, possibly more.
So while the Rev will have a slower CPU, won't matter because it won't be wasting processor cycles. It'll have a superior graphics card, with better effects, but less memory for larger scale textures, which it won't need because it won't be outputting higher than 480p, so that may not mean anything. Should have nearly identical polygon counts, and similar lighting effects, probably slightly longer load times. Otherwise I doubt there's much difference between the two graphically at 480i/p. The larger cache will give it better branching predictions for better AI however. 360 with more cores & dual threads will probably handle physics better, unless the Rev also includes a PPU (which has been rumored, but which no one reliable has so far confirmed or denied).
I think the chances of seeing a redesigned DS before the Rev is released are slightly less than 1%. It seems more likely for Nintendo to focus on Rev development to have the best launch possible. Then in the 3 month game drought that usually follows a console release, you'll see a redesigned DS coming out.
I meant older gamers & female gamers have money to spend. The subject was the market, not Nintendo, I may have expressed it with more cryptic grammar than usual.
Animal Crossing is one of a "new" type of game called sandbox games.
The definition, 'It's like playing in a sandbox. There's no goal, there's no pressure, you can pretty much do whatever you want.'
This type of game appeals to a very different mindset than the "standard" video game. Some people, enjoy it, some do not. Much like Nintendogs (which also has no real goal) and the Sims (again, no real goal) it appeals very strongly to female gamers and older gamers, a market Nintendo targets because they also have money to spend.
Myself, I'm fine when a good game has a sequel that cleans up what was wrong with the original, but after that, there's no point in sequels unless you're going to improve gameplay. I don't mind playing the same game twice. I draw the line at playing it three or more times.