Nintendo Revolution specs

[Nowhere]

...
Nintendo is smartly playing into a niche market and I think they will do surprisingly well.

Let Sony and MS fight it out for the teen to tween (20-something not married) market, Nintendo will do well in the "family friendly" segment all by themselves.

Jammrock

Like Matrox?

[Claymonkey]

Well remember they are also focusing on making it the easiest to make games for this round. From what i've heard a decent amount of developers are interested this time which you couldn't say last time. Also if you remember back when the PS1 came out it was the least powerful of the generation but the easiest to code for. There is something to be said about low development costs to convince a game company to try something new.

[Mehen]

Nintendo is not turning into Matrox. The DS is selling like crazy.

[ZokesPro]

The thought that struck me first is that Nintendo is turning into Matrox.

And the second thought that struck me was: Those Nintendo fanboys are going to say "graphics doesn't matter, its the games that matter".

Third thought was: The only point of getting an nintendo is to play the Mario games. Otherwise unless its dirt cheap (like less than 100 bucks) people of my age (I'm 19) are just going to ignore its existance, unless they're still in the childhood stange and think playing 8 yr old game is fun. (i.e. not Mario... I think those are like "classics" for all age)

Sorry if I offended anyone here. =p

I dunno if many parents bought Resident Evil 4 for their 8 yr old.

I think it's going to be a decent system, but it depends on the games.

[Nowhere]

Claymokey, I somehow don't buy this argument. Simply because I can't imagine that Xbox360 is harder to code for if you don't use more than 1 core of its CPU. Still, much more powerfull.

|Mehen|, DS doesn't mean much when discussing stationary consoles IMHO. After all, Matrox is still supposedly strong when it comes to video editing. Or, in more closely related field, Sega still exists.

That said, I don't rule out that Revolution might turn out relatively fine...but the long term outcomes can be not so good...
Teens/people in 20s won't buy it:
1) they want great GFX
2) I can hardly imagine using Revolution controller to play in typical games those people play (or...I am an exception in that usually in such games I lend forward and need solid grip on the controller). Besides basing innovation on controller...c'mon, Sony was succesfull in shift from standard digital controller to Dual Schock on the same console
Sure, people with small kids might buy it. So it will strenghten the "Nintendo is for kids", and no kids will want to have Nintendo when in their teens. Fast forward 10 years, and those "kids" will be accustomed to non-Nintendo when having their kids. So only old people will want it.

Hmmmmm...OTOH, seeing how our populations are older and older...brilliant plan.

[Gurm]

Claymokey, I somehow don't buy this argument. Simply because I can't imagine that Xbox360 is harder to code for if you don't use more than 1 core of its CPU. Still, much more powerfull.

The XBox360 is a BITCH AND A HALF to code for. So says every coder that has weighed in on the subject, and I concur. No more just falling back on the DirectX SDK!

|Mehen|, DS doesn't mean much when discussing stationary consoles IMHO. After all, Matrox is still supposedly strong when it comes to video editing. Or, in more closely related field, Sega still exists.

Actually it does. Nintendo survives on two things - innovation and franchises. They NEVER have the best graphics (or not for long) and they NEVER have the most games, but they DO have rock solid smooth awesome gameplay on their flagship titles (Mario, Metroid, Zelda) and they ALWAYS innovate in some way.

That said, I don't rule out that Revolution might turn out relatively fine...but the long term outcomes can be not so good...
Teens/people in 20s won't buy it:
1) they want great GFX
2) I can hardly imagine using Revolution controller to play in typical games those people play (or...I am an exception in that usually in such games I lend forward and need solid grip on the controller). Besides basing innovation on controller...c'mon, Sony was succesfull in shift from standard digital controller to Dual Schock on the same console

The Revolution will still have regular controllers. So say I, prophet of all things Nintendo. Actually the weird controllers turn sideways anyway.

Sure, people with small kids might buy it. So it will strenghten the "Nintendo is for kids", and no kids will want to have Nintendo when in their teens. Fast forward 10 years, and those "kids" will be accustomed to non-Nintendo when having their kids. So only old people will want it.

Hmmmmm...OTOH, seeing how our populations are older and older...brilliant plan.

Actually the HUGE selling point of the Revolution is the emulation. They just announced that every TurboGrafix16 game, Sega Genesis, etc. are all licensed and available for emulation. They've got a TON of old stuff that anyone can play now. I'll buy it just for the SNES library, and so will a lot of people.

[Claymonkey]

Well the PS2 was a dog to code for and PS3 is suppose to be even more painful. The 360 is suppose to be somewhere between the the Rev and the PS3. Also Gamecube was easily the least powerful console but often kept up with the others in terms of output. Resident Evil 4 was argued my many to be the prettiest game of this last generation.

I see the initial camp of people buying this being.
1)parents buying for the kids due to: price, family friendly, 'exercise"
2)people like me that MUST play the next Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Mariokart,....
3)people that want to play all the old games that they can play on this

Now you have this user base. The developers are already making SOME new games and Nintendo is making the staples as always. Nintendo loosened the family friendly chokehold and games like Resident Evil 4 got made. Based on initial success I think we might see some interesting stuff this round.

... or I don't know what I'm talking about but I have my feelings on this one.

[Nowhere]

Yeah Gurm, like you and I can't play now those games...probably running better than they'll be running on Revolution. (OK, I'm not sure how emulation looks now in case of Turbografx, but the only games worth playing were never translated from Japanese)

I didn't know about Xbox...wasn't the first one easiest to code for? How did that turn out so bad now? (oh, and I forget something @Claymonkey - saying that PS1 was least powerfull is...simplicising things)

And about how Nintendo is solid about certain things...hmmm, but the 3rd party titles don't tend to be that good (I don't speak in relative numbers, but absolute). And I'm personally sick of Mario - loved it on NES, played a bit SNES version, but only a little, and N64 version...meh. (same with Zelda, but in this I also loved the SNES version, but N64...meh)

edit @Claymonkey:
PS2 is least powerfull. Gamecube is closer to XBox, in some areas surpassing it (or so I was told..by Gurm ). Also:
1) yep, so it will associated strongly with kids. And kids, when they grow up, don't want to be connected with "real kids", so they'll abandon Nintendo and never come back probably...
3) people who want to do that, probably already do, probably better.

[Gurm]

Yeah Gurm, like you and I can't play now those games...probably running better than they'll be running on Revolution. (OK, I'm not sure how emulation looks now in case of Turbografx, but the only games worth playing were never translated from Japanese)

Actually yes we can - ILLEGALLY.

I didn't know about Xbox...wasn't the first one easiest to code for? How did that turn out so bad now? (oh, and I forget something @Claymonkey - saying that PS1 was least powerfull is...simplicising things)

Yes, the original XBox was VERY easy to code for. It was just a P3 chip with a GeForce card, so it was like coding for Windows. (Even ran a version of Windows, sorta stripped way down, etc.)

And about how Nintendo is solid about certain things...hmmm, but the 3rd party titles don't tend to be that good (I don't speak in relative numbers, but absolute). And I'm personally sick of Mario - loved it on NES, played a bit SNES version, but only a little, and N64 version...meh. (same with Zelda, but in this I also loved the SNES version, but N64...meh)

For many (myself included), the N64 Mario ranks right up there with Super Mario World.

[Marshmallowman]

Xbox might be easy to code for but it doesn't seem so easy to do it very efficently, it has enough HP to run well enough, but you still saw plenty of games chugging.

The Gamecube seems to do very well for its "under poweredness", eg its straighforward to make effiencent code(nintendo know what they are doing). Can't think of any of may games that wasn't completely smooth.

The Rev is about twice as fast and very similar design to the gamecube, so all the experience and skills developers have already gained should be usable on the revolutuon, so they can hit the ground running so to speak. Add to that the requirements for SD tv should allow some leeway memory and graphic power wise.

The Rev looks like its going *hit the spot* with me, all the old games, easy to use multipplayer emphasis and nicely priced...I just hope I can recylcle my wavebird from mny gamcube.

If I want (better than)HD gaming I will stick to my PC thanks, for fun with freinds Rev looks spot on.
Yup , I am nintendo fanboy....because its non-BS fun

[schmosef]

Remember when getting a new Nintendo made you feel like this kid:

http://www.break.com/index/nin64kid.html

Those were the days...

[Claymonkey]

Remember when getting a new Nintendo made you feel like this kid:

http://www.break.com/index/nin64kid.html

Those were the days...

You as exciteable as I may be... I don't think I was ever THAT exciteable.

[Nowhere]

Actually yes we can - ILLEGALLY.

Actually we can even LEGALLY - you just have to own the ROM.

Yes, the original XBox was VERY easy to code for. It was just a P3 chip with a GeForce card, so it was like coding for Windows. (Even ran a version of Windows, sorta stripped way down, etc.)

Hmmm...OK, Xbox runs a derivative of win2k, and Xbox 360, apparently, derivative of Xbox OS:

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS3988467635.html

So I really don't see how, in pronciple, it should be that much harder (other than MS Xbox team really fvcked up) - I've had an impression that developers are mostly bitching at 3 cores, each running 2 threads.

Xbox might be easy to code for but it doesn't seem so easy to do it very efficently, it has enough HP to run well enough, but you still saw plenty of games chugging.

The Gamecube seems to do very well for its "under poweredness", eg its straighforward to make effiencent code(nintendo know what they are doing). Can't think of any of may games that wasn't completely smooth.

...

I believe this is mostly impression coming fromthe effect of scale...

edit: BTW, game worth buying XBox (orignal) for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Battalion

http://images.google.com/images?client=opera&rls=pl&q=steel%20battalion&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&sa=N&tab=wi

http://steelbattalion.org/

[Claymonkey]

Well the 360 uses a completely different processor than the original Xbox. One of the reasons they've had such a problem getting the old games to work on the 360 is it's basically running in emulation. I'm not even sure if you CAN use DirectX when you code natively for the 360. It's a multicore PowerPC chip versus the P3 variant of the xbox. So you're going from Cisc to Risc for starters and it only goes from there.

[Nowhere]

Uhmmm...not much difference when you aren't using assembler and haven't done anything stupid, I believe...especially in the example I mean, about not using the "weird" features of machine, and probably still ending up at least looking as good as Revolution.
And BTW, Windows once run on PowerPC, and neer lost the ability to be adapted, in newer versions.