Nintendo Revolution Details Emerge 581
Pyrohazard writes "Nintendo has posted some details on the Revolution to their official site, finally giving us some insight into what the console will be like. From the site: 'It will be about the thickness of three standard DVD cases and only slightly longer.' This makes it the smallest Nintendo console yet! It will also be able to stand up, similar to the PS2, and the Xbox 360. It will be backwards compatible, and it will also play '12cm optical disks in the same self-loading media drive'. It also states that it will have a very quick start-up time, and be very quiet. It finishes by stating 'Get ready for the Nintendo Revolution in 2006!'" C|Net has an article up arguing that Nintendo is making an error in missing the 2005 Holiday season.
Fan-made Video (must see) (Score:5, Interesting)
mirror 1 [onefed.com]
mirror 2 [ign.com]
Article about video [ign.com]
So far so good (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like they are taking a leaf out of the mac minis book with the form factor
Its wonderfull they have confrimed backwards compatability which will be very important in giving them a good start with a cataloug of games though they may be missing out here if they don't include some form of DVD playback.
I have argued a few times that its not the features that sell a console but the games , but all things being equal otherwise the features can make or break the sale.
I am awaiting news of the conectivity with the DS , this is pure idle speculation
That is pure idle speculation though
Actually, I think it's pretty bright... (Score:5, Interesting)
Backwards compatability - this will help (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the GameCube used PPC, it looks like Nintendo will be the only one with an (relatively) easy backwards compatability story. The PS2 could perhaps be emulated since it was only a 300Mhz MIPS processor, but I pity the person that has to write the emulator for the pipelining stages on the VUs. Microsoft has not said whether they'll be backwards compatible, but I predict the answer is no.
Whats the Revolution? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps something [gamespy.com] about the controller?
Or perhaps some obscure feature [ign.com] that we'll hafta wait longer to see?
I was hoping to see something about that in this article but I guess I will hafta wait longer... If anyone has a link to what I think I'm talking about, I'd appreciate it.
Re:A revolution too late I'd say (Score:5, Interesting)
"(Update 05/13/05) I have had a couple of readers that commented on Microsoft stating that the Xbox 360 was "water cooled." While this might be technically true, it carries a very heavy marketing spin in order to glom onto an enthusiast technology. To be succinct, the Xbox 360 is not water cooled in the way we, meaning just about every computer hardware enthusiast on the planet, tend to think of water cooling. The Xbox 360 motherboard we were shown did have a CPU heatsink in place that utilized a heatpipe. Yes, a heatpipe does have liquid in it and some H2O as well, but is usually primarily ammonia. In a heatpipe, the liquid at the "hot" end vaporizes, and is moved to the "cold" end of the heatpipe by a pressure differential and convection. Once the heat is transferred to the fins in the cold end, the substance condenses and the process repeats. The CPU cooler we saw on the Xbox 360 processor looked very much like this CPU cooler seen at Plycon except the Xbox 360 cooler was taller than wider and only utilized one copper heatpipe tube."
Link -> http://www.hardocp.com/articleprint.html?article_i d=768 [hardocp.com]
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Missing holiday season that bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, not being able to get it makes people want it more. It's fairly standard marketing practice to actually artificially make your product more scarce, because it makes people want it more.
Many of those fad Christmas gifts were hard to find... because it was all planned that way by the people making them. Intentionally making shipments erratic, etc. There's no reason why they couldn't flood the market with the product... but then nobody would want it as badly. Of course once the Christmas season they give up on the charade and just ship them normally.
Remember when Gmail was "invite-only" and everyone that you know couldn't get an invite fast enough? Again, articially-induced scarcity.
Nintendo is losing big by missing Christmas, a time when demand is typically quintupled. They would miss it only if they had no other choice.
I'm praying... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is good to maintain backward compatibility, Nintendo will have an easier time getting people that own a GameCube to buy their new console - just as Sony had an easier time getting people who owned the Playstation to buy the Playstation 2. This will give them an easier time with launching this new system.
Not only that, but as the new console generation pops up starting this Christmas, people will take into account which system has the most enjoyable games - if Xbox 360 doesn't have a solid number of good games at release time and isn't able to play Xbox games, they may find people holding back to get a Playstation 3s or Revolutions because of the already present game catalog.
I'm rooting for Nintendo, they've had some extremely fun games on the GameCube with a massively higher ratio of good games to bad when put alongside the Xbox or Playstation 2. The Mario sports games have all been excellent and enjoyable, rather than a pretty simulation of the sport like the EA and Sega sports titles carried by the competition.
Re:A revolution too late I'd say (Score:1, Interesting)
OTOH, water cooling is a relatively expensive option. If, as in the previous XBox, Microsoft sells XBox360 below cost, that's another $5 or $10 per unit (times millions) it'll cost them for something of questionable marketing value.
None of the new consoles will make 2005 (Score:3, Interesting)
All the new machines will arrive in British shops mid 2006, at high prices, and a round of price cuts will happen in the lead-up to Christmas, when games start appearing in volume.
2005's Christmas console race is already decided. The PSP will be in the shops with a lot of games. Any next-gen machine won't have the manufacturing volume or the games line-up to compete.
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, EVERYONE has a dvd player now, who cares. Nobody bought an xbox for watching DVD's (not to mention the required 50$ remote) I don't know a single non-gamer (the majority of my friends) who watches dvd's on their xbox or ps2.
Not to mention, adding this drives up the price and drives up the complexity, which drives down the quality (I'm not saying the DVD funtionality is what causes xbox and ps2 drives to break so often, but complexity always makes things less stable)
Re:dvd drive? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait a minute.... (Score:3, Interesting)
True Sony have made noises about releasing the PS3 this year, but they did exactly the same thing to spoil the Dreamcast's launch. And even though they were about a year after the DC, Sony still had crappy release titles.
Great News! Will Nintendo Leapfrog Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You guys are misunderstanding the video (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) They need to grow up as fast as possible and
2) That being mature means you get to kill shit with blood and gore?
Between me and my roommate we have all three major consoles and the system we use the least is the xbox. In fact he's not even planning on bringing that thing back next year, he's spent more time playing my gamecube than his own xbox and we are in the age group that kids are seemingly obsessed with becoming.
I knew the moment the xbox came out with it's potato-feeling controller, central unit that couldn't sit flat in some store's display cases, and collection of like two interesting platform specific games (neither of which interest me in particular) that I would never buy one.
Re:Is a single option here a selling point? No. (Score:2, Interesting)
Things should always load in the background
But it seems like years ago that I played the game Metroid Prime, and it was absolutely incredible in terms of pre-emptive loading.
It still bugs the shit out of me that most games make you prompt 2 or 3 times to write to a flash card
Sony and MS are still exploring whether the games console is the best way to introduce the executive-wet-dream they like to call 'converage'. One device, for everything you need. One vendor. Total market share across horizontal markets such as TV, movies, music and games. I like the fact that Nintendo doesn't give a god damn what their machines do except let you play fun games non-stop.
Re:So far so good (Score:3, Interesting)
The Gameboy came out when Nintendo had its old seal of approval, ensuring that a lot of truly classic games were released for it.
While Nintendo still only had the GBA, Sega released the Gamegear. Atari released the Lynx - both vastly more technically able systems. Where are they now?
Even after their demise, when Nintendo released the Gameboy color, it was still less technically able than either of them.
Then, finally, Nintendo released the GBA. Consolewise it was roughly comparable to the deeply out of date Super Nintendo. Still, it sold massively.
Now Nintendo's released the DS (roughly comparable to an N64 with some cute gimmicks) while Sony has released a handheld PS2 in the form of the PSP. And still Nintendo don't seem to be too worried.
While arguments can be made about Nintendo's path through the actual console wars, they've had a lot of experience with handhelds that's no doubt taught them some very soid lessons.
It suggests that you don't have to win the immediate numbers market. You can let the others blow hundreds of millions in advertising budgets and take a massive loss *cough*microsoft*cough* on every console initially sold. If you can define your market (pure, fun, consistenly good games with an emphasis on children-friendly) and be profitable within it (because parents keep on buying their kids your nice safe system, year after year, whether it's technically the most advanced or not) then you're doing pretty well.
It's kind of like comparing the sales figures of an ambulance manufacturer against Ford's for the Explorer line. Sure, both have wheels, chassis, boxy metal bits, etc. and most of their drivers are convinced they have the power of life and death over everyone around them. At the end of the day though, that ambulance manufacturer isn't trying to get the best selling SUV in North America. It's making great profits selling smaller numbers of a very specific niche vehicle that it considers hugely important. While the bragging rights might be nice, it is pretty happy where it is.
C|Net is bitter (Score:2, Interesting)
The landscape for Nintendo information is going to get very strange. First you worry that IGN and GameSpy will be too positive about Nintendo. Then you think that Gamespot and C|Net are going to get vindictive.
Why couldn't Nintendo buy everyone off like Sony and Microsoft do?
This is a Confirmed Fake (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, I've got a DVD player and a Gamecube. I've also got a receiver to amplify sound b/c the sound on my TV absolutely sucks (but that's another story). I've got to use a KVM switch (dunno what they're called to switch between DVD and gamecube, but you get the idea) to manually switch between the two systems when I want to go from one to the other.
Also, when my current DVD player breaks down, I can pay a bit (???) more and get a Revolution. In other words, I'm saving about $100 off the purchase price. There is absolutely no downside that I can see, especially since mini-DVDs can currently be used in conjunction with a mod chip to play burned Gamecube games right now anyway (so risk of piracy is the same).
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Very Quiet (Score:4, Interesting)
Controller setup (Score:2, Interesting)
"Each player will actually have two controllers, one for each hand. They will each have a joystick or d-pad, a regular shoulder button, and a pressure sensitive trigger, kinda like the gamecube. But he said the real kicker is that they also have laser readers of some sort in the top of the controller, above the triggers that can tell where you are pointing. So for instance if you were playing a FPS, you'd point it up and you'd look up, move it right and you'd look right."
All consoles going IBM PPC? Days of X86 numbered? (Score:3, Interesting)
With these consoles coming out with HD support, fast multi-core CPU's (PPC), I'm wondering if Intel and AMD are worried that they might loose market shared to the consoles especially if they supported web, IM and email through optional keyboards/mice.
Will Apple receive a 3+ Ghz multicore processor soon from Apple?
Will this lead to more games being ported to the Mac "first"?
Revolution video on gametrailers (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=5779&ty
Re:dvd drive? (Score:4, Interesting)
As it is coming out in 2006, I expect that it will either be a Bluray variant, or a HD-DVD variant. I'm hoping it will be a HD-DVD variant. Why? Because I can buy a Revolution for the fun multiplayer games and Nintendo franchise games, and get a free HD-DVD player, and then I can buy a PS3 for the more serious action games, and get a free Bluray player! Either that, or it will be a standard DVD-a-like to cut costs.
The XBox360 is the loser here, everyone has a DVD player already. Maybe if it supported DVD Audio, and the console was silent to boot
Re:Are they making an error ? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, if your goal in buying a Nintendo system is to play it and enjoy it for the toy that it is, then a DVD player only makes your toy more expensive.
Nintendo's not overly concerned with being number one - they want to make good games, and they're turning enough of a profit to allow them to continue to focus on innovation and gameplay - something that gamers should appreciate, whether you enjoy their stuff or not.
Re:Very Quiet (Score:3, Interesting)
however, i *love* that gta:sa has no loading whilst driving. frickin sweet.
Re:Great News! Will Nintendo Leapfrog Microsoft? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have long expected Samsung to jump in with MS for the Xbox program if not buy out MS's share. The MTV special was LOADED with Samsung ads. The two companies are apparently already living together.
Why? Microsoft wants to beat PS3 and Samsung just wants Sony dead. Worse for Sony, Samsung is on a tear and actually has the products to do it, in vertical markets both dominated by Sony and in markets Sony can't touch. What crumbs Samsung leaves behind, LG is happy to grab. Sony is under huge pressure they simply have not felt in years.
For MS, Samsung brings the manufacturing skills that would come in handy for making consoles.
Right now, making Sony miserable is Samsung job #1 and if they can throw a few billion at videogames and give Sony a massive headache, they'll do it. In a flash.
So I speculate they will either go in with MS as coproducers on Xbox360 or the third Xbox will be made by Samsung and powered by MS.
If it happens, I was scoop credit.