http://revolution.ign.com/articles/699/699118p1.html This is kind of similar to the report IGN made a couple months ago. You might want to take this with a grain of salt since I think IGN has reported false information like this before, not to mention April 1st is coming up pretty soon. This does go along with what Nintendo has been saying, but it does seem a bit to the extreme if true(as I said in the earlier thread). Again, unless the controller tech is very expensive (which, apparently it is, but probably not that expensive), I would think the Revolution would have a very friendly price tag, even at launch.
I saw this on a another forum and thought it was pretty funny: BTW, for those not wanting to believe it, I think IGN said this wasn't an April Fool's joke. Well, even though the specs are really disappointing (if true), I guess there's always that yet-to-be-revealed secret...
The specs are totally disappointing, but I haven't trusted IGN or Matt in a long time. However, the real specs won't change that much IMO. I do think the new price point for games (~$60) will offset this bad news because the games will be much cheaper on the Revolution. I'm fairly certain now that I'll only buy the system if it hit $150 or a $100 dollars below launch price. I'm pretty patient when it comes to games, and I've never thought Nintendo has been making standalone or complete systems since the N64. Their games are fun and innovative, but it's not the system to buy if you had to choose just one console.
Well its become much more of a niche market. There really is no point in joining the tech wars with PS3 and xbox 360. You cant win that battle. Both of them have the games that can take advantage of that. Meanwhile, nintendo's core games dont really utilize graphics in nearly the same fashion and as a result they can lay off the tech and focus on lowering prices. They've got their niche games and niche market so its fine that they take it slow on the tech. I'll be happy as long as its cheap. I still play my NES and Super NES anyway, so I'm not much of a graphics person to begin with.
The thing is that they could have made a pretty powerful system (IOW, a system not comparable to the PS2/GC/XBX...even the PSP), and still not joined Sony and MS in a tech war. It wouldn't have been very hard or expensive to put in some 1-2GHz CPU core that is similar to the cores in the 360 (and the main core in Cell), plus some modified ATI PC card like a X1600. Both of those would cost ~$100 each, maybe less. The only thing that might keep them from doing that would be fitting that in the small case, but it isn't like the small case is necessary (they might have the small case so they have an excuse for not really trying with the tech specs). At this point, Nintendo is basically just releasing a new controller with a redesigned Gamecube, not releasing a new next-gen console that happens to have a new controller. BTW, as I've said before, higher tech specs don't mean just better graphics. Assuming these specs are true, the PS3/360 will have some types of gameplay (think physics-based gameplay) that are impossible on the Revolution, just like the Revolution will have some types of gameplay that are impossible on the PS3/360 (although unlike Nintendo, I suppose Sony and/or MS can still release a peripheral that acts in a similar fashion, like the Eyetoy). While I guess that would have been true regardless to a degree, the Revolution would fare a little better with some more respectable specs, allowing it to run some complicated AI algorithms, some "next-gen" physics, some decent lighting, etc.
Nintendo is playing on it's strongest hands... and that is original titles and innovative Gameplay. While I love the graphics of the 360, if the Revolution can produce XBox type graphics with innovative gameplay and great original titles then it is going to be a success... and I think that is all Nintendo is worried about.
With the library Nintendo has and now that they will be adding old Sega games for download I dont think it will have to be a huge jump in hardware.. If the price is right with the library they are going to make available I think this thing will sell better than any of us think..
Wow, how underwhelming....but Nintendo has never been about mind-blowing graphics, it's been about gameplay. I still play SNES games and they are fun 15 years after they were released.
As I understand it, it's about twice as powerful as the current Gamecube. The GC did some pretty impressive things graphically, so while it's not a powerhouse (and, clearly, I think a lot of people are seeing exactly why Nintendo says it's going in a different direction) it's not necessarily a step backward either. Nintendo seems more than happy to let MS and Sony battle it out in the tech spec wars.
Yeah, I could really care less how underwhelming the hardware is. I suspect most Nintendo fans are the same. Seems to me Nintendo is just doing what they do best, go after the younger market and rely on the fan base they have acquired slowly in the older ages. With the smaller price tag the Revolution is bound to have, I can still see it being very competitive with the other new consoles. I'm certainly planning on buying one, assuming a cost of not much more than $250, well before I shell out the $400 or so dollars for the X-box 360 or god knows how much for the PS3.
this doesn't make any sense to me why make it so underpowered? they could make it 3 times as powerful and still make it cheap; a 729 mhz processor is sooooo old and slow
FWIW, I understand the approach Nintendo is taking with the Revolution. Again, I know that they (and their fans) don't really need a system that can display 50 characters onscreen, each made up of 10K polygons with normal maps, a full-blown physics engine, HDR lighting, etc. The point I'm trying to make here is that, assuming these specs are true (and tell the whole story) and the Revolution won't retail for less than say $100-150 or so at launch, Nintendo could have still offered a system with revolutionary gameplay and next-gen graphics/physics/AI/etc (especially since they don't have to worry about "wasting" power for HD resolutions). Going back to my example earlier, even if all you want to do is play with the Virtual Console, would you rather have a GC 1.5 for $200 that has the following: 729MHz IBM CPU 243MHz ATI GPU (no shading capabilities?) 88 MB of RAM Or the following for $200: 2GHz IBM CPU 500 MHz ATI GPU (SM 3.0, 12 pixel pipelines, 4 vertex pipelines, etc.) 128 MB of RAM You'll get your unique gameplay on the Revolution regardless (GC specs are all that is needed for that). I'm just a little disappointed that it won't have a little more power under the hood, although I already knew it wouldn't approach the specs of the other systems. Of course, I'm disappointed that only 6 SPEs for Cell are usable for games (1 is disabled, 1 for the OS), and I'm disappointed that the Xbox 360 and maybe the PS3 won't have a HDD standard; I guess I'm easily disappointed, but these specs seem more disappointing than usual for me.
RC, I am almost tempted to ask whether you are intentionally being dishonest by the latest article you posted. I know that you are well educated (or at least you seem like you are) with regards to video game technology, so why are you looking at chip speeds like you are. An apt comparison to using Mhz to compare the XBox to GC would be looking at how much gas a car used to gauge how fast it goes. You do know that Nintendo is using a PPC chip, right? And that the XBox uses an x86 processer? Do you know the difference (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, honestly wondering if you realize the difference). Do you think that an Apple G5 is slower than a celeron because it has a slower chip speed? I laugh when I see people think that the Revolution will look poor based on chip speed. IMO the one thing that might hurt the Revolution is lack of HD but I do not really have a good idea how well that will be adopted or how much of a factor it will be. Chip speed is the last thing I am worrying about.
There won't be a HD with the Revolution? Or there won't be one standard? I figured if they were going to allow you to download the old NES and SNES games, then they would supply a HD to store them on.
I thought I'd read it was supposed to have 512 MB of flash memory for storing your downloaded games and what not.
I was actually referring to High Definition. Xbox360 and PS3 both support HDTV, Revolution does not. Hence my not knowing how much that will factor into purchase decisions since I don't know how well HDTV will be adopted by consumers in the near future.
I'm not looking at the clockspeeds (the CPU clockspeeds specifically) between different architectures like that, although IGN seems to be making a big deal about the clockspeeds between Broadway and the Xbox Celeron CPU. Trust me, I know that a 729MHz IBM CPU (based on the Power family) > 733MHz Intel Celeron (x86 tech). I don't think I've said anything that seemed to suggest otherwise. I did say something about these specs being "comparable" to consoles this-gen, but that is logical (Xbox GPU might even be better than the Rev GPU, at least in some ways, if it has no shading capabilities). Sure, these specs are pretty much better than any console out there, even by quite a bit, but it is still comparable IMO. That's the only type of comparison (if you can call it that) that I made between the Rev CPU and the Xbox CPU, and I didn't try to suggest that the Xbox CPU was better (if I did, I was wrong). The only other time I've made a big deal between clockspeeds was when I asked why Nintendo couldn't go with a 2GHz IBM CPU (which would be the same tech as the one they have now, just clocked higher) and a faster, more powerful ATI GPU with more features. In that case, comparing clockspeeds is fair game when wanting to compare total performance. If nothing else, forget all the comparisons. My point is that Nintendo could have done better than the specs listed in that article. Now, IGN seemed to completely disregard anything other than clockspeeds, and even said that the Xbox CPU outperforms the Rev CPU (that's pretty inaccurate). In that regard, I guess I could be accused of being dishonest, although I'd rather put the blame on IGN for that.
