I realise that graphics aren’t everything, but I can’t help but feel disapointed. Nintendo have always told us that the Revolution’s specs would be low… but this low? There’s little doubt that Nintendo will realise some quality titles for the console, when when it comes to multiplatform games, the graphical quality of those titles won’t be able to compare with their Xbox 360, PS3, and PC counterparts.
The Revolution really is looking like it’s going to compete for a totally different market after all. I wish Nintendo the best of luck with their innovative gaming platform, but I can’t help but wonder if entering such untested waters could make the Revolution go the way of the Dreamcast.
[quote=“Shadow”]Wow. This is going to make tri-platform games nigh on impossible. Farewell Nintendo.
On the plus side though… Ah… uh… hmm.[/quote]
Yeah - they thought they had problems with third party support now!
I’ve always seen their arguement of “We’re not competing for the same market” as actually meaning “Waah, wahh, you took our customers away from us with your fancy new modern thinking and because we’re losing we don’t want to play anymore.”
Oh there’s no doubt I’ll get one no matter what, because I’m sure there’ll be some great games released on it, same as the other two. I just don’t think Nintendo are helping themselves at all with this.
And this is coming from gamers that often insist graphics aren’t important… How many times have I argued that graphics do make a difference in the end only to have people claim otherwise?
Time for me to play devil’s advocate again! Regardless of whether or not the Revolution’s specs are in line with PS3 or X360, when you played games like Zelda: WW, RE4, etc on the GC, did you ever once think, “Man, this game sucks because it’s got horrible graphics”? No… The graphics were fantastic. The Revolution will be a fairly good improvement over the original GC architecture, but you’re saying that it’s not enough?
In addition, wasn’t the controller enough of a clue that cross-platform games on the Revolution would be difficult enough as it was? The lack of a second analog stick, significantly reduced number of face buttons, etc all make it very difficult to plan functionality in a game built for either of the other two.
As for lack of third party support/different market… Nintendo’s always been in the games industry to make toys. Not to make multi-media machines. This is something they’ve stuck by since day one, so I don’t see why it comes as a surprise. There’s no way they can compete with the raw funding that companies like Sony and MS can. I would actually say bye bye to Nintendo if they tried to compete head to head. Going for a different market (cheaper system via lower specs, downloadable classic games, fewer buttons, etc) will let them carve out their niche and live there quite comfortably.
Of course, this is all dependent on whether or not the controller actually does what it says it does…
It doesn’t lack a second analogue stick, the wand piece can replace one’s functions fine, especially considering most games use the second analogue stick for camera movement. And the buttons seem enough since you can use the d-pad on it as regular buttons as well.
I agree that the price will be a big factor of why Nintendo stays competitive (even if not on exactly the same field).
Just because something has insanely high specs does not mean that it will outperform a lower spec system automatically. In essence, it’s how the power is USED, rather than how much power there is, that dictates performance. Also, some specs can be misleading; an Intel processor often boosts the same amount of power as an Athlon with a 0.4 Ghz lower clock speed. If they had given us FLOPS, I would have been happier.
I’m buying a Revolution purely for DKC and KI, both of which were on the list of games to be downloadable for the console. =)
That article annoys me. It’s not as fast overall os the ps3 and 360 however they are comparing raw mhz on cpus of different aritecture. You can’t do that as it’s not a true comparison. Different cpu types do different amount of calculations in the same number of cycles. The Revolution is a lot faster than the article makes out even if the numbers are acurate. Which they may not be as nothing as been offically anounced. (At the very least remembering that it’s an IBM not Intel cpu means that even though it’s not impressive sounding next to the xbox number it actually does a lot more at that speed so I’d estimate it’s more like atleast 1/3 faster than the orginal xbox if not more.)
Plus as people have pointed out many times raw speed dosn’t always win. I’ve got an xbox and my flatmate has a gamecube and I prefer the look of many of the gamecube games. I’ve spent a long time working with computers and it doesn’t matter how fast the CPU and GPU are if the rest of the system can’t send data to them fast enough. The gamecube was very good at reducing bottlenecks further down the system that helped speed things up. Both sony and microsoft tend to sacrifice things like that to get an impressive big sounding number out. So when it comes to actual games running on the system I don’t think the difference will be as big as some might think.
The specs are poor now, never mind when the REV makes it out.
The days of NCL being a massmarket player are long gone .
REV will be lucky to sell more than the CUBE at this rate, still NCL won’t mind they’ll make money out of it.
Alavaliant: The Xbox was more powerful than the GC in almost all respects. However, the GC was quite a great little machine, and very underappreciated. Each console had its weakness in the last generation, although overall, the Xbox had the least. Even the GC, for example, couldn’t do light blume. Take a look at NFS games on GC. No blume But, you look at games like Metroid, Zelda, and RE4, and they are some of the best-looking games of the last generation.
It goes to show that raw power isn’t always everything. It’s all about whether or not the power available allows the developers achieve what they want to achieve, and whether or not the power can deliver to the expectations of the consumer. If the consumer can’t tell the difference between realtime lighting and faked lighting, then it’s not worth it (most people can, even though they can’t pinpoint exactly what the difference is, though).
As for the comment about the controller itself being used as the second analog… It’s fairly difficult to do fine movement with your thumb on your left hand, then try to do any sort of fine movement simultaneously with your entire wrist with your right hand (in fact, it’s hard to do any fine movement at all: that’s simply the nature of the human wrist joint).
Alavaliant: The Xbox was more powerful than the GC in almost all respects. However, the GC was quite a great little machine, and very underappreciated. Each console had its weakness in the last generation, although overall, the Xbox had the least. Even the GC, for example, couldn’t do light blume. Take a look at NFS games on GC. No blume But, you look at games like Metroid, Zelda, and RE4, and they are some of the best-looking games of the last generation.
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Yep the CPU inthe X-Box was a bit poor, I still say the one inthe CUBE was better. You make very good points, and for me what really held the CUBE back was the Ram . Lighting wise the NAM@I board was better than the X-Box for me anways (the lighting effects in VF 4 are still amazing).
Even the DC can still cut it now, I’ve just got Under Defeat and its hands down the best looking top down shooter ever made,with the best explosions EVER thanks to the decent GPU inside the DC.
Zelda, Viewtuful Joe and RE4 show that good art Dirtection can make up for a lack of true grunt, Zelda just looks stunning. Trouble is games like RE4 took 4 years to get than right and millions and millions. I really don’t think 3rd party’s are going to put that ammount of effort into REV titles. By the time the REV ships 360 stuff with be ready into 2nd gen Territory and by then the massive gulf with show up .
Whay let down the CUBE wasn’t the graphics or shound. Just a lack of games out each month and NCL pathetic output on its own hardware. I see nothing onthe REV that will address these issue’s . In fact given those spec’s and that control is will be even worse, in terms of 3rd party support
I’ve said this a few times already and I still think this is theoretically a good plan for N. There’s still many many people who have no interest in videogames and think of them only as toys, and $500 is pretty steep for let’s say a 6 year old’s christmas present. The market clearly exists, it’s all up to Nintendo to deliver enough of those fun till your birthday games like they used to.
Then there’s the low development cost angle which could be great as well, Rev has a chance to become the “indie” console. Though they have competition there with XBL Arcade so it’ll be interesting to see who makes themselves more attractive and potentially proffitable on that front.
You make good points in general alavaliant, but with that statement you don’t come across very informed for making this specific judgement. XBOX was a fairly slapped together project and MS had little direct involvement in the design anyway, and that’s their single precedent. But on the subject of this generation you should know that X360 is probably the most ironed out modern console ever designed. Unprecedented planning and design evolution has gone into trying to achieve functional parity in all processes. Their “Application-Specific” buzzword really seems to be more than just hype to go by developer reception so far…
