Why would nintendo release an underpowered console a year after the release of 360?

[fallguy]

Whats they piont of doing that? They spent 6 years on the hardware(when it comes out) yet its weaker than a console that was made in 2 years?

They said they were competing with Sony. So why would they release a gossly underpowered console that late just to be blown away by PS3 if they didn't have something relevant to make it compete with PS3?

Common sense.

Who says it took 6 years to make the Revolution? Who says it took 2 years to make the 360?

Common sense.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Intel(65nm) will be ready because of SSDOI (Strained Silicon directly on Insulator).

 

[Ty]

Epik,

You haven't answered any of my questions. All you did is reply with a bunch of specs for an underpowered mac. That hardly makes your case imo.

 

[V3]

If they are targeting 480p, the Rev's GPU doesn't need to be as fast as 360 or PS3.
It doesn't need as much memory as 360 or PS3. Require less memory bandwidth also.
If they decide to go with similar spec to 360 or PS3, they have more pixel shading instructions that they can do for every pixel. All just by targeting 480p.

And Revolution casing is small, but its not that small that it will be majorly handicaped.

 

[StefanS]

If they are targeting 480p, the Rev's GPU doesn't need to be as fast as 360 or PS3.
It doesn't need as much memory as 360 or PS3. Require less memory bandwidth also.
If they decide to go with similar spec to 360 or PS3, they have more pixel shading instructions that they can do for every pixel. All just by targeting 480p.

And Revolution casing is small, but its not that small that it will be majorly handicaped.

The thing is: I've been wondering 480p does indeed reduce the requirements of the GPU, but isn't the CPU usually the main contributor to heat dissipation? If Revolution is to utilize comparable physics engines etc. wouldn't the CPU at least have to match the competitor's CPUs?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

PS3.
If they decide to go with similar spec to 360 or PS3, they have more pixel shading instructions that they can do for every pixel. All just by targeting 480p.

And Revolution casing is small, but its not that small that it will be majorly handicaped.

The thing is that how can they go for similar specks when:

-Nintendo consoles have traditionally been quite cheap (199$) and everything points that Rev is going to be cheaper than X360/PS3
-they get their parts from the same guys as MS and Sony and if they sell their's cheaper I suspect it costs less to make, Nintendo usually makes money or breaks even with their consoles, so if it's much cheaper to make, it has to be weaker.
-Nintendo has said that they are concentrating on other things than power
-the fact that they are targeting 480p already indicates that it has less power, if it can do the same thing in 480p what the others can do in 720p, the difference in power is substantial
-Now I don't have the dimensions of the consoles here, but I estimate that Revolutions case is only about 1/3 of it's competitors, so it is tiny compared to them, that makes a difference.

 

[Rodéric]

Sure, but:
-Nintendo said it will use it's huge cash amount for Revolution, could very well mean they are willing to sell the consoles at a cost for themselves.
-They said they wouldn't be 'significantly' less powerfull than the other consoles
-It seems that Quake 4 is on dev @ID for XBox360, PS3 and Revolution, would they bother make a Revolution version should it be significantly less powerfull than the others ? (given ID history I say NO)

Basically anything you can say I can counter, whichever side you are on, because sofar it's only SPECULATIONS.
So just stop it until further informations become available.

 

[V3]

The thing is: I've been wondering 480p does indeed reduce the requirements of the GPU, but isn't the CPU usually the main contributor to heat dissipation? If Revolution is to utilize comparable physics engines etc. wouldn't the CPU at least have to match the competitor's CPUs?

It depend on the CPU and GPU, but don't underestimate GPU heat dissapation. Anyway the totals of all the chips cannot exceed the thermal rating of the case.

So, if they target 480p using GPU that can apply as many shading instruction to every pixel as PS3 and 360, Revolution can afford to have a CPU that dissipates more heat compare to 360 and PS3, even in that small case. This is obviously if Nintendo choose to do so, the options is there for them. IBM can sell Cell or 360 CPU to Nintendo and they can make it fit in there. There isn't really any need to go for less, if cost isn't a problem.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

So, if they target 480p using GPU that can apply as many shading instruction to every pixel as PS3 and 360, Revolution can afford to have a CPU that dissipates more heat compare to 360 and PS3, even in that small case. This is obviously if Nintendo choose to do so, the options is there for them. IBM can sell Cell or 360 CPU to Nintendo and they can make it fit in there. There isn't really any need to go for less, if cost isn't a problem.

You seem to be awfully sure about those things, how do you know, they can just stick those parts in such a small case, when it's rivals are much bigger?

 

[oli2]

another point about revolution is Nintendo say they are exploring other ways than pure power ... So that's why there keep most informations secret to avoid been copied by others.

There has been lots of discussions about the controller for example.

I wonder what they could put in the package that couldn't been copied in monthes by Sony and Microsoft, given their console will certainly be more "powerful", and connectivity seem to be here too (wifi, USB, ethernet) ?

NB: i think their path will really be in "different" offer, as they were to date pretty successful with NDS and its 2 screens (which obviously cannot be copied by PSP) ...

 

[V3]

The thing is that how can they go for similar specks when:

-Nintendo consoles have traditionally been quite cheap (199$) and everything points that Rev is going to be cheaper than X360/PS3
-they get their parts from the same guys as MS and Sony and if they sell their's cheaper I suspect it costs less to make, Nintendo usually makes money or breaks even with their consoles, so if it's much cheaper to make, it has to be weaker.
-Nintendo has said that they are concentrating on other things than power
-the fact that they are targeting 480p already indicates that it has less power, if it can do the same thing in 480p what the others can do in 720p, the difference in power is substantial
-Now I don't have the dimensions of the consoles here, but I estimate that Revolutions case is only about 1/3 of it's competitors, so it is tiny compared to them, that makes a difference.

You yourself seems to notice that the difference in power is quite substantial from going 480p to 720p. At 480p they might not need a daughter chip like 360 or segmented memory like PS3. They can just go for normal UMA, and there will be plenty of bandwidth for 480p. That's a huge cost saving, compare to 360 and PS3. It can have half the memory 256 MB for even more cost saving.

Cost saving will most likely go to whatever gimmick Nintendo going to put into Revolution than outgunning MS or Sony in CPU power though.

The size of the case does make a difference, but its still the size of 3 DVD cases and some more. Its not like its a size of a CD case or something small like that. And external power supply to boot, more room for other stuff.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

You yourself seems to notice that the difference in power is quite substantial from going 480p to 720p. At 480p they might not need a daughter chip like 360 or segmented memory like PS3. They can just go for normal UMA, and there will be plenty of bandwidth for 480p. That's a huge cost saving, compare to 360 and PS3. It can have half the memory 256 MB for even more cost saving.

Cost saving will most likely go to whatever gimmick Nintendo going to put into Revolution than outgunning MS or Sony in CPU power though.

The size of the case does make a difference, but its still the size of 3 DVD cases and some more. Its not like its a size of a CD case or something small like that. And external power supply to boot, more room for other stuff.

Yes but doing the same thing in 480p is not equal to doing the thing in 720p, so even if they can do the same thing in 480p it doesn't mean that it has comparable power, now if they can do lot more then it's a different issue, but if they cut memory processor speed etc. it seems that they are targeting to do the same that it's rivals do in 720p but in 480p.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's worth noting that even at 480p, to match XB360's image quality on an SDTV Revolution will need a fair amount more than 480p's worth power. It'll need substantial AA. It's not quite the case that say rendering to 1/3rd the framebuffer size Revolution's GPU only needs 1/3 the power and thus transistors and power requirements and heat output.

Maybe someone like Jaws can appear here with some numerical requirements for front buffer sizes, fill rates, eDRAM requirements and pipeline 'stuff', giving an idea of pixel+vertex shading power for 480p at at least 4xAA to match XB360 from which we can make a guess at die sizes and power requirement for Hollywood if it is to match XB360's visuals at the lower resolution.

 

[µCOM-4]

Unless it is frequently overheating on you, then it really isn't a matter of whether the ventilation is "limited" or not. More likely, it was all the ventilation that was needed, given the nature of the components inside.

Apple could've used bigger or more vents but that doesn't mean it's needed. In other words, the size of the current vents does not mean it's needed either. Nobody knows what the minium size vents actually is except Apple.

 

[swaaye]

Well my laptop has a 90nm Pentium-M 2.13GHz (140M transistors) with a heatsink half the size of a deck of cards and a nearly silent fan. This P-M is roughly on the top of the CPU charts for gaming performance in PC games. It's FAR ahead in performance per watt, that's for sure. It puts out 27W of heat at max output. Also within this case is a 110nm NV42 Geforce 6800GO 256MB (190M transistors) with a similar cooling setup. This notebook is loaded with 2GB DDR2 PC2-4200. So we have 2 small heatsinks and 2 nearly silent, temp sensitive fans. And I do mean nearly silent, it's VERY quiet.

I don't think Nintendo will have any problems whatsoever building a bitchin' custom system in a small form factor.

 

[Teasy]

Unless it is frequently overheating on you, then it really isn't a matter of whether the ventilation is "limited" or not. More likely, it was all the ventilation that was needed, given the nature of the components inside.

I think that's his point. He didn't say that the Apple mini needed more ventilation. Just that if Apple can put that hardware in that tiny almost unventilated case then Nintendo should have no problem putting powerful hardware in a bigger more ventilated case.

BTW does the mini have an external PSU (I assume so).

 

[therealskywolf]

Well my laptop has a 90nm Pentium-M 2.13GHz (140M transistors) with a heatsink half the size of a deck of cards and a nearly silent fan. This P-M is roughly on the top of the CPU charts for gaming performance in PC games. It's FAR ahead in performance per watt, that's for sure. It puts out 27W of heat at max output. Also within this case is a 110nm NV42 Geforce 6800GO 256MB (190M transistors) with a similar cooling setup. This notebook is loaded with 2GB DDR2 PC2-4200. So we have 2 small heatsinks and 2 nearly silent, temp sensitive fans. And I do mean nearly silent, it's VERY quiet.

I don't think Nintendo will have any problems whatsoever building a bitchin' custom system in a small form factor.

[neo] The problem is Price[/neo]

Zzzing - You got rejected.

 

[swaaye]

[neo] The problem is Price[/neo]
Zzzing - You got rejected.

The problem is not price. Not for a mass manufacturered, custom-built part. My notebook is a custom-configured, relatively low volume part with a very expensive screen. It includes XP, a bunch of extra ports, a CDRW/DVD, Firewire, lots of extra components inside. Not much like a console would be. And, how much do you think Dell really pays for their systems?

Gamecube was SFF and got by just fine. N64 was SFF, in fact about the same as Gamecube. What's so different today? Yes there are performance limits. You can't go max-out on the latest fusion-ish stuff. But it won't matter for a non-HD system. I mean just how much hardware do you need to push 640x480!?!?! Gamecube is like 600MPixels. My 9700 is 2.56GPixels. A X800XL pushes 6.5GPixels! That's last gen! Intelligent, efficient, cheap hardware that doesn't run at the edge of manufacturing ability is nothing to snubb aside.

In fact, that's really how it is right now with Gamecube and Xbox. Gamecube is a insanely efficient design, low cost, and relatively powerful. Xbox is more powerful, FAR more expensive to build, and bigger. Yet, how many games on each system look fantastic? Can you REALLY tell me which is more powerful without knowing the hardware inside? I own both and have many of the top games on both, like FZero GX and RE4 along with Halo 1&2. I have a hard time seeing the disadvantages of the platforms.

 

[ninzel]

I think that's his point. He didn't say that the Apple mini needed more ventilation. Just that if Apple can put that hardware in that tiny almost unventilated case then Nintendo should have no problem putting powerful hardware in a bigger more ventilated case.

Yep that's what I meant.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well Mac Mini has 1.25 or 1.4ghz processor and VERY low end gpu and therefore it's performance is nowhere near X360/PS3 thus making it a bad example. We all know that you can put low end stuff in small case allready. Does anybody know when Nintendo is releasing the final specs?.