Extra Port on the Revolution?

I guess, they want Revolution to be easy to use. That's why the console looks for other Revs in its vicinity on its own, etc. As far as I am concerned I'd like to have an ethernet port as well because I like to have more connection options. But this is Nintendo, they have their own way of doing things

 

Considering there's no way having an ethernet port would interfere with any of that...

Integrating wireless and using it cleverly and extensively = good
Excluding the FAR LARGER communication standard (and one the harder-core gamer types would prefer to use anyway) = not so good

Thas' all I'm sayin'.

 

USB eithernet adapters need drivers, I can't imagine them having drivers on a console.

 

That could easily be solved by storing the drivers in flash RAM embedded into the USB device itself.

 

Not to mention they could store them on the machine, though admittedly you couldn't use "any old" one, but rather whatever ones Nintendo wants to provide drivers for. (Which probably wouldn't take much effort to get the sizable bulk out there.)

Not much reason for them to do THAT, though, than to make or license their own specific one for the machine. Hrm.

 

Ethernet is standard, but not everyone has it. It's also not as easy as you think for non-technophiles to use. Do you think your mom would know to go to Best Buy and purchase a cross-connect cable instead of a standard patch cable so you could connect your Revolutions and play together?

Since wireless is already in there a standard ethernet jack would just be more cost. That wouldn't help keep the price down so that we can pay <$250 for the thing.

 

The reason why I mentioned drivers being embedded into the USB device itself is so that you wouldn't have to install the drivers from a disc onto the console. Instead you just plug it in and it works by loading the drivers from the USB device itself. This makes it cheaper for the USB device manufacturer because they can use a device that's already availble for the PC. They or Nintendo don't have to manufacturer a proprietary Revolution device that only works on Revolution.

 

But why couldn't they just include a drive on CD and have that load into Rev's flash mem? It seems that including a CD would be quite a bit less expensive than embedding a flash chip into a USB device.

 

I know. And if they came out with their own, it would likely be set up that way. (Why not?)

But that wouldn't do anything to affect those devices that are ALREADY out and do need drivers, so they'd have to provide it somehow. Which means they probably wouldn't bother.

If they offer this at all.

Which they should, but when does should stop anyone?

 

Because once you include a CD, you automatically force people to install drivers like they do on a PC. It's a slippery slope. Nintendo just wants a plug n play device. Most USB devices already out in the market already contain flash RAM for the firmware. Drivers don't need more than 2MB-4MB of flash RAM which is only a few pennies.

 

The lack of an RJ45 port is the thing that pisses me off.

I have 50 meters of ethernet cable through all my house, perfectly installed, and I'm not buying a fu***ng airport xtreme adaptor just to play online because nintendo wishes to promote their nintendo WIFI connection in order to appear "cooler".

 

That's wha' I'm sayin'!

I think PS3 has the best solution, you can just connect it between your PC and wall/router (would it work with router actually?), have it on the same cable and get optiumum speeds at minium costs!

 

I believe USB's real world efficiency depends on the quality of the USB controller, whereas firewire is fairly constant in efficiency.

Why do gamers want a hand line? Is there a noticable performance difference over WiFi, or is it more like gigabit ethernet versus 10/100 ethernet? Or is it just in case of signal loss, which has never really been a problem for me, but I know it's effected others.
And wouldn't a USB ethernet adaptor significantly slow down the speed and potentially add a high cpu overhead?

BTW, is Revolution using 802.11b or 802.11g? I'd imagine b, and would hope for n or whatever the next standard is called. DS only uses 1Mb 802.11b, and I've only seen ad hoc features done over 802.11b, so it seems the most likely choice.

 

Check out IGN's writeup of Revolution's technical specs:

http://cube.ign.com/articles/618/618832p1.html

It's 802.11b/g compatible.