Nintendo has gone on record saying that graphics are not their number one concern. A bold statement considering the graphical prowess of it's next-gen competitors, the PS3 and XBox 360. That doesn't mean, however, that Nintendo is completely negating their graphics.
In a recent interview with revolutionreport.com, John Swinimer, ATI's Public Relations Manager for Consumer Products, spoke on several aspects of ATI's relationship with Nintendo. Swinimer says the new ATI card for the Nintendo Revolution will be a console specific model and not a card based off of any of their PC models or their Flipper chipset.
"It's not, for example, like we took a PC design and said 'oh, you know what? If we tweak this and test this, it will work in a console.' [That's] not the case," Swinimer said.
On the topic of issues with the Revolution's size and the possiblity of heat problems, Swiminer said that this has been taken into consideration.
"The form factor design of even some of the newer consumer electronics devices are getting smaller and smaller, and we are taking that into great consideration, all across the board. I don't know if you are aware of this, but ATI has graphics chips in Motorola RAZRs. ATI has graphics chips inside many consumer electronic designs and heat is definitely a consideration, so we definitely take that into consideration when we are designing new chips."
The lingering question on Nintendo's statement on graphics still hangs in the air, however. Is this an indication that ATI's chipset will be relativly less powerful than other next-gen consoles? "What I can say is that ATI is focused, as is Nintendo, in making [Revolution] a great, gaming entertainment platform. I know that a lot of journalists are very focused on specs. It's the big thing; as a geek, I look for that too. The key thing to keep in mind is that Nintendo, with ATI's help, is trying to create a game console where you don't have to look at [specs]," said Swinimer.
), I'm just seeing some strange assumptions in this thread.