Merrick: Revolution Specs probably will never be released

[darkblu]

hmm. let's see.. what can be the state of a thread stated up by a poster who was banned 3 times from these forums for blatant fanb0ysm, and whose current thread is, surprise-surprise, only a means to allow kids with penis complexes to come out and explain how important it is that their console of choice has oh-so-big-a-dick, pardon, flop rating, and how it's their constitutional right to know the sizes of the dicks of the rest of the kids in their class.

 

[Almasy]

I disagree, yes, chap did initiate this discussion, but it´s worthy never the less. As a matter of fact, it´s very valuable because I´ve discovered how some people view specs, and why some are willing to blind themselves from very valuable information just to agree with their console of choice.

 

[fearsomepirate]

As a consumer, you have the right (or at least should) to know what lies inside of what you´re buying.

No you don't. You have the right to do everything you can to figure out what's inside once you've bought it, because it's yours (DMCA or no). But the company is under no obligation to tell you what's in there if it's not in their interest.

Knowing console specs is pretty unimportant unless you play predominantly cross-platform titles. In that case, read a couple reviews, and you'll figure out pretty quickly which one gets the best-looking version. But otherwise...that Xbox's pixel shader and DDR 400 aren't worth a hill of beans if you're into Japanese RPG's. Same goes for next gen. A whole pile of unified shaders won't be any consolation if PD0 sucks and FPS's on the Revolution are way more fun. I mean, this isn't like PC games where you have to worry if your card will run Doom 3 or not. If it has your console's logo on it, it runs. Period. Heck, that's half the appeal.

If you're just a tech geek into pissing rights over having the hottest piece of kit, you lose as soon as the next round of PC gfx cards hits, so you're better off just avoiding consoles entirely.

I should add that as a Nintendo fan, this doesn't bother me. DS and GCN were both less powerful than PSP and Xbox, respectively, and I'm not disappointed with either. I think their hardware will be satisfactory in terms of actual graphical output, and they're doing the smart thing by not focusing on a spec war they're guaranteed to lose.

 

[g35er]

Wouldn't the developers need to know the detailed specs for optimization? If they are in writing and distributed to developers, it will eventually leak.

 

[Azrael]

This is a silly move... no actually what is really silly is releasing inferior hardware later. No specs are needed. The games will reflect the power of the hardware. Games that look like they could be on the Xbox will not generate much interest outside of the Nintendo fanbase.
I am really beginning to believe that Nintendo is not interested in competing in the larger game any longer. They just want to serve their fanbase and that's it.

 

[Barbarian]

Most people truly don't care about specs. Look at Bose speakers, they are considered by the general public to be great, yet they don't put any actual speaker specs on the box or anywhere on their site. I think they are the only large speaker company to not post specs actually.

Yes, a lot of people base their buying decisions purely on brand. Then again, how many people do actually buy Bose? How many people buy Nintendo consoles? Do you get the connection?

And going back to the car analogy: it seems to me quite a fair comparison. HP numbers are exactly as meaningful as FLOPS. Yet, every magazine lists them, talks about them and compares them. Lets take BMW for example as a market leader in entry level luxory sedans - do you honestly believe they will be able to sell these cars if the put e measly 100hp 4cyl banger? Come on - they know these days unless you shove 6cyl 300hp monster, you better not even bother. The situation is precisely the same with consoles.

 

[function]

The hardware would only be inferior if it was not as good as their competitors' is at the same job. The job of Nintendo's hardware is primarily to run Nintendo's games, and with the direction they seem to be trying to follow they'll be trying to differentiate their games from those of their competitors.

In discussions like these you're in danger of being stuck between Nintendo f@nboys who refuse to accept that Nintendo don't chase the most powerful hardware possible at the time - they never have and almost certainly won't do it this time either - and Sony and MS f@nboys who are busy chasing flops and GB/s.

No, the GC isn't as powerful as the Xbox, and it wasn't supposed to be. And no, Revolution won't be as powerful as the PS3 and 360, and it isn't supposed to be either.

If Nintendo don't want to compete in terms of specs and raw hardware performance then that's fine. Good luck, and lets see if that works. Let the games do the talking - I'm looking forward to them.

 

[PC-Engine]

If you want to attract the non-gamer to your system, you've got to make the non-gamer trust you, and keeping obvious secrets from them isn't really the way to go about building that trust.

The non-gamer doesn't care about specs. They just care about that remote control that you can wield around to play games with nice visuals on a tv.

Well many people buy cars cause they just look good without knowing anything about how they work.

You seem to think that just because you care a lot about geeky specs, then everyone else does.

Exactly...why even bring up car analogies in the first place? Most people only care about how a car looks, price, reliability, brand, gas mileage. They don't care about hp:weight ratio, torque, redline, 0-60 times.

And going back to the car analogy: it seems to me quite a fair comparison. HP numbers are exactly as meaningful as FLOPS. Yet, every magazine lists them, talks about them and compares them. Lets take BMW for example as a market leader in entry level luxory sedans - do you honestly believe they will be able to sell these cars if the put e measly 100hp 4cyl banger? Come on - they know these days unless you shove 6cyl 300hp monster, you better not even bother. The situation is precisely the same with consoles.

Most people don't buy cars from reading specs in a car magazine. Most people go by brand, looks, price. If most people buy cars according to how much power they have, they'd all be driving 500hp cars.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Games that look like they could be on the Xbox will not generate much interest outside of the Nintendo fanbase.

Oh please. I highly doubt they'll release something with a crusty old 2001 GPU in it. I could be wrong. It could just be a Flipper overclocked to 200 MHz. But ATI is smart, and I'm expecting equivalent power to Radeon's X*00 series of graphics cards at the very least, especially considering they can stick those things in notebooks. Nintendo isn't paying ATI some undisclosed, large sum of money to design a slightly faster, cooler version of a graphics chip they designed back in 01.

I am really beginning to believe that Nintendo is not interested in competing in the larger game any longer. They just want to serve their fanbase and that's it.

Just like they were with ds...

 

[PARANOiA]

To me it seems like the only people who care about this are the kind of young lads who browse forums and quote exotic specs like RAM speed and FLOP count in order to prove their console is better than the competition.

I'll judge the Rev by the quality of the games, and the quality of the screenshots and videos. You can have the most powerful machine on the planet, but it takes a great game and talented coders to make it perform tricks, and Nintendo has both IMO.

 

[Azrael]

Oh please. I highly doubt they'll release something with a crusty old 2001 GPU in it. I could be wrong. It could just be a Flipper overclocked to 200 MHz. But ATI is smart, and I'm expecting equivalent power to Radeon's X*00 series of graphics cards at the very least, especially considering they can stick those things in notebooks. Nintendo isn't paying ATI some undisclosed, large sum of money to design a slightly faster, cooler version of a graphics chip they designed back in 01.



Just like they were with ds...

You underestimate many peoples lack of perception. When people can't see the difference between these first gen 360 games and Xbox games, there is evidence that a huge jump in graphical fidelity is needed before many can see a difference. This perception of last gen inferiority will only be amplified when people can compare it next to second or third gen 360 games.

 

[see colon]

Nintendo isn't paying ATI some undisclosed, large sum of money to design a slightly faster, cooler version of a graphics chip they designed back in 01.

of course they aren't, because ati never designed flipper. atrX did

specs used to be important to me. i was drunk on specs when the sega saturn was my primary gaming system. now, i still enjoy gaming on the saturn, even though it's outclassed on a technical level by all current gen consoles and some microwave ovens.

 

[The GameMaster]

You know... I was beginning to believe that Nintendo would likely not release any specifications on their system for a while now. Eventually though we will find out the general specifications (and likely nothing more detailed than just general specifications) as that would be leaked by third party developers, but I do not see Nintendo officially releasing specifications on their system. I can certainly understand why they wouldn't from a business point of view as that would easily be construed very negatively.

I believe we are going to be in for a long period of speculation in regards to Nintendo's next system... and I don't like that fact.

 

[fearsomepirate]

of course they aren't, because ati never designed flipper. atrX did

specs used to be important to me. i was drunk on specs when the sega saturn was my primary gaming system. now, i still enjoy gaming on the saturn, even though it's outclassed on a technical level by all current gen consoles and some microwave ovens.

And ATI bought ARTX, so they're basically working with the same people.

I only got interested in specs after I bought my GameCube and was blown away by Rogue Leader and Wind Waker. I got curious as to what was under the hood and read what I could find about it and the other consoles. I later bought an Xbox because the graphics were supposed to be in a league of their own, but other than Riddick, I didn't think they were that awesome...most of the games I bought just didn't look good to me, even though I could see that they were throwing around more bump maps, reflections, and light sources than my Cube. Finally , after finding out on anandtech that Flipper is about as powerful as a GeForce2, despite never seeing my GF2 or GF4MX spew out anything nearly as pretty as my favorite Cube games, I decided specs don't matter too much to me as long as the games have a strong prettiness factor. Then I got into retro gaming, so I'm actually more curious right now about how those bizarre machines worked.

Although in the meantime, I'm glad I learned a lot more about combiner ops, pipelines, triple buffering, stencil shadowing, and normal mapping. That's interesting stuff. It just doesn't always translate into good--or even beautiful, really--games.

 

[blakjedi]

Parents do ask which one is "better" and sometimes "more powerful."

 

[g35er]

Most people don't buy cars from reading specs in a car magazine. Most people go by brand, looks, price. If most people buy cars according to how much power they have, they'd all be driving 500hp cars.

But almost everyone I know knows the horsepower and number of cylinders of their car. They don't need to know if they have dual overhead cam, but just basic 1-2 line industry standard barometers. If the manufacturer hid it and just said, "Don't worry about it, just go drive it and see if you like it," they would surely lose some sales.

Every piece of technology has some industry barometers that they release. Cameras--Megapix, computers--Mhz, cars--HP. Have you even heard of a technology company that wouldn't release basic specs?

As I said, Devs will have to know the RAM, fill rate, Mhz, floating point and integer calc power, etc. to know how complex of a scene they can render so the specs will be out, just not officially. It'll be leaked eventually though.

edit: typos

 

[Azrael]

And ATI bought ARTX, so they're basically working with the same people.

Except that the engineers that designed flipper worked together under a specific design philosophy that wasn't ATI's. When ATI bought ArtX they split up the engineers into their different dev teams to work on new projects.

 

[London Geezer]

I disagree, yes, chap did initiate this discussion, but it´s worthy never the less. As a matter of fact, it´s very valuable because I´ve discovered how some people view specs, and why some are willing to blind themselves from very valuable information just to agree with their console of choice.

Chap?!
Pakpassion is chap?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, then you haven´t been paying attention to what yourself have written in recent Revolution discussions.

I've been explaining Nintendo's actions. I've no interest in getting a Revolution myself, and I've never said I have in all the time I've been on this forum. It IS possible to agree with something without being a raving six-star

Fortunately(heh) I´m not a lawyer, so I´m not very familiar on international laws, however, as a consumer, I SHOULD be able to see a console´s specs if I want to. On every product available it happens, if I want to buy a set of speakers, I want to know their power, if I´m looking for a car, the minimum I need to know is par, HP, if it´s a V4 or a V6. Even on your DVD example, a consumer should have the benefit of information concerning what kinds of outputs a DVD player has, what kinds of features and such.

Your talking basic componentry and features, not tech specs. Of course Revolution will come with a feature list of IO options, DVD playback, revolutionary controller. But not...

Bottomline is, Revolution will have a CPU and a GPU, and consumers have the right to know at least minimum specs on their capabilities, at the very, very, very least frequency of both, ammount of memory and pixel and vertex pipes. That kind of information is what we, consumers, should ask for, minimum...of course, that, as long as you are not a Nintendo fan.

but you don't ask for this information on your DVD player or TV. You have specs like IO, connections, and trademark names like 'Photonominal Filtering' and 'Whizzmatronic Picture Enhancement' as features, but not processor speeds or memory amounts. A TV might advertise a quality feature but it doesn't say the tech specs of what's driving the technology. If you walk into a store and see two TVs from the same manufacturer, and one has 'ClearView Technology' and one hasn't, that goes to helping you make an informed decision. But you never see 'TV with 500 MHz image processor' as that information is irrelevant to the experience.

I've just looked around at a few stores and sites. None list technical specs for TVs and DVD players. Pop to Samsung and look up the Specifications tab for a DVD player, no-where does it say processor speeds or ram amounts. This information is irrelvant for the purchase. No-one buys a DVD player by comparing processor speeds. Just looked at a couple of placers that sell consoles. No-where do they list PS2's specs. Nowhere can I read PS2 has a 300 MHz CPU, 150 MHz GPU. Neither can I read XB has 700 MHz processor, nor the structural differences of those components that explain the worth of the clock speeds (because as we all know clock speeds alone are worthless and anyone choosing on clock speeds is...a moron, to be blunt!). Ah...I have just found one site. GAME (owned by Electronics Boutique I think). They don't list the GPU clockspeed for XBox though. And no vertex and pixel pipes figures for any system. I guess they're violating consumer rights, no?

Now I appreciate some people want that information when choosing consoles, because they want the fastest machine. But those people wouldn't buy Revolution anyway because we all know it's not the fastest and that's why Nintendo aren't bothering to release the technical specifications (CPU and GPU speeds etc.). For everyone else, the substantial majority, just as they don't care what components go into their other CE goods, they don't care what the specs of Revolution's internal workings are. They'll buy on the appeal of demos in store in the first instance, and recommendations in the second. There's no need nor requirement amongst the general public for detailed information on internal workings, and Nintendo are not doing any wrong to the mainstream general non-geek public by not releasing this info.

 

[Teasy]

Oh, please, we all know you love Revolution, but nobody should defend Nintendo´s actions, which we can all agree that are done because their hardware is inferior enough to make a direct comparison a bad idea.

Yeah of course, we all know that nobody is allowed to agree with Nintendo in your opinion. Not when its so much cooler to bash everything they do...

BTW you say they may not release specs to hide the fact that Revolution won't be as powerful as the other consoles. What a load that is, everyone at Nintendo openly admits that the system won't be as powerful in every interview they do... If they don't release specs then that's just an extention of there overall philosophy, which is that specs don't matter. Why say that specs don't matter and then release a list of specs?