Merrick: Revolution Specs probably will never be released

[fearsomepirate]

Well actually most people in the US in 2008 will have HDTVs.

Are you sure? If the price of HD sets doesn't come down in a major way, people won't buy them. If it comes down to buying a $50 signal converter for your old box (assuming that the cable companies won't provide analog signals anymore) or a $2000 television, a lot of people will keep their old sets. Also, expect a lot of cheaper sets to only display in 480p. The government mandate is for digital broadcasting, not 720p and higher.

Nevermind the issue of the government trying to control the marketplace like this. If they let well enough alone, we'd eventually switch over as HDTV's came down in price and more and more broadcasting was done in HD.

 

[mckmas8808]

Are you sure? If the price of HD sets doesn't come down in a major way, people won't buy them. If it comes down to buying a $50 signal converter for your old box (assuming that the cable companies won't provide analog signals anymore) or a $2000 television, a lot of people will keep their old sets. Also, expect a lot of cheaper sets to only display in 480p. The government mandate is for digital broadcasting, not 720p and higher.

Nevermind the issue of the government trying to control the marketplace like this. If they let well enough alone, we'd eventually switch over as HDTV's came down in price and more and more broadcasting was done in HD.

Keep in mind I'm no Ms. Cleo. Hell Ms. Cleo is no Ms. Cleo. What I'm I talking about? Oh yeah I got that information for the CEA which was reported on IGN.

Sales of HD televisions are already on the rise and analog standard definition sets on the decline. While only 12.5 percent of U.S. households own an HD set now, the Consumer Electronics Association forecasts that the number is going to steadily increase. In 2006, by the time PlayStation 3 and Revolution launch, nearly 30 percent of all homes in America will have an HDTV. That's already a significant audience, but it gets bigger. In 2007, almost 50 percent of all U.S. households will own an HDTV and in 2008, a whopping 68.1 percent, according to the CEA.

Here

 

[Almasy]

But that information is misleading. Like when people popped into a PC store and saw 350 MHz AMD processor PCs next to 400 MHz Intel processor PCs and thus decided the Intel was better. Would a comparison of the number of shader pipes between PS3 and XB360 really give an indication of relative performance? Xenos works very differently so direct number comparisons are useless. Without know the WHOLE architecture you can't compare. A few paper specs will just be misleading. PS3 has 2x the System bandwidth than XB360. Hence PS3 is 2x better!

Hell, we've been discussing for months the advantages and disadvantages of different architectures at different clock speeds, and no-one here can agree on how these systems compare. Partial information is often more damaging than no information, and it's better people don't know anything at all than a few specs they don't understand but can compare based on relationships with numbers rather than relationships with system architectures.

Look, I understand the drawbacks, such as misunderstood numbers among other things. However, I prefer that situation to given no information at all. If risk of misinterpretation is an important enough reason to withhold information from the public, hell, we wouldn´t know anything about anything at all. I don´t and cannot agree with your interpretation of this, let alone fathom how you can defend this.

People should have access to this information and given the oportunity to try to understand it, rather than acting condescending in this respect. And look, if Nintendo worries so much that publically releasing will deteriorate the machine´s appeal, then that means either of two things: Nintendo did not market the product appropriately, or their new machine simply isn´t appealing enough to make people get past technical details.

Look, If people really are getting enormously bored and Nintendo will really come to save us all and make our lives complete, then a little hurdle such as "not as good" specs won´t stand in their way to the gaming revolution we all oh so need, right?

 

[fearsomepirate]

People should have access to this information and given the oportunity to try to understand it, rather than acting condescending in this respect.

I can safely say that the number of people who take Nintendo's reluctance to publish a spec sheet personally is rather small compared to their target audience. It's not like they made much of anything public with DS other than ARM9 and ARM7 processors with likely some level of customization. No one seems to care that you pretty much are out of luck if you want to know what bitrate it plays back sound at, how many voices its midi synth can handle, how much L1 cache it has, etc. Here you go, here are the officially released DS hardware specs on nintendo.com:

CPUs: One ARM9 and one ARM7
Color: Capable of displaying 260,000 colors
Sound: Stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound
Screens: 256x192 pixel resolution and .24 mm dot pitch

You can get a little more detail if you hunt for it...a couple clock speeds and the amount of RAM, but nothing about cache sizes, geometry engines, vector processing capabilities, texturing units, or anything like that. That's just not much, no one is offended, sales of software and hardware remain strong, and Advance Wars is still a kickass game you can't get on PSP. I'd expect about the same level of detail about the Revo specs once they're ready to release them.

Look, If people really are getting enormously bored and Nintendo will really come to save us all and make our lives complete, then a little hurdle such as "not as good" specs won´t stand in their way to the gaming revolution we all oh so need, right?

Right, which is why they're apparently not planning to release detailed specs for a detailed Anandtech writeup that lots of geeks will read, then go back to their X360's and ueber-1337 gaming rigs to play the latest FPS. I mean, why bother catering to people who aren't going to buy your system? And how much do you need to know? There's all kinds of stuff Sony and MS aren't telling you. You keep saying you need to know enough to know which is most powerful. Well, Nintendo has already told you theirs is the least powerful, so why are you still upset? You take it as a personal insult? Ageia hasn't told much of anyone how their PPU works, and I don't hear crying from consumers. All I hear is "oh man I want a physics processor!"

No one's under obligations to disclose the inner workings of their inventions and machines to anyone else. You know, kind of like how you probably have no idea how a cam phaser works, but it won't stop you from buying a new car.

 

[PC-Engine]

Ageia hasn't told much of anyone how their PPU works, and I don't hear crying from consumers. All I hear is "oh man I want a physics processor!

 

[Ty]

Well the difference though is that Ageia is the only real offering (or will be) in the consumer space but Revolution will be competing against the PS3 & XBox360.

If Ageia was competing against some peers, then specs would definitely be wondered about by us here.

Not saying anyone should play the specs game, it's really personal choice.

Disclaimer - I once worked with 2 programmers who are now at Ageia and hopefully one hooks me up with a card!

 

[Li Mu Bai]

I mean, why bother catering to people who aren't going to buy your system?

I somewhat see your point, as techies & wanna-be-techies will simply go for the most technologically advanced platform, regurgitating new industry buzz words they don't even fully understand. But there are also Nintendo afficionados like myself that would like to see comprehensively what's under the hood. I've become keenly interested with Nintendo's next home platform architecture, ever since the innovative & efficient GC's debuted. Well, what's known of the Revolution's specs., comprehensive or not, will definitely leak here.

 

[Teasy]

They split the engineers up about equally into both teams. I doubt Nintendo had much to do with Flippers design beyond giving them a price/performance estimate.

How do you know that the ArtX team was spread evenly between both ATI teams? Because everything I've heard suggests otherwise.

Also you're greatly underestimating the level of input Nintendo has in the design of its own console. They aren't the kind of company who just give someone else a job to do and let them get on with it Obviously ArtX will have done the large majority of the actual design but Nintendo will have been there all the way through telling ArtX what they wanted and what they didn't want.

 

[London Geezer]

Are you sure? If the price of HD sets doesn't come down in a major way, people won't buy them. If it comes down to buying a $50 signal converter for your old box (assuming that the cable companies won't provide analog signals anymore) or a $2000 television, a lot of people will keep their old sets. Also, expect a lot of cheaper sets to only display in 480p. The government mandate is for digital broadcasting, not 720p and higher.

Nevermind the issue of the government trying to control the marketplace like this. If they let well enough alone, we'd eventually switch over as HDTV's came down in price and more and more broadcasting was done in HD.

You do know that these days only the top of the range HDTVs cost in the region of thousands of dollars, right. Much like the "top of the range" of everything else. I mean, there are DVD players that cost 2000 dollars, that doesn't mean that DVD players are expensive by nature. Quite the opposite in fact.

You can get a HDTV for very little money these days, everything considered, especially in the US!!

 

[darkblu]

You do know that these days only the top of the range HDTVs cost in the region of thousands of dollars, right. Much like the "top of the range" of everything else. I mean, there are DVD players that cost 2000 dollars, that doesn't mean that DVD players are expensive by nature. Quite the opposite in fact.

You can get a HDTV for very little money these days, everything considered, especially in the US!!

in canada you can't get a decent size HDTV for much less than 2k CAD. whereas my 27" SD costed me 370 CAD, and the state-of-the-art SDs of this size do not go much higher than 500. if we take desktop flat panels as any indication of the market temps, i don't expect HDTVs to enter the consumer's sweet spot pricerange for the next 2 years.

 

[fearsomepirate]

You can get a HDTV for very little money these days, everything considered, especially in the US!!

The only thing I can find remotely in my price range is a 26" widescreen HDTV for $350. 26" widescreen is just not that big (I currently have 24" SD) considering I can get a 32" SD with progressive scan for about the same price. Maybe that HDTV will be $200 in a few years, not that I'll be in the market for a new TV.

I should add that someone said no one's ever recommended a game with terrible graphics based on gameplay. In that case, I recommend Katamari Damacy and Animal Crossing.

 

[London Geezer]

The only thing I can find remotely in my price range is a 26" widescreen HDTV for $350. 26" widescreen is just not that big (I currently have 24" SD) considering I can get a 32" SD with progressive scan for about the same price. Maybe that HDTV will be $200 in a few years, not that I'll be in the market for a new TV.

Well if you're just not interested in buying a new TV, then don't you think your opinion in this matter doesn't really matter much?

People buying new TVs will surely have different budgets, but a $500 budget is really "normal", going up from there. In the circumstances, one will prefer to buy something that will last him for a loooong time, especially if he doesn't feel he will need another TV within 5 years or so.

People who only upgrade every 10 years will put aside a bigger amount of money, and go for a TV that will last them 10 years. A HDTV is the only way to go for those people.

Obviously different people have different needs. However it is undeniable that HDTV prices are coming down fast and have already come down fast, and will continue to do so.

 

[ban25]

Are you sure? If the price of HD sets doesn't come down in a major way, people won't buy them. If it comes down to buying a $50 signal converter for your old box (assuming that the cable companies won't provide analog signals anymore) or a $2000 television, a lot of people will keep their old sets. Also, expect a lot of cheaper sets to only display in 480p. The government mandate is for digital broadcasting, not 720p and higher.

$2000? A 32" Sharp AQUOS sells for $1500 and smaller models can be had for under a grand.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Well if you're just not interested in buying a new TV, then don't you think your opinion in this matter doesn't really matter much?

Only if there are a lot of people like me, and lots of those people are potential customers for video game consoles. I really have no concept of how often people buy new TVs, how many TVs are sold per year, what the median and mean prices are, what the standard deviation is, etc. We had the same TV for around 10 years at my parents' house. I'm not saying that HDTV's won't be common in a few years, but I'm not convinced they will be at this point, either. What about Europe and Japan?

 

[London Geezer]

Only if there are a lot of people like me, and lots of those people are potential customers for video game consoles. I really have no concept of how often people buy new TVs, how many TVs are sold per year, what the median and mean prices are, what the standard deviation is, etc. We had the same TV for around 10 years at my parents' house. I'm not saying that HDTV's won't be common in a few years, but I'm not convinced they will be at this point, either. What about Europe and Japan?

In Europe there has been a VERY sudden spike in HD information and sales.
Basically what happened here is that the HD standard was finalised "properly" only a few months ago. This made it possible to have HD-Ready TVs that are explicitily recognisable in shops. That's very important because this way people see what they're buying, they see big HD-Ready logos and ask what HD is all about.
Here there are some very strict rules, a HD-Ready TV is required to support at least 720p, have HDMI and component and support all its resolutions at both 50Hz and 60Hz.
These very defined lines make it possible to have a "standard" and makes it much easier for people to know what they're buying.
they don't need to know about HDMI or HDCP or other technicalities, they only need to know that their set is HD-Ready and that makes it work with SkyHD which will launch next year, and all other HD broadcasts that will come out later on.

Incidentally, prices have come down BIG TIME. Now in the UK it is possible to get HDTVs for about £600 from 26" up which is about half the price of widescreen TVs when they were "the big thing". Obviously there are much cheaper CRT SD televisions, but they'll be phased out eventually and replaced by LCD screens, even non-HD ones that are cheap due to the lack of proper connections, but will work ok, much like "normal TV's" today.

Now, going into electrics stores, it is undeniable people will know what HDTV is, and it won't take very long till every set sold will be HD-Ready.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

LB, like most people in the UK own 60hz pro-scan TVs? The price is dropping, but not so fast as many assert, esp. outside of NA. Also show me a standalone $2000 DVD player.

the Consumer Electronics Association forecasts that the number is going to steadily increase. In 2006, by the time PlayStation 3 and Revolution launch, nearly 30 percent of all homes in America will have an HDTV. That's already a significant audience, but it gets bigger. In 2007, almost 50 percent of all U.S. households will own an HDTV and in 2008, a whopping 68.1 percent, according to the CEA.

This is what is known as a forecast, a prediction. This is by no means an actual accurate adoption rate %, there are too many other economic variables to consider such as potential tax increases, employment rates, rising costs of goods such as oil for example, etc, etc. A plethora of factors could slow consumer adoption, & let's not blindly believe that these various organizations have been correct when attempting to do the very same thing with other technology sectors in the past.

Also, we don't for certain what the Rev has in store architecturally. As I've said previously, a "high-def" mode similar to Polyphony's 1080i GT4 should be easily attainable, we simply don't know at this point in time.

 

[London Geezer]

LB, like most people in the UK own 60hz pro-scan TVs? The price is dropping, but not so fast as many assert, esp. outside of NA. Also show me a standalone $2000 DVD player.
.

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/displayreview.php?reviewid=5443

£3500 = $7000 in February 2005. Don't think it got much cheaper, and if it did, there's a long way to go to get to $2000...

I did say "the top of the top of the range". Just to show that there ARE DVD players that are ridiculously expensive.

In the US, prices are stagnant because they're already damn low, everything considered.

In Europe they have a long way to go before they are "mainstream" priced. So here they are dropping fast, considering.