Nintendo increases R&D spending - N5 not a GC sucessor ?

[Megadrive1988]

It's no different... The Famicom was thrown together with off-the-shelf parts to be a cheap as possible... There was no need to work with outside sources on it because there was little to design... And yes Nintendo (NCL) was pretty involved on a daily basis... I had a rather dandy chat with one of the GCN engineers a while back (during a job interview at HAL Labs), and happend to provide quite a nice bit of illumination on the subject...

the Famicom's CPU and memory system was off the shelf, but I am fairly certain that the PPU (picture processing unit) was a custom design, like Atari 7800's MARIA (or MARIE) graphics chip which was designed at about the same time as the PPU. the PPU was at least partly a custom design if not totally a custom design. although I would not doubt the possibility of the PPU being based on something else, such as an arcade chip. whatever the case, the Famicom's PPU was early 1980s technology that did not hit its stride until the mid to late part of that decade.

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

I could have sworn its relatively speaking across the street.

Nintendo's Headquarters in America and Microsoft's World Headquarters are LITERALLY right across the street from each other -- all the more reason to suspect collaboration.

 

[Qroach]

They sure are. I've dealt with a testing house that would walk over the gamecube submissions to nintendo and they spoke about working with MS since they were so close. They were literally down the street from both.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Thats not necessarily true, considering the fact Nintendo is putting a extra 100 million dollars into R&D for their next console.

Um, so? Do you have any idea how much they where spending before this 100 million on R&D? All I know is I don't think they were spending anything close to what MS and Sony were spending to develop thier next consoles.

They're not downplaying graphics, they're downplaying the industry focus on just delivering great graphics without making efforts to put as much focus on gameplay.

That's a load of BS IMO. Game play hasn't really changed in years (since the move to 3D) and it's as good now as it always have been despite the move towards flashy graphics. That might not be the way nintendo see's things, but I think that's what happened. There are people coming up with innovative gameplay, and great realistic graphics. Perhaps nintendo needs to do better in the graphics department. I think Nintendo is also downplaying the style of today's games in favor of smaller games too which is a trend I can only partly agree with. They seem to think these big bugdet games with deep invovling plotlines isn't the way to go. I just think gamers are getting older and more mature, and thus require more invovling content. I don't think the save "the princess story" is nearly invovling enough to catch older gamers attention as much as it once did.

Nintedno seems worried about a lot of trends in the market, but I have no reason to agree with everythign they say. I don't see the competition complaing about any of these things which makes me think nintendo is loosing touch with a portion of the market.

Graphics are not a feature, its a given part of videogame console design.

Sorry but I don't agree. Of course powerful graphics hardware is a feature. IMO, the only thing that's a given on each console is that it will have a controller and connect to a TV.

Nintendo know they don't have to put that much focus on talking about technology, because the technology to put realistic graphics on PC monitors and televisions already exsist.

Nintendo knows they themselves don't need hardware capable of realistic graphics, because they themselves don't require it. Since when has Nintendo ever needed/wanted realistic graphics in any of thier games?

The games you and I play today could not have been realized if the input devices that exsist today had not been implemented. If the industry stuck with the digital D pad, game development would have hit a wall. Atari made the mistake of not pushing input design, and we all know what happen to them.

I really don't know where you get this idea. To some extent certain game play features have evovled from having a analog stick. However it certainly hasn't been all that "revoloutionary" for gameplay. Adding analog sticks to consoles were a natural progression from PC gaming. As analog sticks have long since been available in that market segment. Infact, I wouldn't be suprised if ananlog stick were available for consoles even back in teh atari/colleco/intellivision days.

Atari died for reasons that had NOTHIGN to do with input design. They died becuase they allowed the market to be over saturated with with poor games and this ruined thier own market. Perhaps you weren't around to see the big video game market crash, but that's what happened.

So based on comments by Iwata you can come to the conclusion that Nintendos console will be underpowered, but the fact that they're spending a extra 100 million dollars on R&D doesn't mean anything because it doesn't match what you think MS or Sony spending. One question, do you know how much MS is spending or is it based on assumptions and speculation. It doesn't matter how much MS or Sony spend on R&D, the money Sony is spending is so high because they have to build fabrication facillities, something MS and Nintendo don't have to do.

It seems your looking at it through the eyes of a graphics whore.


I was around for the crash, what I said was based on my opinion. I owned those consoles of the 80's or late 70's

 

[Qroach]

So based on comments by Iwata you can come to the conclusion that Nintendos console will be underpowered

I just said they won't be nearly as concerned with hardware as Sony or MS and IMO will opt for something more cost effective.

but the fact that they're spending a extra 100 million dollars on R&D doesn't mean anything because it doesn't match what you think MS or Sony spending.

Nintend isn't spending the entire 100 million on N5. Only a portion of it. yes, I do think MS and Sony are spending more on R&D for thier next gen consoles as they are far more concerned with the hardware each other is releasing.

One question, do you know how much MS is spending or is it based on assumptions and speculation. It doesn't matter how much MS or Sony spend on R&D, the money Sony is spending is so high because they have to build fabrication facillities, something MS and Nintendo don't have to do.

True Sony is building fabs. Still I base my reasoning on how MS seems to be far more conerned with what sony will do for hardware compared to nintendo. You can call it an educated guess if you like.

It seems your looking at it through the eyes of a graphics whore.

Well, I think you're wrong. Just because I don't think all the gameplay innovation over the last 20 year has come from changes to input, doesn't make me a graphics whore. Just because I don't agree with nintendo's assesment of the industry doesn't make me a graphics whore.

 

[Squeak]

Do you usually see posters saying "WANKERS" hung outside the window?

I doubt it, if microsoft did that, it would be seen as a warning, rather than an insult.

 

[Teasy]

I just said they won't be nearly as concerned with hardware as Sony or MS and IMO will opt for something more cost effective.

Which is exactly what they did this generation.

 

[Qroach]

Which is exactly what they did this generation.

Exactly...

 

[Teasy]

So then in your opinion we should expect the technical difference between N5 and PS3/XBox2 to be very similar to the technical difference between GC and XBox?

 

[thop]

I guess Nintendo will have no problem then Show me an XBOX game that looks noticeably better than RE4 (or any other good looking GC game).

BTW. does Nintendo sell the Cube at a loss now (99$)? And is MS still losing money on the XBOX?

 

[Ooh-videogames]

So then in your opinion we should expect the technical difference between N5 and PS3/XBox2 to be very similar to the technical difference between GC and XBox?

To add to that, things like dvd playback also allowed Nintendo some breathing room when it came to cost. The difference may be, no Pixel Shader3.0 for the N5. OpenGL is just as good as DirectX, so that could be the route Nintendo go as for as API's.

 

[Qroach]

So then in your opinion we should expect the technical difference between N5 and PS3/XBox2 to be very similar to the technical difference between GC and XBox?

I expect th gap to be slightly further then this generation, but anyway I wrote this earlier.

"This is why I don't think they will have a console with graphics on par with the next gen consoles. It will still be fine, but I don't think it will have all the bells and whistles."

 

[GwymWeepa]

I guess Nintendo will have no problem then Show me an XBOX game that looks noticeably better than RE4 (or any other good looking GC game).

BTW. does Nintendo sell the Cube at a loss now (99$)? And is MS still losing money on the XBOX?

I heard the GC was dirty cheap to make, less than 99.

 

[zidane1strife]

Well, I spoke of a novel control mechanism in my prior post, to elaborate a little more:

These dreams have an official name: brain-machine interfaces. A decade ago they seemed little more than fantasy, but now their emergence seems like just a matter of time

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5093199/site/newsweek/

Of course they'll need to find a way to do this without implanting anything, not just wi-fi style. But given the advances in other areas I'm sure they'll find a way. So true this is something that might arrive, for n6-7, at the earliest....

PS hope this hasn't been posted.

 

[PC-Engine]

I heard the GC was dirty cheap to make, less than 99.

Yes it's relatively cheap to manufacture, but I think the factories are pretty clean.

 

[V3]

I am still thinking that Nintendo next gen will go beyond the TV set, in how we play game. Well I am hoping for something like that anyway.

 

[thop]

Itawa speaks again.

As for the next generation of consoles, Iwata is sure of one thing: companies can no longer rely on simply raising the technology bar to keep consumers interested.

Until recently, changes from one video game console to the next were obvious, but now the level of photo realism is so good that future incremental changes will hardly be noticed by most players, according to Iwata.

From now on, companies must dare to be different in order to capture the audience's imagination, he says.

"Nintendo created 20 years ago the standard of how video games were going to be played. There is the TV set, here is the controller, (held) in both hands. We should not hesitate to crash through the system Nintendo itself created," he says.

"That's innovation."

 

[Qroach]

um, nintendo wasn't the first company to come up with the idea of a home console that plugged into a TV and used a controller. Other than that I have no argument...

 

[thop]

I believe he talks about Famicom (20 years ago) who kinda set the standard (as he says). Of course all the pong clones and then Atari VCS aka 2600 were first.

 

[Megadrive1988]

pong, odessy, fairchild channel f, atari vcs/2600, intellivision, atari 5200, colecovision, all came before the 1983 release of the famicom.

the current console model though, is pretty much patterned after what nintendo did with the famicom/nes.