Revolution specs from IGN

Guess I´m not the one that needs to learn how to read.

 

I know the entire game is based around controller. But does a new controller automatically make their games New and Innovative? No. Is it because it's Nintendo that you whole-heartedly believe enough to insult me because I don't agree with you? Just because Nintendo says the controller will innovate their games does NOT mean it will. Up until now, you still haven't seen anyone play a single Revolution game and like I said before you haven't yourself. So, how do you catergorize such a statement as "This controller will revolutionize gaming!". It's called a gimmick, it is the reason the system is different besides the power issue. You don't know any different and I bet you can't say 100% that it anything other than that.

Just incase you don't know, I'll help you out.
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gim·mick pronunciation of "gimmick" ( P )
n.
1.
1. A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus.
2. An innovative or unusual mechanical contrivance; a gadget.
2.
1. An innovative stratagem or scheme employed especially to promote a project: an advertising gimmick.
2. A significant feature that is obscured, misrepresented, or not readily evident; a catch.
3. A small object whose name does not come readily to mind.
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Read the definition and then tell me that isn't exactly what the controller is. Maybe if you weren't so full of anger, you'd take the time and actually read what I typed instead of purely focusing on it negatively.

You're basically telling people not to get excited over PS3/Xbox360, what makes you're opinion anymore valid than anyone elses who thinks differently? wait, wait.. let me guess... NOTHING.

I said realistically, you can expect 3rd party developers to release bad ports. Are you saying it'll be different? If so, say it.. I disagree, I look at the boring connectivity things 3rd-party developers did with GBA/GC and the rather uninventive uses of the stylus for the Nintendo DS, as evidence of how much effort 3rd party developers are going to be dishing out. Nintendo said those things were going to help them innovate... well, why didn't it? I say it's because they're gimmicks to get you in the door, then they'll wow you with their 1st party games... after that, it's pretty much all you'll have to look forward to.

 

I share my opinion with Teasy one.

There is no reason (marketing, economic...) to they lauch such a console with so low specs.

But there is many reasons to they lauch a significant more powefull console than GC (no need to be a/diferent than a low rez version of XB360 or something like that), there is good reasons: marketing, it is very easy even if they aim 150$ or less, they can gain a lot with that (in gaming terms), the money of R&D from IBM and ATI is used, modern (eg) GPUs are easier to programe (high level languages) ence lower dev costs, everything/one else but IGN say it ...

Personally I will not belive only in IGN, if there has a few more reliable places to say that Rev is about ~2xGC then I may get a bit more suspicius but till now everything tell me otherwise.

 

Quoting does help, and comments like that do degrade threads fast. My apologie to you though.

m1nd_x, i own a gamecube, and last used it about a year ago, its in its box right now. I bought a total of 4 games from it, the only one i played through was Zelda. And most of sanity's requiem. Last gameboy i used was about 10 years ago, and thats about it. Anger i have not. I am however shocked at the playschool mentallity that some people have; the fact that people cant think outside the box, to read this "nintendo is doomed" stuff is quite a bit irritating. And I dont need you to act silly in posting a definition as if thats some statement or insult to me. I am fully aware of what people mean when they say gimmick, and i think its a bullshit comment. What you make it sound like is that they hook you in with the controller, the promise of this new way to play games, then stuff a whole different agenda down your throat. Thats crap, Nintendo would destroy themselves completely in any hope of surviving in console games if they did that. Why you feel the need to boast such a claim, that it is infact their hidden goal, is completely beyond me.

People can get excited over the PS3 and Xbox360 all they want, my personal opinion is that both companies are simply improving graphics with every console release (of course other side features not gaming related). And is that not a true statement? I think the idea of taking console gaming in a new direction deserves more interest then the new game that has soft particle effects and motion blur and then the 100 clones that are released there after. Do you disagree? Its just a new idea, and i think Nintendo deserves more then a nod from people rather then everyone saying "they're doomed!!!!" or something to that effect.

 

Answer this question... Do you think that 3rd-Party developers are going to put up a valiant effort and create new and innovative games for Revolution? Or do you think they're going to half-ass it and save and devote most of their time to creating things for PS3 where even if they sell a little, it'll be more than it could on Rev and they would have the option of porting it.

It's sad but true. The later is probably what will happen, it's pretty much what happened with gamecube to an extent.

Now from that, if you say from a 3rd-party interest perspective, I'd say they're screwed. Another way to look at it is they've got low cost hardware, devoted fans that will buy the console and their 1st party games, maybe a random good 3rd party game, I wouldn't expect much more than that, they'll definitely return a profit.

 

Yes. At least it's far from out of the question. A half-arsed $2 million game on PS3 will look weak next to the $20 million AAA titles on that platform, whereas $2 million is up there with the rest of Rev's games. For a given platform, a game is competing with other games on that platform, and if the average cost for that platform is high, competing product development expenditure will also need to be high. If Rev caps development costs on account of needing less resources to produce, the cost to develop is kept low. If there are few 3rd party devs on that platform, all the better as you have the market to yourself!

If Rev sells on account of it's controller, probably being led by Nintendo first-party titles, I expect 3rd parties to get on board. I would.

Now of course is Rev only sells 10 million units versus PS3's 100 million, that's a different story. But early on when neither has a major market lead, the economics for developing for the cheaper, newer, and potentially more exciting platform in terms of simple gameplay, Rev has a strong case. Unless PS3 ships with EyeToy as standard and a strong library to support similar games. Even then the cost of developing for PS3 is going to be greater than Rev, and the complexity and time to completion.

 

It's not just talking about them getting on board to make cheaper games though, I'm talking about contributing something that is worthwile on the platform, obviously it might even be harder to do so on the Revolution simply because games NEED to be tailored to the controller. If developers support it and release a bunch of half-assed games with boring implementations of ideas for the controller, it's just not going to sell. Considering that the majority of 3rd party games released are already pretty crappy, I just don't see it getting positive in those respects. Hopefully I'm wrong...

 

Wether the shading capabilities of a GPU are worthwhile or not comes down to a combination of things, only one of which is clock speed. To say that DX9 pixel shaders would be useless on a 250Mhz chip without knowing anything about the architecture behind the chip (number of pipelines ect) is really silly to be honest. The Radeon 9700 was a excellent DX9 GPU and ran at 250Mhz (the Pro was 275Mhz). On the other hand the Radeon 9500 ran at basically the same clock rate yet it was a poor chip for DX9 shaders, why, because it had half the shaders and half the memory bus width of a 9700.

 

Just to add to what Shifty already said, its going to all come down to ease of development as well as how much effort is put in when it comes to third party titles. You need good developers, new and old. But thats always the case, its nothing new. Its an area no one can predict on until its already happened. Games on this console, as well as any, can look great, and play great. The revolution has the ability to be a little bit more special to a gamer. Where as the Xbox360 has its online capability, and PS3 will have multi-functional qualities.

 

You are making a huge assumption there. AAA titles this generation were in the 10-30 million dollar range. What is $2 million going to do for you on either plattform?? Certainly not a AAA product...and if what you are talking about is budget, low cost titles, there´s a place for those on PS3 and X360 as well, not every game is going to be Lair or MGS4.

 

I'd be very suprised if the majority of AAA games this generation where much outside of the 5-10 million range. I bet the number of games costing anywhere near $20 million were few and far between. On the other hand next generation $20-$30 million is going to be the standard sort of cost for a AAA game.

 

Oblivion for X360 is $60. (Edit: I said $70, but that's for the Collector's Edition. Sorry!) That's steep, but it's a massive game and probably well worth it. Whatever Splinter Cell 4 costs (prolly $60) will be worth it as well. Any AAA game on 360 or PS3 (GT5!!!!) will be worth it. But $60 for Blazing Angels and Full Auto? Sure, you can get quickshot games over Live Arcade, but games with 6-8 hours of play would be better off with between 500 MB and 1 GB of content to keep the cost from $40-$50. But that's too much content for Live Arcade, but not nearly enough to look competitive with the average 360 title. Like, I'm sure Burnout 360 is as fun as they say, but I'd rather pay maybe $40 and take a reduction to current-gen levels of texture detail and polycount than pay $60 for it.

 

??

http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product_id=200123

 

Well that CPU is certainly faster than a Pentium 3. P3 has all sorts of deficiencies cuz it's x86. A PPC at that clock should be a good bit faster. Not magically though.

The GPU is probably faster than an X700 I would imagine.

But, wow, those are some oddly low numbers. It sure better sell for very cheap and have a wacky ad campaign to get peoples attention. A low price could backfire by making the unit seem overly low in value. Good luck N. I hope you have lots of shockingly innovative games in the lineup.

 

fearsomepirate

I was talking about game development costs there rather then game prices. Obviously they're connected, I just wasn't sure if you maybe misread my post (if not then ignore this post ).

 

Teasy are you happy with the speculated specifications for the new Nintendo console?

 

I should have said the figures were just to represent the cost argument, and not really indicative. That is, entry level costs for producing an XB360/PS3 title will be at least middle-of-the-road Rev development costs. the amount of money you'd spend producing a budget PS3 title is likely to be enough to finance a substantial Rev title. Maybe not AAA, but at least A grade (I've never figured out the rankings of games! What's Triple A, Double A, single A, A star, Distinction and 2 merits, Grade F, 2:1....). How can it be any other way? We've heard lots of talk of the costs of next-gen development going up compared to this gen, so if Rev is much nearer this gen than next, it has to be cheaper. I'm sure you'll find super-costly AAA titles on all platforms regardless of hardware. The later FF's on PS2 likely cost more to develop than most XB360 games! But on average XB360 games cost more to produce, as there's more you need to create to fit that 512 MB RAM. Less resources means less content means cheaper development. Likewise Rev development, if these specs are accurate, isn't going to have the headaches of developing for Cell. No matter how much my numbers are wide of the mark, for a lower budget you can present either a cheapo looking game on PS3 (relative to others on the same platform) or a good game (relative to that platform) on Revolution.

 

Regarding "contributing something worthwile", you will find many people argue that it's the sheer number of titles that makes a difference, not always the amount of actually worthwile titles.

At least in Japan, a good number of 3d party developers had some pretty brilliant ideas for implementing the DS touchscreen and microphone in a large variety of games. Also, I suspect the Revmote could be more useful than the DS touchscreen for games that are popular in the western world (sport games and FPS, for example, or racing games turning the Revmote sideways). Nothing would stop say EA from reusing graphical engines from past gen, tweak up the graphics (they already do this every single year after all), implement decent Revmote controls, and release it for a very low development cost (not saying that I love EA/Acclaim shovelware, but many people seem to do). Whereas for this generation, developing a Cube version of a game probably costed pretty much the same as an XBox or PS2 version, with the likelihood of much lower sales (lower installed base, competition with Nintendo).

Also, the Virtual Console (which will feature new games, not only BC titles) can be used by developers to test their gameplay ideas for a low cost.

I also suspect that Nintendo will continue the policy of 3d party deals they did this gen, of allowing other developers (Namco, Sega, Capcom...) to use their IP and franchises in exchange for exclusive or timed-exclusive content, some of which sold decently on the Cube.

In an industry where at each generation a smaller amount of AAA titles must make for the losses of more and more commercially failed games (some of which being excellent titles, sadly), making a quick buck on a low cost/decent sales titles should be seen as an excellent opportunity by developers and editors alike.

 

Just thinking out loud

A good technique used to give surfaces and models a good visual aspect, was to use APS.

So, now I'm wondering if the Hollywood GPU based one the Flipper feature set will support or not dot3 Normal Mapping.

If it doesn't, it would be a bigger loss from a visual standpoint than the non inclusion of a Pixel Shader, if you ask me.

 

Depends if you or he are including marketing or not (i.e. pure development costs vs. total outlay). Figure that out first, then we can discuss budgets.