Revolution specs - the good side

[aths]

The ONLY good side of the Revolution specs is it's cheap for Nintendo to produce so they may be able to continue making a profit, even if they lose even more marketshare.

From a consumers point of view, there is nothing good about it, and suggesting there is is merely damage control. There isn't one single good reason to want specs to be less than what they could get from another system, as it means the other systems are now capable of doing things the Revolution simply can't.

While I look at the specs if I buy a new PC system, I never really cared about hardware specs when I bought a game console.

I bought the Gamecube because I bought a TV (it was my first tv with a resonable screen size, 20" visible) and just wanted to have "video-games"; the GCN was the cheapest console and I already got some Gameboys; so I bought a Nintendo. I am very happy with it because I have access to a fine selection of high quality Nintendo titles.

Later I also bought a PS2, just to play GT4. (Over the time I bought some other PS2-games, too, but I still play mainly GT4 if I use my Playsi.)

For me, it's the games; not the hardware. The game hardware (hey, it is just a toy) should be small, light-weighted and silent at first. I think most people agree that Xbox is technically more advanced than GCN or PS2; I am still happy without the Xbox I agree that state-of-the-art-games need the proper hardware, and better performance is per se better than more $$$ for Nintendo. But I consider already my Gamecube as a bit too noisy – I don't would take an Xbox 360 even as a gift.

 

[fearsomepirate]

The only positive thing I can see is that Revo games won't be ports. If it was "slightly worse than XB360 at 480p," then I imagine we would get a lot of ports that overtaxed the hardware with for jittery framerates and screen tearing aplenty. As it is now, gfx engines will probably be ground-up Revo designed, meaning at least they'll run well. But I'm really surprised they're still going with a 1 MB texture cache. Scene texture detail could stand an improvement even at 480p.

I'm kinda holding out for better, but I have little confidence. It seems almost like Nintendo has been trying to take a political stance on graphics, and deliberately releasing underpowered hardware when more powerful hardware is available at the same price would fit with that.

 

[dukmahsik]

i think the specs are fine for what type of consumer they are targeting

 

[Synergy34]

I honestly could careless what the power of the machine is. Sure it would be nice to have it state of the art chips or close to it. But as long as the wand works as advertised, and this thing is priced at a point that reflects what is in the machine and what i am willing to pay. I won't have any complaints.

150 at launch, the sucker is mine. 200, probably get it at a price drop.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Uhh.. What?

So now it's a positive thing that the system is so under powered that third party developers won't bother porting titles from the PS3 or X360 to it?

Talk about utter spin control. The less variety in games, the less third party developer support, the less successful a console will be.

Unless you're just going to admit that the only thing the Rev has going for it is its library and any "refreshes" of past IPs. Which.. ok, fine. But that means you can expect the Rev to sell at approximately the same rate or lower than the GC. Does it really matter if N actually makes money from each sale? If they only sell 6M consoles (just making that up out of thin air) while Sony and MS sell 36M (again, simply fabricated) who are developers going to make games for? The console where they can only sell at most 6M games or one of the other two consoles?

Add in the fact that developers can port those games between the PS3 and the X360 but not the Rev and you're looking at potential sales of 72M copies of their game compared to potential sales of 6M.

Are game development costs really going to be reduced THAT much for the Rev? Is N going to completely throw away their tight grip on strict licensing that won them first place in market share when Atari was letting anybody develop crap for the 2600?

Obviously, these numbers just don't work. But take the assumption that development costs are going to be half for the Rev for what they would be for the PS3 or X360. Because dev's can't port these titles, it still means for it to be worthwhile for them to develop for the Rev, there would have to be a sales base equal to that of the PS3 or the X360.

Which means the Rev is going to have sell far more consoles this round than the GC did last round. But of course, Dev's won't know that to begin with.. which means they're more likely to spend their time developing for the other two, which means Rev will launch mostly with their own 1st party IP games, which means the console isn't likely to sell any more than the GC did.

As far as "Why did they wait so long to just release an overclocked GC?" question... why not? Why on earth would they have wanted to release a new console sooner? What would have been the benefit? Should everybody Sony, MS, N just release new consoles as soon as they have the ability to manufacture a more powerful one? Why didn't Sony launch a PS2.5 with twice the power of the PS2 three years ago? Because it would have been foolish.

 

[Squeak]

- With a fully fledged eDRAM implementation (whole frame, and texture cache on die), unlike xbox 360, and the target resolution being a third (or sixth in some cases), I can see how a 243Mhz Rev VPU can get close to the competition.

- If the CPU has some or all of the following features, that might help a great deal in getting better real world performance at 729Mhz than one might think possible: 1. Large cache backed up by ultra low latency 1TSRAM. 2. Dual threading, and large registers. 3. OoOe.

- The RAM size might not be that much of a problem if they put a freaking fast drive in the console.
GC had the lowest loading times of all the current gen. consoles, so it might no be so to far fetched.

- VPU 3D transformation could again be hardwired. This would give an advantage in raw polycount for monolithic models (an advantage which of course would be levelled out be the lower clockrate).

- As I speculated before in this thread, the smallness of the two main pieces of logic might allow Nintendo to make a SoaC.
The possibilities of such a set-up, with the amount of bandwidth and low latency possible between the CPU and GPU boggles the mind.

 

[Crossbar]

Here are some good sides of the low speced rev:

• Nintendo probably does not need to subsidise the hw.
• Nintendo will be able to deliver initial volumes that Sony and MS can't pull off.
• The hw will actually fit inside the box.
• The hw probably does not need a high speed fan to run cool.
• The develpment cost of the CPU and GPU must be significantly lower than for the GC, which means more money left over for marketing.
• Low develpment costs for new developement environments.
• The developers will hit the ground running (low threshold for GC develpers).

Well, I had expected somewhat higher specs. Hey, a 1 GHz CPU should likely still run below 10 W, and 128 MB RAM would make a difference if Nintendo intend to keep the Rev around for 5 years before their next next-gen. Maybe they don't, maybe Nintendo is opting for a shorter cycle?

EDIT: added the two first points and polished some text.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Hey, a 1 GHz CPU should likely still run below 10 W, and 128 MB RAM would make a difference if Nintendo intend to keep the Rev around for another 5 years. Maybe they don't?

I'm actually curious as to how long Nintendo expects Revolution to live. 3-year life cycle? Price drop to $60 after 2 years? Who knows?

@Rancid:

I could come back the same way:

1. If Revo pulls a DS and sells 10 million units in its first year, do you really think 3rd parties will abandon it? Of course, if the quality of their Revo offerings are comparable to their DS offerings (i.e. they're all rushed, buggy, incomplete garbage), it might not help at all (too bad, I was looking forward to Worms).

2. It already has new IPs and key 3rd-party games in the works (Suda 51, Ubisoft FPS, etc). 3rd parties are enthusiastic about Revolution. It's already going to launch with 3rd party titles. This isn't open to debate. Tecmo has already announced Pangya Golf for launch. End of story. Doubtlessly others will be on the way.

3. They already relaxed licensing this-gen. 1997 was almost a decade ago. Get with the times. Devkits are $2000. PS3/X360 dev costs are projected to to be almost an order of magnitude larger than current-gen. What, do you think Nintendo is going to start charging license fees in the millions?

 

[Ooh-videogames]

I'm actually curious as to how long Nintendo expects Revolution to live. 3-year life cycle? Price drop to $60 after 2 years? Who knows?

@Rancid:

I could come back the same way:

1. If Revo pulls a DS and sells 10 million units in its first year, do you really think 3rd parties will abandon it? Of course, if the quality of their Revo offerings are comparable to their DS offerings (i.e. they're all rushed, buggy, incomplete garbage), it might not help at all (too bad, I was looking forward to Worms).

2. It already has new IPs and key 3rd-party games in the works (Suda 51, Ubisoft FPS, etc). 3rd parties are enthusiastic about Revolution. It's already going to launch with 3rd party titles. This isn't open to debate. Tecmo has already announced Pangya Golf for launch. End of story. Doubtlessly others will be on the way.

3. They already relaxed licensing this-gen. 1997 was almost a decade ago. Get with the times. Devkits are $2000. PS3/X360 dev costs are projected to to be almost an order of magnitude larger than current-gen. What, do you think Nintendo is going to start charging license fees in the millions?

Should have been in Console Talk.

 

[pc999]

- With a fully fledged eDRAM implementation (whole frame, and texture cache on die), unlike xbox 360, and the target resolution being a third (or sixth in some cases), I can see how a 243Mhz Rev VPU can get close to the competition.

Not again, althought, if it is Flipper based, I wonder if they had hardwired some new fxs eg shadows like D3/SC3 (or even something that looks like a next gen lightning) in every game, that could make it much pretier yet a good performer and easy to programe ence cheap.

Still it is much harder to get a similar jump from the CPU. I wonder if they can also have some special HW to do heavy tasks (animation, AI, physycs...) or if it can even have (or if it would be good) having some hardwired algorithms for that?

 

[thundermonkey]

Considering the amount of bashing the 360 has received for having too many games that "don't look next-gen" do you really think the Revolution launching with games that look like Gamecube games is really a good thing?

Not a fair comparison.

On the one hand you've got the Revolution, with a company standing behind it saying:
"Of course, we are applying advances in technology. But when you use those advances just to boost the processing power, the trade-off is that you increase power consumption, make the machine more expensive and make developing games more expensive. When I look at the balance of that trade-off -- what you gain and what you lose -- I don't think it's good. Nintendo is applying the benefits of advanced technology, but we're using it to make our machines more power-efficient, quieter and faster to start. And we're making a brand-new user interface. I think that way of thinking is the biggest difference." - Satoru Iwata

and

"If you look at trying to incorporate all that, of course we might not have the horsepower that some other companies have, but if you look at the numbers that they're throwing out, are those numbers going to be used in-game?" - Shigeru Miyamoto

Versus what a certain MS exec had to say:
"Next generation games will combine unprecedented audio and visual experiences to create worlds that are beyond real and they'll deliver storylines and game play so compelling that it will feel like living a lucid
dream." - Peter Moore

and

"With Xbox 360, the age of the jaggies is over, superseded by smooth, lifelike visuals of cinematic quality...Let me just say very clearly: These games will also look amazing on standard definition TV." - Peter Moore

MS deserves every little bit of bad press they've got from such blatantly retarded hype. Sony's no innocent either, what with 4D being their tagline. At least Nintendo is being realistic.

 

[Legend]

being 'realistic' isn't the point of marketing. generating hype and demand is. MS and Sony have been doing a great job in marketing their machines. MS says X2 brings unpresedented graphics. well, yea sure. you can't play Oblivion quality in current gen, and they are talking about consoles. Sony calls the GPU the 'reality' synthesizer and PS3 '4D'. the latter may mean in a new position, as a new console and all.

but who cares what these statements really mean? lecturing isn't the point. these things are catchy and get the general masses interested. Ninty should do the same. they are doing a good job with calling it 'revolution'- though they are using a decade old mechanic (if not older). but that isn't the point.

remember PS2's slogan early on? The Third Place. what they hell does that mean? nobody I asked knew, but every one said it was 'cool'. mission accomplished.
these are PR statements not spec releases.

 

[fearsomepirate]

being 'realistic' isn't the point of marketing. generating hype and demand is. MS and Sony have been doing a great job in marketing their machines.

The fact is that if you hype your machine to be jaggy-free and produce graphics so real that reality sucks in comparison, people will be disappointed when you don't deliver. We all remember "Emotion Engine" hype, but we also remember the fallout in the press after seeing the PS2's launch titles. Quite a few early DS titles were criticized for not offering much of anything in the way of advances in control and gameplay. If MS gets to overblow their machine, we get to criticize them when they don't deliver. It's only fair.

 

[Legend]

yes, in that regard. that is why they should generalize. you have more to risk/gain by being more specific.

I can only imagine what the commotion Killzone will make whether it lives up to the video or not. either way, it will be on every board.

 

[thundermonkey]

yes, in that regard. that is why they should generalize. you have more to risk/gain by being more specific.

I can only imagine what the commotion Killzone will make whether it lives up to the video or not. either way, it will be on every board.

I kind of feel sorry for Sony in that regard.

They'll feel a lot of backlash right off the bat if they don't deliver.

 

[JasonLD]

Since Revolution might be just a upgraded version of GC, single chip solution might make a sense..any thoughts?

 

[see colon]

I kind of feel sorry for Sony in that regard.

They'll feel a lot of backlash right off the bat if they don't deliver.

from the online comunity/gaming press/hardcore gamer yes, but the average "joe consumer" probably has never seen the killzone presentation, or the MGS one for that matter. sony does run the risk of delivering the PS3 a year after XB360 with little to no gains in visual quality, though. that could lead to some serious disapointment for some people who expect sony to deliver something substacialy better than what's alrady on the market.

 

[Urian]

I believe that the Revolution Console is only a terminal.

Today the PC and the Mac have the enough power for emulating the Cube CPU and run the API from the Cube GPU without problems, you only need to adapt the API to PC and make drivers for the Revolution Controller for Mac and PC.

 

[Guden Oden]

Uhh.. What?

So now it's a positive thing that the system is so under powered that third party developers won't bother porting titles from the PS3 or X360 to it?

Talk about utter spin control.

Uhh... Actually, no.

It IS a good thing the system is so "under powered" (relative term; some claim the 360 is under powered. Are laptop computers under powered? What about palmtop? Compared to Blue Gene/L, everything's dog-ass slow). Since the Rev will be so 'under powered', we likely won't get crappy multiplatform ports of PS3 or 360 titles; titles that'll likely have lost most of their whiz-bang glory and thunder in the porting process. Look at it this way: you wanna play those games, you buy them on the PS3 or 360 and play them the way they're supposed to look. Not that hard to understand, right?

While you can whack in a nail or two with the butt of a gun, a carpenter prefers a hammer. You get the right tool for the job; whiz-bang graphics n shit games go to PS3 and 360. Unique/quirky games go to Rev. There's room for both without either neccessarily competing the other out of the marketplace.

The less variety in games, the less third party developer support, the less successful a console will be.

Since Rev's 3rd party support is pretty much a nebulous cloud at this moment you're just speculating blindly out of your butt here.

If they only sell 6M consoles (just making that up out of thin air) while Sony and MS sell 36M (again, simply fabricated) who are developers going to make games for? The console where they can only sell at most 6M games or one of the other two consoles?

Even assuming the proportions between consoles sold in your example holds true, if it costs $100M to make a AAA game for PS3 or 360 and $10M for Rev, the picture suddenly becomes a lot less clear-cut which platform would be more profitable to develop for, wouldn't you say? See how easy it is to play with imaginary numbers!

Add in the fact that developers can port those games between the PS3 and the X360 but not the Rev and you're looking at potential sales of 72M copies of their game compared to potential sales of 6M.

You're grossly over-simplifying.

For starters, due to their vastly differing hardware architectures and capabilities, you're going to have to re-program pretty much your entire game in order to port it, or keep two completely separate code-bases during development, one for each platform. You will also likely need lots of separate art assets for each platform since the GPUs won't have similar performance characteristics. All this will cost lots of extra money; it's not just the case of re-using everything and simply recompiling the executable to move a game between PS3 and 360.

Second, on a traditional system like PS3 or 360, you're going to have lots of "potential" customers that will NEVER buy a driving game if you're making a driving game, or NEVER buy a fighting game if you're making a fighting game, or NEVER buy a sports game if you're making a sports game, because these people simply don't enjoy those genres. So while there's a highly theoretical 72M copy market out there in your imaginary example, let's not fuken kid ourselves here! How many console games have ever sold that many copies? Answer: big fat ZIPPO, unless you count like every super mario game and add em all together. Think of how many have even reached a tenth of that amount, it's a very small handful. Some Nintendo titles, Some of Blizzard's games are probably up there as well, Myst, the Sims perhaps... Not that many others.

On the Rev on the other hand, you as a dev can assume a high proportion of customers got the system for the less conventional control mechanism, and might be interested in say a novel and unique golf game because of the unique gameplay they get with Rev even though they may otherwise detest golf either in real life, on-screen or both.

Speculation of course, but no less unlikely than your speculation.

Now let's speculate just like before that PS3 and 360 sells 36M copies each, and Rev, instead of 6M sells 24M... Who's looking the best NOW, huh?

Are game development costs really going to be reduced THAT much for the Rev? Is N going to completely throw away their tight grip on strict licensing that won them first place in market share when Atari was letting anybody develop crap for the 2600?

Nintendo's already abandoned their stranglehold licensing practices from the days of the NES, they were forced to do that ages ago.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Since the Rev will be so 'under powered', we likely won't get crappy multiplatform ports of PS3 or 360 titles; titles that'll likely have lost most of their whiz-bang glory and thunder in the porting process.

Case in point: PSP. Many of PSP's games just feel like bad versions of PS2 games, such as Splinter Cell Essentials. If Revolution were only barely powerful enough for straight ports of X360/PS3 titles, you'd get a lot of games that were just crap versions of PS3/360--i.e. the same game, but with crap graphics, crap framerates, and crap controls. Original content tends not to have that problem. No one's complaining about the graphics in Advance Wars because they're tailored for the system, and the game from the ground-up just feels right on the DS.