May 13, 2005 - Nintendo has described its forthcoming next-generation console, codenamed Revolution, as "very, very sleek." The company also says the machine will be no thicker than three DVD cases stacked flatly on top of each other. And not much wider, either.
Based on these released details, we've created what we believe is a to-scale model of what Revolution could look like.
Above, our Revolution model is sandwiched between a Wave Bird and a GameCube, closely mimicking the role we play in our reoccurring dreams. Readers are advised to take special note of the Ethernet wire connected to the sleek-looking console. GameCube owners have likely never seen one of these special cords, which enable players around the globe to connect online and square off against one another. It's in our photographs purely for effect. Revolution will be joining the online, uh, revolution, according to the Big N. In fact, the publisher intends to make online play a focus of the new console. But it will be doing so wirelessly. The still-codenamed system will support Wi-Fi out of the box, which means that Revolution owners can connect to the Internet wirelessly at broadband speeds.
One thing is for sure: the console is short. Three DVDs thick. GameCube towers over it. Even Wave Bird has a height edge. Nintendo says Revolution can be laid vertically or horizontally on a surface to fit any design space. See the picture below:
Great news. The proprietary (see: limiting) GameCube Optical Discs are out and DVDs are in. Nintendo recently revealed that Revolution would use a DVD-drive to play games. This means that Revolution DVDs will be able to hold a minimum of 4.7 gigabytes, as opposed to GameCube Optical Discs, which store a paltry 1.5 gigabytes. Revolution also seems to support DVD-9 format, which enables data to be saved on dual-layers, effectively increasing the storage capacity to 8.5 gigabytes. Microsoft's forthcoming Xbox 360 console supports DVD-9. Here's hoping Revolution does the same.
Readers will note that our mock-up of Revolution uses a slot-loading DVD drive located in front of the console. This is just a guess. We have no idea why we drew two circles on the right-hand side of the front panel, either, but whatever.
Revolution could end up being Nintendo's smallest console to date. Based on the comparison to three DVDs, the machine could be as tiny as a thick book.
Look at the guts of the machine. Pretty powerful, huh? Legit specs for Revolution have not yet been made public, but we do know the console will be powerful enough to play high-definition games. IBM is supplying an advanced CPU and ATI is creating the console's graphics chip. Given that high-def gaming requires a lot of memory, we're hoping that the system includes 512MBs of RAM standard, just like Xbox 360.
