Official Nintendo Wii thread

SPECS!
http://revolutionfanboy.com/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by important stuff

"IBM's "Broadway" CPU is clocked at 729MHz, according to updated Nintendo documentation. By comparison, GameCube's Gekko CPU ran at 485MHz. The original Xbox's CPU was clocked at 733MHz. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 runs three symmetrical cores at 3.2GHz."

"Revolution's ATI-provided "Hollywood" GPU clocks in at 243MHz. By comparison, GameCube's GPU ran at 162MHz, while the GPU on the original Xbox was clocked at 233MHz. Sources we spoke with suggest that it is unlikely the GPU will feature any added shaders, as has been speculated. The 'Hollywood' is a large-scale integrated chip that includes the GPU, DSP, I/O bridge and 3MBs of texture memory."

Matt also goes on to write:

"Revolution will operate using 24MBs of "main" 1T-SRAM. It will additionally boast 64MBs of "external" 1T-SRAM. That brings the total number of system RAM up to 88MBs, not including the 3MB texture buffer on the GPU. By comparison, GameCube featured 40MBs of RAM not counting the GPU's on-board 3MBs. The original Xbox included 64MBs total RAM. Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 operate on 512MBs of RAM."

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:icepick:

Wasn't that pretty much expected already?

Those specs aren't very helpful, although they certainly don't refute the claim of 2x-3x GC performance.
Clock speed comparisons are meaningless when comparing dissimilar architectures, especially when one of those architectures is a complete unknown.

So the Revolution is an XBox that lets you use external storage to play legal ROMs by means of some 3D gyro-mouse gizmo. Fantastic.

It's pretty unfortunate that Nintendo has enough fans to support this tripe, because lowballing technology to this extent shouldn't be rewarded at all. Even if it retails for $99 at launch.

Im not a Nintendo exec so I dont know what their research said but that hardware is pretty sad. They're talking about a Call of Duty port, I guess it has to be because that shit couldnt handle Call of Duty 2 reasonably.

I realize they are relying on the DVD remote and downloadable games gimmicks but hey, Xbox Live Arcade has downloadable games right now and if the DVD remote is such a huge hit you know Sony and Microsoft will copy it. Then theyll have the remote and hardware that isnt worthless.

I'm less excited about this Revolution thing as time goes by. But saying that, it will probably be profitable for Nintendo, being so cheap to produce. It seems that in the video games business, spending as little as possible is the only way to profit. When SEGA were in trouble, what did they do for a cure? They left the console market, stopped releasing many good games and turned out a small few poor ones instead.

The Cube's games looked as good as Xbox, though running at half the speed. Running at the same speed should make a big difference. And extra RAM can make a big difference, as the N64's RAM expansion pack demonstrated.

Nintendo's original idea was to stick with the Cube for another five years, and introduce the controller. Any extra hardware power is just gravy. And they'll probably charge $250 for the Rev at launch and make a big profit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dog$

So the Revolution is an XBox that lets you use external storage to play legal ROMs by means of some 3D gyro-mouse gizmo. Fantastic.

It's pretty unfortunate that Nintendo has enough fans to support this tripe, because lowballing technology to this extent shouldn't be rewarded at all. Even if it retails for $99 at launch.

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But Nintendo made a conscious decision to drop out of the main race, remember? They're really no longer one of the big three. This is their whole strategy: let the big 2 slug it out and offer a cheaper, different, unique experience in a supplementary market position.

Of course a lot of people on this forum aren't excited by the prospect of roms up to the n64 (I am even though I own all these old systems/emulators because there's just something about owning and playing official shit with videogames...) because they're heavy into emulating already, so you guys will just have to wait and see if the first party and exclusive third party stuff they come up with is worth your two hundred dollars.

My honest prediction is they'll have some top notch exclusive games like Pikmin, Smash Brothers, Metroid Prime and Windwaker that you won't be able to find on the other two that'll make you drop 200-150 for it eventually. That's what we'll have to wait and see about.

Judging by the last few generations it's not going to happen, but if they muster up a lot of third party support by smaller developers that make creative use of their controller, games like Okami or something like Katamari Damacy, then the Rev will be a must-have supplement to the big systems.

If that happens, and only if it shows a lot of success, the big 2 will likely copy the controller but I don't know how successful that will be, especially if Nintendo has a solid backing of small developers by that point that are in their corner. Also, what about a patent? Is the controller non-copyable for a while or is the technology old and not patented?

Anyway I think the Revolution is a fine system and matches the goal of the company perfectly. For what it is it's doing everything right, but what the company really needs to do now is secure the kind of creative third party support that will carry the system, and that's what I'm really afraid of not happening.

The great thing about the Rev controller is that every Rev owner will have it. The competition could make one, but if it's not a pack-in then companies won't make games for it. It'd be like the SuperScope and Menacer, or the EyeToy.

And I doubt Sony and MS would want to dump standard controllers for the remote, even if the remote is superior for certain genres.