Nintendo Revolution

Also, Sony designed the PS3 that way for the purpose to increase HD sales. They do have Blue-Ray meaning that they are expecting people to buy it as an affordable HD player, again driving HD TV sales. If you have an HD TV, you'll want an HD player, if you have an HD player, you'll want an HD TV. I assume that Sony's frame of mind. And of course when I say affordable, I'm referring to an HD player, because we all know Sony isn't marketing it as a game machine. I'm sure there's some kind of logic behind including HD support (from Sony's perspective) and I bet it has nothing to do with video games.

It might bite them in the ass, it might not. Nintendo has a reputation for keeping their prices low, the failure to include HD support is an example of this. Sure, the graphics shots might suffer, but casual gamers on a budget (is there any other kind?) seeing the three systems side-by-side might opp to save the $100 and go for the revolution.

Orion wrote: The government-imposed deadline for HD is 2008 (meaning, all non-HD brodcasts will stop on Jan. 1st, 2008 or 2009, I can't remember). That being the case, the prices of HD sets will drop and more people would be inclined to buy one. That is if the government deadline isn't changed, which there is no reason to believe it won't.

There's a government deadline for ending non-HDTV broadcasts? WTF? Why?

What has happened is tv stations broadcasting 'over the air' were given an extra channel so that they could broadcast both analog and digital during the transition period. By the beginning of 2007, they must stop broadcasting in analog, so that the government can reclaim these channels and auction them off for other uses. So this will only affect those watching over the air broadcasts, cable and satellite viewers will be unaffected. Also note that digital isn't the same thing as high-def - you can have a digital broadcast that still uses the old resolution. This is entirely about the government wanting to get the channels back for other uses.

In short, the effect on pushing people to buy high-def tvs should be minimal.

I don't care about HD as I don't have it. However, this means that Nintendo's games may be cheaper than PS3's and 360's. Especailly now that there are rumors that the games will be 70 dollars for the PS3. This is good that Nintendo doesn't use this.

I seriously doubt that HD will affect the prices of the games at all. It doesn't cost more to develop a game in HD. If games cost $70 on the PS3 they're going to cost $70 on the Revolution. The thing is, games have cost $40 to $50 for ages, while the cost of developing said games has skyrocketed. That is the driving force behind any potential game cost hike. If anything, the Revolution's incompatibility with the other systems would increase the cost of developing games for that system. You'll probably see the same as this generation - lots of games for the PS3 and 360, and very few 3rd party titles for the Revolution. Heck, I'd still get one for the 1st party titles as I'm sure they'll continue to be excellent. But like my gamecube, it would probably end up sitting unused most of the time.

There's a big discussion of Nintendo not using HD for the Revolution at slashdot right now. I thought this post was interesting:: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152404&cid=12790107 (it talks about people's perception of what they're seeing)

Cloral wrote:I seriously doubt that HD will affect the prices of the games at all. It doesn't cost more to develop a game in HD.

It doesn't? With the high resolution HD offers, don't you think a lot more work would have to be put into making textures and such so that they don't look poor?

Obviously, Cloral would know more about this than me, but I think Nintendo's reasoning behind this is that it might be somewhat cheaper for developers and for making the hardware, and Nintendo just see's it as a fad. However, I think Nintendo trying to keep the cost of games down is only delaying the inevitable. It's a nice thought trying to keep game development cheap, but it's like the U.S. economy. You can try to slow inflation down, but you can't really reverse it.

What is does though is give Sony and Microsoft the opporitunity to say that they are better than Nintendo (whether you think that is purely opinion, of course). But, regardless of what Nintendo thinks of competing against them, getting mud slung at them by Sony and MS is not good for them.

HDTV is such a scam in my opinion. It's a scam by the TV people that still charge WAY too much for TVs to force people to buy new TVs. I for one, like alot of other people, recieve TV broadcasts, no satelite, no cable. Although it's more than likely possible that someone could make a device to recieve the HDTV and convert it to regular NTSC standard.

Still, HD is such a pile of shit. It's a higher resolution, omfg, who cares. Take Soul Calibur the arcade version, which ran in 320x240, it looked amazing, and still does look great. It doesn't need to run in some ridiculusly high resolution. Also isn't it fucked up that they want a higher resolution so badly, but wait, then you need a bigger TV otherwise the pixels are getting smaller and smaller and THAT is annoying.

I run my PC desktop in 1024x768. It's plenty high enough for me. Ya so... it is just a resolution whore war.

vegeta1215 wrote:It doesn't? With the high resolution HD offers, don't you think a lot more work would have to be put into making textures and such so that they don't look poor?

People have been developing with relatively high resolution textures and the like for years on the PC. When is the last time you ran a moden PC game at 640x480? (TV's resolution)

The way I see it, Nintendo want's to save on hardware again this generation. If you've ever played PC games (again), you've run into the problem that running things in higher resolution requires more horsepower. If the Xbox 360 and PS3 say they will support higher resolutions, then the only reason that the Revolution wouldn't follow suit is because they just don't have the horsepower under the hood to do it.

I do agree with HDTV being a scam though. You don't really need it for TV brodacasts, and the only reason I see you would need it is so you could display video games in higher resolution. That's fine and all, but the price difference between regular def and high def simply does not compute for such a modest resolution improvement.

I agree that $1000 is too much for the resolution improvement from regular TV to HD. But to say it is no different from regular TV is pretty ignorant. On thursday we were having dinner at work (milestone had to go out, meaning that we worked late to get it done) and I put the NBA game on. Then someone else switched it over to the HD broadcast of the same game. The difference between the 2 was astounding. Everything was far clearer and crisper. You don't realize how bad regular TV's picture looks until you see it and HD side-by-side like that. There are artifacts that the regular broadcast introduces like shimmer and flicker that aren't present in the HD broadcast, so it is more than just a resolution difference.

I do understand the point though that most people don't have HDTVs, so how many people will benefit from that capability? The thing to consider though is the generation doesn't just exist at the end of the year and next year when the systems come out, but for 4-5 years after. During this time the number of people with HDTVs will surely rise (and I expect that the cost of an HDTV will fall at some point), and at this point Nintendo could really be hurting themselves.

Would HDTV support be the sort of thing that must be built in at a hardware level, or could they use new periphrials/software to allow HDTV in the future?

As much as I hate expansion packs, they could could make an HD plug-in. Allow the Rev. to support HD games.

It's a business decision. Not adding support for HD will make the Revolution a bit cheaper. But more so than that, Nintendo wants it's games to be accessible to the most amount of people, and make sure everyone gets the same experience.

On a related note, how much better do people really want their games to look? All the next gen systems will look better, but I'm happy with the level of graphics on the Gamecube.

I agree. It would suck if the rev only worked on HD like the PS3...

Ganondork wrote:I agree. It would suck if the rev only worked on HD like the PS3...

No worries, just because the PS3 is HD capable does not mean that people who don't own HDTV's won't be able to play them. They will just get the image quality that they have always been used to. PS3 will run fine on all television sets (provided it has either coax or a/v inputs, but those are the standard these days.

vegeta1215 wrote:It's a business decision. Not adding support for HD will make the Revolution a bit cheaper. But more so than that, Nintendo wants it's games to be accessible to the most amount of people, and make sure everyone gets the same experience.

On a related note, how much better do people really want their games to look? All the next gen systems will look better, but I'm happy with the level of graphics on the Gamecube.

Darth Marsden wrote:All I shall do is point you to the new Zelda and grin insanely.

I agree that it's probably not the best idea to avoid including HD support, but I'm sure Nintendo have a good reason for doing so. After the failure (sic) of the Gamecube, this may well be the make-or-break console for them, and they've really got to consider everything. Maybe they'll change their minds and decide to use HDTV. They have got another year to play around with the damn thing.

Why are you grining? I liked the style of the Wind Waker AND Twilight Princess IS a Gamecube game.

This HD thing is just another opportunity for people to put down Nintendo, despite Nintendo remaining very profitable and doing much better than most people think.

AlexMax, actually NTSC doesn't have any restricted resolution. Good standard TVs can easily display a signal that is a resolution of 800x600. Mine sure can. They could also display other odd resolutions like say the NES which was 256x240 (roughly). Anyways, I really think HDTV isn't worth the huge cash investment.

I was grinning in response to Orion's question. I've said it before (the thread has long since been buried), but I am perfectly happy with the level of graphical power we get from today's consoles. The new Zelda is testament to that (hence the grin). I just wish more people felt as I did, but instead we've got a whole generation that's obsessed with getting the next console out of the box so they can demand the next one. Some of the very best games didn't rely on high-tech graphics. Hell, most of my favourite games are adventure games (Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Broken Sword, Beneath A Steel Sky, etc). It's just a shame most kids today are more obsessed with a games wizz-bang looks then with real gameplay. Sigh.

And to answer AlexMax's question of "When is the last time you ran a moden PC game at 640x480? (TV's resolution)", that would be Doom 3. OUCH!

Darth Marsden wrote:...I am perfectly happy with the level of graphical power we get from today's consoles.

I agree. I mean, look at Resident Evil 4 for a big example. It is, in my opinion, the best-looking console game out there, period. Most other games of this generation don't even come close. 2-3 times the power of the current consoles seems reasonable enough, seeing as how developers still aren't using all the power available in the current batch.

Although the fact remains that Nintendo should not discard HD support. It's just another way for Sony and Microssoft to give Nintendo a hearty kick to the groin in tech-specs. Especially when you consider the fact that to the typical consumer, form is far more important than substance.

Nintendo is also the only one with the rights to a pretty good library of games, that also might compensate. I mean, factor in the cheaper price, the huge back library, and Nintendo's 1st party games, is HD support really that much of a detriment. Even to casual consumers? I mean, they had me sold when the said there's a Smash Bros: Revolution.

DarkDragoonX wrote:Especially when you consider the fact that to the typical consumer, form is far more important than substance.

Seriously. Gamecube graphics are freaking beautiful. Any console over 2x as powerful as the GCN is going to cause seizures to non-epileptic people and be at a higher resolution than real life. Game quality and cool new ideas should be the focus, which Nintendo seems to have figured out. Hooray for the Revolution and games that focus on fun, not polygon count! Or maybe I'm just a Nintendo fanboy, I dunno.

What I don't get is this: this breaks down into the groups that want HD and the groups that really don't give a crap. So, why in the world would Nintendo not want to please both and put it in. It's obviously not going to hurt the people who don't care about it and don't have the capabilities for it. It might cost a few extra dollars, but Nintendo does have money to throw around.

Its not just graphics that everyone needs to compete for. Don't forget about the other aspects of improved technical performance. Audio, AI, and Physics. Those, especially the latter two can be demanding too.

Isn't it my understanding that some companies are now making physics cards for PCs? Didn't a PC running the Unreal Engine 3 use a physics card to demonstrate 100s of boulders rolling down a hill?

I'm fine with the current level of graphics, but I dont' want a huge leap in one area, if the machine can't support the others.

I'm not sure this is even relevant to the Revolution. Nobody really knows how powerful any machine is atm.

I already have 500 to go on a shopping frenzy when the rev comes out.

*fantisizes about getting the rev and all of its release titles*

I'll buy the rev, extra controllers, and all of the games out for it. Then I'll throw a gaming party and let everyone drool at the site of my rev. Then I'll kick some @$$ at SSBM on the rev, showing off the backwards capability, then show a blockbuster (DVD playback), then download every Zelda title to my rev (and chrono trigger) then spend the next couple of days pulling all nighters with the rev's online.

What are you going to do when the rev comes out?

Edit: About the above 2 posts, nintendo is going to make everyone happy with the rev with HD. Why? Ask yourself this; Why can the rev hookup to a PC moniter?
Answer; you can play standerd def on something HD. It doesn't improve the quality as much as HD on HD, but it does improve the picture quality. So by just adding and extra plug on the back, rev will semi support HD for alot cheaper, leaving room for microchips for a physics procceser, AI, etc. Nintendo made some stupid moves with the GC, and altough it kept them profitable, it lost alot of market shares, but Nintendo is smart. And admit it, Sony and MS fanboys, you would hate the NINTENDO XBox as much as the GC.

One thing I read when I was surfing the web that made me think was this - do you think framerates will suffer on machines that use HD quality graphics?

I've seen the test kits in action, and the framerate does not suffer. They're designed to handle the resolution.

I've decided that I don't care that much about HD support now. I don't even know when I might have an HDTV. My real end worry though is the mass market (who you have to remember doesn't know much more than the names of stuff) might hear this and immediately pass off the Rev as inferior.

As I recall, Xbox (original) can only display 640x480, no more, no less. Yet they still did games like Doom 3, and they look just fine. Really I think that 640x480 is sufficant for more games, and 800x600 is definitely plenty. Yet people insist on huge 2048x1024 or something resolutions. Resolution being higher allows for more detail, but you must realize that all that detail must be put in by hand. Now 320x240 isn't enough by today's standards, but 640x480 certainly is good enough. But you must realize the tech industry is always trying to sell people new and overpriced technology.

Of course. If people realized that the old technology was just as good and failed to buy the new stuff the company could only sell units when the old ones broke down. Hardly any profit in it.