IGN gives new Rev specs (virtually Gamecube 1.5)

[Admiral Valdemar]

You can't compare the PC gaming industry to the console industry like that. FPS and RTS games are really the only genres where the PC has a clear advantage over consoles, so one would expect them to do better than games that tend to be better on consoles.

Hmm, got a point there. Still, I can't help but think, even with PCs, the trend is for more throwaway titles with glitz and sparkle that adds nothing, as opposed to games that defy convention.

[Silver Paladin]

So, it comes to this. Two of the Big 3 are going for bigger, brasher systems that utilise cutting edge technology at a price to give you super shiny 3D games in HD. The other party is going for maximising the potential of what we already have and giving innovation the floor rather than somewhat ridiculous graphical additions to the same old tat.

We shall see who wins. Given the way PC games have been going in many areas, it is shiny FPS games using gameplay from the early nineties that are winning over games that look decent but are amazingly playable and innovative.

The sucess of GalCiv2 is saying something else.

I've had more fun playing Sid Meier's Pirates! than any games I have played this year, a list that includes:

Oblivion
Battle for Middle Earth 2
Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach
Perfect Dark Zero
Condemned
Fight Night 3
Empires at War
Dawn of War: Winter Assault
Dragonshard
Command and Conquer: The First Decade

Meh, probably a whole lot more, but those are the ones off the top of my head. Pirates! is probably last generation graphics; I can totally see it on a PS1 or N64.

[Ace Pace]

Pirates! PS1 graphics? What Weed pipe are you smoking from?

[Nephtys]

So, it comes to this. Two of the Big 3 are going for bigger, brasher systems that utilise cutting edge technology at a price to give you super shiny 3D games in HD. The other party is going for maximising the potential of what we already have and giving innovation the floor rather than somewhat ridiculous graphical additions to the same old tat.

We shall see who wins. Given the way PC games have been going in many areas, it is shiny FPS games using gameplay from the early nineties that are winning over games that look decent but are amazingly playable and innovative.

The sucess of GalCiv2 is saying something else.

GalCiv2 is virtually identical to it's mediocre predecessor in gameplay mechanics. Bad example. A better example would be how popular Black and White was during it's first couple of months, or Deus Ex, or Dawn of War.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I'm scratching my head on this one. How much money are they really saving here by using technology that's several generations behind instead of one? Maybe they really are trying to hit an extremely low price point.

In any case, I'm writing the Revolution off as a non-entity in this round of the console wars. The basic fact of the world is that 99.9% of people don't have a creative bone in their bodies, and there's not going to be a sudden jump in the number of innovative games just because of a funky controller and a lot of buzzwords. If these specs are right, and we're looking at a console that's only about as powerful as an original X-Box without the pixel shaders, then I have to wonder what the hell Nintendo is smoking.

They might still make a decent profit just because they make money on each unit sold, unlike Sony and Microsoft, but this is looking more and more to be a repeat of the Gamecube, except even more irrelevant.

[Vendetta]

In any case, I'm writing the Revolution off as a non-entity in this round of the console wars. The basic fact of the world is that 99.9% of people don't have a creative bone in their bodies, and there's not going to be a sudden jump in the number of innovative games just because of a funky controller and a lot of buzzwords.

That didn't stop the Gamecube near matching the Xbox, which was home to far more conventional content.

I'm actually more interested in the Revolution than I am the PS3, because I've already got Wow Shiny HD Graphics! on the Xbox 360, and because the only PS3 game that looks unique and exclusive at the moment is MGS4, and MGS won't sell a console to me.

[Silver Paladin]

Pirates! PS1 graphics? What Weed pipe are you smoking from?

The game has extremely good texturing, but the models aren't really that high poly at all. I don't remember off the top of my head, but the backgrounds weren't exactly interactive (aside from the occasional doodads like the scythes on the deck); it could easily be a prerendered static background.

For example, look at this image:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_vie ... =undefined

The texturing and shading are very well done. Look at the chest of the guy; it looks like 1 big poly, however the shading makes it look like each medal is a seperate poly. At least that's how it looks like to me. However, the background is basically pre-rendered and you can tell the poly count isn't the highest (check out the guy's neck to head attachment).

Maybe it's better than PS1 graphics; I don't know. But the point is, it's not a high rez game; it gets by on having an amazing fun gameplay system (even though I think I'm the only person that actually likes the dancing minigame), and it's graphics are definitely closer to World of Warcraft's in terms of power output as opposed to Everquest 2.

[Stark]

GalCiv2 is virtually identical to it's mediocre predecessor in gameplay mechanics. Bad example. A better example would be how popular Black and White was during it's first couple of months, or Deus Ex, or Dawn of War.

How is Dawn of Rush an example of a game that uses innovation to make up for poor graphics? It's got almost zero innovation, and good graphics!

[Nephtys]

GalCiv2 is virtually identical to it's mediocre predecessor in gameplay mechanics. Bad example. A better example would be how popular Black and White was during it's first couple of months, or Deus Ex, or Dawn of War.

How is Dawn of Rush an example of a game that uses innovation to make up for poor graphics? It's got almost zero innovation, and good graphics!

It's got good gameplay. Using a capture point based system, with squads as the individual units, and far less micro than any blizzard game helps, and the 'reinforce' button speeds things up. It's nice graphics are just a bonus.

I was speaking of good game mechanics causing a game to do well... since GalCiv2 was brought up, I mentioned it was only a marginal mechanical improvement over GalCiv1.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That didn't stop the Gamecube near matching the Xbox, which was home to far more conventional content.

I'm actually more interested in the Revolution than I am the PS3, because I've already got Wow Shiny HD Graphics! on the Xbox 360, and because the only PS3 game that looks unique and exclusive at the moment is MGS4, and MGS won't sell a console to me.

I actually agree on this one, since the PS3's development is looking more and more like an object lesson in how not to design and market a console.

Anyway, the GC may have sold nearly as well as the XBox, but it has much smaller mindshare. Everyone talks about the XBox, and almost no one talks about the GameCube. Nintendo's problem since '96 has been making consoles where the first party games are pretty much the only ones worth getting. The N64 and Gamecube's must-have titles were almost all Mario, Zelda, and Metroid related, and it doesn't look like the Revoultion's going to be any different here.

First party Nintendo games have always been innovative and excellent and probably always will be, but it's silly to think that an unconventional new controller and a bunch of buzzwords are going to make other companies produce more innovative games. They won't want to make Rev-exclusive titles because of the lack of glitzy graphics potential, and they won't be able to easily port the games they make to the Rev, so it will turn out just like the Gamecube: A fun little system with a handful of great games, and with long periods of nothing but half-assed ports on the horizon, punctuated by a few great games a year. This is why the Gamecube was more or less irrelevant, and why the Revolution will probably continue the trend.

[Praxis]

Anyway, the GC may have sold nearly as well as the XBox, but it has much smaller mindshare.

You're thinking with the American view in mind.

The GC sold much worse than the XBox in the United States. And has a much smaller mindshare.

However, it sold much more than the XBox in Japan- ever today it sells 5-10K a week, and the XBox sells around 100 a week. The GameCube has always outsold the XBox by around 50 to 100 times in Japan. It has good mindshare in Japan.

[Archaic`]

The number of developers who've already expressed strong interest in the Revolution seems to indicate that it won't suffer from the same 3rd party issues as the GC and N64 did either, especially if the PS3 launch is later than Nintendo's, or flops (or both).

[Andrew J.]

First party Nintendo games have always been innovative and excellent and probably always will be, but it's silly to think that an unconventional new controller and a bunch of buzzwords are going to make other companies produce more innovative games. They won't want to make Rev-exclusive titles because of the lack of glitzy graphics potential, and they won't be able to easily port the games they make to the Rev, so it will turn out just like the Gamecube: A fun little system with a handful of great games, and with long periods of nothing but half-assed ports on the horizon, punctuated by a few great games a year. This is why the Gamecube was more or less irrelevant, and why the Revolution will probably continue the trend.

Don't forget to add all the good games from the NES, Super NES, N64, Genesis, and TurboGrafix to that "handful" to account for the virtual console.

[Mobius]

However, it sold much more than the XBox in Japan- ever today it sells 5-10K a week, and the XBox sells around 100 a week. The GameCube has always outsold the XBox by around 50 to 100 times in Japan. It has good mindshare in Japan.

and more than the X360 for the infos
last Media Create number:
here
Support Week Total
1. Nintendo DS Lite 119.986 382.576
2. Nintendo DS 39.307 620.840
3. PlayStation 2 34.169 414.608
4. PSP 31.077 515.550
5. GB1A SP 5.627 82.444
6. Game Boy Micro 4.883 52.907
7. GameCube 1.458 40.393
8. Xbox 360 1.415 30.164
9. Xbox 117 1.213
10. Game Boy Advance 98 2.089

(numbers in bold are units sold this week; the normal numbers are the cumulate numbers since january one)

[Admiral Valdemar]

It would help if they used a comma, not a fullstop to separate the unit numbers there. I was reading that as nearly 120 units sold or 119.986 units sold, not 119,986 units sold.

[Loner]

Man, the DS really does print money.

[Bounty]

It would help if they used a comma, not a fullstop to separate the unit numbers there.

That's standard notation where Mobius's from.

[Mobius]

It would help if they used a comma, not a fullstop to separate the unit numbers there.

That's standard notation where Mobius's from.

indeed

You damn anglo saxon!

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

You're thinking with the American view in mind.

The GC sold much worse than the XBox in the United States. And has a much smaller mindshare.

However, it sold much more than the XBox in Japan- ever today it sells 5-10K a week, and the XBox sells around 100 a week. The GameCube has always outsold the XBox by around 50 to 100 times in Japan. It has good mindshare in Japan.

That's right. I'm thinking with an American view. Whether or not it will be successful in Japan doesn't affect me at all, so I'm not taking it into account. Frankly, I've never understood the buying habits of Japanese gamers, and doubt I ever will.

Anyway, the emulation is nice, but you can already play those games through emulation on a PC, and I don't see more than a sliver of the gamer population wanting a new console to play games that are more than a decade old, even if you and I know how good they are. The emulation might sell a lot of Revolutions to members of this forum, but I don't see it having much effect on gamers overall.

[Praxis]

You're thinking with the American view in mind.

The GC sold much worse than the XBox in the United States. And has a much smaller mindshare.

However, it sold much more than the XBox in Japan- ever today it sells 5-10K a week, and the XBox sells around 100 a week. The GameCube has always outsold the XBox by around 50 to 100 times in Japan. It has good mindshare in Japan.

That's right. I'm thinking with an American view. Whether or not it will be successful in Japan doesn't affect me at all, so I'm not taking it into account. Frankly, I've never understood the buying habits of Japanese gamers, and doubt I ever will.

Right, but the person you were responding to was talking about worldwide sales numbers. That's what my point was.

Anyway, the emulation is nice, but you can already play those games through emulation on a PC, and I don't see more than a sliver of the gamer population wanting a new console to play games that are more than a decade old, even if you and I know how good they are. The emulation might sell a lot of Revolutions to members of this forum, but I don't see it having much effect on gamers overall.

IMHO, opposite. Firstly, downloading roms is illegal and actually buying the equipment to rip roms is expensive. It's also a hassle to get a working setup with a controller and then play on your TV. Nintendo will be offering an easy to use, legal way of doing it. I think it might actually NOT sell to a lot of people on forums because they figure they can do it anyway with emulation.

It's the exact same scenario as iTunes. I know a lot of people on forums and the computer geeks I knew all dismissed it because they assumed, nah, people will just download music online, why would they buy it when they can download it? We all know what a success iTunes turned out to be. Nintendo's cashing in on the rom market- it's iTunes for games. The hardcore guys that illegally download roms will keep doing that, but I tell you right now that most people at home don't know how to get to rom sites and get emulators working and play games that way. And some like me refuse to do so out of support for the industry. This will sell to them (and me).

[Praxis]

However, it sold much more than the XBox in Japan- ever today it sells 5-10K a week, and the XBox sells around 100 a week. The GameCube has always outsold the XBox by around 50 to 100 times in Japan. It has good mindshare in Japan.

and more than the X360 for the infos
last Media Create number:
here
Support Week Total
1. Nintendo DS Lite 119.986 382.576
2. Nintendo DS 39.307 620.840
3. PlayStation 2 34.169 414.608
4. PSP 31.077 515.550
5. GB1A SP 5.627 82.444
6. Game Boy Micro 4.883 52.907
7. GameCube 1.458 40.393
8. Xbox 360 1.415 30.164
9. Xbox 117 1.213
10. Game Boy Advance 98 2.089

(numbers in bold are units sold this week; the normal numbers are the cumulate numbers since january one)

Yeah, I keep track of the numbers for NP.com. An interesting note is that this is the second week of Final Fantasy XII sales as well, so the PS2 sales are higher than average and still below the regular DS.

Japanese love the DS.

[SirNitram]

Anyway, the emulation is nice, but you can already play those games through emulation on a PC, and I don't see more than a sliver of the gamer population wanting a new console to play games that are more than a decade old, even if you and I know how good they are. The emulation might sell a lot of Revolutions to members of this forum, but I don't see it having much effect on gamers overall.

Cause iTunes and all legal music download services were flaming wrecks and legal downloading never became a major chunk of music downloaded!

....Only not.

[Mobius]

The number of million seller on the DS is stunning:
Animal Crossing DS is double millions seller so far and continue to sell steadily,
Brain training is in the top10 for nearly a full year now and will probably be double, More DS brain training as well

What i'd like to know is the number of PS2 sold to replace the failing units of the console...

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Cause iTunes and all legal music download services were flaming wrecks and legal downloading never became a major chunk of music downloaded!

....Only not.

If iTunes only carried songs that were 10 years old or more, I doubt it would be very successful. Besides, comparing the number of people who do emulation with the number of people who listen to music is like comparing apples to orchards.

[Archaic`]

We already know that Virtual Console will have new games available for download, as well as old games.

And frankly...look at all the people paying for Street Fighter 2 on XBox Live. No interest in old games from the average gamer? Yeah, right.