[Nintendo Revolution18]Zelfs niet een verwisselbaar frontje!

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Nintendo Dodged The Sony Bullet
Greetings from LA, where the smoke has all but cleared, the dust is already settling, and, now that E3 2005 is over, everyone seems ready to declare the winner of the next round of the console wars, before it has even started.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 presentation has managed the rather incredible feat of making the Xbox 360 look oldfashioned and behind-the-times, the boomerang-like controllers and the ‘Spider-Man’ logo font being the only noticeable missteps so far. Microsoft may grumble that Sony’s system is yet to move beyond the vapourware stage, emphasizing that their next-gen games were playable and Sony’s were not — but when it comes to sheer surface flash, the PS3 ruled all.

Where does this leave Nintendo? Somewhere in the middle, I would argue. Most pundits agree that The Big N didn’t nearly show us enough of its new console, still codenamed Revolution. There’s a very tentative (though good-looking) hardware mockup that’s subject to major change… and that’s pretty much it.

Suffice it to say this is not Nintendo’s finest hour. Showing the would-be design and then not showing any game or tech demo’s (miniscule Metroid Prime 3 clip notwithstanding) seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse. And the backward compatibility thing is nice (certainly the slideshow of all those fantastic past Nintendo games was something of a moment for the Nintendo fanboy), but it really should have been the icing on the cake rather than the main revelation.

Still, I feel Nintendo would have been worse off had they rushed out some lacklustre tech reels. To some extent, the company has dodged the PS3 bullet that seems to have hit the 360 in the head. The initial disappointment will subside — it already has for me personally, after visiting Nintendo’s excellent showfloor booth (which features, among other things, a killer playable DS line-up). Soon, we’ll all return to the rumor and speculation game that has been fueling the Revolution hype-machine quite nicely so far.

Some believe that Revolution’s no-show is a cynical and all-too-obvious ploy by Nintendo to keep that hype going. Others go so far as to suggest that Nintendo itself hasn’t even decided what Rev’s big secret will be. And the official word remains that Nintendo wants to prevent their competitors from stealing their supposedly brilliant ideas. But in talking to a key Nintendo employee, I heard a different story that I personally find to be quite credible.

The inside word is that the Revolution’s mysterious innovations, like those of the Nintendo DS, are of the type that are better shown (and played) than told. And since there was no way that the console could be shown in any form close to playable (bear in mind: neither is Sony’s), Nintendo decided that showing little to nothing would be preferable to a halfhearted explanation of what makes Revolution tick.

To paraphrase my source from memory: “If we’d told you guys two years ago that we were working on a handheld in which you’d touch and draw on the screen to play it, you would have thought we’d gone mad. By presenting the DS in advanced, playable form, we were able to immediately demonstrate what we were talking about, and were thereby able to sell an idea that would otherwise have been a very hard sell indeed.”

I know that sounds like marketing spin — and as such isn’t even all that new — but one need only compare the initial reactions to the DS by those who had played the demo’s at E3 2004 (excited) and those who hadn’t (puzzled) to realize that this actually makes a lot of sense.

So the Revolution will be, in its own mysterious way, as interesting and innovative as the DS. And when Nintendo is able to fully demonstrate what that mystery is (E3 2006 at the very latest, but probably sooner), the show will be belatedly but assuredly stolen. Or so Nintendo hopes. I guess it boils down to how much faith you have in the company’s ability to deliver on that promise. I for one am confident that they will. Who are you?

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Op woensdag 25 mei 2005 20:19 schreef Notorious_Roy het volgende:

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Gerthein Boersma
http://www.nintendowatch.com/

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Op woensdag 25 mei 2005 20:42 schreef Ruzbeh het volgende:

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[afbeelding]

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Op woensdag 25 mei 2005 20:42 schreef Ruzbeh het volgende:

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[afbeelding]

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Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Nintendo's Advertising Campaign

My name is Dan Bucholtz and I have no ties to the video game industry other than being very good friends with IGN's own Matt Casamassina. I am not going to tell you made-up system specs or anything because I am not sure. I do know for a fact Matt has never seen any gameplay or video footage yet. He is not sure if anyone outside of the company has, but he doubts it. However, he has seen the controller. I have been told that this controller will be especially great for the new Pilot Wings game (which will not be a Launch title, but will be released within the first two months approximately). We will have to see.

I, myself am a Nintendo enthusiast. I cannot wait for the new Metroid game. I hope it will have have a greater focus on 3rd person jumping puzzles. I also cannot wait for Madden 2007 to be released for the Xbox 360 as I absolutely love football games.

One prediction that I will make is that Nintendo will be neck and neck with Xbox 360 this generation. They are aiming for a 200 USD launch price, where as the PS3 and Xbox 360 are looking at 350 to 400. Another interesting tidbit Matt has informed me about are the rumors floating around that Nintendo will include a black gamecube controller and a "Nintendo Through the Years" disc in box. What this disc supposedly will contain is every mario game ever released and a pad to play them on. This disc would also have 3 free game downloads on it from Nintendo's online service just to get the ball rolling. Whether this will happen or not I know not.

Matt is rather upset that Nintendo is not working in collaberation with many companies right now. We have discussed this in-depth, and we both agree Nintendo is really not learning from their mistakes. Right now, they are working with Konami on one project that hasn't been announced, and surprisingly Bioware as well on an original game.
Other than this, I don't really have any facts to post.

Edit: I completely forgot to discuss what I intended on as the focus of this entry. Nintendo is taking a different approach to the Revolution's advertising campaign. Evidentally they are not going to have a spaceworld event, but they do intend on a United States campus tour. They are going to kick off at NYU, and throw a big bash at one major university in every state in the fall. These parties will take on a dance club atmosphere.

Other than that, I am out.

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Thursday, May 26, 2005
The World Wide Web

The net is full of details regarding the Revolution, and I use the term 'details" very lightly. Look in almost any Nintendo related forum or blog and you'll find people who claim to be developers, Nintendo reps, or just "insiders". What is an insider exactly? Spies exist in spy MOVIES, not the game industry.

However, there are two that stand out the most. Aries and Osoko Tanaka. Aries is well known for his comments posted in the Broken Saints blogs, and Osoko is known for his blog right here on Blogspot. The big question is: How much truth is there in their words?

I can safely say I know neither of these two people personally. In fact, my only knowledge of them is the same as everyone else; just through blogs and forum posts. My personal opinion is they both could very well be fakes. Osoko types terrible "engrish", and seems to slip up a few times. All the specs he has listed are false, and every other detail he gives its sketchy. Aries is a different story. I find it hard to believe Aries is even one person, and could almost bet on it being five or more. Some of those who posed as Aries have eventually confessed to the lies, so its pretty safe to say Aries is also a fake.

To top it all off both of these people claimed something would happen at E3 on May 19th. It didn’t.

I can’t really comment on their information about Nintendo Revolution games, as I don’t work for Nintendo. I don’t get access to their games, only my own developer's, so Retro COULD be working on a Next-Gen "Halo Killer". Considering the lies in their other posts though I'd bet this is not true.

In my comments someone asked what Mr. A.P stands for. Sorry, but I can’t say. If I told you my name you could easily do a Google or Yahoo search for it and find out who I'm working for. This would get me in trouble, and we can’t have that happening.

That’s it for this entry. In my next entry I will either discuss the Revolution specs or what I can about the games.

Seeya!

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Q: Is Revolution "two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube"?


A: USA Today reported this news based on a comment from Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan. The information was later determined to be false. We do not yet know how much more power Revolution wields over its predecessor.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 11:44 schreef Cheiron het volgende:
Overigens wil ik nog even melden dat ik een aparte dvd speler bij de Revolution juist een heel goed idee vind. Dat houd de kosten van de Revolution zelf lager, en mensen met een dvd speler hoeven er niet extra voor te betalen. Hartstikke goed juist.

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 14:51 schreef Ruzbeh het volgende:
Eerste real-time screen van Mario 128 op Revolution:

[afbeelding]

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 11:21 schreef Tomasso het volgende:
2 nieuwe posts op 2 verschillende logs.
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_Blog

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The company hopes to have specs available for manufacturers within 6-9 months, with manufacturing costs as low as $5 per screen for large-volume, small-screen products.

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Nintendo has just published its financial results for 2004/2005 with a benefit annual Net in rise from 163,3% to 87,42 billion yens, either approximately 644 million euros, against 33,19 billion yens for the previous year, or 244,5 million euros. A result which thus proves to be slightly better than the last forecasts of 82 billion yens. The sales turnover of the company remains stable to 515,29 billion yens, that is to say 3,8 billion euros. The three quarters of the sales were carried out out of Japan.

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It seems in this war of new consoles the only clear profit-maker is IBM. IBM has made the PowerPC-based core(s) for the Xbox 360, the Cell processor for Sony in conjunction with Sony and Toshiba, and also the Power-PC G5 based processor(s) for the Nintendo Revolution. Not one, but four! Yes, apparently the Revolution will feature FOUR 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5-class processors, codenamed "Broadway", and a graphics processor by ATI, codenamed "Hollywood", the dual-core RN520, with 16MB of frame buffer DRAM

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 19:18 schreef Tware het volgende:
w00t:
http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=3956
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Dus 4 2.5 GHZ processors en 16 mb framebuffer Dit is over het algemeen een heel erg betrouwbare site...

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 14:51 schreef Ruzbeh het volgende:
Eerste real-time screen van Mario 128 op Revolution:

[afbeelding]

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 14:51 schreef Ruzbeh het volgende:
Eerste real-time screen van Mario 128 op Revolution:

[afbeelding]

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Op donderdag 26 mei 2005 22:11 schreef Sickert het volgende:
Zag vandaag bij een programma op de vara een gast met 3d stuff zegmaar met zo'n brilletje met groen en rood glaasje en dat je dat dan niet meer nodig had maar dat de tv (of game console) 3d uitzend en dat je dan een laagje over je scherm plakt waardoor je alles in 3d ziet..
jonge jonge.. dat zou cool zijn hij deed zelfs een beetje geheimzinnig mischien werkt ie wel stiekem voor Ninty