2-3 times more powerful than Gamecube, now basically confirmed

[Choze]

As Iwata and fans said we will say WOW. Well i said wow alright. : peace:

 

 

 

Oh and notice how big the RAM is. 88MB of RAM. No excuse for Nintendo to sell this over £40 as its essentially a souped up GC with higher clocks and an extra memory module.

[Dilli Gee]

IBM gave the specs of the Cell processors out a while ago. They aren't all that. Power PC core's still kick the living shit out of them.

So PS3's "PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz" is not the same as the one you're describing?

 

All the information is in the press-release: http://www.us.playstation.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=279

 

It's a bit wierd, cos' PS3's not really a games console as such - it's more of a media centre. The fact it's a Blu-Ray player at only £300 will get many buyers alone.

[Guest Jordan]

So PS3's "PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz" is not the same as the one you're describing?

 

All the information is in the press-release: http://www.us.playstation.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=279

 

It's a bit wierd, cos' PS3's not really a games console as such - it's more of a media centre. The fact it's a Blu-Ray player at only £300 will get many buyers alone.

 

First off, a cell processor is not a powerPC. They work totally differently. Believe me i read up on the 29 paper fact sheet, just so i could see how much crap Sony were spilling this time.

 

Also, "Media Center"? Dude, unless you didn't notice that was the whole thing with the PS2 as well. Bluray just isn't gunna work, it's too expensive. People aren't gunna fork out £300-400 just to watch movies.

 

I'll be honest, i hate Sony. And above that I hate Choze. Seriously though, Sony talk shit. Think about the past, fucks sake.

 

EDIT: Just a couple more things before i go to bed. First of all, that whole thing that Sony want to introduce with keeping a single game to single console. Meaning you can't sell or trade in old games, because they wouldn't work. Also, because Sony are bastards. The Blu-ray format will be kept closed. This means that no one without certain copywrites will be allowed to copy blu-ray disks. Nice and fair huh?

[Dilli Gee]

Hahhaha, do you know how high this is going to push developement costs?

Probably, but the games won't be as expensive as you think - and Sony are one of the richest companies ever. Even if they lose money from their game, they'll make the money back eventually, through TV sales, the cinema or the licensing of other less expensive PS3 games.

 

I'd also like to point out that they have the added advantage of being a well integrated company - I liked how in the PS3 demo talk, the Spider-man character that was swinging around was actually taken directly out of the movie's CGI Spidey model.

 

LucasArts is going to have a field day with the PS3, cos' it'll mean they could literally take CGI work from ILM and just re-format it. The PS3 is exactly the reason why George Lucas merged all his companies.

[pedrocasilva]

No, it's far more powerful. It's half as powerful as the PS3, which itself is 35 times more powerful than the PS2.

 

The reason why we haven't seen any next-gen type graphics on Xbox 360 is because the games are late Xbox games that were just simply transfered over (except for the few top quality games).

god... did you benchmark them? it's simply idiotic to say Xbox 360 has half the power PS3 has.

simply not true, even for what we know about both consoles, and the number 35 was given by sony, the ones who said the PSone did 360 000 polygons/second and that PS2 did Toy Story-alike graphics and 77 million poligons (or so), they are numbers who will never be achieved, and you can't compare them with other manufacters consoles, possibly not even comparing the consoles of that same manufacter.

the diference is design is not really that diferent, they are both simplified PowerPC's meaning they have the same weakness by default, the bandwidths are also similar, if you can compare them already, yes PS3 is more powerfull, but only as much as 20%, remember this is todays technology! if CELL developed by Sony and IBM was that good IBM wouldn't be developing regular PowerPC with less MHz anymore, the thing is, a real PowerPC even with less MHz beats the living shit out of cell; and IBM has been saying that a lot, CELL is useless as a home computer CPU, get over it, it's a enhanced CPU that has strongpoints that are paid with weaknesses, it's not a "all-around" CPU.

 

As for the graphics in X360 being "bad" maybe it's because the lowest spec available is still PS2, the games can be more pretty and optimized, but they wont be true next generation as long as the oldest console in the market keeps recieving toned down ports oft hose games, for them to be possible on acient hardware, it compromises the next gen one, happened the same with Dreamcast.

 

Now just get some real numbers and proove your point, I always do that to proove my point, it also means to be respected, even if people don't agree with you, but saying those without arguments is a lack of time (to read/reply).

[Guest Jordan]

and Sony are one of the richest companies ever.

 

And thats the reason they are several billion dollars in debt? The only thing keeping them in business are their assets. Playstation is the only profitable thing at Sony... just about.

 

They are having to sell off side companies and lay off employees over the next few years. Sony are in collosell debt. If the PS3 or PSP really fail, they will be seriously fucked.

[Shino]

Probably, but the games won't be as expensive as you think - and Sony are one of the richest companies ever. Even if they lose money from their game, they'll make the money back eventually, through TV sales, the cinema or the licensing of other less expensive PS3 games.

 

Actually, Sony is one of the most in debth companys ever (maybe not ever but enough), and the only department that makes money is its games department, if it wasn't for the playstation, Sony would be gone long time.

 

Edit: Too late :P

[Dilli Gee]

First off, a cell processor is not a powerPC.

No, the cell processor is a new chip designed by Sony/Toshiba/IBM and is a microprocessor that consists of a:

 

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz

1 VMX vector unit per core

512KB L2 cache

7 x SPE @3.2GHz

7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs

7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE

* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

total floating point performance : 218

GFLOPS

 

Therefore it's not a PowerPC, but rather contains one, connected to eight more special-purpose DSP cores.

 

PC Stats (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1727) concludes that the new Cell-processor could potentially "excel at the kind of applications we buy high-end PCs for today: graphics, video, audio and games".

[Deku-Nutz]

I'm not sure if I care or not, about this new info.

 

I mean I can happily play Wind Waker and completely love every aspect of its presentation. I can't look at the GFX and say... This doesn't look so great, with more power it could look better... and so the point I am making IS... If Nintendo continue to craft games that exsist comfortably in their own shells, then I am happy as larry... no matter how shiny and crisp the next FPS on 360 is...

 

All I want from Revolution is this new gameplay aspect that has been promised, and I will get it. I also want great games. Which is kind of Nintendo's buisness so I am not worried there either. Do I want a media centre? YES! But I have one, its my comp. My comp that is my Jukebox, my Picture Album... I don't need a console to do all these things Again.

 

I think the best thing to expect from Revo is a games machine. Its just like Gamecube. It didn't bother me that it had no DVD player, cause I had a DVD player... and the Cube was a very nice price WITH great games.

 

The rev will be the same. It's not nudging me into buying a HD TV I cannot afford and for that I am greatful. Its just offering Nintendo with a new way to play.

 

Maybe its cause I am an older gamer... (That TOO old mind you =P) But I am open to something different. I had pretty much watched games evolve in a fairly linear fashion, with the odd spurt of innovation. Nintendo tended to be at the forefront of the innovation and they appear to be in that same position still. I am not disregarding Sony or Microsoft, but I needen't acknowledge them when I am purely talking about Nintendo.

 

As soon as people stop this ridiculous notion of games machines being these Warriors, caught up in a bloody battle.. then the gaming world will be a better place.

 

Gamecube apparently LOST THE CONSOLE WAR, but was I any worse off from it? I still get my Mario fix, I still get the great games, I still get Zelda to the next level! What have I missed from the Cube apparently LOOSING? Nothing. Nintendo didn't back down because Nintendo ignore this western invented WAR.

 

Companies are out to better each other, sure. But don't forget to enjoy whats out there. It's also not insane to need different things from the same market. I love Nintendo's style, I also love RPG's and so I look elsewhere. Its unrealistic to expect all from one source. In the gaming world anyway. No one console has EVERYTHING. Its just some consoles tack on other things, to fool consumers into thinking they need it (Blu-Ray, Media Center)... they DONT need these things. Sony outright SAID that they will use PS3 as a way of insering Blu-Ray into people's homes, thus breeding the format. Does this sound like a company that wants to dazzle its consumer with new and exciting things? It sounds to me that they want to force yet another SONY made format, so that it can reap future benefits and premote, premote, premote. Never the less, PS3 will have games that won't BE on the Revo, and so I will look to Sony to cater.

 

The bottom line is, Nintendo will deliver. Don't think less power will interfere. Revo won't have every game, might not have a fraction of the games PS3 has... and yet, at a price around $100-150 (IGN.com) being thrown about by developers, is this a problem??? I am more than happy to pay that price for a new way of playing with my most favorite franchies, even at the cost of not having the graphics shine like the pixels within are dusted with party glitter...

 

I will enjoy the revolution and I will enjoy all the other franchises I have followed as well.

 

What we all need to except is... that we may need to look to more than one port of call.

 

Nintendo knows this, Iwata has said Revo can exsist as a second console... and with this predicted price point... I whole heartedly agree.

 

STOP looking at this next generation as a PICK ONE CONSOLE affair. If you do, you're missing out big time...

[Dilli Gee]

Duku-Nutz, you're right about this "pick one" thing. I think i need to calm myself down a bit.

[Deku-Nutz]

Well, I am already resigned to the fact that for me to continue playing Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and the like, I will need to get a PS3 ^^

 

Like I said before, people need to stop thinking that any one console will completely give them everything on offer in the gaming market.

[Shino]

Square-Enix said that it would stop making exclusive titles in the next gen, and about picking one console only, some of us usualy can only afford one console.

[pedrocasilva]

Probably, but the games won't be as expensive as you think - and Sony are one of the richest companies ever.

Probably you simply don't know what you're saying?

 

how do you explain this?

Nintendo held almost 900 billion yen in cash and deposits at the end of March, 30 percent larger than Sony's holdings.

Source: http://www.revo-europe.com/news.php?nid=2570

 

it's a 2002 article, since then things changed, not for nintendo, who keeps earning profits, but for sony, as Jordan stated they are in debt, a lot...

 

No, the cell processor is a new chip designed by Sony/Toshiba/IBM and is a microprocessor that consists of a:

 

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz

1 VMX vector unit per core

512KB L2 cache

7 x SPE @3.2GHz

7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs

7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE

* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

total floating point performance : 218

GFLOPS

 

Therefore it's not a PowerPC, but rather contains one, connected to eight more special-purpose DSP cores.

 

PC Stats (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1727) concludes that the new Cell-processor could potentially "excel at the kind of applications we buy high-end PCs for today: graphics, video, audio and games".

still that's not a argument, did you knew CELL doesn't even have cache coherency in the SPE's? those 256KB of them for each SPE simply don't exist, it's virtual cache, it's coherency has to be done by software, try that on a PC, it's desastrous for performance, we all here know more about that matter than you, clearly.

 

I just said a tidbit, there are many others, but you'll refuse to accomplish them just like you refused every argument till now.

 

Bare in mind that those 218 Gigaflops are theorical, don't go aroung and compare those to computer racks like... "Pentium 4 3,2 GHz=3,6 Gigaflops" it's simply not comparable, they are numbers of diferent sources.

 

In the best of chances CELL could give half that in some cases, but I doubt it.

 

And yes, it is a PowerPC, it's the main core, it's the same as saying your PC is not a Pentium because you have a floating point unit embedded! (it comes with home CPU's since 486) it's not like you have to change the programing language for them, they're both RISC, the CPU is based on a PowerPC is that, that dificult to accept? it's simply what it is.

[James McGeachie]

We presented that description to another informed studio, which clarified that the clock rates may even fall short of doubling those on GameCube.

 

Wow, I had low expectations for power now, but not THAT low, this sounds like the Rev processor might not even break 800Mhz. When I heard "2-3 times Gamecube" earlier this year, I figured 1Ghz was the bare minimum. I can only hope the games are truly stellar now, because this is even slightly disappointing for me now and I was trying not to care about specs.

[Pit-Jr]

 

 

 

Confirmed Rev. screens

 

 

See, theres not THAT much difference

[Fresh]

1 bit that did get me abit excited about the revo is the disk size:

 

"Revolution discs can store 4.7GBs of data on a single layer or 8.5GBs when double-layered on a single-side."

 

I think 1 of the major preoblems with the GC was the disk size, 1.5 just wasnt big enough.

[Tailzo]

I'm happy about this:

 

Every developer was in agreement that Revolution should launch with a price tag of $149 or lower. Some speculated that based on the tech, a $99 price point would not be out of the question.

IGN

[Darv]

No, the cell processor is a new chip designed by Sony/Toshiba/IBM and is a microprocessor that consists of a:

 

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz

1 VMX vector unit per core

512KB L2 cache

7 x SPE @3.2GHz

7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs

7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE

* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

total floating point performance : 218

GFLOPS

 

If those are the specs of a cell CPU they're rubbish. Who cares about multicore cpus etc when it's got a frankly laughable 512kb of L2 cache shared between all of them.

[system_error]

I am not really in the mood to say anything now. It is hard not to sound like a complete fanboy if those specs are indeed true and to be honest I am pretty sure they are even though it doesn't make sense.

 

Okay underpowered Revolution was clear from the start but actually if the double MHz of CPU/GPU and the "104"MB Ram is true it is a disaster. What took Nintendo so damn long to come up with that? I mean after 5 years I am sure they could easily shrink hardware with those specifications for the Revolution case, finish the controller and launch early 2006 with a low price tag. Now they have next to nothing except a cool controller. Yeah people will buy it if its cheap. They will buy Mario, Zelda, <insert Nintendo franchise> but there won't be many ports because the hardware is really too bad compared to the competition.

 

Revolution will be the second console of nearly everyone into gaming but if you have 2 consoles why would you buy Madden 07 or Burnout 5 for the Revolution if you could buy the same game for PS3/360 with much better graphics because I doubt that every ported game will use the new control style. So Revolution sales will be the same or even worse than those of the Gamecube concerning third party games. Why? Because some games are simply about graphics - you don't need much innovation in a racing game it is all about driving a car as fast as you can and the only thing you can improve there is how pretty the cars and the track looks.

I really wonder why Nintendo had to spend so much money for their next-gen console because even monkeys could make those chips. Switch to 90nm or 32nm and you automatically increase the clock rate and with ~900MHz you don't even need a fan - just put some copper heatsink on top of it and you are done.

 

Right now they could have take the Gamecube and just make a new controller for it because it is not that much of a difference. Now everytime someone says Gamecube Turbo, GC 2 all I can say is yes. Consoles are about graphic too and I rather would like to play third party games on the Revolution aswell but now I really have to buy another console for non Nintendo games.

Revolution has to be cheaper than 200€ and it has to include a 2. controller, a free game, etc otherwise it is a rip off. Gamecube 200€ and 5 years later the Gamecube 2 for 200€ is just wrong with "souped" up XBOX power. Yeah right I even started to use those words because it is simply TRUE.

[Myke Greywolf]

Right now they could have take the Gamecube and just make a new controller for it because it is not that much of a difference.

 

So, what about virtual console, off-the-box Internet readiness, WiFi connectivity and the extra power? None of that counts?

[system_error]

Sure it does but it doesn't make a lot of money for Nintendo. How do they plan to make cash? Without better third party support and people also buying those games for the Revolution they have their own franchises and the download games. I doubt they will make too much money out of that.

 

I am not saying Revolution is a bad console or anything - I want one myself but concerning profit it is not the best idea to heavily rely on your own games because on the GC I did not see sooo many Nintendo games which could compete against Halo, GTA, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, ...

[ViPeR]

wow am i one of the few here that don´t have one of those see in the future crystal balls? because i´m seeing a lot of predictions about the revo that haven´t happened! /takes stupity hat off

 

You know what? I think they must be giving them out for free in the streets or something because this is really out of control.

[Advance]

Well if we may believe IGN, than this are the current specs

CPU around 970 Mhz

and the GPU 324 Mhz

and 104 MB-Ram

 

Compared:

XBOX:

Intel Pentium 3 733MHZ

GPU 233MHZ

64Mb-ram.

 

Game cube

CPU: 485mhz

GPU 162mhz

32Mb-Ram

[dazzybee]

System, way to overreact. Please wait till we know everything about it before spouting a load of rubbish. You must have a limited imgaination of you think racing games can only be improved by better graphics!! Seriously - NO game can be only imrpoved by better graphics!

[system_error]

Then tell me why Gran Turismo, Need for Speed or PGR sell that good? Because they reinvented the wheel? NO - they are good racing games with even better graphics.

 

You can't make a bad game better with good graphics but you can enhance a good game with better graphics.

I am sure the Revolution will have (even with 2 times the GC power) absolutly fantastic games concerning gameplay and graphics but for developers it might get a bit harder to port the games. They have to do a lot of work to get a 360 game running as nice on the Revolution OR they just make a sloppy port.