system_error Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Alright ConsoleWars is a german website dedicated to all consoles/handhelds and generally they are very reliable. The information is from a source which will remain anonymous but ConsoleWars claims that is a a developer very close to Nintendo: - The controller of the Revolution works with the Gamecube at least in the development kit version - The development kit for the Revolution is very similar to a actual Gamecube. It has very similar In and Outputs which could lead to the assumption that the Revolution is indeed not as powerfull as other consoles - Unreal Engine 3 is definitly possible althoug it depends on how much you downscale. - Nintendo could offer a Opera browser for downloadable games aswell - The Revolution Controller is done and it is working. The developer version uses a serial port - The controller actually works like a 3D mouse, characteristic mouse gestures are possible and especially sword fighting movement is very easy - Nintendo will use a "low power" G5 CPU (PowerPC 970, probably FX which is SINGLE core but that is not in the article) which will be very power saving - The Revolution is thicker than a Powerbook from Apple and also a bit deeper but on the other hand the Revolution won't be as tall and merely bigger than the CD slot of the Powerbook - DVD movies need a Dongle so Nintendo does not have to pay MPEG2 licencing fees - Nintendo did this to save costs for the customer Okay not so much information but a few things have been confirmed or are complety new. Excuse the poor translation but I am too tired to get out my best English Source: http://www.consolewars.de/news/newsdisplay.php?idx=10963&PHPSESSID=c8348be0a8052e06ee038a578f037478
Nintendork Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 1. The controller of the Revolution works with the Gamecube at least in the development kit version 2. The development kit for the Revolution is very similar to a actual Gamecube. It has very similar In and Outputs which could lead to the assumption that the Revolution is indeed not as powerfull as other consoles 3. Unreal Engine 3 is definitly possible althoug it depends on how much you downscale. 4. Nintendo could offer a Opera browser for downloadable games aswell 5. The Revolution Controller is done and it is working. The developer version uses a serial port 6. The controller actually works like a 3D mouse, characteristic mouse gestures are possible and especially sword fighting movement is very easy 7. Nintendo will use a low power G5 CPU (PowerPC 970, probably FX but that is not in the article) which will be very power saving 8. The Revolution is thicker than a Powerbook from Apple and also a bit deeper but on the other hand the Revolution won't be as tall and merely bigger than the CD slot of the Powerbook 9. DVD movies need a Dongle so Nintendo does not have to pay MPEG2 licencing fees 10. Nintendo did this to save costs for the customer 1. Unlikely, this would lead to the idea in many consumer's minds that they can get hold of a controller and get a Revolution experience for half the cost.. face it the controller is the selling point. I don't think so.. 2. Average consumers don't care too much about ports but as we saw on the patent images the other day they are indeed similar. no HD does mean graphically it is not going to have the potential.. we're already aware of this 3. Unreal confirmed this effectively when they hired out people a few weeks back to work on all 4 platforms (plus mac) 4. Nintendo said this the other day, it's not that big of a deal.. as bookerman pointed out this would only really benefit people with internet and wireless internet access but don't have a computer (go figure) 5. It's a fair assumption that it's working considering many good deep titles take over a year to fully develop.. a serial port? could have just been thrown in for shits and giggles to give the report some flavour of something we didn't know already. after all once it comes to E3 we wont be talking about development phases and dev kits it will be finished products. I could say Nintendo Revolution controllers are currently hooked up to a blender for making smoothies.. does it matter? no because none of us will ever see or touch it, so effectively this means nothing. 6. Yeah.. I didn't know that. 7. Gs are widely considered best bang for your buck, why mac laptops like the iBook start at 6 hours average use, while a windows counterpart struggles to manage 2. 8. Yeah that doesn't mean much.. PowerBooks are ridiculously thin, we were told the prototype is near to exact 3 DVD cases, and the final thing would be thinner than that. Making it thinner than a powerbook would not be possible with Nintendo's aims. 9/10. Yeah knew this already too.. Don't suppose BigTac wrote this did he? It's very pretty at first site.. but it's just reworded old news.
system_error Posted February 17, 2006 Author Posted February 17, 2006 Wait a second you got a few things wrong (maybe I didn't write it that clear): 1. The early developpment kits were nothing more but regular Gamecubes - so that is why the Revolution controller could be used with it 2. Since the early dev kits are similar to the Gamecube the ports have been similar aswell I doubt the information is from BigTac - well it possibly could be but ConsoleWars did not reveal their source so I can't tell. It is not much new information for the average gamer but it gives a deeper insight of the development structure - which in this special case leads me to the conclusion that development is indeed cheaper and/or easier than before because after all most developers are used to the Gamecube.
Nintendork Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Ah yeah, I see what you mean.. sorry for the misunderstanding about the GC chipset as alpha dev. My theory is ports have been changed merely to stop importing early, and it's a fail safe technique, if one gets leaked.. chances are they wont be able to power it providing Nintendo keeps AV cables under lock and key until release. I wasn't being serious about BigTac writing it.. it's just his style of writing.
Social Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Wow that gave No new information to me whatsoever
system_error Posted February 17, 2006 Author Posted February 17, 2006 Wow that gave No new information to me whatsoever Well I never saw that the Revolution would use a G5 PowerPC 970. Furthermore there was no confirmation that the UE3 engine would work. I admit that the most information could be guessed too or is pretty obvious to most people but I understand the whole deal as some sort of confirmation.
DCK Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Makes sense most of it bar for the G5. The G5 has never been portable whereas the G4 has been Apple's iBook CPU for five years. Take a 65nm G4 @ 1.5 GHz, add Gekko instructions and 1 MB L2 cache and you're done. It's good news that Unreal Engine 3 is confirmed to work but it would be a severe dissappointment if it didn't run on it. I hope the scaling down only means resolution though
harribo Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Furthermore there was no confirmation that the UE3 engine would work. I Yes there was.
Kurtle Squad Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 It's known since forever that the Revo dev kits are similar to the Cubes, that's why its so easy to dev for!!
Nintendork Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 Scaling down could mean textures too if the Revolution's ram is low. Resolution is indefinite.
system_error Posted February 17, 2006 Author Posted February 17, 2006 Yes there was. Where? Now please don't give me that job search from Midway which they pulled a day later!
harribo Posted February 17, 2006 Posted February 17, 2006 "Unreal Engine 3 and Nintendo Revolution would be very well suited to each other." said by mark rein sounds like a confirmation to me. http://www.revo-europe.com/news.php?nid=8507
system_error Posted February 18, 2006 Author Posted February 18, 2006 And in the interview today he said they (Epic) don't know any specs yet and can't tell in what gfx power range Nintendo is playing...
Nintendork Posted February 18, 2006 Posted February 18, 2006 I like how my whole freaking post got plagiarised here: http://www.revolutionfanboy.com/2006/02/17/more-unsubstantiated-revolution-info-emerges/ Without me getting any credit.. one person read it and it went around a few blogs.. then ended up on a news site. I think so at least. Could just be a really unlikely coincidence. So far I've been really unimpressed with how revolutionfanboy have dealt with little bits of news. I'm not reading it anymore.
system_error Posted February 18, 2006 Author Posted February 18, 2006 LOL horrible translations for TEH WIN
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