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AeroScap

Interesting tidbits from Game Informer?

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I just got this from the official nintendo forum:

 

This article from the upcoming Game Informer magazine focuses on the pros and cons of the development environment of the upcoming Nintendo Wii. As well as revealing the last big secret concerning hardware functionality. Here are some summarizations from that article.

 

-Pros-

 

-Inexpensive graphics development.

 

-Developer-friendly “camera†program

 

-Will support HDR lighting, normal maps, bump-mapping, nurbs rendering, and panoramically-composted depth-composited cubemappng, ray-tracing.

 

-Chipsets are very inexpensive although EXTREMELY powerful, WILL incorporate many aspects of the Project Reality study.

 

-Nintendo is providing extensive documentation to ease the incorporation of the Wii-mote.

 

-Cons-

 

-Challenging to program effectively for the Wii-mote, due to it being very new to the industry.

 

-Marketing to be more challenging for bigger third-party franchises due to nature of the innovative qualities.

 

-The development cycle to possibly equal the time cycles of PS3 and Xbox360 due to the time needed to be innovative and effectively program for the controller.

 

-The challenge of marketing the Wii’s controller in ads and commercial may turn third-parties away from exclusivity. (The challenge to display through ads how “playing is believingâ€)

 

 

-The Final Secret/minor surprises also-

 

-Wii will include a built-in decent resolution camera that can be used to add your face to character models and add innovation to games. These snapshots can be tweaked as well. It is still being decided whether to allow camera to record and stream video. Mention made to have this feature be a strong feature in online play.

 

-A wireless headset will be made available at launch.

 

-SD cards will range from 2GB to 7GB and will be priced “within reasonâ€.

 

-A new router technology is still in development and not yet available to developers. In the final product Nintendo hopes to be able to make every Wii a sort of “Wi-Fi hotspot†with each user connecting to that user and so on. They also want to be able to allow different users to share things and are thinking about setting up a pseudo-P2P network through Connect24, where users can share content and “other thingsâ€. This means that even if you have a dial-up connection or no internet, you can still connect to Wii Connect24.

 

-The Wii will indeed have a PPU included in final hardware. It will have only 32MB though, which will still take a considerable amount of pressure off of other chips.

 

-A still-in-development simple dev tool will be made available to users through the Connect24 network. It will allow users to create a simple game in 2D or simple 3D and share it with the world. This will hopefully be available on the network by launch.

 

-The last big secret is the “graphics solutionâ€. It revolves around a whole lot of non-volatile RAM (opting out of HDD support, RAM is much faster than a HDD). And a development interface that centers on a AI-controlled command-line interface. This additional tech only included in final dev kits, while most developers don’t have access to final dev kits.

 

The camera sounds very interesting and the ad-hoc networking sounds like a ds searching function. Thing is in the uk barely anyone walks around with their ds set to search, infact it's harder to find a hotspot.

 

The memory card choice is interesting aswell, especially if you can use it with your pc or other devices or if it's just a Wii specific card.

 

Also I was seriously hoping that the mic would be built in, I dont feel like buying that many extras. *crosses fingers*

 

what do you guys think?

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Yea,I read this on a diff site but it's suppose to only be a rumour by someone who said it's from GI.So we need to wait and see untill the next issue is out.

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well, this seems to good to be true! I mean extremely powerful chips? Camera in the wii? Connect while not connected to the internet? :o

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I don't see why developers think they HAVE to innovate that much with their games on the Wii

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Like every other bit of "info" that was released in the past, I won't believe it until I see it!

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The simple dev. kit for simple 2 or 3D games would be awesome, I'd love to create some cool games and share them with others :)

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A camera and headset? Nintendo are really going for it on the online front.

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I instictivly say "BS!" as it seems too good to be true, but a little thought at the back of my brain is telling me "these are all actually, really plausable"...

Meh

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FAKE, it is really a shame that most people are too stupid to make up a convincing lie. Well I guess it won't take long until the next "insider" reveals the glorious truth which Nintendo hides.

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As everyone is saying, too good to be true. They are telling us what they want us to hear. Also this doesn't rub well with the interview details about the charicature profile. Why would it be a charicature if it has a camera? To me the possibilities of there being a camera will be 0.

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Why would it be a charicature if it has a camera?

 

I respect your opinion but

 

a) learn how to spell "caricature"

b) find out what it means:

 

"A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject's distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect."

 

Nowhere does it say you cannot place a real person's face on an "exaggerated" (in terms of size) head with a "distinctive" small body.

 

Just feel like you should comment on good authority at least :P

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"As everyone is saying, too good to be true."

 

as much as it seems too good to be true, no1 expected the Wii-mote, and that is too good to be true

 

 

however, i believe its fake :P

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I just got this from the official nintendo forum:

 

 

 

The camera sounds very interesting and the ad-hoc networking sounds like a ds searching function. Thing is in the uk barely anyone walks around with their ds set to search, infact it's harder to find a hotspot.

 

The memory card choice is interesting aswell, especially if you can use it with your pc or other devices or if it's just a Wii specific card.

 

Also I was seriously hoping that the mic would be built in, I dont feel like buying that many extras. *crosses fingers*

 

what do you guys think?

the only thing likely is the camera.miyamoto confirmed face mapping in wii sports so that must be how it is done.

i would dream of a simple dev tool for the average person though

*fingers crossed*

microohone will happen.id bet my house on it(even though its not mine)

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@ AeroScap

 

a) mmmkay

b) I know what the word means.

 

Why would they use this word? If it was a camera using which you superimposed your face onto a character then it would not be called a caricature. A caricature is purposefully inaccurate so why would you use a device which gives you a high fidelity representation of yourself?

 

I understand what you mean about the body to head ratio but that is there without you adding a face. The face itself is not a caricature if you take it with a camera. It's misleading to use the term and combine it with images such as this:

 

e3-03.jpg

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What have we learned from E3? Its not whats inside the box.

 

Who cares if Wii has a PPU? Who cares if it's capable of bump-mapping? Once we get the Wii=mote in our mitts, are we really going to care?

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This has GOT to be fake. Nintendo has been stressing the ease of programming this entire time. Why would they give out near final hardware that doesn't include cameras, the PPU, and the "graphics solution?" This would require devs to completely change the way their game is coded in order to take advantage of these features.

 

It sounds like one of those "Wii will really be a lot better than we saw at E3" things that Matt Cassamassina was complaining about.

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It looks...weird. I'd not say fake, but it also doesn't look real.

 

But I'm not concerned a little bit about this. I only want to know one thing. When can I try it and see if it put in me the feeling about how great the games can be, like I had once... Now I'm just tired of them.

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WILL incorporate many aspects of the Project Reality study

Erm, wasn't 'Project Reality' the codename for the N64?

 

I'd rubbish this 'news' if it didn't do such a good job itself.

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fake, anything that says anything about a PPU at this point is very very fake

Actually I saw a vid of an interview with some dev at e3 saying it had a physics processor, or something among those lines.

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http://revolution.ign.com/articles/708/708155p1

 

"Konami: Yes, the structure is very similar to GameCube, but you already knew that. The development was not that difficult, as the Wii system has built in physics simulation. That helped the process."

 

Think thats probably refering to a middleware tool rather than hardware. I doubt a ppu would be included as the wii is meant to be easy to develop for and this would have a few implications. I personally believe PPU are just marketing and not necessary when you could just have a multicore solution instead. Can offload physics to the graphics card - is this the iceberg maybe?

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