Topic: Miyamoto Co-signs my hypothesis

[ProtoNY]

Quote
'basically a gamecube' seems to me to mean more than just similar, it means, well, basically, it's a game cube.

Shiggy is not infallible.  I would put more money on the fact that Shiggy is not a hardware guy, while people at ATI are saying that no one has even seen the tip of the iceberg - regarding the capabilities of the GPU.

Since everyone seems to have a pet theory, let me share mine.  The first final dev kits that are in the hands of developers will act as a bridge.  It easily brings people with GC experience on board and developing games.  Some of the games look like GC games because that is what they are used to developing.  The developers will start pushing the limits of these dev kits, all the while Nintendo is preparing a more advanced kit that shifts from the Gamecube paridigm over to the Wii.  The framework will be familiar and have a smaller learning curve than picking up a dev kit for another platform.  Why?  Just like the Wii is the evolution of the Gamecube, the dev kits will advance as well.

Yes, we all know it isn't a PS3 or an XBox360.  Judging by what I have read, I will say that when it meets its full potential, the Wii will be a lot closer to the new generation than the last generation.  Nintendo's strategy is simply to bring as many developers on board, then to increase the quality of the games through their technical channels.

[thejeek]

OK he's not a hardware guy, but with his position in the company he must surely have had input into the design process and be familiar with the machine in some detail. For example, how can he make design decisions about games he's working on without detailed information about what the machine is capable of?

[ProtoNY]

Quote
Originally posted by: thejeek
OK he's not a hardware guy, but with his position in the company he must surely have had input into the design process and be familiar with the machine in some detail. For example, how can he make design decisions about games he's working on without detailed information about what the machine is capable of?

The answer is a lot simpler than you would think.  Like everyone else, he is confined to the capabilities of the current dev kits - or possible beta versions of improved ones.  Console developers do not write to the specs of the console, they write within the confines of the tools that they have.  It is the same with traditional software development.  You are given a toolkit that defines the functionality that the system is expected to handle.

I am a Shiggy fan, don't get me wrong.  But still, you are right.  He is not a hardware guy.  Regardless of what input he had in the design process, if one of the chip manufacturers says that there is a large amount of feasibly untapped power, my money is going on the person who designed the physical chip, not the one who said, "Hmmm...  Sounds good to me.".

[jasonditz]

It does seem unlikely that IBM would take five years of research and a ton of cash to deliver what amounts to a clock speed upgrade on a 5 year old CPU which was itself just a trimmed down and specialized version of another CPU.

But then again, it's not like this is our first hint that this is the case. If Nintendo is unhappy with that perception maybe they shouldn't keep their specs a secret.  

[thejeek]

To be honest I really really want to believe the Wii is more than just a souped up cube and I'd hope that with the money Nintendo have apparently spent and with IBM and ATI's expertise, that they've come up with something a bit more than a mild overclock of Gekko and Flipper but, unfortunately, we've really no evidence that the Wii is anything more than that.

[Ian Sane]

"But then again, it's not like this is our first hint that this is the case. If Nintendo is unhappy with that perception maybe they shouldn't keep their specs a secret."

Exactly.  The natural assumption as to why someone wouldn't release the specs is that the specs are weaksauce.  The fact that negative misinformation has spread about the Wii hardware and Nintendo hasn't used the specs to put out the fire just confirms the assumption.

I figure most of the R&D for the Wii has been for the controller.  I also suspect that Nintendo originally was going to go with a more conventional console (this would be like five years ago before Iwata was in charge) and some of IBM's and ATI's work was on that.  The Wii, the DS and all this non-gamer stuff is a direct response to why Nintendo thinks the Cube didn't sell that well.  When they assumed it would sell well they probably had a different plan for the next gen.

[couchmonkey]

Yep, I agree Ian, and in fact the recent Miyamoto interview confirms it: at first Nintendo's next-gen strategy was all about timing and getting certain games out on a specific schedule.  But then they started to consider whether or not gaming can remain the way it is for another 5-10 years.

There definitely was R&D for the Wii hardware, make no mistake. But all that went into making a very small console with no fan rather than a more powerful one.  While Microsoft and Sony's behemoths experience various heating issues and require fancy cooling solutions (that don't work well enough in many cases), Nintendo's tiny machine doesn't even need a fan.

All of this is part of the plan to make a machine that is inobtrusive.  It has to be able to fit anywhere without annoying anybody with noise, visual clutter, or wasted space.  Those were the hardware requirements, not more power.

[Kairon]

Behold the power of semantics! Mistransmission 4TL!

Quote
There has been some discussion about an alleged Shigeru Miyamoto interview by GameBrink. In it, Miyamoto apparently says about Wii:


The hardware is basically a GC. We’ve upgraded our development tools to new versions but, you can still use GC programs as they are.

The interview is over a month old. And, according to Joystiq, Miyamoto really said:


The machine is based on GC. We'll be upgrading the development tools, but GameCube code can be used for the most part as is.

Funny how a small syntactical error can make such a big difference semantically.

Thanks to: Nintendo-wii.blogspot.com

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Kairon]

Quote
Originally posted by: jasonditz
I wonder how his integrity sits with a marketing department that's bound and determined to make a silk purse out of last generation's sow's ear.

Miyamoto told them to do it. Miyamoto told us they're doing it. And if people buy it, it'll be because they really want it. Everybody wins!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[jasonditz]

Quote
Originally posted by: couchmonkey
Yep, I agree Ian, and in fact the recent Miyamoto interview confirms it: at first Nintendo's next-gen strategy was all about timing and getting certain games out on a specific schedule.  But then they started to consider whether or not gaming can remain the way it is for another 5-10 years.

There definitely was R&D for the Wii hardware, make no mistake. But all that went into making a very small console with no fan rather than a more powerful one.  While Microsoft and Sony's behemoths experience various heating issues and require fancy cooling solutions (that don't work well enough in many cases), Nintendo's tiny machine doesn't even need a fan.

All of this is part of the plan to make a machine that is inobtrusive.  It has to be able to fit anywhere without annoying anybody with noise, visual clutter, or wasted space.  Those were the hardware requirements, not more power.

I can buy that, but only to a point. It's not like Nintendo had to pay IBM to invent the low-heat CPU.