No matter what side of the fence you’re standing on—I think it’s safe to say one thing: No matter what, Nintendo is making a huge gamble.
Like it or not, the majority of the world are graphics whores (I just don’t like that term, “graphics whore”. It devalues the fact that, like it or not, graphics have contributed to great games. People have a right to care about them). There’s just no getting around that. The group of people who aren’t graphics whores isn’t enough to sustain a system. Just look at Sony. PS2 was the weakest console of the bunch, but Sony knew just what to say to make people believe otherwise, and that, combined with the fact that it was the previous generation’s undisputed market leader, led to it dominating this generation’s “console wars”. (LOL—console war? In retrospect, there never was a war. There wasn’t a single point this generation where Sony was in any sort of threat of losing its number 1 spot.)
IGN, while viewed as shoddy by a lot of people, is unfortunately seen as a legitimate source of gaming news and discussion by legions more—including developers. So I believe that Matt’s capable of having such contacts, and I believe that, while not 100% accurate in the slightest, this news is more or less along the lines of the truth about the Revolution. Everything points to that being the case. In terms of power, Rev is definitely coming in at a pathetic third place. Hell, if it’s nothing more than a souped up Xbox, one must wonder if it’s worthy of even being considered a next generation console. I have to agree with a lot of what Ian said: Nintendo is repeating a lot of the same mistakes that doomed the Cube, and I just don’t think there’s any point in arguing that; sheer logic and numbers are against you.
However, with that being said, I also agree with Kairon. This generation, more than any other, consumer opinion is going to decide the fate of the Rev. If Nintendo can achieve its goal of positioning the Rev as an “And” console; if Nintendo can make the Rev into a cheap and intriguing piece of technology that people won’t simply glance over; if Nintendo can successfully make the Rev both the cute accessory that everyone simply must have and, at the same time, a legitimate gaming console then it won’t matter how underpowered the system is, everyone will simply HAVE to own one and developers would be stupid not to develop for it. If Nintendo can achieve this, then the fact that they’re repeating their mistakes will be more then forgivable. Loss for the greater gain and all that jazz.
Still, what I fear is that Nintendo hasn’t quite realized that, for the past two generations, it’s done nothing but rub its good name in the dirt. Like it or not, in that time the Nintendo brand name has gone from being synonymous with all of gaming, to being a guilty pleasure (At my college it’s almost a joke to say you own a Gamecube, even if the same people who laugh at you admit that it does have a handful of good games in it’s library). Nintendo still has its fair share of, hardcore, diehard fans (Bill). But there’s no denying that a significant portion of \ Sony and MS’s fanbase consist of former Nintendo fans who just couldn’t take the abuse Nintendo called “good ideas” and “profit protecting” and fled—understandably so. Furthermore, an even bigger portion of Sony and MS’s fanbases consist of people those former Nintendo-lovers influenced.
So the big mystery is this: even if Nintendo is successful in creating the console it wants—a graphically sub par but cheap and innovative console that just begs for people to give it a chance—will people (especially those that have been dooped by Nintendo in the past) give them that chance? Will it be enough for them to sell enough consoles to convince developers that putting in the extra time and money to make exclusives and decent ports is worth it? I guess only time will tell on that one. Money runs this industry, and no matter how innovative and cool some developers think the controller is, the big wigs above won’t give them the green light to do anything if they don’t believe a decent return will be had.
Topic: 2-3 Times as powerful as GC true, sez IGN (Read 100654 times)
