Topic: IGN Promises Rev Specs: Evening 3/29/06

[Kairon]

Of those 3 different sets of reports...

One is specifically stated as an unconfirmedand sourceless rumor, another was posted by a blogsite that heard it from someone who wrote in to that blogsite, and the remaining one of those reports is based on the posts of "Han Solo," who claimed that he worked for Factor 5 even though Factor 5 stated it had no connection with him whatsoever.

All of those reports and their sources lack the acceptance, history, and public possibility of failure that the IGN report carries.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[thejeek]

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All of those reports and their sources lack the acceptance, history, and public possibility of failure that the IGN report carries.

That's a matter of opinion - I'll believe it when it's independantly verified somewhere reputable...

[Kairon]

Are you implying that IGN is irreputable?

*ahem*

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[thejeek]

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Are you implying that IGN is irreputable?

I dunno about implying - I pretty much straight out said so. Is it reputable? I actually don't wanna pick a fight here - I never read IGN and I'd got the impression that it was sensationalist and biased - but if the consensus here is that they can be trusted on this then I guess I'll go along with that.

[Kairon]

Any reputable site can be wrong of course. But IGNs report does carry weight, so I'm more inclined to believe them than otherwise. That's why one theory we've heard so far is that IGN may not be lying, but that they're reporting based on development kits which may or may not represent the final product.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@al.com

[thejeek]

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That's why one theory we've heard so far is that IGN may not be lying, but that they're reporting based on development kits which may or may not represent the final product.

That seems most likely to me - it requires no deliberate malice from IGN but stil allows me to believe the specs are not accurate...

[Kairon]

LOL

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[thejeek]

Arrrghhh! It's very frustrating - I deeply want the Revolution to be decent and popular and a low spec really won't help that and the spec IGN report is depressingly low and there's not much hope of more concrete info emerging at E3, since Nintendo have said they will not release specs, ever.

Grrr. I dunno - I'll just have to wait for actual hardware and then we'll all see I guess.

[Artimus]

IGN is defintiely reputable. Do they always post things people like? No. Is it possible they COULD be wrong? Yes. But outside of an official Nintendo statement, they're probably the strongest source there is.

[Rhoq]

I have a feeling that IGN's specs are close, but a little under what the final specs will be.

If it really were an April Fool's gag, I think it would have been revealed by now. We've known for a while now that the Revolution specs would be pretty underwhelming, compared to the XBox 360 and PS3. A lot of people refuse to accept it. Compared to the GameCube, and knowing what that system is already capable of, why should there be any doubts that the Revolution will be plenty powerful for what it's set to accomplish?

I'm guessing that the Revolution will look slightly better than the original XBox. I see absolutely nothing wrong with graphics of that caliber. The graphics will definitely be "good enough". The current non-gamers & average casual gamers will not care enough and, the truth is - the difference won't be all that drastic, especially when compared to PS3 and 360 on standard definition monitors. As it had been suggested earlier in this thread, at the very worst - the Revolution will the next-gen equivalent of the PS2 in terms of visuals.

[SgtShiversBen]

What if this is a ruse set up by Nintendo themselves to make people think that they have sh1tty specs, then at E3 "wow" us?

I'm just being overly optimistic, but hell...if Sony can "wow" us with their price point, then I see no reason for Nintendo to do the same.

[Artimus]

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Originally posted by: SgtShiversBen
What if this is a ruse set up by Nintendo themselves to make people think that they have sh1tty specs, then at E3 "wow" us?

I'm just being overly optimistic, but hell...if Sony can "wow" us with their price point, then I see no reason for Nintendo to do the same.

Because price is entirely Sony's choice and they can make it whatever they want. You spend months (years) building specs and developers need them to build on. You can just raise your specs like you can lower a price.

Let's be realistic...

[Dirk Temporo]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
another was posted by a blogsite that heard it from someone who wrote in to that blogsite, and the remaining one of those reports is based on the posts of "Han Solo," who claimed that he worked for Factor 5 even though Factor 5 stated it had no connection with him whatsoever.

I fail to see how that's any less reliable than "a very trustworthy developer told me that these are definitely the specs."

[Magik]

I wouldn't be surprised by the time the final dev kits come out, the specs will be better, but it still won't be close to what the 360 or PS3 has or whatever people hope it will be.

[Michael8983]

I'm sorry but even the XBox 360's graphics are just slightly better than the Gamecube's judging from playing around with it for a while on the HD display kiosk at Target. Sure the textures are a lot more detailed and everything looks smoother but it's not THAT much of a difference. Compared to the kind of leap between the past two generations, it's completely pathetic.
So if the REV graphics end up falling in between this coming generations and the last I honestly don't think anyone but the most scrutinizing of graphics whores will notice or care.
If Nintendo has its way people are going to be talking a lot more about HOW you play games then what they look like this time around.

[thejeek]

There's more to it than simply eye candy - it's the scale of environments and complexity of behaviour that I'm worried will be limited by low CPU power and insufficient memory. Poor graphics would just be the icing on the cake really.

And give the 360 time - I think good developers will be able to wring a bit more out of it than just-in-time-for-release EA good-enough-is-good-enough-ware. (not that I'm pro 360 - I've never knowingly paid money for a Microsoft product)

[MaryJane]

It could be an april fools joke! Just cuz its the 6th doesn't mean anything, last yr for an april fools joke I told one of my professors that I had a testicle removed, I never told him otherwise until I ran into him this january and he told me about a counseling group he was a part of and that I should go, he was pretty pissed when I told him the truth, especially since I couldn't stop laughing when I told him.

Anyway, this reputable source couldv'e done the same, and is waiting until E3 to say, FOOLED YA! Then again, Nintendo has always known how to do a lot with a little, so you can't really bank on the specs until we have comparative proof, which will also be hard seeing as how, judging from some developer comments, exclusives are gonna to be numerous for each system.  

[Artimus]

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Originally posted by: MaryJane
It could be an april fools joke! Just cuz its the 6th doesn't mean anything, last yr for an april fools joke I told one of my professors that I had a testicle removed, I never told him otherwise until I ran into him this january and he told me about a counseling group he was a part of and that I should go, he was pretty pissed when I told him the truth, especially since I couldn't stop laughing when I told him.

Anyway, this reputable source couldv'e done the same, and is waiting until E3 to say, FOOLED YA! Then again, Nintendo has always known how to do a lot with a little, so you can't really bank on the specs until we have comparative proof, which will also be hard seeing as how, judging from some developer comments, exclusives are gonna to be numerous for each system.

Since this is a joke, I'll pretend its real.

HA! Good joke! That guy must've been so surprised! LOLZ!

And as for these numbers being wrong because of dev kits, here is where they are from:

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Obviously, Nintendo is unable to take the same approach with game studios, many of whom are currently working with Revolution development hardware and in possession of finalized system specifications.

Meaning they can go up, and perhaps will, but not significantly.

[animecyberrat]

<<Compared to the GameCube, and knowing what that system is already capable of, why should there be any doubts that the Revolution will be plenty powerful for what it's set to accomplish?>>
I jsut want to reply to this because i want to remind everybody that even the what three games on the GC that did have mind blowing graphcis on par or better than Xbox you seam to forget all the otehr that dont look as good. The rev might be mroe powerful than GC but you know if devs are using souped up GC dev kits its possible that a lot will just make games that look like Gc games only slightly better. I hear people shout RE 4 all the time, yeah but in five years thats ONE GAME that looks THAT GOOD! I have plenty of games that look fantastic but I see many games that are prots that look BETTER on Xbox than GC and even then I still see many Xbxo games that could look better. Even takig 360 into account, sure the games dont look (most right now) a lot better than this gen they still DO have noticable differences.


YOu can not argue that Revolution is going to have mind blowing graphics compared to ps3 when Nintendo already stated they wont look as nice.   Also just cuz Rev is capable fo games betetr than RE 4 do NOT get your hopes up that games will look better than that right off the bat, or even that good.  Nintendo is shouting on top of thier lungs graphics arent as important and are going to show that when rev launches. NOW I do expect it to be better than this gen but it will make a differnce to me and thousdans maybe millsions of people if it doesnt look enough better to warrant the upgrade. I am already wanting a 360 beasue of 2 games, if the rev cant compare to those two games I will seriously consider passing it up until it can. Now I want a rev at laucnh for the VC and I will surely like to see Smash Bros online blwo me away cuz I expet it will look good, but I will be coparing it to 360 as will a lot of other peopel who just dont have the money to get more than one system.


Anywyas sorry for long rant (and this wasnt all emant to wards to rohq I just quoted your post cuz it was convineient) but I hd to get some of that unsaid stuff out there.

[Michael8983]

"There's more to it than simply eye candy - it's the scale of environments and complexity of behaviour that I'm worried will be limited by low CPU power and insufficient memory."

But that's what Sony and MS fans said about their consoles this past generation.
That even if the graphics didn't look better than the Gamecube's, the consoles were more powerful in other ways. Better draw-distances, more enemies on screen, etc . . . There was that whole "emotion engine" thing Sony fans were always talking about. The XBox's hard-drive was suppose to be a major advantage allowing for games that would never be possible on the competition. But did any of it really make THAT much of a difference? Not as far as I can tell.
Most games aren't going to require a few hundered enemies running around on screen. Consumers aren't going to notice if you can see just a little further into the distance on the 360/PS3 version of a multi-platform title than on the REV version.
Most of the extra power is ultimately going to go towards things that most games don't need and most consumers aren't going to notice. Especially if they happen to lack an HDTV.
There may be games on the PS3 and 360 that won't be ported to the REV (or be ported with bad results) because of the technical limitations but there will certainly also be a lot of REV titles that will rely on the new controller that won't be possible on the PS3 and 360. So I think it will even itself out in the end.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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The rev might be mroe powerful than GC but you know if devs are using souped up GC dev kits its possible that a lot will just make games that look like Gc games only slightly better.

Sounds an awful like many of the launch games for 360. That is besides the point, I think in this discussion we tend to forget that large, and expansive enviroments chalk full of amazing AI will only come to pass if the developers spend alot time and money into a game's development. Most of the time it isn't due to limitations or superior hardware, but what the developer is willing to put into the game.

For example on Xbox 360, I think the only game with expansive enviroments with decent AI (not brilliant by any means) is Oblivion, there really is no other game besides that example. GRAW doesn't really count because it is pretty limited in what it's engine is trying to do. Kameo had big enviroments in places, but it lacked intelligent AI. Also, as someone who tries to keep their PC upgraded every couple of years, I can definately say that the vast majority of PC games do not act much differently than those made for previous generation graphic cards. Sure the graphics may be slightly slicker, but it is nothing to write home about unless you play a game with condensed enviroments allowing for more graphical "oomph" like Quake 4 and Doom 3.

I do think Revolution can handle expansive enviroments with "Complex AI" but it will have to take willingness of a designer. From what I've gathered the Ram gap isn't as huge, considering a big chunk of 360's is used for HD, and that the ram itself is slower. We'll see though, but I still feel that people will be relieved once the games are shown.

[thejeek]

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That is besides the point, I think in this discussion we tend to forget that large, and expansive enviroments chalk full of amazing AI will only come to pass if the developers spend alot time and money into a game's development. Most of the time it isn't due to limitations or superior hardware, but what the developer is willing to put into the game.

Fair enough but some developers on GC did put in the effort. Anyone like to hazard how far something like Metroid Prime pushes the GC hardware? I don't think there was much scope for, say making the areas between doors in MP any larger, or for having more enemies or more complex enemy behaviour - I think that MP is almost certainly pushing up against real hardware limits, not limitations in the imagination of or lazyness on the part of the developer

Hence, will we see games that feature significantly larger more open environments than those in Metroid Prime on the Revolution? It has considerably more memory, but does it have the grunt to actually simulate and display worlds noticably larger or more detailed than MP?

[trip1eX]

Halo had good AI, but then you look at most other games on the xbox and the AI is crap.  What made the Halo AI good?  Well besides the fact it would move around and take cover and stuff and come after you?  ....It was new to the console folks.  The same AI ain't going to be as fun the second time around.  


On the pc, Half Life probably had better AI than Half Life 2.   And it came out 6 years earlier.  

'AI' is misleading tho.  AI is so far below playing a human as it is that any improvements in it are  really be neglibible.  

And really it comes down to difficulty.  CAn you beat it or not?  Is it too easy, too hard or just right?  Sure the guy might just be standing there and not moving realistically, but when all is said and done it's about you taking him down before he takes you down isn't it?  It's about the game being challenging without hitting either extreme.   I think that's more important than how realistic the 'AI' is.

Let's face it too that in some games if 'AI' was realistic than you'd have the whole frickin' building or planet after you any time you fired a shot.  In many ways AI will probably never be realistic.  If it is then every bad guy in the game will come fight you in the first 5 minutes.  

****
YOu've got more memory in the Rev and from the sound of it your cpu and gpu are 50% faster worst case .  Everything else being equal that translates to bigger worlds in all games if they want to go that route.

I have say tho that bigger worlds doesn't mean better worlds.    There's room for games with big huge worlds, but I don't think there's room for every game to be massive.  Massive isn't better.  IT's just bigger.  

I think for the most part we're already at the limit for how big games can be.  I don't mean technically, but practically speaking.  The bigger you make a game world the less polished it's going to be.  The less the gamer will notice that it's bigger.  And the more resources it takes just to have it that size.  And there's a graphical tradeoff with the bigger worlds.  You won't have as much detail and objects on the screen with a bigger the world.

******
Now here's another observation about graphics.  And that's once you start to get people and buildings and vehicles and objects looking like the real thing then you're going to start to hit a point of diminishing returns in the realism dept.  A point where it takes more and more horsepower and more and more man power (artist power) than ever to get less and less improvement than ever.  I think that's where we are now or we're close to it.   There's always room for improvement, but honestly it's not like the old days where we weren't even close to having real people look like real people.  We basically were there this last gen and this gen we'll definitely be there imo.  I'm just wondering more than ever how much the market can stomach buying a slightly better looking version of the same game when the old version looks pretty dam good as it is.





     

[MaryJane]

RE4 was being used to say that hey, if the GC can do this imagine what the Rev can do, we all know it's not going to look better than the 360 or ps3 all the time, but maybe there'll be a few games here and there, that will come out and left field and we'll be standing with our mouths hanging open, drool dripping down our shirts, and say once again, "This is why I chose Nintendo, they never fail to surprise"

[animecyberrat]

I have Re 4 and I agree it is amazing, and I can only HOPE that every rev game will look that good or better, but I am saying that even on Gc thers really very few games that do look that good. I just know that tehres  lot of games on GC that dont look a whole lot better than Dreamcast and it was supposed to be more powerful. ASame with PS2, GC is supposedly better but yet I see amazing games all over ps2 that blow the majority of GC out of the watter. Same with Xbox but that one we knew was more powerful.