Topic: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis

[Kairon]

Reference: http://cube.ign.com/articles/624/624200p1.html

To wit:

Quote
"It is accurate that at this time we will not support high-definition [on Revolution]," confirms Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs, Perrin Kaplan.

"Nintendo's Revolution is being built with a variety of gamers' needs in mind, such as quick start-up time, high power, and ease of use for development and play. It's also compact and sleek, and has beautiful graphics in which to enjoy innovative games," Kaplan says. "Nintendo doesn't plan for the system to be HD compatible as with that comes a higher price for both the consumer and also the developer creating the game. Will it make the game better to play? With the technology being built into the Revolution, we believe the games will look brilliant and play brilliantly. This can all be done without HD."

What I can't figure out is whether this refers to 480, 1080i, or 1080p. But the move certainly appears to grow out of a cost benefit analysis by Nintendo.

Especially with Nintendo positioning themselves as an "AND" choice (that is, buy a PS3 AND a Rev, or a X360 AND a Rev), cutting manufacturing costs for a low, impulse buy price is imperative. Additionally, it may keep development prices for the Rev down.

Quote
"Companies focused on outdoing each other for technology's sake are using the power of public relations to confuse the media into thinking high-definition is a live-or-die part of the games of the future," says Kaplan. "It is a technological fact that games will still look incredibly beautiful and play incredibly well without the high cost of making them HD compatible. HD may be one of the technologies of the future. Is it the gaming industry's only future? We don't think so."

Quote
"This is my single biggest worry," admits Eggebrecht. "Let's put it this way. At 640x480 [standard definition], we're at a point where we can do anything. Anything. Finally. But with high-definition, I think we're at about the same level of challenge when it comes to framerate as we are this generation. You can do a hell of a lot more polygons. You can do a hell of a lot more shaders. But the inherent fill-rate issues are still certainly there. Will it be a 30-frame time? Will it be a 60-frame time? It will be interesting to see."

The IGn article also states that HD penetration rate in the US is 12.5% right now, but that HD marketshare is sluggish in both Europe and Japan.

Quote
Europe's inability to settle on a unified HD standard stalled its plan to get rolling with the format. Now, the continent is set to use the same HD standards as America, but nevertheless manufacturers have been slow to gain momentum with the conversion just as Europeans have been slow to embrace it.

The Japanese market has encountered similar issues, which might explain why Nintendo, whose decision makers operate out of Kyoto, is unwilling to accept high-definition.

Once you all recover from your knee-jerk reactions, I'd like to think you'd ask yourselves: What should this tell us?

I, for one, don't care much about HD-TV. As long as the darn game plays, I'm good. Besides, we'll be playing NES, SNES and N64 games on our Revolution!

But while this news doesn't affect me personally, it makes me ever more interested in the Revolution launch price. Let's remember Hiroshi Yamauchi's aim for the original NES: a game machine that sold at 100 bucks. They missed thta mark, but they still sold the NES for cheaper than anything else on the market, that WHILE the NES was also the least capable system technologically, and had cut corners on everything from chips, to memory.

And again, I'm reminded of the "And" approach. Nintendo isn't telling us to buy a Revolution instead of another system, but to buy a Revolution IN ADDITION TO another system. In essence, Nintendo is going to try to enter living rooms via the "stealth mode" of the price-conscious/impulse buy. This is an intrigueing strategy, and could definitely be much more successful than Nintendo trying to face Sony and Microsoft head-to-head. Referring back to the NES... could a console that launches at $199 in 2006 sneak into everyone's living room? Could a console that launches at $150 do it?

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Karl Castaneda #2]

"Nintendo's Revolution is being built with a variety of gamers' needs in mind, such as quick start-up time, high power, and ease of use for development and play. It's also compact and sleek, and has beautiful graphics in which to enjoy innovative games," Kaplan says. "Nintendo doesn't plan for the system to be HD compatible as with that comes a higher price for both the consumer and also the developer creating the game. Will it make the game better to play? With the technology being built into the Revolution, we believe the games will look brilliant and play brilliantly. This can all be done without HD."

Thank you. Thank you, Nintendo, for finally saying something along the lines of "We've got a powerful machine and games are going to look brilliant." I've been craving that for a while now.  

[Strell]

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.  

STUPID F*CKING MOVE NINTENDO.

END OF STORY.

Nintendo circa 1950> We won't make our machine color tv compatible, it'll never catch on.

SIGH

YOU ARE JUST PISSING GAMERS AND DEVELOPERS OFF LEFT AND RIGHT NINTENDO

STOP DOING THIS SH*T

All the comments from Julian only reinforce that Nintendo is pissing off developers.  I'm no longer surprised Factor Five and Silicon Knights jumped ship.  I can imagine the talks now:

Nintendo> Our system won't do HD.
F5> WTF THATS STUPID
Nintendo> NU UH YUR STUPID

Developers are going to make big name games HD from now on.  Anything that is cross platform and is a big title will be HD.  AND THAT'S GOING TO PISS OFF DEVELOPERS WHEN THEY HAVE TO DOWNGRADE THE GAME FOR THE REVOLUTION.  Case in point.  Prince of Persia.  "Well you can get the Revolution version or the version with high def graphics."  PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAN FOR THE FUTURE, NINTENDO.  God.  I can't believe this sh*t.  Can't f*cking believe it.

From the article: "Nintendo, however, feels that it is appealing to the wider audience by not making Revolution high-definition compatible. "

WTF THATS COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY.  PEOPLE WANT OPTIONS.  OPTIONS = WIDER BASE.

SON OF A F*CK THIS IS STUPID

Didin't IGN say that HD output costs Nintendo like 50 cents a console?  YOU'VE GOT BILLIONS IN THE BANK AND IN YOUR WAR CHEST.  STOP DOING THIS.  F*CK.

It's like they have an endless inventory of feet and quantity of bullets to shoot them all with.



   

[cubist]

I just read the story about 10 minutes ago.  It shows a lot of insight into the HD boom that is currently taking place all across the world from the developer's point of view.  I found it a bit ironic that Julian Eggbrecht was quoted in terms of Nintendo making the HD mistake when they were contracted to handle the sound of the GCN and gave us Pro Logic II w/ the pseudo use of the subwoofer late in the GCN development cycle.  Well, they've found a home making PS3 games.  Hopefully they won't release Rogue Squadron updates like they did with the N64/GCN.  

Is it just me or does Denis Dyack, despite developing the exclusive Too Human Trilogy for XBOX 360, still have Nintendo's back.

Now that I've sounded like a complete 'fanboy', this is what I really thought about the article.  It felt like the tone of the article had that "here we go again" theme with Nintendo just not really willing to throw some goodies into a system (i.e., N64's cartridge format = losing Squaresoft, GCN's optical disc = not enough memory for voicework and movies to put into games, etc.).  I really believe that Nintendo more and more is losing momentum even as an "AND" company.  The specs or demos of what the system can do haven't even been shown and it already appears to have even the Nintendo community of loyalist starting to have doubts about purchasing it.  Nintendo is staying the course with the argument that technology is a tertiary aspect of gaming behind gameplay experience and content.  However, I think that there are just some technological advancements that should not be overlooked.  I don't mind that the Revolution is not going to be as powerful as the XBOX 360 and the PS3, but from a business standpoint, they need to show that they're willing to provide their future user-base with something that is increasingly becoming the norm.  Without HD, Nintendo is starting to lose the "AND" concept as well as the marketshare.  

I'm still buying a Revolution though.  Denis Dyack if you happen to come in here...humor us and give us another exclusive on the Revolution to play alongside Zelda.

Peace out!

[nemo_83]

I can understand this decision though I will be buying HD in the next three years.  I am not so worried about definition, it doesn't affect gameplay, but widescreen can help a lot.  I feel there are much more important things to complain about like the lack of an ethernet port and the choice of SD cards over a harddrive.

Still with the money Nintendo saves from waiting on high definition to catch on in Japan and Europe; they can put a PPU and/or AIPU into the Revolution for real.

I personally like the latest rumor that says Nintendo really is going to offer an optional successor to the VB that works with all REV games to create 3D graphics, but is not required.

[cubist]

Strell, wait 10 minutes like I did, that reaction usually goes away and then you can be mad without the cursing.

[nemo_83]

Does it really only cost them fifty cents more a console.  So we lost SK and Factor Five so they could save fifty cents.  That would piss me off.

[KnowsNothing]

Strell, calm the **** down.  I love how you mention how it pisses the developers off, since the Rev is going to be the most dev-friendly and cost-efficient system to make games on.  Devs NOW are struggling with budgets, and the cost of making a game is going to shoot sky high next gen because all of these useless things that rich people want "standard."

Now, this news IS a bit baffling, and I'm not going to comment on Ian's future complaints since I can see where he's coming from.  It's a strange move, and probably not a very good one, but I guess we'll have to wait and see with this one (which seems to be the game the Rev's playing right now anyway).  

Personally, I have a great HD TV, but I don't play games on it.  I play my games on an 8-year old 17" TV with fading colors.  It's just easier to hook it up and get started, and the room the good TV is in is always very busy, and I don't like distractions.  The quality doesn't make enough of a difference for me, so I choose to use the crappy TV in my room.  So I'm not really effected by this, so I don't really care.  

[Bloodworth]

I think it would be wise for Nintendo to include the outputs whether they personally plan on using them or not.

[pudu]

For some reason I think between now and the time the system launches there may be HD hookups on it.  It may be true that higher definition can show more detail but there are cons to consider.

Here's what I can think of at the moment:

Pros of HD:  
more visible detail on screen
widescreen format
ability to display HD cutscene movies
can easy tranfer content from HD movies

Cons of HD:
harder on the hardware, meaning:
    lower framerates at the same amount of polys, texture level, etc
    possible lessening of polys, texture detail, etc. to make it run
less people will be able to enjoy this resolution
games will be made for HD displays in mind and not maxed out for SD displayes


Alright everyone imagine this:  graphics in a game that look real, as in there is no way for the human eye to discern between them and the real life counterpart.  If this were possible would it look any less "real" on a SD display then a HD?  I understand it WILL look better on a HD display because you will see it in more clearity but it won't look any less "real" on a SD display.  Get what I'm saying?

Now, considering that it's a fact that displaying games at higher resolutions is harder on the hardware what matters more?  Making a game with more graphical detail but  displayed at less resolution OR a game with less graphical detail displayed at higher resolutions?

I understand the article discusses why gamers would want to buy the Revolution version of 3rd party multi-console releases if it won't be in HD but they didn't take into consideration that displayed at a lower could assure a better framerate and perhaps even better detail at the same framerate.

Also, what I'd like to mention is if Nintendo's console does indeed feature less hardware power then the other two, staying at SD resolution actually might allow them to run multiplatform games at about the same detail, just at a lower resolution.

[Bloodworth]

I'm so back and forth on this.  On the one hand, I feel like Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot by not giving big devs like EA the option.  On the other hand, I think it would be hilarious if Nintendo pulled it off so that Revolution games look better because they're designed for a standard TV in mind.  As I've said of MS's line up before, it seems that the HD Era runs at 15 frames per second.

[mantidor]

Ill just repeat what I said before, I felt a bit worried about the thing, until I released theres no way me or my family would be getting an HDTV in the near or distant future, maybe in the very distant future. This is no the same case of the color vs B&W TV AT ALL, specially with the common people, like for instance my dad, who cant see any graphical leap from the N64 to the GC.

[slacker]

For me, this is not very relevant news.  My next TV set will be a HDTV, but it will be either LCD or Plasma.  The lcd will probably make my eyes twitch a bit if I play games  on it.  The plasma might have burn in if too much gaming is done.  I can get a traditional tube HDTV, but those thing are huge.  I agree with Nintendo's reasoning on this, but they should provide an option for it instead of totally eliminating it.  Anyways, I am waiting on the revolutionary features of the Rev and so far nothing concrete has been confirmed that is revolutionary.  This is probably much ado about nothing among smaller studios.

[MattVDB]

Did I miss something, or did Nintendo not specify what "HD" was?  IGN illustrated the many different types of output possible, but they didn't specfy which one Nintendo wasn't supporting.  I would believe that REV still outpust at least in progressive scan, as that was available on GCN, but again, that wasn't clarified.  I personally don't see this as a problem.  Let's look at a market where HD is already the standard:  PCs.

How many PCs are built with the _highest_ end video card in them now days?  Some cards individually cost 400 and 500 dollars.  I would love to see sales figures for those cards, while they are at that price, because that is what Microsoft and Sony are putting in their machines.  I personally haven't ever payed that much for one either.  I spent 200 on mine, and get liquid smooth fps in Half Life 2 at 1024*768 and playable at 1600*1200.  Point being?  My _200_ dollar card is performing acceptably for a long time, serious gamer.  Would it be nice to see the game with a better card?  Sure, but at what cost?  If I can turn more effects on at a lower res, I'm more likely to do that, then up the res, and loose features (shading/particles/etc, currently).

I take this as an "eh" announcement, but I do believe there will be _some_ form of HD output in there somewhere.  Please don't freak out until we know the details on this.  It's ridiculous.

[Ian Sane]

Well Nintendo was on such a roll with the Rev so far I guess it was just a matter of time before their first incredibly stupid decision was revealed.  Well actually not having an ethernet jack in the Rev was dumb mistake #1 but at least they're offering a work around for that one.

What can I say?  For the THIRD time in a row Nintendo is thinking in the present to plan for the future.  First it was optical discs, then online, now HD.  At least their traditional dumb oversights are becoming less crucial but it's a dumb move nonetheless.  This announcement just cost them Rev sales.  It's not going to be N64 bad and it's not instant DOOMED or anything like that but they just lost sales.  Why?  Why not match the competition?  Why give people an excuse not to buy a Rev?  This sort of dumb sh!t is why the Cube never really caught on.  Nintendo just gave people so many reasons to pick the competition over them.  On it's own this isn't that big of a deal but you just know that there's going to be some other stupid problems.  That's just how it is.  Every console is going to have some problem that wasn't forseen.  But the thing is this is a problem we're seeing already.  If Nintendo can't see THIS as a problem how are they going to catch the less obvious stuff?

Why the hell can't they just provide the damn option?  This elitist "we're making the decision for you" bullsh!t is exactly why Nintendo's market share keeps shrinking.  Plus you figure with the online disaster last gen they would realize that no one gives a sh!t if NINTENDO saves money.  I'm supposed to accept having my options comprimised so that Nintendo saves money?  I'm not a stock holder.  What the f*ck do I care?  I know when I was playing Mario Kart: Double Dash I wasn't thinking "boy I'm sure glad that Nintendo saved a few bucks by forcing me to invite my friends over every time I want to play."

[Grant10k]

Of course you realize that all games have to be made for SDtv. Xbox may be forcing HDTV but it still has to be playable on an SDtv. You can't very well make text or crucial details of the game only visible on HD, can you?

Quote
Didin't IGN say that HD output costs Nintendo like 50 cents a console?

Yeah, it costs THEM 50 cents a console, it costs the game developers 4x the amount of work (in the art department at least)

[Ian Sane]

"Yeah, it costs THEM 50 cents a console, it costs the game developers 4x the amount of work"

Yeah, all those exclusive developers Nintendo doesn't have are going to save money.  Most Rev third party games are going to be multiplatform games from companies like EA, Ubisoft, & Activision.  These devs are already putting in the work to make their games HD.  They're not saving any money from this.  All this does is ensure that Nintendo gets the crappiest version of every multiplatform game... again.

Nintendo has some good ideas for making things easier for third parties but the problem is these are only advantages for exclusive games.  Since Nintendo pretty much has burnt their bridge with every third party they've ever worked with this isn't going to amount to anything.

[joshnickerson]

NiNTenDO is TEH DOOOMEDD!!!!1

I don't think I could quite put it as eloquently and dignified as Strell though...

[BlackNMild2k1]

Quote
Originally posted by: Grant10k

Quote
Didin't IGN say that HD output costs Nintendo like 50 cents a console?

Yeah, it costs THEM 50 cents a console, it costs the game developers 4x the amount of work (in the art department at least)

Who said that the developers have to use the highest detail possible?  The games that are gonna be ported are already gonna be at the resolution, so why not just include it?  All exclusive developers, such as Nintendo, can use whatever resolution they see fit, but that doesn't mean that DeveloperX doesn't want to push the machine, and DeveloperX doesn't want to display at the highest resolution possibe regardless of the amount of extra work.

[Robotor]

Ian's right.  Why not match the competition.  The output can't be that expensive to add or buy.  Even though I don't have an HD-TV, I still want to say my Rev can do everything your box or PS can.

Although, even if they don't, oh well.  How many sales can they lose?

And strell, calm down man.

[Caillan]

What a strange decision. Unless it would going to add more than about $5 onto the price of the Revolution I think it would be worth including it. I see their points about the disadvantages of the output, but not allowing any developer to use it as a result is folly. At least this is no worse than Microsoft's decision to force it upon developers. (That was a bad decision that Nintendo should have capitalized on, however, not matched.)

I have a hunch that Nintendo has done this to push their various philosophies regarding the future of the industry. But there's a difference between not bragging about all the cool-but-not-necessarily-always-useful stuff your console can do and just not including it. And it's neat to have a small console, but if it means it's more likely to overheat or there are ports missing as a result, then Nintendo shouldn't hesitate to make it bigger.

Quote
I love how you mention how it pisses the developers off, since the Rev is going to be the most dev-friendly and cost-efficient system to make games on.

The fact is that this particular decision will annoy developers and publishers because it's another option which has been taken away from them. They said that the Cube would be the most developer-friendly console too, but even the most basic steps towards that goal have been neglected. Making promises won't curry them any favour because they've lied in the past. If they want to impress developers they should immediately cut licensing costs and send out a survey asking for feedback on how they could improve their kits.

Edited out embarrassing typo.

[ThePerm]

i would take everything perrin kapplan says with a grain of salt.....i really don't think she knows whats going on...i bet ncl treats noa like a third party

[Truthliesn1seyes]

Its laughable that there actually are people that believe not including HD display options on a next gen system can spell doom lol.  HD tvs is a niche market.  The cost of owning such a tv is still too high for the average consumer and will not come down significintly till after the next gen.  How many years has HD tvs been around already and the price is still out of the average joe's price range.  Also, if some family were to jump into an HD tv display, more often then not it'll be going in some type of family room which will be swarmed with people on the regular.  

HD is not a factor now and it won't be next gen.  It'll only matter to all the tech heads who want to find more reasons to warrent them paying so much for a tv.  All this supporting of HD and yada yada is just so Sony and MS can get into a "who's d*ck is bigger" contest to put it bluntly.  I have yet to hear anyone this gen complain about such and such game not supporting such and such resolution outside of an online forum.  Resident Evil 4 looks more than fine on my average tv and I would love to play it on some HD standard but it isn't the end of the world.  

In short, I'll like to say that Sony and MS (moreso Sony) are just going for the overkill with their systems.  Blue ray and HD-DVDs aren't necessary for next gen systems as DVDs are doing just fine for our needs now and we haven't even used duel layered in the industry.  HD standards aren't necessary becuase standard tvs are doing us just fine as it is.  All of these features are just there to jack up prices for something 80 or more percent of us can not even support.  Nintendo is catering to the masses becuase those are the ones that run this industry not the elite who have HD tvs and complete surround sound.

[King of Twitch]

IGN's long rant makes it seem like the Rev is dropping 3D capabilities and will be 2D-only.



My VR headset and holodeck isn't compatible anyways, I don't care.

[ThePerm]

if it supports a computer monitor..wouldnt it support hd? Its the same resolution implemented in another way.

i just think she is getting hd-dvd confused with hd-television...or she does know the difference and is being taken out of context.