Messages

[SgtShiversBen]

1

Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo Revolution, Discuss it here!

« on: January 08, 2005, 01:09:15 AM »

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Originally posted by: SgtShiversBen
But also, if they partner with Panasonic again, then they're a patent holder too.  So they wouldn't have to pay Sony, just Panasonic.  I think they'll use the Blue Ray.  Might as well, help them in getting the same games as the PlayStation.  One for it being in Japan and getting all their wacky games, and two, same format doesn't hurt.  Look at the PS2 and Xbox for your proof.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Because Panasonic is a patent holder does not mean they have free reign to the technology, and if Nintendo were to go with Blu Ray their hand would be forced--a portion of the royalties will be distributed to all patent holders, including Sony.

But really, the disk format really won't help them get more games ported from the Sony camp. The two still will not be code compatible as far as making one game run on the other, and burning the disks isn't really cost or labor intensive in any real way. What matters is disk capacity.

2

TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Release European Sales Figures

« on: January 24, 2004, 09:12:34 PM »

Yeah, Nintendo of Australia sorely needs to extract its enormous head from it's miniscule ass, but they do occassionally sell a Gamecube or three. Every little bit helps when looking at global numbers.

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TalkBack / RE:Nintendo Release European Sales Figures

« on: January 24, 2004, 01:42:11 AM »

Probably because there's a whole lot of world out there to sell to besides the United States, Europe, and Japan.

North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia... they sell Gamecubes there, too.

[Gem of Forest]

4

Nintendo Gaming / Your thoughts on the Wind Waker ending (major spoilers!! Do not read unless you have already beaten the game!!)

« on: May 27, 2003, 08:16:31 PM »

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Originally posted by: Gem of Forest

Umh. Yes. Naturally the games themselves are the source of all Zelda knowledge, but do you know what? These games didn´t come up just alone. These games had their makers. Aonuma and Miyamoto are the key persons benind Zelda, so it´s their word against our poor speculations, and I´bet for their word.

You've missed it completely. I'm not arguing my word against Miyamoto or Aonuma. I'm comparing their word to the actual games, where their word comes up short. Therefore, obviously Miyamoto or Aonuma were in error.

If all signs point to east you do not go west.

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I think one almighty quote destroys most theories here:

"I always put the story element last in a game..."

It's not whether or not the story actual fits or was ever meant to.. it's more like, "How does Zelda fit together IF it fits?" It is just a video game, after all. Tolkein put much more effort into creating Middle Earth and its history, but you can still find holes in it. A seamless Zelda would be expecting too much of Miyamoto and others... either that or the story itself is far too simplistic (which, if anyone here has actually tried their hand at drafting a story, would not allow for a world as rich as the Zelda-universe).

[Gem of Forest]

5

Nintendo Gaming / The Legend of Zelda: The Chronology Behind the Legend

« on: May 27, 2003, 08:14:54 PM »

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Originally posted by: Gem of Forest
Sorry, but no. Wind Waker takes place 100 years (in our 100 years, and that means many generations in Hyrule) after Ocarina of Time.

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't hold. I mean, why bother with "Zelda" years and "human" years in the game? That's just stupid. And if many generations pass in just 100 years in Hyrule, then things are seriously messed up. Link aged much too slowly in the Ocarina of Time (or are you going to argue that they use separate years for birthdays than they use for actual recordings of events?).

And then you'd have to argue that they use a different system for years than the passing of the seasons... which really doesn't hold with what we know about the Deku tree. Seriously... 100 years is wrong; I don't really care who said it because the game itself says otherwise at several points.

That and all in-game evidence basically says Wind Waker took place much longer than 100 years after Ocarina of Time.

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The original Legend of Zelda and Ocarina of Time are basically the same story.

Almost all of the Hylian based Zelda games revolve around a similar storyline (collect tri-force, get master sword, save Zelda, stop Ganon/dorf). That doesn't make them the same story.

6

Nintendo Gaming / RE: The Legend of Zelda: The Chronology Behind the Legend

« on: May 25, 2003, 11:30:26 PM »

Click On Me

Just wanted to post a link to my post in that thread, where I argue that Wind Waker takes place AFTER the original Legend of Zelda.

[Gem of Forest]

7

Nintendo Gaming / Your thoughts on the Wind Waker ending (major spoilers!! Do not read unless you have already beaten the game!!)

« on: May 25, 2003, 10:32:18 PM »

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Originally posted by: Gem of Forest
why is it so hard to believewhen Miyamoto-san and Kojima-san, creators of these games, say something. They say "tere´s hundred years between OoT and WW" or that there are several differebt Links". You guys just knock these words down like they would mean nothing. Come on guys! These are the creators of whole legend, and somehow I their words are much more trustwothy than our own spculations.

I don't mean to be rude, but you are wrong here. First of all, they are only human, and humans make mistakes. It's impossible for one person to remember every tidbit of Zelda knowledge in their heads at one time. Over matters of speculation, their word is considered final, but the true resource for Zelda lore is not Miyamoto or any one other person. The source for all set-in-stone Zelda knowledge we have is the games themselves. They override all other sources (though even that information can change in later games).

I once had a great English teacher who made us write in huge letters all across a single page of notebook paper, "The Text Is All." If the 'text' of the game does not support your argument, then your argument doesn't hold water and is thus utterly useless. The beginning text of Wind Waker makes the 100 years argument baseless. Here it is in full (emphasis is mine):

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This is but one of the legends of which the people speak... Long ago, there existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden. It was a prosperous land blessed with green forests, tall mountains, and peace. But one day, a man of great evil found the golden power and took it for himself. With its strength at his command, he spread darkness across the kingdom. But then, when all hope had died, and the hour of doom seemed at hand, a young boy clothed in green appeared as if from nowhere. Wielding the blade of evil's bane, he sealed the dark one away and gave the land light. This boy, who traveled through time to save the land, was known as the Hero of Time. The boy's tale was passed down through generations until it became legend. But then, a day came when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom. The great evil that all thought had been forever sealed away by the hero once again crept forth from the depths of the earth, eager to resume its dark designs. The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. But the hero did not appear. Faced by an onslaught of evil, the people could do nothing but appeal to the gods. In their last hour, as doom drew near, they left their future in the hands of fate. What became of that kingdom? None remain who know. The memory of the kingdom vanished, but its legend survived on the wind's breath. On a certain island, it is costumary to garb boys in green when they came of age. Clothed in the green of fields, they aspired to find heroic blades and cast down evil. The elders wished only for the youths to know courage like the hero of legend.

The Hero of Time can be none other than the Adult Link from Ocarina of Time (at least, as of right now) and that story became "legend" after "generations." This is before Ganon returned and Hyrule was submerged under the sea to stop him. And now so much time has passed that the people themselves have forgotten that Hyrule existed. It takes more than 100 years before a story becomes legend and it takes a hell of a lot longer for a legend of a past kingdom to be completely lost among the population.

And do not forget that these people DO have written language. And so much time has now passed that the entire language has changed so that the current inhabitants of the 'Wind Waker' world can no longer read or understand (when spoken) the ancient tongue. 100 years does not hold water: it's false.

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I don't believe Majora's Mask would be sequel of any kind to OoT. Yes. Link was returned to his original time in OoT, but I don't think this game explains what Link did after that. It was left for gamers imagination to decide what happned after that. Link just became the hero of Termina, and he doesn't have to have any connection to the Hero of Time.

Well, as far as what we have to go on (because the games don't tell us anything here... though text from MM may clear this up), they are sequels. The storyline from OoT flows directly into Majora's Mask because the child Link is _not_ the Hero of Time and he _never_ was. When Link was sent back, Ganon was no longer a threat during his time and so he never did become the Hero of Time (remember, he was sealed away for seven years because only an adult could become the Hero of Time). His connection with the Hero of Time is that in an alternate future HE DID become the Hero of Time. That's confusing at first, but it makes logical sense.

I don't see why the "multiple dimensions in time" thing is hard to put into the Zelda universe considering "A Link to the Past." There we had two worlds existing at the same time in different dimensions--one "dark" world corrupted by Ganon, the other kept safe from him through the power of the Triforce. It makes perfect sense for Adult Link in OoT to exist in the "dark" world corrupted by Ganon while child Link in MM to exist in the "light" world because of the actions of Adult Link. Again confusing, but logical and _STILL_ fitting in what we already know about the Hylian world.

For those who are trying to place story lines, the second Zelda game flows DIRECTLY from the first. It is the exact same Link, except now he is 16 years old. Though it's a bit confusing, two Zeldas actually existed in this era at once. It's explained that all women in the bloodline are named Zelda at birth... which also makes it clear why Ganondorf and King call Tetra "Princess Zelda" right away even though Tetra was confused about it. From the text of the game's manual:

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At the end of a fierce fight, Link overthrew Ganon, took back the Triforce and rescued Princess Zelda.  However, is it all really finished?  Many seasons have passed since then.  Hyrule was on the road to ruin. The power that the vile heart of Ganon has left behind was causing chaos and disorder in Hyrule. What's more, even after the fall of Ganon, some of his underlings remained waiting for Ganon's return.  The Key to Ganon's return was the blood of Link - the valiant lad who overthrew the King of Evil. Ganon would be revived by sacrificing Link and sprinkling his blood on the ashes of Ganon.

Meanwhile, Link remained in the little kingdom of Hyrule and lent his hand to its restoration. But circumstances did not look very good.  One day, a strange mark, exactly like the crest of the kingdom, appeared on the back of Link's hand as he approached his 16th birthday. The worried Link, went to Impa, Princess Zelda's nursemaid who was shocked and frightened when she saw the birthmark. When she regained her composure, she took Link to the North Castle.

There was a door in North Castle called "the door that does not open." Only the descendants of the Impa family who served the king knew how to open the door.  Impa took Link's left hand and pressed the back of it against the door.  There was a sound of a locking falling open, the door slowly creaked open and there on an alter in the middle of the room lay a beautiful woman. "Here lies Princess Zelda." Impa began to speak calmly.

"Link, the time has come when I must tell you the legend of Zelda handed down in Hyrule. It is said that a long ago, when Hyrule was one country, a great ruler maintained the peace in Hyrule using the Triforce. However, the king too was a child of man and he died. Then, the prince of the kingdom should have become the king and inherited everything, but he could inherit the Triforce only in part. The Prince searched everywhere for the missing parts, but could not find them. Then, a magician close to the king brought him some unexpected news. Before he died, the king had said something about the Triforce to only the younger sister of the prince, Princess Zelda. The prince immediately questioned the princess, but she wouldn't tell him anything. After the prince, the magician threatened to put the princess into an eternal sleep if she did not talk, but still, she said nothing."

"In his anger, the magician tried to cast a magic spell on the princess. The surprised prince tried to stop him, but the magician fought off the prince and went on chanting the spell. Then, when the spell was finally cast, Princess Zelda fell on that spot and entered a sleep from which she might never awake.  At the same time, the magician also fell down and breathed his last."

"In his grief, the prince placed the princess in this room. He hoped that someday she would come back to life. So that this tragedy would never be forgotten, he ordered that every female child born into the royal household shall be given the name Zelda."

From the stand next to the alter where Princess Zelda lay in a deep sleep, Impa took six crystals and a scroll with the same crest and handed them to Link.  "For generations, my family has been handed down these things which have been set aside for a time when a great king will come. They are written in an ancient script that no-one can read now. But you who have the crest may be able to read it. It is said that the key to uniting the Triforce is hidden there.  Now it is time for you to read it."

Link glanced at the scroll half in doubt, but what do you know? Although he had never seen the letters before, he found that he could read them as if they were talking to him.

This was written on the scroll.  "You who'll control the Triforce of the future. I shall hand down to you the secrets of the Triforce. There are three kinds of Triforce - Power, Wisdom, and Courage. When these three are brought together, the Triforce will show its maximum power. Of the three, I left Power and Wisdom in the kingdom. But the Triforce Courage I have hidden for a reason."

"Not everybody can use the Triforce. It requires a strong character with no evil thoughts. But an inborn special quality is also necessary. Unfortunately, I have not found such a person during my lifetime."

"Therefore, I have decided to cast a spell on all of Hyrule. A crest will appear on a young man with the character who has been brought up correctly, has gained many kinds of experiences and reached a certain age. But, what will happen if someone else uses the Triforce before then? If it misused, it will produce many evils."

"The Triforce of Courage is hidden in the Great Palace in the Valley of Death on the largest island in Hyrule. However, to enter there you must first fight the guardians and undo the "binding force." When you have defeated the guardians, which I made to prevent enemies from invading the six palaces in Hyrule, set a crystal in the forehead of the statue you find. When you have set crystals in all of the statues in the six palaces, the "binding force" places on the Valley of Death will be removed and you will be able to enter the great palace.  There, you must fight the last guardian. And you can obtain the Triforce only by defeating the guardian."

"There's nothing to fear. You are the one to get the Triforce. You are the beacon of hope for Hyrule."

Impa implored Link, who raised his head slowly after reading the scroll.

"The magic spell cast upon Princess Zelda will sure to be broken if the Triforce is used."

"Please, Link. Unite the Triforce and save the princess. And bring back peace to Hyrule."

Link nodded silently in approval, and left the room after taking a long glance at the altar.

Then, with a magical sword in his left hand and a shield in his right, he set off alone on his long travels. At that time, Ganon's underlings were calling up new allies from the Underworld, and were beginning to work devilishly toward the revival of Ganon.

It's kind of interesting, because, from this, two things become reasonably clear: first of all, the original Legend of Zelda has to take place after the Ocarina of Time (because the kingdom has split) and second that the Wind Waker must take place _after_ the Legend of Zelda (unless sleeping Zelda's don't drown like the rest of Hyrule). The sleeping Zelda could not be revived, of course, because Link was sent back in time (and in A Link to the Past he is not an adult). It would be interesting to see how Nintendo would fit in a Zelda game after OoT but before the original Zelda that involves an adult Link and Impa.

(Link, of course, is not considered to be the same during all of this. We just know that all Links arise from the bloodlines of the Hylian Guards. Though I think it's safe to say most of the Link's are in the same bloodline, though probably distantly in some cases. For instance, the family shield in Wind Waker... it is said to be _the_ shield of the Hero of Time.)

Edit: Lots and lots for clarity.    

[manunited4eva22]

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Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 10, 2003, 01:58:48 AM »

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Originally posted by: manunited4eva22
If you are referring to virtual memory, it is worthless for real time use.

No, it is not. And it wouldn't be virtual memory, per se. Accessing data from the hard drive is much, much faster than reading data from optical media. There are lots of things developers can utilize a hard drive for in their games. I wouldn't be at all surprised if game developers are already utilizing some of the things I'm thinking about in my head on the XBox. (Matter-of-fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't.)

At any rate, I (I'm assuming your comment is directed at me) am NOT talking about virtual memory. I'm just stating that a hard drive is not memory, memory is not a hard drive, and they're not the same in any sense of the word. (Except, of course, for virtual memory systems.) Games use memory to hold data before it is processed by the CPU or GPU. Once that data is used and no longer necessary, you want to flush it from memory as soon as possible to free up space.

A hard drive's use stems from the fact that it does not require constant power to maintain data. You cut the power and its still there. When you run a program it is loaded from the hard drive into memory. When parts of memory go unused, it is cached out to the hard drive. When a program is closed (and to close it, you would have to reload the program back into memory from the hard drive if it were cached out) some memory is then freed up for other processes. Some of the data remains in memory for a while... in case you reload the program... depending on which operating system you use. (You can test this on MacOS X. Load a program after a cold shut down and reboot. Count the bounces and then start the application again (just hope it doesn't load in one to start for this test ). Chances are you will notice the much slower run time. You can do the same with Windows... cold start, load something from quick launch, remove it from quick launch, restart, load the application again.)

I can't see how on current consoles this behavior can be replicated in any sense with any form of RAM. Which is why I disagree with the statement, "one of memory's main uses is as a temporary hard drive, so to speak." However, rodtod did say "so to speak" which is why I'm asking for a more thorough explanation... I don't currently follow his reasoning, but I'm willing to listen to what he is saying in order to clear up any misunderstandings.  

[rodtod]

9

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 08, 2003, 09:24:04 PM »

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Originally posted by: rodtod (emphasis mine)
oohhboy, one of memory's main uses is as a temporary hard drive, so to speak. If Nintendo isn't going to use a hard drive in their next console, then they should plan to include a whole bunch of meg's of memory.

No it's not. If you'd like to clarify...?

If anything, it's the other way around.

[rodtod]

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Nintendo Gaming / Next-generation online play

« on: April 06, 2003, 10:26:50 PM »

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Originally posted by: rodtod
And for an online game to have decent graphics and gameplay, a lot of bandwidth is required. Anyhow, what do you think can be done to eliminate lag and allow for really breathtaking online games?

I think people really don't understand what is involved with online play. There's no real reason that an online game can't be done well. What would be sent back and forth would be numbers with clipping algorithms used on both ends to make sure useless information is not sent. A lot of the same techniques are used to draw things on SCREEN more efficiently already.

User: "Server, this is me. This is where I am and this is my field of vision. What's around me?"
Server: "You, this is what's around you, and this is what you see."

That's not really a lot of data, even went being sent back and forth very quickly. The graphics would all be done on the user's end, as would sound. There are a billion causes of server lag out there, so it's not really fair to simply blame the game.

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Originally posted by: )Dark-LInk(
i think that al the companies(OF COURSE NINTENDO) should BUY or built a GIANT server(BROADBAND only for sure) for THEIR console online play(if u can do such a thing,lol) and host it with a large team of employes

That's a horrible idea. For one thing, what if the server is in Oklahoma and I live in Tokyo? Or vice versa? One server in one location would never work.

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Originally posted by: manunited4eva22
Lets just put it this way, I have run games over gigabit ethernet in a LAN and still wished it could be faster. I have a very intense ability to detect any lag at all, and it can be irritating. A lot of people don't have as keen as eye as me, but lag is very detectable to the trained eye.

On Gigabit ethernet? That's 128 MB/s! If you're having problems playing a LAN game, you need to be looking at the way the game transmits data or your server traffic or your specific system. There's no reason any game should lag on a realiable Gigabit ethernet network.

Or the lag could be placebo.

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Nintendo Gaming / Nintendo Nexus: Next-gen name?

« on: April 06, 2003, 10:07:05 PM »

[mouse_clicker]

12

Nintendo Gaming / Nintendo Nexus: Next-gen name?

« on: April 06, 2003, 10:06:20 PM »

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Originally posted by: mouse_clicker
Xeon

Considering the line of chips from Intel, I doubt Xeon would pass Nintendo's legal department. Nexus probably would, though, unless some sort of computer hardware or gaming product has already trademarked the name.

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I think the next Nintendo console should not include the words game, cube, or Nintendo in the main title (we should be bucking the trend of naming successing consoles similarly to their predecessors, like Sega's been doing).

Why?

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Originally posted by: StRaNgE
see the nexus for yourself

nintendo nexus

Those specs are a little off. For one, I still wonder if we'll see a 2.0 GHz processor in the Gamecube. At any rate, there's no way we'll see a 2.0 GHz part from IBM on a 0.13 micron process in 2005. Furthermore, what's up with the USB and what are those dial things below the controller ports? I doubt we'll be seeing Blue-ray (at least, I don't feel so strongly about it YET) or a Gameboy cart slot.

I've already pointed out in another thread that IF Nintendo went with MoSys they'd be using 1T-SRAM-Q at the least. Even more advancements will probably come along from MoSys by then. I'm really not so sure about those bus numbers either.

[manunited4eva22]

13

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 04, 2003, 09:21:38 AM »

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Originally posted by: manunited4eva22
I wouldn't mind seeing Nintendo throw a bone out to the DRAM guys. DDR-II is QDR as it is and it takes up a tad less space than the T1-SRAM (both have 1 transistor, though I believe I read that the 1T-SRAM is about 1.2x larger.

I haven't kept up... though the data throughput should/could be better for DDR-II, the big question is latency. How does it stack up to 1T-SRAM? I haven't seen hard numbers (has anyone?) benchmarking 1T-SRAM, but it's obviously very fast... though it is NOT true SRAM, it acts somewhat like it. As far as density goes, I'd imagine if Nintendo stuck with MoSys they would incorporate 1T-SRAM-Q. It's quad density (don't confuse that with quad data rate) and incorporates a lot of other improvements to 1T-SRAM that have come along the way. You can read a brief white paper on it here.

So the size of DDR-II may not be such a boon. It's pretty annoying that MoSys doesn't talk about how high 1T-SRAM clocks, though. Or maybe they have and I missed it. It's a low key player in the memory world.

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Another thing to consider would be the MagRAM, but I haven't seen a lot on it for awhile now. Either of you guys have an idea on it?

It's interesting, but it's really up in the air if it will be ready in time. It won't hit production until 2004, so it's possible... production samples should be available soon. With Nintendo's relationship with IBM... MRAM could be a real possibility. It's just that the word on MRAM has been quiet for a while. Information here and here. Does anyone have anything more recent? The big silence on it could either make it a sleeper surprise or just mean that production is much more difficult than anticipated.  

[oohhboy]

14

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 04, 2003, 05:50:53 AM »

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Originally posted by: oohhboyI believe it was all about efficenecy all along. Maybe AMD or Intel could not deliver on that note or it was political.

Well, it's really a bit of both. You have to keep in mind that the current state of PowerPC and x86 is a little different than what it was a few years ago. At the time, IBM was really doing some things no one else had quite managed yet... they were the first to move to copper, for instance. The IPC of PowerPC was stomping all over Intel, AMD, and Cyrix as well.

The problem is, however, that PowerPC really hasn't lived up to its promise as a desktop contender. Competition between AMD and Intel fueled fierce competition that pushed their chips ahead of Moore's Law. Later revisions of the Athlon and Pentium III (especially) closed the IPC gap between x86 and PowerPC. Today the last stronghold of PowerPC (heat dissipation) is also being addressed in the x86 world... top of the line PowerPC chips are hotter than ever.

So while the x86 manufacturers have stampeded ahead, PowerPC has stagnated. Motorola, IBM, and Apple had a falling out. Motorola's G4 sat at 500 MHz for over a year as the company hit hard times. Their market shifted away from the desktop to the embedded industry as Apple's marketshare slipped further and further behind. IBM waffled on the PowerPC, trying to figure out what exactly it was... an x86 distributor or a PowerPC manufacturer, finally deciding it was both.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the demand necessary to really push the PowerPC ahead in the type of applications that Nintendo would want were not there for a long time. Only now is this starting to look like its changing, and only because IBM has once again decided to start pushing the PowerPC architecture. I'm really glossing over a lot of events to give a quick summary, so don't think x86 is just stomping all over PowerPC or anything. Basically, the moral of the story is that, since AIM fell apart, IBM has focused on the really high-end (servers) and left the mid-range desktop market (and the low-end desktop market is where Nintendo will be shopping around) mostly to Motorola. Keeping up with Motorola isn't exactly difficult...

Two interesting reads: 1 GHz G3 and PowerPC 970. Here's a roadmap, though I'm not particularly fond of IBM's roadmaps myself.

SOI, RapidIO, SIMD on-chip, etc. are all pretty interesting to follow. SIMD, especially, might have some interesting benefits for Nintendo. It's good to remember that the Gamecube2 is two years away... PowerPC970/POWER5 will be coming down the pipe then and the G3 will be scaled even higher. IBM know how is a cut above the rest.

However, as far as IBM's press releases on the Nintendo deal... seems just like a lot of PR to me. PowerPC isn't the end-all-be-all, and I just don't really think it's applicable anymore to call the PowerPC more "efficient." As I said, it's all about trade-offs. I think what will keep Nintendo with IBM is IBM, not just PowerPC.

[oohhboy]

15

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 03, 2003, 06:51:26 AM »

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Originally posted by: oohhboy
Nobody has hard numbers, but with the two CPU's there is a large difference. RAM. While Xbox uses off the shelf DDR, Nintedo opted for t1-SRAM.

Ah, yes, but that is a limitation of the system itself, not, inherently, the CPU. There's no reason an x86 CPU shouldn't or couldn't use high-speed RAM. Once again I think it's just me thinking in terms of the CPU and you thinking more about each system as a whole. It was definitely a huge boon to Nintendo that the Gamecube is so well-balanced. Hence why it's unfair to say the CPU inside of the Gamecube in and of itself is better than that of the XBox.

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Note I am running on the assumption that you know what t1-SRAM is.

Of course.

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But would it satistfy all the other conditions Nintendo demanded?

Such as...? I don't really see any hurdle that PowerPC overcomes that x86 doesn't. Remember, IBM had to redesign (slightly) the G3 so it could be coupled with the wide bus of the Gamecube. No reason AMD or Intel could not do the same with their CPUs. The Pentium 4, for example, has already been designed from the start to love a wide bus.

POWER4/5 are the same.

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Funny thing to note is that the PS2 has the largest Busbandwidth/fillrate out of all of them by a long shot, but you may know that the lag time from the RAM pretty much negated that advantage along with the lack of any native graphical effects forcing developers to do almost everything in software. There are many other problems, but the PS2 makes for an intersting example.

Ugh. I know. I seriously think Sony wanted to just look good on paper and did not care (or didn't think) how things would work out in real world situations. I'm not really sure, though, that they completely saw both the XBox and Gamecube coming... nor thought they would turn out to be what they are. (Two fairly powerful systems that are easy to develop for, and, compared to the PS2, far more balanced.)

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I believe you would agree this is not the way to design a system. You would probaly agree that the Xbox uses brute strenght to overcome it's bottlenecks etc, oppose to the GC's design where effeneicy is the main word. This sets up the argument, which is better, being effecient, or just plain strong.

I'd argue for a well-balanced, efficient system any day. The XBox could have done better. I really think Microsoft came to the XBox with a PC-centric mindset. Hopefully (or, I guess, unfortunately if you are Nintendo and Sony) Microsoft will rectify this with the XBox2. Consoles are different, and Microsoft had a bit of a learning curve to follow. If anything, the Gamecube has proven that a well-designed, balanced system is more cost-effective than brute strength while garnering similar real world results.

[oohhboy]

16

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 02, 2003, 05:46:34 AM »

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Originally posted by: oohhboy


As they say, everything is relative. The current CPU almost matches what Xbox currently offers, even at a lower clock speed. Nintendo got thier most bang for the buck. You could get more bang if you spent more, but you would get less bang per buck. Diminishing returns.

Well, the problem is, do we really know how much Microsoft paid for the CPU inside of the XBox? Do we really know that Gekko "almost" matches? I would think it would be pretty hard to benchmark processors across gaming platforms because it's impossible to have a closed system. Everything from the GPU to the bus to the memory to the CPU are all finely woven together to work in tandum. You don't want the CPU to be starved by the bus, you don't want the memory to go unused by the CPU, you don't want a bottleneck waiting for the GPU, etc. etc.

Is there hard numbers available comparing the Gekko to the P3?

Really, the cloest you can get is a G3 and a P3 on the computing side of things, and a large clock-per-clock performance delta between a G3 and a P3 is just not there. And x86 is generally cheaper, not less expensive, than PowerPC. Though with their current deal Nintendo really didn't see the cost per CPU of a chip... if there ever was a bidding war, AMD or Intel could/would definitely be JUST as cost effective as anything IBM could conjure up.

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Easy to pogram for, well you know that is relative too. Relative to the current generation would be a good example. Definatly better than the PS2. Developers are willing to say this. Equal to the Xbox? Not quite due to the fact that x86 series is found in 95% of all computers in the world, therefore my guess is that they had alot of pracite with it.  Relative to the last generation? Say the N64? hell yes. I can't say for the PSX.

Ah. See, I think we've gotten our signals crossed. I really am talking about CPUs, not systems. That's slightly different. I took what you said as anything PowerPC is going to be easier to develop for than say... x86 or MIPS or Alpha (now debunk) or whatever simply because it's PowerPC. Of course, it's very easy to design a PowerPC system that's hard to develop for, and I think you understand that.

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Hell, the point about motorola, you already answer that(Both have the same core instruction set, inferior fab workshops/tech) and from all the options presented so far I made the statment, not to you, not to anybody in particular. It was just a statment I made that I beleive to be correct from what I know and that I was trying to bring the thread back on topic, which I hope it has.

Well, once again, I think we may be talking about slightly different things. A chip from Motorola wouldn't be any hard to develop for, but if the tech wasn't there (a crippled bus and subpar memory system) would be hard to develop for because developers would be forced to tap dance and jazz hands their way around a CPU starved by the long wait for data to come in from other areas (such as memory) down a saturated bus.

However, IF (and that's a big, fat, capitalized IF, as I think you know) Motorola could/would develop a PowerPC chip with a nice, wide bus... well... I doubt it would be any more difficult to develop for.

A complex CPU in and of itself isn't really a development hurdle. It's just that it can be. For example, one really strong reason that the Gamecube is so easy to develop for is Nintendo's partnership with Metrowerks. However, I agree. Nintendo does nothing but benefit by keeping their platform simple while offering some really elegant developing tools to developers. It also does not hurt that Metrowerks has long been creating compilers for PowerPC.

I really think the best thing for Nintendo to do would be to return to ATi and IBM for the GPU and CPU. Even though the Gamecube isn't the most successful platform on the market, it is, without a doubt, exactly what Nintendo needed. They need a repeat... staying out of the set-top-box market and really courting third party developers hard. Listen to them, find out what they want (broadband and modem built in, anyone?), make the platform cheap and easy. If Nintendo can get the Gamecube2 out at the same time as Sony and Microsoft... well... I think they will only gain marketshare. (Especially if they can make development tools even better.)

Though a long, hard, calculated look at the changing demographic of gamers might be in order.

[oohhboy]

17

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 01, 2003, 07:31:59 PM »

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Originally posted by: oohhboy
A believe me, total value of a company weather it is in cash reserves or not are a corparate secert as the books are always juggled one way or the other. It just depends on the extent. How do you thing Enron happened? I am not saying that Microsoft or nintendo are screwing over the SEC or equivalent totally, it just does and will happen.

Not every company has skeletons to hide. Innocent until proven guilty.

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As far as I can see, there is no point for Nintendo to change from IBM as thier CPU maker as IBM has made a chip which has statisfied all the conditions set out. Low cost, most powerful for the dollar, runs relativly cool, easy to program for. I also don't see why just because Sony has IBM to make a chip for them that another divsion could just do the same and make one for Nintendo.

Did I ever suggest anything to the contrary? Though most powerful for the dollar is not a true statement (x86 chips are cheaper and faster than PowerPC), and "easy to program for" is really a baseless claim. Easy to program for compared to...? What makes it any easier than an x86 chip, for example? Or a PowerPC derivative from Motorola?

Not that I'm saying it will happen. All hypothetical. I'm interested in your reasoning.

And please don't think I'm making any conjecture about WHAT Nintendo WILL do. I'm just thinking along the lines of what Nintendo's options are. Though I do have a few opinions about that, I really didn't think this thread was appropriate.

18

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: April 01, 2003, 05:51:58 AM »

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oohhboy:

Nintendo has closer to 10 bil. Not 1/30 aka, 1 bil.

If you want to be technical, Nintendo's current assets are valued at around 1,026,478 million yen. That's about $8.6 billion in US dollars. This is according to their end-of-year financial report for 2002. However, that $8.6 billion is not the same as Nintendo's cash reserves, nor is it the same as their cash-on-hand.

Nintendo does not have $10,000,000,000 sitting in the bank. Somewhere between $5 and $10, yes. (I imagine it's still closer to five, but I can't find hard numbers.)

But anyway, it does not matter. I was being sarcastic to make a point. If you want to split hairs, Microsoft has over $40 billion in cash reserves and is looking to increase it by at least another $9 billion by the end of this financial year alone.

Do you think Nintendo can compete on the money front with Microsoft? And Microsoft isn't dumb... they're looking at the growing billion dollar gaming industry just like Sony did, and at how more money comes into Sony from the gaming market than any other market they're involved in. Microsoft wants a piece of the pie, and they WILL get it.

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you can't find out the real value as such are corparate secerts.

No, they're not. Nintendo is a publicly traded company. If they're keeping their current assets a public secret then I believe SEC (and its equivilant in Japan) would be very interested to know why.

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manunited4eva22:

The point was Nintendo doesn't have the resources to spend 5 billion on a single chip, it wouldn't be worth it them...

Exactly.

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oohhboy:

They did spend a billion for gekko. But I believe that was over five years? I also remember it was also for production, a factory and R&D. Regardless, they are willing to spend atleast a billion on a chip. 5 billion for a chip would not be worth it for Microsoft either.

They signed a billion dollar agreement with IBM over Gekko. They did not spend a billion dollars for Gekko R&D. I believe that deal was for design AND manufacture. Remember, Sony-IBM-Toshiba are going to drop $400 million on Cell development _alone_, and that cost will probably rise.

Of course Microsoft isn't going to drop $5 billion on one chip, but do you really think a company who put $2 billion on XBox marketing doesn't have the capability to heavily push funds into chip development just like Sony does? So far they've played it safe with Intel, but... the debate isn't over WHAT they will do as much as what they COULD do.

Anyway, the writing is written all over the walls. Microsoft is willing to spend everything necessary for whatever necessary in order to make themselves a fixture on the gaming scene.

19

Nintendo Gaming / what partner should Nintendo get for builting the gc2 Processor?

« on: March 31, 2003, 07:53:10 PM »

There is a lot of misinformation floating around in this thread that I would like to rectify. There are a lot of things you guys are overlooking when considering Nintendo's future prospects. For one, it needs to be pointed out that it simply isn't enough to throw money at a problem and pray for a good outcome. Another is that all of you need to more closely scrutinize each company on a turn-by-turn basis. Just making electronics/graphics chips/computer chips does not mean they belong (or even want to belong) in the console industry.

In other words, CRAY? Fujitsu? Why!?!?

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)Dark-LInk(:

i think they should ally AN AMERICAN COMPANY(WEIRD) the great NVIDIA! then theyl have the best GRAPHICS for sure! what do ya think?

nVIDIA doesn't really seem to produce the type of GPU Nintendo will be looking for. Sure, Nintendo wants something competitive, but it also needs something cheap to mass-produce and cool. The Gamecube would be more like the Gamecooler if it had a big NV40 under the hood. Sure, nVIDIA could switch gears, but ATi seems to have a good handle on the type of technology Nintendo will want to employ.

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Darc Requiem:

As far as the CPU goes, since Sony has allied with IBM, I think Nintendo should look into Motorola. Motorola and IBM has partnered for the PowerPC standard for Mac's and when it comes to floating point calculations Motorola built PowerPCs with there AltiVec technology actually outperform IBM built PowerPC's.

IBM, Motorola, and Apple all have rights to the PowerPC instruction set. Furthermore, they all have the ability to use AltivVec technology. Be careful: Altivec is simply Apple's name for the SIMD instruction set. All three major players in the now debunk AIM consortium (Motorola, IBM, Apple) can use it anyway they want. IBM is currently producing a POWER4 derivative for the desktop market that actually uses Altivec too.

And if you think x86 chips don't have SIMD units... well... look at 3D Now! and SSE2 people.

Now, moving along, Motorola has been nothing but asstacular in the CPU field for years. It's a company that has, for a very long time, been near to cashing out of the CPU industry entirely. Look at the state of Apple hardware and you'll see exactly why Motorola isn't a good bet for high-powered CPUs. Altivec is the only thing the G4 has going for it. IBM has had much more success at scaling up its own G3 processors, as well as producing PowerPC chips with more bandwidth. A G4s _only_ advantage is when Altivec comes into play, and I imagine the only reason Apple has stuck with the G4 is because they put their eggs into the Altivec basket (for a variety of reasons). Otherwise, they would have jumped ship for higher clockspeed G3s from IBM.

Motorola has still yet to make the jump to a CPU capable of handling the increased bandwidth available with DDR memory. They have struggled with the move to a .13 die process when the rest of the market is gearing up for .09. Do we want them producing a chip for a game console? Motorola's market is small and embedded (as in, embedded chips) where power consumption and heat dissipation are far more serious issues than performance.

Not that Nintendo isn't also very, very concerned about heat and power.

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AMD chips are faster than Intel chips at the same clock speed but they aren't close to the speed of IBM and Motorola's Power PC chips.

Clock for clock? Clock for clock goes out the damn window when Intel is pimping twice as many clocks as its nearest competitor (hypothetical, not literally). What you are talking about is IPC (Instructions Per Cycle), and IBM and Motorola, despite popular belief, are not that far ahead of AMD. Intel isn't in the game, quite simply, because the P4 isn't designed to play the IPC game.. it's designed to play the scaling game. It's all about trade-offs, and being efficient as possible is not always the best way to go.

I mean, I bet even Nintendo could make a manufacture a really efficient 100 MHz processor... doesn't mean its usable in a console. A 2.0 GHz Athlon is going to beat a 1.4 GHz G4 no matter what way you look at it. Of course, in the console industry, really fast CPUs really aren't all that, so something with a high IPC, low heat requirements, low energy needs, and reasonable clock is probably what Nintendo is looking for.

Which will probably keep them in the PowerPC arena, though Intel is doing some interesting things. Look at their Centrino line of mobile chips for a good example.

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• CUBE:
  
  ATi and NEC but not IBM anymore they are traitors it's better to have individual companies work on individual components and focus all their strengths to that like the ATI Flipper and IBM Gekko

Traitors? IBM is a large company... a billion dollar business unto itself. So large, in fact, that it actually competes WITH ITSELF in certain markets. Saying they are traitors is a bit much. They can do well for both Sony and Nintendo without hurting either of them in any way just to advance the other.

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)Dark-LInk(:

they should stick with IBM but pay them MORE millions to make the "GEKKO 2" 10x faster!!(and of course abit stronger then the PS3 "CELL")
ALSO they should get NVIDIA and pay them ALOT OF CASH to make a GRAPHICS chip at least 3x better then the GEFORCE4 ti 4200!then N wil have a very strong console!

And they would also be bankrupt. Being frugal can pay just as well as throwing money hand over fist at your next generation console. Look at some of the advantages of the Gamecube over the XBox. A lot of that is because Nintendo knows quite well that processing power and money does not mean market dominance. Remember? They learned that lesson the hard way.

Nintendo also couldn't afford to get in a money war with Microsoft. They would lose. Microsoft has over $30 billion in the bank. Nintendo is lucky to have 1/30 of that. Microsoft can afford to pay big, spend big, and lose big when Nintendo can't. It's all about the long term, and Microsoft's plan is to entrench themselves now at high cost so they can rake in even higher amounts later.

It's been their strategy all along and has been successful in every market they've ever tried to enter. (MSN, for example, and the browser wars. Not to mention productivity software and the desktop market.)

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rodtod:

what about Silicon Graphics? just a thought...I mean they did revolutionize the digital industry.

Silicon Graphics doesn't have the resources or the will to take on such a project these days. They're struggling to stay alive on Intel hardware and have pretty much given up chip production. They're no longer a contender.

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manunited4eva22:

The cell is taking up a lot of the team that has worked on the powerpc architecture I am sure, so you would be working with an already limited core of developers. IBM will probablly not be the next nintendo CPU

The team that has worked on the PowerPC architecture is still busily working on the PowerPC architecture. IBM is doing some really interesting things, such as ramping up a POWER4 derivative for the desktop market and producing the new POWER5 core that will release processors across several market segments (server, desktop, etc.) For IBM, PowerPC is just getting competitive, and it would make no sense for them to take away from their existing teams to throw developers on Cell.

Making a cheap PowerPC chip for Nintendo, however, would take very little in R&D but bring in a great deal of cash. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a scaled-down POWER4 or POWER5-based chip in Nintendo's next console. It worked quite well with the G3 after all. Hopefully power and heat issues will not be a problem by that point in time. People who tout the POWER4 often don't realize or just plain forget that it was never intended for the desktop to start with. It has extremely high heat output and power requirements while having a relatively low clock frequency--it is intended for the server space where these issues don't matter. It crunches numbers.

Things are changing though. Also, Nintendo won't need to spend the likes of what Sony is spending. They want their hardware to do very, very different things, and Sony is willing to invest heavily for a specialized chip that does everything it needs it to do. Nintendo no longer has that "everything and the kitchen sink" mentality.

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MikeHrusecky:

Moto could theoretically pick up where IBM left off on the Gekko more or less.

I don't think Motorola would, to be honest. They just don't have the fab in place to produce the type of high performance, high bandwidth chip (relatively speaking to their current offerings) that Nintendo would desire in the large quantities Nintendo would demand. IBM does. They just built a new fab geared towards the .09 process--something to watch.

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Christberg:

I could be wrong about that, but I remember reading a press release to that effect ages (as in years) ago. It'd be pretty hard for me to dig up, but at the least I'm pretty damn sure IBM has a very large amount of Motorola stock at the very least.

If they did they sold it. IBM most definitely does not own Motorola nor does it have much say in how the company is run. Otherwise, Motorola wouldn't be the dog it is now. As a company, the late-90s tech boom just wasn't there for Moto. They bled cash like a cow at a slaughterhouse. They're only now digging themselves out of the mess they were in.

Relations between IBM and Motorola cooled considerably after the AIM consortium fell apart. It seems like relations between Motorola and Apple are heading the same way, as rumor-has-it that Apple is looking to IBM for its high-end chips instead of Motorola's much anticipated but ever-late "G5". It's amazing that the PowerPC instruction set has kept from splintering between the two companies this long, but it's reassuring to see that both IBM and Motorola take efforts to keep PowerPC consolidated in their processors.