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Messages - bmfrosty

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1
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo expects little profit from Wii in first year, to be sold at or near loss?
« on: June 12, 2006, 10:07:50 PM »
Kairon doesn't believe in the position he's taken.  

-bmfrosty (3 point to whoever can tell me the origin of my handle)

2
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo expects little profit from Wii in first year, to be sold at or near loss?
« on: June 11, 2006, 09:02:51 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon

Bmfrosty, they've already hedged their bets: they've got Mario and Metroid already on the way using the Wiimote-and-nunchuck. The traditional crowd is being catered without need for the Wii Classic.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com


We both have our opinions on the matter.  I propose a wager.  $1.  Via Paypal.  Payable upon the announcement of available packages.

-bmfrosty (bmfrosty@catbus.org)

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo expects little profit from Wii in first year, to be sold at or near loss?
« on: June 11, 2006, 07:11:54 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
[

I...can see what you're saying...Hmmm... What exactly leads you to believe that this is their true objective as opposed to their stated-marketting speak being representative of their true objective?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com


I believe so because Nintendo's market isn't made up entirely of people who don't currently play games.  It also has to include people who currently play games for the strategy to make sense.

As much as the guys and gals at Nintendo would like it to be, the wiimote and nun-chuck do not cover all the popular game types.  I'm positive that since they're releasing a controller that represents what to now has been THE standard for game controllers, they're not going to split their market for what would be a small percentage cost increase on the package.  I can't see the materials and manufacturing cost on the ClassiCon being outside the $6-$8 per unit range.

It just doesn't make sense for them to not hedge their bets this way.

-bmfrosty (bmfrosty@catbus.org)

4
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo expects little profit from Wii in first year, to be sold at or near loss?
« on: June 10, 2006, 06:42:58 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon


But Nintendo doesn't want straight ports, remember? The Wii is an "and" console. You have a Wii "and" an X360 or PS3. With this mentality, what the Wii needs are games that make it special, not games that make it me too.

The Wii is supposed to be owned in addition to a traditional console for hardcore gamers. Why would Nintendo waste energy competing against consoles they expect your customers to buy anyways? They're concentrating on being the console you buy because there are games on it that you can't play anywhere else simply BECAUSE of the unique and new and unconventional control scheme.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com


I think you're mistaking their front facing marketing message with their true objectives.  They want to focus on new experiences and new customers, *AND* want to be the place to go for the hardcore and nostalgic.  Ergo, if they want to be a target for old-style *AND* new-style games, they will not want to have a split market, and they will include the ClassiCon with every system.  If they're smart, they'll also include $10 worth of VC downloads with system registration.

-bmfrosty

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo expects little profit from Wii in first year, to be sold at or near loss?
« on: June 10, 2006, 04:58:23 PM »
I expect a Classic Controller Shell to be included with every system.  Without it you split the market, and you deny a lot of opportunity.  With the classic controller shell, remakes and ports of anything on an earlier console become feasable.  Another thing to remember, and this is important, is that Nintendo has Veto rights on any and all games for it's system.  If there isn't some specific reason for a game to be mainly controlled by the wiimote and nun-chuck, nintendo's going to deny it.  If Konami were to declare that they want to remake Symphony of the Night with better graphics, they're not going to include Nintendo in on the deal if they can't rely on a controller suitable for the game being in the hands of every owner.

The ClassiCon is too important to not to include with every system.

-bmfrosty (rambling)

6
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Rev Predictions
« on: December 31, 2005, 01:51:57 PM »
Release sometime in November.  Possibly a month or two earlier in Japan.  
Two Price Points.

Cheap includes:
The System
1 Controller
the GCN Shell
The Nun-chuk
demo disc

Not as Cheap includes:
Everything in cheap
A shell more suited for emulation (like the GCN on the left, but like the N64 on the right, but with start AND select)
A $20 gift card for buying roms
Super Mario 128 or Super Mario 64-2

I'd price cheap at $130 and not as cheap at $170 or $180.

7
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Next Gen. Dreamcast
« on: December 25, 2005, 05:38:17 PM »
This thread is why some forums maintain a 3 month delay between registration and posting privledges.

8
Nintendo Gaming / RE:So... How do you guys think that Nintendo will copy protect the downloaded games?
« on: December 23, 2005, 04:19:52 PM »
Shouldn't be too complicated.  Signed executables first.  Then embed a smallish (56 bit would be more than enough, but is likely to be 128 bit) key into each system, and then have them linked by database to the serial for the system itself.  Nintendo keeps a database of these at manufacture.  Serials and Keys should not be in any way mathematically linked.  Any downloaded roms get encrypted by Nintendo before the user downloads.  Any emulator runs the rom through a decrypter while loading the rom into ram.  Here's a fun one.  Signed executables on DVD, but downloaded executables are signed and are also encrypted by the same embedded key, and any executable run from the embedded flash or SD Card will only execute if run through the encryption key first.  Here's another one, don't just include an encryption key, include a codec on an IC that is fed data, and is expected to return good data based on it's embedded key so that the key itself can never be extracted.  Beyond that, don't make it codec, just make it a decoder so if the signature is cracked, you can't have a nifty program that uses the rev to encrypt it's own executables.

9
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo sucks at marketing and PR
« on: December 16, 2005, 07:26:16 PM »
I'd really like to see them drop batches of consoles on radio stations for giveaway.  I (and tons of other people) listen to the radio to and from work.  Give them away during the morning shows, one a day per market for one week, rotate between the top 5 stations in that market.  Each week during a 5 week period switch to a different station.

So:

5 weeks
5 stations
10 markets.

they'd have to give away 250 game/console bundles.

Run the promotion once a year for their biggest title of the year.

say 2002 with Super mario Sunshine and/or Metroid Prime
2003 with Wind Waker.
2004 Metroid Prime 2.
2005 with RE4
2006 Zelda and then Rev upon release.

Top 10 Markets:

(1) New York
(2) Los Angeles
(3) Chicago
(4) San Francisco
(5) Philadelphia
(6) Dallas-Fort Worth
(7) Detroit
(8) Boston
(9) Washington, DC
(10) Houston-Galveston


They'd probabally add Seattle-Tacoma for that home town love.

10
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Will it be called the Nintendo Revolution?
« on: December 16, 2005, 07:45:50 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Gameball?


GameSphere

11
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Will it be called the Nintendo Revolution?
« on: December 15, 2005, 09:44:25 PM »
Revolution would work.  It's a strong name.  They could use the Beatles song in the marketing.

I also like N5.  It comes in very strong too.  Unfortunately it sounds technical, and that might not be what they're going for.

"Famicom V"  is one that I personally like.  It'd play very well in Japan, but would leave most everyone else scratching their heads.

Nintendo NEXUS sounds cool, but sounds too much like Lexus.  It also denotes a media center or hub, which isn't N's focus.

Nintendo VC (for Virtual Console) could work as well if the DS continues to run strong deep into next year.

It will not be the Gamecube 2.  Maybe if the Gamecube had done much better this generation.  But then we wouldn't be getting the sweet new controller.


12
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Memory Cards....
« on: December 15, 2005, 09:06:04 PM »
SD cards go to 2 gigs right now.  $99 for Generic, $129 for Corsair, San-Disk or Kingston bumps it to $175.  Not huge, but certainly big enough for most purposes.  If Square-Enix wanted to port FFXI to the Rev, I'm sure that Nintendo would figure out a way for a USB hard drive to work.  

13
Nintendo Gaming / RE:High Dollar Generation
« on: December 13, 2005, 07:57:11 PM »
HDTV pisses me off.  It's the premature child of a grand alliance that couldn't make up it's mind.  18 different supported formats.  Nothing that goes above 60fps.  Blah.  The correct answer would have been a single resolution at a single framerate in progressive scan.  Add backwards compatibility however applicable in each region, but past that everything should be a single standard.

Personally I would have voted for something like 720p at 72 frame.  But they decided to have 18 different supported formats, so now I'm screwed no matter what I buy.  If I buy 720p set, anything I watch that 1080i looks wrong and vice versa.

The funny thing is that it would have made everything easier in the long run.  I wonder how many developers are tearing their hair out trying to figure out to make their both look good and be functional at three different resolutions and two aspect ratios.  I'm sure advertisers are annoyed at having to the same.  

Personally I think my only real hope is that some company comes up with a DLP projector that can deal a zoom and lens shift whenever it hits a signal change, and therefore give proper pictures no matter what signal is thrown at it.

14
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Best Nintendo commercial ever.
« on: October 08, 2005, 05:41:39 PM »
My bad.  I don't see a way to close the thread, or I would.

15
Nintendo Gaming / Best Nintendo commercial ever.
« on: October 08, 2005, 04:09:56 PM »
Too bad it's showing only in Canada and not the US.

http://www.qmg.com/ntdo/Maze_Eng_480Air.mov

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:rev vs 360 price
« on: September 29, 2005, 09:44:02 PM »
I expect that the Broadway will have more power available before optimization than it's competitors will.  Once games start to get optimized for the mutant PowerPCs that Microsoft and Sony are using, we may see those designs take a bit of a lead, but I doubt that lead will be perceptible when comparing two versions on a standard def tv.  On a HD the Broadway version might not look as nice, but will probabally lock in a better framerate due to the smaller rendering requirements.

17
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Rev Rumors and Speculations
« on: September 26, 2005, 04:25:37 PM »
http://news.com.com/Intels+manufacturing+cost+40+per+chip/2100-1006_3-5862922.html
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'd guess that IBM can sell them as $50 parts and make a profit, probabally make back their r&d costs after the first couple million parts and pure profit from there.

As for my guess as to what the specs will be....

2500mhz cpu
500mhz gpu
512 meg of ram shared
32 meg of ram attached to a sound chip
sound chip at 125mhz

no physics unit.

18
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Further meaning to enhanced graphics.
« on: September 23, 2005, 06:54:20 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by: MarioAllStar
An additonal executable and entire texture/model set would take up quite a bit of space. That said, there are two storage mechanisms--the internal flash memory and memory cards. Assuming that both the flash memory and memory cards both will be low in storage space, which they probably will be, I can see them filling up very quickly.

Unless you meant that it would download each time into RAM, which is also limited, but that would alienate those without Internet access.


Let me clarify.  The game would still be required to be in the drive.  It would use the assets on the original disc in addition to updated 2d graphics (menus etc) and possibly updated textures for a few of the more frequently seen models.  I'm thinking maybe 16 megs worth of space, compressed if possible.

19
Nintendo Gaming / Further meaning to enhanced graphics.
« on: September 22, 2005, 07:51:14 PM »
This one depends on HD becoming an option for the Rev.  I know this may not happen, so if you're going to reply indicating that fallacy in my premise, don't bother.

We already know that the Rev will be a few times as powerful as the GCN.  We also know that it supports the GCN's API, and can assume that it supports it's instruction set.  Assuming this, it should be possible, with little work to make current GCN games work at HD resolutions.  In fact they could be sold as downloadable executeables.  So here's the idea.  Nintendo wants to squeeze a few more yen out of Twilight Princess.  So you pop your copy of TP into the Rev, and instead of booting directly to the game, it checks to see if there is an HD update for the game.  It checks against it's database that it periodically updates online.  If there is one, it offers for sell a copy to you for $5.  What you end up getting is a recompiled executeable that supports widescreen and HD resolutions along with updated 2d textures (like menu items and such) and updates for textures that are used very commonly in the game.  This should take 1 programmer and 1 artist about 1 month to produce, for maybe $15000 in production costs (salaries + other resources).  They recoup their losses after 3000 sales.

Additionally they could release these on store shelves as "Revolution Enhanced' versions.

Other things that could be done would be enhanced controls for some games like monkeyball and RE4.

20
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Nintendo and it's philosophies
« on: August 21, 2005, 07:44:23 AM »
Ok.  So I didn't read any of the previous posts, but here's a way that a control could be complicated enought to play new and modern games, but simple enough that you could hand it to your grandmother and she wouldn't be to confused.  Put software controllable LEDs under the buttons and sticks.  If you're playing a game where only A and B are used, then only A and B would be lit.  When gameplay instructions are being given onscreen, the LEDs could blink as indicators of what buttons should be pressed.

Further thoughts.

In addition to being turned off, buttons that aren't in use could be retracted if not in use.  Think small servo motors or something similar.

21
Nintendo Gaming / RE:Fact Only Thread: Rev Tech Specs
« on: July 17, 2005, 01:50:05 PM »
http://cube.ign.com/articles/100/100445p1.html

and

http://cube.ign.com/articles/100/100543p1.html

are the two parts of an interview conducted with the engineers at IBM who designed the Gekko for the Gamecube.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Broadway is an evolved Gekko, run on a 90nm process, with a larger cache, a higher clock speed, and possibly with two cores on the same silicon with an interface for dealing with it as a two core piece, or alternatively run as two seperate cores in a single package.  Remember, the Gamecube was the best designed (arcitecture not visual style) system of the 6th Generation.  I doubt that Nintendo will stray too far from it for the 7th Generation.

Here's another arcitecture article here:

http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20010516S0056

As for the Hollywood GPU, I don't expect it to be derived from the flipper.  It will be something new with a feature set that is a superset of the flipper features.  The beauty part is that if we are dealing with a dual cpu, and the Flipper and the Hollywood have different instruction sets, the second CPU in the revolution can be used to transform Flipper instructions to Hollywood instructions, allowing fast and good backwards compatibility with the Gamecube.

I expect good things from the Revolution.  I expect that it will support a much more rapid environment for code development than either of it's two closest competitors will be able to provide.  The real hope and dream this generation involves whether or not Microsoft and Nintendo are able to keep Sony from taking a huge lead like it did in the 6th Generation.
 

22
Nintendo Gaming / RE: Rumored Nrev specs
« on: June 24, 2005, 02:22:00 PM »
I was worried about the idea of 1.8ghz processors in the Rev (dual 1.8 seems realistic to me) and then I read the following article:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453

It makes me feel warm inside to know that in order to put together multiple 3.2ghz cores the competition is going to have to cripple their processors.  Once again Nintendo is putting together a system where developers won't have to fight every inch of the way to bring the power to the forefront.

Yay.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:I have a feeling this might be the Rev controller
« on: June 18, 2005, 07:17:59 PM »
lollerskates and roflcopters.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:I have a feeling this might be the Rev controller
« on: June 18, 2005, 04:16:43 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by: Bloodworth
That sounds really expensive.


Do you have stairs in your house?

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: No Hi-def resolution, Nintendo's cost benefit analysis
« on: June 16, 2005, 08:55:44 PM »
1080i is the same pixel bandwith 1080p(30).  
They are both 30 FRAMES per second.  
On typical (correct) HDTV displays the display refreshes 60 times per second.
In 1080p(30), the image changes every other refresh.  
In 1080i, the image changes every refresh, but only the even or odd scanlines.

I could go on, but I won't.  BlackGriffen will return with more wrong assumptions about the standard I hate and am all too intimate with.  I won't correct him anymore.  It's not worth my time.

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