Topic: Iwata: Revolution Backwards Compatable and Wi-fi out of Box

[Bloodworth]

It will also carry sales over for GameCube games like RE4 and Zelda for Revolution owners that didn't pick up a GC, but are interested in a few of the GC games.  

Now for WiFi, I really have to wonder about the details.  Is it not going to have an Ethernet port?  Are you going to need a wireless router to play at home?  Or is Nintendo's "infrastructure" completely out of left field?  

I've had the feeling for quite some time that Nintendo may somehow be trying to bring online gaming to people who can't afford a monthly Internet bill.  I have no idea how it's technically possible, but seriously, what's the advantage of having WiFi on a device that stays in your entertainment center? I have a hard time believing it's just to keep people from running an extra cable through the house.  Bringing online gaming to players without an ISP -- now that just might be revolutionary.

[Savior]

How they will able to provide a good online service at no cost, is certainly a good question. Ill gladly take it nonetheless.  

[Don'tHate742]

Bloodworth - I also agree that the built-in WiFi has to do with some other aspect not yet known, and not just  to keep people from running an extra wire. I don't think it has to do with bringing an online service without a ISP though. Realistically, that isn't possible unless Nintendo gets into a business that isn't for them. Although I would like to be surprised, I think a safer bet would be connecting to DS or the new GB wirelessly.  

[PaLaDiN]

"Unless I missed the press release where Nintendo stated " The Revolution will have horrible games that will be online only and play movies at the same time""

No, actually, you missed the press release where Nintendo stated "we're not concentrating on just making great games anymore, there are unrelated stupid things we're dabbling in that are diverting our time, money, manpower and attention."

[Stimutacs Addict]

I think a safer bet would be connecting to DS or the new GB wirelessly.

Shhhh!! there is no new GB  (we can't let this rumor spread about. an eb games manager tried to tell me that nintendo canned all online plans for DS and is releasing the GB by the years end. shtuff like that is really damaging the DS' mindshare.)

[The Omen]

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No, actually, you missed the press release where Nintendo stated "we're not concentrating on just making great games anymore, there are unrelated stupid things we're dabbling in that are diverting our time, money, manpower and attention."

I hardly think an expanding vision will cause a work stoppage at Nintendo.

Why are people so against more options?  Having great games AND more options is the only way to increase market share.  The competition must be met.

[PaLaDiN]

Okay, now you're just deliberately misinterpreting what I say for the sake of argument. You're not that stupid.

Work won't stop, but some work will be diverted from games to something else. And I'm against anything that means less work is being done on games.

[Hostile Creation]

PaLaDiN is saying that time that would normally be spent adding something to the meat of the game will instead be used to develop online capabilities.  Unless they take a while longer to develop online games, which also sucks a bit, the main game will suffer from online being included.

[Savior]

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just making great games anymore, there are unrelated stupid things we're dabbling in that are diverting our time, money, manpower and attention."

AKA Nintendo Animation Studio

[Caillan]

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AKA Nintendo Animation Studio

The animation studio will be set up using lots of money. I doubt any existing employees of the gaming division will be transferred. If anything, the animation guys may will be able to produce quality intros/endings/Final Fantasy games for EAD or whoever.

AFAIK, a dedicated team is usually set up to implement online gaming towards the end of a project. Level designers and artists won't be distracted by it.

[ruby_onix]

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SgtShiversBen wrote:
Why can't Nintendo just use the same plug for both controllers? Wouldn't that be kinda feasible? Maybe, I don't know. But that's what I assumed. They'd still get the REVOLUTIONARY controllers for the new console, and keep the GameCube controllers too.

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Iwata wrote:
We put four control ports on our consoles .. and then made our controllers wireless.

also:
First, contrary to much speculation, I can announce today that Revolution will be backward compatible. The best of the Nintendo GameCube library will still be enjoyed by players years from now. Second, as I said earlier, we intend to incorporate wireless technology in all we do.

I'd guess that the Rev will use wireless controllers (or Power Gloves, or whatever you want to guess they might be, but they'll be wireless), and that the Rev will be backwards compatible with the Wavebird, without the need for you to physically plug the Wavebird's "receiver unit" into anything. There will just be a "wireless hub" of some sort in the Rev, and the Wavebird's signal will be child's play to it. Actually, I'm hoping you'll be able to hook about 16 Wavebirds up to it without any trouble. That'd rock.  

[Gamefreak]

I'd like to hear more clarification on Rev's wireless capabilities at E3.
For example, we know it will connect to a computer monitor and a wireless router.
But will it be able to connect to Wavebirds (making BW compatibility for 4 player games easy), and more importantly, automatically connect to nearby Rev's for wireless LAN play? This is important because LAN play eliminates lag, and also made more important by the fact that rev's can hook up to monitors.
Ask yourself. How many monitors + TV's do you have in your house? I've gotten a dozen or so. That means that if every one of my friends just brought their little revolution and a copy of Mario Kart or Timespliters we could basically get 8+ player games set up in about a minute. Just connect to a tv/monitor anywhere in the house and you're good to go.

Also, Rev games will simply look better on a monitor than a regular TV since any monitor can play in HDTV resolutions.

[nickmitch]

That'd work great for me 'cause with my bro going off to college soon I could use his room to do just that and then I'd still be in close physical contact with the people in his room 'cause they'll be just a few feet away.

[RickPowers]

Very interesting quote from Reggie regarding the future of console games.  "The old model of a person tethered to a game control tethered to a device tethered to a TV is over."

I wonder, was he talking about removing the "tether" between the player and the controller, the controller and the console (which they've already done), the console and the TV, or all of the above???

[Morales]

Rick, I was also thinking about that quote.  Some dude over at the GAF, who's proved reliable in the past, has said Nintendo is planning a completely wireless console.  I guess I could see this except for plugging the console in for power.  As for a tv connection, I don't know how they would pull it off.  I'm sure there are some new technologies out there that allow it though.  The question is price.  Also, further evidence - in a recent consumer survey, MS asked how important a wireless tv connection for xbox 2 is to its players.  Perhaps, MS caught wind of Nintendo's plans and wanted to see if it was worth including the feature as well.

[RickPowers]

There are a couple of ways that a wireless TV connection could be achieved.  First, you could have a TV transmitter in the box.  If it were short-range, it should be able to clear FCC regulations, but I see this as very unlikely, because the image quality would likely be awful.

Sony has a device for their HandyCams that sends video wirelessly to a receiver (which stays permanently connected to the TV) over infrared.  So the technology exists, and has for quite some time.  There are also RF transmitters based on similar ideas.

Finally ... who's to say Revolution would need to connect to a TV screen at all?

There's a lot of options.  Heck, even needing a power cord at all times is no longer a given ... there was a battery pack for the GameCube released by third-parties.  A completely wireless console is certainly doable, but I'm not sure this is the direction Nintendo is going.  It's fun to talk about, though.  

[Savior]

Remember the Revolution can hook up to Computer Monitors as well...  So im not so sure its totally wireless....

[Grant10k]

I just had a thought, correct me if I defy physics in some way here... I wonder how much electricity is needed for a signal to be sent over TV signal cables (I forget what they are called, the Yellow-video Red-Right White-Left or the other way around, whatever). Would it be possible to build a box that receives those signals (transmitted by the Rev) and passively allow those signals to go straight into the TV box, so you have a receiver for tv signals that requires no power. If it's possible (and I don't think it is), that would remove the 'tether' between the TV and console.

Removing the tether between controller and console is easy. Hell, I have an electric shaver that you never have to plug in, it has half of a transformer in the shaver body and the other half in a little 'base station' if you will, and when they are near each other it recharges the shaver's batterys (this way it's compleatly waterproof). They could do that with the rev controllers so you don't have to plug them in, ever, or even change the batteries for that matter.

As for removing the tether between the player and the controller, that's not hard to do eather, you could simply put fair sized copper plates on the handles of the controller and randomly send a couple thousand volts between them. If that dosn't remove the player/controller tether; nothing will.

[BigJim]

The wireless transmission of an A/V signal to a box connected to the TV is technically possible. I saw a demonstration of this at last year's CES. I'm not sure what became of the product, but they were demo'ing it with DVD and DVR players I believe.

Does this tech have the bandwidth to transmit what will essentially be high-def games? No idea. Probably not. If it can, it's probably not worth the cost.

Very interesting Reggie quote, though. Revolution could be small and sexy enough to be semi-portable, not unlike GameCube. Think top-loading Mac Mini.

Wireless controllers  = no controller ports = smaller size.

One proprietary AV-out port could provide the feed for all possible A/V connections (include the RCA cable, but allow us to buy other outputs as an option) = smaller size

Put the memory cards in the controllers. If not using a 2-way R/F signal, they could incorporate Wi-Fi into the controllers? = no card slots = smaller size

[JonLeung]

Barring some huge leap in holographic technology, a television (or monitor) is still the most likely source of output.  If the controllers are already done wirelessly and easy, there's no reason why resources should be used up trying to make the connection between the device and screen wireless.  So what if your console is next to your screen?  Unless you're really too lazy to reach over there to switch the game disc.

[Morales]

Well, the more exciting thing about a wireless monitor connection would be the possibility for LAN gaming off of one system.

[slingshot]

I am still not familiar with LAN- whatzit again?

[Chode2234]

So if it can hook up to a monitor are we talking DVI, VGA, S-video, or what?  Very interesting and very exciting to be a nintendo fan right now.  

Is it me or are they picking up a lot of momentum?  To quote a famous Japanese Admiral (Yamamoto), "all they have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."

[ruby_onix]

BTW, I just wanted to say a few words on the topic of "backwards compatibility" for a minute.


It was said (back in the SNES days) that Nintendo had known full well about the limited lifespans of console generations, and about the need for a "generation hop", from one console to the next (something they pioneered with the SNES). It was also said that they understood the concept of "backwards compatibility".

Between one console and the next, there's a sharp downward drop (as one console dies), followed by a slow upward climb (as the next one takes off). If you try to compress the timeframe of that gap, you risk killing the older console abruptly, or choking the life out of the newer one.

But with backwards compatibility you create a link between the two. It rounds out the sharpest part of the drop. Games for the older console keep selling, because developers know it's still "safe" to make them. The newer console has an advantage at launch, because the older still-playable games can help with the inevitable "launch drought" of software.

The "rounding" effect is only temporary (for the most part), but it applies to an extremely needy timeframe (the sharp drop), and any advantage a console gets early on seems to pay off in multiples when it really "takes off" ahead of schedule.

However, Nintendo deliberately sacrificed that advantage with the NES/SNES gap, because they felt that using an NES-compatible cart slot would've crippled the SNES's storage capabilities. Also, they didn't have to worry about Sega (being a newcomer) having the B/C advantage without them.

For the SNES/N64 leap, Nintendo knew that their storage situation was weak, and clearly couldn't afford to make it worse with SNES-compatibility. Also, their competitors (Saturn and PlayStation) were going with CD, so Nintendo again didn't have to worry about them having backwards compatibility. And yeah, it goes without saying here that sticking with carts was the biggest mistake Nintendo ever made. They knew that carts were weak. And if they had looked just one move ahead, they would've seen that they were literally handing their competitors the known advantage that they "weren't worrying about", with no possible way to level the field.

With the Dreamcast, Sega didn't have Saturn-compatibility. Because... they're Sega. What did you expect? Sony did have it. Sony got the "rounding effect". The PSone has been deified for it's success. The PS2 had a spectacular launch, even though it's games were sucky and few. Nintendo didn't have it with the GameCube. Because they went with carts for the N64.


Nintendo did pioneer backwards compatibility with it's entire GameBoy line, and the results taught the entire world how it's done.

BTW, it's also interesting to note that Nintendo appears to have successfully compressed the timeframe of the console gap between the GBA and the DS, overlapping the two lines, in order to take away the "timing" advantage of the PSP, through the "three pillars" strategy that nobody seems to be able to understand.

[pitbull]

What was that thing that Sony made that could take pictures of you and your surrondings and make almost a game out of them or something? N made a comment that they like to think they have the best R & D teams and that they could come up with something better than that. So I wonder if that will launch with Rev or be a part of it. Anyone know what I'm talking about?