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

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon

Especially with Nintendo positioning themselves as an "AND" choice (that is, buy a PS3 AND a Rev, or a X360 AND a Rev) [. . .]

This is in reference to Reggie's E3 speech, right? As I remember from that speech, Reggie was refering to the software Nintendo makes, games that is, not their console purchasing ideas or whatever. He was saying Nintendo does not produces games for produce games for "this group OR that group" of people, but instead makes games for "this group AND that group".

[mantidor]

I personally want Matts stupid campain to fail miserably, I really dont want for Nintendo to start hearing that kind of "fan".

[Pittbboi]

Now that's just a dumb thing to hope for. While I personally don't understand why so many people hate Matt (I really have no opinion of the guy), you can't deny that he's a dedicated Nintendo fan, and just because he doesn't kiss Nintendo's ass when they make stupid decisions doesn't change that. Whether his campaign gets Nintendo to change their mind really has no baring on him, because he has hundreds of people rallying behind him--fans who want the same thing he does. Fans who are just as dedicated Nintendo fans as you or I.

[Kairon]

Matt just doesn't jive with my tastes because he tends to place too much emphasis on Nintendo's marketplace, where I'd rather he placed the emphasis on what Nintendo is really trying to do: try to advance, and innovate, and bring some amazing videogames into existence. That's why I'd hate it if Matt become the voice for all Nintendo fans: it'd mean that Nintendo fans have completely lost sight of whatever Nintendo actually stands for.

31Flavas

But the "and" idea also grows out of Nintendo's recent pricing history and their positioning themselves as not opposite Sony and MS. With a low price point and games that have an innovative concept and interface, the Revolution could stand as a very desirable purchase even if you grab a PS3 or X360.

Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[couchmonkey]

I personally see Matt as a good critical thinker working from within the Nintendo fan base.  Lots of people have problems with Nintendo, but most of them don't matter because they don't support Nintendo anyway.  Matt sees what's wrong with Nintendo, but still loves it.  A lot of Nintendo fans don't see what's wrong with Nintendo, or assume every move Nintendo makes is for our own good.  I don't think that's true.

However, I have gotten sick of Matt's technocracy of late.  He (and practically the whole of IGN) puts too much emphasis on graphics and every slight improvement in technology.  Even though I agree with him on the HD issue, it's ironically a good example of how he seems to care more about technology than games.

[nemo_83]

I assume we are now on the subject of the new 1080.org along with the discusion between Matt and David at nintendonow.com.  Matt is so pationate it seems about this subject because he doesn't want to see Nintendo fail next generation because of a stupid cost/benefit decision.  

I am ofended by the igninsider crap, but I have no problem with Matt's opinions.  He particularly comes across as well spoken in this discussion/argument between himself and David.  They bring up many of the things we argue about here from day to day.  I liked it when Matt brought up the fact Nintendo hasn't been launching original IPs this generation.

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon

But the "and" idea also grows out of Nintendo's recent pricing history and their positioning themselves as not opposite Sony and MS. With a low price point and games that have an innovative concept and interface, the Revolution could stand as a very desirable purchase even if you grab a PS3 or X360.

I understand where the idea comes from I just don't agree it's Nintendo's position, at all.

[xts3]

The "HD" era is such a crock of BS, look at PC gaming where video cards and VGA monitors have been wooping ass and taking names for years before consoles even got up to 640x480.

Good high rez monitors are cheaper and higher resolution then any HDTV ever will be.

 back in 97-98 you could do 640x480 and 800x600 and even 1024x768 with Voodoo2's, then Nvidia TNT was released doing 32-bit color and high rez all in a single package.  Fact is, consoles would be nowhere near as powerful if it wasn't PC graphics card revolution started by 3Dfx and later Nvidia when nvidia finally became comeptitive with 3dfx with the TNT and finally Geforce 1.

The "HD era" for next gen consoles will look only slightly better then Xbox, it won't be the panacea people are making it out to be.  Next gen consoles are always over-hyped they always have been, for anyone old enough to remember the Sega vs Nintendo, it's all the same marketing crap.


It's All In the (Vertical) Resolution.

Standard-definition (SD) TV -- the sort most of us have been watching for years -- has 480 visible lines of detail, whereas HDTV has 1,080i visible lines of detail. This is the number of horizontal lines found on your TV screen. Remember, TVs are measured on the diagonal: The width of the screen changes, while its height remains more or less constant. Thus, it is the number of pixels on the vertical axis that really determines how much detail is visible.

Theoretically, higher resolution plasma TVs should always look better with an HD signal, but with video picture signals - signal processing, interpolation, conversion and contrast(i.e., how an image is displayed) has more to do with picture quality than resolution does.

Case In Point: At past Consumer Electronics Shows (2001 and 2002), manufacturers would stage "plasma shoot outs", often pitting earlier-generation HD sets against ED ones. The outcome? A Panasonic 853X480 plasma beat several other manufacturers with higher resolutions (1024X768 or 1024X1024) even with an HD signal displayed. Contrast, video processing, and conversion have much to do with plasma technology.

So, is it really worth it to shell out extra for an HDTV?

Certainly there is more and more HD content available out there - and it will only increase from this point in time. There are dedicated HD channels. There are upconverting DVD players. And As you decide whether you want (or need) an High Resolution plasma, you might want to consider the following:


(1) DVD material may look better on an a good brand of EDTV 853 X 480 than it would on a third tier brand in a 1024X768 resolution. At DVD quality resolution, the image output quality depends more upon the manufacturer than it does the resolution.

(2) 80% of the content available to viewers -- whether on TV or on DVD -- is NOT high definition. However, this story is changing.

(3) If deliberating between a 1st tier EDTV resolution plasma purchase compared with a 1st tier HDTV plasma resolution purchase, consider that you will likely get around a 20% bump in picture quality with the HD unit when watching a good incoming HD signal. An EDTV plasma can display and HD signal, but only at its native pixel resolution after down conversion.

(4) The manufacturer quality should be of more concern than the resolution of the plasma display. Purchasing a plasma from a quality manufacturer can make the biggest difference of all. I would rather have an EDTV 853X480 plasma TV from Sony, Panasonic or Pioneer than an 1024X768 HDTV plasma from lesser Taiwanese, or Korean manufacturers even for the same cost.

(5) The best case quality scenario is an HD plasma from a 1st tier manufacturer.


(6) Displaying computer images will look much better on the higher resolution display (50%) than lower res displays. This is especially the case for static images. The extra expense of the higher resolution plasma display will be well worth it for these uses.

[TheYoungerPlumber]

Firstly, a disclaimer: I've reasearched HDTVs, but don't own one myself.  Unless you count that LCD projector I get to use two weeks a year up in Montana...

Why are you so focused on plasma TVs?  Firstly, though plasma is cheaper and usually has higher contrast/brightness than LCDs, as I understand it, LCD tends to have a better overall picture (though a dark room is probably more important).  From what I've heard, plasma TVs are not a good purchase largely because they are likely to break much more quickly than other HDTV types due to their gas-based technology.

That said, if you can accomodate more bulk, CRTs are cheaper and can provide a better picture at MULTIPLE RESOLUTIONS, since they aren't dedicated to one "native" resolution.  Or you can go the DLP route, which is like CRT only better (I think they only do 720p, though).  You can get the sharpness of 480p + EDTV and still get 720p goodness.  Yey!

[KDR_11k]

Remember, projection screens are subject to burn in. Modern CRTs rarely get that.

[xts3]

Quote
Originally posted by: TheYoungerPlumber
Firstly, a disclaimer: I've reasearched HDTVs, but don't own one myself.  Unless you count that LCD projector I get to use two weeks a year up in Montana...

Why are you so focused on plasma TVs?  Firstly, though plasma is cheaper and usually has higher contrast/brightness than LCDs, as I understand it, LCD tends to have a better overall picture (though a dark room is probably more important).  From what I've heard, plasma TVs are not a good purchase largely because they are likely to break much more quickly than other HDTV types due to their gas-based technology.

That said, if you can accomodate more bulk, CRTs are cheaper and can provide a better picture at MULTIPLE RESOLUTIONS, since they aren't dedicated to one "native" resolution.  Or you can go the DLP route, which is like CRT only better (I think they only do 720p, though).  You can get the sharpness of 480p + EDTV and still get 720p goodness.  Yey!

My point was that traditionally A) gamers aren't rich and b) PC games have had "HD Gaming" for a long time, much, much longer then any console and it didn't make the PC gaming market any hotter for it either, especiallly when you see old crappy 2D games like Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo still being played... to this very day!  Also lets remember look at what happened to every single add-on to consoles (Sega CD, 32X, etc).  My point is no one is going to buy a console just for HD when most of them most likely won't be forking out $ for a new TV anytime soon when their current TV does exactly what they want it to do already.  Expecting game consoles will sell HDTV's and it will be a "big market" which have always been seriously behind PC's in resolution and graphical prettyness in every respect is pretty ludicrous.  All TV's released still will support SDTV as well as HDTV.  This is not the PC world where video cards are released every 8 months and you can get people to upgrade their hardware for the release of games, a $1000 TV you dont need and where digital TV isn't available everywhere yet isn't going to be penetrating the market very fast in North america.  North america has historically been a slow adopter.   Video games are more mass market and scrape among the most price conscious game consumers among us:  Parents and teens.

How many people wait until games go to 29.99 players choice? or buy used? Or wait a year or two before picking up a console because of lack of games?  Many of us do.

I think the only reason Nintendo should have HD support is just to be even with everyone else.  The biggest problem I worry about for Nintendo is botching the adoption of superior storage media, I dont want 20Gigs worth of full motion video in Japanese RPG's on a PS3 Blu-ray gamedisc not being able to fit on a standard DVD or DVD9 of a revolution, they better not screw up the storage again or sony is going to spank them silly.  Thats the sole reason no one developed RPG's for the N64 the lack of space was just killer, that was also the same reason for the cube, you'd never see 9 Gig games like champions of norrath or all the japanese RPG's that were using DVD9's on the gamecube, too much expense and work to chop up the game and re-engineer it for yet another platform for multi-disc release with questionable sales potential.    

[Draygaia]

In the end if you choose to not buy a Revolution because of the lack of HD its your loss.