IGN has details on Nintendo’s next-gen console: “Revolution will be ‘two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube,’ according to Nintendo, which also acknowledges that the next-generation race isn’t solely about new technologies. By contrast, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console is 13-15 times more powerful than the first, according to the publisher. And Sony says it’s PlayStation 3 is roughly 35 times more powerful than PlayStation 2.” Pictures of the system can be found here
So this will get stomped into the ground by microsoft and sony and nintendo will go the way of sega. Too bad, I really like my gamecube.
It seems the “revoltution” won’t happen with the xbox and PS3 competition…
Sony was found to be the most adept at inflating performance specs, closely followed by Microsoft with Nintendo a distant third.
Apple and Sun were left out of this study on artificial performance claims since these companies do not compete in the gaming console industry.
It would be interesting to see what the real performance gains are, but there really isn’t any ways to run standardized tests on these closed platform DRM laden consoles. I guess the only way to test would be to compare titles released for all 3 current gen platforms and compare to simul releases on the new 3 platforms.
Seems that the pic link is dead.
Anyhow, I am interested in what Nintendo has to offer.
I’m sure Sony is lying about he specs as they always do,Microsoft will deliver, even though there software (Winblows)division is full of crap, the game division seems stable and for the gamer. And now Nintendo…
…who has cleaned up there act over the years, and proven (to me) that they know how to take gaming in new directions.
In the end I think it’ll be worth picking up these two systems…
…but who’s going to have a VR Helmet, that’s what I really want.
it sure is the nicest looking next gen. the 360 is a standard atx midtower and the ps3 looks like a DVR, revolution is pretty.
so, as long as that market is maintained (and parents do not let their 8 year olds play things like GTA) then Nintendo will be fine.
Better yet, who’s going to ahve a VR helmet that doesn’t give you a headache. Headaches were the problem with VR years ago. IIRC Descent 2 had support for such a device, and they existed, but were very headache-inducing.
Revolution could very interesting because of other things. As yet unnamed things. Or it might just suck.
Sony and MS always over-inflate their performance specs while Nintendo is usually very conservative when they give out specs.
XBox 360 15x more powerful than the original XBox?
PS3 35x more powerful than PS2?
I say shenanigans. MS and Sony will be lucky if they get 5x the performance of their current consoles.
IMHO the games will decide it.
Then, of course, you have Mommy & Daddy who want to get their child a gift for christmas and may pick the xbox360 due to it having the other media features figuring they’d have only one box in the bedroom to do all that rather than 3 or 4. This is most likely why Microsoft went this route, along with the fact they want to own the media market too.
Damien
I have seen the Gamecube, and for me, its performance is already sufficient. 3 ties more than that is more than what is necessary.
At these levels of performance, honestly, it’s the games that determine the winner. And Nintendo cannot lose, because, they don’t even compete! What I mean is, the games for the Nintendo consoles are cathering to a specific segment to the market. Namely, the younger kids and (surprisingly?) the more pature people, perhaps parents of abovementioned kids. It’s a segment that will always buy Nintendo. And in this game, at least, winner doesn’t take it all.
Nintendo sells each GC for a profit, and the games bring in additional money. They do not need to be number 1 to be profitable.
Nice, but they look like renders to me
I wonder if there is a way to make a render farm with these machines to boost playing performance once these specs get old in a year or so. That’s if even IBM and Sony can deliver on the chips.
I was hoping for some concrete specs and a knock out of the park at this year’s E3. Nintendo has been so quiet and secretive lately as if they’re happy just to be around and profitable in this day and age. But right now everybody is talking about the Sony Playstation 3 and how it compares to the X-Box 360.
How long are they going to blueball us over this “revolutionary” new input system? Just what the hell makes this system so different? It looks like a PS2. They didn’t actually reveal the system at all, just what it looks like.
An old-school Nintendo gamer who wishes Nintendo was #1 again.
Sony and MS are lying about those performance gains. A 2.4Ghz processor is in Ghz twice as fast as a 1.2 Ghz, but will it run everything twice as fast? Of course not.
The difference between Nintendo, the real console/game maker, and Sony/MS, is that Nintendo has an unbeatable heritage of classic names and a very die-hard fanbase. The PS and Xbox are what parents buy for their 15yr old kids, because those kids missed the golden age of console gaming (SNES/MegaDrive) and are impressed by graphics, but never really have enjoyed the sublime gameplay of Nintendo/Sega games. Sony and MS can crank out all sorts of crazy specs and flashy graphics– but they are only to cover up the lack of originality and good gameplay. Nintendo has this gameplay, and it has had it for more than two decades. As long as they have it, MS and Sony will never be able to put Nintendo out of business.
i don’t think with: resident evil 4, metroid, geist, zelda, final fantasy, soul calibur… are oriented for kid….
another myth… from wannabe
One sad thing is that Microsoft’s utter dominance has pretty much killed innovation in the PC harware market.
Console manufacturers must be far more innovative to survive. They aren’t held back much by backwards compatibility and there’s actually still competition in this market!
I more strongly suspect that innovations in the console world will end up influencing the computing world.
I hope the WiFi will be used for wireless controllers too
Looks better than the XBox 360 and PS3.
This is so funny. People just like to cheer for the underdog. So many posts on here bashing Microsoft and Sony for “inflating”, and in other words, lying about the performance of their systems. Of course no evidence of this is given by anyone on this post so far. All I see is the weak claim that Microsoft and Sony are lying and Nintendo is telling the truth. I bet if Microsoft and Nintendo were the ones on top and about to release the most powerful system, everybody here would be calling Nintendo a group of liars and Sony the honest underdogs.
Nevermind that Sony’s press conference actually showed off the power of their new console in real time. Photorealistic graphics and perfect physics were actually demostrated. If you don’t believe me, a two hour stream of the press conference is available for free at Gamespot and you can see for yourself. Sony has backed up their claims of an incredibly powerful gaming platform, and so has Microsoft. Niether of them have “inflated” their own specs. They have concentrated on certain specs that sound impressive, but may or may not be relevant. But this is far from inflating the real specs.
I haven’t seen anything demostrated from Nintendo. Have you?
It doesn’t matter. I bet everyone bashing Microsoft and Sony right now are actually going to be playing Xbox and Playstation next year and won’t even own a Revolution console. This will be backed up with worldwide sales in a year or so from now.
I bet it will still have better games too… I’ve always loved Nintendo’s games.
Microsoft and Sony have a history of doing this. All the game “trailers” they release are rendered and not real game play. Even if they were telling the truth, they offer nothing new to video games, better graphics and sound does not mean better games….Just wait for the Revolution to be revealed.
I know I will own a Revolution, mainly because I already have my media station and Nintendo seems to be the only ones making their console purely a game console, and I wouldn’t doubt that it’ll be cheaper.
But that is another fight. The speed issue is simple. True it may be “35x” faster but what will that give you? Are you using these boxes in a cluster for crunching numbers, compiling gentoo or rendering a movie? They may not lie about specs (though they seem to stretch) but will the games really need or use these specs? I’d love to see what they could do if gta was 35 times better
I just don’t think it’ll be that big of a difference. I could see all three of these systems have almost unnoticeable performance differences. I don’t care about demos we have to wait for the actual games.
And whoever has free online play is the winner in my opinion
I plan on getting the revolution for the same reason I own a gamecube,and not an X-Box or PS2. I love nintendo games.. Particularly Zelda. I don’t play many games(I’m 19 and I’m busy with college, work, etc). I keep my GameCube around just in case I want to play a game and I’m waiting for the new Zelda to be released. Also, if I remember correctly, the GameCube was cheaper than the X-Box and PS2 when it was released and price is a big factor for someone like me who doesn’t play many games.
Aside from the specs and other crap, when it comes to looks, the Nintendo system finally looks grown up. I refused to buy a fusia Gameboy with yellow, red, and green buttons…it just felt childish. Nintendo finally got the point when it comes to designing their next console. Now I wonder if these machines will look like this at production time.
I’ve been playing video games long before Nintendo even existed. I was there for Atari, Intellivision, Amiga, Nintendo, Tourbo Gfx 16, Sega Master System, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Sega CD, you name it. But that doesn’t mean I want to buy a new console so I can play more Super Mario and Slaughterhouse.
You seem to be making the claim that old classic games are better because they are old and classic. Because they are somehow more authentic than new games. This is just silly. To me, that sounds like you are saying we should all drive Model T Fords because they are real cars and all this new crap is just a bunch of marketing fluff.
Games have evolved and improved in every way imaginable. Story lines have become more in-depth. Visual graphics and sound has become more immersive, bringing the games to life. We can connect to each other and play with others on the other side of the planet. We can even simulate real world experiences in games now with near perfect accuracy.
We might all have fond memories of Pong and Duck Hunt. I know I do. But just because I have good memories of those games doesn’t mean games haven’t improved since then.
Whoever says all modern games are only about graphics clearly isn’t paying attention. Have you heard the incredible soundtracks composed for the latest games like Final Fantasy and Halo? Have you not noticed how detailed the characters are with life-like personalities, emotions, and reactions to their environments? Have you not noticed how artistic current games are now that graphic artists have the ability to do anything they want? How about the deeply involved story lines of games like Halo 2 and Silent Hill? The pure arcade fun factor of games like Burnout 3? If you think these games are only about graphics then I don’t know who you are trying to fool, but you certainly aren’t fooling me or the millions of others who buy these games and enjoy them.
I just want to know when will we hear something more concrete about this ‘revolution’. I know the specs aren’t all, but it is riddiculous what nintendo is doing (just the other day, big announcement: revolution would have a size of about 3 dvd boxes stacked. Is this news? OMG).
According to:
http://cube.ign.com/articles/613/613340p1.html
The Revolution will use regular DVD medium, potentially play DVD movies, and have wireless controllers. The news isn’t that big but it’s a little more information. If nintendo would allow it to play homebrew games on standard DVD’s then it would rock.
i don’t think with: resident evil 4, metroid, geist, zelda, final fantasy, soul calibur… are oriented for kid….
another myth… from wannabez
I for one don’t know anyone around my age (30) who has a Nintendo console..only PS2 and XBox.
Nintento’s marketing _is_ directed to a younger audience, although they are apparently trying to shift it now.
Too late, I think. Playstation and XBox got a very solid mindshare among those who buy most games nowadays (late 20s – early 30s)
I’ll probably me modded down for the OT, but is it really _that hard_ to implement a true forum (such as Ars Technica’s) here at OSNews? It’s really hard to follow threads here.
Apple and Sun were left out of this study on artificial performance claims since these companies do not compete in the gaming console industry.
I’m sure if they did, Apple would easily take first place. Especially if there were points awarded for ability to create marketing hyperbole that fans will parrot without irony (“OMG MY PIPPEN IS A SUPARCOMPUTAR!!!11one”)
“Microsoft and Sony have a history of doing this. All the game ‘trailers’ they release are rendered and not real game play.”
Again, no evidence of this is given. You just make claims. If you actually go watch the press release by Sony, they actually show that no, these are NOT rendered, but are real time. They do this by stoping the animation at any frame, and moving through the 3D scene with a camera controlled by the controller. Then they go on to actually play the demos with a control pad. But of course you didn’t know this, because you didn’t bother to check. You would rather make unjustified claims. Again, I would direct you to the Sony press conference available at Gamespot. I know you won’t go, you wouldn’t want to be wrong would you? And once again, what has Nintendo demonstrated thus far? Nothing. Squat. Zilch. Zero.
You go on to make a claim that sounds like better technology means the games will be worse. How are you coming to this conclusion? Wouldn’t you think that better technology allows game developers the freedom to do more with their games?
I understand you are probably a die hard Nintendo fan. I’m sure Nintendo will improve over their previous release. I have nothing against Nintendo. I just don’t understand why everyone seems to equate better technology with bad games. It doesn’t make sense, and sure doesn’t reflect what we have seen. Give me Halo over Metroid Prime any day. The ability for the world to be more immersive, more interactive with the environment, more connected to other players, and have the storyline integrated and acted out by life-like characters makes the experience so much better. It’s a believable immersive world that needs better technology to achieve more immersiveness. The fact is that with better hardware, Xbox and Playstation platforms will give the developers the ability to do things that Nintendo developers will not be able to do.
I’m not saying Nintendo games are not fun or that Nintendo is not an enjoyable platform. But what I see on these posts is shameful. People are actually condemming Microsoft and Sony for being good. They are actually attacking them for producing a more powerful and more advanced machine. Sony is actually being punished for being too good here, and it’s absurd. Sony and Microsoft have produced a more advanced platform than Nintendo for the second time. Get over it.
I just noticed that one “revolution” is 360 degrees. So did Nintendo come up with the name and MS copy one more thing?
Nintendo would do better in the market if they could match the launch dates of their competitors. Always coming out months later with their consoles is the reason they are not number one right now.
No matter what the specs are on any of these, as a parent, there is no way I’m spending $300-$500 on ANOTHER (my kids have PS2 and XBOX) game box. I’d rather get them another computer for that price.
Besides, PC games are cheaper.
Personaly I did not care for the support that Nintendo gave to the Gamecube when it comes to online play. I purchased the network adapter in the hope of getting online play for the Gamecube. I know of others who did the same as well. We voiced of concerns to Nintendo and our concerns were un-answered. I for one will not be purchasing a new gaming system from nintendo.
Currently have a Xbox, and I am very happy with my service. Now that Sony will also have a service model for online play it will be interesting to see what will happen in online gaming.
Anyway it will be either Xbox360 or PS3. I am leaning towards Xbox360. However I wish there were a open source model console as a option.
“Revolution will be ‘two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube,’ according to Nintendo, which also acknowledges that the next-generation race isn’t solely about new technologies. By contrast, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console is 13-15 times more powerful than the first, according to the publisher. And Sony says it’s PlayStation 3 is roughly 35 times more powerful than PlayStation 2.”
———————————————————
Some things to consider:
1) Thats providing that the base line of all systems were equal, which is not the case. All systems were not equal at the time of their respective releases.
2) It also depends of the SDK that the developers use. Who makes a great SDK.
3) Current market share.
4) The relation ships with develoopers.
The fastest box doesn’t make a market success. The best quality unit doesn’t guarantee a market share. Look at VHS vs. Beta.
Time will tell.
I’ve been a Nintendo gamer since the beginning and i really WANT to want this system, but the fire about it has already fizzled. Oh wait – what fire?
But that being said, the XBOX 360 will only play “top selling XBOX games” – wtf does that mean? OBviously they will emulate games, but the lack of backwards compatibility pretty much makes this a non-option for me.
It comes back to PS3 v. Revolution. Maybe I’ll buy both. I like that Revolution can play my gamecube games. I’d say the winner in the next gen console wars will be DS and PS3. PSP hasn’t made half the splash it is supposed to and Nintendo’s new wireless network w/ games like Mario Kart going online might be the real clincher.
-Kevin
I don’t know why the link isn’t working but if you copy the link location and paste it in the address bar then press enter it should work for you.
IMHO I think the console’s design is ugly, but I care alot more about other things.
Check the cube.ibn.com site.
You will see the online play is a focus for revolution. Firstly the have partnered an IGN subsiduary and created hot spots where you can go and play online wirelessly free. You can also play at home online wirelessly free.
There are also clips of the new games e.g. Zelda which the IGN reviewers basically gave the biggest praise I have ever read. Videos here
http://media.cube.ign.com/media/572/572738/vids_1.html
Also the goal of Revolution seems to be to make it very easy to make games. They claim they want game ideas to trump whoever has the biggest budget wins.
Revolution is also tiny, smaller than the cube. I am sure it will be a lot cheaper. The XBOX and PS3 are going to be much more expensive than the previous incarnations.
Revolution will allow you to download every Nintendo game ever made and play it. That should be something for everyone looking for a little nostalga.
Having said all that I live in South Africa and there is not a whole lot of Nintendo support here. Also the bandwidth situation is terrible so I wont be playing online. I’ll go with the PS3 anyway because I want the most power. But I hope Nintendo does well.
Oh please, its Sony and MS that lack originality? First, they don’t make most of their own games, so you’re contention is that their developers lack originality. Second, after the billionth iteration of Mario, Zelda, and what have you, I think “originality” left the building a long time ago. I own a Gamecube, and there has not been a single game in recent memory that is worth buying. Wind Waker was pretty much the last one. If Nintendo doesn’t pull something amazing out for Revolution, they are going the way of Sega. A hardcore fanbase can only get you so far. Nintendo is a $4 billion a year company — they need *volume* to feed the beast.
i just wanted to say that the gameboy micro is going to be ridiculously successful. possibly yielding ipod-like sales numbers. you heard it here first.
Yes, it nice that they are doing it now for Revolution. However it’s a day late and a dollar short. They should have started it with the Gamecube.
Out of curiosity, how fast does a machine need to be for gaming? I mean, if you aren’t doing HD output, you need less than 500 lines – which is half the data my computer has to crunch. So, already, the graphics need half the power to do the same thing.
The GameCube is shipping with a 450MHz IBM PowerPC. Three times faster, well, let’s say 1.5GHz. So, essentially, about the computing power of a Mac mini, maybe a little more. Add to that a graphics system that is probably a lot better than the Mac mini’s and a design totally optimised for gaming and you have a nice system. Since I already play UT2004 on a 1GHz G4 with 32MB of graphics ram and 256 ram at a much higher resolution, I think the Nintendo Revolution will be fine.
Now, Sony has said that the system is 35 times faster? Well, that would put the PS2 way behind the GameCube. Microsoft’s claim also puts the XBOX quite a bit behind the GameCube. I think this is the case of Nintendo being cautious and Microsoft and Sony deciding they want to get into a who can blow the most hot air firefight. Unless one is to admit that PowerPC processors are at least twice as fast per clock as an Intel processor, you can’t make the argument that the XBOX 360 is even 10 times faster. And, unless you are willing to admit that the PS2 is one third the power of an XBOX, you really can’t make the argument that the PS3 is going to be 35 times faster.
Frankly, both Sony and Microsoft are moving to what is essentially a PowerPC processor and they are both running at 3.2GHz. Nintendo already runs on a PowerPC unit and will probably continue to. As such, I can’t see that there will be a big performance gap between the Sony and the Microsoft console. They might beat the Nintendo console, but how much of it will be needed? I mean, I don’t see either console breaking far ahead of current computer graphics and you aren’t going to need the best computer hardware to create today’s graphics for a 640×480 output.
But people like flash, numbers, inflated values, and things that sound good to the neighbors yet never really deliver. Maybe Nintendo is just being smarter. I mean, if they can deliver a console at $100 that delivers the same quality output (which is really limited by televisions and what designers are willing to wireframe) against consoles costing three times as much, that says something.
All three companies have recognized how female gamers are somewhat of an untapped market. All three have mentioned the desire to draw in that market.
Most of the female gamers I know are not attracted to complex games that take a considerable investement of time to play (although there are exceptions). They tend to prefer simpler games that you can start playing out of the box without having to read manuals, go through in-game tutorials, etc. They like to sit and play a game for 20-40 minutes and then go do something else. Most female gamers simply do not want to sit in front of the TV for several hours at a time playing games, which is how a lot of the more immersive and advanced games are designed.
I think Nintendo has a reputation of being able to provide those kinds of games. Games that are more arcade like and easier to “just play”. They might have a leg up in that market and be able to do very well for themselves.
The one thing they have working against them though, is exposure. As far as I know, most casual female gamers don’t buy consoles, but end up playing a console in the household owned by a brother, boyfriend, roomate, etc. If all those households have Xbox 360’s and PS3’s, Nintendo will have a tough time convincing casual female gamers to invest the money into buying a console of their own and penetrating that market.
It sure will be interesting.
There’s a lot of similiar news on revolution in todays USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/games/2005-05-17-revolution_x…
and acording to one of my favorite gaming sites Revolution is it’s real name
http://revolution.dcemu.co.uk/
but you probably(and they probably did) could have guessed that from the pics
Out of the three next-gen consoles, Sony and Microsoft seem to be going after the teenage and older “maiming and killing are fun, he he” crowd, while this system with access to older NES games would be great for families. I just don’t see parents feeling comfortable sitting down to a session of Grand Theft Auto with a child even in the same building. Games like Mario Kart are perfect for this.
If Nintendo can continue tapping into family-friendly sentiments, then they’ll do just fine in the market. They don’t have to be #1 in revenue or units shipped to be successful.
the Xbox 360 is using three PowerPC processors at 3.2 ghz. If the existing xbox is one chip at 500 mhz(possible if the game cube is at 450) 15 times isn’t so far out, since Power chips crunch numbers more efficently than x86.
The Playstation 3 is using Cell Processor’s. (2 or 3 I thought) But even at one chip, Each cell is a 3 ghz powerpc core, with 7(8?) secondary processing units, designed to crunch video and image maniuplations. The throughput of a single Cell chip is roughly 8 times that of a standard PowerPC chip. That means if the PS3 is using 3 Cell Chips they are getting 100 times the through put of the xbox.
if the Revolution is using only one powerPC 1.5 ghz chip like what is in my powerbook why bother?
Ars techinca has a detial on what the supposed strengths of Cell chips. It came out 6 months ago.
Not that Nintendo seems to worry about such things anymore, but a new system that has a few scant 1st party releases each year and then a handful of ports that are available on the other 2 consoles and the PC won’t cut it anymore, imho.
well, from wath nintendo say in past months, revolution will have a new way of joypad: will they show this at e3?
I for one think that MS and SONY are in some way guilty of the lack of originality in many titles. For one, they “standardized” on a control pad, which is good for game makers, probably, but not so good for innovation.
Look at the stuff coming out for the NintendoDS: interaction via microphone, via the touch screen, “social” games like nintendogs, the pictochat. It almost sold 3 times the number of PSPs around, even if the PSP has probably a better hardware.
I thought nintendo was dead when the PS came out. I thought it again when the PS2 came out. I was completely sure that the XBOX, with it’s large memory would completely destroy nitendo. I did nt had a doubt that the PSP would have annihilated the gameboy market. But they’re still here.
(And I think accessing old games both via internet and via compatibility with the GameCube disks is a great thing
I’ve been playing video games long before Nintendo even existed. I was there for Atari, Intellivision, Amiga, Nintendo, Tourbo Gfx 16, Sega Master System, Genesis, Super Nintendo, Sega CD, you name it. But that doesn’t mean I want to buy a new console so I can play more Super Mario and Slaughterhouse.
Yes, I was part of the Atari console era in the early-mid 1980’s – added to that, gaming on the Spectrum 48, Commodore 64, Amstrad 464 etc etc and so on……… I missed out on the Sega/Nintendo and the Playstation/Xbox era in effect, however am currently enjoying some PC gaming and will no doubt get a console at some point in the future.
Quite emotional looking back to the early-mid 80’s era
– I still vividly remember the magic of playing Pong sometime around 1979,80,81 ish roughly –
How things have changed since then……. enjoy your Gaming everyone
What will these things cost?
The sweet spot has always been about $299 for the high end consoles…..i dont know about you but if Microsoft and Sony deliver on what they say, i cant see the consoles costing under $399! (heck, even $399 seems low for blue-ray, bluetooth 2.0 controller, 3 gigabit ethernet ports and 2 HDMI ports! and an HardDrive!!!!) I remember microsoft taking a $250 hit for the inital Xbox…and sony taking a similar one for the PS2 to keep the price at $299. Nintendo made a profit at $199 before.
I think nintendo will clean up, their modest specs should put them in the $199 price range easily! they could probably go $150 and still make a profit!
Is there an official standard definition of “Power” anywhere?
The GameCube is shipping with a 450MHz IBM PowerPC. Three times faster, well, let’s say 1.5GHz. So, essentially, about the computing power of a Mac mini, maybe a little more. Add to that a graphics system that is probably a lot better than the Mac mini’s and a design totally optimised for gaming and you have a nice system. Since I already play UT2004 on a 1GHz G4 with 32MB of graphics ram and 256 ram at a much higher resolution, I think the Nintendo Revolution will be fine.
The problem is that you are only using the clock speed of the main CPU in your calculations. The way the chips are designed, what kind of calculations they perform best, memory speed, bus speed between the components, the power of the GPU, how many graphics functions the GPU can perform at the hardware level without having to be programmed in complex high-level code, what kind of calculations the GPU does well (transoform & lighting, pixel shading, etc.), how many operations the GPU can perform in a single clock cycle, etc. These are all things that are just as important as clock speed which cannot be ignored.
When Microsoft and Sony are quoting overall power being 15 & 35 times the previous consoles (respectively), they are using a measurement on how fast the system actually performs when computing floating point operations. They measure this in Teraflops. This is the same benchmark we use to compare the respecitve, general performance of supercomputers. It’s not perfect, but its the best benchmark we have so far.
Measuring the speed of floating point operations does not mean that every game on the PS3 is going to run twice as fast as every game on the Xbox360. There is no way, I repeat, no way to precisely measure the power of each system . All we can do is come up with general estimates.
The teraflop measurements are used because games require a lot of floating point operations to be calculated by the system. Floating point math operations are something that ALL games need to do a lot of. So that is the reasoning of why floating point calculations are being used by Microsoft and Sony to guage a general, overall estimate of performance.
Remember that not only the amount of power needed but also the types of capabilities needed by these platforms are determined by the individual games that run on them. A game that does not use a lot of fancy graphical effects will not need to take advantage of those capabilities, and will probably run well on all three platforms. One game might use a lot of per-pixel shading effects to look fancy, and another game might use less shader effects, but focus on making more detailed models with higher polygon counts. One platform might be better than the other platform at one of these operations. But you can be very confident that these specs are enough evidence to show that some of these platforms will be capable of doing more than the others if the game developers decide to take advantage of those capabilities (and I guaruntee they will).
Does that help?
@Thom Holwerda
“Second, after the billionth iteration of Mario, Zelda, and what have you, I think “originality” left the building a long time ago.”
hum it’s the same thing for sony, gta, ff, gt…..
“I own a Gamecube, and there has not been a single game in recent memory that is worth buying.
try resident evil 4, baten keos, tales of symphonia
I think nintendo will clean up, their modest specs should put them in the $199 price range easily! they could probably go $150 and still make a profit!
I agree that Nintendo will be a lot cheaper but $150 at a profit seems a little too low. I mean it comes with 512megs of flash based memory.
Today seems to be the console day…
Let me rant some more then this time about the supposed new controller of Revolution:
What’s the problem with the actual controllers? Don’t they do the work, press the button, play the game. I don’t know about you but I will never ever use the VR helmets, direct brain connections (X-D) or bionic controllers, that crap plain scares me, call me retarded, ignorant or old fashion but those things are out of question, the ultimate opt-out.
It’s pretty much like spoons , we are not using VR spoons running *NIX and running SETI@Home…
With all this talk about games costing 10-15mil for a top shelf title. I see a definite market for lower cost games. I think that it would be much easier for lower cost developers to stay in business.
I also think that over the last 10 years, there has been a real shift from focusing on fun and gameplay to focusing on the graphics. It’s like trying to disguise a bad script w/ to many special effects.
I’ve always found Nintendo games to have a much higher ‘fun’ factor. I don’t care if the graphics are such that things look realistic or not. Tecmo Bowl and Baseball Stars from the old days were just a whole lot of fun to play, even if the graphics were not outstanding. I don’t want to have to try to contort my hands fifty million ways to play a game with all these buttons. It’s to much work. Nintendo always did a good job of not making it be work to play their games.
– Kelson
Let’s say you have a Sony/XBox/GameCube. You’re playing it on a normal TV and it plays well – you’re satisfied with the look and feel of the games it has. Now look at the marketplace.
NextGen consoles HAVE to support HDTV. HDTV is here to stay as the FCC is now in the process of phasing out NTSC. Before the NEXT generation of consoles appear, the US will be TOTALLY HDTV. The FCC mandates that NTSC be off the air completely before the next generation of consoles will be out (assuming the standard 5 year life cycle for consoles).
So, now we can do the math. HDTV is more than four times the resolution of NTSC. Given a larger display, games will have to quadruple the number of polygons just to look the same as they do now. 4 x 4 = 16. Upcoming consoles should be 16 times as powerful as current consoles JUST TO LOOK THE SAME. Given that HDTV is also usually twice the frame rate as NTSC, consoles really need to be at least 32 times more powerful.
As you can see, Sony is shooting for a realistic upgrade for HDTV. Microsoft had a more powerful console, so they didn’t need quite the same boost as Sony. However, Nintendo will be SERIOUSLY underpowered on HDTV. You will see a clear dominance of Sony and MS over Nintendo among HDTV owners. Anyone with an HDTV or planning to get one in the next 5 years should look at PS3 or XBOX 360.
I have owned just about every Nintendo system. But…
Lets face it, alot of us here are older and atleast remember the days of 2d side scrollers that were entertaining and on consoles. Now adays the kids just want the latest 3d games, some which are pleanty excellent and innovative like the Grand Theft Auto 3 and above along with Final Fantasy 7. This definately will not win the playground war, where kids will quote that there system is literally 10 times as fast as others, which will probably be true.
Nintendo may think it can carve out a market-share of little kids, but they only want what the older kids have. Game cube did not even have that many good games, though it had a couple excellent ones. Nintendo’s vision of innovative appears to be hand-held video game systems while playing on your regular system. I hope this isn’t a flop like virtual boy.
I’m older than you and only own Nintendo systems (besides my Dreamcast). I, like others have stated, already own a DVD player and Tivo etc, etc, and don’t need all the other crap MS and Sony try to force feed me. I buy Nintendo because of the games (which are great) and because it’s purely for gamers.
When Mario and/or Zelda arrives I will go out and buy a Revolution. It’s as simple as that.
I will probably also buy another console, but I will wait until there’s a game I want to play. I only bought an Xbox when Fable came 🙂
Damn straight! and hells yeah the Dreamcast was kick ass!
The Dreamcast was amazing. PS2 hype had killed it. Everyone was waiting for the PS2 instead of buying a Dreamcast. Funny thing was the hype was only in North America. The PS2 had been selling in Japan for a year prior to North American release and had less interest. The best selling title for the PS2 upon release in Japan was the Matrix DVD since there weren’t any good games in that 1st year and many were buying the PS2 as a DVD player. The hardware [Naomi] for the Dreamcast was used in several coin-op arcade games the most notable one was Soul Calibur. I still prefer the Dreamcast to the XBox and PS2.
The FCC is forcing everyone to go HD so they can sell the lower fequences to the likes of Nokia and T-mobile, etc so they can to true wireless networking (you can network with the lowerbands, think wireless connectivity of appliances, cars, etc and finally true wireless internet)
Most people have Cable or satilite right now, so when the conversion happens only like 20% of the TV owners will be affected. Most of them will just go by a converter box that converts HD to SD or they will move to cable/satilite.
HD is not very relevant. People who have SD TVs will not have to go out and buy HD TVs because of the above reasons. Now any TV sold after 2007 will have to have an HD Tuner in it…but it does not…i repeat..does NOT have to support HD resolutions…it can just as well down-convert everything to 480i costs (i mean who will care about 1080i with a 15 inch TV? or a 20″ TV for that matter……)
People forget that the reason why the PS2 is so successful rides largely on the fact that most people still have SD TVs. If people had HD TVs they would not have dared put a crappy PS2 game onto their HD…they would have bought an Xbox or gamecube and been done with it.
I dont know how many times people have told me that the PS2 and Xbox look the same….i thought they were crazy until i loaded up DOA3 in SD and almost barfed! if you look at that game, arguably one of the best looking games ever, in SD it looks horrible! I played Zone of the Enders 2, and that game looks awesome if you are in SD land…..I wonder if sony (or microsoft) has taken this into account…
I still like my Dreamcast way more than other current consoles. I borrowed a PS2 for playing Devil may cry and Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3. The Xbox is the same as my PC.
BUT:
with the new consoles the PS3 seems to have a lot going for it. German Heise Publisher ( http://www.heise.de ) has a very favorising review of PS3s SPECs and a not so one for the 360.(And those guys really know what they talking about)
So i will maybe stop upgrading my PC and buy a PS3.
As you can see, Sony is shooting for a realistic upgrade for HDTV. Microsoft had a more powerful console, so they didn’t need quite the same boost as Sony. However, Nintendo will be SERIOUSLY underpowered on HDTV. You will see a clear dominance of Sony and MS over Nintendo among HDTV owners. Anyone with an HDTV or planning to get one in the next 5 years should look at PS3 or XBOX 360.
Not true. Nintendo hasn’t released the actual specifications of the Revolution, so you don’t actually know how powerful it is. The safe bet would be to note that it will support 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i without any performance issues.
The other issue that hasn’t been discussed is how efficiently a designer could use a system’s power. IIRC, the Gamecube was the most efficient at 85-90%, XBox was number two at 70-80%, and the PS2 was the worst with 50-60%. If the system is too hard to program for, then the designers will be artificially handicapped.
But, wait until Nintendo releases some real specifications on the power to say its woefully underpowered.
Also, I believe your polygon math is incorrect. If a character uses 20,000 polygons to be displayed, changing the resolution does not change the number of polygons that are displayed. The character was still designed using 20,000 polygons. That is all resolution independant.
xbox360,ps3 and revolution systems are all terrific. but personally i would buy the new revolution because Nintendo really creates the most original videogames. i also love GT4 for the Playstation and the only one that i like for
the xbox is MotoGP2. so, i would choose the revolution this time.
does it run linux also????
-d
Dreamcast– I have one and I agree it was quite good for its time. However, the Dreamcast “failed” only because Sega wimped out. Around in the news at the time, there was speculation that there was not enough market for 4 consoles now that Microsoft was gonna introduce the XBox. But that’s wrong. Sega could have stayed if they wanted. If Sega had the same spirit as Nintendo, they would have stayed put, and competed. I actually hesitated to buy the Dreamcast (way before the XBox was announced) because Sega gave such poor support to Saturn and CD32. Nintendo, on the other hand, has given support to Nintendo 64 and GameCube even though they didn’t put out games as frequently as I would have liked. But, they support the gamer who has bought their consoles.
XBox 360– No, that’s 1 CPU with 3 cores; not 3 CPUs.
They were beaten soundly by Microsoft and Sony. Games for the Gamecube are only for people under the age of 10. How long can they continue to be humiliated by the top two console makers?
I forgot to add, I would like to see Sega re-enter the hardware arena. Maybe 2010?
If the display is four times the size, you need four times the polygons or it will look blocky. Sure, you could keep the same number of polygon and they will scale, but then you can see the polygons. Look at the original Tomb Raider for the PC on a modern PC. Blocky.
As far as the Nintendo power issue – the Nintendo spokesman said it would only be 2 to 3 times as powerful. If Nintendo doesn’t know, nobody does.
And for all of you talking about the Golden Age of gaming…it only seemed like the Golden Age because you were too young to know any better. If you can’t see that todays games are a vast improvement on those of yesteryear, it’s simply because you can’t let go of the past. Get over it. Those games were only cool because they were better than pong.
“I’ve been playing video games long before Nintendo even existed.”
You DO know that Nintendo was started around 1890, and began making videogames around 1975 don’t you? … sorry, just had to
You DO know that Nintendo was started around 1890, and began making videogames around 1975 don’t you? … sorry, just had to
Yeah, they made playing cards if I remember my trivia right. I guess I should have clarified the Nintendo platform, as in NES onward, but oh well. I guess you got me.
I’m really curious to see how Nintendo and Sony are going to compete with Xbox live. While they are definitely going to support online gaming, Microsoft sure has a very nicely polished, integrated, and streamlined system with Xbox Live. Before Xbox, I was primarily a PC gamer, and I must say I really appreciate the streamlined approach to online gaming that Xbox live offered over PC games. Because Xbox Live was so well streamlined, I didn’t mind paying the extra fee. It is very easy to use no matter what game you are playing, and from what Microsoft has released so far, it’s going to get even better. The player matching functionality seems especially intruiging to me. I can’t wait to see how Sony and Nintendo approach this.
“Anyway it will be either Xbox360 or PS3. I am leaning towards Xbox360. However I wish there were a open source model console as a option.”
Actually, not only is the PS3 twice as fast as the Xbox, but it uses open technology like Linux and OpenGL.
When you turn up the resolution on your graphics card, do you find that the performance degrades amazingly? Thought not.
The main reason that the performance is not lost is because graphics are still drawn using triangles and geometry rather than individual pixel-math based on the number of dots on the screen. That will change of course, when developers start coding real-time ray tracers and using constructive solid geometry.
Repeat after me. The PS3 is probably not going to be 2x as powerfull as the Xbox360. The Xbox360 is most definatley not 15x more powerfull than the Xbox, and the PS3 is definately not 35x more powerfull that a PS2. It is marketing hype, pure and simple. How the hell do you equate power? Look at all the factors involved in a console. Does anyone have any idea how fast the cell chips are? Look at the outragous lies sony put forth with the PS2.
When you turn up the resolution on your graphics card, do you find that the performance degrades amazingly? Thought not.
The main reason that the performance is not lost is because graphics are still drawn using triangles and geometry rather than individual pixel-math based on the number of dots on the screen. That will change of course, when developers start coding real-time ray tracers and using constructive solid geometry.
Yes, raising the resolution of the card DOES cause the performance to degrade amazingly. Just look at ANY game benchmark and you’ll see that. DUH!
That is because although the GAME is drawing using triangles and geometry, the graphics chip still draw using individual pixel math based on the number of dots on the screen. You obviously know NOTHING of 3D rendering. The GPU has a rasterizer that converts a triangle into raster lines which are drawn a pixel at a time. A GOOD GPU will draw more than one pixel if it has multiple pixel pipes. Most current GFX cards have four PIXEL PIPES for drawing PIXELS making up the triangles onto the screen.
@Tony: hum it’s the same thing for sony, gta, ff, gt…..
At least Microsoft and Sony have an active 3rd party developer base, which is seriously lacking for the Gamecube. Its the third parties that come out with the innovative new game, and Sony and MS just have way more of those.
@RW: The “outrageous lies” thing regarding the PS2 seems to have become one of those unfounded “common knowledge” myths that are impossible to get rid of. Awhile ago, I dug up all those old PS2 articles, and found that it just plain wasn’t true. What Sony has hyping at the time was that the PS2 was capable of 70M flat-shaded triangles per second. And guess what? It was true! Indeed, current games are getting very close to the theoretical limits of 30-40M textured triangles per second. It took a long time, because the PS2 is hard to program, but it was hardly an “outrageous lie”.
As for the other claims, the “Toy Story in real time” stuff, I could not at any point find any Sony rep ever saying it. In every case it came up, it was an extrapolation made by a jouralist. I have a strong feeling that the “Toy Story” in real time thing came from a legitimate statistic that was warped by the media (as usual). See, in the original Toy Story, the simpler scenes ran 2-3M triangles per frame. Presuming a movie rate of 24fps (which is fine for a movie, but not for a game — that’s the kind of detail the media stupidly omits) the PS2 *could* handle the geometry of Toy Story in real time. It wouldn’t look anything like Toy Story, because it’d be missing all sorts Renderman features, but it wasn’t a bogus statistic. That kind of geometry performance was huge back when the PS2 was released, its just that “it can handle the geometry of Toy Story in real time” has a way of being transformed by the media into “it can render Toy Story in real time!!!!!11111”
Two seconds with a calculator saves you a lot of looking stupid.
PS2 EE = 6.2 gigaflops
PS3 Cell = 218 gigaflops
And guess what? 218 / 6.2 = 35!
If you don’t believe the 6.2 number or the 218 number, go through the units on each processor, add up the fp ops per cycle, and multiply by the clock rate. The math works out.
Achievable clock rate is another matter, but when supercomputer vendors cite performance figures, they don’t factor that into account either…
“Repeat after me. The PS3 is probably not going to be 2x as powerfull as the Xbox360. The Xbox360 is most definatley not 15x more powerfull than the Xbox, and the PS3 is definately not 35x more powerfull that a PS2. It is marketing hype, pure and simple. How the hell do you equate power? Look at all the factors involved in a console. Does anyone have any idea how fast the cell chips are? Look at the outragous lies sony put forth with the PS2.”
FLOPS (FLoating OPererations per Second)are the best measurements for a system’s overall performance. It is what supercomputer power is measured with and it is quite accurate in determining real world performance. (However, systems rarely reach their full potential.)
So repeat after me: The Xbox 360 WILL be TWICE as WEAK as the PS3.
Yes I know that FLOPS are a fairly accurate measure of performance. This is a press release. Sony has always made up, and lied about their systems on press releases. I cannot speak for the Xbox press release because I did not follow it. The numbers seems too good to be true for it to stay within a decent price range. Hell, do you know what the cell and the nvidia gpu are even capable of? I’m not going to declare any of them the power champ untill all three are released, although I suspect the Xbox and the PS3 will be roughly equivalent, with the Revolution lagging, maybe just slightly. THIS IS ALL STILL SPECULATION.
>Games for the Gamecube are only for people under the age of 10.
Do you own any stock in Microsoft/Sony? If not, you should really try to look at the games before you say something like that. If you sold Resident Evil 4 to a ten year old, you would probably be put in prison 🙂
Besides, I’m almost 30 and am still addicted to Mario / Zelda.
Even if the Cell processor is twice the speed of the XBox360 processor, the Xbox360 may have a better graphics card. ATI has beaten nVidia before, and may do it again, but I will not speculate before I see the real hardware.
Please wait until both consoles are ready before making assumptions.
I wonder if developers will actually be able to take advantage of the Cell architecture from the beginning. I mean, it always sounded a great tech to me, but it’s such a new thing…
It would seem that Sony has made quite good programming libraries for it and it seems to have an opengl implementation, so I would *guess* it will have at least decent quality from the start. Also, considering the quality of the UT demo, it honestly seems that the development isn’t as hard for ps3 as it apparently has been for ps2 for most of the ps2:s time.
Yeah, I also bought a Dreamcast, it has probably the only decent 3D games ever, Shenmue 1/2 (best games ever), Jet Set Radio, Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure 1, Blue Stinger (it’s one of these games you like even for no good reason if everyone else says with that is poo), and maybe more that I forgot…
Unfortunly that time isn’t coming back either, and Sega of nowdays is just a me too player with a bunch of lame titles :'(
* Timerever plays “I can’t say goodbye to yesterday”, from Metal Gear Solid 2 (greatest MGS BTW) ending…
“Even if the Cell processor is twice the speed of the XBox360 processor, the Xbox360 may have a better graphics card. ATI has beaten nVidia before, and may do it again, but I will not speculate before I see the real hardware.”
Check out the specs on the graphics card, the one in the PS 3 has faster communication with the CPU, is clocked higher and overall seems significantly better.
Geez, does anybody go out and buy a new video game console, that has no games out for it? That is in essence, what sony and microsoft are trying to do right now. They want you to mentally commit to their system, without any games for it. Sure, you have seen some of the titles that are going to be available, but, that isn’t what the PR war is about right now. It’s all about hardware, because both companies know that people just want the biggest and baddest system out there. Did you buy the Atari Jaguar when it came out? It was the biggest and baddest of it’s time. What about the Neo-Geo? The xbox 360 and ps3 are going top cost as much, if not more than a neo-geo.
i read the ign article, and the free online service, downloading old game, and backwars compatabilty are all plusses for the new nintendo system. Not to mention the price is going to be substantially lower than the ps3 and xbox 360.
What surprises me is that you guys didn’t pick up on why the new nintendo system will be a success. They said that they are going to make it the easiest system to program for (and I don’t see how anything can be easier than the gba, which is so developer friendly). By making the system is to program for, and cut down the cost of developing a game, more developers will be on board, and will be able to make games quicker. If nintendo delivers on this feature, then the new system will easily have more games than the other two.
It takes years to make a good game these days (can take as little as a year for a sequel), and millions of dollars. If nintendo shortens the the development time, and saves a company a million or two, then nintendo will win the next gen war. Hardware will not matter. Games will win out (ie, the ps one had horrible hardware compared to it’s competitors over time, but it still won out because of its game library).
How can the ps3 be 35 times faster at 3.2 ghz? Are you really telling me that the ps2 was less than .8 mhz?
disregard that upper post….i forgot to factor in the gpu. But, it still wont be 35x as fast. MS and Sony are both pulling a major PR stunt on you. At least nintendo is being more honest by saying 3-5 times.
And 465 dollars is pretty steep, and that’s the price ign.com has heard for the ps3 so far.
“i don’t think with: resident evil 4, metroid, geist, zelda, final fantasy, soul calibur… are oriented for kid….
another myth…”
It’s not a myth. For every mature game on the GC there’s 10 times as many on the PS2 and XBox. When you go to your game store and cruise around the GC area it’s like: for kids, for kids, for kids, for kids, oh this one is geared for adults!
(the opposite happens when you go to the PS2 & XBox section)
It’s like saying Commedy Central is a serious news channel just because it gives some form of informative material once every blue moon.
“i don’t think with: resident evil 4, metroid, geist, zelda, final fantasy, soul calibur… are oriented for kid….
another myth…”
lol, final fantasy crystal cronicles is a kids game, square made it for kids…