Revolution To Play Megadrive/tg-16 Games

[Fishbong]

Correct me if i´m wrong, but Microsoft already does a very similar thing with Xbox live Arcade... sure, all those Games are remakes, but it shows that Nintendo´s competition already knows about the possibilities of retro gaming.

 

[Angel]

but they're not retro games, they're not old NES games, they're not going to remind people of what it was like to play an original NES title, and now Sega and NEC are joining the REV line up of old games.

What would that leave for XBOX live? Atari. ooooh boy, lets go guys, lets see some of that high quality Jaguar gaming or Atari 7800 gaming.

 

[Jarska333]

It's already been said that the Rev is only a few times more powerful than the Cube. So what do you do when you have lackluster games on a next Gen console?

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Mind you, power does not equal good games.

 

[Angel]

yes but power=pretty and people like pretty.

 

[Alpha2]

It's not so much a power vs pretty factor as it is Nintendo knowing they just dont have the support to do what Sony does. The PS3 is supposed to be massively powerful and while that may make certain types of games easier to make, at this point almost all the systems currently running could make some stab at a similar type of game. Maybe you fight 50 instead of 150 ninja simultaneously or your car only explodes into 1000 peices instead of 14,000,000 peices but the same games technically could be made. But the developers go with the system they feel will produce the most sales that will likely be the PS3, but it's because they feel that's where the gamers are going for their fix so they want to be there to feed it.

What Nintendo is doing is what the music industry is trying to do. They know people are getting this stuff online for free so they figure "why not offer it to them for a small price and make it easier for them to get!" Instead of people searching the dank, dirty back alleys of the internet for teh 1ll3g4l w4r3z!!!1!!!1, they can go to a nice shiney gleeming ipod-like building made of light and puppies. it's kinda obvious which the average consumer would rather do.

Don't laugh, if Nintendo thinks there's a market for it they might actually TRY to offer Jaguar games.

It's a very simple equation for Nintendo, the games will be cheap to licence and in return will make millions of dollars a year. In one move they stand to have a catalog deeper than the PS3's three generations of playable content, one that goes back almost to the dawn of modern video gaming. There are two hiccups in this plan; one is that many people want NEW stuff not the old or atleast their preferance will be for stuff that pushes the envelope rather than little 4 color sprites with 8 frames of animation that 'jump over holes'. Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty but it wont be the majority. The other is that many of these Third parties regularly release classic collections of their old stuff for other systems to maximize their investment and this will cause them to either have to come up with incentives to get non Revo owners to buy their new batch of collections (which could conceivably cut intot he retro/revo market) or limit the content they sell to nintendo some how because they;re going to want as much money as they can and if they see more cash potential in multiple systems rather than just one that's where they'll want to go.

Even if things go the right way though, the Revo won't beat the PS3 but with a strategy like this it dosent have to for nintendo to make enough cash to fill a giant money bin so big that they could swim in it like Scrooge McDuck.

 

[skysnapper]

It's already been said that the Rev is only a few times more powerful than the Cube. So what do you do when you have lackluster games on a next Gen console?

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Rubbish. I like eye candy like the next man i went oput and upgrdaed my pc spent around 500 quid on a new processor and graphics card so i ould play the best looking pc games such as fear and half life 2. I stupidly bought a ds at the same time, i only used to play hand helds out the house. I got hallf way through half life 2 and haven't touched my pc for gaming since as i now sit down squinting at a games little screen with crappy graphics from 10 years ago.

playability owns graphics.

Isn't the DS now outselling the psp by quite a margin now and the ds's graphics are not in same the league as the psps.

 

[iignotus]

Note that the DS is not much of a machine, raw-power-wise, and yet it produces graphics on two screens that easily surpass those of the N64, along with crystal-clear sound and wireless gameplay. Nintendo has proven many times that it does not need to produce a powerhouse of a machine to keep up with gamers' desire for eyecandy; they choose the bare minimum required, tweak it, and offer graphics that are equal to current-generation systems while keeping the cost of the product down.

 

[darkman]

Nintendo is an experienced video game company. They know how to make money and at the same time give the gamer what they want. And that's great gameplay. Even though they are not number one, from the news articles that I have read, they are making a whole lot more money than the other two guys. B)

 

[Alpha2]

I wouldnt say they "easily surpass the n64" maybe they "occasionally challange" or are "fairly comparable to". It does great in some areas but seems to have a lower poly-output as well as an (understanably) lower resolution.

People love eyecandy, sometimes it can even make a bad game barable. Much like comic books a great looking comic could have a really shit story but people still buy it for the art. An ugly comic might have an awesome story but people only read it if they are attracted to it enough first to want to buy it.


That said, a game can still look great on a weak machine. The cube was already quite powerful, I would hazard a guess that a system only "a few times more powerful" wont exactly be ugly. I just wish they'd show a damn game already so that people know there actually WILL be games for it other than the downloadable stuff. I mean even Sony's third parties are showing early screen shots that arnt "rendered estimations" now.

 

[thingley]

yes but power=pretty and people like pretty.

I don't disagree with you there Angel, but:

power=expensive too !

It looks (in the UK at least) like the games for Xbox360 and PS3 are going to be more expensive than PS2 and Xbox games.

That is perfectly reasonable - better graphics and bigger games need more artists to work on them after all.

But the revolution will not be such a giant graphical leap - if nintendo can price it's games cheaper than other next gen titles then I will buy a revolution even if the graphics are not as good.

 

[shinneri]

Remember that, unlike the X360 and PS3, the Rev will not be HD compatible. GameCube games already look excellent on a standard TV, and a "few times more powerful" (though Nintendo actually backed away from that comment some time ago) will probably go pretty close to maxing out graphical quality on a standard TV.

 

[PSyMastR]

I wouldnt say they "easily surpass the n64" maybe they "occasionally challange" or are "fairly comparable to". It does great in some areas but seems to have a lower poly-output as well as an (understanably) lower resolution.

People love eyecandy, sometimes it can even make a bad game barable. Much like comic books a great looking comic could have a really shit story but people still buy it for the art. An ugly comic might have an awesome story but people only read it if they are attracted to it enough first to want to buy it.


That said, a game can still look great on a weak machine. The cube was already quite powerful, I would hazard a guess that a system only "a few times more powerful" wont exactly be ugly. I just wish they'd show a damn game already so that people know there actually WILL be games for it other than the downloadable stuff. I mean even Sony's third parties are showing early screen shots that arnt "rendered estimations" now.

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Have you played Metroid Prime: Hunters? Forget the online videos, look at the game on the DS's screen. Its amazing compared to the N64. Plus, the revolution wont need the power of the other two as its not pushing super hi-res images per second, its just gotta make 640x480 images. That means the same graphics on a 360 would require much more power the the revolution would require. Plus, most people dont even own a HD Tv, so they will never see the 360's powerhouse graphics. Im not saying the revolution's graphics are going to be supurb, but on an average TV, it can produce the same graphics and textures with much less hardware.

 

[Alpha2]

I think you might be missing something there. Just because the 360 is supposedly capable of HD video dosent mean it's working twice as hard as the GC or the Revo to produce video on a regular screen. Especially against the PS3 which Sony has said they arnt pushing HD the way MS is. The Revo will output a standard resolution naturally just like the other systems. The only time they'll need to work harder than the revo to produce better grpahics is if people were using HD sets which as you stated wont be in as great a level of use as MS would hope (or more specifically if the games are designed to output a HD quality picture all the time which they won't). The games are going to look damn impressive even on regular TVs.



The push to HD is less driven by video games than it is the Motion picture industry. As long as there's a gap between real time CG and live action you can always create a better image on standard definition. I'm talking about texture quality, animation, subtleties like grass and hair blowning, fabric wrinkling and dust and smoke particle effects. All of these are things that have nothing to do with hi-def and these things are what Nintendo seems to think they wont be able to compete with.

That isnt to say I don't think the Revo will be capable of better detail than the GC. How much better, Who knows? Nintendo sure isnt helping any with speculation by not showing a single picture but it stands to reason they're trying to lower expectations by down playing graphics so that when the Revo comes out and looks better than the GC even by a little bit people will still feel impressed even in the light of the PS3 and 360.

And yeah I have seen Hunters and it's good for a handheld but there are still things about the visuals that seem a little rough around the edges. But I'm comparing DS games to other games on the N64 rather than a game that has no direct analog like Hunters.

 

[Alex.]

Whoa wait, the standard image produced by a console is 640x480? :huh:

- Alex

 

[darkman]

Current analog television contains about 480 active scanning lines resulting in a picture resolution of about 330 lines of resolution. By comparison today's VHS VCR's have about 240 lines of resolution which is why VHS recordings don't look as sharp as the original picture. DVD's offer higher resolution typically on the order of 400-480 lines of resolution. (Note the number of scanning lines does not equal resolution. For example, both the VHS and DVD formats have 480 active scanning lines but have different resolutions.) HDTV offers resolution that is at least twice that of analog television. You can expect razor sharp images from HDTV.
No matter how good the game systems resolution, there is just so much you can do with a regular TV.

 

[Alpha2]

True for technology, but in terms of presentation there's still plenty of room where video games are concerned.