Comments on: Revolution slightly prettier than Gamecube

By: Joseph Valencia

Joseph Valencia — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 16:43:24 +0000

I can’t say I’m too comfortable about this talk over the Revolution being less powerful than the 360 and PS3. Sure some of the early 360 games are bare bones ports of current XBox games, but some time down the line someone is going to tap into the sheer power of the thing. I simply don’t want to see Nintenod caught by the balls when some company releases an XBox game with photorealistic graphics and astonishingly accurate physics.

I understand the philosophy that pretty graphics aren’t everything, but Nintendo shouldn’t forget that a powered up CPU can benefit gameplay as well.

By: Finster

Finster — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:02:07 +0000

You raise some good points, but I think it’s important to remember that even if they used the exact same ATI chipset that was in the Gamecube, they would still need to hire ATI for chip fabrication, as well as adapting the chipset to a completely new motherboard, with different processors, RAM, etc. etc.

Also, a savings of 10% could mean the difference between a profitable console and an unprofitable one. The profit margin on electronics is typically very slim, anyway, in the region of a few percentage points, so 10% is HUGE.

By: Factory

Factory — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 09:49:33 +0000

Hmm I kinda doubt that the graphics would be “just a bit better” than the gamecube. Why?
Because:
– economically if all the other parts of the console cost $100 halving the price of a component that prolly costs $20 doesn’t give you much bang for your buck, particularly if one cosiders that the difference between GC level graphics and the current generation’s is going to be alot more than the ~10% saving you will be getting on the BOM.
– WTF would Nintendo hire [1] ATI to produce a graphics part that was just barely better than the one they already have in the GC? One could just process shrink the existing one and ramp up the clock speed, which could easily be done in house.
OTOH Nintendo have been doing quite well with the underpowered GBA and DS, so it’s not like they are totally against selling underpowered consoles.
OTOH they have a near monopoly in the handheld area and thus can prolly afford to sell underpowered hardware.

[1]
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2003/4611.html