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[orioto]

As for whether this is a "generational leap" I think the point is academic. What matters is that it is now quite safe to say the Cafe will be closer to the Xbox 3 than tthe Xbox 360 and that's what matters.

People are forgetting the gimmick it seems...
The gimmick will make the on screen result 360 like or less. if we get 360/ps3 graphics with better resolution and framerate, it will be a LOT i think.

And that's not a tech problem. It's Nintendo's philosophy. They prefer to impress with the gimmick and spend less on awesome game content, simply.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Do you know how much the boards used in consoles cost? I'm guessing that they're pretty cheap...

I recall the board used in the PS3 (at launch) was the most expensive component.

This is not a normal example, however.

 

[Esiquio]

Mmmmmmm.

I wanna See Galaxy HD and Prime HD. Oh Zelda HD. Trauma team HD. Uhhhh..

So many many more HD.

Smash Bros HD.

OH!!!!

Donkey Kong Country Returns 2 HD!

 

[AceBandage]

People are forgetting the gimmick it seems...
The gimmick will make the on screen result 360 like or less. if we get 360/ps3 graphics with better resolution and framerate, it will be a LOT i think.

And that's not a tech problem. It's Nintendo's philosophy. They prefer to impress with the gimmick and spend less on awesome game content, simply.

Streaming a little video to a low resolution screen really wouldn't take up that much of the system's resources...

 

[DragonKnight]

If the specs are accurate you could basically play something like the Witcher 2 maxed out in 1080P likely on Cafe.

Considering this is a Nintendo console we are talking about that is pretty fantastic.

Again, I feel like people are forgetting that the Wii console was the only console Nintendo released that was drastically behind its competitors in terms of tech. The only one.

 

[Lonely1]

People are forgetting the gimmick it seems...
The gimmick will make the on screen result 360 like or less. if we get 360/ps3 graphics with better resolution and framerate, it will be a LOT i think.

And that's not a tech problem. It's Nintendo's philosophy. They prefer to impress with the gimmick and spend less on awesome game content, simply.

I'm assuming that Wii2/Ps4/720 multipat tittles won't use the streaming, at least at the same time for the 4 controllers.

 

[Bisnic]

Again, I feel like people are forgetting that the Wii console was the only console Nintendo released that was drastically behind its competitors in terms of tech. The only one.

Well the DS wasn't something very powerful when you compared it to the PSP.

But sure, if we're talking only about home consoles, that's another story.

 

[Luckyman]

Again, not really comparable.
They use much slower RAM and a lot of it goes towards the OS and multitasking, which consoles won't be doing.

Ask from Sony. Hopefully Nintendo OS is more efficient

 

[Mr_Brit]

Again, I feel like people are forgetting that the Wii console was the only console Nintendo released that was drastically behind its competitors in terms of tech. The only one.

DS,Wii,3DS. Their last three systems have been vastly behind the curve, people are right to be sceptical concerning Nintendo.

 

[Seraphinianus]

finally HD nintendo. this system is gonna rule

 

[EVH]

DS,Wii,3DS. Their last three systems have been vastly behind the curve, people are right to be sceptic concerning Nintendo.

You can't compare the transition from GBA to DS, with the transition from GC to Wii. In the first case was obviously a big step. In the second one...almost nothing.

DS and 3DS are in that curve, the thing is that PSP and NGP are above that level.

 

[orioto]

Streaming a little video to a low resolution screen really wouldn't take up that much of the system's resources...

Let's hope. But knowing them, it may be more than that. Sometimes i wonder if they're not actually trying to slow the graphic progress of their console to control the cost.

Anyway, something that can be sure is that people shouldn't fantasize to much on lots of Nintendo next gen games with awesome graphics. They just don't have the resources for that honestly. Can you imagine how much time they needed to make last Zelda or Mario episodes ? Now can you imagine a Zelda with the type of production value you find in triple A games... That will be a problem for sure.

 

[Vice]

DS,Wii,3DS. Their last three systems have been vastly behind the curve, people are right to be sceptical concerning Nintendo.

The DS and 3DS were pretty massive leaps from their predecessors.

 

[AceBandage]

Let's hope. But knowing them, it may be more than that. Sometimes i wonder if they're not actually trying to slow the graphic progress of their console to control the cost.

Anyway, something that can be sure is that people shouldn't fantasize to much on lots of Nintendo next gen games with awesome graphics. They just don't have the resources for that honestly. Can you imagine how much time they need to make last Zelda or Mario episodes ? Now can you imagine a Zelda with the type of production value you find in triple A games... That will be a problem for sure.

Huh?
Nintendo put out some of the best looking games of this generation, on a much weaker system.
How the hell do they not have the resources for it? Their games are already made using HD assets.

 

[Seraphinianus]

Let's hope. But knowing them, it may be more than that. Sometimes i wonder if they're not actually trying to slow the graphic progress of their console to control the cost.

that was reason #1 for the wii. profitable on day 1

 

[Mr_Brit]

You can't compare the transition from GBA to DS, with the transition from GC to Wii. In the first case was obviously a big step. In the second one...almost nothing.

DS and 3DS are in that curve, the thing is that PSP and NGP are above that level.

I couldn't care less about transitions, all I care about is their power relative to the market and what would be expected from their price points(I'm also not an apologist for any company so take that into consideration, not that I'm calling you an apologist). In that sense the DS,Wii,3DS are vastly behind the curve and it'd be impossible to argue otherwise.

 

[SolarPowered]

I don't know if what I'm about to post is appropriate, but it's based on the stuff I keep reading as this and the other Cafe threads pop up.

It may be a good idea to have a tiny one paragraph write up in the OP regarding console RAM, PC RAM and video cards while the rumor threads continue to pop up. People with no sense for technology keep coming with false expectations because they can't wrap their heads around the differences. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion regarding hardware and software, but I think it's time to step back into reality here(E3 is right around the corner so what the hell am I talking about?). A small segment in the OP could go a long way towards keeping the peace in my opinion.

We may just need a small primer right from the beginning so that this thread can move from being a minefield of misinformed rants and speculation to a real place of informed discussion.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Huh?
Nintendo put out some of the best looking games of this generation, on a much weaker system.
How the hell do they not have the resources for it? Their games are already made using HD assets.

Look how much trouble Nintendo have with the 3DS, their games look noticeably worse than the best from companies like Capcom and Konami. When they're struggling this much with the 3DS, just imagine how much they'll be struggling with Wii 2 which is using modern technology.

 

[Lonely1]

I couldn't care less about transitions, all I care about is their power relative to the market and what would be expected from their price points(I'm also not an apologist for any company so take that into consideration, not that I'm calling you an apologist). In that sense the DS,Wii,3DS are vastly behind the curve and it'd be impossible to argue otherwise.

Define "vastly". Since I disagree with the 3DS. They wouldn't be in a much better position vs A5&NGP had they gone with Tegra imo. Not to mention that A5 iPhone and the NGP are not in the market atm.

 

[AceBandage]

Look how much trouble Nintendo have with the 3DS, their games look noticeably worse than the best from companies like Capcom and Konami. When they're struggling this much with the 3DS, just imagine how much they'll be struggling with Wii 2 which is using modern technology.

Which game are you talking about?
All we've seen so far are some outsourced games and fuzzy off screens of a gorgeous looking Super Mario.
We haven't seen a new video of Mario Kart since last E3. Paper Mario looks just like the Wii version graphically. Kid Icarus has been getting noticeable improvements.

 

[orioto]

Huh?
Nintendo put out some of the best looking games of this generation, on a much weaker system.
How the hell do they not have the resources for it? Their games are already made using HD assets.

Don't confuse resources with talent and exigence. Nintendo games have an awesome artistic direction and are really wellc rafted, but they certainly not have HD assets. That's not cause they look really good with emu that they have HD assets.

 

[apana]

I couldn't care less about transitions, all I care about is their power relative to the market and what would be expected from their price points(I'm also not an apologist for any company so take that into consideration, not that I'm calling you an apologist). In that sense the DS,Wii,3DS are vastly behind the curve and it'd be impossible to argue otherwise.

Not really, NGP doesn't have any 3D output while 3DS does. You personally may or may not enjoy 3D but it did cost Nintendo money to put it in there and it is a visual feature.

 

[dwu8991]

1080P sounds good to me, no more fuzzy wuzzy teletubbie tv anymore!

 

[Mr_Brit]

Which game are you talking about?
All we've seen so far are some outsourced games and fuzzy off screens of a gorgeous looking Super Mario.
We haven't seen a new video of Mario Kart since last E3. Paper Mario looks just like the Wii version graphically. Kid Icarus has been getting noticeable improvements.

Every single 3DS game by Nintendo(that includes every screenshot and video I've seen) doesn't look close to what Capcom and Konami are doing. If you've got evidence that proves me wrong then post it.

 

[Ezalc]

People said before that games like Galaxy and the like are developed in HD and then scaled down by nintendo right? I wouldn't be surprised if we see the original HD releases or something along those lines.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

In terms of FLOPs performance, it goes like this

-GameCube-
Gekko CPU: 1.9 GFLOPs
Flipper GPU: 8.6 GFLOPs
Total: 10.5 GFLOPs

since Wii is 1.5x (50%) more than GameCube...

-Wii-
Broadway CPU: 2.85 GFLOPs
Hollywood GPU: 12.9 GFLOPs
Total: 15.75 GFLOPs

-Xbox 360-
Xenon CPU: 115 GFLOPs
Xenos GPU: 240 GFLOPs
Total: 355 GFLOPs

Radeon 4850: 1000 GFLOPs
Radeon 4870: 1200 GFLOPs

If Cafe uses a 4850 GPU as it's baseline, before any upgrades, before any downclocking, it would be 77 times stronger than Wii's Hollywood GPU.

 

[Lonely1]

People said before that games like Galaxy and the like are developed in HD and then scaled down by nintendo right? I wouldn't be surprised if we see the original HD releases or something along those lines.

Not quite. in Dolphin the low res textures really become apparent. But its fantastic art direction makes for a very good looking game. Other games like Kirby Yarn and MP3 do seem to have details that are almost invisible in SD, but still not quite HD.

 

[Chaplain]

In terms of FLOPs performance, it goes like this

-GameCube-
Gekko CPU: 1.9 GFLOPs
Flipper GPU: 8.6 GFLOPs
Total: 10.5 GFLOPs

since Wii is 1.5x (50%) more than GameCube...

-Wii-
Broadway CPU: 2.85 GFLOPs
Hollywood GPU: 12.9 GFLOPs
Total: 15.75 GFLOPs

-Xbox 360-
Xenon CPU: 115 GFLOPs
Xenos GPU: 240 GFLOPs
Total: 355 GFLOPs

Radeon 4850: 1000 GFLOPs
Radeon 4870: 1200 GFLOPs

What about PS3?

 

[Mr. Pointy]

What's the possibility of Wii's Hollywood GPU still being in Cafe for BC? Would it be possible to have it run as a framebuffer chip when not in GC/Wii mode? I just thinking of it because Xenos has a separate embedded DRAM chip for AA/AF, and this might be a way for Nintendo to emulate that. It would give Cafe a fast 24MB framebuffer.

Also, 243 x 3 = 729.

 

[Lonely1]

What about PS3?

Sony/NVIDIA PR puts it at 1Teraflop, which we all know is rubbish.

 

[DragonKnight]

DS,Wii,3DS. Their last three systems have been vastly behind the curve, people are right to be sceptical concerning Nintendo.

DS = was a full generation leap
3DS = full generation leap and even then some in some regards

I would say the the psp and psp2 are unecessarily ahead of the curve. That said, power in the handheld arena has never meant anything.

That leaves the Wii.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

What about PS3?

I don't have the real-world GFLOP rating for PS3's RSX GPU. I know is that it's comparable to Xenos, definitely not 2 TFLOPs which is Nvidia's 'NVFLOPs' the same way they said Xbox1's GPU was 80 GFLOPs when it's closer to 20 GFLOPs.

All I have is Cell's figure which is 218 GFLOPs.

 

[dwu8991]

I don't have the real-world GFLOP rating for PS3's RSX GPU. It's comparable to Xenos. All I have is Cell's figure which is 218 GFLOPs.

How come PS3 can't do 1080P games? Why not!

 

[Mr_Brit]

DS = was a full generation leap
3DS = full generation leap and even then some in some regards

I would say the the psp and psp2 are unecessarily ahead of the curve. That said, power in the handheld arena has never meant anything.

That leaves the Wii.

The ipod touch is much cheaper and more powerful than the 3DS and isn't even a handheld gaming system, the DS was vastly below expectations even if the PSP had never been released.

 

[DragonKnight]

People said before that games like Galaxy and the like are developed in HD and then scaled down by nintendo right? I wouldn't be surprised if we see the original HD releases or something along those lines.

Can you provide a link or source?

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Am I the only one really disappointed with these specs (only read first and last page)? 1gb of RAM in 2012 to 2018 (or whenever)? That's just horrible. And a ~4850? How many years ago did that come out? This is going to be like the Wii all over again once PS4 and Xbox 3 come out. It'll be a little better since it's clearly more powerful than the 360 and PS3 but these specs are a complete joke and hardly worthy of the "next-gen" moniker, imo. Maybe the PC gaming graphics whore is being unreasonable but I can't be anything but disappointed with these specs. Good luck trying to get Epic's next-gen UE Samaritan demo running on a 4850 with a gig of RAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDsL1gxHtg

I'm crossing my fingers that MS and Sony don't follow suit with this strategy. I'm pretty sure at least one of them is gonna go all out on tech because there's a huge market for that. Don't care who it is, just at least one of them please give us a monster console!

 

[herzogzwei1989]

DS polygon performance: 120,000/sec
3DS polygon performance: at least 10,000,000/sec going by the weakest PICA200 GPU.


So 3DS is around 83x the performance of the DS in polygons.

 

[Mr_Brit]

DS polygon performance: 120,000/sec
3DS polygon performance: at least 10,000,000/sec going by the weakest PICA200 GPU.


So 3DS is around 83x the performance of the DS in polygons.

People need to stop throwing these numbers around as if they mean anything.

 

[AceBandage]

Am I the only one really disappointed with these specs (only read first and last page)? 1gb of RAM in 2012 to 2018 (or whenever)? That's just horrible. And a ~4850? How many years ago did that come out? This is going to be like the Wii all over again once PS4 and Xbox 3 come out. It'll be a little better since it's clearly more powerful than the 360 and PS3 but these specs are a complete joke and hardly worthy of the "next-gen" moniker, imo. Good luck trying to get Epic's next-gen UE Samaritan demo running on a 4850 with a gig of RAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDsL1gxHtg

I'm crossing my fingers that MS and Sony don't follow suit with this strategy. I'm pretty sure at least one of them is gonna go all out on tech because there's a huge market for that. Don't care who it is, just at least one of them please give us a monster console!

I hate to break it to you... but it's doubtful any next gen console will be able to use that Samaritan tech.

 

[DragonKnight]

The ipod touch is much cheaper and more powerful than the 3DS and isn't even a handheld gaming system, the DS was vastly below expectations even if the PSP had never been released.

Vastly below expectations? It was expected to be on par with an N64 and it was exactly that. Nintendo's handheld has always been in line with their previous home console release.

I'm not really tech savvy but isn't the ipod touch so powerful because it has to handle a multitude of things? I just feel like your arguing that just because somebody releases something more powerful, that automatically becomes the new standard. In that case, where the hell are the games that look like Toy Story because I want that standard lol. Are you visually satisfied with games that are on the market today?

 

[Jocchan]

Please stop leaving the poor letter S out from the word FLOPS

I don't know if what I'm about to post is appropriate, but it's based on the stuff I keep reading as this and the other Cafe threads pop up.

It may be a good idea to have a tiny one paragraph write up in the OP regarding console RAM, PC RAM and video cards while the rumor threads continue to pop up. People with no sense for technology keep coming with false expectations because they can't wrap their heads around the differences. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion regarding hardware and software, but I think it's time to step back into reality here(E3 is right around the corner so what the hell am I talking about?). A small segment in the OP could go a long way towards keeping the peace in my opinion.

We may just need a small primer right from the beginning so that this thread can move from being a minefield of misinformed rants and speculation to a real place of informed discussion.

We'd need a small hw briefing post in every hw-related thread it seems

 

[Wolves Evolve]

Man if only someone could post that Samaritan demo again and hype it as the next level of game graph- OH GOOD.

 

[John_B]

Great news. Nintendo can service every gamer demographic there is. I thought the Wii was interesting, but inherently flawed for betting on a very specific design over a more general one.

Nintendo could be offering the best looking/playing ports of the most hardcore franchises for the first 12-15 months from launch. When Sony and Microsoft release their new powerful systems, it will still take a while before porting becomes impossible. When the system becomes obsolete after 4 years, they can announce a new system for release. They run on a different timeline and benefit from it. They just need to have a shorter cycle.

I'm not expecting this system to launch at $249 though. If they have F-Zero as a launch title, then who would care anyways?

 

[Barack Lesnar]

I hate to break it to you... but it's doubtful any next gen console will be able to use that Samaritan tech.

Epic said they should be able to optimize it onto a single 560 and remember prices will be drastically lower by the time MS and Sony's next consoles release so while a GPU like that is crazy expensive now, that certainly won't be the case 2 years from now.

 

[Grakl]

The ipod touch is much cheaper and more powerful than the 3DS and isn't even a handheld gaming system, the DS was vastly below expectations even if the PSP had never been released.

Eh, what?

 

[Lonely1]

The ipod touch is much cheaper and more powerful than the 3DS and isn't even a handheld gaming system.

No. In a significantly way at least. And what does them not being system has any meaning? Specially considering phone/tablets soc manufacturers are locked in a specs war.

 

[AceBandage]

Epic said they should be able to optimize it onto a single 560 and remember prices will be drastically lower by the time MS and Sony's next consoles release so while a GPU like that is crazy expensive now, that certainly won't be the case 2 years from now.

A single 580, actually (which I very much doubt they can, really).
Which, by the way, that single GPU uses almost as much power as the entire launch 360 console...
It's just not going to happen.

 

[chaosblade]

I'm crossing my fingers that MS and Sony don't follow suit with this strategy. I'm pretty sure at least one of them is gonna go all out on tech because there's a huge market for that. Don't care who it is, just at least one of them please give us a monster console!

It's extremely unlikely that either will make huge, power hungry machines. They will probably be a step up from Nintendo's console just because they can use components that are a bit newer, but in terms of power consumption (which is a big limiter on component choices) all three console makers will probably have similar targets.

 

[DragonKnight]

It would be nice if nintendo did go all out again tech wise or at least really future proof the console. I'm no CEO but it would be foolish to release something that will be outdated in a matter of months. That's like saying "hey consumers come buy our system where you can play shittier versions of third party games". Oh well...I always end up with two consoles per generation anyway.

 

[AceBandage]

It would be nice if nintendo did go all out again tech wise or at least really future proof the console. I'm no CEO but it would be foolish to release something that will be outdated in a matter of months. That's like saying "hey consumers come buy our system where you can play shittier versions of third party games". Oh well...I always end up with two consoles per generation anyway.

If this was the case, no company would ever release a console and we'd all be gaming exclusively on top of the line PCs...