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[DocTarHeel]

U.S. Launch Prices
1977: Atari 2600 - $199
1982: ColecoVision - $175
1982: Atari 5200 - $269
1985: Nintendo Entertainment System - $199
1986: Atari 7800 - $139
1986: Sega Master System - $199
1989: TurboGrafx-16 - $199
1989: Sega Genesis - $189
1990: SNK NeoGeo - $649
1991: Super Nintendo - $199
1993: 3DO - $699
1993: Atari Jaguar - $249
1995: Sega Saturn - $399
1995: PlayStation - $299
1996: Nintendo 64 - $199
1999: Sega Dreamcast - $199
2000: PlayStation 2 - $299
2001: Nintendo GameCube - $199
2001: Xbox - $299
2005: Xbox 360 - $299 / $399
2006: PlayStation 3 - $499 / $599
2006: Nintendo Wii - $249

2011 purchasing power in parentheses.

1977: Atari 2600 - $199 ($738.55)
1982: ColecoVision - $175 ($407.86)
1982: Atari 5200 - $269 ($626.94)
1985: Nintendo Entertainment System - $199 ($415.95)
1986: Atari 7800 - $139 ($285.24)
1986: Sega Master System - $199 ($408.36)
1989: TurboGrafx-16 - $199 ($360.94)
1989: Sega Genesis - $189 ($342.80)
1990: SNK NeoGeo - $649 ($1,116.79)
1991: Super Nintendo - $199 ($328.61)
1993: 3DO - $699 ($1,087.95)
1993: Atari Jaguar - $249 ($387.55)
1995: Sega Saturn - $399 ($588.83)
1995: PlayStation - $299 ($441.25)
1996: Nintendo 64 - $199 ($285.25)
1999: Sega Dreamcast - $199 ($268.65)
2000: PlayStation 2 - $299 ($390.52)
2001: Nintendo GameCube - $199 ($252.72)
2001: Xbox - $299 ($379.71)
2005: Xbox 360 - $299 / $399 ($344.33/$459.49)
2006: PlayStation 3 - $499 / $599 ($556.69/$668.25)
2006: Nintendo Wii - $249 ($277.79)

 

[apana]

Adjusted for inflation in parentheses.

1977: Atari 2600 - $199 ($738.55)
1982: ColecoVision - $175 ($407.86)
1982: Atari 5200 - $269 ($626.94)
1985: Nintendo Entertainment System - $199 ($415.95)
1986: Atari 7800 - $139 ($285.24)
1986: Sega Master System - $199 ($408.36)
1989: TurboGrafx-16 - $199 ($360.94)
1989: Sega Genesis - $189 ($342.80)
1990: SNK NeoGeo - $649 ($1,116.79)
1991: Super Nintendo - $199 ($328.61)
1993: 3DO - $699 ($1,087.95)
1993: Atari Jaguar - $249 ($387.55)
1995: Sega Saturn - $399 ($588.83)
1995: PlayStation - $299 ($441.25)
1996: Nintendo 64 - $199 ($285.25)
1999: Sega Dreamcast - $199 ($268.65)
2000: PlayStation 2 - $299 ($390.52)
2001: Nintendo GameCube - $199 ($252.72)
2001: Xbox - $299 ($379.71)
2005: Xbox 360 - $299 / $399 ($344.33/$459.49)
2006: PlayStation 3 - $499 / $599 ($556.69/$668.25)
2006: Nintendo Wii - $249 ($277.79)

Adding inflation to it can be kind of misleading.

 

[Anth0ny]

$349 or higher, definitely.

As for the graphics, all I could say is this might be my most hyped E3 of all time. And we fucking better get some direct feed, 1080p footage of the games.

 

[TekkenMaster]

I doubt that's true, especially since their engineering team saw the biggest hit after MP3 to the point where they had to assign a new person to direct their team with DKCR.

Yoshiaki Koizumi does great work too, I think SMG still looks better than any Retro game on
Wii. If EAD pulls together they should be fine.

I think it's more of a company and country culture issue.

Japanese games mostly eschew high-tech visuals for more stylized or anime-inspired art direction.

Nintendo's internal studios likely aren't as well educated about advanced HD graphics techniques simply because they live in Japan and don't see many of their peers using cutting-edge graphical tech.

Retro, on the other hand, I'm sure plays the Uncharted's, Battlefield 3's, God of War 3's, etc., and keeps themselves educated on shader tech, etc.

 

[Nirolak]

I don't know about that, a 4850 is only like 3-4x more powerful than the Xenos in the 360. I would only call something proper next gen if it has at leat the power of a GTX 580 in there which is more than 10x faster than the Xenos in the 360.

There's also the chance that Nintendo are going to go with only 1GB of GDDR5 which will cripple the console.

Hmm, I was assuming a base 8x with aggressive modifications getting to 5-6x, but yeah, I'm not expecting them.

 

[apana]

I think it's more of a company and country culture issue.

Japanese games mostly eschew high-tech visuals for more stylized or anime-inspired art direction.

Nintendo's internal studios likely aren't as well educated about advanced HD graphics techniques simply because they live in Japan and don't see many of their peers using cutting-edge graphical tech.

Retro, on the other hand, I'm sure plays the Uncharted's, Battlefield 3's, God of War 3's, etc., and keeps themselves educated on shader tech, etc.

Seriously?

 

[polyh3dron]

I love how we're measuring the relative power of all the consoles by comparing them to super saiyan levels, lol

It's funny because it works.

 

[Freshmaker]

Damn Mario 64 is still the best looking game out of all of those in terms of my preference. Witcher 2 can be ported to 360 correct? So how is it a next gen game?

Virtual Fighter was ported to the Genesis.

 

[Lupin the Third]

$349 or higher, definitely.

As for the graphics, all I could say is this might be my most hyped E3 of all time. And we fucking better get some direct feed, 1080p footage of the games.

I don't think that's out of the question, honestly. At the VERY least, you'll get some screenshots. But Nintendo is usually pretty good about providing hi-res assets after a big event like E3.

 

[Why would you do that?]

How so? The visual style is inherently cartoony and lacking in detail compared to a Metroid Prime type game.

The way I see it, because it is a 2.5D game, it will have a lot more detail in certain areas, like maybe the background, than a regular 3D game.

As for the cartoony style, in the Wii's case, people usually say that games with cartoony graphics such as Galaxy 2 really show the system's power. Looking at random HD screens of DKC: Returns, Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3 (and Other M), I feel that the power of the Wii shows in DKC:R and Mario Galaxy more than it does in the Metroid games. So I wouldn't be surprised if, even on the new system, these types of games will still look better than 3D games with more realistic graphics.

 

[AceBandage]

I don't think that's out of the question, honestly. At the VERY least, you'll get some screenshots. But Nintendo is usually pretty good about providing hi-res assets after a big event like E3.

Hell, even some first party Wii games got HD video and screens released for them.

 

[Darryl]

Ok don't think this has been asked....

Can it run Crysis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvVIcLfoUlA

 

[Whogie]

No, 360 and Ps3 are a lot closer than that.

Yeah, more like the 360 is Freeza and PS3 is SSJ1 Goku. They both dealt their share of blows, but Goku pulled through in the end because his CPU was better I guess.

 

[antonz]

I think what defines a generation leap is alot harder to define now.

I think going from consoles that major releases strugle to even achieve 720P to having a system that can consistently output 1080P is certainly one that is taking a major jump.

4850 using DDR3 baseline is 4x PS360. I really dont see nintendo weakening the GPU as that isnt really their style. Improvements could easily push it 5x-6x

 

[DocTarHeel]

Adding inflation to it can be kind of misleading.

How so? It normalizes the data, making comparisons more clear.

 

[donny2112]

It won't be similar at all.
The power gap between the 360 and the Wii was an ocean.
The power gap between the Cafe and whatever the 720 will be will be closer to a puddle in comparison.

And most importantly, the middleware tools are extrememly more likely to work on both making porting almost a simple matter of turning down a few dials, balancing, and debugging.

 

[low-G]

I think it's more of a company and country culture issue.

Japanese games mostly eschew high-tech visuals for more stylized or anime-inspired art direction.

Nintendo's internal studios likely aren't as well educated about advanced HD graphics techniques simply because they live in Japan and don't see many of their peers using cutting-edge graphical tech.

Retro, on the other hand, I'm sure plays the Uncharted's, Battlefield 3's, God of War 3's, etc., and keeps themselves educated on shader tech, etc.

I think it's only cultural in that a lot of the Japanese games are smaller budget. Look at MGS4, Final Fantasy 13, or Gran Turismo 5. Easily up with the best up there, graphically.

 

[AceBandage]

I think what defines a generation leap is alot harder to define now.

I think going from consoles that major releases strugle to even achieve 720P to having a system that can consistently output 1080P is certainly one that is taking a major jump.

Wasn't it Halo 3 that ran at like 520p or some crap?

 

[Instro]

And most importantly, the middleware tools are extrememly more likely to work on both making porting a simple matter of turning down a few dials, balancing, and debugging.

I think that was the main thing holding the Wii back from getting ports. Even if the power gap was huge they could have just scaled it down to work, but the Wii's architecture was so damn old that it didnt even support the correct APIs needed.

 

[Lonely1]

Hmm, I was assuming a base 8x with aggressive modifications getting to 5-6x, but yeah, I'm not expecting them.

By flops alone, the 4850 is 4x Xenos. But is also more efficient in its use. Added CPU speed and lesser memory constrains and we could see more than a 6x jump, I believe. Plus it has a richer feature set.

 

[Johnny2Bags]

Damn Mario 64 is still the best looking game out of all of those in terms of my preference. Witcher 2 can be ported to 360 correct? So how is it a next gen game?

No witcher 2 cannot be ported to 360 in its current form...

 

[Krowley]

Damn Mario 64 is still the best looking game out of all of those in terms of my preference. Witcher 2 can be ported to 360 correct? So how is it a next gen game?

Well the poster I was responding to was using it as an example of what this new nintendo machine could theoretically run smoothly at a high setting (I assume the 360 version would require significant scaling back).

Obviously, it looks amazing, but it's not the same jump from say xbox 1 to good looking first gen 360 games. In fact, people with little interest in fidelity would probably not really care about the difference at all. Not because it doesn't look significantly better, but because the other game already looks good enough for most people.

with the previous generations, they looked more blocky and all that. 360/ps3 gen already looks pretty darn slick, so making it look even nicer requires a finer attention to detail to even notice.

 

[Lupin the Third]

The question is, will Nintendo use 2GB of RAM in a system that costs just under $300 to make? Will they be willing to take the GameCube "slight loss at launch" approach or the Wii's "massive profit" approach?

Can someone please remind me who it was that made the Moore cycle observation about Wii2 specs in the old thread and what they predicted regarding RAM, Flash and all that?

 

[watershed]

I was just about to ask if there was any new cafe info this week and then I come home to this, nice.

I have a question though: how old is the rumored tech in the system? What year did this tech land on the market and if anyone knows, what does this mean for the potential price of the console?

 

[Nirolak]

By flops alone, the 4850 is 4x Xenos. But is also more efficient in its use. Added CPU speed and lesser memory constrains and we could see more than a 6x jump, I believe.

I want to say "We should have a better idea after E3.", but since everything shown is likely to be ports or Nintendo developed titles, and Nintendo doesn't release hardware specs, I get the sense we probably won't.

 

[AceBandage]

The question is, will Nintendo use 2GB of RAM in a system that costs just under $300 to make? Will they be willing to take the GameCube "slight loss at launch" approach or the Wii's "massive profit" approach?

Can someone please remind me who it was that made the Moore cycle observation about Wii2 specs in the old thread and what they predicted regarding RAM, Flash and all that?

I forget who it was, but he basically multiplied everything by a factor of 16.
So the Wii had 88MB of ram. Times 16 would be 1406MB (or about 1.5GB).

I was just about to ask if there was any new cafe info this week and then I come home to this, nice.

I have a question though: how old is the rumored tech in the system? What year did this tech land on the market and if anyone knows, what does this mean for the potential price of the console?

The 4850 came out in 2008. They're pretty cheap to get these days, too.

 

[TekkenMaster]

I think it's only cultural in that a lot of the Japanese games are smaller budget. Look at MGS4, Final Fantasy 13, or Gran Turismo 5. Easily up with the best up there, graphically.

Games with graphics like MGS4, etc are up there with the best of Western games, but they are few and far between in Japan.

And like I said in my post, it's also a "company culture" thing...it seems Nintendo takes the prevailing Japanese philosophy of "anime artstyle" to an even bigger extreme.

 

[Nirolak]

I was just about to ask if there was any new cafe info this week and then I come home to this, nice.

I have a question though: how old is the rumored tech in the system? What year did this tech land on the market and if anyone knows, what does this mean for the potential price of the console?

It launched on June 25, 2008 and you can find Radeon 4850's for around $100 if you shop around enough.

By comparison, the Wii used a GPU from the 1990s.

 

[antonz]

I was just about to ask if there was any new cafe info this week and then I come home to this, nice.

I have a question though: how old is the rumored tech in the system? What year did this tech land on the market and if anyone knows, what does this mean for the potential price of the console?

Baseline GPU would be mid 2008 Tech upgraded with some 2011 tweaks.

 

[Daschysta]

Games with graphics like MGS4, etc are up there with the best of Western games, but they are few and far between in Japan.

And like I said in my post, it's also a "company culture" thing...it seems Nintendo takes the prevailing Japanese philosophy of "anime artstyle" to an even bigger extreme.

I wouldn't call most of ninties games "anime" art. Cartooney yes, but not anime.

 

[SneakyStephan]

Did IGN just admit to needing outside help to figure out what Mobo to buy for their athlon II cpu?...

Also that picture comparison for generational leaps is not fair.

The difference wasn't nearly THAT big when looking at some of the better xbox 1 games.
So if anything the diminishing returns kicked in with the coming of this gen, not the next one.


AHEM : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Ll6j1QS6Y&t=2m55s

Anyhow the 4850 is much much MUCH more powerful than the ps360 gpu's.

My 4870 runs most modern games like a champ maxed out 60+fps 4xmsaa.
Some of the most demanding ones obviously only run at 30-40 fps.

As was said before: hopefully they include plenty of fast ram, else that extra power is going to go to waste.

That price tag that they linked for the pc is RIDICULOUS btw, 499 already gets you a pre built phenom II x4 955, 4 gb ram, 1 TB hdd, hd6850 , dvd writer and case + psu.
Where do they shop :lol
The retail price for the pc they built shouldn't be above 275 dollars.
unit cost instead of retail cost + mass production should mean it'll be very cheap for nintendo.


edit: it sure took IGN a long time and the ability to compare console hardware to pc hardware to even recognise the existence of it.

 

[Medalion]

THis could be good, all aboard the Hype Spirt Tracks again

 

[apana]

Well the poster I was responding to was using it as an example of what this new nintendo machine could theoretically run smoothly at a high setting (I assume the 360 version would require significant scaling back).

Obviously, it looks amazing, but it's not the same jump from say xbox 1 to good looking first gen 360 games. In fact, people with little interest in fidelity would probably not really care about the difference at all. Not because it doesn't look significantly better, but because the other game already looks good enough for most people.

with the previous generations, they looked more blocky and all that. 360/ps3 gen already looks pretty darn slick, so making it look even nicer requires a finer attention to detail to even notice.

I'm still not sure if Witcher 2 counts but I agree that most people are satisfied with PS360 level graphics.

 

[watershed]

with the previous generations, they looked more blocky and all that. 360/ps3 gen already looks pretty darn slick, so making it look even nicer requires a finer attention to detail to even notice.

My hope is that the improvements come mostly in crisper textures, more consistent frame rate, no screen tearing, random pop-in crap, and less jaggies.

On the stylistic side of things, I hope Nintendo avoids the drab (grey, brown) colors that seem to dominate the ps3/360. I also hope Nintendo doesn't go crazy with the bloom lighting with developers seemed to love early in the HD era.

 

[Striek]

Can't wait for E3. I don't really expect Nintendo to personally showcase anything that looks near as good as top tier PS360 titles let alone as good as the rumoured hardware will allow, but with rumours of closer links to some 3rd parties we could see great looking software from say Crytek or someone else.

I wonder if this will be able to run UE4, its kind of half-way between what we will expect from 'next-gen' hardware in 2014.

 

[TekkenMaster]

I wouldn't call most of ninties games "anime" art. Cartooney yes, but not anime.

"Cartoony" is a better way of putting it, yes.

Most Japanese developed games other than the few that are big in the West (Resident Evil 5, Gran Turismo, MGS4, Last Guardian, etc) have a cartoony or anime-based style.

 

[jj984jj]

I think it's more of a company and country culture issue.

Japanese games mostly eschew high-tech visuals for more stylized or anime-inspired art direction.

Nintendo's internal studios likely aren't as well educated about advanced HD graphics techniques simply because they live in Japan and don't see many of their peers using cutting-edge graphical tech.

Retro, on the other hand, I'm sure plays the Uncharted's, Battlefield 3's, God of War 3's, etc., and keeps themselves educated on shader tech, etc.

I don't agree. The main reason it seems like Japanese developers haven't taken as huge of a leap into next-gen as the west so far is due to the way the market shifted towards handhelds, it definitely has nothing to do with culture.

 

[AceBandage]

Can't wait for E3. I don't really expect Nintendo to personally showcase anything that looks near as good as top tier PS360 titles let alone as good as the rumoured hardware will allow, but with rumours of closer links to some 3rd parties we could see great looking software from say Crytek or someone else.

I wonder if this will be able to run UE4, its kind of half-way between what we will expect from 'next-gen' hardware in 2014.

If the iPhone can run UE3, then the Cafe will run UE4.

 

[Lupin the Third]

I forget who it was, but he basically multiplied everything by a factor of 16.
So the Wii had 88MB of ram. Times 16 would be 1406MB (or about 1.5GB).

Okay, I think it's reasonable to expect that the Wii2 will have 1.5GB of reasonably fast RAM. I was just thinking this was the most likely scenario--it's a (nice?) compromise between the 2GB that everyone's hoping for and the 1GB that everyone's expecting as a minimum.

Does Tech-Guru-GAF think that 1.5 GB would be a serviceable compromise?

 

[TekkenMaster]

I don't agree. The main reason it seems like Japan hasn't taken as huge of a leap into next-gen as the west so far is due to the way the market shifted towards handhelds, it definitely has nothing to do with culture.

But isn't the anime style just inherently much more popular in Japan, for cultural reasons?

Assuming this, you would expect most of their games (console or handheld) to have this popular-in-japan art style.

 

[Anth0ny]

I don't think that's out of the question, honestly. At the VERY least, you'll get some screenshots. But Nintendo is usually pretty good about providing hi-res assets after a big event like E3.

I say that simply because we didn't even get a direct feed trailer from GDC for Skyward Sword. Which has led to people thinking all the colors are washed out or some shit.

Now that we're getting the first taste of the next generation of consoles, I'd be very disappointed if we don't get some high quality, direct feed trailers and gameplay footage.

 

[Nirolak]

If the iPhone can run UE3, then the Cafe will run UE4.

It depends if they make it intrinsically linked to OpenGL 4.0.

The DirectX 11 pipeline will auto recompile compute shaders for DirectX 10 level hardware, but I'm not sure if OpenGL 4.0 does something comparable for OpenGL 3.2.

That said, it would be much easier to support the platform if it just lacked compute shaders than if it lacked programmable pixel shaders at all like the 3DS does.

 

[Mr_Brit]

It launched on June 25, 2008 and you can find Radeon 4850's for around $100 if you shop around enough.

By comparison, the Wii used a GPU from the 1990s.

You can now pick up a 1GB GDDR5 4870 for that price so the Wii 2 should launch at around $300 based on these rumours.

 

[Fantastical]

Just show me fucking Metroid HD and I will cry tears of happiness.

 

[Joey Fox]

Okay, I think it's reasonable to expect that the Wii2 will have 1.5GB of reasonably fast RAM. I was just thinking this was the most likely scenario--it's a (nice?) compromise between the 2GB that everyone's hoping for and the 1GB that everyone's expecting as a minimum.

Does Tech-Guru-GAF think that 1.5 GB would be a serviceable compromise?

It's as if you averaged the two numbers together and called it most likely somehow.

 

[Dr.Palutena]

24 days....24 days....24 days.

 

[Chuck Norris]

Based on these specs, it's closer to 5 times as powerful.
And as it stands, there's nothing on the market currently or planned that will run on a console that would put it as far ahead as the 360 was over the Wii.

And what makes you think MS will use what is currently on the market?

 

[Van Owen]

Keep in mind Cafe won't be coming until 2012 so a 4870 could be less than $100 by then...

 

[Mr_Brit]

Keep in mind Cafe won't be coming until 2012 so a 4870 could be less than $100 by then...

It already is. In the UK you can pick up brand new 1GB 4870s for around £60 which is less than $100, Nintendo could easily purchase bulk amounts of 4850s for around $50 a piece.

If these specs are true then Nintendo better not charge more than $300.

 

[Slayer-33]

Can't wait for E3.

If this means holy fucking fuck MP/Zelda/Mario games I am the fuck in.