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[nckillthegrimace]

One of the problems with more powerfull hardware is that developers tend to spam the amount of enemies. It just becomes a repetitive grind killing the same said enemy over and over again. Case in point, Vanquish. Nintendo, to their credit recognize this.

By publishing Samurai Warrior 3, a game where you kill the same enemies over and over again?

That isn't really a problem with powerful hardware; it's more of a problem of design.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

By publishing Samurai Warrior 3, a game where you kill the same enemies over and over again?

That isn't really a problem with powerful hardware; it's more of a problem of design.

I would completely agree that it's a design problem, not because there's more powerful hardware.

 

[NotGameboy]

I'll be really unhappy if Skyrim does not come to Cafe.

Unhappy herzogzwei1989 confirmed.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Unhappy herzogzwei1989 confirmed.

jumping the gun a little.

 

[Sianos]

I'll be really unhappy if Skyrim does not come to Cafe.

I could see Elder Scrolls VI hitting Cafe, but most likely Skyrim will not.

 

[ElFly]

Oblivion hit the PS3 after a while, it wouldn't be weird to see Skyrim do the same for Cafe.

More interested in Fallout, particularly if the control screen doubles as pip boy (hopefully without the gameplay pause).

 

[herzogzwei1989]

I was going to say, Oblivion was released on PS3 many months after the 360 & PC versions. I don't see why Skyrim couldn't come to Cafe as a launch title.

 

[Sianos]

I was going to say, Oblivion was released on PS3 many months after the 360 & PC versions. I don't see why Skyrim couldn't come to Cafe as a launch title.

It could, but I wouldn't bet on it.

If it does, I will be pleasantly suprised.

 

[donny2112]

I don't know where the thought of the lack of multiplat games that hitting the Wii was because developers were holding personal grudges, but it's a really srange idea.

Not in general, but the early on "can't achieve artistic vision on it" (when PS2 seemed fine last gen) and "Wii is just a fad" type comments indicated an undercurrent of "we don't want to make games on the Wii" feeling in the development community. A lot of that had to do with power, surely, but it didn't come across as solely being due to power concerns.

Contrast with Treyarch's efforts on Wii and how much effort they've gone through even with ridiculously small staffs, at times.

As the generation wore on and almost everyone but Nintendo was losing money, I'm sure they would've bit the bullet and ported to the Wii, if easily possible, but it was really then that the lack of power came mainly into play.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Depends on if Nintendo's DLC marketplace will be up early enough, I imagine.

No one will want to port if their editions have to be GOTY editions.

 

[donny2112]

Depends on if Nintendo's DLC marketplace will be up early enough, I imagine.

Needs to be up Day 1 with enough features to allow porting of DLC, for sure. I know the Steam thing is a hoped-for joke, but it does make sense for Nintendo, if they're willing to give up most control in that regard (which they surely aren't :lol ).

 

[DragonKnight]

Anybody think we will see nintendo's online strategy at E3? I don't.

 

[Lonely1]

Anybody think we will see nintendo's online strategy at E3? I don't.

At least they will need to reveal the EShop thing.

 

[Sianos]

Not in general, but the early on "can't achieve artistic vision on it" (when PS2 seemed fine last gen) and "Wii is just a fad" type comments indicated an undercurrent of "we don't want to make games on the Wii" feeling in the development community. A lot of that had to do with power, surely, but it didn't come across as solely being due to power concerns.

Contrast with Treyarch's efforts on Wii and how much effort they've gone through even with ridiculously small staffs, at times.

As the generation wore on and almost everyone but Nintendo was losing money, I'm sure they would've bit the bullet and ported to the Wii, if easily possible, but it was really then that the lack of power came mainly into play.

If Cafe is on par with or at least fairly close to Microsoft and Sony's new consoles it just doesn't make sense for a company to not release its multiplatform games accros all three platforms.

I think the whole "I don't want to develop for the kiddy system" idea wasn't as important to developers as "Would it be worth it remake this game from scratch at a lower resolution?"

 

[DragonKnight]

At least they will need to reveal the EShop thing.

To clarify I meant online strategy for the Cafe. I hate sounding so critical and whiny but after years of disappointment I think it's time to just expect the worst.

 

[JohnTinker]

Hasn't Nintendo had a Spaceworld-like weekend in Japan the last couple years to let the public play & preview upcoming games?

I just hope they won't hold back during E3

 

[Sianos]

To clarify I meant online strategy for the Cafe. I hate sounding so critical and whiny but after years of disappointment I think it's time to just expect the worst.

One of my biggest complaints (individual friend codes for every game) has already been addressed, and the E-Shop update will hopefully feature some more features (voice chat in friend matches, messaging friends, etc.)

I expect Cafe's online to be very similar to the 3DS plan, which may be why the E-Shop was delayed until now.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I personally don't think anything improving the 3DSs' online will come through this update.

Meaning the messaging and joining others' games easy and that type of thing.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

To clarify I meant online strategy for the Cafe. I hate sounding so critical and whiny but after years of disappointment I think it's time to just expect the worst.

I think 3DS's eShop could very well be the same online platform as Cafe's

whatever it is should be seamlessly connected somehow to both systems if Nintendo really wants to make major change to how they do things from now on

 

[watershed]

Hasn't Nintendo had a Spaceworld-like weekend in Japan the last couple years to let the public play & preview upcoming games?

I just hope they won't hold back during E3

Yep. Its a great time to be in Japan and they have a fall conference in America where they talk and have playable the same games. But the American event is press only while the Japanese one is public.

Edit: One of my biggest problems with the 3ds' online is that there is no community building at all. I don't get why it doesn't have the mii plaza channel like the wii does. If it had this I would turn on my 3ds once a day just to check out the latest competitions and odd mii creations.

 

[DragonKnight]

Hasn't Nintendo had a Spaceworld-like weekend in Japan the last couple years to let the public play & preview upcoming games?

I just hope they won't hold back during E3

You don't think they'll hold back. There is next year's E3 as well. But I guess Cafe is supposed to release in the spring of next year as opposed to the fall

 

[lwilliams3]

I find it silly that developers will refuse an easy port because "they don't like Nintendo". I don't know where the thought of the lack of multiplat games that hitting the Wii was because developers were holding personal grudges, but it's a really srange idea.

Developers want money: they won't turn down an easy way to increase their profits just because they've had disagreements with Nintendo in the past.

I believe one reason is that some are overestimating how "easy" it is to port a game from the 360/PS3 to the Wii. It takes more than cutting back some assets and rendering SD instead of HD; the architectural differences between the Wii's CPU, GPU, and "shaders" (which the Wii doesn't really have in the modern sense) compared to the other systems are huge.

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

I know this is a Café thread, but this is sort of related.

Does anyone think that it's possible that MS does have some hardware to show at some point this year?

Remember that AMD guy that "blabbed" about a Fusion chip for late 2012 and moving up his time tables? I just ran across an older rumor from Dec. of last year. about the same thing.
http://www.kitguru.net/software/gaming/jules/microsoft-chooses-amd-fusion-ii-for-xbox-720/

 

[Shin Johnpv]

I know this is a Café thread, but this is sort of related.

Does anyone think that it's possible that MS does have some hardware to show at some point this year?

Absolutely. As I've said for a long time, MS will not be waiting till 2014 to launch their next console. I would NOT be surprised to see something come in late 2012 or early 2013 from them. I don't think we'll see or hear anything at E3 this year though.

 

[BlackNMild2k1]

Absolutely. As I've said for a long time, MS will not be waiting till 2014 to launch their next console. I would NOT be surprised to see something come in late 2012 or early 2013 from them. I don't think we'll see or hear anything at E3 this year though.

I figured they wouldn't ruin Nintendo's party at this E3 as they probably want to see what the Big N has up their sleeves and probably wouldn't have much to show beyond tech demo's anyway, but they will likely try to spoil their launch next year by "leaking" news leading up to E3 2012.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

It could, but I wouldn't bet on it.

If it does, I will be pleasantly suprised.

I'm not exactly counting on Skyrim for Cafe, I just think there's a good possibility of it.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

I know this is a Café thread, but this is sort of related.

Does anyone think that it's possible that MS does have some hardware to show at some point this year?

Remember that AMD guy that "blabbed" about a Fusion chip for late 2012 and moving up his time tables? I just ran across an older rumor from Dec. of last year. about the same thing.
http://www.kitguru.net/software/gaming/jules/microsoft-chooses-amd-fusion-ii-for-xbox-720/

I remember that rumor fairly well. Dunno what to make of it.

 

[ecosse_011172]

People need to be realistic, high end GPUs have such a huge power draw that there is no chance of anything at that level going in a console, especially as all three manufacturers have moved towards machines having quiet, low power requirements and being quiet.

Not just that, most consumer electronics is moving in that direction, high end PC rigs with their massive PSUs and space/cooling requirements are very much an exception.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Remember when consoles were, at launch, more powerful than the highest-end PC rigs with the highest-end graphics cards?

Those days are long gone.

 

[miksar]

Absolutely. As I've said for a long time, MS will not be waiting till 2014 to launch their next console. I would NOT be surprised to see something come in late 2012 or early 2013 from them. I don't think we'll see or hear anything at E3 this year though.

That's the best thing that can happen to Cafe. If MS release their next-gen console somewhere in 2012 or 2013 there's no way it will be much more powerful than Cafe. Then it won't matter how much powerful PS4 will be since all multiplatform games will be designed with the two other systems in mind.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Actually I expect both Xbox3 and PS4 to launch in the fall of 2013, be similar in power and both significantly more powerful than Cafe, although not to the extent that 360/PS3 were beyond Wii.

 

[Hiltz]

I can see Microsoft wanting to launch its next-gen console in 2013. For one thing, the Xbox 360 is a year older than both the Wii and PS3. The release of Kinect was a response to the success of motion control on the Wii and way to help extend 360's life cycle. There's also how Microsoft views Sony as a big threat and would most likely want to launch a next-gen system before it does. Microsoft may have also been caught off guard by Nintendo's announcement of Project Cafe coming out next year despite a noticeable decline in Wii hardware sales and the sudden abandonment of third-party support this year. While Nintendo has a lot to prove with Project Cafe and its alleged goal of catering to the hardcore gamer, Microsoft might have to move more quickly in the hope of securing its position in the next generation and have third-parties wrapped around its finger again.

 

[M_A_C]

Remember when consoles were, at launch, more powerful than the highest-end PC rigs with the highest-end graphics cards?

Those days are long gone.

That didn't even happen last gen launch.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

That didn't even happen last gen launch.

Dreamcast was more powerful than any PC in 1998.
PS2 was more powerful than any PC in early 2000
Xbox was more powerful than most PCs and on par with the highest-end in 2001.

All in terms of graphics performance like polygon count, pixel fillrate and in most cases, bandwidth.

So I disagree.

 

[XPE]

No just no

 

[M_A_C]

Dreamcast was more powerful than any PC in 1998.
PS2 was more powerful than any PC in early 2000
Xbox was more powerful than most PCs and on par with the highest-end in 2001.

All in terms of graphics performance like polygon count, pixel fillrate and in most cases, bandwidth.

So I disagree.

Yeah I mean 360 and PS3... But even what your talking about is debatable.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

No just no

Name me a PC config that beat Dreamcast in November 1998.

Yeah I mean 360 and PS3...

Okay so you meant current-gen.

Yeah the 360 in 2005 and PS3 in 2006 were behind state of the art PCs. This is really the first gen where consoles were behind at launch.

 

[Durante]

Dreamcast was more powerful than any PC in 1998.
PS2 was more powerful than any PC in early 2000
Xbox was more powerful than most PCs and on par with the highest-end in 2001.

All in terms of graphics performance like polygon count, pixel fillrate and in most cases, bandwidth.

With Dreamcast you may have a point for a few months.
PS2 was competitive in theoretical numbers, but at the cost of a comparatively tiny feature set.
Xbox is just wrong.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

Name me a PC config that beat Dreamcast in November 1998.

Okay, i'll bite...

Dreamcast
200Mhz Hitachi CPU
PowerVR Gfx (8mb texture mem)
16Mb Main Ram

My PC in November 98'
Pentium II 350Mhz
SLI Voodoo 2 (12mb texture mem) (Unreal @1024x768..Awesome)
128Mb Ram

Compared to a dreamcast thats more powerful...in theory

 

[herzogzwei1989]

With Dreamcast you may have a point for a few months.
PS2 was competitive in theoretical numbers, but at the cost of a comparatively tiny feature set.
Xbox is just wrong.

Dreamcast was more powerful than any PC config until the release of Nvidia's TNT2 in mid 1999.

PS2 was certainly more powerful than PCs with GeForce256, GeForce 2 GTS and even GeForce 2 Ultra. It wasn't until GeForce 3 came along in 2001 that PS2 was surpassed.

Xbox was more powerful than GeForce 3 since Xbox used what was almost a GeForce 4.

Okay, i'll bite...

Dreamcast
200Mhz Hitachi CPU
PowerVR Gfx (8mb texture mem)
16Mb Main Ram

My PC in November 98'
Pentium II 350Mhz
SLI Voodoo 2 (12mb texture mem) (Unreal @1024x768..Awesome)
128Mb Ram

Compared to a dreamcast thats more powerful...in theory

Dreamcast's PowerVR2DC graphics chip was more powerful in practice than Voodoo 2 SLI.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

Dreamcast was more powerful than any PC config until the release of Nvidia's TNT2 in mid 1999..

Wrong...see my above post.

Xbox was more powerful than GeForce 3 since Xbox used what was almost a GeForce 4.

Wrong...Xbox used a Geforce 2 level chip (in terms of fill rate and bandwidth) but had some of the features of (shader capability) of the Geforce 3 GPU's which were due to launch a few mths after the Xbox.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Wrong...Xbox used a Geforce 2 level chip (in terms of fill rate and bandwidth) but had some of the features of (shader capability) of the Geforce 3 GPU's which were due to launch a few mths after the Xbox.

Xbox used NV2A, which is a souped up GeForce 3 in most ways except in fillrate and bandwidth. NV2A has twin Vertex Shaders unlike any version of the GeForce 3. It wasn't until GeForce 4 that PCs got twin VS.

 

[DeFiBkIlLeR]

Xbox used NV2A, which is a souped up GeForce 3 in most ways except in fillrate and bandwidth.

Geforce 3 chips were more powerful than the Xbox....theres no way of getting around that fact.

NV2A is what it says on the tin...an overclocked (for want of a better term) Geforce 2 GPU...superior to a plain vanilla NV2, but inferior to a full fat NV3.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Geforce 3 chips were more powerful than the Xbox....theres no way of getting around that fact.

NV2A is what it says on the tin...an overclocked (for want of a better term) Geforce 2 GPU...superior to a plain vanilla NV2, but inferior to a full fat NV3.

NV2A is not a GeForce 2 at all, what are you talking about?

The GeForce 3 (NV20) is the third-generation of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics processing units. Introduced in March 2001, it advanced the GeForce architecture by adding programmable pixel and vertex shaders, multi-sampling full-scene anti-aliasing and improved the overall efficiency of the rendering process.

The GeForce 3 family comprises 3 consumer models: the GeForce 3, the GeForce 3 Ti200, and the GeForce 3 Ti500. A separate professional version, with a feature-set tailored for computer aided design, was sold as the Quadro DCC. A derivative of the GeForce 3, known as the NV2A, is used in the Microsoft Xbox game console

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_3_Series

The NV2A features the same 4 pixel pipelines of the GeForce3 core and operates at 233MHz. This puts the fill rate of the NV2A in between that of the GeForce3 and the GeForce3 Ti 500. Naturally the NV2A features the same DirectX 8.1 pixel and vertex shader support that was introduced with the GeForce3 with one major modification - the NV2A has two vertex shaders. The addition of a second vertex shader is a huge performance gain for games the reason being that most instructions that will be sent to the vertex shader require at least two instructions to execute. Providing the GPU with dual vertex shaders will tremendously increase the throughput of these vertex programs allowing some operations to be completed in a single clock cycle.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/853/3


BTW NV2 is a failed chip designed in 1995-1996 for Sega which was never released. It was betwen the NV1 used in the Diamond EDGE 3D card (1995) and the Riva 128 (1997) which is the NV3.

 

[EvilDick34]

I just want this long drawn out shit over with, i had a goddamn dream about the unveiling of the fucking console..urgghh. That said, i have taken off the 6th and the 7th for a nice tidy 4 day vacation altogether, yay me!

 

[herzogzwei1989]

We are now approaching the 2 week mark ^__^

 

[Smiles and Cries]

what puzzles me is that most GAF posters seem to know about fill-rates, memory, bottlenecks all the issues that a console could have with performance

So why is it that we are smarter than the major 3 platform makers?

You'll think these guys would one day come out with the perfect balanced hardware if it was this easy to understand

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

what puzzles me is that most GAF posters seem to know about fill-rates, memory, bottlenecks all the issues that a console could have with performance

So why is it that we are smarter than the major 3 platform makers?

You'll think these guys would one day come out with the perfect balanced hardware if it was this easy to understand

 

[herzogzwei1989]

what puzzles me is that most GAF posters seem to know about fill-rates, memory, bottlenecks all the issues that a console could have with performance

So why is it that we are smarter than the major 3 platform makers?

You'll think these guys would one day come out with the perfect balanced hardware if it was this easy to understand

Hopefully Cafe is going to out-perform the Xbox360 (and PS3) in overall, with a more efficient architecture when everything is put together. I'd love to see another console as well-engineered as GameCube was. That little thing was so well put together and it actually came close to Xbox in practice even though it had way lower paper specs.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

*avatar quote*

seriously