[Daniel] Revolution Excitement

I don't talk about video games much anymore simply because I don't play nearly as much as I used to. But I cannot help but be excited by the coming of the Nintendo Revolution. IGN released today the leaked specs for the Revolution here.



The Revolution (codename, not final system title) is expected later this year and while the article makes a valid point that the system will be nowhere near as powerful as an Xbox 360 can theoretically perform, it's still quite decent and will offer both a lower price and a completely different playing experience.



From launch, it will support all prior GameCube games (546 games on day 1), have an enormous back-catalog of historic games (Nintendo 64, SNES, NES, Sega Genesis & TurboGrafix!), virtually completely wireless (built-in WiFi and wireless controllers) and feature the craziest (yet likely most instinctive) controller I've ever seen. I'm most excited about the controller on the principle of the first-person shooter experience alone and there's so many other wonderful possibilities. It'll be up to the developers if it's used effectively, if it's a gimmick or if it falls to the way-side.



To be blunt, yeah, the Revolution is basically going to be a upgraded, wifi'ed GameCube that's only slightly more powerful than the original Xbox. But an equally good point is that while the Xbox 360 & Playstation 3 feature radically more powerful hardware, they derive much of their theoretical power out of multicore processing. Programming in this fashion is much more difficult than the standard, more procedural methods. It's difficult to write efficient code chunks that can run on multiple cores at the same time, complete in a synchronized fashion and deliver a smooth gaming experience. Meanwhile, though the Revolution is "only" a highly evolved GameCube, this means that all developers who worked on a GameCube have a codebase that will run on the Revolution and everything they know, they can apply to the new platform. Meanwhile, PS3 & Xbox 360 dev houses are rewritting massive amounts of code in a less familiar and untested environment. I would not discount the competitiveness of the Revolution simply because it's not on the level of hardware as the PS3 & Xbox 360.



Additionally, analysts target the price of the Revolution at approximately $200 dollars. Those who follow gaming even vaguely will know that that's fully half the price of an Xbox 360 (the crippled little Core system doesn't count) and less than half of the target price for the PS3 ($500+ with bundles). For a system that will be WiFi, have literally hundreds of my favorite games available and what might represent the best first-person shooter experience ever, I know what I hope to spend my money on.



And the best part? All I have to do is tell Moriah it will run "Super Mario Brothers 3" natively and she's 90% sold. Hell yes. :D