http://cube.ign.com/articles/624/624200p1.html

Discuss!

I'm a Nintendo fanboy, I admit, but this is getting damn insane. We keep hearing what Revolution can't do, but nothing of what it can.

I know HD is not common right now, but it's starting to grow exponentionally. Nintendo is going to deny this like going online, and in several years will start thinking "Oh crap!"

And thinking from a developers standpoint too. Developers want to make a good looking game. We know the studios like Epic, Bungie, Valve, iD who make good looking games.

Denying a trait that'll make a game look good just seems to crush possible 3rd party support Nintendo wants to gain with developers who want to make amazing looking games.

This isn't the final straw for me, but this seems to confirm Nintendo is pushing themselves away from the competition by not even competing.

Forums are going crazy on IGN over this, and other places, as there's only been speculation Nintendo wasn't competing technology wise. This is just one confirmation.

I fear that Nintendo is losing part of the older core gaming base it has - those who do appreciate good looking graphics and high technology systems- by trying to appease to more gamers. Anyone would tell you, do not try to get more customers by losing part of your customer base.

The generation that grew with Nintendo is old now and doesn't want to play games that look old. If Nintendo made a high tech system, with an online muliplayer system - the 3rd support would grow huge. Instead, this generation seems like Nintendo will have online - but will not be high tech like the competition.

To me a hard drive isn't necessary if there is an alternative form of storage integrated. I would assume there will be in this case. Microsoft seemed to be leaning, originally, toward not having one in the 360 and isn't Sony's idiotic stand that they won't include one because no matter how big it is it won't be enough?

HD is High Defintion, I believe. Hard drive (disk) would be HDD.

My bad. Still, many Gamecube games support some of the "HD-" formats so I find it odd that Revolution wouldn't. If this is true, that's depressing. I want all of my games to be widescreen and at least 1080 primarilly.

the gamecube only supports up to 480p which isn't an HD format

I know. That's why I said "HD-". It's better than Standard Definition and displays well on big, widescreen TVs in certain games that offer the right options.

Yeah, HD being High definition! It seems there won't be a HDD for Revolution either, but you can buy SD for it.

Hmm so Factor 5 (Rogue Squadron) is making games for the PS3. Does that mean there will be a Rogue Squadron 4?

i wouldn't be so early ot say that. there is going to be downloadable content, and i'm not sure its possible to do that without a hard drive, unless it just gets sent to RAM, which would be very impractible

No, they already confirmed it won't happen as of June 7th...

http://cube.ign.com/articles/622/622870p1.html

"The downloads will, as previously announced, be stored in flash memory. You'll be able to store games in the 512 megabytes built into the system, but should this fill up, you can transfer your downloads to an SD memory card and use your computer to manage the files. Iwata didn't elaborate, but did state that copy protection is in place (so don't expect to simply send downloaded game copies to your friends by e-mail).

Nintendo's use of flash memory rather than a hard disk was very much intentional. The company believes that kids as young as five years old will use the Revolution and could damage a built-in hard disk. Additionally, Iwata points to longevity, reliability and cost as being part of the decision to go with flash."

"longetivity"? Flash? What?

Less moving parts = longer lifespan.

I liked old Nintendo systems because they used cartridges rather than a disk drive that wears out (like my GameCube's did).

QM

You do know flash memory has a tendency to just...crap out...right?

No reason at all either.

Flash memory has... well... memory. After you flash it too often it stops working. Hard disks should never have this problem - not to mention microdrives are far less expensive than flash memory. If iPods used flash memory they'd cost about 20 times more.