Nintendo Revolution Controller Reveiled! Are they joking?

[Myoti]

Found this quite interesting. Quite a few "fans" that need to hear it, me thinks:

As a side note, folks who argue Nintendo should just make games for other platforms are completely missing the point. Nintendo needs to control their hardware platform in order to force innovation to occur in the control mechanisms. Other console manufacturers who rely on the hardcore audiences and standardized genres don’t see this need. They would happily standardize the console platform and make it into a commodity. Microsoft has historically made major comments about having one universal development platform.

[Fsiphskilm]

Yeah,

[skynes]

I don't want a single generalized console. If everything was generalized all games would be the same!!! One races, One RPG, One shooter. Nothing more. Everything would be a copy of the One...

[kaji]

Hmmm, thats kind of cool... I guess they arent calling it the 'Revolution' for no reason.

I would be willing to give this controller a shot, though it does seam to only really support one method of use. I like to hold my controller different ways for different games. Some times depending on buttond configuration, and some times just becuase its easier to mash a button repeatedly with a free hand.

I also tend to hold my controller in my lap and use my fingers for fighting games and games like Gradius/R-Type where fast reflexes are key. I dont see how that would be realistically possible with this setup.

EDIT:

The PS3 I think it was. Costs $500 something to make, and they're selling it for $400, and the xbox360 was doing the same thing. They're willing to risk a loss now, so they can become the leader and make money later.

I would like to see your source for this information. I highly doubt a consol would cost $500 perunit to make (and be sold for only $400), and I doubt even more that any company would eat 20% on each game consol just to be a industry leader... I could see maybe them undercutting their expected profit, but not busting the bank on this one. Its not just bad business, its insanity...

[TurkishMonky]

Then the games they make for $.20 each they can sell for $50.00 (of course the programming time has to be factored in to pay the programmers, but all in all it comes out good)

[kaji]

Well, the production costs of some games exceeds that of many Hollywood Movies... So to say that a game costs a company $.20 per copy isnt really an acurate estimate.

Its more then just programming time that goes into high-quality game production.

*hands the mic off to Volt to feild the depts of game planning and execution*

[mastersquirrel]

Then the games they make for $.20 each they can sell for $50.00 (of course the programming time has to be factored in to pay the programmers, but all in all it comes out good)

This a completely inaccurate estimate. I did research on the making of video games for my senior project and I can tell you that they don't make those games for $.20 each.

Here's a link to an article all about this subject: The Making of Video Games

Here's an important part (NOTE: This article puts you in the position of a game designer. When ir refers to "Your team" it means you and your team that's making the game):

Lets take a look at royalties. Most games by external developers are done on an advance against royalties arrangement. That means that the $730,000 they gave you is an advance against your royalties. Maybe you got 15% royalties and the game sells for a suggested list price of $49.95. You don't get 15% of $49.95. You get 15% of net so if the list price is $49.95 the wholesale price is probably 45% of that or $22.48. If this is a Sony PS2 or XBox game I think they both charge around $8.00 per disc sold as a licensing fee so the net price is $14.48. 15% of that is $2.17. Your team gets $2.17 per unit sold. You got an advance of $730,000. $730,000 / $2.17 = 336,406 units. You must sell 336,406 units before your team will see any more money than they already got. Not very many games sell 336,406 units. Maybe only the top 10 games on any platform.

Another issue that comes up here is the feeling that the publisher is being greedy. The typical point of view of the developer, you, is that you are going to do all the work and they are getting 85% of that $14.48. You feel like you should get more. I know I often felt this way. Here's the other point of view. From the view of the publisher they put in $730,000 and probably several $100,000 more on marketing and plus they also need to pay sales people and marketing people and producers etc. Lets say they spent a total of $1,500,000 on your game. What have you spent? You've spent $0. They are risking $1.5 million dollars on you. If you or your team fails they are out $1.5 million dollars. On the other hand you risk nothing. If you fail you already made $730,000 dollars. That hardly seems fair. The reason they get all the money is that they are the people taking all the risk.

As you can see, the companies don't make money on games until they've sold a LOT of copies. They aren't being overly greedy, they're being smart. In this scenario, the publisher has to sell 121,852 copies of the game to break even.

Anyway, I don't think they're gonna take a chance at selling their system for $100 off to get an edge when they can't really hope to make that up on games sold.

EDIT: This article isn't exactly the most up-to-date article, so there's a possibility that the cost is much higher now. Plus, this is only one example so there are many different variations that could occur.

[kaji]

Here here!

*Highfives MS for the well thought out post*

[Fsiphskilm]

Oh B

[Raiden no Kishi]

One concern I have is cost for controllers. I think the Revolution's controllers rock, but I'm a casual gamer with a less-than-impressive cash flow. How am I supposed to afford 4 controllers + additional controller modules?

.rai//

[mastersquirrel]

*Gives Kaji a high five back* Thank you, thank you.

That's very interesting Volt, too bad I didn't find that for my research! That would've been an interesting thing to point out. But it doesn't change the fact that they aren't selling their games for over-the-top prices. (I know it wasn't you saying that by the way, just pointing that out so there's no confusion)

That really is crazy because they're already risking money with the games, but they also risk it with the system! That's just crazy...

[HwaRang777]

well, I think that the most important thing is the games available for the revolution. I mean sure the controllers are important (like when Xbox came out with its contollers on steroids) but I'm pretty sure the games are as well. I could definetly see this in a FPS or FPS (the first one is First person shooter the other is First person Samurai/swordsman). And while I have not owned a nintendo, I do hope they come out with a new mario console.

[Fsiphskilm]

[quote

[Myoti]

Just like to make an interesting little note to go along with your statement, Volt.

Anyone out there know who it was that originally rescued the gaming industry?

[Yojimbo]

All you need is a Liver, and an ebay account.

Nex Gen Games are $59.99

I am NOT paying $60 bucks for games.
PSone $40
PS2 $50
PS3 $60
PS4 $70p

And they look like crap, some of the Xbox 360 games I saw screenshots of on gamestop.com look like PC games, nothiing special. I'm very worried about the game industry right now.

It's expected to make $30 billion worldwide in a few years. Which means it's a gold farm. Which means people who have no passion or talent for making games are going to jump in on the action and try to make some quick cash.

It's only a matter of time before the crash of 1983 happens again.

[indent]The game market crash of 1983 was caused by I,Robot the game and ET. Both Done by Atari.

I, Robot was revolutionary, it was the first game to use 3D polygons, the graphics were a huge UP from the normal. (kind of like what's happening today with all these new graphics)

ET for the Atari, was a dissaster, they gave the programer 2 months to make the game and release it, just because it was based on a Movie and they wanted to make money (kind of like what they're doing now)[/indent]

So the direction we're headed into is not good. Growth is good, but too much growth too fast is dangerous.

(just for extra info) 500 I, Robot arcades were dumped into the pacific, which was virtually all of them.

THOUSANDS of Copies of ET were pulled from the shelves and factories and were burried in a landfill somewhere in Arizona.

Yes we all know how crappy 360 games look.



I mean really look at that jaggy mark on his pinky finger that looks awful!



Uggghhh this one's even worse!



Absolutely butt fugly...what were they thinking.



Sheesh Outbreak looked better.

Some of the screenshots look like PC games... Maybe quite possibly it's because some of them are also being released on PC? Yes as if that's a bad thing in the first place considering they look as good as PC's with $400+ videocards. If those fail to impress you even the slightest than your jadedness is off the richter scale and you'll never be satisfied with anything less than Virtual Reality. And I would not judge whether a game looks like "crap" off of looking at some screenshots, saying that's premature would be an understatement.

It's alot harder these days to just "jump in" the industry and makes some quick cash. You've even said it yourself the cost of making a game is getting in the 10-20 million dollar range as a norm, along with licensing fees. It's not exactly easy for newcomers with no experience, no passion, and no credibility to make a decent game albeit one at all. If they did and it sucked, then no one would buy it and they'd lose money, that simple. With the industry's ever increasing revenue comes with it the costs of making them.

The Nintendo and TurboGrafix both debuted at $200. The 16 bit era consoles like Genesis, Super Nintendo, etc. also debuted at $200. The Playstation and Nintendo 64 debuted at $300, at about the same time as the Playstaion's release Saturn dropped to match it. The PS2 and the Xbox also debuted at $300. Notice a trend here? Game prices also steadily rose along with those but were more stable so it was bound to happen sooner or later. Also in the early 90's when every company and their mother was releasing consoles, there were alot more risks then.

With the Playstation, N64, and Saturn people were saying the same thing. Oh my gosh 3D graphics will be the end of "fun" gaming give us back 2D! Obviously gaming's been getting nothing but better since and it will only continue.

Also as I recall movie tickets were around $4 in the early 90's. They've raised the prices since and now you can't get into a movie without plopping down close to $8. That's the way capitalism works, if no one wants to pay higher prices then they won't. If you don't want to pay $60 for a new game or $400 for a console at launch then you won't. I personally don't have a real problem with it. Now obviously I wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea, but I know the reason why and I can afford it.

Save a little extra cash every week, don't buy a drink next time you go to Subway, work a little overtime, shop around for the best deals, plan any entertainment purchases, buy generic store brand stuff, wait 6-12 months for a price cut on games and consoles, or buy used. These are all really easy things one can do and they add up if plopping down an extra $10 or $100 bucks on a new game and console is so difficult. And of course if you don't like the price or the product don't buy it. Thank God we live in a country like this where we have so many economic choices.

[blkmage]

It appears that the images that show off the amazing graphical capabilities of the machine may have been exaggerated. Article.

[Yojimbo]

It appears that the images that show off the amazing graphical capabilities of the machine may have been exaggerated. Article.

Ok...that article really doesn't say much of anything. It even refutes most of that claim itself. And in what way is the a detriment to the entire list of other 360 games out? If you haven't noticed there are plenty of 360 gameplay movies that look absolutely spectacular. And there are dozens of articles of hands on playtime with those games that are very positive. Even games like Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero which some were worried about are shaping up great. But judging by this. It's almost two weeks old and for the life of me I couldn't find a single other news site that had it nor have I even seen the commercial, which is wierd. Two it was poorly encoded and was at a crappy resolution. Three it really didn't look as bad as your tiny screenshot you posted there implies.

But yes I'm sure the other awesome looking 360 game videos I've seen are a figment of my imagination. And the 360's power is an ellaborate hoax by Microsoft to dupe me out of my money. This isn't the early 90's no one can afford to make a crappy console anymore. You guys really need to get over your 360 bashing. I for one believe all the 360 and PS3 will probably look about the same in the end. Can't say for Nintendo since we've yet to see a Revolution game but I have no doubts. Anyone saying any of the three consoles will look "omg teh suxxorz!!11" is a little foolish.

[quote]Many aspects of the video - such as the animations - could simply be placeholder]

[Fsiphskilm]

Gears of

[Sync]

Yes we all know how crappy 360 games look.
-Gears of War shot-

I mean really look at that jaggy mark on his pinky finger that looks awful!
-Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion shot-

both PC game shots, the Oblivion one is straigt from the beta run on dual GF-7800GTs, for GoW they put some heavy rendering and photoshop effects to get that HDR bloom and DX9-style effects.

[blkmage]

Two it was poorly encoded and was at a crappy resolution. Three it really didn't look as bad as your tiny screenshot you posted there implies.

Perhaps, but it sure doesn't look like the first pics that were released and I fail to see how resolution and encoding can make these look so poor compared to the first amazing screenshots we saw.

[Myoti]

Uh, Yojimbo, are those actually in-game screenshots? O_o

I have kinda a hard time imagining those are without them having to sacrifice ALOT of gameplay power.

[Locke]

Leaked Specs

[Fireproof]

Can anyone spell "teh pwn?"

[Sync]

the RN520? wow, I'm been an nVidia guy since the TNT2 but thats impressive that they were able to finagle that before it even went to fab for PC based graphics cards (barring that being a fake list however).

[truthgone12]

Well the FPS thing is actually something I'd worry about first. People always seem to think that aiming with your whole arm is easier or more accurate than aiming with a mouse. Perhaps that's where the impression that playing videogames helped the Colombine kids be more lethal. Well, as anyone who has played a lot of FPSes and shoots real guns will tell you, nothing is further from the truth. I used to play Action Quake 2 a lot and I was pretty much a crack shot in that game. I had very little difficulty hitting characters in the head, while we were both moving, with only a couple shots, over 90% of the time. This was, of course, controlled with the mouse.

Alas the skill does not translate to a real pistol. With my actual gun the claim is more like I can put 90% or more of my shots somewhere on a man-sized paper target provided both it and I am stationary and it's not too far away from me, with both hands on the gun, in a stabalised stance. I find it's very easy to make precision movements with a mouse, I find it's very hard to have precision control of a firearm held out in front of me.

As with anything, I'd have to try it to see, but assuming that you'd have greater accuracy simply because you are using your arm rather than your wrist and fingers isn't a good assumption. The mouse really is a good device for precision pointing.

Heck, I remember playing a VR game at the Calgary Stampede years ago. It was a nifty experience, but I always couldn't help thinking of how clunky it was. The game moved at a fairly slow pace and that was good, it was much harder to control your character than you might think, and much harder to aim accurately. I couldn't help thinking how someone who played Quake CTF would annihlate all the VR players with a mouse and keyboard.

So it will not be as easy it will be harder actually.

[blkmage]

I believe that the controller will act more like an analog stick than a light gun.

[Zilch]

Okay, after watching some demonstrations of the Rev controllerremotethingy, I'm starting to be sold. I think I'm gonna trust Nintendo. They've been doing this longer than anyone else.

[Myoti]

Yes! Come to the Dark Side Zilch. Nintendo is your father!! Bwahahaha!!!

[Zilch]

If Nintendo's my father, then Darth Vader's my great aunt.

And guys, please, keep the graphics argument to a minimum until the systems come out, mmkay? Let the resolutions and polygons and gameplay settle themselves when the systems come out, then we can start bashing ALL of them at once.

[Myoti]

Let the resolutions and polygons and gameplay settle themselves when the systems come out, then we can start bashing ALL of them at once.

Agreed.