Nintendo Revolution update

[yoda313]

I don't know if you've heard this yet or not:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060324/BIZ04/603240302/1013



SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Nintendo Co. announced a partnership with former rivals Thursday intended to boost the library of downloadable classic video games for the company's upcoming Revolution console.

The agreement covers some of the more than 1,000 games made by Sega and Hudson Soft for the now defunct Sega Genesis console and the TurboGrafx 16 system, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said.

The Revolution's planned "Virtual Console" download service was already expected to also play older Nintendo-made games like "Mario Bros" and "Zelda."

"No one else can match the environment we're creating for expanding the game experience to everyone," said Iwata, speaking at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. "Our path is not linear, but dynamic."

He did not discuss pricing, availability or other details.

Long before Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. entered the console business, the Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 systems competed with Nintendo's Super NES for video game dominance in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Sega eventually dropped hardware in favor of software. Hudson and NEC Corp. jointly developed the TurboGrafx 16, which had a strong showing in Japan but poor sales in the United States.

Sony unveiled its online strategy for its upcoming PlayStation 3 console Wednesday, saying it would offer new features ranging from video chat and voice communications over the Internet to the ability to purchase and download game or other entertainment content directly to the machine.




This is interesting:

The Revolution's planned "Virtual Console" download service was already expected to also play older Nintendo-made games like "Mario Bros" and "Zelda."

So does that mean they haven't gotten approval from capcom, konami, and others?? But with sega thrown in that makes it really interesting. I would love to hear the pricing strategy on this. Plus would they "upconvert" the audio on the sub16bit games to fake stereo or simply leave it as mono??? No big deal though. But wait a minute, was the Sega Master System stereo???? I don't know, I never had one but I can't remember whether or not it was stereo. Hmm..

[Conquest10]

I don't think the Master System was stereo.

But I don't think capcom, konami, etc. would have a problem. Why would they give up the chance to make more money on 20 year old games?

[yoda313]

I don't think the Master System was stereo.

But I don't think capcom, konami, etc. would have a problem. Why would they give up the chance to make more money on 20 year old games?

Ditto I say find a way to get ALL the original games out. Heck 30% share, 50% share bring em on!!! I'd love to play all of them.

I wonder, would those usb adapters that let original controllers work on pc's work on the revolution?? Will the revolution have usb ports? I'd love to be able to plug in the original NES or SNES controller into the revolution.

[yoda313]

Here's the specs on the sega master system from wikipedia:

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


CPU: 8-bit Zilog Z80
3,546,893Hz for PAL/SECAM, 3,579,545Hz for NTSC
Graphics: VDP (Video Display Processor) derived from Texas Instruments TMS9918
Up to 32 simultaneous colors available (16 for sprites, 16 for background) from a palette of 64 (can also show 64 simultaneous colors using programming tricks)
Screen resolutions 256x192 and 256x224. PAL/SECAM also supports 256x240
8x8 pixel characters, max 488 (due to VRAM space limitation)
8x8 or 8x16 pixel sprites, max 64
Horizontal, diagonal, vertical, and partial screen scrolling

Sound (PSG): Texas Instruments SN76489
4 channel mono sound
3 sound generators, 4 octaves each, 1 white noise generator
Sound (FM): Yamaha YM2413
9 channel mono FM sound
built into Japanese Master System
available as plug-in module for Mark III
supported by certain games only


ROM: 64 kbit (8 kB) to 2048 kbit (256 kB), depending on built-in game
Main RAM: 64 kbit (8 kB)
Video RAM: 128 kbit (16 kB)
Game Card slot (Mark III and Master System 1 only)
Game Cartridge slot
Japanese and South Korean consoles use 44-pin cartridges, same shape as Mark I and Mark II
All other consoles use 50-pin cartridges with a different shape
The difference in cartridge style is a form of regional lockout
Expansion slot


===============================

So it was mono.

But get this the article says its still being made in Brazil with 74 built in ROM games!!! Wow.

[Conquest10]

I read a while ago that it was rumored that it would have a port for the old contollers. Plus the Revolution control rotated sideways is exactly like an old NES control.

[richdvd]

The compatability with the old games/controllers may be good for the older generation of gamers....but I doubt the younger kids will find much interest in it.

[yoda313]

I hope it has built in controller support. That would be nice.

[smearbrick1]

Wow... Nintendo is only about, I don't know, 10 years behind everyone in the PC world. How long have emulators been out there and they wait to till the next gen console to finally utilize them? I sometimes wish the whole videogame industry would just crumble and destroy itself.

Except Pong... There's hours of fun right there.

[Doramius]

Wow... Nintendo is only about, I don't know, 10 years behind everyone in the PC world. How long have emulators been out there and they wait to till the next gen console to finally utilize them? I sometimes wish the whole videogame industry would just crumble and destroy itself.

Except Pong... There's hours of fun right there.

When you say behind, are you talking about their newest console & recent game titles or are you talking about emulation?

If you're talking about emulation, Nintendo just wasn't trying to develop anything for it previously. If its about the console and recent titles, its only about 3-4 years. Nintendo hasn't been trying to push out consoles much unles they can keep them under a certain price. They make big profits this way and also sell better for people on a budget. I know more places on low income that have a Game Cube, over an Xbox or PS2. Nintendo makes more money in profit than the other companies combined. Nintendo's older titles have had (and in some cases still have) more popularity than any modern titles on PC, or console.

How many people do you know that have never played Mario Brothers, or those that have but overly hate it? I know a few myself, but I can count them on 1 hand.

[Dv8ted2]

Wow... Nintendo is only about, I don't know, 10 years behind everyone in the PC world.

Actually game consoles are usually ahead of computers. Consoles since the Dreamcast use two or more 64 bit processors to achieve 128 bit performance. We are just starting the conversion to mainstream 64 bit computing, so your statement is slightly inaccurate.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

that is sweet!
I still have and play my TurboGrafx-16, but it's starting to do some weird shit -- odd video and sound anomolies pop up at random intervals now...

No third party developers have announced that their games will be available for this emulation download part of the Revolution, but I'm sure if Nintendo makes even the smallest amount of $$ off the deal, others will quickly follow suit.

the Revolution will have ports to allow GameCube controllers to plug into it, and it will be 100% backward compatible with GameCube games.

[smearbrick1]

Wow... Nintendo is only about, I don't know, 10 years behind everyone in the PC world.

Actually game consoles are usually ahead of computers. Consoles since the Dreamcast use two or more 64 bit processors to achieve 128 bit performance. We are just starting the conversion to mainstream 64 bit computing, so your statement is slightly inaccurate.

Actually, I was speaking in terms of emulation.

[Doramius]

Why would I emulate a PC game? I already would have the disc for it. :P

[yoda313]

Why would I emulate a PC game? I already would have the disc for it. :P

Well dos can be tough for xp.....

[Doramius]

There are decent DOS emulatiors out there, And they shouldn't crash your system. DOS runs nice on newer systems, and I know people who have a Plain DOS drive they use for older games. 1 guy has a 20GB HDD that does nothing but house and play DOS games. He'll swap out the main drive and place the DOS drive in. However, he does have an older PCI video card and he has to move his monitor cable over to it. Other people I know have a second HDD that has Win98 or Win95 that they play their DOS games on. I have ResidentEvil 2, and I'll take it over to my friends house because it's not supported by XP. Got the game in 96'or 97' I think. Maybe a little later. Awesome game though.

[yoda313]

Don't those 98/95 games work if you switch the windows mode in the menu of the program? It has a toggle for different modes of windows.

But anyway - isn't a 20gb drive a bit excessive for dos games?? What did he do, rip every dos cd as an iso??? That seems to be a bit of an overkill. Wouldn't it be simpler to partition a few gigs off one of your own drives?

[Doramius]

He's got A LOT of games. But even then, he had the spare drive so he used it. I have a spare 15GB & a 20GB, that really aren't being used. They are laptop drives, but I have the converter. I may store a few things on them here and there. The 15GB drive I'll store any and all .dll, .sys, .vxd, and other such files on. It's a pain to look on the internet every friggin time. So when I find one I don't have but need for whatever reason, I'll save it to the 15GB dirive. I still have over 14GBs of space left, and I have a whole crapload of those files.

[Shocking]

Talking of Nintendo Revolution you can buy one here for £4! This site makes me laugh!
SPAM think you might have to read the homepage after though! Even stocking PS3s! Genius!