Rumor: Concept Designs for Nintendo's "Project Cafe" Surface
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
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It's a matter of whether Epic chooses to support the console more than if the console chooses to support them.bomblord said:
REASON 1 - Bad Firmware
Different consoles don't just have different hardware, they have different firmware, software that's embedded into the hardware itself, which means different hoops to jump through getting a game engine to compile a game for the console.
Sometimes the console developer makes it play super-friendly, like with Microsoft and the Xbox 360. The thing's like publishing to a PC, it's super-easy. Ever wonder why PS3 versions of the same games can't measure up? Because it's an absurd piece of hardware that demands that developers jump through a whole lot of roundabout hoops to get the same performance due to its odd processor structure. At the very least, though, it behaves closely enough to a personal computer for Epic to come up with some shortcuts in their PS3 package and make it worth their while.
Meanwhile the Wii, and indeed every Nintendo console ever, is notoriously difficult to develop for because Nintendo uses stone-age firmware. Where Sony and Microsoft are at least trying to make their consoles friendly for developers and have been bringing them closer and closer to being like PCs in terms of how you compile an executable, Nintendo literally hasn't changed the way that they write their firmware since the Nintendo 64. I don't mean that it's primitive in terms of computing power, I mean that it's designed literally for Nintendo to use it and nobody else. Hell, Epic COULD probably come up with a way for Unreal 3 to publish to this hunk of plastic if they wanted to, albeit with limited functionality. They did it for iPhone, for crap's sake. But, then again, even the iPhone is friendlier to publish on.
REASON 2 - No Money In It
These development kits don't pay for themselves, you know. Epic had to put a lot of effort into developing the means for the Unreal Engine to publish to 360 and PS3. That means a lot of man-hours and a lot of moolah. Moolah that they make back via licensing it to the developers that want to publish to those consoles--Over $3,million for a commercial license plus $500,000 per each platform the game is published to. And of course they have a pool of dozens of developers per each of those platforms that they provide this service to.
Third-party Nintendo games? I don't know if you noticed this, but not exactly a booming market these days. If nobody's making money on the console or if they don't have any developers in their pool who are even interested in it, Epic isn't going to support it, plain and simple, unless Nintendo reaches out to them somehow.
REASON 3 - Bad Networking
As we're all probably jolly well aware, Nintendo's networking features are terrible. They can't establish a decent multiplayer network to save their lives, but never mind the online leaderboards; they can't even develop a good structure for updating the console or games for it. Developers literally can't patch their titles or provide DLC. Not "don't," but "can't."
Just a few reasons you might not be seeing Mass Effect or Borderlands on a Nintendo console, no matter how powerful it gets.
It would be quite useful for long journies.The.Bard said:
I don't think this is legitimate (just based on gut feeling so not worth much) but I hope it is.
I wonder if they're going to address those issues with the new system.NickCaligo42 said:
If they fix those, then Nintendo could be a major player for a console again.
One: The system looks nothing different. Don't change what isn't broke, I guess.
Two: No longer motion sensor? Step in the right direction, Nintendo!
Three: Every controller has a touch screen? Step in the wrong direction, Nintendo. (Seriously... The prices on the controllers will be ridiculously high.)
Four: Controllers have the Gamecube design? Good. That was a great design.
Overall reaction: Optimistic. Despite the insane price this thing will have, seems like it might be a good leap for Nintendo.
Two: No longer motion sensor? Step in the right direction, Nintendo!
Three: Every controller has a touch screen? Step in the wrong direction, Nintendo. (Seriously... The prices on the controllers will be ridiculously high.)
Four: Controllers have the Gamecube design? Good. That was a great design.
Overall reaction: Optimistic. Despite the insane price this thing will have, seems like it might be a good leap for Nintendo.
Not really.GiantRaven said:
Think about what happens if you take a 1080p picture on a TV, and run 4-player split-screen?
What's the screen resolution for each player here?
Well, 1920 x 1080 split 4 ways is:
955 x 540 - That's pretty hefty for a rather small screen, but perfectly doable.
And that'd have identical detail for each player as a 4-way splitscreen game would.
(And really, why turn off the TV at all, unless you're doing it to ensure people can't look at the other player's screens? So each controller would only show 1 screen)
If these are real, then what we're basically looking at is a controller that's the bottom half of a 3DS with ergonomic handgrips. "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology," remember? Nintendo's "new stuff" is almost always to some degree either made out of their old-stuff or based on some new repurposing of tech they already know what to do with.
I'll repeat a crazy (but less so by the minute) prediction of mine from earlier today: IF the controller really is essentially a stripped-down input-only 3DS (it's even also supposed to have a camera, yes?) I would not be surprised at all to find out that the rumored "new mobile interface" angle is that you can use a 3DS in place of a controller. Not saying I've got any special insight; save that building "new" tech out of tech they already have and encouraging multi-hardware purchases is a very "Nintendo way" to build a console, and that "some of you ALREADY own part of the console!" is the sort of marketing they love to do.
I'll repeat a crazy (but less so by the minute) prediction of mine from earlier today: IF the controller really is essentially a stripped-down input-only 3DS (it's even also supposed to have a camera, yes?) I would not be surprised at all to find out that the rumored "new mobile interface" angle is that you can use a 3DS in place of a controller. Not saying I've got any special insight; save that building "new" tech out of tech they already have and encouraging multi-hardware purchases is a very "Nintendo way" to build a console, and that "some of you ALREADY own part of the console!" is the sort of marketing they love to do.
Fakety fake fake fake fake. Fake. No way is Nintendo going to design a console to directly compete with their brand new handheld. That would be dumb. And that case looks like a PC tower, which Nintendo would never do because it reminds their customers of their competitors. And no company in their right mind would create hardware to stream a 1080p image to a 3 inch screen. First of all, that would mean rendering the entire image as many times as there are controllers. Second of all, what's the use of a 1080p images on a 3 to 4 inch screen? It's tiny. You can barely stretch the image on the largest TVs to start to see the quality of a 1080p picture diminish. Likewise, if you shrank it down to that small, it wouldn't have any more visual fidelity than standard definition.
I'll admit that Nintendo may have screen integrated controllers. And that they may call them "high definition." But no way will they be 1080p. The ipad isn't even 1080p. And they'd never have that feature set either. You know how long it took to be able to play Wiiware games from an SD card? Two different games at the same time. My ass.
I'll admit that Nintendo may have screen integrated controllers. And that they may call them "high definition." But no way will they be 1080p. The ipad isn't even 1080p. And they'd never have that feature set either. You know how long it took to be able to play Wiiware games from an SD card? Two different games at the same time. My ass.
actually, our very own Moviebob has one of the most patently insane (yet oddly brilliant) ideas of what he thinks the rumored touchpad could mean:
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2011/04/overthinkers-insane-wii2-theory.html
Now THAT would be right up Nintendo's alley
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2011/04/overthinkers-insane-wii2-theory.html
Now THAT would be right up Nintendo's alley
I do not believe this is legit. The system looks meh, but w/e. What strikes me is the controller. Totally fake. Its just a Gamecube controller stretched out and a color pic (in an otherwise colorless doc) to really grip on the fanboys heart strings. I believe this is about as accurate as all those cloverfield monsters I saw prior to viewing the movie.
I'm going to go on the side of "faaaaaaake", or at least "an older version that Nintendo won't ultimately want anyone to see" simply by how it looks. Nintendo wouldn't run with a controller that looks like that; it looks like something out of 2003; I don't think it would sell.
Now Gents, this is obviously fake, but let's think about the mindset of the fakers here:
Nintendo making a new console and they're taking design specs from their now dead rival Sega whose last hurrah, the Dreamcast, the console that comes with the pre-scripted statement "A Good System That was Ahead of It's time but lacked third party support... etc, etc" is the inspiration.
If we over think things, perhaps the creators beleive that Nintendo will be attempting too much innovation that'll be a detriment to their development and sending them down a similar route of the Dreamcast, and perhaps in another 10-25 years we'll be touting how the Wii2 was a "Brilliant system that was ahead of it's time, yadda yadda"?
Okay, now I sound crazy.
Nintendo making a new console and they're taking design specs from their now dead rival Sega whose last hurrah, the Dreamcast, the console that comes with the pre-scripted statement "A Good System That was Ahead of It's time but lacked third party support... etc, etc" is the inspiration.
If we over think things, perhaps the creators beleive that Nintendo will be attempting too much innovation that'll be a detriment to their development and sending them down a similar route of the Dreamcast, and perhaps in another 10-25 years we'll be touting how the Wii2 was a "Brilliant system that was ahead of it's time, yadda yadda"?
Okay, now I sound crazy.
No, you're not the only one who may have an issue with portable consoles requiring you to also purchase a large block of plastic...somehow?Mahorfeus said:
Notice the screenshot is Mario Kart Wii? I might be wrong, but it looks like just a few screen caps of the game slapped onto a fake controller design. Plus, a controller like that would run you, like, $350. So four of them, PLUS a console? Nintendo has never been one for steep prices.
Now, this design is sort of a step in the direction of "family gaming" since you can all play at once, but It just looks fake. Someone just made this up and took the picture from their bedroom.
It just-oh screw this. Moviebob was right.
Now, this design is sort of a step in the direction of "family gaming" since you can all play at once, but It just looks fake. Someone just made this up and took the picture from their bedroom.
It just-oh screw this. Moviebob was right.