Tendo City

... yeah right.

http://www.nintendojo.com/infocus/view_i...1118458704

Quote:It is accurate that at this time we will not support high-definition [on Revolution]. Nintendo's Revolution is being built with a variety of gamers' needs in mind, such as quick start-up time, high power, and ease of use for development and play. It's also compact and sleek, and has beautiful graphics in which to enjoy innovative games. Nintendo doesn't plan for the system to be HD compatible as with that comes a higher price for both the consumer and also the developer creating the game. Will it make the game better to play? With the technology being built into the Revolution, we believe the games will look brilliant and play brilliantly. This can all be done without HD.

This was from Nintendo of America. At any rate, interpret that as you will, but I'd say it's pretty cut and dry.

But, there is of course the chance that Japan means to do something different. I believe the machine itself may be designed to support it, and Nintendo may just not ever make their own games support it. No, wait, on second thought, I don't believe that. I just have no reason to really...

Anyway, there it is...

So what does this mean? To me? Nothing. To most people, nothing. To the base of people who HAVE HD TVs, and there are a lot of them, this might actually mean something.

But anyway, all that aside, stop bothering with an HD "format" and just give us big screen computer moniters with TV and game system support. What ever happened to "standardization" anyway?

That's really unacceptable. HDTVs are becoming more and more common every day in people's households.

I find it striking that MS and Sony love to trump up the sexier aspects of their console, while Nintendo seems to almost want to dissuade people from buying their products. I don't get why they go with Less is More because it's been a spectacular failure for the last ten years, but what do I know?

Yunno, I used to run an anti-Nintendo website years ago. If only they'd made it as easy then as they do now, I would have had a fucking field day.

I would REALLY just like to use a computer moniter for pretty much ALL my display needs, and any updating would just be done on ONE format of display.

Monitors are too small, and very few are widescreen. Give me a videocard that is DVI-capable, and I'm using my HDTV for a monitor.

My suggestion is just making BIGGER moniters. They have 'em! :D

The thing is, HDTV, for all it's worth, has yet to catch up to computer moniters.

I know they would be very expensive, but an HDTV is a luxery item ANYWAY.

Yeah, HDTVs don't match computer monitors in resolution, etc. They can't replace them. As for the other way around... there are issues -- older games actually can look worse because they are sharper and don't have the TV's built-in fuzziness, for instance... :) -- but they are less.

Now, does this affect me? No. I don't have an HDTV and won't anytime soon. But this kind of thing really annoys the people who do care, so it's just not smart for Nintendo to do things like this. It's NOT the way you gain market share, that's for sure... they sure seem to want to deny it, but hardcore gamers are a huge part of the gaming market... and as for softcore gamers, they go where the games are, and the games aren't on the console with the smallest userbase. I don't know what they are doing, but it sure isn't "trying to win"... even if I personally don't care if the Revolution supports HDTVs natively or not.

As for computer monitors though, hasn't Nintendo said something in the past about supporting them? I'm not sure about that, but maybe...

Well actually in Japan the current method for hooking up high definition is using a computer moniter style hookup, instead of what has become the standard in the US. More segregation of the market... But anyway, the GCN in America used our standard, and the one in Japan used their's.

Oh and, yeah in some games the blurriness can make the game look nicer, softer than it really is. That's a problem with HDTV too though right? Even running in lower resolution modes, it's still sharper...

But, ya know, maybe they can create a blurring effect. Some sort of sharpness reducing dial or something...

Quote:Well actually in Japan the current method for hooking up high definition is using a computer moniter style hookup, instead of what has become the standard in the US. More segregation of the market... But anyway, the GCN in America used our standard, and the one in Japan used their's.

Right, RGB... also popular in Europe, I believe.

Oh, and that is the Digital Out port, right? The one Nintendo removed from newer GCs to save money?

Yeah, that really instills confidence in their plans for higher-quality video support...

Quote:Oh and, yeah in some games the blurriness can make the game look nicer, softer than it really is. That's a problem with HDTV too though right? Even running in lower resolution modes, it's still sharper...

Yes, that's true... just a price you pay for getting the latest stuff, I guess.

Quote:But, ya know, maybe they can create a blurring effect. Some sort of sharpness reducing dial or something...

They might be able to, sure, but it'd take some work, and I just doubt that the market for it is large enough for them to bother... though it'd be nice for stuff like most classic games (that is, just about anything pre-this-console-generation... :D).

You can set some HDTVs to do things like force interlacing, which corrects that to some degree.

Yeah, some sort of "recrapification gauge" would be nice. Well, TVs already have that. Most TVs I've used do have a sharpness altering thing. The TV has a normally fairly crisp image (relative to it's poor settings I mean), but you can reduce it to a very blurry image pretty easily. In fact, I purposefully did that when I played RE2 on N64, and it made the FMVs look a LOT better. My brain filled in the details that just didn't exist instead of the TV pretty much making it obvious that it's blocky as hell.

Oh by the way, any, ANY, image enhancing software HAS to ADD stuff to the image that was NOT in the original image. At a certain level, it's just impossible to enhance the image without out and out creating a complete fiction. What I'm saying is, it's impossible for Batman to enhance a blurry white spot in a background into perfectly legible text since that text was not in the original image, and even if the software did make some text out of it, it would be random and wouldn't help the Bats at all. And, for that matter, any blurry pics you see of Mars that are analyzed at the PIXEL level (and normally they are analyzing JPEGs at that, notorious for compression induced artifacts) have NO data to offer, so whatever crazy junk those quacks offer about alien civilizations is bunk, BUNK I say! Give me a bag full of Martian droppings or SHUT UP! I have no idea how I went from one topic to the other... oh yes I do, it was on my mind before I came here :D.

Quote:Yeah, some sort of "recrapification gauge" would be nice. Well, TVs already have that. Most TVs I've used do have a sharpness altering thing. The TV has a normally fairly crisp image (relative to it's poor settings I mean), but you can reduce it to a very blurry image pretty easily. In fact, I purposefully did that when I played RE2 on N64, and it made the FMVs look a LOT better. My brain filled in the details that just didn't exist instead of the TV pretty much making it obvious that it's blocky as hell.

The difference is, a TV at its "sharpest" is nowhere NEAR a HDTV, much less a computer monitor... the degree to which this matters varies, but it can (obviously) be anything from 'clearer the game looks worse' to 'they designed it assuming the fuzziness would be there and it's something actually meant to help the graphics'...

Quote:Oh by the way, any, ANY, image enhancing software HAS to ADD stuff to the image that was NOT in the original image. At a certain level, it's just impossible to enhance the image without out and out creating a complete fiction. What I'm saying is, it's impossible for Batman to enhance a blurry white spot in a background into perfectly legible text since that text was not in the original image,

I know, and it's annoying when movies do that... but yeah, for games, similarly, all they can do is smooth things out, make it clearer, etc, not actually change the coded graphics.

Wow. They really don't want to compete do they? And with that Nintendo's relevance just shrank even more.

Decent IGN article about this.

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

But yes, if Nintendo thinks that this will attract the mass market, they'll be surprised...

It really is something that makes a difference to me. I'm not as hardcore as some people are about home entertainment, but I definitely know what's going on, and it's true... once you go HD, you simply cannot go back.

I'm extraordinarily disappointed, but not really that surprised. What I do wonder is why Nintendo even bothered making another console. It's clear to me that they really do not expect to succeed, and they are making little effort to satisfy anyone except the people who will buy the next Zeldas and Marios even if they came looking like... well... Wind Waker.

12% of people in the US have HDTVs, and that percentage is significantly lower in Europe and Japan (though higher in Korea and some other countries). This won't hurt Nintendo much for several years at least except among a few people... who mostly already gave up on Nintendo supporting the best tech -- Gamecube doesn't either you know. So I think the additional harm this causes is limited... though if Nintendo wanted to change people's perceptions of their company and gain any ground among hardcore gamers, stuff like this blows that chance before it even began.

12% of people own HDTV. Maybe 25-30% own game consoles (rough estimate). It's very likely these percentages overlap considerably. This is a very boneheaded move.

I think there's alot of confusion going on about HD.

The Gamecube supports 1080i resolution (through the component cable). This is HD. I remember reading about the Revolution hands on from IGN where they found a component hook-up on the back of the system. So Revolution will have HDTV support.

What Nintendo is talking about when they say "It will not feature HD", are the Bluray/HD-DVD formats. I did a little research tyo find out what these formats offer:

Blu-ray and HD DVD are two competing high-capacity disc technologies backed by various consumer electronics and computer manufacturers. HD DVD and Blu-ray will include Set Top Recorders, as well as Computer Burners. Both will be capable of recording High Definition broadcasts.

On one side you have Blu-ray, led by Sony, that includes Panasonic, Samsung, Dell, HP, Philips, and several others, and HD-DVD which is supported by Toshiba, NEC, and a couple of others . Both formats use blue laser technology, which has a shorter wavelength than red, allowing it to read the smaller digital data "spots" packed a lot more densely onto a standard-size disc. HD-DVD is capable of holding 30GB on a dual layer disc (compared to 8.5GB for standard dual layer DVDs). Blu-ray will go up to 50GB at launch, and Sony is reportedly working on a quad-layer 100GB disc.

These discs (and the accompanying players and recorders) are set to be released later in 2005.

More...

What is HD-DVD?

HD-DVD (for High-Density Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical media format which is being developed as one standard for high-definition DVD.

HD-DVD is similar to the competing Blu-ray Disc, which also uses the same CD sized (120 mm diameter) optical data storage media and 405 nm wavelength blue laser.

HD-DVD is promoted by Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo, and backed by four major film studios. It got engaged in a format war with the Blu-ray Disc proposed by Sony.

HD-DVD has a capacity of 15 GB (for dual-layer HD-DVD capacity would be 30 GB). The surface layer is 0.6 mm thick, the same as for DVD and much thicker than the Blu-ray Disc's 0.1 mm layer.

The numerical aperture of the optical pick-up head is 0.65, compared with 0.6 for DVD.

These factors mean that HD-DVD media is less expensive to manufacture than Blu-ray discs which require re-tooling of DVD disc production lines. Existing DVD media are playable on HD-DVD drives with only minor modification of the optical pickup.

Blu-ray Disc players however, are now also expected to include backward compatibility with DVDs. The two formats employ nearly identical video compression techniques, including MPEG-2, Video Codec 1 (VC1, based on the Windows Media 9 format) and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.

On November 19, 2003, the DVD Forum decided with eight to six votes, that the HD-DVD will be the HDTV successor of the DVD.

At this meeting they renamed it to HD-DVD, while it had been previously called the "Advanced Optical Disc". Blu-ray Disc was never submitted to the DVD Forum for consideration.

So there you have it. HD-DVD and Bluray have nothing to do with picture quality. Watching a movie or playing a game on DVD or HD-DVD will look exactly the same in resolution, the difference is tht HD-DVD can hold up to 30 gigs on a dual layer. It has nothing to do with the resolution of the screen which is dictated by

1.) Is the software/movie recorded in high resolutions? (almost all DVD films are. If you see 'Pro scan enabled' on the back of your GC games, it's available at the highest resolutions possible at 1080i though it's up to the developers of what is actually built in high res. For example the textures on your main character may look fantastic and sharp while some of the walls look muddled.)

2.) What is your output connection? (From worst to best, RF or coaxial looks like ass, while component or DVI is the best)

3.) What is your television capable of? (Not all HDTV's can reach max resolutions. Some only output 720i so you have to check your TV)

The actual disk has nothing to do with the capable resolution except for the fact that with 30 gigs you can litteraly make every texture map high res and never have to worry about disk memory. But the fact is, 99% of games on earth never go beyond 8 gigs and couldn't run EVERY texture in high res because it would sap resources from the CPU. And more often than not, those 8 gig games are because of FMV or CG cut scenes, not texture map or engine data.

Now, if the Revolution doesnt have a component or DVI out, i'll be very disappointed. But I dont think that's the case here.

There is one game that uses two DVDs... Xenosaga Episode 2...

But yeah, those two formats just add extra space. That extra storage space WILL allow for higher res movies to be stored on there since higher res means more data means more space required, but that's it.

One interesting point about HDTV in the IGN article is framerates... an HDTV is wider than a normal TV, so you've got more screen to fill -- which means that framerates will be lower in HDTV versions of games than in normal TV versions. Huh.

That all depends on the fill rate of the screen, which can be improved.

I didn't read it, but I was under the impression the technology already existed to simply increase the line by line fill rate to the point where the frame rate issue was moot.

What do I have to support this? My computer moniter has a LOT more pixels to fill than the average HDTV. Whether the screen size ratio is off or not, that's the same thing in that it should take more time to fill the screen. Well, the screen refresh rate I can manage on my moniter settings can be VERY high indeed. Wide screen is just a ratio issue. The point they were trying to get from that is more pixels to fill, and well, as I said, since the wide screen thing is just ratio then that doesn't matter so much as the number of pixels period. And, moniters today have refresh rates a lot higher than the average TV.

IGN is idiots.

with wide screen you're litteraly showing more on screen at once, so for video games it's not just a question of frame rates and resolution. The engine has to actually support it from the ground up.

I like RE4's letter boxed style. You just use the Zoom function on your 16X9 TV and it's fine. But it's not true wide screen so it gets slightly faded.

When I play PD I always put the resolution on low and 'cinema wide' mode. Then I zoom it up and it runs at a beautiful frame rate. Put it in 16X9 and you see a visible drop in frames. I'd like to see a day where all video games are in 16X9 but who knows when that will happen.

You could see it that way, or you could see it as cutting the top and bottom off the image. Since they upped the res in making the widescreen format though instead of lowering it to make wide screen the "other way" (the way the GBA does it), it basically means more power needs instead of less. And yeah, if it's designed from the ground up for it, all the difference in the world.

Here's the quote.

Quote:There could be a visual downside to the switch to high-definition, though, and this may work to Nintendo's benefit. HD games may be hampered by framerate problems, while SD titles rendered by more powerful hardware will probably run smoothly. "This is my single biggest worry," admits Eggebrecht. "Let's put it this way. At 640x480 [standard definition], we're at a point where we can do anything. Anything. Finally. But with high-definition, I think we're at about the same level of challenge when it comes to framerate as we are this generation. You can do a hell of a lot more polygons. You can do a hell of a lot more shaders. But the inherent fill-rate issues are still certainly there. Will it be a 30-frame time? Will it be a 60-frame time? It will be interesting to see."

Higher resolutions means lower framerates... something any PC gamer surely knows. :)

Well talking about issues like that, certainly. It's just that from the way your first post was phrased I thought you meant something else.

I thought it was pretty obvious that HDTVs have higher resolutions than normal ones, so I didn't have to say it...

Well duh, I was saying that from what you said it seemed like IGN was claiming that ALL media, like movies for example, wouldn't be showable at a high refresh rate because of the problem, period (.)

Why would they be talking about movies in an article about games and HD?

:)

...

I'm saying that the way you put it didn't even bring UP the issue of games having to be designed around it. The way you put it was that this article (which I didn't see a link for) was arguing on the wide screen itself being a direct limitation that could not be overcome.

Uh, I linked the article a couple of posts earlier, DJ... obviously you missed it.

http://www.tcforums.com/forums/showpost....stcount=14

Whatever this means Nintendo should just shut up until they're ready to reveal everything because every time they open their mouth they make the system sound worse.

They did the same thing with the Gamecube, and it didn't end up as bad (technologically) as those early reports made it sound...

But it did end up selling quite poorly.

Gamecube hasn't done as well as it should have done sure, but "quite poorly" might be a bit strong for a console just about tied for second worldwide...

The total number of units sold decreases with every generation of Nintendo console... in a market that grows tremendously each year. That's not what I would consider a healthy trend.

Agreed, but as far as a company they are making the biggest profit of any game company. That says something.

Innovation is great, but at the same time you can't ONLY bring new to the table. Sometimes you have to stand on the shoulders of giants. Heck, you ALWAYS have to do that, so it's hard to really call any of the new stuff truly innovative.

Um... I wasn't really clear.

Anyway, Nintendo needs to pay attention to what everyone else is doing namely because everyone else is finding out amazing things that really enhance the experience. Online was the only truly new thing added to this generation, and Nintendo didn't even bother with it (well, that was on PCs long before, but I mean in consoles and um... yeah...). Now it's massive rewritable storage which allows for a lot of stuff. This is something Nintendo has been trying to support since the Famicom disk system, and now they decide it's not all that important? Well, to be fair Nintendo never did succeed with any of those addons, but all that shows is addons sell poorly.

Nintendo making their own innovations is great, but to ignore the innovations of the rest of the world is not a good idea... Well, that is to say, it's not something the 3rd parties are going to be keen on, which is what matters.

Nintendo has never had a problem with innovation, but they have had major problems with application... namely, add-ons.

Quote:Anyway, Nintendo needs to pay attention to what everyone else is doing namely because everyone else is finding out amazing things that really enhance the experience. Online was the only truly new thing added to this generation, and Nintendo didn't even bother with it (well, that was on PCs long before, but I mean in consoles and um... yeah...). Now it's massive rewritable storage which allows for a lot of stuff. This is something Nintendo has been trying to support since the Famicom disk system, and now they decide it's not all that important? Well, to be fair Nintendo never did succeed with any of those addons, but all that shows is addons sell poorly.

Yeah, I think some of this definitely falls under "learning the wrong lessons". The fact that the Famicom Disk System and 64DD failed has no connection with Nintendo's evident conclusions that people don't want harddrives or internet play... and when other companies (like Microsoft) show how it can be done, and well, it's like instead of listening Nintendo retreats and says even stronger "no we are right!!!" and refuses to change how they are doing things... whether it makes sense or not. More often these days, it just does not.

"hard drives fail"... well yes, but so do CD drives, and HDDs should mostly be fine for the several years that the console will really last, and flash memory does not provide enough space for one tenth of what they want to use it for.

"online doesn't make money"... but it's making more and more every year, and PR counts for a lot... Nintendo finally seems to maybe be realizing this, but it took WAY too long and did a lot of damage to them first.

Or how about... "we won't use that because other people are"... like why Nintendo isn't releasing something like EyeToy, I believe. Sure, innovation is great, but if someone else creates an innovation, why not use it?

Oh, right, because this is Nintendo we're talking about... :(