Tendo City

A few things you guys need to know that I havent seen anyone talking about

1.) Nintendo and Capcom have stated that RE5 is also going to be announced for PC and Revolution when there is more Revolution info (when the NDA is up). UBIsoft has also mentioned that they have been working on Revolution games for quite some time, this makes sense as King Kong is also slated for 'Next gen consoles'.

2.) The Revolution will be a hotspot for DS online play and some games will use this during connectivity or downloading/uploading between DS and Revolution networks. Download NES or SNES to DS?

3.) There is major speculation from people 'in the know' who say one of the revolutionary aspects of Revolution's controller is that it involves the revolving technology found in current gen 'rumble' technology to an extreme degree. In other words, the controller itself can be tilted and moved to say, steer a car, the 'gyroscopes' would turn faster or slower inside the controller depending on what is happening on screen which would create a distribution of weight in the controller. So basically, if you're driving on the road going 30 Mph tilting would be relatively easy, but as your speed increases you would find more resistance in tilting the controller. Then let's say you go off road and through mud or sand, the resistance would then be on maximum and would pull very hard when trying to tilt. The same principal can be found by holding a gyroscope while it's spinning very fast.

4.) Here's some pics i've found (they'll be at the bottom of this post), they're pretty self explanetory but one of them is the Revolution Dev Kit and controller! no word on these particular pictures has been given to their validity, so they could be fake. Time will tell. But one thing that seems reliable is that in all cases of these particular picture sets showing the controller, it showcases a trackball that glows blue when the system is on. This trackball could be using real force feed back which would be an incredible feat. You'll notice one picture is of the new Icarus that Miyamoto hinted about - It's being developed by Capcom (who, if you remember, canceled Dead Pheonix for no reason... now we know why)

If you're interested, here are some great sites for Revo info. On one site, this guy claims to be working in NCL and posts in a small blog. It's definitely worth a read.

http://nintendo-revolution.blogspot.com

http://www.connectrevolution.com/mambo/

http://onlynintendorevolution.blogspot.com/

The pictures:

Could someone please brighten up that dev kit shot? I'm on a 286 right now :P

Here's another thing to make you go Hmm.

This September is the Tokyo Games Show (TGS) between the 16th and 19th, this would be the perfect time and, more importantly, the place to show Revolution. I got so many goose bumps I look like a naked chicken.

Oh and Azure Dreams 2 is headed to DS

Quote:Han_Solo Leaks Specs on the Revolution
The following was posted on G4tv Forums a week ago by a username named Han_Solo. Han_Solo was the person who released the specs nearly 1 month before they were announced, however, the 360 is the worst kept secret in the video game industry, so getting ahold of those specs might have been possible. Here is what he wrote:

OK guys, got some new things about Revolution.



Yesterday Nintendo released their "near-to-final" specs again


Remember that N-Forum Magazine that was published on the internet about what the Rev will be like. It said Nintendo had 2 systems to choose from. I personally don’t know if that was true or false, but this is what happened.

Nintendo does have 2 prototypes in schedule, and is going to decide some time next year on which one to go ahead with. They also said that some of the specs I have released in my other set of specs have some errors , and that this is the much satisfied spec.



Revolution Specs

System 1
CPU:
IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz with 128 KB L1 cache + 2 internal Highly customized G5 cores, 2.5 GHz each.

Each G5 core will have 128 KB L1 cache.
The whole CPU (including the cores) will share either 256 – 512 KB of L2 cache.
Its Dual Threaded, G5 cores to have 2 hardware threads per core, 4 Threads total

10 billion dot product operations per second

Theoretical speed of CPU in a non-realistic way of looking at it, but it still is correct….

2.5 GHz CPU + 2x 2.5 GHz cores = 7.5 GHz total



Now this seems correct to that GameInformer Magazine that published the specs, but these specs are similar, but faster…



Revolution GPU
The same GPU spec as I released in my other sheet. Here’s a look back on it; But unfortunatley no HD support.....

ATI Custom based RN520 core. The "N" stands for Nintendo, and is because the ArtX team is with them, that is why it’s an "N". There will be 2 GPU cores (just like the nVidia SLI motherboard with two Graphics Chips), this will use ATI's alternative, and will be the first in any console.

GPU cores at 400 MHz each, theoretical 800 MHz. Will support up to 2048x1268 resolution, but no HD support, so that resolution is null.

28 way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines for each core with unified shader architecture. Thats a theoretical
56 Shader pipes if combined


Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>


Shader Performance: 45 billion shader operations per second



Revolution memory


512 MB of 700 MHz 1T-SRAM


Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB’s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller .


There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 – DTS 7.1, rumours has it will have 16 MB’s, like the Cube DSP

System 2

CPU:
IBM Custom PowerPC 2.5 GHz + 4 internal Power PC G5 cores running at 2.5 GHz each. Each core will have 128 KB L1 cache.
The whole CPU will share 512 of L2 cache.

Dual Threaded so there will also be two hardware threads per core, 8 hardware threads total.

15 billion dot product operations per second

Theoretical of 2.5 GHz + 10 GHz CPU speed = 12.5 GHz



Revolution GPU

2 GPU cores running at 500 MHz. Now this says there will be HD support up to the resolution as above...

Each GPU will have 256 MB of GDDR4 RAM

28 way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines for each core with unified shader architecture.


Polygon Performance: 500 million triangles per second theoretical, average in game would be around <100 Million/sec>


Shader Performance: 52 billion shader operations per second



Revolution memory

512 MB of 700 MHz Updated 1T-SRAM


Revolution will support a PPU chip (Physical Processing Chip). There will be 32 MB’s of its own RAM, which will link to the CPU and GPU and the Controller .


There will also be a separate sound card that will support only DD 5.1 – DTS 7.1, rumours has it will have 16 MB’s, like the Cube DSP


I don't understand these because I am no "Techy", however, I will see what other people have to say and post it here.

Source - http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/boar...&jump=true

I've never heard of a "Physical Processing Chip", and if you google the phrase you come up with about 6 links- all Nintendo fansites. However, if you search for PPU and ignore all the peace sites, you find this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPU">PPU</a>.

Quote:A PPU (Physics Processing Unit) is a dedicated processor designed to handle the calculations of physics, mainly in video games. Examples of calculations a PPU can do include rigid body dynamics, soft body dynamics, collision detection, fluid dynamics, hair and clothing simulation, finite element analysis, and fracturing of objects. The first PPU is called the PhysX chip, and was introduced by a fabless semiconductor company called Ageia.

Slated for release sometime in 2005, the PhysX will be manufactured by companies like ASUS, akin to the way graphics cards are manufactured. To be able to have hardware physics support in a game or application it has to be programmed with Ageia's Novodex SDK.

He got the name wrong, but the acornym right. I was guessing he was talking about something that would perform common physics calculations, but I wouldn't have thought something like that since it would seem very hard for the PPU to understand your code well enough to perform collision detection... I guess that is why it must be written using the manufacturer's SDK (software development kit), but I have a hard time seeing that happen. DirectX is only starting to support GPU's instructions, and those have been around for years.

But, if it is as good as it sounds, this would be pretty sweet. Physics calcualtions are a pain in the butt to do in software, and it would be really cool to make 1 function call and get the polygons your character is collding with, for example. And it would be fast. Very fast.

Another interesting thing is they specify "Dual-Threaded", instead of multi-threaded. In my understanding threading is done arbitrarily- i.e. you don't have a set number of threads but you spin up a new one when you need it. Perhaps hardware threading is different, but in Intel's description of HyperThreading (their version of hardware threading) they make it sound as if it is multi-threaded, not dual-threaded or some set number such as 2, or 3.

And to even add up the processing times like that is a joke- even to have the disclaimer that it is inaccurate but technically true is a joke. It's not even technically true.

So I am pretty sceptical about this. I won't say it's completely inaccurate, because I bet the Rev will be something similar. But I think there are enough mistakes and questions marks to doubt the validity.

But after saying all that- I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy. So I could be wrong as well.

Interesting but I'm not gonna get my hopes up. But about the trackball this seems to support that idea:

Quote:EGM: Any chance we'll see another Pikmin? Miyamoto: Nothings set in stone yet, but the interface we're creating for the Revolution is well suited for Pikmin - I think it would be a good match. Not much I can say other than that.

Source: EGM via http://hometown.aol.com/mips36/

I just read some more about the PhysX PPU at their website. It's true that games usually only implement basic physics, and usually cheat that to make it faster. This would greatly increase the speed of those calculations and also make it easier to do more complex physics stuff (I don't think that is an issue anyway, but there it is). However, when you start talking about every rain drop being blown around by the wind and breaking apart into smaller droplets when it hits an object, and rocks and metals that have different properties so the shatter or bend, or cars that have realistic damage from crashes, you are talking about ALOT of extra overhead that is not even considered now. For example, so now you have a PPU that does all kind of calculations on the raindrops and the wind, that's great. But now you have to keep track of EVERY SINGLE RAIN DROP in the world and have some way to represent wind. That is a lot of extra work the CPU will have to do that it wasn't doing before. And it will be a pain for developers until they develop new libraries to abstract away a lot of those details. I'm not saying it is unrealistic or that it won't happen- I hope it takes off and I think in time it will. But I don't see it being a next-gen thing. Give it another 5 years.

So the PPU business is mostly BS then... but what about the other stuff? :D

A PPU is an interesting idea, however LL has pointed out a lot here. I'll also say that the graphics processing really has to know pretty much every single thing a PPU might be doing. A PPU on a seperate card (as I've heard rumored before) seems similar to the idea of a card that only does 3D and needs a 2D graphics card in there (as they did some time ago).

I'm thinking that a GPU would actually still be doing a lot of the work but maybe a PPU would have a lot of shortcuts and predesigned algorythms and such that the graphics chip could access every now and then by sending the data and some calls there. (By "every now and then" of course I mean "every single frame*). The communication between the two would need to be as fast as possible. In fact, it may do well several years from now to just put all those algorythms straight into the GPU.

That Icarus image, if real, looks like some sort of rock album cover. What a big headed serious version of Pit that is.

No, PPUs are coming soon (I've heard of the PhysX)... LL is questioning how soon they will actually really be helpful given the extra work they add (and that they need more processing power anyway)... which is a good point, but doesn't mean that a console coming out next year couldn't have one.

What do I think? I think it's most likely that it's fake, since there is just so much fake "insider Revolution info" floating around. Sure, it's possible something is real, but who knows what, if any, is... so I'm not exactly going to be getting my hopes up for this stuff to be real. Odds are that it isn't.

I don't know about everything else, but this pic is definitely fake. The Revolution loads from the narrow side.

i noticed that too but in the defense of the picture, that could be the newer 'smaller' Rev or a different mock-up used by developers.

Or it could be completely fake. :D

It looks smaller than the Rev shown, and if you look at the scale of the system, the sides are too narrow to insert a DVD.

I'm pretty sure it's fake.

Gamespot's take, from a few weeks ago... they're talking specifically about that pic there.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/08/...30286.html

Quote:RUMOR #3: New pictures have surfaced of Nintendo's Revolution...sitting in someone's house!

Source: Gamebrink.com by way of the fine folks at Kotaku.

The official story: See below.

What we heard: With two of the three next-gen consoles already having emerged from their cocoons with near-final prototypes, only one's appearance still remains shrouded in mystery: Nintendo's top secret Revolution. Pictures of the enigmatic unit have been surfacing all over the Web since its announcement, and they have all but come with a huge "GRADE-A BOGUS" sticker on 'em. However, Nintendophiles have been doing some double takes recently, with new pictures of the Rev in someone's house. What's more, one of the pictures features the controller (which Nintendo has fashioned into THE gaming secret of the year) sitting at the unit's side--but it's been blurred out through photo-doctoring software. The second pic shows a much shinier Revolution from the front, with its mesmerizing blue LED-lit disc drive. It's unclear whether they are from the same source, but it's pretty obvious that they're both fakes (given what we "know" about the ever-evolving Revolution). The first picture shows a boxy four-cornered Revolution, but Nintendo's previous prototypes were designed to be propped up in a stand, which requires one of the corners to be "softened" (see pic 4). The second picture, in a perfect "Sasquatch-like blur," is clearly a transposition of Nintendo's head-on shots (see pic 5) of its prototype, right down to the soft-light glare.

Bogus or not bogus?: Put your pitchforks and torches down, the real Revolution will have to wait. Bogus.

Linking this as the original source.
http://www.gamebrink.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73

So that dev kit shot is fake... okay...

so... who wants to see next generation Sonic?

Keep in mind that Nintendo and Sega have both said that Sonic's home is with Nintendo.

http://www.sonicstadium.org/games/nextge...h_demo.wmv

It's krappy quality but this is an actual showing, probably from the last E3. It was shown behind closed doors for a special audience, listen to the commentary at the end by the female presenter. The graphics you see are all real time and, you should expect to see them soon.

It certainly LOOKS real, but these days it's hard to tell for sure.

I know, but if this is a fake, then someone did a really, really, really good job. Like, needs to work at a post special effects house and make 6 figures.

But what about that fake Revolution vidoe? :D

bump

Download the video people, I want opinions!

I downloaded it, got bored partway through... looks like Sonic Adventure with better graphics. Yay?

It does look like Sonic Adventure with better graphics, and totally new gameplay, physics, engine etc. Watch the entire video, especially where sonic enters the church like structure.

Found an interesting site, another guy claiming to work at NCL. Here's what he says about the controller:

--------------------------------

Main Features

• 3D Anolog Stick
  
• Four Action Buttons
  
• Start and Select
  
• Two Triggers
  
• Grip Handles
  
• Gyroscopic Control
  
• Force Feed Back
  
• Wireless controllers
  

3D Anolog Stick: 3D anolog stick, Nintendo invented it and have made it a standard. They have only included one anolog this time to make movement more simple.

Four Action Buttons: These are arranged in a diamound shape. These will help play most games designed for Revolution aswell as downloadable content.

Start and Select: Set in the middle of the controller.These are for accessing menus, pausing mid game etc.

Triggers: These are just like those found on the GameCube.

Grip Habdles: Each handle has a lever that is anolog. These are ideal for additional control options.

Gyroscopic Control: To control on screen action via movement of the controller, this replaces the secound anolog stick for camera movement etc, this feels much more natural to use making gaming easier overall.

Force Feed Back: Gives resistants against action on screen. When playing games, you can actualy feel yourself interacting against on screen actions.

Wireless Controllers: As Standard.


-----------------------------------


"Grip handles"? Remember the first blurbs of the Revolution controller? how you could squeeze the controller or 'rub it'? Hmm. He also says the launch colors of Revolution will be black and white, with 4 other colors to launch later. Then he goes on about the third parties interested in the downloadable games function of the Revolution:


-----------------------------


Downloadable Content

As you know you will be able to download Nintendo's back catalog of games spanning right back to the NES, Nintendo is also in talks with other developers on making there games available for download via Nintendo wifi. This is so that there is a wide range of games that can appeal to a wider audience than Nintendo's fan base. currently Sega, namco, Konami, Rockstar, Capcom, koei and square enix to name a few are working alongside Nintendo to bring classic games to Nintendo wifi.

The following is a list of a few games that I know for sure that will be coming for you to download.

sega: Nintendo and sega have formed a very strong relationship in the past two years. And are in talks to bring as many of there classic games to Nintendo wifi from launch. This will include games from the mega drive to the Dreamcast! I will talk further into this as I have a whole collum to post on the Nintendo-Sega Relationship! Stay tuned for that!

Namco: currently working on several games to bring onto Nintendo wifi
Ace Combat
Ridge Racer
PAC-MAN
Time Crisis
Soul Calibur
Tekken
Mr Driller
I-Ninja
Tales Of Destiny
Dig-Dug




Konami: Konami have been talking to Nintendo on this for some time now, and will be releasing alot from there classic games line-up,
Metal Gear series
Castlevania
contra
Silent Hill
Winning Eleven
ISS
Gradius
Parodius

Rockstar: Only one game so far.........GTA


Capcom: Nintendo and Capcom are working hard togeather to get alot of Capcom's classic avaiable for download
Resident Evil
Mega Man
Street Fighter
Breath Of Fire Series
Ghost N Goblins
Dino Crisis
Dungeons & Dragons
Marvel VS Capcom

Square enix: Also they are working on downloadable content other than bringing classic games to Nintendo wifi
Final Fantasy

----------------------------

...non-Nintendo games? At one point, this sounds like a wishlist. But look at it again, most of them are older games, games that probably either wont be remade or already have been. It's a list of the best selling games and/or most played games from the past 10 years. Also, he mentions the Nintendo network will have completely original games that are only available through the wifi network, games you cannot buy in stores, this makes alot of sense and would be incredibly cool. Couple this with the idea that older games could get graphical updates and online play as well... Then this bombshell:

------------------------------------

Voice control

Controling a game using the power of your voice is nothing new to gaming, its been done before. But with Revolution Nintendo will take this to new hights! Every Revolution sold will come bundled with a head-set. It has surround sound/mic and is designed in accordance to the new look Revolution. Nintendo has invested heavily in researching voice control, and have got it to the point now where you no longer need to sit back and listen to cut-scenes you can interact with them fully, as you would talk to your family and friends! I truly have been really astonished by what they have achieved with there voice control technology. In one demostration i saw four months ago, The player had to convince the police he was telling the truth. and it was actualy the player saying it throw the head-set. It really is somthing you have to experience first hand, it was the closest thng ive seen to actualy talking to a real person, infact in some peoples cases better!
There are many features Nintendo has incorperated into the Revolution, the head-set just being one of many. But because of the technology within the heart of the system, voice controll has reached beyound simple commands, it has arrived to the point were we talk to are games.

------------------------------------

A headset with surround headphones and a mic... bundled with the system at launch? Is it just me, or does the idea of surround headphones a little too much? After all, wouldn't you just be using the headphones to hear voices? Yeah, that's when it hit me too. You would hear the voices of characters on screen through your headphones, not your television screen. It also allows for private listening for 4 player games. If this is true, it will absolutely floor me and it will open up a completely new experience in multiplayer and single player games. "Not just voice commands, actually talking." Seems really out there, but with Nintendo getting keen on the voice recognition software since the inception of Hey you, Pikachu almost 10 years ago and with the recent DS games getting more and more complicated in their voice recog., I could see it happening.

Then it hit me - "What makes Revolution so revolutionary? It's nothing new, but it has not really been applied to video games."

At first, we thought this was the VR headset... what if it's advanced voice recognition system...? My brain just took an overload of possibilities and shat them out like a rhino with the runs. Imagine advanced voice recognition with surround headphones in a game like Resident Evil 4: whisper to throw off your enemies, yell to Ashley to tell her to hide or run away or stay put or follow you without having to use a controller. Jesus, that really would be revolutionary, if it can do what he states.

I got a kick out of this:

--------------------------------------

Why Why Why.......

Nintendo is a company that is know for their secerts! So if I am really part of this company or closely related to them in some way? why would I disclose this information to the public. Well, many people within Nintendo believe in keeping projects secert up until they feel ready to reveal certin information to the public. But myself and many many others feel that this really isnt doing Nitendo any favours! We feel that we should be more open about what we are doing. So why havent I told you sooner? simple really. It wasnt until about a year ago that i knew what Nintendo's plans where, and it was only months ago that Nintendo showed what they have planed to its most trusted developers. So if i had said anything then I would have been traced very easily! I know I dont agree with them on there market strategy, but it isnt worth losing my job over!

------------------------------------------

http://nintendoparamount.blogspot.com/

Just realized something:

Some of the games he mentions use a light gun. Nintendo themselves have many light gun games especially the SNES era.

How do you give people light gun gameplay through a controller? Add a 3-D tilting mechanic to look/aim and an on screen target that is moved through tilting, now give them triggers on the handles to fire the gun. The control stick lets you side step, L and R scrolls through weapons.. or no, the trackball could scroll the weapons.. or the trackball could aim... while the tilting looks... oh man.

First Person games would really benefit from this idea.

I just totally pissed myself.

Sounds great. But it sounds too good. Hopefully we'll know soon.

They need 10 buttons for N64 support though... but yeah, this is probably just someone's wishlist, like the others. Sorry, I just don't believe all this stuff... there's just too much (contradictory) speculation to believe that much of it has much of any factual basis.

Based on his controller:

*in his description, he doesn't mention a trackball. Could be that the trackball is totally fake or he simply didn't mention it or HE is fake. :D time will tell.

Control stick - same
L and R - same
C-buttons - tilt (or trackball?)*
z-button - grip handle buttons
A and B buttons - same
Start - same
d-pad - tilt (or trackball?)* and/or applied to non-used buttons

Most games didnt use the d-pad, those that did were mostly for left handed players, mapping the c-buttons to the d-pad or giving the player the ability to use the d-pad instead of the control stick. In a few select games, the d-pad gave added functionality. For example, up on the d-pad would bring up your map. In cases like that you could map those commands to the non-used face buttons (X and Y), to one of the grip handles (the other being the z button) and the select button, a total of four buttons that are unused on the Revolution controller when playing N64 games.

We'll prove it right or wrong by September 16th, but until then i'm dreaming about this controller and advanced voice recognition.

The problem with that is the games that didn't use the C-buttons as a control stick, but as buttons. And a lot of games did that.

Yes, which is why those actions could be applied to either of the 4 buttons that are not used on that controller during N64 gameplay, or use the tilt directions as c-button directions, or use the directions of the trackball (in the same way that some GC games use the C-Stick directions as 'buttons')

Look, this controller would work for new games. But old ones? NES/SNES games without a dpad? N64 without enough buttons to make a significant number of N64 games actually playable? That just would not work well at all!

That's why they let you also use GC controllers.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Look, this controller would work for new games. But old ones? NES/SNES games without a dpad? N64 without enough buttons to make a significant number of N64 games actually playable? That just would not work well at all!

Why are you not grasping the obvious? I'm not trying to be mean but you're arguing something that makes no sense.

NES/SNES use the control stick or tilt as the d-pad.

The N64 controller has 12 inputs counting the stick. This proposed controller for Revolution has:

1 Tilt (4 directions of tilt could also act as C-buttons)
2 L and R
1 Start
1 Select
1 Control stick
4 face buttons
2 grip buttons

Count them, 12 inputs including the control stick and that's without counting the proposed trackball. You keep saying that this controller doesn't have enough buttons to work yet it clearly has the number of inputs needed to handle a N64 game, and if it does have a trackball, then it has even more options for inputs. So what kind of drugs are you on? Maybe I just dont understand what you're saying, so could you give me an example of a N64 game that you think wont work with this proposed controller?

Not 'not enough inputs'... 'not enough inputs that would make the games play the way they are supposed to'. Take fighting games, those require a high level of precision and just don't work on analog sticks, much less tilt or something...

Honestly though, as far as fighting games go, the combo systems of inputting a string of commands through the d-pad are going the way of the dinosaur. Much better combo systems can be found through face buttons and the litteral action on screen of character movement. The d-pad combos should have been gone a long time ago, the only reason they stayed is because the consoles had d-pads on their controllers and the developers didnt want to update their combat systems again.

I've played some GBA fighting games on the GC's GB Player with the stick and it worked fine, in fact it helped alot more with 8 direction combos. And of course all the old NES games play fine with the stick. I just beat the original Zelda with the GC control stick and it was smooth sailing.

I have Capcom vs SNK 2 for GC, it's almost impossible to be accurate with the analog stick. And I enjoy classic-style 2d fighting games (Capcom/SNK ones more than MK or KI style buttonmashers though)... and besides, we are talking about OLD GAMES! The whole POINT of supporting NES, SNES, and N64 games is to allow people to play older styles of games, you know...

Quote:And of course all the old NES games play fine with the stick.

You can do it, but it's definitely better with the dpad (talking about Mega Man Anniversary, Midway Arcade Treasures, and Metroid in Prime)...

I dunno, I was never really in to 2-D fighters until Smash Bros came along so i'll take your word that you need a d-pad. I played the hell out of Street Fighter games and MK and some of the other me-too fighters but none of them really grabbed my interest. In other words I dont still play them :D

But if that's the case then then I could only assume that the Revolution controller has a full-size (SNES size) d-pad. If it doesn't, and based on what you're saying, 2-D fighters might be a rarity on the Revolution's virtual consoles.

Well, there's always the GC pad, which can be used for NES and SNES games (and some N64 games -- the ones that use the C-stick as a camera or dpad (the ones that use it as buttons (like fighting games, or tank games, or racing games, or whatnot) of course don't work on the GC pad) -- would work too)... I know a lot of people complain about its small dpad, but I actually don't have a problem with that. It's the same as the GBC and GBA and it's perfectly good. Really, the problem is just the N64... for me anyway. I know a lot of people hate the size of the GC dpad.

I can see Nintendo adding the d-pad again just for the virtual console... or like you said, use the d-pad on the GC controller and yeah, people gripe alot about it's size.

I keep thinking about the "grip handles" and how they'll be used. Obviously to fire guns in a FPS (if they work how I think they do) but how would you use them in say... a Mario game? Would each grip button be independently operated like, one makes you slide and one makes you throw fireballs? Or would they be in conjunction with one another? Like using the grip handles as Mario's hands. If the next Mario game has wires and cliffs like in SMS you can imagine the satisfaction of holding the grip buttons to grab a ledge or wire or hold an object, but you could also use them in sync with jumping to perform handstands or cartwheels.

I think Nintendo is smart enough to realize that if they have a virtual console they need a controller capable of effectively playing games for all the systems they are emulating, so I think they'll come up with a solution... I just want to know what it is. (and these plans we're hearing only go partway towards that)

Oh, I don't know what "grip handles" means, really... what exactly is it?

I agree.

About the grip buttons, imagine holding the GC controller and having the ability to 'squeeze' the controller, The buttons are analog as well.

This dude is crap. Researchers have been trying forever to get computers to understand a written human language, and have made very, very little progress. They have become so frustrated that many don't think having an intelligent conversation with a computer ever will be possible. It is currently considered NP-complete, which is a fancy mathematical-algorithmic way of saying it can't be done in anything close to real time, if at all. One of my CS professors was a huge AI guy, and his main area of research involved natural languages.

Now consider these issues:

• We can't get a computer to understand written words, but here the computer understands spoken words...
  
• The computer will understand, at a minimum, Japanese and English. Two languages that are completely different in sounds, style, grammar, and sentence structure.
  

I'm sure you can come up with even more reasons whythis isn't happening, but that will do for now. I think the squeezy controller is cool, but this info isn't any more accurate than the others.

Haha, true enough.

So far I'm happy with basic level communication in the form of single words or phrases, all within the context of what it can do in it's programming.

For a truly dynamic conversation, everything I've seen suggests the need for a truly dynamic processor. Basically, a computer with all the parts firing and recieving signals at once and functionally with no central processor. So far all we have that can do that are brains, BRAINS!

Now, I don't think it's impossible that we could actually create such a thing. Well, not US, but those go get em programmers 50 years, at least, from now. Even then, it would be an imitation if we make one under that estamate. It would not be us truly understanding and developing a mind but rather artificially making one based on existing models (like our own brains) even if we don't know how exactly it all works.

As for truly understanding how everything comes together, everything I've seen heard and read suggests it's not even known if we WILL ever figure it out.

It's like Hawking inferred... In the future, even if we get a theory of everything comprising of laws that explain how the universe works in all scopes, we'll still have trouble figuring out people and clouds.

Nintendogs has pretty advanced voice recognition and it's available in multiple languages.

Alot of companies are using voice recognition for the tech help services. It picks up words based on key sound structure. The sound it begins with, the sound it ends with, the constanents and syllables used and the tonal qualities.

If you threw out a sentence like "Hand me the shoe" a voice regnition system could pick up any of those words based on how it's structured. The game would understand that in that instance you are going to have a set finite amount of options:

Hand me the:

Shoe
Fork
Ball
Lawnmower
Pencil
Dildo

that this particular part of the game will allow you to ask for, it could then look for a set number of commands, again finite.

Hand
Throw
Drop
Hide
Break
Use
Combine
Give

And then have a finite set of secondary actions.

Me
You
Them
They
Their
Him
Her
Kid
Child
Man
Woman
Guy
Girl
Person
I

Now that it knows those particulars, the rest of the sentence doesn't matter.

"Use (the) dildo (on the) girl"

"Throw (the) fork (at) him"

"break their lawnmower"

I would agree that having a conversation is way off but the illusion of one isn't. Since it's a video game you could have a realistic depiction of a conversation because it would be extremely limited and finite. When you're driving along and you get pulled over, you cant talk to the cop about your favorite coffee for example, there's a structured set of of words you can use only here. Later in the game you'll be running through an apartment and again use a set finite set of words asking people to hide or open their doors, hold the elevator, etc. That the game would be looking for.

It wouldn't be full on conversation but the illusion of it (multiple voice commands in strings) would offer alot to the look and feel of a conversation and more importantly it can be done today using existing technology

Am I wrong?.

Voice recognition has come a long way, this is true.

It is also true that key phrases can be recognized.

The illusion of a conversation may be present, but in what sense are you claiming? If it is a transparent illusion, one that the user will always be fully aware of, then yes.

If it is a fully convincing illusion, then no, we are not at that level. Human conversations have a level of adaptability and randomness that a program can't yet account for, and likely never will until a fundamental shift in computer design takes place.

For example, if the phrase "hand me the" is in the voice recognition software, and the object you want to refer to is also there, then yes, you have successfully communicated. However, what if you say "go get that orange thing by the cat"? This demands that it knows the phrase "go get that", the ability to recognize the word orange as a word that only narrows the list of potential things the user can be referring to, and then the ability to, from there, recognize that in this context, the word orange is also not referring to the fruit by the same word. It would have to recognize that orange is describing the word thing. From there, it would have to realize that "by the cat" also describes the word thing, in that it means location, not "buy the cat".

It starts out somewhat simple, but it quickly develops into a very messy program, at least if you want to go beyond that and get all possible variants of that command as a 10 year old would be able to understand it.

LL was basically saying that conversation on that level is simply beyond us quite completely at this point.

And I agree, but what i'm saying is that if you know what words and phrases are available to you then it's seamless. Nintendogs is a really good example though it's only single word commands.

The gameplayer would have to have the understanding that the key words must be used. In fact in your example, if you said orange thing by the cat the programing could look for the cat, and then look for an orange object. If there's multiple orange objects then it will get confused and offer you mutiple choice of what you want. If it doesn't understand what you're asking for it would simply ask you to rephrase it or be more specific. Plus it would be taking thing in to account such as tone of voice, so if you're yelling in the example below things wont go smoothly for you.

in-game sitution: pulled over by a cop

Player options:

Officer
Ma'am
Sir
Goodmorning, evening
Hi, hello
No
Yes
I dont know
I know
numerical value between 0 and 155 miles per hour
I was going
Oh...
Okay
But
I dont have it with me
I lost my
wallet
regustration
liscense plate
It's at, it's
home
work
school
in the mail
at the shop
sorry
I wasn't
paying attention
looking
Thank you
my address is (address)
his
her
my name is (name)
if I get my
tail light
brakes
car
spedometer
lights
fixed, repaired, replaced
Do i still have to pay the ticket, fine?
Do I still have to appear in court?
Are you sure
i was going (numerical value) mph over the speed limit?
my tail light is out
My spedometer is broken

Officer: (responds to action:)

sir
ma'am
Have you had anything to drink tonight?
are you on any medication?
good morning, evening
hi, hello
Do you know how fast you were going?
Do you know why I pulled you over?
I clocked you at (numerical value) mph
I see, okay
Can I see your liscense and registration?
(if 30 mph over speed limit) Where's the fire?
Thank you
Please
You know
hmm...
it's illegal to drive without a licsense?
This liscense says it expired last year
i'll be back in a moment
Can I have your name and address?
You should carry your registration at all times
You should carry your registration and liscense at all times
Hello again
alright
Please step out of the vehicle
this is your first offense
So i'll give you a warning
so here's your ticket
I'm writing this because
you ran the red light
you were 20 miles per hour over the speed limit
your tail light is broken
Have a nice day
Be careful
get some rest

etc etc, with the above context you could create hundreds of thousands of possibilities for conversation. one way it could be done smoothly is to have your options presented to you on screen. So that the game shows you what words can be used right after a response is made. If not, then yes it would be a slow process of trial and error to find what the officer would understand or not understand... which make an interesting game since you run the risk of aggitating the officer to the point that your fine is increased or you're thrown in jail. :D

Quote:Nintendo has invested heavily in researching voice control, and have got it to the point now where you no longer need to sit back and listen to cut-scenes you can interact with them fully, as you would talk to your family and friends!

Yes, that sort of stuff you talked about is feasible lazy. We saw it in Hey You Pikachu. But this is talking about a conversation like you would have with humans. Now maybe this is simply the great power of exageration on the source's part, and it will be more like what you are talking about. Which is kinda cool, but I think would get pretty boring pretty quick. It is just like an old text adventure. Just my opinion.

Can't use the fork to do that!

I liked the old text adventures, but yeah that's pretty accurate.

Thing is, those old games, some of them anyway, really came up with a lot of potential phrases, but just like in this game, you'll run into some VERY annoying situations where you can't express yourself correctly. If you know all available supported words, great, but they often don't provide a FULL list for you. So, you end up saying "pat the cookie" and then "I can't "pat" the cookie" or "I don't understand "pat". And this goes on for an hour until you figure out that yes you CAN pat the cookie, but not with that word, no you have to mold it.

This is the great weakness. I'm not saying it won't be enjoyable if you accept these limitations. I'm just saying the illusion won't be fooling anyone.

But you're trying to make it this extreme, i'm saying it's completely limited making it an illusion since the reality is that it's a computer.

In the above example, yes it's a text adventure. But use your imagination: Instead of talking to the cop you could be the cop in a police chase.

Your partner drives while you try to shoot out the tires, You're basically playing a shooter at this point. You can see a GPS on your dash as well. Now your partner will drive as best he can to keep up with the bad guys but he'll make mistakes or get caught in traffic, etc.

So now, while you're trying to shoot out the tires and bad guys who are trying to shoot you, you can yell to your partner to turn on a particular street for a shortcut, or stay in the right or left hand lanes depending on traffic flow. Tell him when to speed up or slow down, when to ram the bad guys from the back or from the sides. When to radio for backup and tell them what street to intercept on. Maybe even get radio from the helecopter in the chase, and communicate with them to find out what street you're on, what are th cross streets and what are the probable streets the bad guys might take (like going for the freeway, etc)

Obviously in this situation you would be saying things that are relevant. You wouldn't be saying "Let's get ice cream". So because you're in a very particular situation you would be very limited to what you would say. The game would even have question/answer setup or a 'talk' button to give you a particular amount of time to make your response. Short, quick answers or statements. Or, the game could be in a mode ofr 'always on' and keep looking for the key words.

Basically, you're adding a completely new deminsion to the gameplay allowing you to do things that no controller would give you the freedom to do unless you're playing a menu based RPG where everything is slowed down and you can tell the game specifics. But in this way, you could be playing a very fast paced game without any menus and essentially have a second player helping you out.

The illusion would be 'talk as you would talk to your family and friends!' because it would seem very natural because of the specific situations you would be in where you would only say a very limited amount of things. In RE4, you would only say things that have to do with telling Ashley what to do or what to say while talking to Hunnigan, the spanish dude or the baddies.

example:

Cut scene begins

Hunnigan: Are you all right?

You:

Yes.
No.
I (I'm) (I am) (I've) (I have)-
so
Dont
Guess.
think.
know.
feel
fine.
like
krap.
dog shit.
okay.
400 pounds of ass.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Sure.
But-
Lost.
Found
(character name)
the
bad guys
Good guys
got
away
Ran
Off
Got
Them
poisoned.
shot
hurt
stabbed
hiding
chasing

Possible example from player: "hey... I lost Ashley and I was poisoned... other than that i'm okay I guess."

Hunnigan:

Looks for immeadiate danger key words: poisoned = offer help

Looks for higher priority words: Ashley. "lost Ashley" Outcome = mission critical

Possible statement based on what player said -

"Lost Ashley?? Okay, first thing's first: Find some (color herb, first aid spray, item mentioned would depend on what is in the area) to get rid of that poison in your system ASAP. What direction did they take Ashley?

Player:

North
South
East
West
(any combination)
I dont know
I think
No idea.
How should I know?
uh...
hmm...
(the following would be dependent on the area you're in)
They wehnt in the direction of-
That
The
tower
main road
forest

Possible response from player:

"uh... I dont know... east I think. They went towards a.. hmm... tower looking thing..."

Hunnigan:

Looks for immeadiate danger key words: "uh..." "hmm..." "I dont know"

Looks for higher priority key words: "East I think" "tower"

Hunnigan: Great, you seem sure of yourself. Okay, if they went towards a tower then you should find a road marked "la torre" and follow it! If you keep going east you might run in to a river... call me if you get stuck.

Player:

Okay.
Thanks.
Great.
Talk to you later.
Whatever.
Lovely.
Fuck.

Let's say the player said "Whatever"

End cut scene

In hunnigan's memory:

player is Poisoned. Traveling East towards the tower. Will run into river sequence. Is unsure of himself/herself. Ended transmission on bad note "whatever".

Next cut scene, Hunnigan will touch these points.

You as the player will feel like you just had a conversation when you really were forced in to making very specific statements.

They actually did that in the SOCOM games, and it worked pretty well. You gave strategic commands using voice recognition in a limited format that actually is fairly realistic. It really wasn't all that amazing though...

I played SOCOM and while SOCOM bores me to tears the voice recognition could be applied to just about any game and it would rule. Plus you coul make it as detailed as you want.

The only downside would be that when you start up your Revolution for the first time you would have to spend some time getting the Revolution to recognize your voice so that it can be really detailed; even look for voice patterns, wavelengths, etc. For example it would understand that my voice is deep and Minka's voice is high - I have an American accent while Minka has a slight dutch accent so it change its perception depending on who plays.

Looks like some companies are trying to screw people, check this out:

http://store.gameasylum.us/nirecoavch20.html

Not only does it say that it's launching Christmas 2005 but the retail will be 500 bucks, and they'll sell it for 300. Pretty scary especially when you consider that some people might fall for it and order one.

What a rip-off.

Companies trying to screw people?! Say it isn't so!

:D

Sorry, I'm a little jaded. At least the revolution will eventually exist and is capable of existing! I've seen far too many "free energy machines" as of late. Not that they are new, more like people who don't have a background in engineering are being suckered into pooling money into a project that just doesn't show any promise. A simple test, just show us the device powering ITSELF with a constant supply of energy, and you have it. Instead, they show a mystery box with wires coming out of it making a lightbulb light up in some closed room with only the already convinced investors attending. What exactly are they hiding? Oh, of course, they "can't let anyone steal the idea", except that this is something that could very easily change the nature of how we understand energy, and they could easily get a mint just showing THAT it works even if they have to reveal the mechanism to show it. They sort of have a responsibility to put doubts like that to rest with a simple GOOD demonstration. Oh well. And oh yes, it's often the SAME people promising a "revealing test" at a specific date, then pushing it to the "end of the year", then next year, and now a lot of them are going on a decade of delays. The old investors long since left, sure, but there's always fresh new suckers.... Sad really... Oh well, at least there aren't crazy people trying to get funding to build a bridge based not at all on principles of engineering but on the ancient chinese secret of fung sheui (sp?). Wait, some idiot IS? Um, and he says that his lack of an engineering background is a good thing because it frees him from stigmas of how things "should be"? And, some government officials are listening to him?

...

Wow, imagine paying tolls towards that horrific human tragedy...

Oh yeah, you were saying something about some people overcharging for the Revolution and promising it on a date they can't deliver? :D