8th June 2005, 4:02 PM
Quote:I like the sound of this. Consoles that have noisy fans are a little annoying, which is one of N64's advantages over GameCube. It isn't THAT big of a deal, but I'll take a silent console over one with a noisy fan anyday (provided that they're equal in all other imaginable specs).
Yeah, I love how the N64 runs completely silently... though they can only reduce sound so much, as long as they're using an optical media drive.
Quote:It's disappointing that the classics won't be available for free... yet, unsurprising, at the same time. I just hope they don't cost more than 5 or so dollars. These games must be SUPER cheap to compete with any of the classics I could go get at GameStop for a couple bucks. On the other hand, Revolution will have the advantage of having a lesser chance of malfunctioning when you try to play the titles... getting my Nintendo to work is enough of a pain in the ass.
Well, N64 games at EB and Gamestop go for about $1-$20. With most falling in about $5-$15. Have them somewhere in that range, with older consoles preferably a bit cheaper, and it'll be okay.
Just one thing, really... it should preferably be cheaper than buying the actual cart because you're not getting a physical product, just a download...
Quote:Good to hear that the transition from GameCube to Revolution will be seamless. The only drawback is an ambiguous one, which is the fact that you'll have to adapt to a new controller. Who knows how well the Revo controller will be at emulating past controllers, with such little information?
We'll see. And as DJ said, there's also always the GC controller... (it'll also be compatible with the DK Bongos, Wavebird, Microphone, etc)
Quote:Woo-hoo!! Downloadable game demos! This is much better than having to go out and buy a magazine for demo-discs.
Yeah, this would be awesome... if there was actually space to store them. But as it is, unless they give you a 2GB SD card with your console or something, I don't see how you could... with a miniscule 512MB of internal space (I know, they gave good reasons why, but it's still absurdly small.), how the heck would you have any, given that that space is also for savegames and classic dowloads? I don't get it...
Quote:Attracting new gamers, along with Nintendo's prudent financial planning, are the reason they'll continue to make more money off of video games than their competitors and stay in business for a long time to come. It's relieving to know that although their console sales are trailing behind competition, it doesn't mean they're in any financial trouble.
If they were in financial trouble, I don't think we'd be seeing their Revolution plan be looking so similar to their Gamecube plan was.
Quote:Nintendo has stated they won't include a hard drive because of worries that kids will break it. Um... okay... Don't get me wrong, kids break things, but hard drives are MORE durable than optical disk drives. The kid would have to do more than enough damage to break the system ANYWAY in order to damage an installed hard disk. If the concern is them hurting it when it's out of the system, again, the game disks on optical media are far more fragile. Their argument has been utterly shattered. So, what is the REAL reason? Well, 512MB of flash ram is probably a LOT cheaper than any decently sized hard disk. BUT, 50 GIGs of flash ram would be a lot more EXPENSIVE. That's the thing. To compete, they'll really need to either up the size or just toss in a hard drive after all. Otherwise, they are always just playing catchup.
I absolutely agree that for all the things they've said 512MB is a ridiculously, impossibly small amount of space (savegames? Fine. NES and SNES downloads? Okay. N64 downloads? Not enough. Buy SD cards (and make your wallet hurt, those things get expensive...). GAME DEMOS? ... how would you fit even one? Lots of PC game demos are more than 500MB, for instance! And if you have anything else on the disk... yeah, this one doesn't make sense to me. Oh, I love the idea, but the functionality... i it there?), but on reliability... hard drives can break -- they have moving parts, etc. Solidstate memory is much more durable. On that point, they are right.
But that doesn't change that fact that disk space is indisputably Nintendo's weak spot here. Let's hope things change by release time on this issue.
Quote:But anyway, we'll see... Now ALL my old systems work flawlessly, though that may be due to the occasional upkeep I do on them where I take the system apart and give it a good cleaning (recently the reset button stopped working on my SNES, but after taking it apart and cleaning some stuff up, it works just fine now). What this means is I'm not motivated to buy old games I already have because the inconvenience of hooking up the other system to my TV isn't worth 5 bucks . But, I look forward to this because, and I really hope Nintendo does this, I may just be able to get all those Japan only games we've been denied for too long. Heck, even if they don't translate them, I hope they at least give us Americans access to the same download servers the Japanese get. It would be annoying, but if it was the only way, I'd play Mother 1 or the early Fire Emblems in Japanese (without having to go through the trouble of importing). It would certainly motivate me to learn the language anyway.
Most people probably don't have working NESes and SNESes, and some will re-buy the games anyway... but as for imports, yeah, that's a good question. I'm not exatly expecting new translations, but they really should do something on the matter. It's an obvious place where it costs them almost nothing (to release a game online) and the benefit could be so great... I definitely hope for this. I'm not expecting it, but I definitely hope for it. It'd be so easy... why NOT? Just to be cruel?
Quote:Oh yes, that brings me to another topic. Will the DS see a similar feature? That is, can I stick a special memory card into the cartridge slot on the DS and download old Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games? You know, for the first two they would need special emulation software and all, but still, that would be nice wouldn't it?
You can play them all on your GBA (well, not the Micro, but the other GBAs...), so why bother? :)
But you bring up a good point... we need emulated Virtual Boy games. :D