the play girlz gaming blog

Nintendo Revolution Rumors Galore

by Ingrid on January 2nd, 2006

The fine folk over at Nintendo Revolution.CA have been kind enough to do a Nintendo Revolution Rumor recap and I’m going to share their findings with you.

So here’s what the rumor mill’s been saying:

• The Revolution will cost less than the Xbox 360. That’s Satoru Iwata’s latest droplet of Revolution-based information, and it’ll no doubt help fuel rumours of low-priced launches, although some launch speculation can now be safely laid to rest.
• While the Nintendo Revolution is definitely big news right now, PC Magazine is predicting that it will only celebrate limited success. While the magazine is seeing a limited future for big Revolution sales, the article does recognize that the delayed Zelda title will be the “must have and play” game of the spring, but quickly after that the Nintendo Revolution console will take a back seat to the other consoles.
• According to Game Daily, the upcoming Legend of Zelda game, Twilight Princess, will be playable with the Nintendo Revolution controller. This news has not been confirmed by Nintendo, and Twilight Princess will still be officially released for the Gamecube. It is rumored that Twilight Princess will support a radical new control style if played on the Nintendo Revolution console with its unique controller.
• From Infendo “Today, though, I came upon some exciting information. My mom runs the Customer Service department at the local Target. She know the local Nintendo representative (brings in new demos, sets up Nintendo products…an actual NOA employee) pretty well. Today, the rep came into the store, doing some last minute Christmas shopping. According to the rep, the Revolution will be released in May next year. She was described as saying this in a “real quiet” voice.
• “According to gamemag.ru, who is citing Inside Gamer, it seems that Nintendo Revolution’s configuration is complete and the device is ready for mass production… Since the release date for the Revolution is in May, that gives the Japanese manufacturers 5 months in order to manufacture enough consoles.”
• What can be expect with the Nintendo Revolution launch in terms of titles. Wikipedia suggests that we may see as many 50 titles on launch day. It has also been suggested that A third Super Smash Bros. game with online play is said to be bundled in with the Revolution. Having a Mario bundled with the console should go without saying though.
• Sega games on Nintendo Revolution? Apparently, Reggie said “Sega is intrigued by the Nintendo Revolution’s ‘backwards compatibility’” although he didn’t say whether or not they were willing to go all the way and bring classic Sega titles to the console. He also mentioned that the game controller “shell” will look similar to the Gamecube’s Wavebird.
• A blogger from Germany has uncovered a patent that ma tell us more about the Nintendo Revolution graphical capabilities.
  Nintendo has filed two patents relating to displacement mapping which is a technique for rendering detailed surfaces while keeping the polygon count as low as possible. One of the patents involves special hardware for vector operations, optimizing the graphics hardware so that displacement mapping is computed efficiently; the other relates to reducing the strain on the CPU caused by rendering a 3D world in 2D.

• If you ever write Nintendo asking for information on Revolution specs, you will most likely get a generic email back. Though the company has yet to release hardware details or any real specs for that matter, it’s adamant in that Revolution graphics will look good on both standard and HD TV sets and will reinvent how gamers play video games.

Share This

Related Stories

• ATI Card For Nintendo Revolution
• Revolution Unveiling Coming in May
• First Graphics for Revolution Online?

POSTED IN: Rumors