GDC 2006: Revolution Hardware Images

[dipdude]

Revolution Report recently acquired photographs of the code-named Nintendo Revolution hardware, which is on display in Nintendo's booth at this year's Game Developers Conference. Although there were no units available to demo on the show floor, Revolution Report's Aaron Canaday took a few pictures to provide an idea of the hardware's relative size.



Canaday commented that the unit on display was "shockingly small" and "very sleek and sexy."

"It does not look like a typical Nintendo product. I know people keep saying this, but this is the only way to describe it," he said.

Worth noting is that this unit appears to be thicker in appearance than previous versions of the hardware displayed at E3 2005 and Tokyo Game Show 2005. Also shown is the first physical shot of the console's backside with an A/V Out, Power and two USB ports. Gone is the mysterious port (seen in this picture), shown in product drawings Nintendo filed earlier this year with the office of the European Union.

Recent Internet speculation has predicted the console's official name would be revealed during Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote. Whether or not the lack of a Revolution logo on this latest version of the hardware correlates to such an announcement remains to be seen.

Revolution Report will have more from the show floor as it breaks.

 

[dipdude]

Nintendo 's Revolution will not only emulate NES games but also Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 games



Nintendo of America, Inc.'s, President Satoru Iwata announced that his company's new gaming console, the Nintendo Revolution, would support not only all NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 games, but also Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 games by way of emulators.

Nintendo plans to make these classics available online over an online service for those who prefer the classics over the modern high-tech games Microsoft and Sony's consoles are known for. No pricing has been announced on these downloads, but everything comes with a price.

Nintendo's move to support emulation of these various game systems does not help them gain ground in Microsoft's and Sony's playing field of advanced game play and improved life-like graphics, but does expand the target market from the younger crowd to gamers of all ages especially those who lived during the original NES, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx 16 days.

Sega was a top competitor in the video game market with its 8-bit Master System and 16-bit Genesis and Mega Drive consoles until it began taking a downhill path after the release of their Sega Saturn game system which could not compete with Sony's PlayStation. The last console launched by Sega was the Dreamcast system which was popular with a select group but could not carry the company through due to the lack of a strong game library.

NEC gave birth to the TurboGrafx 16 game console which competed directly with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Though it took off at the beginning it could not keep up with poor support for the TurboGrafx CD add-on due to high U.S. prices compared to those overseas.

Though neither of these businesses went out on top, the majority of games bring back a feeling of nostalgia for those of us who lived in the late 80's and early 90's.

 

[Nikhil]

I remember reading abt the Sega Dreamcast in the papers when I was a kid. Costed 9,999/- at that time...... drooled all over it Wanted it sooooo bad... but never got it....

Never had a decent video game console in my life

And this thing abt classics being compatible with the new Revo.... is a really nice idea... sometimes I do get sick of all the best games like HL2, FC, etc and just want to play a bit of Pinball and Dave Or maybe NFS2