GameCube Mailbag - October 17, 2005

Hi Matt. Despite the fact that Revolution probably won't support progressive scan, I'd like to know if it could come with a digital output that we could play games using component cables. Thank's.

Matt responds: I've never seen thanks spelled in the possessive form before. That is pretty damned cool. Anyway, though, I'm not entirely sure just yet what kind of video-out solution Revolution will use, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't a proprietary output that enabled both composite and component connections. Revolution will support progressive-scan out, remember. It just won't do the higher resolutions, including 720p, 1080i, or 1080p.

Release Date

Hey, as you most probably know, its flying around that the Revolution is going to see the light of day in the latter half of 2006. Is this true as it came from Nintendo power? Also do you think that they'll push for a near simultaneous world launch like Microsoft?

Matt responds: So for readers who missed it, Nintendo Power quietly wrote that Revolution would launch in the latter half of next year. This isn't exactly surprising news. Just about everything known about the console suggests it will be last to market and indeed well into next year. Consider for a moment that Nintendo showed barely working technical demos to illustrate how Revolution's controller functions. You can't launch a console in the first half of next year if you can't show a single running game for it six months prior. Unless Nintendo knows magic, I'd say that we're at a near certainty that Revolution will ship just in time for the holiday 2006 shopping season. And yeah, I think that the Big N will probably try to ready it for a simultaneous global launch, or at the very least hit America and Japan at the same time.

God Games

Black & White 2 is amazing... and you can play it using only a three button wheel mouse. You never need to touch the keyboard. Well, besides the escape key to bring up the menu, but the point I'm trying to get at is that the game would be perfectly suited to the Revolution controller without even using the nunchuck expansion! Man, that would make my day... or even a Black & White 3�..

Matt responds: Yep. Seems a perfect choice for the Revolution controller and the good news is that the game's designers have already taken notice of Nintendo's new peripheral and praised it. I expect that sooner or later we'll see something -- perhaps even from Peter Molyneux -- that showcases just how well Revolution's controller can handle "god game" scenarios.

Development

Hello Matt,

To your knowledge, are Revolution games in any significant stage of development at all? From what Nintendo showed you and other press, it appears Nintendo has only a basic model of what to do with games. Any chance they are further along than we know?

TheKingsCrown

Matt responds: Games are definitely underway for Revolution. Some third parties have received more detailed information on the system and have even begun to organize Revolution development teams. Work on the platform is starting to take some shape. That noted, I'm sure most houses are still waiting for really, functioning development hardware and in the meantime working on GameCube kits (which Nintendo itself has said are very similar to Revolution's dev environments). I think that by E3 2006 we'll see a good selection of software, both from Nintendo and from various third parties.

Flashed

Hiya Matt. I've been a bit perplexed recently. As soon as I heard the Revolution had 512 MB of flash memory, I assumed that it would be expandable and that it would store more things than just game saves. After a contradictory conversation with my friend, I really wondered how it will be possible to save game progress on the Revolution. I also wondered if you could transfer game saves from the GameCube memory card onto the flash memory. I would write those questions out in proper question form, but I'm lazy, so I won't

Thanks :)
Ben, Liverpool, England

Matt responds: The 512MBs of flash memory is expandable, actually. That is what you get inside of Revolution. You can plug in SD cards (as you would a memory card) and considerably up your useable flash memory, depending on how much you want to spend. You can get a 2 gigabyte SD card for a couple hundred bucks nowadays and that number will drop before Revolution ships. You can store more than just game saves on the flash memory. You'll be able to download classic NES or SNES games, for example, and store them on your internal flash memory.

I have to think that you will be able to use the flash memory to store GameCube saves, too, but I can't say for sure just yet. If you look at the Revolution console, you'll notice that the flash memory compartment (located on the front of the unit) is entirely separate of the GameCube docking station, which features traditional Memory Pak slots. For this reason, there is always the chance that the two are not compatible and that you'll need to stick with traditional Memory Paks to store your GCN saves. That would be unfortunate, but I can't rule it out as Nintendo has not officially gone o the record about it.

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