Project Katana (Red Steel) - Wii

[wombat]

I've got here 9 screenshots from the booting sequence of Project Katana 'playing ground'. These were made prior E3 2006 and running on an standard GameCube devlopment kit, but offcource with the Wii-controller connected to it.

This 'playing ground' was used by the makers to see how the wii-mote reacts and works.

enjoy:

[Anthaemia.]

Those are some insightul pictures, but from your description of the development kit used for that prototype I still can't understand why Nintendo is charging £179 for what is essentially a GameCube with a new controller - wouldn't it have been cheaper for its fanbase if Nintendo just released the remote as an optional device for the existing hardware platform, or is the Wii route its only way of covering the cost to make such a device possible in the first place?

[n-y-n]

Too bad the over-intrusive watermarks kindof ruin the pictures though.

[Barc0de]

Based on what Factor 5 said, they tried the project (involding the new controller, not the game project) with the cube, but it was underpowered slightly. So they just upped the clocks and present it as a new deal.

[jonwil]

Other advantages of making a new console:
1.Much much better from a marketing perspective. Without the Wii, everyone says "Sony and Microsoft have just released the 2 most powerfull home entertainment devices ever and all nintendo can manage is a fancy controler accessory for their current console".
2.Switch to media that can hold more stuff
3.Abillity to redesign the security system to lock out various hacks being used to run homebrew code on the boxes
4.A better design for the console
and 5.The abillity to build more into the console (will the Wii have any kind of network/online play?)

[Barc0de]

jonwill, I m surprised that you re not aware of the 802.11g transmitter inside the wii, as well as the RJ45 USB adaptor. Nintendo's WiFi connection also supports the Wii. :)

[Anthaemia.]

For some reason, poor Nintendo always seems to make the mistake of being two steps behind its rivals - first in adopting online gaming and now with DVD support, though I've heard that a third party company is planning some kind of playback feature through either a boot disc or hardware attachment so maybe a similar official solution may appear sometime down the line as well. I knew that Red Steel was being made on GameCube development hardware, but I didn't know it was originally designed for this system. Were it not for the slight increase in clock speed (which I doubt would make THAT much of a difference anyway), Nintendo really should have just produced some kind of remote device for their existing console instead of pumping so much of its financial resource into the research, development and finally promotion of what essentially could have been done in a way not too distant from how it upgraded the N64 years before!

[Barc0de]

Anthaemia. , the controller was beeing developed for the GameCube, not Red Steel for the GC.

When development started on the Katana project the controller was destined to be for a new platform, not gamecube anymore.

By the way, how did nintendo upgrade the n64? O_o

[Anthaemia.]

Didn't some later N64 games require the memory expansion unit, such as Perfect Dark? Would this not count as a hardware upgrade? After clearing up that slight misunderstanding, I really wish Nintendo had released the Wii controller for GameCube instead of developing a new console - or could the extra bit of power be essential for the additional processing a remote device of this complexity (presumably) needs?

[Barc0de]

apparently the extra bit of power does help.some additional hardware might also be in there, connected to the Motion sensing bar, that was previously handled through emulation on modded GDEVS (just a guess).

[tmbinc]

Stop thinking in MHz and MBytes, and it will make sense. Yes, the wii is only approx. twice as fast as the gamecube. But ...
- don't games graphics mostly depend on the designer, not the system? (does bad xbox360 games really look that much better than good gamecube games? I don't think so. Did the gamecube had more success than the PS2 because it could deliver better graphics? I don't think so.)
- HD output requires ~5 times the amount of pixels processed. That makes a 5x clock requirement (or more silicon) for pretty big parts of the graphic chipset. Now i know that everybody tells you how "wow" HD is. I still can't see the "wow"-ness. I've saw the "wow" when games switched from 16 to 256 colors. I've saw it when they started 3D. I've saw it when hardware 3d acceleration came. But that was about the last time i've saw it. I saw different small improvements over the time. But i definitely didn't saw a really big difference between a good SD output (let's don't speak of composite connections...) and a usual HD output (i.e. something which you can buy in stores).
- But more CPU power == better physics, you might argue. - i've seen pretty good physics in Zelda:WW, which still top many brute force physic effects in today's game. Yes, they might not simulate every bone correctly. But does that *really* contribute much to the fun-factor?
- unlike other platforms, i believe that a 2x clock increase in nintendo's devices at least double their performance. The gamecube was incredible well thought. Yes, the CPU was "only" clocked with 485MHz, but it could use every single clock to do useful things. Speak about the hardware-assisted packing/unpacking of bytes. The write gather pipe. Paired singles. Locked L2 cache. The concept of 1T-SRAM. Every component of the gamecube had a distinct speed which allowed it to operate the device at nearly saturation. There are no major botttlenecks.
- freaks, who want a good gaming PC replacement, won't buy a Wii but a "next generation" console. Is that a problem for you? For me, it's not. For nintendo, i believe, it's not. (After all, was the gamecube targeted for these people?)
- I love a constant 60fps framerate in game. I expect them from a console - the hardware is fixed, damn it, so design your games that it fits! Magically, games like Metroid Prime can deliver this. Most xbox360 games can't. Hell, they even show v-sync flicker!

I couldn't yet play on a Wii, but I can see much more potential for a "revolution" than i can see for bluray or 1080p. I still agree that the 360 is a success. It's a successor of the xbox1. The wii is the successor of the gamecube. Both improved in "their" areas, and both seem to do that very well.

[liquitt]

nice pictures, thanks for those, but the watermarks are really really ... bad!

[Barc0de]

Originally Posted by tmbinc

Stop thinking in MHz and MBytes, and it will make sense. Yes, the wii is only approx. twice as fast as the gamecube. But ...
- don't games graphics mostly depend on the designer, not the system? (does bad xbox360 games really look that much better than good gamecube games? I don't think so. Did the gamecube had more success than the PS2 because it could deliver better graphics? I don't think so.)
- HD output requires ~5 times the amount of pixels processed. That makes a 5x clock requirement (or more silicon) for pretty big parts of the graphic chipset. Now i know that everybody tells you how "wow" HD is. I still can't see the "wow"-ness. I've saw the "wow" when games switched from 16 to 256 colors. I've saw it when they started 3D. I've saw it when hardware 3d acceleration came. But that was about the last time i've saw it. I saw different small improvements over the time. But i definitely didn't saw a really big difference between a good SD output (let's don't speak of composite connections...) and a usual HD output (i.e. something which you can buy in stores).
- But more CPU power == better physics, you might argue. - i've seen pretty good physics in Zelda:WW, which still top many brute force physic effects in today's game. Yes, they might not simulate every bone correctly. But does that *really* contribute much to the fun-factor?
- unlike other platforms, i believe that a 2x clock increase in nintendo's devices at least double their performance. The gamecube was incredible well thought. Yes, the CPU was "only" clocked with 485MHz, but it could use every single clock to do useful things. Speak about the hardware-assisted packing/unpacking of bytes. The write gather pipe. Paired singles. Locked L2 cache. The concept of 1T-SRAM. Every component of the gamecube had a distinct speed which allowed it to operate the device at nearly saturation. There are no major botttlenecks.
- freaks, who want a good gaming PC replacement, won't buy a Wii but a "next generation" console. Is that a problem for you? For me, it's not. For nintendo, i believe, it's not. (After all, was the gamecube targeted for these people?)
- I love a constant 60fps framerate in game. I expect them from a console - the hardware is fixed, damn it, so design your games that it fits! Magically, games like Metroid Prime can deliver this. Most xbox360 games can't. Hell, they even show v-sync flicker!

I couldn't yet play on a Wii, but I can see much more potential for a "revolution" than i can see for bluray or 1080p. I still agree that the 360 is a success. It's a successor of the xbox1. The wii is the successor of the gamecube. Both improved in "their" areas, and both seem to do that very well.

The impressive crap for me on the 360 isnt the resolution, although i run the machine at 1280x1024 on a monitor. It's the shaders and poly models. Look at how gorgeous Viva Pinnata is O_O

[MottZilla]

Yes, the resolution isn't what's that impressive, it's the thing like shaders and model detail. I do know what you mean that by Wii not being HD, it doesn't need as much power behind it. And I agree about the phsyics thing too. And I definitely agree with you on how the difference was clear as consoles were able to render more colors on screen at once, and per sprite/tile etc. But nowdays, the garphics are getting better, but it's not as significant as the leaps made way back in the 2d era. The Wii certainly is capable. I like the potential of Wii, but I also like the raw power of my 360 that I already own. I was a huge Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark 64 fan, so I had to get my hands on Perfect Dark Zero. ;) But the Wii in the hands of talented developers can make plenty of entertaining games. Sure they might not be quite as full of eye candy, but it is capable of being very easy on the eyes.

Anthaemia, the N64 expansion pak simply doubled the amount of RAM the N64 had to work with. Nothing more.

[Barc0de]

a bit off the topic here, but speaking of entertaining games I m looking forward to a sequel to the amazing Chibi Robo. Probably my favourite platformer on the GC - very n64ish.

[MottZilla]

Originally Posted by WindowsKiller

Which in turn allowed better textures and higher resolutions, as the N64 had shared memory (i.e. no separate video/texture memory).

Even so, it didn't fix the biggest flaw with the N64, that tiny texture cache.

[bluetrain]

I think the whole "next gen" thing is one big anticlimax. the 360 games are "ok" but nothing more, I totally agree with tmbinc on the graphics. Killzone looked like it was something new, that could push things forward. The playable stuff showed by sony so far isn´t! Everybody is talking bout that it will rock in two, three, or perhaps four years. Do anybody cares? It is now that really matters! In three years I will be playing my xbox1687 and perhaps alan wake 3 with my new pentium 10Ghz. ehm :)

[Anthaemia.]

While the likes of Sony and Microsoft consider HD support to be the only real progression from the last generation of hardware, Nintendo has thought outside the box and produced something truly worthy of that early "Revolution" moniker. Unfortunately, because HD is now being forced down the proverbial throats of consumers left, right and centre, its paltry 480p maximum display in comparison to the potential 1080 of both rival systems will probably hurt as badly as when the GameCube didn't play DVDs or fully support onling gaming. Further back, the decision to use cartridges on the N64 when everybody else had long since sided with the CD format could also be seen as a mistake (though it saw enough sense not to go through with a similar folly to the MegaCD or 32X - more than likely to Sony's joy in hindsight). Regardless of its errors in the past, Nintendo's still doing well financially so at least some people can see past the superficiality that gaming is adopting with a rapidly increasing pace.

Despite all this negativity, I'm still looking forward to the Wii more than any other system as the signpost for where the games industry as a whole really should be heading. Unfortunately, with most third party developers opting for quick GameCube-quality ports that only take the minimum of advantage when it comes to the remote's capabilities or scaled down conversions from "real" next-gen consoles, I doubt the Wii is going to become little more than just a gimmick hampered even more in its chances of success by the annoying kiddie tag Nintendo has survived generation after generation.

I've yet to see anything for the Wii that even comes close to showing its speculated double the GameCube's processing power, although I guess it could be possible some of that extra strength is being utilised for the control interface - this would also explain the rumoured emulation used on earlier development kits, as suggested in an earlier post. tmbinc shares many of the same views as myself, in that he can see a point in more elaborate polygonal models and new shading techniques but not just an increase in the resolution of so-called next generation software. The leap from 8 to 16 bit was quite prounounced, though not half that of the massive jump into 32 bits and the advent of three dimensional gaming. Since then, you'd be foolish to deny any improvement, but things have definitely slowed down outside the never ending quest to push more polygons in a larger frame. Ironically, this often leaves certain titles failing to achieve the 60fps that was once so easy for most developers to reach on allegedly weaker systems.

A major problem with the drive to create superior future products is that soon consoles will reach the absolute maximum of what is possible with processors, just as is soon predicted to happen with PC technology - by this point, not even multi-core solutions will be able to help much! Meanwhile, the few remaining creative designers are going to continue touching small amounts of critics and buyers alike. I sure know what side of this inevitable divide my hard-earned cash will end up choosing to support... no matter what the average public figure or PR suit wants me to believe is the right decision! After all,who can honestly say they were attracted to a game twenty years ago purely on the grounds of photo-realistic graphics?

[MottZilla]

We are still probably a ways off from reaching the maximum potential of processing speeds. Didn't you hear about how they are thinking about cheating the limited speed of circuits by using lasers in IC chips or something along those lines? I'm pretty sure we've got awhile before we are stuck. Esspecially when you can always make your chips smaller.

[Barc0de]

Originally Posted by MottZilla

We are still probably a ways off from reaching the maximum potential of processing speeds. Didn't you hear about how they are thinking about cheating the limited speed of circuits by using lasers in IC chips or something along those lines? I'm pretty sure we've got awhile before we are stuck. Esspecially when you can always make your chips smaller.

Don't get me started on that, I could have had the patent when I was 14 and did a school presentation but my parents never believed it would work and that i had "a very vivid imagination"

PS: i still have my notes and bitmap images that i drew describing the whole thing, for anyone interesed in seing a child's vision of technology.