Ashish Patel

Complements of Ars Technica, I’ve learned some secrets about the Nintendo Revolution.

• Nintendo is taking a third route. Knowing that their “virtual console” service will leave users wanting hard drives, they’re supporting them, but they’re not requiring them, either. The console will have 512MB of Flash memory for storage, and will also support SD cards. Even better, the Revolution will be equipped with USB ports, and Iwata’s comments imply that Nintendo is going to be open to third-party storage products, saying that “practically any storage method can be used.”

Nintendo may in fact release their own add-on hard drive, but for now there’s hope that Nintendo will actually leave the storage solution up to the user. This could be another feather in Nintendo’s pricing cap, inasmuch as it will hold console prices down, while allowing users who want storage to go and buy it at competitive rates.

• The Power-PC based CPU will reportedly run at 739MHz, which is a boost of 50 percent over the GameCube in terms of clockspeed alone. Compared to the Xbox 360, the ticks of the clock sound weak: Microsoft’s offering sports three 3.2 GHz cores. Indeed, IGN notes that the Revolution’s CPU clock is quite close to the original Xbox, which ran at 733MHz. Still, we all know that comparing clockspeeds alone isn’t particularly useful. In this case, however, I do think it speaks to Nintendo’s target with this console, i.e., not the bleeding edge.

The Hollywood GPU, built by ATI, runs at a modest 243MHz, and “is a large-scale integrated chip that includes the GPU, DSP, I/O bridge and 3MBs of texture memory,” according to sources. All in all, the Revolution looks to be a extension to the GameCube’s Gekko and Flipper architectures, rather than a complete revolution in approach.

• To go along with an inexpensive console, Nintendo is hoping for inexpensive games, too. Iwata already announced that the Revolution would ship for less than $300, making it cheaper than the Xbox 360 and the PS3. He is now saying that he expects the games to also be priced lower than the competition’s, saying “I cannot imagine any first party title could be priced for more than $50.”

I can totally see people buying into this console, seeing that the PS3 is super charged in its pricing scheme. Kudos to IBM for closing on the deals for another gaming console chip - take that Apple!