Something I've noticed about Nintendo

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Nintendo 64 had almost similar graphical capabilities as the original Playstation. During that general period of time, 3D games were revolutionizing the gaming industry. Nintendo was quite innovative and creative with their titles, which usually had effort thrown into the development portion.

The next generation, Nintendo comes out with the GCN. While it recieved a few updates such as higher visual potential, the Gamecube was falling increasingly behind Sony and Microsoft's PS2 and XBox in the "race" for the most advanced and ground-breaking visuals.

Now we are engaged in the current generation with the Wii, PS3 and 360. Nintendo is so far behind the other competitors as far as graphical capabilities, they couldn't even port Resident Evil 5 to the Wii because the Wii couldn't handle it. Also, I was rather surprised about how Pokemon Stadium's models were almost exactly like Pokemon Battle Revolution's.

Basically, Nintendo's graphical updates are invisible compared to Sony and Microsoft's.

This post has been edited by General on Oct 29 2009, 08:48 PM

Where have you been the last 8 years?

USA

I always felt the GC had equal to better graphical capabilities to the PS2.

I think it's safe to say the PS2 had the weakest graphics of its generation. Yet it was wildly the most popular (and still is). Apparently Nintendo took notes.

Did you just compare Battle Revolution's models to Stadium's

you just noticed this

also tbh i dont mind much since Nintendo games usually look good on the Wii and they're pretty much the only Wii games worth buying bar a few

rly mario galaxy looks fantastic, brawl looks greatm etc. why complain?

3rd parties have been lacking in the game department on the wii, but tbh nintendo have been doing fine and i feel as if they're underated in terms of their game quality

galaxy is fantastic, twilight princess is a bit of a "memory lane" trip but its still a great game, brawl is awesome multiplayer fun, and i hear such great things for their other games like punch-out and mario & luigi 3

I never really understood the inherent distance in graphics technology between games on the same console (Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart Wii for example)

i thought the GC actually surpassed the PS2 in some ways
i could be wrong though

Super Mario Galaxy is pretty much one player and thus has just one main character on screen at once, and because it's set in space they can probably pull off loading tricks they couldn't with larger areas so they can leave more memory for those sweet bump mapping effects. Mario Kart Wii insists on running at a constant 60 FPS I believe, probably even when online, while having up to twelve racers on screen at once, plus the larger/longer levels, so given you shouldn't be getting that close of a view of the racers they use less polygons and just slap on effects and such to make them look decent farther away.

Pokémon Battle Revolution is just a mix of the team that was behind it and the GCN games not wanting to make all those models/animations again(lazy or understandable, you decide) and Stadium probably putting most of it's power into the Pokémon, rather than the surroundings, so the Pokémon still look decent on the GCN and Wii when they apparently reused them.

If the next Nintendo console is the graphical equivalent of the 360 with the price point of a launch Wii, I wonder how well it'd sell against whatever the next set of Microsoft and Sony consoles, being as graphics are getting so good it feels like it's hard to go much higher, so Nintendo wouldn't really be much behind, outside of a "family friendly" online service that they probably will keep from before... and possibly more third party minigame collections.

You are Right.

graphics can go higher, because there's a lot of things that weren't feasible at the time and more that aren't feasible now

before long bump/normal maps will be obsolete since gpus can already adaptively tesselate polygons to different densities depending on how close a surface is and how much detail it needs

will that make things look prettier

yes

Edit: Well no, depends on the source material.

This post has been edited by DJ Elly on Oct 29 2009, 11:54 PM

theoretically

right now with normal maps all you get is lighting information so you say "well this might actually supposed to have volume" compared to a displacement map where you get actual volume and also the ability to cast shadows

but yeah like elly said it depends on the source material

Remember Resident Evil 4 on the GCN? Yeah, those graphics were pretty pimp.

Also, 360 doesn't even take advantage of it's software half the time. For example, the 360 Halo games aren't even made in 720p.

It takes advantage of it a hell of a lot more often than the PS3 does. Just check the back of the game cases.

Isn't that because the frame buffer doesn't have the capacity when coupled along with the features they wanted to use?

I'm not quite sure what it was, but I KNOW that it is because the frame buffer lacked the capacity (This is the VERY same reason no Wii game is at 720p, because the frame buffer is too small).

Never played MGS4 or any other PS3 game?

look at you