The Revolution begins
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Details have begun to emerge regarding Nintendo’s “Revolution”-ary fourth gaming console. The machine’s basic design and specifications have been revealed at the E3 convention. The feature color is black with an iridescent blue light on the front of the console; however, a total of five colors (black, red, silver, white, and green) appear to be available [1].
Sporting graphics which in actual play are “two to three times more powerful than GameCube,” according to Nintendo, the Revolution is already anxiously awaited by fans. In contrast, Microsoft repots the Xbox 360 having 13-15 times more powerful graphics processing than the original Xbox, and the PlayStation3 is reported to be approximately 35 times more powerful than the PlayStation2. However, these numbers typically reflect polygon display numbers in a testing environment and are not actually attainable in true gameplay.
The Revolution will feature a Wi-Fi card to hook up to the Internet in a feature akin to today’s Xbox Live. Once connected, gamers will be have access to a free online game-matching service; a launch title in the Super Smash Brothers series has already been revealed to have this capability. Also available over this Wi-Fi connection will be popular games from all systems past, according to Nintendo. Specific examples cited were Super Mario Sunshine and Donkey Kong, although it’s highly probable that many other fan favorites as well as new games will be downloadable.
Increasing the speculation regarding the controller, IGN recently revealed that the Revolution sported 4 Gamecube controller ports, along with 2 Gamecube memory card ports, with these apparently being required for the backwards compatibility functionality Nintendo has touted since the beginning of the E3 expo.
