Nintendo Revolution Dev Kits $2000

http://www.revolutionreport.com/articles/read/316

http://revolution.ign.com/articles/690/690730p1.html

Not bad at all :), and Cheaper than a PSP dev kit lol. Thats easily within a lot of Blitz users budgets, and BRL's "hint'hint".

Excellent move by Nintendo!
I expect many developers who don't want to risk millions of dollars in order to develop a "risky" game (IE: Not a first-person shooter or MMORPG) will sign up with Nintendo...


I hope the system isn't too cheap, because that may make it appear really low-end from the nitwit consumer standpoint.

I hope they embrace their homebrew community this time round in more ways than simply letting them do their thing as long as they don't break the law. (And subsequently ensuring that no further systems can be accessed the way that the homebrew crowd does it, to avoid piracy).
It would be really cool if they found a common ground where anyone can develop stuff for the system, but it won't run pirated software.
I'm sure that it's possible, and it would really be a major selling point. Besides, the system is doomed to be opened up to homebrew developers minutes after launch, with all these different ways to get it to run games.

Sounds really good, I just hope that the Revolution doesn't turn out to be a toy, but a real console. Im not really sure why Im thinking that...

Because it's Nintendo, and they make toys and not powerful hardware?

Powerfull is relative.
The Revolution is as powerfull as the other next gen if you scale it down to the real user market (ie NOT HDTV) the consoles are sold to.

With its 128MB of RAM it has enough for the actual screen sizes, there is no need for 512 on a sub 800x600 screen ... when PC games had that resolutions we were at 64MB without real graphic power ;-)
And I don't even take the specialities of it into account (nintendo integrated 1T highspeed ram into gamecube and do with revolution again)

And the innovative stuff they are creating around it makes it more powerfull to me ... because a heat spreading and oversized "mini pc" like PS3 or XBox360 (both are larger than their actual gen versions (normal ps2 not the new small one) which already were too large!) isn't really what I would call a console. and since MS has introduced the crap of patching to consoles, its really NO console anymore, its a gaming PC, just with 1,5 times as expansive games and a "pay for" online gaming support.

Great move on the part of nintendo... we might actually see some innovative games this cycle.

Price of dev kits was never the issue with Nintendo, availablity was. In the past you had to have a long track record and a publisher to get a dev kit. Unless that changes, the price is irrelevant.

Yup, that's true. It doesn't matter if you can afford it, if you're not on the list you're not coming in.

They could be changing the rules though. Nintendo say that they've got one or two more tricks up their sleeves with regards to the Rev. I reckon that while a VR helmet is almost certainly not going to happen, homebrew (or at least provision for smaller devcos, probably a system similar to Live Arcade on the 360) could be on the cards, and these very cheap dev kits would support that theory. Of course for $2000 you'd not be getting any dev software or support from Nintendo, but then with Nintendo's shady past with regards to 3rd party developers that might actually be a bonus. ;)

I hope they do allow smaller developers to develop for the console. That would be great.

Looks like they're heading in that direction Sswifty. I'm stoked that's fairly easy money to squeeze. I just need to think of a game for it. I'm a bit more amped on doing a 360 game actually.

Whatever it means, I just hope it'll mean that Nintendo's "Official Seal of Quality" will actually mean "Quality" this time around like it did in the good ol' NES/SNES days, I cant believe some of the utter crap that came out for the GBA/DS that bears that seal....

I bet JP has taken delivery already!

IPete2.