Rumoured Revolution specs hit the net

June 14th, 2005, 00:08 Posted By: wraggster

A set of specifications purporting to be for Nintendo's Revolution console have appeared on the Internet, outlining a system with impressive graphics capabilities - but the company has confirmed that high-definition outputs won't be supported.

The specifications, which appeared on blog site Nintendo Centrium, suggest that the system will be powered by two 1.8Ghz IBM PowerPC G5 processors, a 600Mhz graphics chip from ATI and a 7.1 Digital Sound chipset.

The console will apparently sport 128MB of high speed 1T SRAM as main memory, along with 256MB of slower DRAM, while the graphics chip has 12MB of on-board high speed RAM. 6GB proprietary DVD-size discs, designed by Panasonic, would be used for Revolution's games.

The specs differ greatly from a previous "leak" last month, which claimed that the system would have a dual-core graphics chipset and a total of four processing cores, using IBM's dual-core technology.

According to Nintendo Centrium, the spec originated from a programmer currently contracted to work for Nintendo on a DS project. However, it's impossible to say how close to reality the figures actually are - but with the high speed GPU and large frame buffer, the system seems oriented towards high-definition output, which jars somewhat with a statement late last week from Nintendo of America saying that HD is off the menu for Revolution.

Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs Perrin Kaplan is quoted on IGN.com as saying that "it is accurate that at this time we will not support high-definition [on Revolution]."

"Nintendo doesn't plan for the system to be HD compatible as with that comes a higher price for both the consumer and also the developer creating the game," Kaplan continued. "Will it make the game better to play? With the technology being built into the Revolution, we believe the games will look brilliant and play brilliantly. This can all be done without HD."

The statement is not only at odds with Sony and Microsoft's stances on HD - which both firms are supporting strongly - but is also slightly unusual given that Nintendo has previously said that Revolution will work with PC monitors as well as televisions.

Kaplan's statements do however seem to give the lie to both sets of specifications leaked until now - both of which featured large frame buffers that would only be required if Nintendo plans to support high definition resolutions.

It seems that we still have some waiting to do before we see the real specs for Revolution - which may not even be completed yet, if they're anything like the controller for the console, which Shigeru Miyamoto admitted last week has not yet been finished.

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