Ars Technica hits this one right on the head when they label it as potentially simply fodder for the fanboy forums on a Friday (nice alliteration, eh?).
Han Solo, a G4TV.com poster whose claim to fame apparently includes a remarkably accurate leak of Xbox 360 stats prior to the official announcement, posted (located approx. 2/3 of the way down the page, #3 of the forums) what he claims are the specifications for Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution game console. Some details:
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• 1 custom, dual-threaded IBM PowerPC 2.5 GHz processor w/ 256k L1 cache and 1 MB L2 cache (potentially L3 cache as well). 512 MB of 700 MHz system RAM
• ATI custom graphics chip w/ 256 MB RAM and a 600 MHz core supporting 2048×1268 resolution. HD support is still undecided.
• The system will support a PPU (physical processing chip) w/ 32 MB of its own RAM, which links to the CPU, GPU and the controller(s).
Aside from straight out comparisons to the Xbox 360 and PS3 (Solo says the PS3 still has a CPU edge, while the Revolution technically matches the superior GPU performance offered by the Xbox), Ars makes note of the fact that Nintendo may be playing it smart by providing potentially developers with a core system for which it’s easy to write games. Given that the majority of titles end up going cross-platform at some point, if the Revolution forgoes any ridiculously esoteric hardware that provides a novel gaming experience but a headache for developers might be the way to go. I make no pretense about being a game expert, but that’s my $.02.