Lots of interesting leaks about the revolution

Well, it seems our industry insider who leaked the early revolution specs was wrong. Very wrong (hey, I warned you that it was just an unverified and very premature rumor, k?). According to ign, developer leaks have a far less flattering set of specs to share:

CPU: 1.5 to 2.5 times more powerful than the gamecube's (approx. 750 MHz-1.5 Ghz--probably on the lower end as some devs have compared it to the XBox which clocks at 733 Mhz)
GPU: Unknown
RAM: 88 MB 1T Ram, 16 MB DRam
GPU RAM: 3 MB (?)
Media: Dual layer DVD (8.5 GB)

This is, of course, a FAR cry from the impressive specs of the PS3 (3.2 GHz Cell processor with 7 concurrent threads) and the XBox 360 (3 X 3.2 GHz dual threaded cores). It is absolutely clear now that the Revolution will never be able to output HDTV, as it lacks the RAM to handle higher definition textures. Simply comparing apples to apples, it almost looks like Nintendo is intentionally taking a dive this time around. So what's their game?

Well, first off they have their controller. Now, it is a damned cool little toy. But can you really build a system around a controller?

Second, they have the virtual console. Backward compatibility with all previous consoles certainly won't hurt; that's one of the things Sony has brilliantly leveraged with each incarnation of the playstation.

Third, they will have pricing working in their favor. It doesn't take a genius to tell that it'll cost less to buy a 750 Mhz, 104 MB ram system than it will to buy a 3.2 GHz, tripled core 512 MB system--alot less. Like, several hundred dollars less.

But all of this being said, will the Revolution be able to hold its own? Will the graphics at the least be comparable to their competitors in standard definition? Will people actually want a Revolution?

And that brings us to the ultimate conclusion: no one really knows. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine a 750 MHz machine competing with a triple cored 3.2 Ghz system. But on the other hand, its certainly no overstatement to say that computing power has reached a point of diminishing returns; my 2.4 Ghz pc with a GeForce FX 5700 is capable of running WoW in 1024 x 768 (similar to 720p, BTW), firefox, and windows, all with reasonably good performance. A console should be able to handle a game at least as complex as WoW with quite a bit less processing power (no need to run a bloated OS, no background apps, etc). But even still, could a system with a 750 Mhz CPU pull off a title like WoW?

When all is said and done, I just don't know if the Revolution can hold its own, and I certainly don't know if its going to be a success. But if I had to take a guess, I'd wager that Nintendo just plain didn't put enough under the hood to compete.