What's the differce between Ultra64 and the N64?

English or italian? That would be very interesting to see, if only I could understand it. :110:

 

Oh I am sure you can manage the trip to System16.com to see the vivid and tasteful game done as close to official as possible on Nintendo hardware that would never have seen light of day on the real N64. Oh and it had the last ever Super Real Mahjong game on it :crying:

 

obviously italian... i could provide a trans if there's interest.

 

if you were to translate it, I would love to read it

 

ok i'll translate the interview only at first and if people think it's interesting the rest of the article too.

 

I'm interested.

 

Same counts for me.

 

Go on! of course im intrested!

PS : dont tell me its the GamePower magazine interview

 

no it's taken from "K".

 

NOTE: edited MANY times in the last minutes due to me being a sleepy idiot. now it should be readable at lest. good night!

As i promised here is the interview. it's been a long task to translate it, and as usual i apologize to naturl born english speaker for the imperfections, but i'm quite sleepy to proof read it again.

i warn you all that is a long interview that is part of a bigger LONG article that i might try to translate at a later time but only if there's interest.

I consider this article REALLY important for it shows how well aware of the future problem N64 would have had, and how much cash Nintendo throw in.

also the second answers adds something really unknown to most people in those time's analysys. Also it shows how the machine concept changed through time.

By the way, the article is taken and translated from "K" an italian videogames magazine that usually covered only PC and Amiga. The magazine is from december '93.

I can scan the whole article, but all the pics are from SG stations, so i guess uninteresting. anyway on request....

karsten




A workstation to play

During the IBTS, the fair of professional tv broadcasting, James H. Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics inc., kept a conference in front of a group of journalists. The news of the recent agreement between SGI and Nintendo was obviously one of the hot topics. What follows here is it's the exclusive interview that K (the magazine's name), the only italian videogame magazine present at the press conference, was able to get from James Clark.

how was born this agreement between Nintendo and Silicon Graphics?

It was Nintendo to contact us last year, sure that the tecnology of SGI is the future technology in the computer world. Nintendo and SGI have taken an agreement that we think to be long term. We'll give the technological base for the Nintendo machine in the next years, we expect forthe next ten years.Nintendo is a really important partner for
us. They have agreed to share the profits with us.

Our Hardware and Software are such a vital part of Nintendo's future that they decided to give us royalties on software and hardware, and even "engineerization" funds to further develop this technology.

How do you think it'll be possible to produce a machine that, in Nintendo's plans will cost around 250$ when a Silicon Graphics Workstation costs at least $4000?

One of the reasons for computers being so costy is the low volume.I could take the informatic and graphical tech of a 40000$ system and make it available to the public today. The way of doing it goes throught different tech.First of all you have to make Custom integration, something that the biggest part of SGI computer already have.

Mainly, the integration is done through gate arrays and ASICS. The gate arrays are not efficient, but are faster to design. This is the reason for the computer technology moving so fast, and in the last years, incorporating the gate arrays as part of the system.

Having clear concept of design and mass-producing, you can reach a reduction of price up to 1/10th of basic cost. Another thing to consider is that in computers, the electronical part of the system covers only the 15% of the machine price. There's monitor, extra RAm, Hard Disk, to make the price raise.

Also in the world of informatics we have untaxed gain margins of 50/55%. In the consumer electronics such margins are lower. Lastly, Nintendo is not earning in the hardware sale, but just recovering the production cost. In some way, the give away the hardware and later gain on the software. The price reduction come from this.

The project reality machine will use Cds or cartdridges for software?

The decision is up to Nintendo, but i don't consider it a problem. The only problem might be that cartdridges are extremely expensive, and that a machine like project reality should be able to use 100 Megabits carts it's obvious that games might became really expensive. Nintendo had great success with carts so it's obvious for them to think od them in first place, but they also know that CDs are an interesting option. The only problem with Cds, for what concern Nintendo, is the copy protection...

Talking about that, do you think that now that big cinematographic house are entering the videogames market, Nintendo can keep up with his rigid license politics?

I heard complaining about Nintendo's license policy and their software approvation methods... I think they'll have to adapt themselves.

So you think that they'll have to modify their license policy?

Nintendo is a reallysmart company and i'm sure that they'll adapt to the market.

What will be the strong points of a machine that will enter the market 2 years later than his opponents?

The Silicon Graphics produces the state of art technology since many years now. So Nintendo already have this advantage. I also think that nobody is able to produce informatic subsystems in mass production like Nintendo.

They have invested a lot of money in this project and they have the financial prowess to make project reality a successful product. I'm not allowed to say how much they invested, but it's an enormous amount.

Not always the best system in a tech overview wins. In the home video the one that was considered the best system, (Betamax) didn't win the format war against VHS.

The differences between VHS and Betamax were abismal. If at that time you would have looked at cassettes recorded in both formats it would have been really hard to understand which one was the best. In the computer field it's normal to have prestation improvements by a factor of 10.

I foresee that the 3do won't be able to get closer to a factor of 50 in respect to what we'll be able to do at the same price. It's a matter of custom integration. 3do is a society of marketing, but i think that Trip Hawkins is a smart man and that he'll change his businnes model. I don't forsee him to fail, but the don't know the technology like we do.

The coin-up machine that will be out in the '94 will be a test field for the home machine, or Nintendo id aiming at this sector too?

It'll be mostly a test field. There's no big commitement from their side in thos sector, nor any interest in becaming a leader in the coin-op world. It's just a way to have some games ready for the home machine, developing them first as coin-op version.

The world of informatics is not renown for his puntuality. Do you think that you'll manage to be out on schedule?

I think we will. The reason for which i think that we'll be out in shops by christmas '95, that means the summer '95 for Nintendo (Note By karsten: i think he refers to the japanese early release), it's that the first chip will be produced third and fourth quarter of next year -they had been in development since a long time - and as soon they'll be available the machine will get in production. Also since the machine is compatible with our systems, the software developers will be able to start working since next year. On the other side, the 3do devkits are still quite primitive.

Any idea of when the first Project Reality coin-op will appear?

I have no idea, but i repeat, personally i wouldn't give much importance to them. I think that they'll be used mainly to see people reaction to the technology.

Nintendo asked to build something compatible with the SNES?

No, it's not possible.

Working on a machine destined to be used for games, did you had to adapt your technology to it?

No,there are things that are not useful in a machine that is dedicated only to gameplay, but it'll be able to do much more. It'll be able to run a real OS, to work in multiprocessing and all the rest. You'll be able to run multiple application at the same time, maybe sending a FAX while another app is running or maybe having a video-telephone running in background and maximizing when a there's an incoming call.

There might be numerous other application that will have to be protected from the others exactly like in a multiprocessor system, so that if there's a bug in one application the whole system won't crash. Such thing are not mandatory for a machine that will run videogames, but will there anyway. In some way you'll be able to use it like a real computer, inserting a disk, adding a keyboard etc.

Was Nintendo to ask for such features?

No, but we won't take them off.


END OF INTERVIEW

 

Wow realy nice interview, thx for the translation!

 

Interesting read. Thanks for the translation karsten.

It's interesting to read that they knew of some of the problem so earlie, also interesting that they mention disks and keyboards that actually was released in the end.

 

It's funny to read it now knowing what SGI became...

 

Nice article, and good translation karsten.

About SGI, is funny they laugh at 3DO, mostly becos it was about that time that SGI started being the big corporation that would rather have big modern campus buildings than say, actual products...

 

Wow I guess they didn't really see it coming.

Very interesting interview. I am curious if the whole running on ultra 64 thing in arcades was a smoke and mirrors gimmick?

I mean crusin usa was running on a 32bit architecture.

 

Well it looks likes it was little more than a payed PR operation by nintendo, which is pretty lame since SEGA could've done the same with Model2 and Saturn.

 

99% of gamecode on N64 games was in 32bit mode anyway.

 

being a cpu of the R4000 family the N64 could actually use both 64 and 32 bit instructions, but in my experience Ive seen only 32 bit up to now..

 

read this
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.nintendo/msg/01765b0b98de9908

 

Interesting... one thing caught my eye:

I call BS, this would break the instruction format... right? I thought the MIPS ISA allowed for only 32 GPRs, maybe more in later revisions, but I could be wrong.