2005 sure was a quiet year for gaming in my opinion, but fortunately 2006 is going to spice things up quite nicely.  Here's what I'm looking forward to in 2006:

1- Zelda: Twilight Princess (Adventure, GameCube)

2- Star Wars: Empire at War (RTS, PC)

3- Metroid Prime 3 (Adventure, Rev.)

4- PlayStation 3

5- Mario 128 (Platformer, Rev.)

6- ANY news on Halo 3...anything

7- Smash Bros. 3 (Fighter, Rev.)

There's plenty to look forward to, and it sure beats 2005's Xbox360 and Resident Evil 4!

Revolution's new controller definitely will make the competition outdated as it paves the way to the gaming future, but I'm already getting SO pumped about the next one, most likely due to come out in 2011.  Ya see, Miyamoto has mentioned how we are still holding controllers connected to a system connected to a tv, and he'd like to bring the experience right out into the whole living room, discarding the television - cool!  Ya, people talk about stuff like that once in a while, but this is Miyamoto!  He's actually in a position to push for something like that.  Furthermore there's a new virtual reality visor out there that's gathering some attention from the console manufacturers, and guess what - Nintendo's bought a bunch of them.  Imagine gyroscopic visors that move the virtual image as your head turns in real life.  Add to that the revolution controller, and we would have near true virtual reality.  Now it doesn't seem so unlikely, especially since there's time between now and 2011 for technology to improve, that the next next gen system Nintendo will be a Virtual Reality system!!  Heck, they already tried once with virtual boy, and they are always interested in pushing the boundaries in games, this seems like the next logical step after the Revolution if you ask me.

Just for giggles, I figured I'd compare the next gen systems.

Round 1 - Graphics
The Rev. has plenty of power to make standard definition TV's output great graphics, but its fairly obvious that a single 1GHz core vs. the 360's three 3.2GHz cores gives the 360 some edge in terms of muscle.  Then again, every stat for the 360, whether it's the gpu's clock speed, the bus's bandwidths, etc., seems to be beaten by the PS3.  The next playstation is probably overshooting the consumers needs by pulling stuff like 120 frames per second on two 1080p screens at once, but even so, it's hard to deny it's got lots of juice and has loads of graphical potential.  Winner-PS3

Round 2 - Innovation
PS3 is going to push the technological barrier in graphics, which is a type of innovation, even if it's not all that significant.  The 360 is much more creative (so far) than the PS3, since it features plenty of online options, gamercards, points from games, and sweet menus.  Revolution, however, will have built-in wifi, downloadable content galore from old nintendo classics, free online play, and a motion sensor controller, which is gonna blow you right outta your seat!  Winner-Revolution

Round 3 - Price
There's no point in even describing why, we all know it...Winner-Revolution

Round 4 - Games
The 360 will have Halo 3, along with the promising Gears of war.  There's little doubt the PS3 will continue to enjoy some Final Fantasy exclusives, grand turismo 5, and plenty of third party support.  Finally, the Rev. will similarly have great 3rd party support (the way developers are reacting to the new controller), but will also have games like Mario Kart, Zelda 8, Mario 128, Smash Bros. Revolution, Metroid Prime 3, and so on.  Winner-Revolution

Round 5 - Appearance
They all look pretty slick, although the 360 doesn't look as nice in person as it did on the internet - it's this big clunky white plastic thing.  The PS3 looks quite nice though, much better than the 360 in my humble opinion.  I personally prefer the Rev's look though, it's quieter, smaller, more apple-esque, and comes in different colors, allowing you to choose which one looks best in your crib, jet black or otherwise.  Winner-Revolution

Overall-Revolution

Did Revolution win 'cause I'm a nintendo fan?  No, I am a nintendo fan because Revolution won.  It's also worth noting that the other systems have some sweet spots too, such as how the 360 makes a compromise between the Rev's affordability and the PS3's power, sitting right in the middle ground.  I also can't wait to see Halo 3 running on a big high-def TV, I may just buy a 360 for that reason alone; and I can't wait to see how far the PS3 can go graphically, I hope the Killzone demo isn't far off from the real thing.

It's actually been kinda nice that the GameCube had somewhat of a quiet year, since this has given me a chance to take a second look at the GC library and pick up the great games I missed out on in the past few years.  Buying these older games is kind of like polishing up my collection, refining and improving it.  I also traded in some games a while back that I was a little too quick to buy.  But I'm proud of my new collection, and here it is:

2001:
1)Rogue Leader
2)Smash Bros. (bought it in 2004)

2002:
3)Mario Sunshine
4)StarFox Adventures (just bought it - late Dec.2005)
5)Clone Wars
6)Metroid Prime

2003:
7)Wind Waker
8.)Rebel Strike
9)Mario Kart (bought it Dec.2005)

2004:
10)Metroid Prime 2
11)Baten Kaitos (bought it Nov.2005)
12)Tales of Symphonia

2005:
Nothing from this year, since it only had Resident Evil 4, as well as some B rated games like Geist and the new Star Fox.

Anywho, it's nice to have some "filler" time to catch up on what I've missed out on.  GameCube isn't dead though, I'm looking forward to some brand new stuff in 2006 (Zelda and Baten Kaitos 2!), then I'll be ready for a revolution.

Revolution's graphics are still something of a mystery if you think about it; the overall power won't be as high as the PS3, but then again, it won't be rendering in HDTV, just EDTV, giving it a performance boost, so it's kind of a grey area.  In really general terms, the Rev. is double the power of the GC/Xbox, and I'd say Perfect Dark Zero's graphics are not twice as good as Halo 2, so it makes sense that Rev. games will look better than Perfect Dark Zero.  Ok, that was totally overly simplified, but it still makes sense if you think about it. 

Interestingly, Nintendo has suggested that graphics have come to a saturation point, stating that the time when horsepower alone made a difference is over, and that simply beefing up current gen graphics won't allow for most of us to see a difference.  Maybe they're right, and maybe all the extra power in the 360 is unable to make a real difference to the graphical quality we see in Perfect Dark.  Food for thought.  I just can't get over how PDZ is just a tad bit prettier than Halo 2.  I mean, it looked good, and I'll be happy if Rev's graphics are that good, and I'm sure the 360 can do better, but I still keep thinking of what Iwata said: "the time when horsepower alone made a difference is over."

I gotta say that aside from Mario Kart DS, the Mario Kart series has been getting screwed by reviewers out there.  Everyone seems to love Mario Kart, and there's lots of attention given to games that we may never even play, like the Mario arcade game made by Namco, showing just how much the series is loved.  So why do people rape the series when it comes time to review it?  Mario Kart 64 got a 6.6 at gamespot.  A 6.6!!  That game was incredible!  How can they do that?  It was just like the Snes version, which rocked, plus it had better graphics and improved features, and deserves at least an 8.5 in my, and I believe many other gamers, opinion. 

Then Mario Kart: Double Dash.  Both IGN and GameSpot basically say its good old mario kart, but isn't all that impressive otherwise, stating that there's nothing creative or new in it.  But Double Dash has lots of neat new stuff that improves on Mario 64:

1-16+ brand new tracks
2-a new records system
3-ghost drivers
4-Lan capabilities
5-much better graphics
6-majorly improved animations
7-two characters per kart, two pickups at a time
8-two players (actual people) can both control the same kart, one drives while the other shoots
9-loads of content is unlocked as new goals are achieved
10-entirely new pickups
11-each kart has specific stats
12-characters kick and punch eachother when they are close to eachother
13-there're more characters than ever before
14-significantly improved AI
15-there's a boost strategy when drifting
16-there're new multiplayer modes

None of these things were in the previous Mario Kart game, so how can reviewers chew Double Dash up for not bringing anything new to the table?  Even though it is still the same type of game at its core, and doesn't change drastically, it is still making plenty of improvements and deserves some credit for goodness sakes.  And on top of all these new improvements, it still has the same Snes Mario Kart magic, and that also deserves some credit.  But then Double Dash gets a 7.9, as opposed to say, a 9.2.  I just don't get it, someone please explain it to me!

I am so pumped for Metroid Prime 3, and I'm sure it'll be the must have hit for Revolutions launch.  Oh, speaking of launches, the 360 didn't have any killer-aps to start off with, while Nintendo will likely have Mario 128, Metroid 3, and Smash Bros. at launch - all of which will be must haves.  Anywho, where was I?  Ah yes, Metroid, here's why I think it'll be sweet:

1-Metroid Prime 1 and 2 looked so much better on the GameCube than most GC games partly due to the fact that they had a very fast, efficient, game engine which took advantage of the system quite nicely, rendering beautiful environments and having a rock solid framerate to boot.  Now here's the kicker - Rev's architecture is identical to the GC's, so Retro Studios won't have to build a whole new engine designed for Rev., they can simply continue optimising what they have, plus take advantage of the newfound power in Rev.  Sometimes when optimising, developers work on "hotspots" in their code which get used alot, and go down to assemby language to optimise that one chunk of code extremely well.  Now, assembly language is intimately connected with the cpu, but since Broadway has the same architecture as the Gekko, all of those optimisations should still work!  There also won't be any struggling with the new technology like on the other systems with 6 threads and such; Retro can just go nuts without worrying about efficiently using extra cores and such.

2-Retro studios has had since Christmas 2004 to work of Prime 3.  That's a full two years, while normally launch games are thrown together in about a year or so, making this a very long development time relatively speaking.

3-The controller will simply kill.  Metroid's a great series because it's so atmospheric and makes you feel like you are there.  With this new controller, aiming samus' gun in real life with your own arm will bring this great series to a whole new level, and nothing will be able to compare.

4-Metroid Prime 3 will be a further refinement over Prime 1 and 2, which is a reason in itself to get excited, since the first two looked great, had moody music, and great gameplay.

So there you have it, Prime 3 should rock because it'll be a great showcase for what the Revolution can graphically do, it won't be a rush job, the controller will blow gamers away (especially for this type of game), and because Metroid in general kicks butt!

I love gamespot like a jealous boyfriend (whatever that means), but I've got to say they missed the mark with the whole revolution page.  IGN's is so much better because:

1-they had it up much sooner, thereby attracting all nintendo fans to their site

2-they aren't sticking with the gay purple background. Unlike Gamespot, they acknowledge that not all of nintendo's hardware is coloured purple.

3-they have plenty of articles and info on revolution.  Gamespot may say that they focus on each platform based on how much it's page is visited, but if they keep doing that, less and less people will want to visit gamespot for nintendo news BECAUSE of gamespot not supporting them as much.

4-IGN actually has people who are totally devoted to one platform at a time, for example "matt" is in charge of revolution. period.  He will constantly look for revolution info, and hence, we get lots of good stuff.  He found out all the revolution's specs, and gamespot doesnt have a thing on the rev's hardware (at least not that particular info, which is the biggest rev news since the controller was revealed).

5-the depth in ign is much greater.  They (for example) had articles like "75 reasons to be excited about metroid prime 2", and "8 things you may of missed in the Zelda trailer" where they really put some effort into presenting nintendo, and this is true with their revolution coverage as well.

I love gamespot, and I know they have said many nice things about Nintendo, and I do not suspect any kind of bias at all.  They simply F'd up, lets face it.  If you are a big Nintendo fan, Revolution in particular, IGN is where you probably have been the last few weeks.

Here's why YOU should buy a Nintendo Revolution:

1-At an estimated 100-200 dollar price range, it's a total bargain.

2-The graphics will be optimised for SDTV, hence you won't get the downsides of HD processing on SD tv's.

3-The controller will make the competition look downright insignificant.  Imagine wielding a sword, or aiming a gun in a game with your hand in real life!

4-The power: Imagine the best looking GameCube game (resident evil 4, rebel strike, zelda, or something).  Now, take the GC's cpu, and double its power, take the gpu and double its power as well, then triple the ram, and multiply the storage capacity on the disks by six.  Now imagine what the games could look like.

5-The convenience: A slick look, with built in 512MB flash memory, quiet sound, and fast start-up times.

6-Zelda, Metroid, Mario, F-Zero, Star Fox, Fire Emblem, Donkey Kong, and all of Nintendo's other franchises.

7-Free online play, with built-in Wi-Fi, as well as backwards compatibility with all of Nintendo's games thus far.

Man, I'm blessed.  It's been two days in a row now that I've gotten solid info on the Revolution specs, both times from IGN, which is getting this from Nintendo papers and game developers.  Here's the lowdown so far:

Memory: main system memory is 104MBs overall (it's split into two parts), along with the flash memory storage at 512MBs.

Graphics: Ati's "hollywood" chip comes equipped with 3MBs of its own memory, much like the 10MBs for the 360's Ati chip, and has around 324 MHz clock speed.

Central Processing Unit: IBM's cpu is clocked at approximately twice that of the GameCube (making roughly 1GHz), and has improved/more cache.

Media: 12cm DVD formatted games will hold either 4.7GBs or 8.5GBs (if/when dual layered), which is a big step up from GameCubes' 1.5GB disks.

My thoughts:  First and foremost - their disks hold more than enough data.  Considering how they basically six-topled the size for GameCube disks, and Rev. won't need to store HD cutscenes, the disk sizes are safe to say not going to be a bottleneck.  I like what I'm hearing about the Ati chip as well, the clock speed is close to the competition and having built-in memory in it apparantly makes a big difference, plus it seems to be something of a little brother to the 360's chip which isn't a bad thing.  It's nice to see a brand spanking new cpu with double the clock speed and improved cache, but I thought they were going to be a little more aggressive, at least making it better than current high-end pc processors, but it appears that won't be the case.  Oh well.  104MBs sounds better than the earlier estimate of 96MBs, although only marginally.  It's safe to say that this console is significantly better than the ps2,gc,and xbox, and that Nintendo has improved it's technologies all around, but Revolution nonetheless won't be out-performancing the PS3.