Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Revolution production underway?






A Nintendo promotional book seems to reveal that production of the Revolution console is well underway. One picture shows a number of console cases in crates or boxes. This would suggest that the production process has started.

Links to a number of scans from the book were posted on the Gaming Age forums and originate from a Japanese Geocities page by someone called J-Stamp. In total, there are 38 scans. One image shows what seem to be early concepts of the Revolution controller and analogue stick attachment. Another shows a Japanese shelf with a number of Nintendo consoles in it with obviously wrong sizes. Both the Gameboy Micro and the Revolution are far too big compared to the Gamecube. Whatever the reason for that, the scans must still be authentic. To fake all 38 of them would have been a daunting task for anyone. Also, the Mario logo shown on the back (and pictured above) is the most recent one used by Nintendo. It appeared on their Christmas cards in 2005.

Here are links to all of the scans:
Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3, Picture 4, Picture 5, Picture 6, Picture 7, Picture 8, Picture 9, Picture 10, Picture 11, Picture 12, Picture 13, Picture 14, Picture 15, Picture 16, Picture 17, Picture 18, Picture 19, Picture 20, Picture 21, Picture 22, Picture 23, Picture 24, Picture 25, Picture 26, Picture 27, Picture 28, Picture 29, Picture 30, Picture 31, Picture 32, Picture 33, Picture 34, Picture 35, Picture 36, Picture 37, Picture 38
The last scan shows a CD-ROM or DVD included with the book, entitled ´Tokyo Gameshow 2005 TGS Forum Keynote Speech´. This may suggest that the book is older. In that case, the console cases could have been from a preliminary shipment. However, if the book is old, then why have the scans only surfaced now? I believe the book could still be recent and the cases may be a real indicator of the console´s production process.

Source: Gaming Age forums, J-Stamp
Thanks to: Product_Number_18

56 comments:

Anonymous said...

The reason the handhelds are huge in that shelf is because they are not real hardware, they are models, sort of like trophies in this case. =)

I heard elsewhere that this was all sent to Nintendo Contributors as a christmas pakage, which would corrispond with the Christmas Card image you mentioned.

Anonymous said...

very cool find falafelkid. i am intrigued however because on the first picture (the one that has the golden background) the japanese writing reads 2007 ? what could that mean ?

le shti de la belle province.

PS: your blog still rocks despite the new logos...

Anonymous said...

i cant get the pictures you linked falafelkid, isnt there any other way of getting them besides through the link ??

le shti de la belle province.

Falafelkid said...

Hi. Interesting. A number of news pages write that the book was meant to recruit college graduates. Unfortunately, noone has written why they think that.

Falafelkid said...

Oh, and I fixed the links. Sorry.

Falafelkid said...

And last but not least, I gave in to peer pressure and changed the page´s name to Nintendo-Revolution: Definitive speculation and adjusted the front logo accordingly. Hope you like it. Thanks to everyone for the input.

Anonymous said...

I'm still anxious to see what they do with the shell.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/revshellbw.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v695/nemo_83/revshells.jpg

Falafelkid said...

By the way: I just love that lime green colour on the Rev. No doubt which colour I´ll be getting!

Anonymous said...

If you can read Japanese, it explains it all.

Nintendo is looking for people, it says as much in it.

Anonymous said...

This rumor is most probably fake, although it was most certainly a good attempt. Two things give it away -


First, the first image with the brown page. It reads "ni zero zero nana," or "two zero zero seven." This may seem fine and dandy, however it should be noted that the Asian numbering system is different from Arabic. It should read "ni sen nana," or "two thousand seven."

Second problem is the picture with the lineup of all the Nintendo products. As far as I can tell, all the images of the DS/GCN/GBM are stock images that you can get straight of Google Images. Notice that the lighting on the white Revolution and the Famicom Micro in particular don't match the rest of the scene.

Still, this rumor has a lot more going for it than other things (despite my "nobody'll ever leak Revolution info" stance)

Anonymous said...

Although, actually, I jsut realized something - I don't believe that there are any pictures released by Nintendo that show the Nunchaku on its side..... Hmmmm....

Falafelkid said...

Hi Stult. Thanks for the insight. Are you absolutely sure the year would not be spelt like that? At any rate, I cannot imagine how anyone could fake 38 pictures, print them on glossy paper and then bind them together. It´s just too much effort, in my opinion. Also, the Mario logo should not have been available on the net, but it is the one used in their last Christmas cards. I don´t see how this could be fake.

game on said...

Interesting.... very interseting.... Where can I get my hands on some of these promotional materials?!

Anonymous said...

Just asked my Japanese teacher - turns out that that date format is a casual shorthand of types. This may very well be real. Awesome.

Anonymous said...

When I first saw these, I 'knew' they were real. There's just something legitimate about them. Besides, they really don't tell us anything new.

I think the year (!) of speculation has gotten to everyone. Everything is is immediatly fake. I won't be suprised if after an official announcment people still scream fake.

Anyway, I'm glad that we finally got a view of the back pannel. That had been bugging me.

Anonymous said...

interesting to say the least it most likly isnt fake if the rev is in production then nintnedo really can set up a worldwide launch within their wanted time period

Heres to hopin its real

Blizz419 said...

i believe without a doubt that this one is real, thats why i had posted it on my blog earlier today as well

Blizz419 said...

also i seen a larger picture of the gold mario logo which showed what appeared to be a person holding a camera which becomes more obvious that the zoomed in picture here, could this be a hind at a camera for the Rev?

Anonymous said...

These pictures could be considered the first legitimate Rev leaks. The picture of the front and back Rev plates in boxes does lend credibility to the story about the Rev "going gold." Still, I honestly don't believe this to be anything more than promotional material.

I find it odd that this booklet might be to recruit college graduates. I mean, shouldn't prospective game developers be beating down Nintendo's door, not the other way around (take Pablo Belmonte for instance). But even so, recruitment material is a good guess.

Weird stuff. Whatever the case, I'm just glad to see some more Rev news, revealing or not. But I do find it odd that this is leaked the day before the DICE speech.

Anonymous said...

i have feeling with revolution production underway it could be the last day of e3 the world wide launch day of rev.

Nicholas said...

Interesting observation:

If I'm not very much mistaken, the date on the topmost scan you posted reads 2007.

Anonymous said...

Why does picture 4 say "2007"?

Anonymous said...

I don't think picture 3 really shows that production has started. I highly doubt that a production line would have pieces of the console sitting on tissue paper ... and a production line would certainly be more organized than that!!!!

I'd guess that those pieces just got back from the company that will be molding the plastic for Nintendo. The fact that they are wrapped in tissue paper probably indicates that there were only a few pieces ... possible one setup for each color. This would give Nintendo the ability to look at a potentially finalized mold of the case before they go ahead and tell the company to manufacture millions of them!!!

Wouldn't it suck if you told someone to make you a million console cases ... then when you try to put them together they don't fit! DOH!!! Better to verify everything fits before going into full scale production.

Anonymous said...

I was just about to post a link to this! Grrrr.

Anyone else notice the word verification codes becoming more complex?

Anonymous said...

I feel the same as everyone else, I guess. Hoping that they are real, yet not 100% sure because of all the fakers.

However, I have faith in you, falafelkid, and trust that this is true leak, not a fake.

Anonymous said...

What the heck is pic 34? Looks a lot like dog dookie to me.

Anonymous said...

Pic 34 is Japan.

Metaldave said...

Hey, thank you Falafelkid for adding me to your "the good" blog list. I just want to be apart of what Nintendo is doing with the Revolution and making that blog was the only thing I could do to help. Its just another portal to more Revolution news for everyone to see. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

1) StuLT's an imbecile. Don't comment on the veracity of a piece of Japanese until you actually know enough of the language to comment.

2) Every piece of Japanese in those scans is accurate, including several pieces of vocabulary and turns of phrase your average faker will and frequently does screw up. 100% legit in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

hello this off topic sorry but its buging me and you guys seem to know alot...and now the question-

isnt it possible that the revolution wont need the wi-fi dongle the DS uses instead it already has something like that built in so you can wi-fi right out of the box?(i really hopes so)

Falafelkid said...

Hi Metaldave. You are very welcome. In fact, I apologize for adding your blog so late. I was sure it was up there already.

Hi Isaac. The XML feed is available through this URL.

Hi jmos1277. I think you are totally right. These molds would only be a preliminary shipment for sample purposes. Yet there are quite a number in the photo. I count 14. And they are evidently in their final form. Compare it to the pre-final controller designs in the other image and it becomes obvious that the case mold is final and ready for production. Now, that must be an indication of the mass production process to be well underway, for two reasons:

1.) Once you get a final sample shipment, the next step is to approve mass production (as you correctly point out).

2.) Putting together a promotional book like the one at hand takes time. We can safely assume that the image of that final sample shipment is at least a month old. So, in my mind, mass-production must have started in the meantime.

The only thing I frankly don´t understand is the reference to 2007. Perhaps this will become clear in the context of the book, i.e. it may relate to the year Nintendo is looking to hire people. But perhaps someone who can read Japanese is able to decipher more of that page.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Morton-jn. I am still absolutely sure that the dimensions of the various consoles in the shelf image are not correct. It is obvious from both Rev consoles that the images are just pasted together. They are not actually sitting there. Both Rev consoles are shown in a perfect profile, yet they sit some distance apart. The controllers don´t cast any shadow unlike the raised ends of the shelf they are resting on. All console images are the standard press images. Finally, compare the Micro to the DS. The difference between the two is greater than that.

Anonymous said...

This book comes from Nintendo. Look at all of the scans - they include the original Donkey Kong source art. The book itself is on extra-heavyweight gloss paper, and has a rigid binding complete with 3D embossing of the Mario head and Nintendo logos.

You can see the photographer in the reflection on one of the images, a person of relatively slight build wearing a white sweater closed up to their chin. This is absolutely not a photoshop, and no-one would fake a book this elaborate or high-quality.

This book really looks a lot like Nintendo's stuff; it is very similar to their annual financial reports in content and design. Except Nintendo never intended this book to be public. It's got their ORG chart in it!

Anonymous said...

Has anyone noticed, that the blue nunchak-attachment on the picture has no analog stick?

Anonymous said...

falafelkid ...

As much as I'd love to believe that these images are proof that production has started I just can't. I'm not saying that it isn't possible that production has started ... just that there is no way make that assumption from these images.

Also, I'm not sure how you count 14 consoles there. Look a little more carefully. There are only 3 consoles ... one green, one red, and one black. The 14 things that you are counting are only PIECES of each console ... not an entire console. In total, there are only enough pieces there to build up 3 consoles.

It just looks like they got a final mold for several different colors. Possibly for mass production approval ... possibly just for a display at the upcoming GDC. Who knows.

Anonymous said...

I used to read EDGE magazine, it is very well known throughout the USA, i believe they even have Japanese version of the magazine, the mag has been around for over 12 years now. The look of this magazine that we are seeing looks exactly like edge mag. People say it's looks like this mag is their fisical year company info, but thing is edge are known for that they usually have these sections in some editions of their mag where they make the mag look like a business plan just like we see here. Also there well known for blowing up the sizes of the consoles on a shelf in their magaizne, they did it for the N64 and now it looks like they are doing it for the revolution. What this could be is a edition that's going to be out next month and someone from the gfactory has got their hands on this sample and have taken a load of pictures. Usually the sample version of the mag doesn't look quite like thye finished version. And also edge do tend to release their next version of the mag 2 weeks into the month. So around about now seems right.

To find the truth to this belief we must find out if edge does have japansese versions. But as i remember in the english version of edge that i bought some time ago, they have some pages in japanese as well as the same pages in english, and sometimes a lod of pages that are strictly in just japanses. And edge a lot of times include a cd or dvd in their mag. So it looks like nntendo are given a suprise demo dvd which will probably show games or the controllers trailer from TGS and they given this away in the EDGE magazine.

This does in no way show that they have started production.

that's just my 2 cents

Falafelkid said...

Hi jmos1277. You are right, it seems. There are only 14 console parts. It is unclear, how many different consoles could be made from those parts. There could be more than three, however. We just don´t know how many different parts there are, since the parts shown are only partly visible.

Also, you do call them final molds, as well. This, in itself, is a good enough reason to believe that production has started by now. Again, account for the elapsed time between the photos being taken, the book being designed, printed and distributed and the scans to appear on the net. My guess is one month minimum, by which the production process must have been approved and started.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonymous. EDGE magazine comes in a standard magazine size, vertical A4. The format of the book is at least horizontal A4, possibly wider. It is a coffee table format, almost all magazines are published in vertical formats. Also, the book has already been established to be a kind of official Nintendo recruitment brochure by people who were able to read Japanese.

Anonymous said...

Hi falafelkid

EDGE also do horizontal pages, i also know they do pull out pages that fold out horizontally to reveal further news on the underside and they do even offer in some editions a page that you actually take out of the magazine which is like a over sized booklet just like what we are seeing.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonymous. I have never seen any copy of EDGE magazine that was published on horizontal A4 (nor have I ever seen any magazine in that format) and I seriously doubt there ever was one. To break from the standard size costs money. For gaming magazines, fold-outs or pull-outs are usually 100% sponsored by publishers.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for my bad english in advance

OK everyone, don't assinate me for putting this sensitive subject out again. Before I even go into this I'd like to declare that I'm not a believer nor a non-believer (whatever you'd like to call it)

Yes its back. I'm talking about the ON.
There are alot of reasons for the ON to be real but I don't want to go into them.
I only want to say something about a commonly used argument by the non-believers. 'The looks of the ON bears no resemblence to the Revolution console or to the contoller shown at the Tokyo Gameshow.'
We've all heard it or at least thought of it.

Now suppose that these pic's are real (I at least think they are).
In the second, I assume that I'm looking at shots of the controller from it's early stages to it's TGS stage.
Look at them. Now tell me:
Doesn't the fifth revmote from the left have a very sweet resemblence to the ON?
And wouldn't that fit in the picture?
I mean, if the revmotes were placed in chronicle order the fifth was the revmote that comes before the TGS revmote.
And if Nintendo wanted to hide the ON, this switch of colour would be the perfect way for noone to connect the ON to them.

Remember it's just a thought and I'm not out to start a hype/riot/massacre/anything worse than the previous.

Is it such a crazy thought I wonder. I Also wonder if I am the only one that noticed this.

I'd like to here what everyone thinks of this.

sincerely
A gamer with no believe but hope for an ON

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonymous.

All controller versions look almost alike. They only differ marginally in button layout. The one you mention actually is the final controller without buttons inserted. I don´t see any sense in your comments, I´m afraid.

Also, whether the ON was made by Pablo or Nintendo is a very specific debate, and also one that we cannot solve with the evidence we have. It seems most likely that Pablo made it, but a number of questions remain. Regardless of the ON, I believe we should rather be talking about whether some kind of 3D projection, visor or integrated, is possible.

Anonymous said...

The picture of the controllers looks fake, i mean would you really buy a mud colour controller?

Falafelkid said...

You´re kidding, right? These are test molds, right out of the cast.

Blizz419 said...

Hey Fal on the second page of that GAF thread somone links to one of the pictures and sais "OMG! multicore CPU! now this page is of course all in japanese so i cant read it so i'm curious what it sais now, does it really talk about a multicor CPU or is this person just making things up? heres the link to that particular picture, if anyone can read japanese please translate

http://www.geocities.jp/
srqjx458/nintendo/
P1000672.JPG

Blizz419 said...

Thrakkerzog me and Fal were talking about this yesterday when i tried to inform him of this discovery but of course he had also already seen it, i mentioned same pic and we agreed that it just some testing on videogames effect on brainwaves was the only logical answer.

Anonymous said...

pic 21 reminds me of an electroencephalography cap. ive messed with them in psychology classes at college.

could anyone make a measurement of the console from the picture (assuming this is real and up to date) and see if the console has shrunk from the 2-3 dvd cases size???

Blizz419 said...

anonymouse i dont see anything to even camare it to in same pic as to even get a rough estimate on size

Anonymous said...

About the plugged head. I think there's a DS game who said wich part of you're brain have work, depending wich question or puzzle you have solve.

Probably Nintendo have made test to know wich part of the brain is in work for each kind of puzzle.

Zaro

Anonymous said...

to bad that it means 2007 in the picture the = type signe meaning 2 0 0 and the kanji for 7.
That would mean it is being released later in japan than in the US.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps its being recognized if I post it here again.
Just for clarification..
remember what Reggi said at E3 2005?
"prepare to let your right brain go wild"
The right side of your brain is the place where ideas take shape.To make a long story short:

The last secret is an upgradable 3D Mario Paint.Its included with the system from the get go.Its compatible with the wi-fi connection among other things.It allows you to create 3D sequences and even 2D gameplay with set AI routines for objects.
Exciting times indeed..

Anonymous said...

what if picture 21 is referring to a visor. Just think about this for a second, a visor has two screens side by side, the DS has 2 screens one on top of eachother. Now in picture 21 the DS is held on it's side displaying the screens side by side. Now i have not got a DS, but tell me in DS games do you tilt the DS on it's side as pictured in picture 21?

The other thing is all those laeds connecting to the head in picture 21 is positioned on the right side of the brain, again we must go back to reggies speech at e3 where he said 'let the right brain run wild'

This seems like no coinicidence, it seems that in this picture 21 you get side by sides screens hiting to a visor and you get the wires connecting to the right side of the brain, it seems that this picture is hinting to something that is part of the revolution, something that affects the rightside of the brain something that sits on your head, something that works in conjuction with 2 screens that you see infront of you. With the leak of this magazine scans, it could mean that something unique is coming but not at DICE, this was nintendo's way of giving us a teaser till the next show possibly GDC.

the above reminds me of the ON, please don't flame but you get the ON video before E3, you get the revmote at TGS, now you get this magazine yesterday which was the day before DICE. This was planned right from the start.

Viva la revolution

something big is about to happen

Blizz419 said...

um as i recall there is a game that requires you to hold the system sideways for atleast part of it and as i recal that game is brain training, so the comment about seeing which puzzles apply to which part of the brain or how they effect brain waves is much more likely thath th "ON" theory

Anonymous said...

blizz419:

that 'multicore CPU' picture is actually just a diagram of Nintendo's corporate structure.

not quite as exciting!

Anonymous said...

Some of the comments so far have displayed some ignorance about the effort involved in printing a booklet like this.

Firstly, there shouldn't be any doubt that this is a real booklet. For example the embossing it not a photoshop job. It's for real.

It is not simple to fake something like this without going to the extreme expense of printing it via print shop. For example, this image http://www.geocities.jp/srqjx458/nintendo/P1000712.JPG

shows a solid black cover with a foiled and embossed logo. This is NOT a simple thing to do. In fact, the embossing alone is quite expensive. The solid black is also difficult to do well consistently across a print run, a sign of a professional job.

This image:
http://www.geocities.jp/srqjx458/nintendo/P1000669.JPG
Has been printed using a gold spot colour. This did not come from desktop bubble jet! This is a particular ink chosen specifically by the designer of the booklet. Getting something like this printed invloves offset (read; print shop job).

Throughout the booklet there are a number of spreads using large areas of solid colour. To get something this bright again involves the use of spot colours. That this appears in the middle of the booklet means multiple signatures (chunks of pages) printed with different spot colours, perhaps in combination with normal process colours (CMYK). This is not a trivial job!

Have no doubt, this is an expensive book, most of the cost would be taken up in labour. Many plates, many change overs. Lots of work.

So, the bottom line is this; either a faker has gone to the extreme effort of designing an entire booklet and paying thousands to have it printed (yes even one copy would still cost loads) or this is the real thing. Simple as that.

Phew… I didn't intend to type that much :)

Brian said...

Believe! Get ready to revolt!

- ^_~