Consumer bulk Blu-ray discs (25GB) are available for ~$1/disc. Assume Nintendo can get them even cheaper. Even if a 16GB or 32GB flash device were $2/cart, multiply that difference across the number of games sold and that will be seen as lost revenue. I don't see it happening. I wish flash was that cheap, but it's not.
Even $2 would be incredibly optimistic. The spot price for an 8GB flash die is higher than that.
isuppli estimated that it cost Samsung $25 for 64GB of flash in the Galaxy S6, or $13 for the 32GB version. That's just BOM, actually turning that into a cart would probably add a couple bucks to that.
http://press.ihs.com/press-release/...-build-cheaper-buy-comparable-apple-iphone-6-
Games on flash drives would be awesome, but if they wanted to provide similar capacity to PS4 or XB1 to allow cross platform games the economics just wouldn't work out.
It doesn't matter, because the handheld will need to use cartridges again (with cheaper games) anyway unless they go fully digital with it.
I'd think that it would be more comparable to SD cards than flash drives... You seem to still be missing the point.
SD cards and "flash" drives are built on the same memory technology. Doesn't matter what form factor the cartridges take, the cost for NAND is still too expensive - unless Nintendo is willing to take a hit in margins to make it happen. They'd be better off just going all digital.
RussianSensation
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It's possible they might consider a combination of digital delivery for the home console and ability to access flash to allow a gamer to play NX handheld games by plugging them in directly into the home console. Also, correct me if I am wrong but I presume one major advantage of cartridges would be reduced risk of pirating? Extremely fast to non-existent loading times could be a key competitive advantage over BluRay powered XB1/PS4. With cartridge-based games, they could also get rid of the mechanical HDD and just allow the console to have 3rd party support via USB 3.0. That will reduce the cost of the console and its size footprint.
I do see your point though that flash storage is still too expensive for reasonably fast flash. 64GB with 90MB/sec writes is still $25 in retail which even if Nintendo could acquire it for $8-10 direct cost, would still be way more expensive than optical media.
The other issue of course is that if a game is > 64GB, the cost of the game will skyrocket since you now need 2x64GB flash cards or 128GB flash card and that becomes prohibitively expensive.
I am still not 100% convinced that the NX is a hybrid. I think Nintendo will release 2 distinct and separate consoles in 2016/2017: NX Handheld and NX Home Console. Those will be separate devices like PS4 and PS Vita but the integration of games/eco-system will be better implemented than PS4+PS Vita. It's hard to say what the NX is because Nintendo stated they expect 20 million units to sell in the first 12 months. That's an insanely optimistic goal if it turns out to be just another under-powered Nintendo home console.
Something interesting about Nintendo's consoles is that Nintendo sometimes releases their consoles completely out of sync with the rest of the market. They basically do their own thing. With the SNES, they released it way later than the Genesis (nearly 2 years later in North America) while with the Wii U, they released it well before PS4/XB1. Generally speaking, Nintendo's consoles have pretty short 4.5-5 year life cycles though with only a few of them stretching to 6. This could mean that is the NX home console comes out 2H of 2016, it'll be replaced by a new one in 2H of 2021, which means Nintendo will go back to the SNES model of releasing their console latter than their competitors which would allow them to reduce hardware costs OR use more powerful hardware and it also would give them an advantage of seeing what the competition has to offer before their next gen console.
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But then both the console and handheld will flop because nobody wants to buy Nintendo games digitally. Also, again, they'll need higher capacity cards for the handheld even if they don't use them for the console.
Something interesting about Nintendo's consoles is that Nintendo sometimes releases their consoles completely out of sync with the rest of the market. They basically do their own thing. With the SNES, they released it way later than the Genesis (nearly 2 years later in North America) while with the Wii U, they released it well before PS4/XB1. Generally speaking, Nintendo's consoles have pretty short 4.5-5 year life cycles though with only a few of them stretching to 6. This could mean that is the NX home console comes out 2H of 2016, it'll be replaced by a new one in 2H of 2021, which means Nintendo will go back to the SNES model of releasing their console latter than their competitors which would allow them to reduce hardware costs OR use more powerful hardware and it also would give them an advantage of seeing what the competition has to offer before their next gen console.
Bingo.
If they expect those numbers sold, it can't be just a console. It has to be a two in one.
Nintendo digital sales has been going quite good for them...
I don't think they would miss the 2016 Christmas.
It's not a "two-in-one." It's two completely separate pieces of hardware, with one as a console and one as a handheld. They run the same OS and use basically the same architecture.
But only a fraction of physical sales due to being locked to the hardware as well as limited storage.
Nintendo never releases hardware in the same year that they first talk about it. It's likely that they'll unveil it at E3 next year in a limited fashion, then do the full unveil with games at E3 2017 and release holiday 2017.
RussianSensation
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But a two-in-one would be even more expensive than 2 separate cheaper NX consoles. If we assume the NX handheld is $149 and NX home is $199-249, selling both of those would be at least $350. It would be more logical for their claim of hitting 20 million units if it applied to the entire NX-platform (by platform I mean all NX devices which would include the handheld + home console). Another possibility I've read about is that Nintendo will release the NX handheld first, and then the home console in early 2017.
I personally never understood this console strategy. Imagine if Apple or Intel unveiled iPhone 6S and Skylake i7 6700K and took 12-15 months to actual release it?! Nintendo needs to adopt with the times. They should be able to unveil it at E3 2016 and launch it November/December 2016. Also, in the 2016-2017 transition, we will see the biggest increases in perf/watt from AMD's Zen and GCN 2.0, and 14/16nm nodes. It would be stupid as hell for Nintendo to unveil the NX home console at E3 2016 and wait 12 full months to launch it since from that point hardware will have advanced not just 12 months but in tech terms an entire generation (i.e., Zen, ARM, Arctic Islands). But since it's Nintendo so I wouldn't be surprised at their ability to screw things up.
poofyhairguy
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But a two-in-one would be even more expensive than 2 separate cheaper NX consoles. If we assume the NX handheld is $149 and NX home is $199-249, selling both of those would be at least $350. It would be more logical for their claim of hitting 20 million units if it applied to the entire NX-platform (by platform I mean all NX devices which would include the handheld + home console). Another possibility I've read about is that Nintendo will release the NX handheld first, and then the home console in early 2017.
I personally never understood this console strategy. Imagine if Apple or Intel unveiled iPhone 6S and Skylake i7 6700K and took 12-15 months to actual release it?! Nintendo needs to adopt with the times. They should be able to unveil it at E3 2016 and launch it November/December 2016. Also, in the 2016-2017 transition, we will see the biggest increases in perf/watt from AMD's Zen and GCN 2.0, and 14/16nm nodes. It would be stupid as hell for Nintendo to unveil the NX home console at E3 2016 and wait 12 full months to launch it since from that point hardware will have advanced not just 12 months but in tech terms an entire generation (i.e., Zen, ARM, Arctic Islands). But since it's Nintendo so I wouldn't be surprised at their ability to screw things up.
To be fair, this isn't an annual product like smartphones or CPUs. It also would not be feasible to release a 14/16nmFF console before 2018 either way.
Why would it not be feasible? Nvidia has a 20nn shield TV and apple has a 14/16nm phone now.
You'll get no argument from me about the reduced footprint or the performance advantage of NAND over optical in general, but I can't say that I've experienced poor load times with my Wii U. Most optical game media is optimized to deliver as much sequential data as possible in order to minimize random file access. Since the Wii U optical drive operates at ~23MB/sec, which is considerably faster than the PS/XB optical drives, it is competitive with cheapest, low-grade NAND. Loading most or all assets for a single level at once as quickly as possible into memory and using memory compression does wonders, apparently. Certain games would benefit from NAND storage more than others, but the differences aren't staggering:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xw9533_peformance-comparison-of-wii-u-media_videogames
https://youtu.be/tQcyh56ADV0
https://youtu.be/V_xoXTwaCOA
https://youtu.be/tQeGAdpiy_g
The NX would probably be a much different scenario if game assets were considerably larger and disc read speeds or memory space didn't also improve, but now we're just guessing. Look at how much faster SSDs are than HDDs and then watch some videos of PS3/PS4 load times... it really varies by game.
As for piracy... you're kidding, right? I have a directory filled with just about every game ever made in ROM form. I was emulating N64 games on UltraHLE almost 3 years before the GameCube was released! LOL
It's not something that is done because they want to, it's something that's done because they have to. To have third-party titles on release, they have to ship dev kits to a lot of third-party devs well in advance of the launch. Someone is going to leak all the info. Doing an unveiling means you get to control the narrative when information about your console is released, not doing an unveiling doesn't mean that your console isn't unveiled, it just means you're not the one doing it.
Because custom parts would get lower priority than higher volume parts. The iPhone 6S sold more in a weekend than Wii U shipped in almost 3 years. As for Shield, why isn't that on 14/16nm?
They are talking as if it is one thing.
There is no proof of that. And how does it compare to the other consoles?
With how the Wii U is going I would be surprised if they go for a 2017 holiday launch.
Because you assume worse. The "console" would be cheaper than the handheld.
Wrong thinking again. This is a console. Not a PC. That matters not. They show the console and take forever to release because there is nothing that runs on it with value. Same can be said about Skylake and any other thing really, like how many Skylake or iPhone6S only Apps are there at launch? Not much. Now, it can be done in a certain way but that wouldn't be an incredible selling point to most people, provide a substantial improvement to backwards supported games.
They barely talk about it at all. They don't specifically say that it's two pieces of hardware because it's not announced yet, but statements from Iwata indicated that they have no plans to make one piece of hardware. On top of that, Nintendo knows that their console and handheld audiences overlap, so why would they expect one piece of hardware to sell twice as fast just due to being a hybrid? If that's what they really think is possible, everyone involved needs to be fired. It'll either be too weak to sell as a console, or too expensive to sell as a handheld, and will ultimately be the biggest flop in gaming history. Then there's this statement from Iwata last year:
I guess we'll see, but it seems ridiculous.
Exactly. I did not say they would make one piece of hardware either. One can sell a handheld and a console that works alone but also can be added up together for more capability, and such products already exist.
As you say, my assumption would be the best product then. It takes advantage and improves on what Nintendo is good at.
Fired? Really? The Wii U was a catastrophic design and you think these ideas are worse than it? And the 3DS!? As products the Wii U and 3DS fail in so many levels it's like a complete disrespect towards customers. Horrible product decisions. Horrible marketing. Horrible freaking User Experience! Have you even used a Wii U or 3DS? The feel, the capability, the act of setting/connecting up the hardware(Wii U). Every CEO and President and anyone who had a word on the development of those systems needed to be fired or retire.
Which only proves my points even more. Not sure why you point it out against my comment.
"Two-in-one" implies one piece of hardware that can be used in two ways. I guess we had a slight misunderstanding. Also, 3DS hasn't exactly failed. I can only imagine that you've comparing it to phones and think that the next handheld should have a 1440p screen or something... Though, it's not like In praised either of those in that post anyway. I'm just saying that they'd be insane to think that their console could sell 20 million units in its first year.
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RussianSensation
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How does that make any sense? What's the point of a sub-$199 home console? What kind of gamers would that attract? Casuals again? Can you imagine the level of gimped hardware Nintendo would bring if they priced the home console at $179-199? Paperweight.
Are you kidding? 3DS sold 55M units and made hundreds of millions of dollars for Nintendo while ensuring that the last player in the handheld console market, Sony, bowed out of the market completely.
What you are saying goes counter against Sony already executing what I outlined at E3 2013 and releasing the console in the same year.
It's absolutely stupid to hype a new console at E3 2016 and wait 1.5 years to actually release it. That old way of releasing consoles doesn't work. As I said already, hardware is expected to advance at an extremely rapid pace from 2016-2017. That means if Nintendo unveils the full blown console at E3 2016, why in the world would they wait 12-15 months to launch it in retail? You say they'd need 1st party games? They don't need to have final hardware to start developing 1st party games 2-3 years before the console launches since they know how to code for x86 and what level of GCN AMD has. They could have easily provided HD7850 development kits to 3rd parties this year already. It's not rocket science and no one expects 1st wave of NX games to be mind-blowing graphically.
Sony already proved that you don't need 12-18 months lead time between E3 and retail launch for your console to sell well.
Honestly the competition isn't Sony and MS; it's Apple. iOS is already the #1 gaming platform, and it's only a matter of time before they get Apple TV right as a gaming console. A cheap $199 console and a good looking Mario game might be a way to get ahead. If they put competitive specs and pricing with Sony and MS it'd just get wasted.
RussianSensation
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What are you getting this information from?
Not to mention that breaking things down on a per country basis is also important.
How is Nintendo going to compete against $0.99-$10 iOS games? It's going to be a long time before Apple TV is a good gaming console, probably 10 years before they make hardware that's worthwhile. Nintendo should not try to compete with $0.99-9.99 casual smartphone games with a $199 home console. Where are you guys pulling these theories from?
Not a chance. Firstly, cheap and good looking games don't go together. For that Nintendo would not even need to design a new console. They could just drop the price of the Wii U with Mario Kart 8 to $199 but that wouldn't even make a dent.
If the NX is a common software platform that will unify the company's future home console, handheld devices and third-party smartphones, that would mean you can play the entire library of all their mobile/tablet/smartphone games on the NX home console. This key differentiating factor isn't possible on XB1/PS4. If the home and portable products use the same OS, there will be many games that play on the go and on the big screen with cross-buy and cross-play functionality. A single ID would allows users to carry their friends lists and purchases with them no matter what Nintendo machine they're on. Competing on price alone would not be a key differentiating factor XB1/PS4 because MS/Sony are going to release slim consoles and drop prices further over the next 12-18 months. So under no circumstances should Nintendo choose to compete primarily on price or they will fail automatically.
The NX handheld could be a separate and unique device that replaces the 3DS. With a unified OS, the NX home could directly stream games to the NX handheld in the same household. This takes the idea of the Wii U but doesn't force the expensive $150 controller down the throat of NX home console gamers who may have no interest in the NX handheld. This would allow the NX home console to shop with a traditional Nintendo Pro controller that gamers overall prefer over the Wii U's style tablet. It's also possible that the NX home would include the hardware of the Wii U to allow for full backwards compatibility. That would ensure that the NX has many of the most popular Wii U games to draw upon during the first 6-12 months of launch. By the time the NX home console launches, it shouldn't be very hard to have it priced between $200 and $300 with overall CPU/GPU horsepower between XB1 and PS4.
The weaker than XB1 hardware model would be way too risky I already mentioned since all MS/Sony would need to do is drop XB1 to $249 and it's game over because by the time the NX home launches, MS/Sony consoles will have so many 3rd party and 1st party exclusive games to choose that the most logical thing would be to pay $50 extra for one of those. Therefore, competing mainly on price, not on features, is unlikely to be a successful strategy for their home console. The casual gaming market already has smartphones/tablets so they wouldn't care to buy a $200 console that's barely better than their iPad and way worse than a PS4.
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