Nintendo signs up for AMD in latest model - Fudzilla

[RussianSensation]

What Nintendo needs to do is release a console that matches the PS4's capabilities, is easy to port games to (x86), make a robust online infrastructure with all the commonly found features like party chat, friend lists, trophies etc, and release their first party games in a timely manner. I know quality games take a long time, but I thought Zelda Skyward Sword was disappointing but how long did that take to develop? Four or five years? That's unacceptable. Besides that they really need to move Mario back to the Mario 64 style of 3D game. It would get people's attention a bit more I think than the standard 2D side scroller or Isometric 3D stuff. That's just my gut feeling.

Usually when rumours persist with a consistent message, there is probably some truth to the overall picture. For example, rumours continued to state that Fury X would not beat Titan X and they persisted for months. This came true. Right now the rumours consistently are on point that NX won't be as powerful as PS4.

Obviously take with a giant bag of salt but:

"Kevin Callahan, the individual that speculated the heavily rumored Diddy Kong Racing 2 would be headed to the Wii U or 3DS, is now talking about Nintendo's next game system, the NX, and the furthered development of Diddy Kong Racing 2.

Callahan is suggesting that Diddy Kong Racing 2's development has been shifted from the Wii U (or 3DS) to the NX game system. He went on to say that the NX game system will release in 2016 with the incredibly low price of $149.99.

Apparently the development kit for the NX is based on the Wii U's devkit, simply with 'higher memory bandwidth and a more balanced CPU.'"
http://www.gamezone.com/news/here-s...m_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_591826

 

[jpiniero]

That makes it sound like they are sticking with PowerPC.

 

[futurefields]

They'd be better to release something really powerful and charge $500 for it. People make $40k a year working at McDonalds these days. We can afford it. I feel Nintendo greatly underestimates consumer buying power.

 

[Fulle]

They'd be better to release something really powerful and charge $500 for it. People make $40k a year working at McDonalds these days. We can afford it. I feel Nintendo greatly underestimates consumer buying power.

Based primarily on XBO and PS3 performance, I don't think consumers have been very receptive to a $500 price point for a home console. It's generally perceived as a bit too expensive... even if the thing is selling at a loss.

Nintendo will probably do the predictable thing, and target $300.

 

[Lil Frier]

Usually when rumours persist with a consistent message, there is probably some truth to the overall picture. For example, rumours continued to state that Fury X would not beat Titan X and they persisted for months. This came true. Right now the rumours consistently are on point that NX won't be as powerful as PS4.

Obviously take with a giant bag of salt but:

"Kevin Callahan, the individual that speculated the heavily rumored Diddy Kong Racing 2 would be headed to the Wii U or 3DS, is now talking about Nintendo's next game system, the NX, and the furthered development of Diddy Kong Racing 2.

Callahan is suggesting that Diddy Kong Racing 2's development has been shifted from the Wii U (or 3DS) to the NX game system. He went on to say that the NX game system will release in 2016 with the incredibly low price of $149.99.

Apparently the development kit for the NX is based on the Wii U's devkit, simply with 'higher memory bandwidth and a more balanced CPU.'"
http://www.gamezone.com/news/here-s...m_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_591826

1. Much rather see Microsoft do a Banjo-Kazooie Racing that takes elements of their previous work, since they apparently own many of the characters.
2. Sounds like the NX is the reality of the terrible Microsoft suggestion, where they try to have a high-end and low-end version of a console or something. The price might make the device compelling, but the reality of the console sounds downright depression.

 

[preslove]

Usually when rumours persist with a consistent message, there is probably some truth to the overall picture. For example, rumours continued to state that Fury X would not beat Titan X and they persisted for months. This came true. Right now the rumours consistently are on point that NX won't be as powerful as PS4.

Obviously take with a giant bag of salt but:

"Kevin Callahan, the individual that speculated the heavily rumored Diddy Kong Racing 2 would be headed to the Wii U or 3DS, is now talking about Nintendo's next game system, the NX, and the furthered development of Diddy Kong Racing 2.

Callahan is suggesting that Diddy Kong Racing 2's development has been shifted from the Wii U (or 3DS) to the NX game system. He went on to say that the NX game system will release in 2016 with the incredibly low price of $149.99.

Apparently the development kit for the NX is based on the Wii U's devkit, simply with 'higher memory bandwidth and a more balanced CPU.'"
http://www.gamezone.com/news/here-s...m_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_591826

Do you have more sources? That one you linked to is a little weak, as its only source is some stay at home dad who used to work in "CGI animation, television, and the game industry."

 

[shortylickens]

The Wii U 2?

 

[preslove]

If the target price is $149 and it is backwards compatible with the wii u, has 3ds integration, and did the roku thing well, I could see them selling a ton of these.

It has to have all the netflixes and hulus and amazon primes.

Price and stupid name has always been the problem with the Wii U. Get rid of the dumb tablet controller and you're close to the price difference of what the Wii U actually sells at. Put out Wii U versions of your games for a while and you won't piss off too many people.

They also could have this thing out by the 2016 holidays. I think a well marketed $149 nintendo console would be hard to come by for that holiday season. If it's just a Wii U with better performance, then they can quickly port all of the wii u games, and include backwards compatibility to mollify current Wii U owners. They will make so much money in software that quarter

 

[mmntech]

I can see them building something like Nvidia's Shield TV. There was a rumour awhile back that the NX would run some form of Android, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. The Shield sells close to the $150 price point, and AMD does make x86 chips similar in performance to the Tegra X1.

However, at that price you're not going to get any significant performance gains over the Wii U. Going with a different CPU architecture would most likely mean no backwards compatibility as well.

My concern is that Nintendo falling into the same trap Sega did with the Dreamcast. The Wii U has barely been on the market 3 years. It hasn't sold well but does have a sizable, dedicated player base. Much like the Saturn. Cutting support for the Wii U and launching a new system too soon could be a disaster. It leaves consumers feeling cheated.

What I'm saying is that releasing the NX next year could end up hurting Nintendo more than helping them. A low price point might ease the burn. Might, depending on what they're offering.

 

[Fallen Kell]

The "trap" Sega fell into was a completely hacked system at the time that both Sony and Microsoft were making huge inroads into the video game industry. People were simply renting Dreamcast games, ripping them, playing the ripped copies and sharing them on the internet which had finally become fast enough to share files of that size quickly and easily.

The issues Nintendo needs to fix with the next console are doable, but I don't think they are going to resolve them. They need to get something close to being on par with Sony and Microsoft. Meaning that it needs to be powerful enough and similar enough that third party developers will create ports of their games to the system. Nintendo also needs to really work their butts off on their original content, releasing a bunch of their series all the year of release (Zelda, Metroid, Mario, etc), and stop focusing on mini-games. If they don't have the developers in-house, they need to seriously consider letting other development studios actually take on the bulk of the work.

 

[mmntech]

The "trap" Sega fell into was a completely hacked system at the time that both Sony and Microsoft were making huge inroads into the video game industry. People were simply renting Dreamcast games, ripping them, playing the ripped copies and sharing them on the internet which had finally become fast enough to share files of that size quickly and easily.

Despite rampant piracy on the Dreamcast, it did have a high tie-ratio of 8:1. So people who had them were buying lots of games for it. Besides, ease of piracy tends to boost hardware sales. So that doesn't explain why Sega shifted so few Dreamcasts.

There were a few factors that worked against Sega. As I mentioned, launch timing was poor. The Saturn had been a huge mess and had soured a lot of people off the brand. Sony got the jump on them with strong brand loyalty and better marketing, despite being second out of the gate.

 

[Lil Frier]

If the target price is $149 and it is backwards compatible with the wii u, has 3ds integration, and did the roku thing well, I could see them selling a ton of these.

It has to have all the netflixes and hulus and amazon primes.

Price and stupid name has always been the problem with the Wii U. Get rid of the dumb tablet controller and you're close to the price difference of what the Wii U actually sells at. Put out Wii U versions of your games for a while and you won't piss off too many people.

They also could have this thing out by the 2016 holidays. I think a well marketed $149 nintendo console would be hard to come by for that holiday season. If it's just a Wii U with better performance, then they can quickly port all of the wii u games, and include backwards compatibility to mollify current Wii U owners. They will make so much money in software that quarter

I don't agree with how you assess the controller. I'll say it's been underutilized, but it's a conceptually cool thing. Even on a basic level, it's nice to be able to fire it up without needing a TV. I would hope that if the next console is just a Wii U upgrade, they'd keep the tablet but let it work over WiFi, so you don't have to stick close to the console. Even better would be if they had a tablet sold separately that natively ran games.

I really think that the NX should become a full-on fusion of the home and handheld consoles. They can be sold and used separately, but their libraries can be shared, and buying them both enhances the home experience.

 

[preslove]

I don't agree with how you assess the controller. I'll say it's been underutilized, but it's a conceptually cool thing. Even on a basic level, it's nice to be able to fire it up without needing a TV. I would hope that if the next console is just a Wii U upgrade, they'd keep the tablet but let it work over WiFi, so you don't have to stick close to the console. Even better would be if they had a tablet sold separately that natively ran games.

I really think that the NX should become a full-on fusion of the home and handheld consoles. They can be sold and used separately, but their libraries can be shared, and buying them both enhances the home experience.

It's nice, sure, but it adds $90+ to the cost of the system. Having an underpowered console with terrible 3rd party support for only slightly below the price of a PS4 or Xbox1 has led to low sales.

Have the same play options, but with a 3ds and a $149 price tag, and a default regular controller, and you're going to have a monster hit.

 

[Lil Frier]

Well, my suggestion was to succeed the 3DS/N3DS with a tablet. They're the primary gaming source for kids nowadays, it seems. Make the Wii U GamePad a standalone device that can play the Wii U2 games natively or connect to the console as a controller with a screen, like the GamePad does now.

 

[preslove]

I do like the tablet, don't get me wrong. But, this is basically what people wanting Nintendo to turn this generation around have been asking for: "release a wii u without the tablet and cut the price a lot."

Imagine if Nintendo had had a head start AND a $200 price gap a few years ago. Nintendo would have sold tens of millions more units, and we would have so many more games.

Yeah, release the tablet as a 3ds successor that also has decent web browsing and maybe an android mode

 

[Lil Frier]

I don't think that would have happened. There might have been more third-party shovelware like with the Wii, but Nintendo has always been incredibly slow in releasing games, and therefore I think the game situation would still be a problem. The Wii, despite having a lot of games, also had a software problem because so much was just throwaway trash. Not having the tablet and having more sales wouldn't have made Mario Party 10 less terrible, nor would it have fixed the problem that Super Mario Maker is solo-only. I would have waited to pick up a Wii U, even if it were cheaper.

Also, screw an Android mode. Not interested in having that crap on there, and the browser on the Wii U is surprisingly decent.

 

[Fox5]

Despite rampant piracy on the Dreamcast, it did have a high tie-ratio of 8:1. So people who had them were buying lots of games for it. Besides, ease of piracy tends to boost hardware sales. So that doesn't explain why Sega shifted so few Dreamcasts.

There were a few factors that worked against Sega. As I mentioned, launch timing was poor. The Saturn had been a huge mess and had soured a lot of people off the brand. Sony got the jump on them with strong brand loyalty and better marketing, despite being second out of the gate.

Sega was broke by the time of the Dreamcast, and both Microsoft and Sony were willing to offer them incentives to be 3rd party.

The system was cheap to make, had a decent attach rate, and sold decently, if Sega hadn't been bleeding money, they could have stayed in the game.

 

[ElFenix]

So..am I the only one that thinks the new system should be a NES case with updated ports/controllers (like just the pro controller) and rather than the cartridge, it still has the front lid, but but it is a disc loader inside instead (automated). When you hit the eject button it lifts the lid and spits the disc out. With an eye that senses you putting a disc up to it and opens the lid. Otherwise, it looks just like the original.

They could call it the Nintendo Entertainment System (and add a catchy last word besides...New or U ).

I think fanboys would buy it up like hotcakes. Of course, then also hopefully it actually had a catalog to go with it.

I would buy this

Edit: isn't WiiU without a tablet pretty much a Wii?

 

[jpiniero]

I would buy this

Edit: isn't WiiU without a tablet pretty much a Wii?

The Wii U is much more powerful than the Wii.

 

[Lil Frier]

Yeah, but the only real functional difference between the two consoles is pretty much the tablet. Without it, you've got the Wii with more horsepower.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Thinking about it, an ARM CPU might make sense.

The thing is, although Cat cores are fairly power efficient, I don't think they can scale down to handheld consoles yet. Which means Nintendo would most likely want to go with an ARM cpu for a handheld console. If they are using an ARM CPU for a handheld console, maybe they will also use ARM for the living room console?

Its interesting that it is going to replace both the 3DS and Wii U. Could it be two separate but related consoles? Or, a single console that could work in both situations? They could make something similar to the Wii U Gamepad, but without the Wii U itself. In other words, a portable tablet that can connect to something like a Chromecast to display to the TV, if you want to.

I think an 8 core A57 design would use too much power for a handheld console, but they could go with a 4 core A53 and 4 core A57 design, which is pretty common these days. And maybe couple that with an AMD GPU maybe twice as powerful as what is in Kabini. Could that sip enough power to be useful in a handheld device?

I'd wager that they'd use the same ARM setup they decide upon across both home and handheld. It makes sense if that is what they're going for as you wouldn't need more cpu power for a higher resolution.

As for the GPU, a guess is quite hard. They could use a design that powers off a large portion of the compute resources and downclocks the rest of the GPU, bringing everything back to full power when connected to a big screen. They could use a dGPU inside a dock to add the extra horsepower. They could just say "screw it" and use a high end mobile SOC made by AMD for the whole thing. :whiste:

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'd wager that they'd use the same ARM setup they decide upon across both home and handheld. It makes sense if that is what they're going for as you wouldn't need more cpu power for a higher resolution.

As for the GPU, a guess is quite hard. They could use a design that powers off a large portion of the compute resources and downclocks the rest of the GPU, bringing everything back to full power when connected to a big screen. They could use a dGPU inside a dock to add the extra horsepower. They could just say "screw it" and use a high end mobile SOC made by AMD for the whole thing. :whiste:

I don't know how good AMD's power optimizations on GPU are. My guess is they'd just go for a large but not exactly ridiculous, GPU block like nvidia did on the X1, and then lock the clocks when it's on battery, and then maybe open them up more if its plugged in. The Tegra X1 GPU is actually more powerful than the Wii Us (speaking of gigaflops, the Wii U GPU is about HD46450 level, and the X1 GPU is a bit more powerful than HD4770, although it'd depend on clock speeds and in mobile setups throttling would dial that back a lot).

The thing is, ARM cores could actually be more powerful than Jaguar right now (I think the A57 is maybe about equal in IPC, but it'd likely be able to clock higher). Although if it's not plugged in probably not. In fact, if they just went with 4 ARM A57 cores they likely would have more CPU power than the Wii U (Wii U's CPU allegedly is slower than the 360s). Plus they could do a block of A53s for mobile and A72s for when it is plugged in. Or some other setup (have 2 A53s that always run the OS, have a certain number of A57 or A72s for actual games).

They could sustain power with it plugged in, but it might get too hot, especially since it likely wouldn't have a fan and would be plastic (meaning it couldn't use the shell to dissipate heat, although that might help keep it from scorching people too).

It'll be interesting to see. Maybe Nintendo is going to stick with a hybrid setup, with mobile focused SoC in the portable, and then a small ARM based system for home. The mobile SoC could actually process its own display so that'd maybe remove some overhead for when doing games like that. Or maybe it could always run the GUI aspects or something as an overlay (so it could maintain the friends lists, etc, leaving the one plugged in to focus on just game output).