Nintendo Switch is powered by NVIDIA

[NTMBK]

No way that thing will go into the NX. Crazy mix of big.big (and still using A57 cores, wtf?), 128 bit bus, that thing is going to totally blow the power budget of a handheld. If NVidia have won this contract, I'd expect a semicustom chip.

 

[crisium]

Power budget isn't as big of a concern IF they are going with 2 different rendering modes for games. Reduce frequencies and/or disable entire cores and SMX's when mobile, and get fully enabled only when connected to a TV dock.

PS4K is going to set the standard of 2 different rendering modes for games based on the two different PS4's APUs. Nintendo can and should do the same.

 

[Headfoot]

Quick question: when was the last time you used a Nintendo console?

For starters, it isn't as simply as producing just a stronger console. Nintendo has basically ignored multiplayer/online functions. They would need a complete overhaul to make their console even compete with a PS3/Xbox360 Multiplayer/Online infrastructure.

I'm talking a system so horrific, you are still using unique hardware IDs to basically connect to other users. They've made some progress but I'd put them at 1999's AOL service and that's being nice.

Nintendo will not convert a lot of Sony/MSFT guys simply because the console lacks a strong online presence. SO when COD/BF/Shooter_online comes out, chances are even if Nintendo is doing 4K@60, the other consoles will still outsell it.

I own a Wii U

And I agree with you. They don't have 3rd party developers because they are living in the past.

I 100% maintain there is zero drawback to 3rd party title compatibility from a sales perspective. It obviously costs something in terms of operational overhead but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking in purely a product positioning standpoint.

 

[Headfoot]

Parker looks extremely promising. I'm really stoked about Denver 2 - its nice to see some fresh ideas in the consumer CPU space that has been basically just Intel and ARM for so long now.

I could definitely see this in NX. The portable one would just have to run at way lower clocks.

 

[dogen1]

That thing is going to be a power hungry monster. I think a custom version with 4x A53s would be a better choice for a handheld. Unless they're able to fit a really fat battery in there I guess.

Still, if they're going with big cores, you have to wonder why they didn't use A7Xs.

No way that thing will go into the NX. Crazy mix of big.big (and still using A57 cores, wtf?), 128 bit bus, that thing is going to totally blow the power budget of a handheld. If NVidia have won this contract, I'd expect a semicustom chip.

100% agreed. This would be the literal opposite of nintendo's handheld strategy they've been following since the original gameboy. Put in maybe 2 moderately clocked A7Xs and 2-4 A53s to handle the os, along with 1 or 2 pascal SMs and call it a day.

 

[tviceman]

TX1 went into the latest Google tablet, so I don't see why Tegra Parker can't do the same. Look at what down clocking GP104 does on the mobile side.... a mobile GTX 1080 is 90-95% as fast as the desktop GTX 1080 for a 25-30% lower TDP. In tablet mode it'll run at ~80-90% clock rates and get great battery life. Plug it into the base, and performance shoots up.

Regardless, it's a weird sell and I don't know if it's going to work out for Nintendo in the long run. If Nvidia was able to get an x86 license from Intel, Tegra Parker would be much more valuable.

 

[NTMBK]

TX1 went into the latest Google tablet, so I don't see why Tegra Parker can't do the same. Look at what down clocking GP104 does on the mobile side.... a mobile GTX 1080 is 90-95% as fast as the desktop GTX 1080 for a 25-30% lower TDP. In tablet mode it'll run at ~80-90% clock rates and get great battery life. Plug it into the base, and performance shoots up.

Regardless, it's a weird sell and I don't know if it's going to work out for Nintendo in the long run. If Nvidia was able to get an x86 license from Intel, Tegra Parker would be much more valuable.

The Pixel C isn't targeted as a dedicated gaming device, though. It's mostly made for bursty web-browsing workloads, not running the SoC flat out at full speed for hours at a time. Anyone who's gamed on a phone knows how these more powerful SoCs will make your entire phone get hot, and demolish your battery life. Heck, just look at the NVidia Shield handheld, which had to put a fan in.

EDIT: And why the heck A57s? They're notoriously power hungry, and were massively improved in the A72 revision. I just don't see why you would want them in a 2017 handheld.

The Denver 2 core could have potential though, particularly if Nintendo really optimize their code to run amazingly on it. Perhaps even write code directly to the internal ISA? Who knows.

 

[Dribble]

The Pixel C isn't targeted as a dedicated gaming device, though. It's mostly made for bursty web-browsing workloads, not running the SoC flat out at full speed for hours at a time. Anyone who's gamed on a phone knows how these more powerful SoCs will make your entire phone get hot, and demolish your battery life. Heck, just look at the NVidia Shield handheld, which had to put a fan in.

As a pixel c owner I can say it has very good battery life - significantly better then most phones, and most of that battery is consumed by the screen not the cpu. It's a large tablet with a large screen and a large battery - while that sort of cpu power draw would be too much in a little phone, it's not in a big tablet. Gaming on it is fine - if it was just targeted at web-browsing what's it got that huge gpu for?

 

[Sweepr]

Tegra X1 or Tegra X2?

Not too long ago, we heard from Eurogamer that Nintendo NX is using the Nvidia TEGRA X1 mobile chip. It is a relatively old chip and didn’t pack enough punch to be considered anywhere near as powerful as current-gen machines.

However, sources close to the project claim that Nintendo NX is indeed using a TEGRA Chip but not the X1. The company is partnering with Nvidia to use its upcoming TEGRA X2 that is more powerful compared to the original model.

http://segmentnext.com/2016/08/17/report-nintendo-nx-is-using-tegra-x2-chip-more-powerful-than-x1

 

[tviceman]

Tegra X1 or Tegra X2?



http://segmentnext.com/2016/08/17/report-nintendo-nx-is-using-tegra-x2-chip-more-powerful-than-x1

It would be more surprising if it wasn't Pascal-based Tegra. The interesting part about Tegra P is that the number of cuda cores wasn't increased, which means that nvidia is relying solely on clock speed and bandwidth increases. That shouldn't be an issue though, seeing the 1920 core GTX 1070 perform 40% faster and consume less power than the 2048 core GTX 980.

 

[antihelten]

No way that thing will go into the NX. Crazy mix of big.big (and still using A57 cores, wtf?)

Technically speaking Nvidia is calling it Big + Super, not Big.Big, which is an amusingly silly name, especially since the acronym is BS.

 

[FatherMurphy]

The Maxwell-based Tegra employed Nvidia's first native (up to 2x speed) FP16 cores, right? And we know that those FP16 capable cores are used in GP100, correct? So, is it safe to assume that Parker uses FP16 capable cores as well? And could that "free" speed boost be used for programming games on the NX i.e. can FP16 be used in portions of a game engine?

At the same time, it seems unlikely to me that Nintendo would use an off the shelf Parker chip. Would Nintendo want to pay the die cost for the "security engine" and "safety engine" blocks, as well as the overbuilt camera and display (triple 4k@60fps) controllers?

Very curious to learn more!

EDIT: Right after I posted this I saw Anandtech's analysis of Parker, which confirms the use of FP16 cores. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10596/hot-chips-2016-nvidia-discloses-tegra-parker-details

 

[antihelten]

Would Nintendo want to pay the die cost for the "security engine" and "safety engine" blocks, as well as the overbuilt camera and display (triple 4k@60fps) controllers?

Nintendo wouldn't necessarily have to pay for any of this. Nvidia's Tegra division has been bleeding money for quite some time (including a $14 million loss this quarter), so they will be a bit desperate to get products out there until the automobile segment really starts coming into it's own. As such it's quite likely that Nvidia will not charge anything extra for those features.

Once the automobile segment and self driving cars really starts taking off, then Nvidia will probably be able to sell the chips as fast as they can make and thus have no incentive to sell them cheap. But as mentioned we are not there yet.

 

[RussianSensation]

Odd, for months I was told it was AMD. And that it was going to be x86, going against what even Miyamoto has been saying for over a year.

Yes, because for 2-3 years leading up to the Nintendo NX, most people in the gaming community actually thought Nintendo wouldn't be crazy enough to make another gimmicky "Wii U 2.0" but would actually learn from its mistakes and make a true, traditional home console. Later on, rumours started to surface that Nintendo may actually have 2 separate console replacements for the New 3DS and Wii U in the form of a handheld NX and the home console NX. After that, rumours started surfacing that NVIDIA has won the contract for the NX. Right now, the picture is emerging that there may not be 2 separate NX consoles but just a handheld "hybrid" console -- aka Wii U 2.0 with possible streaming or docking station connection capabilities to allow it to play games on an HDTV as well. I would have much preferred for Nintendo to do a separate handheld console to replace the New 3DS and a true home console in a traditional sense. By going with a hybrid approach, this limits Nintendo's choices in terms of x86 CPU/APU design (aka it eliminated AMD and even Intel right off the bat).

Even if Nintendo uses the world's fastest mobile APU/SOC via NVIDIA X2, it's going to be miles behind the performance of 2017 Xbox Scorpio and the upcoming PS4 Neo. Those 2017 MS/Sony consoles aren't even "true" Gen 9 consoles either but rather stop-gaps between the XB1/PS4 and the next gen, say 2020 consoles. We are already seeing that on the PC, a GTX950 is required to match the performance of the standard PS4, whose GPU is only as good as the HD7850. On the PC, R7 370, RX 460 and GTX950 are now roughly tied @ 1080p. R7 370 is very close to the specs of the PS4's GPU. The GPU inside the X2 is unlikely to be even close to a GTX950. What makes it even worse is that the PS4 will be more than 3 years old by the time the NX launches in Q1 2017. Imagine if Nintendo launched SNES or N64 >3 years after the Genesis or PS1 with overall performance not even as good? It would have been an instant failure.

Even if the NX was as fast as XB1 or PS4, it wouldn't have been good enough since in 2017 those consoles will be related to low-end status (i.e., <$300 tiers) as soon as Neo and Scorpio are out. Chances are the GPU performance in the NX will not even match PS4's GPU. With PS4 Slim, Sony could lower the price to $279-299. Sony and MS have a 3+ year library of games available at discounted prices. Many people have friends who already own PS4/XB1 or both. If my friends/relatives have a Sony/MS console, as a consumer I am going to be more likely to recommend and myself buy either of those consoles so that I could play and share games with my friends/relatives.

Nintendo will naturally have a fraction of the gaming library of either the Xbox 1 or the PS4. Compared to MS, it will also not have PC play anywhere, nor the 4K BluRay capabilities which makes the XB One S an attractive media device. Another little bonus is that PS4 and XB1 controllers could be used on the PC. For someone whose controller has worn out or just wants a new controller, that's a $40-50 "bonus" by buying either of those consoles. Will the NX's controller work on the PC?

The biggest issue to me with the NX is that on paper it's almost a Wii U 2.0 (gimmicky low-res screen inside a controller), just that the hardware has migrated from the stand-alone unit to the controller; and the stand-alone unit (if applicable) is going to be just a docking station with ports. Sure the hardware is more powerful and it is now integrated right inside the controller, as opposed to having it in the home console box, but this is NOT a traditional home console design.

It now seems certain that Nintendo simply has 0 desire to compete with MS/Sony and is once again going with something totally different. Whether or not it will be successful is too hard to tell but I am not interested in a portable console with Tegra specs. You have been defending Nintendo's choices over the last decade but I don't know a single N64 owner out of all my friends growing up who has purchased any other Nintendo home console since then. Many of us who grew up with NES, SNES/Genesis, N64 have been waiting for a "no nonsense, no gimmicks" powerful Nintendo console, with traditional media, improved online, and 1st + 3rd party support, traditional controllers, and by all accounts the 2017 NX appears to be NONE of those things. Nintendo just constantly makes excuses why the traditional, powerful home console wouldn't work for them but that's because every single console since SNES that they made had major flaws.

After the casual Wii, what many Nintendo fans wanted was a "PS4"-equivalent Nintendo console in 2012-2013, and yet here we are approaching 2017 and Nintendo is going to miss what many have asked for by a country mile! Nintendo simply abandoned the young gamers who grew up with them during NES/SNES/N64 eras and there is almost no chance that NX will bring them back. I sure hope their console sells but it's already off to a horrible start with a focus on mobile gaming in an era of smartphones/tablets. Nintendo is also taking a huge risk with the hybrid approach because many consumers will never believe that a portable console can also be a great home console (and it's obvious why with PS4 Neo and Scorpio slated to come with 4.2-6Tflops of GPU power). The central concept of the NX appears to be a video game console you can take anywhere, but that is akin to trying to create a Jack of All Trades, master of none. The $ that could have been used on the docking station could have instead been used to make a superior portable screen, larger gaming battery, or lower price, etc. The money that could have been used on all the portable components could have been allocated on a superior home console hardware instead. This tricky balancing act almost sets Nintendo up for failure; especially so since how much more powerful the PS4 Neo and Scorpio will be and how quickly tablets/smartphones advance annually.

Nintendo is also underestimating the upgrade path strategy Sony and MS have set up. There are already more than 60M XB1+PS4 gamers. By the time the NX launches, there will be > 70M gamers. Once Scorpio and Neo come out and these gamers can just take their existing gaming library with them, they could just sell / trade-in their old consoles for the next SKU. Instead of paying $300+ for an unproven Nintendo console with non-existent gaming library, why would current XB1/PS4 owners just not trade in their PS4/XB1s for a more powerful console, keep playing all of the existing games and get the benefits of 4K gaming of next 'half-gen'? Since it's taking Nintendo almost 5 years to release Zelda Breath of the Wild, why would consumers care to buy the NX and put trust into Nintendo again that they will have a strong 1st part library? By the time Nintendo has its exclusives worth buying, NX will be available dirt cheap in the used market just like all the previous GameCube, Wii and Wii U consoles. Early adopters already gave Nintendo a chance with the Gamecube, the Wii and Wii U.

Again, Nintendo could have replaced the New 3DS with a next gen portable with X1-X2 and then made a separate x86 NX home console that launched in 2017-2018. Honestly, at this point I'd rather Nintendo just release its 1st party games on the PC. This way they can continue to sell the hybrid/gimmicky consoles to its audience and let everyone else just enjoy their games without having to pay for the hardware we do not want. At least MS got the message on that one! For those who don't want a PC, MS sells their console and for those who want to play MS exclusives, they can play them on the PC. Brilliant strategy since ultimately most of the $ in console gaming is made on software.

 

[2blzd]

blah blah blah ^ <-- You have PM. -Admin DrPizza

 

[jpiniero]

Smartphones are still mostly casual type games. Perhaps they are targeting more people who play iOS/Android games but would also want something a more substantial than your typical smartphone game. Throw in the ability to play on the TV for free. I don't see why this console can't be $200 or less.

If it sells well, they will get third party support.

 

[RussianSensation]

blah blah blah ^

So what you are saying is you have no rebuttal to any of the points I've made. I've read the same responses during GameCube, Wii, and Wii U generations from Nintendo loyalists. What I get out of Nintendo fans is that they don't care about 3rd support or having a traditional console. Who cares about 3rd party games, cutting edge online platform, 2017 tech, when we all have top-of-the-line PCs for all 3rd party titles and have 0 friends to play online Nintendo games with, right? /s

Why don't you ask PS4/XB1 owners if they are pumped about a $250-300 console that has a 6" screen inside the controller, but has no library to speak of and will be completely outdated tech wise against PS4 Neo and Scorpio by the time it launches in 2017?

Even if the NX sells 30 million units, that's not amazing because if they are launching a hybrid console, they are essentially replacing both the Wii U and 3DS. The current install base for those two consoles is more than 70 million units.

We are barely 6 months away from the NX's launch, and no one I know (gamer or non-gamer) is excited about the NX. That's a really bad sign.

Smartphones are still mostly casual type games. Perhaps they are targeting more people who play iOS/Android games but would also want something a more substantial than your typical smartphone game. Throw in the ability to play on the TV for free. I don't see why this console can't be $200 or less.

If it sells well, they will get third party support.

Casuals don't want to spend $40-60 on portable games. Wii U has shown that most hardcore gamers don't want a console devoid of 3rd party support and 2017 hardware that's barely on par with 2013's XB1. If Nintendo prices their console at $199, it will also send a signal that it's a casual gaming console. Too high price for consoles limits uptake, but too low of a price for a new console suggests that the product isn't that special. The timing for NX's launch couldn't have been worse. Even if the NX was as powerful as the PS4 Neo and cost $299, there would still be a question of why would many buy that when PS4 has a 3+ year library of discounted games? Then there is the fact that a lot of gamers no longer trust Nintendo. Nintendo literally threw the last 3 consoles under the bus the last 1.5-2 years of their life. The times have changed and you can't just bury your last console as if "who cares" and pretend you can just start over as if nothing happened. SEGA did that with the Saturn and back then the Dreamcast was as cutting edge as it got -- and it still flopped. Wii consumers aren't coming back and Wii U owners will be way more cautious now.

It's Nintendo that has to prove to the world why anyone wants to buy any of their consoles at this point. Just 6 months before launch, they have nothing to show besides Zelda. That doesn't inspire confidence.

 

[nurturedhate]

I'm with Russian on this. I badly want a normal console from Nintendo. Throwing in gimmicks just ruins the experience for me. A Nintendo console has the potential to be the perfect compliment to a gaming pc. I love Zelda/Mario and the rest of Nintendo's IP but games like Skyward Sword were lost to me as I have no desire to sit there and wiggle a wiimote in an attempt to do something precise. I tried, I truly did. It did not work period. I really enjoy my Wii U but the gamepad gets more use out of a late night Netflix screen while the wife sleeps and my phone can already do that while looking better.

Honestly Nintendo. Give me a normal console with your IP on it and the ability to easily port sports games to it. That's all I want. This isn't hard. Stop screwing this up royally.

 

[jpiniero]

Even if the NX was as powerful as the PS4 Neo and cost $299, there would still be a question of why would many buy that when PS4 has a 3+ year library of discounted games

That's exactly why they are doing this. I think the point is they aren't going to compete with Sony and MS anymore and just continue with a 3DS successor.

 

[Ranulf]

Mario Kart WiiU (and a few other games) got me to get a wiiU but I've stayed away from any dlc stuff from nintendo online after my Wii experience. My biggest annoyance with the WiiU is the gamepad screen that you can't turn off while watching on the tv. I don't need to screens showing me the same movie at once all the time. It just drains the battery needlessly.

I'm not big into portable/3ds style games so the NX holds no interest for me.

 

[DamZe]

I think we should all wait until specs are finalized, to me it sounds incredibly stupid to deliver an underpowered console when your competition is pushing towards higher spec. Nintendo are arrogant, but this would be suicide, seeing how the Wii U failed because it didn't have the appeal and horsepower to attract a bigger player and developer base .

 

[FatherMurphy]

It wasn't horsepower (or lack thereof) that killed the Wii U. Many things killed the Wii U. Confused marketing (where there was any marketing at all). A lack of 1st party games. The ongoing lack of 3rd party support (you never see Wii U mentioned or marketed as a modern-gen console... it's just XB1 and PS4). People thought it was some extension or accessory of the Wii. The online aspect is extraordinarily limited and not nearly as intuitive as XBL or PSN. The tablet controller concept did not inspire great new methods of game play... heck, even Nintendo seems to have abandoned the "innovative" aspects of the tablet. So, many things killed the Wii U but not a lack of horsepower.

If the controller is on point and they have compelling software, it'll be profitable.

 

[2blzd]

Sorry but you just write a book of regurgitated established facts and play it off as some new revelation. Its the same song and dance every post

 

[RussianSensation]

That's exactly why they are doing this. I think the point is they aren't going to compete with Sony and MS anymore and just continue with a 3DS successor.

That's fair, but then why not release a powerful home console in 2019-2020 and integrate X2 chip inside of it. This way all the NX games are cross-platform and Nintendo has a solid, powerful 4K home gaming console for the next 4-5 years. Why does it have to be either or?

Sorry but you just write a book of regurgitated established facts and play it off as some new revelation. Its the same song and dance every post

What? Never did I claim that what I stated is a new revelation or a new criticism. I am just voicing what many others are feeling as well. Instead of providing any counter points, you twice proceeded to post negative feedback without addressing any of my points.

Since XB Scorpio and Neo are backwards compatible, it means there will be 4 consoles with their entire userbase for game developers to target vs. a red-headed step child using NV GPU and ARM CPU cores. This already means developers will have to go out of their way to port "special" NX 3rd party games. They will be able to develop an x86 XB Scorpio/PC version and just downgrade it to all the lower XB One/S, PS4 and PS4 Neo consoles. Easy work. This means 3rd party developers will have to dedicate additional resources specially for the NX version. That's not even getting to the point that the NX could be the least powerful console to begin with. There is nothing to sugar coat here.

 

[Elixer]

I think we should all wait until specs are finalized, to me it sounds incredibly stupid to deliver an underpowered console when your competition is pushing towards higher spec. Nintendo are arrogant, but this would be suicide, seeing how the Wii U failed because it didn't have the appeal and horsepower to attract a bigger player and developer base .

It does sound odd that is the biggest problem they got.
Why wouldn't they want something with much higher specs, and it seems to be, they are going after the portable market with good battery life.
I don't think they have realized that smartphones are going to eclipse their new system specs soon, and they will take the Sega way out of the hardware business.
The only rub is, they might indeed be working on a actual console that will be pretty powerful, we just don't know.