[NintendoLife]AMD in new Nintendo console?

[RussianSensation]

The current consoles are already saturating the market, and cost <$400 while doing so.

PS4 and XB1 collectively are outselling PS3/XB360 by close to 75%, if not more when accounting for sales from their respective release dates. This console generation is far more successful than the last thus far if we exclude the casual console gamers who left to smartphones, tablets, etc.

Unless it is truly next gen beyond the PS4 and XboxOne, it has to be priced at $199.99 to be viable.

Umm...no. Despite crazy BS marketing by MS and Sony, neither of those firms has a clue how to run their gaming business. Both are improving but if the last 8-10 years are go to by, if either of these were a pure gaming company, they would have been close to bankruptcy.

MS - "Report: Microsoft's Xbox division has lost nearly $3 billion in 10 years"

MS's shareholders have been screaming for close to a decade for MS to purge their gaming business or sell it off as it's a total financial failure.

Sony's PS3 was also another financial failure. Worthless generation for them.

Luckily MS and Sony finally are starting to understand how to run the console business which is to not lose millions of dollars on hardware sales. If anything they have a lot to learn from Nintendo still. What's the point of having 90%+ market share between both of those firms if they are losing billions of dollars?

Might as well call Xbox and PlayStation Contra-Revenue businesses. :awe: We'll see how XB1/PS4 do during their generation but last 2 MS consoles and PS3 were financial catastrophes.

As long as Nintendo's NX makes Nintendo profits over the next 5 years it's on the market, Nintendo is winning and it means the next Nintendo console and more games in the future. Nintendo isn't stupid enough (or doesn't have cash to burn) to waste $3-4 billion dollars to win the marketing game and then end up bankrupt.

If MS and Sony were financially strained firms, at the pace they are going, they would end up the as next Sega.

But since MS has no problem losing billions of dollars with smartphones (Nokia) or Xbox gaming, Nintendo has to be smart how to design their consoles without all that white noise around it. Nintendo can't just chase specs as that has never proven to be a successful formula for them. N64 and GameCube were more powerful than PS1 and PS2 but that didn't matter. Nintendo needs a lot of 1st party games ready at launch not 2-3 years post launch. They also need to get 3rd party support back and get their online infrastructure up to speed. These things matter a lot more than outright outperforming PS4 in specs.

 

[DustinBrowder]

Knowing Nintendo its going to be a console that barely matches the Xone and PS4 is performance, so basically another loss for them!

The Xbox and PS have the games, the 3rd party, the features, the streaming, have already been established on the market for 2 years, if Nintendo doesn't come up with a console that is significantly faster than the Xone and PS4 they are going to lose again.

They also need x86 if they want any 3rd party to port for their console. If they don't go x86 they are basically going to be without 3rd party partners once again!

 

[Elixer]

Nintendo would most likely want x86, since it is easier to port, but, then again, AMD isn't known for having fast & cool system on a chip, so, it could be x86 + ARM + GPU.
Though, they still need some kind of feature to stand out from the rest of them.
Could be something with VR tech.
I would think the base system would be $399, and all the extras will be another $200 or so.

 

[NTMBK]

You think game devs have no experience with ARM? It powers the entire handheld and mobile markets.

I expect Nintendo to launch a new handheld before replacing the Wii U. The 3DS is getting seriously long in the tooth.

 

[iiiankiii]

PS4 and XB1 collectively are outselling PS3/XB360 by close to 75%, if not more when accounting for sales from their respective release dates. This console generation is far more successful than the last thus far if we exclude the casual console gamers who left to smartphones, tablets, etc.



Umm...no. Despite crazy BS marketing by MS and Sony, neither of those firms has a clue how to run their gaming business. Both are improving but if the last 8-10 years are go to by, if either of these were a pure gaming company, they would have been close to bankruptcy.

MS - "Report: Microsoft's Xbox division has lost nearly $3 billion in 10 years"

MS's shareholders have been screaming for close to a decade for MS to purge their gaming business or sell it off as it's a total financial failure.

Sony's PS3 was also another financial failure. Worthless generation for them.

Luckily MS and Sony finally are starting to understand how to run the console business which is to not lose millions of dollars on hardware sales. If anything they have a lot to learn from Nintendo still. What's the point of having 90%+ market share between both of those firms if they are losing billions of dollars?

Might as well call Xbox and PlayStation Contra-Revenue businesses. :awe: We'll see how XB1/PS4 do during their generation but last 2 MS consoles and PS3 were financial catastrophes.

As long as Nintendo's NX makes Nintendo profits over the next 5 years it's on the market, Nintendo is winning and it means the next Nintendo console and more games in the future. Nintendo isn't stupid enough (or doesn't have cash to burn) to waste $3-4 billion dollars to win the marketing game and then end up bankrupt.

If MS and Sony were financially strained firms, at the pace they are going, they would end up the as next Sega.

But since MS has no problem losing billions of dollars with smartphones (Nokia) or Xbox gaming, Nintendo has to be smart how to design their consoles without all that white noise around it. Nintendo can't just chase specs as that has never proven to be a successful formula for them. N64 and GameCube were more powerful than PS1 and PS2 but that didn't matter. Nintendo needs a lot of 1st party games ready at launch not 2-3 years post launch. They also need to get 3rd party support back and get their online infrastructure up to speed. These things matter a lot more than outright outperforming PS4 in specs.

Nice post. While I agree that both MS and Sony lost tons of money last gen, it was a bit more complicated than that. Sony lost a lot of money mainly because of the costly Blu-Ray player. At the time, there was a huge fight for the HD media standard. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were duking it out for the #1 standard of HD media. Sony made the decision to leverage the PlayStation 3 as a tool to push Blu-Ray as the standard. They knew they would lose a lot of money upfront. They knew it would push cost up. However, in the end, it was the right move from that perspective. They might have lost money on the PlayStation 3, but they gain tons of money for owning part of Blu-Ray.

For generations, it was a well known tactic to sell hardware at a lost and gain the money back from software sales. It worked wonders for previous generations. The reason why that worked was because every generation, there was a clear winner. For example, the PlayStation 2 completely dominated the market. It was sold at a lost, too. Yet, they made tons of money. You can look at your own graph and see the profit they made. It does work if the console controls the majority of the market. MS knew they weren't going to win over the market in a single generation against the dominating PlayStation 2. Yet, they had bigger plans. They were willing to be the loss leader then so they can win later. This was proven when the next generation dropped.

However, during the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era, it was a split market. MS was able to gain a bigger market share through some luck and miscalculation on Sony's part. Pricing the PlayStation 3 above and beyond the previous generation wasn't the smartest move. Since the market was split, it was tough for MS and Sony to recover their loss from hardware sales through software sales. That's the problem. Last generation, both companies bet big. They thought, like previous generations, there will be a clear winner. It didn't turned out that way and they paid the price. Plus, the red ring of death cost MS even more money.

This generation, both MS and Sony knew it was going to be a close generation in terms of market share. The chances of having one clear winner this generation was slim. Knowing this, they scale back on production cost. Instead of the super powerful machines we were used to from previous generations, they had to make money (or at the very least, break even) since they know they won't be able to recoup the hardware cost like 2 generations ago. Lesson learnt for Sony and MS.

Nintendo had to make weaker hardware because they were the clear loser every generation since the PlayStation era. They had to trim down their hardware because they know they won't be able to recover the hardware cost if it was expensive. They had to make money off of the hardware since they weren't making enough money from the software side. They knew this long ago. That's the reason why they can't compete on the hardware side. It's just too expensive and risky for them. MS and Sony found this out during the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.

But, we're in a different market now. Now, parity is the name of the game. There's hardly any reason to pick a console over the other (atleast not like it used to be). Now, you can grab 95%? of the games out there regardless of what system you own.

 

[atticus14]

I would think it's way too late for Zen or 14nm, they probably have the everything picked out by now, (they probably have been choosing over the last few months of which AMD chip they wanted) but just not did anything with it yet as to control leaks and sell some of that Wii U stock, while they make a new mario and probably port the new zelda to it. My guess is it'll be roughly equivalent to a X1 but gimped in some way....4GB RAM or something and come in at $300.

I am interested to see what they do however, their games are just straight up fun for the most part, with a heavy dose of feel good nostalgia, and some of them do look good for what they have to work with.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Nintendo had to make weaker hardware because they were the clear loser every generation since the PlayStation era. They had to trim down their hardware because they know they won't be able to recover the hardware cost if it was expensive. They had to make money off of the hardware since they weren't making enough money from the software side. They knew this long ago. That's the reason why they can't compete on the hardware side. It's just too expensive and risky for them. MS and Sony found this out during the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.

Nintendo didn't make weaker hardware because they had to - they made weaker hardware for the past two generations because that was the strategy they adopted. And it has worked better for them than MS and Sony's strategies have worked for them. Nintendo made a profit on every Wii sold, and probably every Wii U, too.

Even if they abandon the Wii U relatively early on its life cycle, its probably already making them money.

MS and Sony were in a predicament. They know that they could not afford to make consoles as powerful and expensive as the previous generation. So, they were looking for a lower cost alternative. But, they also knew that they compete with each other primarily on two things - exclusive titles and hardware power (or at least, perceptions of hardware power). If MS decided to pull a Nintendo and release a weak console, Sony wins by default. Vice versa for Sony.

Would MS have lost by default if they had released a weak but cheap console? Yes, I believe they would. Nintendo's brand is enough to overcome such a difference, but Microsoft's brand isn't. Microsoft's brand is built primarily on the "hardcore" audience, so they really had no choice but to go after them. Same applies to Sony. However, they still had to do so within the confines of keeping costs as low as possible - hence why MS used DDR3 and eventually ditched the compulsory Kinect.

Nintendo will still most likely pursue the same strategy - use weaker and older hardware to save money, and compete on innovative gameplay and strong first party titles. It sounds like they have some additional tricks up their sleeve, but I really don't think that any of those tricks will amount to powerful hardware or a cost of over $249.

I'm not even convinced that they will go for 14 or 16nm, because new process nodes tend to be expensive when first introduced. I think they will still be using 28nm for cost reasons.

 

[antihelten]

Nintendo didn't make weaker hardware because they had to - they made weaker hardware for the past two generations because that was the strategy they adopted. And it has worked better for them than MS and Sony's strategies have worked for them. Nintendo made a profit on every Wii sold, and probably every Wii U, too.

Even if they abandon the Wii U relatively early on its life cycle, its probably already making them money.

Nintendo has actually been losing money on the Wii U (or at least they have been losing money ever since the Wii U was launched):

It's worth noting that they have returned to profitability for FY15* (not included in the graph), which is the first time in 4 years, but they are still at roughly a $400M loss for the period FY12-FY15.

*Apparently this has been driven mainly by games and Amiibos, not console hardware.

 

[NTMBK]

I suspect that Nintendo will be able to save money on their memory subsystem compared to XBox One and PS4. AMD has significantly improved its color compression tech in recent versions of GCN- they could get the same performance as the XBox One with a smaller memory bus. Remember a 256-bit Tonga chip can match a 384-bit Tahiti chip.

 

[iiiankiii]

Nintendo didn't make weaker hardware because they had to - they made weaker hardware for the past two generations because that was the strategy they adopted. And it has worked better for them than MS and Sony's strategies have worked for them. Nintendo made a profit on every Wii sold, and probably every Wii U, too.

Even if they abandon the Wii U relatively early on its life cycle, its probably already making them money.

MS and Sony were in a predicament. They know that they could not afford to make consoles as powerful and expensive as the previous generation. So, they were looking for a lower cost alternative. But, they also knew that they compete with each other primarily on two things - exclusive titles and hardware power (or at least, perceptions of hardware power). If MS decided to pull a Nintendo and release a weak console, Sony wins by default. Vice versa for Sony.

Would MS have lost by default if they had released a weak but cheap console? Yes, I believe they would. Nintendo's brand is enough to overcome such a difference, but Microsoft's brand isn't. Microsoft's brand is built primarily on the "hardcore" audience, so they really had no choice but to go after them. Same applies to Sony. However, they still had to do so within the confines of keeping costs as low as possible - hence why MS used DDR3 and eventually ditched the compulsory Kinect.

Nintendo will still most likely pursue the same strategy - use weaker and older hardware to save money, and compete on innovative gameplay and strong first party titles. It sounds like they have some additional tricks up their sleeve, but I really don't think that any of those tricks will amount to powerful hardware or a cost of over $249.

I'm not even convinced that they will go for 14 or 16nm, because new process nodes tend to be expensive when first introduced. I think they will still be using 28nm for cost reasons.

Of course they adapted to the changing environment. Before the Wii, their system was comparable to everything on the market in terms of power. Go check. The N64 was more powerful than the PS1. The GameCube was arguably more powerful than the PS2. Yet, they lost those generation. Why? Simple: lack of thrid party developers.

It wasn't until the Wii were they decided to be less powerful than their competitive. Nintendo being hard to deal with made many third party developers wary of making games for Nintendo. During the N64 days, games were prohibitly expensive due to being cartridge based. GameCube sold poorly. Nobody wanted to make games for Nintendo.

Nintendo would be foolish to make a loss leader console while not having 3rd party game support. They would get buried. Yes, their 1st party is strong. I love Nintendo games. I also recognize that for one reason or another, 3rd party refuses to make games for them.

That's why I believe Nintendo stopped chasing the high end hardware. They know they wouldn't get that money back. History is proof that ever since they lost the market share (during the PS1 era), they stop making expensive hardware. They are heavily dependent on their 1st party IPs (which are great, by the way). But that's it. They can continue to make a profit and remain a niche product. I don't expect 3rd party support to grow because Nintendo owners seem to NOT want to buy anything except 1st party games.

 

[antihelten]

I suspect that Nintendo will be able to save money on their memory subsystem compared to XBox One and PS4. AMD has significantly improved its color compression tech in recent versions of GCN- they could get the same performance as the XBox One with a smaller memory bus. Remember a 256-bit Tonga chip can match a 384-bit Tahiti chip.

Tonga chips (359mm^2) are slightly larger than Tahiti chips (352mm^2), so not necessarily.

 

[NTMBK]

Tonga chips (359mm^2) are slightly larger than Tahiti chips (352mm^2), so not necessarily.

Tonga also includes stuff like the TrueAudio DSP and an XDMA block, and according to die shots actually has a disabled third memory controller which isn't used at all. (http://wccftech.com/amd-tonga-gpu-d...controller-fiji-die-size-approximated-560mm2/) Besides, a 2% increase in die size will no doubt be cheaper than an extra 4 DRAM chips.

 

[EndlessWargasm]

4-6 Puma+ cores at 2.5Ghz+
Tonga+ GPU
All wrapped up in 8-12GB of HBM

That would be a winner in my opinion.

Thus there is very little chance that Nintendo will hit that level of specs.

 

[antihelten]

Tonga also includes stuff like the TrueAudio DSP and an XDMA block, and according to die shots actually has a disabled third memory controller which isn't used at all. (http://wccftech.com/amd-tonga-gpu-d...controller-fiji-die-size-approximated-560mm2/) Besides, a 2% increase in die size will no doubt be cheaper than an extra 4 DRAM chips.

Going from 12 to 8 DRAM chips would certainly save some money. I believe the 8GB of GDDR5 in the xbone/PS4 has been estimated at $80-100, so 12GB (from 12 chips) would then be $40-50 more. But the question is what the price differential would be if Nintendo was willing to go down to 12 half density chips (i.e. a total of 6GB), with a 384 bit GPU.

 

[DustinBrowder]

Nintendo didn't make weaker hardware because they had to - they made weaker hardware for the past two generations because that was the strategy they adopted. And it has worked better for them than MS and Sony's strategies have worked for them. Nintendo made a profit on every Wii sold, and probably every Wii U, too.

Even if they abandon the Wii U relatively early on its life cycle, its probably already making them money.

MS and Sony were in a predicament. They know that they could not afford to make consoles as powerful and expensive as the previous generation. So, they were looking for a lower cost alternative. But, they also knew that they compete with each other primarily on two things - exclusive titles and hardware power (or at least, perceptions of hardware power). If MS decided to pull a Nintendo and release a weak console, Sony wins by default. Vice versa for Sony.

Would MS have lost by default if they had released a weak but cheap console? Yes, I believe they would. Nintendo's brand is enough to overcome such a difference, but Microsoft's brand isn't. Microsoft's brand is built primarily on the "hardcore" audience, so they really had no choice but to go after them. Same applies to Sony. However, they still had to do so within the confines of keeping costs as low as possible - hence why MS used DDR3 and eventually ditched the compulsory Kinect.

Nintendo will still most likely pursue the same strategy - use weaker and older hardware to save money, and compete on innovative gameplay and strong first party titles. It sounds like they have some additional tricks up their sleeve, but I really don't think that any of those tricks will amount to powerful hardware or a cost of over $249.

I'm not even convinced that they will go for 14 or 16nm, because new process nodes tend to be expensive when first introduced. I think they will still be using 28nm for cost reasons.

MS and Sony "core" audience is over 300 million console users conservatively, Nintendo audience at least with the Wii U is 15 to 20 million users, which are the big Nintendo fans and younger kids who enter into gaming.

The problem for Nintendo these days unlike even 4 years ago is that mobile phones these days serve as that barrier to entry into games. In my time and up until relatively recently Nintendo was the barrier to entry into gaming, Mario, Mario cart, etc... were how you got into gaming, but now its mobile games like plants and zombies, angry birds and others that get kids into gaming.

4-6 Puma+ cores at 2.5Ghz+
Tonga+ GPU
All wrapped up in 8-12GB of HBM

That would be a winner in my opinion.

Thus there is very little chance that Nintendo will hit that level of specs.

HBM is extremely expensive, extremely scarce and extremely complex technology to include in a console. No sane person in these companies would go for HBM that is just absurd!

Also 8-12GB HBM doesn't even exist, only 4GB HBM exists today and will continue existing until 2016 where 8GB HBM is to be introduced.

Also your console would be a power hog with those specs, it would never pass testing since it will be too hot with conventional cooling and in consoles you don't want expensive cooling solutions that add up costs.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

Going from 12 to 8 DRAM chips would certainly save some money. I believe the 8GB of GDDR5 in the xbone/PS4 has been estimated at $80-100,

That was back when the chips only had a single supplier and they were brand new. The cost is less than a third of that today.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

HBM doesn't sound like something Nintendo would be that interested in, but if the rumors of AMD priority for HBM from Hynix is true, they would have massive incentive to try to upsell HBM to Nintendo. If the supply was constrained and the NX used it, every NX sold would in practice be a nV GPU that couldn't be made...

I very much don't think this is very likely, though.

 

[Silverforce11]

Nintendo has actually been losing money on the Wii U (or at least they have been losing money ever since the Wii U was launched):

It's worth noting that they have returned to profitability for FY15* (not included in the graph), which is the first time in 4 years, but they are still at roughly a $400M loss for the period FY12-FY15.

*Apparently this has been driven mainly by games and Amiibos, not console hardware.

Because devs who do major AAA title skip the Wii & Wii U because its hardware is trash, too much compromise to make games run it on well.

If NX keeps that status quo of having inferior hardware, it's gonna suffer the SAME fate.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Because devs who do major AAA title skip the Wii & Wii U because its hardware is trash, too much compromise to make games run it on well.

If NX keeps that status quo of having inferior hardware, it's gonna suffer the SAME fate.

The Wii sold over 100 million units. So if thats the fate...

 

[NTMBK]

Going from 12 to 8 DRAM chips would certainly save some money. I believe the 8GB of GDDR5 in the xbone/PS4 has been estimated at $80-100, so 12GB (from 12 chips) would then be $40-50 more. But the question is what the price differential would be if Nintendo was willing to go down to 12 half density chips (i.e. a total of 6GB), with a 384 bit GPU.

Or alternatively, drop down to a 192-bit bus with 6GB of DDR4 memory.

 

[Silverforce11]

The Wii sold over 100 million units. So if thats the fate...

Gimmick controller is over.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Gimmick controller is over.

I'll take a gimmick that sells 100 million units with a profit per unit any day!

Compared to a powerful but expensive console that sells, what, 30 million?

 

[EndlessWargasm]

HBM is extremely expensive, extremely scarce and extremely complex technology to include in a console. No sane person in these companies would go for HBM that is just absurd!

You have proof of all this extremely wordage?

Current rumors are saying that it is the TSVs that are the biggest technological hurdle. Do you really think they won't have a handle on them 12-18 months from now?

Also 8-12GB HBM doesn't even exist, only 4GB HBM exists today and will continue existing until 2016 where 8GB HBM is to be introduced.

Lucky this rumored console isn't coming out till next year at the earliest.
HBM2 is on the way, which will support up to 32GB.
The extra density of HBM2 could allow them to go for only 2Hi stacks rather than 4, easing manufacturing difficulty.

Also your console would be a power hog with those specs, it would never pass testing since it will be too hot with conventional cooling and in consoles you don't want expensive cooling solutions that add up costs.

That is completely dependant on process node, voltages and clock speeds.

A gpu with 32-44 compute units, somewhere between Tonga and Hawaii, clocked at &#8804; 800mhz @ < 1.0v on 16/14nm could easily get away with less than 100watts.

Puma cores are quite efficient as it is on 28nm

The packaging advantages of HBM seem to be right up Nintendo's alley also.


Regardless. As I said in my previous post, Nintendo is unlikely to aim so high.
I'd be surprised if they significantly out spec'd the XBOne

 

[Stuka87]

You think game devs have no experience with ARM? It powers the entire handheld and mobile markets.

I expect Nintendo to launch a new handheld before replacing the Wii U. The 3DS is getting seriously long in the tooth.

It doesn't matter if they "know how". Its a matter of them not wanting to spend the time and money to convert x86 games to ARM. Nintendo would have to be stupid to go with ARM, they may as well stick with PPC if that were the case so they can at least keep backwards compatibility.

If they want to be a success, they need good 3rd party support, which means they need the same hardware that the other consoles have.

 

[therealnickdanger]

This whole thread is playing out just like every other forum I've been on since the N64/PSX/Saturn days.

Nintendo will be just fine regardless of the NX's hardware abilities. It's the software, stupid, and Nintendo has a lock on many of the world's most popular and profitable franchises. Also, I have never once bought a bug-ridden or glitchy Nintendo game - I think people lose sight of the quality of their titles compared to what we are told are AAA titles (ACU, BAK, Halo MCC, etc.).

Now that they are looking at developing original content for mobile platforms (iOS confirmed, Android?) beyond GameBoy, hardware becomes even less important overall in terms of profitability.