So Nintendo's NX is a tablet, and it's going to feature the X1 or X2?!?

[dark zero]

Maxwell, I thought this was gonna have Pascal according to some of the posts in the other thread? Also anything less than A72 is gonna suck, period

Even AMD K12 is going in the Kryo path, even more... Defeating them.. maybe 20% more performance than A73.

If nVIDIA wants to be alive, they must reach that performance and use Denver as the secondary cores and not the crappy A57.... On the worst case just use A53 at 2.2 GHz (Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 Prime performance)

 

[superstition]

"We just don't care too much about what other companies are doing or are trying to do," Satoru Iwata said. "Our primary focus is to think about and actually carry out something which [another] company's hardware can never realise.

Doublespeak.

Claim A: We don't care about what other companies are doing.
Claim B: We care the most about seeing what other companies are doing and doing something else.

 

[superstition]

"When it comes to the scale of software development, Wii U with HD graphics requires about twice the human resources than before," Miyamoto said. "Please allow me to explain that we may have underestimated the scale of this change and as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development.

Polish?

This is a design sensibility that comes from when Nintendo ruled the cartridge-based game roost. Now it's all endless patch spew.

 

[railven]

Poor old Nintendo can't run with the big dogs eh. Oh well!

What's funny is that they also seem to be setting themselves up to abandon some lucrative products like Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Lego Dimensions, etc. Maybe I'm wrong to assume that, but . . .

Why would they abandon Skylanders? They based Amiibo's on it's tech and even encompassed Skylander into Amiibo's. However, Skylanders is already struggling with or without Nintendo's support.

Disney pretty much already cancelled Disney Infinity.

Lego Dimension already runs on all the variant hardware configurations (I mean even 360/PS3!). Would be pretty easy to get it to run on NX.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Why would they abandon Skylanders? They based Amiibo's on it's tech and even encompassed Skylander into Amiibo's. However, Skylanders is already struggling with or without Nintendo's support.

Disney pretty much already cancelled Disney Infinity.

Lego Dimension already runs on all the variant hardware configurations (I mean even 360/PS3!). Would be pretty easy to get it to run on NX.

Yeah the story of Infinity is a bit odd, considering how big was the title. That aside, I was more thinking of future incarnations of such products. Dimension runs on old hardware now, but later on down the road . . .

Looking at the entire "virtual toybox" fad, it seems that inventory control is a problem with such business practices, so it may be the Nintendo is losing interest in such things anyway.

 

[railven]

Yeah the story of Infinity is a bit odd, considering how big was the title. That aside, I was more thinking of future incarnations of such products. Dimension runs on old hardware now, but later on down the road . . .

I don't think it's odd. Disney has been smart to move away from in-house game dev. They've lost lots of money. It's one thing to own the IP, it's another to create a product that is desired with the IP.

Plus, I get the feeling they'll make more money by just licensing the IPs, specifically to a company who is probably going to dominate this particular field/genre for a while - Legos.

Looking at the entire "virtual toybox" fad, it seems that inventory control is a problem with such business practices, so it may be the Nintendo is losing interest in such things anyway.

I don't get why you think Nintendo is moving away from it? Nintendo's last huge money maker was Amiibos, basically their version of the Skylander things. Probably why Skylander is losing - they are facing much stricter competition from two companies with stronger IPs. The Activision library isn't anything to really prop up Skylanders. But imagine a Mario "Skylander"? And it's exclusive to Nintendo platforms? Link? That's exactly what Nintendo is doing and they went ahead and added it to their New 3DS, so expect it to be feature in the Nintendo NX.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I do think it's odd that Disney kicked one off in Infinity's craw since all it would have taken to stabilize the revenue stream from that product would have been inventory control and better management of property (read: release new toys based on demand rather than superficial contractual obligations internal to the Disney group of properties). Nobody was able to step in and say, "look guys, we don't need xyz obscure character from Guardians of the Galaxy, so let's make this more-popular item instead". So it got out of hand.

Licensing to Lego might or might not be a good idea. Lego already carries DC material (for example), so licensing restrictions may prohibit Lego from adding Marvel characters to their Dimensions product (or future products).

Use of Amiibos in their product lineup does not mean they are supporting "virtual toybox" games/applications per se. Stuff like the now-struggling Skylanders, the now-defunct Infinity, and of course Lego Dimensions are what really amounts to games in the "virtual toybox" genre. I find it difficult to articulate exactly why, but in my opinion, it's hard to see Nintendo taking that rapidly-declining genre seriously when their next console may not even have as much power as an aging PS4.

 

[RussianSensation]

So many conflicting rumours about the NX. Now there is a rumour that there will be a 3rd NX component - the performance module that will house a separate CPU/GPU other than the SOC inside the NX portable part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dzogxwv6e4

 

[superstition]

They're already diluting their brand by using commodity hardware.

The 6502 CPU in the Famicom/NES wasn't anything special. The CPU in the SNES wasn't, either, although that system had fancy (for the time) GPU and sound. (The Famicom/NES also had better graphics and sound than home computers like the Apple IIe and Commodore 64.)

Those two systems are responsible for the lion's share of the Nintendo brand, at least with older folks.

I doubt the original Wii sold because people were concerned over what CPUs and GPU were inside the box but I can see the argument that their custom controller hardware was the key so I suppose it supports your point.

The IBM PC was laughed at by enthusiasts for using mediocre commodity hardware but look what happened with it thanks solely to the IBM brand. That is probably the best example of how brand power alone can propel a mediocre product to success.

The biggest risk in using weak cheap hardware is providing a distinctly weak gaming experience in comparison with a competitor. That's what Atari did when it tried to combat the NES with the 7800, 2600, and XE. The XE in particular was capable of doing arcade ports that were superior to those on the NES (see 400/800 Donkey Kong or PacMan and compare with the inferior Famicom/NES versions) but the depth of the games offered was minimal. There was nothing like Metroid, Zelda, or SMB on an Atari.

By contrast, the highly custom Jaguar offered a great improvement over the SNES but failed because it was backed by a weak brand/company. If Square had put FF7 on it it would have probably been a hit.

Game depth is what trumps everything, really. Pretty graphics can only take a game to the point of getting a foot in the door. The same is true for gimmicks. Virtual Boy was a failure because, even though it was a neat gimmick, it didn't offer a gaming experience that was enough of an upgrade.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So many conflicting rumours about the NX. Now there is a rumour that there will be a 3rd NX component - the performance module that will house a separate CPU/GPU other than the SOC inside the NX portable part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dzogxwv6e4

Hmmm weird. I wonder if they're going for some kind of multichip strategy to allow them to punch up performance when the system has wall power available to it, or . . . something like that.

The 6502 CPU in the Famicom/NES wasn't anything special. The CPU in the SNES wasn't, either, although that system had fancy (for the time) GPU and sound. (The Famicom/NES also had better graphics and sound than home computers like the Apple IIe and Commodore 64.)

Those two systems are responsible for the lion's share of the Nintendo brand, at least with older folks.

I doubt the original Wii sold because people were concerned over what CPUs and GPU were inside the box but I can see the argument that their custom controller hardware was the key so I suppose it supports your point.

The main point is that Nintendo has been selling a closed hardware/software ecosystem for their games for decades. It is true that the NES and SNES did have some commodity hardware in there, but the N64, Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U have all been pretty peculiar to Nintendo, both inside and out. It seems like going with washed-up Nvidia SoCs like the X1 or . . . actually new and maybe competent SoCs like the X2 that Nintendo is taking a step away from that policy. Nintendo has been pretty-much proprietary since the N64.

By contrast, the highly custom Jaguar offered a great improvement over the SNES but failed because it was backed by a weak brand/company. If Square had put FF7 on it it would have probably been a hit.

Jaguar had more problems than a weak lineup and poor backing. It had tons of fit/finish problems. Bad controllers, a wonky CD drive . . . it was really a mess.

 

[superstition]

It seems like going with washed-up Nvidia SoCs like the X1 or . . . actually new and maybe competent SoCs like the X2 that Nintendo is taking a step away from that policy. Nintendo has been pretty-much proprietary since the N64.

The N64 was a disappointment, though — mainly because of Nintendo's short-sighted decision to use cartridges. Being proprietary doesn't necessarily ensure better quality, especially today. As far as I know, financial analysts agree, for instance, that the decision by Sony and Microsoft to stop pursuing special CPUs for the PlayStation (like the "emotion engine") makes sense. x86 offers what the consoles need at a lower price — especially given AMD's weak position and deal with GF.

Jaguar had more problems than a weak lineup and poor backing. It had tons of fit/finish problems. Bad controllers, a wonky CD drive . . . it was really a mess.

Nah. Jaguar was a great system when it came out. The controllers were more comfortable than those of the SNES and especially the NES. The directional pad didn't cause blisters like the later PlayStation's hard plastic one either. I suppose if a person has small hands they would prefer a NES controller over the big Jaguar controller though. The one thing the stock Jag controller didn't do well was that it had too few action buttons. But that was not a drastic problem. Sony got the number of buttons and button placement right with the PlayStation controller but its directional pad was blister-inducing.

The use of overlays on a keypad was goofy, old-fashioned. But, I am no fan of the stupid "dual shock" stuff in PlayStation's later controllers and the added weight of the tiny lousy joysticks they put on.

It could have been a better system with some tweaks but it was certainly an improvement over the SNES. It is true, though, that the hardware had serious shortcomings that made it less efficient than it could have been. Nonetheless, the often-derided Cybermorph was quite a step up from the SNES, as was Tempest 2000 — a game that used the 68000 for much of its processing. 3D is where its shortcomings were most apparent but it was definitely a strong step up from the SNES, particularly in 2D.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Supposedly the Jaguar had high controller and CD drive failure rates. Which is what I was talking about there.

 

[Triloby]

Jaguar had more problems than a weak lineup and poor backing. It had tons of fit/finish problems. Bad controllers, a wonky CD drive . . . it was really a mess.

That wasn't its real problem. The real problem was that the console was so technically cumbersome that Atari's marketing of the Jaguar being "64-bit" fell flat on its face when people saw what kind of games it could play. It wasn't a bad system by any means, but it was so needlessly complex to develop games for. Games like Iron Soldier and Aliens vs. Predator look amazing on the Jaguar, but it's nothing that can't be done on future systems like the PSX and N64.

 

[railven]

So many conflicting rumours about the NX. Now there is a rumour that there will be a 3rd NX component - the performance module that will house a separate CPU/GPU other than the SOC inside the NX portable part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dzogxwv6e4

Interesting if this has any truths. Means my prediction was dead on.