Nintendo is making smartphone games with Japanese mobile giant DeNA

[+Asmodai MVC]

As long as the controller is normal and they don't have 2+ controller types, then fine.

According to my idea the NX would have a single normal controller. It would just be bluetooth based like the Wii/Wii U/PS4 and would support using the old controllers to play the old Wii/Wii U games. Of course if they drop backwards compatibility that isn't needed at all.

A wiimote, a Tablet controller and a classic controller is a joke. It's confusing. And it's a terrible idea.

A wiimote is just needed to play old wii motion games. The tablet controller was a horrible idea to begin with. If you want your console to interact with a "tablet" instead of making it your primary controller you should just allow users to OPTIONALLY bring their own tablet (iPad, Android, Windows) and provide a Nintendo app.

They either remove themselves from all 3 or none.

You've lost me here. I said I thought they needed to differentiate themselves from Sony and Microsoft. You seemed to think I meant from third party developers so I tried to clarify that wasn't the case. I don't even know what "all 3 or none" refers to???

I agree. There are many terrible and inefficient things in the world that are massively popular and almost essential. But it's not about that.

There are only two reasons to use x86 CPUs (for anything).

1) Compatibility (mostly for Windows so your existing software works)

2) Intel's superior chip manufacturing process.

Neither of these apply to Nintendo. Compatiblity for the Nintendo ecosystem is PowerPC NOT x86. Nintendo doesn't release their games on PC or x86 so their is no reason for them to choose the inefficicent x86 design.

As for Intel's chip manufacturing process if Nintendo can get Intel to fabb their custom NX CPU then absolutely they should but that's not going to happen. Instead if they go x86 they're going to have to use an AMD design and get it fabbed at the same fabs that do ARM (TSMC or GlobalFoundries most likely) which eliminates the Intel advantage.

Without either of those applying it makes no sense to use x86. Heck if decent ARMv8 64bit CPUs had been out when the PS4 was designed Sony may very well have gone ARM as well but they definitely wanted to go 64bit and ARM wasn't ready when PS4 development began.

Microsoft would likely still have gone x86 because it's Microsoft and it's running a version of Windows so 1) above is very much a factor. The first Xbox was a x86 chip as well.

It's totally fine to support 4K movies, but it gets the idea in stupid peoples minds to blurt, "<NX> supports 4K gaming!!" which is bad marketing. Even if Nintendo never stated it would. I suppose if handled carefully and properly than it would be ok, but I'd personally just stay away from it for a while longer. Of course if they're shooting for a 2017 launch it may be well supported and maintainable by then.

Even in 2017 I doubt you'll be able to build a box that can do 4k high quality gaming and sell it for $400 or less while still making a profit. No doubt there will be high end video cards that can do 4k gaming, they exist now, but they cost well over $400 by themselves let alone having to have all the rest of the components of a console. There is no way Nintendo is selling a console at a loss so I'm pretty sure 1080p@60 will be the goal of the NX and since the PS4 and Xbox One seem to struggle with it that should be good enough for them to put a feather in their cap over the competition.

[HawkMan]

x86 is a horribly inefficient CPU design. ARM is superior in efficiency.

 

NO. ARM is superior in efficiency in specific cases. Gaming, 3D and general computer is NOT one of them, AR is made to be low power, but it's actually highly inefficient when used for general computing. When they talk about servers using ARM CPU's because of power efficiency, it's for specialized servers that o calculation that ARM is actually decent at, and in order for those ARM cpu's to compete with intel in actual performance and not just power, the server's has up to 50 or even more CPU's in them, this works out because of price and pwoer efficiency in the long run. for a gaming console and a computer though, yeah it's plain stupid. 

 

As for the efficiency of x86, 10 years ago you may have had a point, but it's no longer 10 years ago. intel wanted at some point to go RISC cpu'sbecause of efficiency. as you may have noticed, even server grade RISC CPU's have now gone the way of the dodo. that's because "efficient" cpu's aren't. RISC are reduces instruction set, meaning they have less instruction which means each instruction is theoretically faster(well it is but, to get on),. This works out great if you only use simple instructions for everything, mostly database and file server stuff. great for that. but again, for actual computing and games, this means that what is normally a single instruction now needs to combine 2,3,4,5 or more instructions. and suddenly efficiency and speed is out the window. As Apple found out. their RISC cpu's where great at color table conversions, meaning they where great at photoshop filters and most photoshop stuff. However with them being creeper slow at everything else you did on the poor Apple Mac, and clock limits Not only where x86 faster and more efficient at everything else, due to having much higher raw horse power they became faster in the stuff ther RISC CPU's where designed for as well. 

 

With that out of the way, CISC CPU's like x86 have changed a lot in the last decade. they're not pure CISC anymore, a lot of complex instruction have been cleaned out, while RISC instruction have been introduced. So x86/A64 CPU's today are actually extremely efficient and far better for a "game" console purpose than especially your ARM and even your RISK(power/IBM) options. On top of that, after both Sony and MS switched to easy to program for X86, developers are no longer interested in complex special purpose CPU's that require twice the core programing resources to develop for. 

[+Asmodai MVC]

NO. ARM is superior in efficiency in specific cases. Gaming, 3D and general computer is NOT one of them, AR is made to be low power, but it's actually highly inefficient when used for general computing. When they talk about servers using ARM CPU's because of power efficiency, it's for specialized servers that o calculation that ARM is actually decent at, and in order for those ARM cpu's to compete with intel in actual performance and not just power, the server's has up to 50 or even more CPU's in them, this works out because of price and pwoer efficiency in the long run. for a gaming console and a computer though, yeah it's plain stupid.

First when I said efficiency I was referring to power efficiency. Gaming and 3D depend far more on the GPU then then CPU. You're wrong to group a gaming console with a computer. Sure ARM is a bad idea for a computer where power isn't a major concern but power IS a major concern on consoles. The x86 CPUs in the PS4/Xbox One are not high end desktop/server x86 CPUs, they're derived from Jaguar which is a low power design for tablets and microservers just as ARMv8 is. Again if Nintendo can get Intel to custom design them an SoC using their bleeding edge fab process then that would be great but Intel isn't going to do that. A strong ARMv8 64bit design could easily compete with a low end AMD x86 like Jaguar made on the same process.

As for the efficiency of x86, 10 years ago you may have had a point, but it's no longer 10 years ago.

10 years ago there wasn't 64bit ARM to compare to.

intel wanted at some point to go RISC cpu'sbecause of efficiency.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Intel essentially DID go RISC. Mondern x86 CPUs don't execute the x86 instructions directly. Instead they translate them into RISC-like Micro-Ops and execute the Micro-Ops. This gives x86 backwards compability and abstracts the micro-op implementation so they can change and refine it behind the scenes from one generation to the next but it also adds overhead because they have to translate all the incoming instructions. That translation makes it less efficient then a CPU that can just execute the instructions directly but this is offset BY INTEL by them having superior manufacturing technology. That superior manufacturing technology doesn't apply to AMD though who doesn't even own fabs, they have to get their chips made by the same fabs that make ARM chips so they have no manufacturing advantage at all. Intel isn't going to make custom CPUs for Nintendo so the x86 advantage disappears.

Intel never tried to go fully RISC for mainstream CPUs. With the move to 64bit they DID try to go VLIW (which isn't RISC) which was faster on 64bit but much slower on 32bit and due to the markets demand for backwards compatibility AMD's 64-bit solution (a simple extension of x86-32) won out.

On top of that, after both Sony and MS switched to easy to program for X86, developers are no longer interested in complex special purpose CPU's that require twice the core programing resources to develop for.

I'm not suggesting the NX use a brand new architecture. I'm suggesting they either use a die shrink, core count increase (3 to 8), possibly clock increase 64bit extension of their existing Wii/Wii U architecture with hardware backwards compatibility (just like x86-64 is to x86-32) or they use ARMv8 which is the dominant architecture on mobile devices today. Both of them should already be familiar to developers. One leverages their past while the other leverages the ongoing mobile boom (that the NX announcement was part of)

[Draconian Guppy]

What are the odds Nintendo NX will be  Wii 2 U  or Wii U 2 ?

[+Asmodai MVC]

What are the odds Nintendo NX will be  Wii 2 U  or Wii U 2 ?

 

NX is just a code name but whatever they decide to call it I REALLY hope the name doesn't include "Wii" in any way.

[compl3x]

Keep in mind that this is an announcement about new hardware, not necessarily a new console. 

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

Keep in mind that this is an announcement about new hardware, not necessarily a new console. 

 

 

nope. it is definately a console. there is no way it is not

 

 

This announcement was so big that Nintendo had to announce a new console, too. Nintendo has been murmuring about its plans for its next entry in the console market for a while, mostly to point out what it did wrong with Wii U and 3DS: The portable and home console should have shared an architecture, like iPhone and iPad, Iwata has said, noting that the next generation of Nintendo products would do something similar.

 

Yesterday, he made those next-generation plans a little more concrete, saying Nintendo would discuss a

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

Topics merged

 

 

what?     it was announced at the same time, but it was 2 announcements on 2 separate topics!   Now the topic title have nothing to do with the Frank B original post  which was about nintendo going into mobile!

and you have to look to post 3 for anything related to title...

[WinMacLin Guy]

What I'd like the NX to be:

 

CPU:

If IBM will design it a 64bit PowerPC based 8 core CPU (backwards compatible with the Wii/Wii U) (for reference the Wii U is 3 cores on a 45nm process)

If IBM won't do that then embrace mobile and go with an 8 core 64bit ARMv8 CPU.

Either way have it fabbed on TSMC's 16nm FinFET+ or Samsung's 14nm FinFET process.

DO NOT GO x86, Nintendo needs to differentiate themselves

 

GPU:

AMD Fiji (or nVidia Pascal) derived GPU, again fabbed on the same process as the CPU.

Include full hardware encode/decode of HEVC for 4k streaming and blu-ray

 

Memory:

8 GB of HBM unified memory (as used by Fiji and Pascal above)

 

Optical:

Blue-Ray (Wii/Wii U compatible)

 

Hard Drive:

2TB (should be cheap by 2016)

 

new Bluetooth 4.2 controllers (backwards compatible with Wii Remote Plus/Wii U Pro controllers)

Wifi a/b/g/n/ac dual band

 

Release Date:  Christmas 2016 (these spec's won't be that high by then and that gives Wii U a bit longer life yet is still way too early for MS or Sony to launch successor consoles to compete)

 

Ideally this would be backward compatible with the Wii/Wii U either through hardware or emulation.

 

The GPU can be low-end for the Fiji/Pascal lines to keeps costs down with the goal just to beat the PS4 and XB1 and allow the NX to play multi-platform ports of Xbox One and PS4 games at 1080p@60fps with 4k support primarily just for movies (streaming, Blu-Ray, or even pre-rendered cut scenes in games)

 

I think you are going to be sorely disappointed. I highly doubt Nintendo will be able to do all of that and keep the system priced close to the PS4 and Xbox One without making a loss; and even if they managed to do that, people would still not buy because at this point it appears Sony and even MS have the most brand power. I would also say do not expect a PPC processor (maybe for backwards compatibility they could put the one from Wii U; but even then that drives costs up way too much) because IBM has sold its semiconductor facilities to Global Foundries and is largely exiting designing embedded PowerPC chips (with the exception of high-end POWER chips meant for servers and supercomputers).

 

I would say expect a quad-core Cortex A7 or A53 based handheld, priced between $150-$200; and/or a more powerful ARM or cheap AMD APU based micro-console like system for between $200 and $250. I would not expect something with 8 GBs of ram, a 2 TB HD, Wi-Fi AC (N sure but not AC), or even bluetooth for the handheld version. You might say the prices of all of these components will fall by 2016, and they will, but Nintendo is not going to put in anything that they think they will not use (they have traditionally shown that they do not care what third parties want) and will want to maximize profits on hardware (especially after this financially disastrous generation). Look at the New 3DS, Nintendo could have probably put in a cheap bluetooth chip but they did not because while it might be more convenient for users to plug-in bluetooth headsets and other peripherals, but that would not provide them with any profits directly; they did include an NFC reader however for Amiibo support because they are profiting directly from Amiibos. Based on their past history, I would also not expect media players, blu-ray or DVD playback because once again Nintendo typically only invests time and resources into making things they can profit from (not saying it is the right thing to do, but that is just how they do business).

[Draconian Guppy]

NX is just a code name but whatever they decide to call it I REALLY hope the name doesn't include "Wii" in any way.

I didn't mean the name, I think I was a bit daft. What I meant was, will be a Wii U 2 in terms of hardware specs.

[+Asmodai MVC]

I think you are going to be sorely disappointed. I highly doubt Nintendo will be able to do all of that and keep the system priced close to the PS4 and Xbox One without making a loss;

I don't think they'd have any problem doing that on a sub-$400 system in the Christmas 2016/2017 timeframe. I'm curious what you think would be so expensive here.

and even if they managed to do that, people would still not buy because at this point it appears Sony and even MS have the most brand power.

So they should just give up? As far as brand power Nintendo still has a ton, just the Wii U is a failure. The Legend of Zelda: Majora

[neufuse Veteran]

Nintendos next console to be named "Wii U Me"