Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[rabidrabbit]

Yes, keep those funny little consoles coming, Nintendo.
It's already getting boring when Sony and MS went PC on their consoles. It's just not as interesting and fun any more as it was at the time of Emotion Engine and Cell.

 

[Jay]

Yes, keep those funny little consoles coming, Nintendo.
It's already getting boring when Sony and MS went PC on their consoles. It's just not as interesting and fun any more as it was at the time of Emotion Engine and Cell.

A portable device that can play AAA multiplats especially single player games, and has their IP on it for the right price may do well.
I don't see anyone going NX for multiplayer multiplats.

Why do we even need both Sony and MS making hardware? One machine (PC based) and everyone release their games on it.
It's not necessarily about exotic architecture, it's about everyone not offering exactly the same thing.

 

[Beelzebub]

I fully understand why people say this.
I may not agree with a lot of what Nintendo do, but I think it would be bad for consoles as a whole if there's less and less manufactures. Whether that be for competition, innovation on the hardware side, especially as MS&Sony seem to be going in exactly tthe same direction.

It will be interesting just what the NX is and how well it does. Hopefully it will be strong enough to play most/all multiplats also...

Yes, I was only speaking from the point of view from Nintendo as a profit-driven company, and the responsibility towards their shareholders.

However, as a consumer, I agree with you that it would probably be a disservice to the console-market as a whole, since, as you say, MS and Sony are basically making interchangable machines with the same audience in mind. Nintendo does provide an alternative that is different, and as a gamer I do appreciate their place in the market.

 

[wco81]

They'll make money even if NX doesn't sell like the Wii.

I don't know if they made or lost money with the Wii U but they can still probably sell 50 million units or more.

 

[Commenter]

A portable device that can play AAA multiplats especially single player games, and has their IP on it for the right price may do well.
I don't see anyone going NX for multiplayer multiplats.

Why do we even need both Sony and MS making hardware? One machine (PC based) and everyone release their games on it.
It's not necessarily about exotic architecture, it's about everyone not offering exactly the same thing.

Yes, unified under one content delivery service i.e. Steam.

 

[BRiT]

This was pointed out to me earlier, but it just goes to show how all "developer" comments about Nintendo performance rumors have always been unrealistic fantasies. This one is from 2010 and discusses the Nintendo 3DS: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/nvidia-unconnected-with-3ds-blog-entry

Meanwhile, IGN corroborates the story that NVIDIA is out of the picture, quoting "off-the-record" developer sources as saying that the 3DS is up there in the power stakes with PS3 and Xbox 360.

It's now 6 years after that comment and Nintendo have yet to release a system with PS3 / X360 level of performance.

 

[Grall]

they can still probably sell 50 million units or more.

"50 million or more" would be only half as much as the DS series. Maybe only a third, counting DS(i) and 3DS all together. Maybe they'd make money, but you can't make much money out of a rapidly shrinking market.

It also isn't good business sense. If Nintendo cared about its shareholders it would go full-out 3rd party yesterday. It'd be awesome for fans and gamers in general too, just look at the madness that is pokego...

 

[Goodtwin]

This was pointed out to me earlier, but it just goes to show how all "developer" comments about Nintendo performance rumors have always been unrealistic fantasies. This one is from 2010 and discusses the Nintendo 3DS: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/nvidia-unconnected-with-3ds-blog-entry



It's now 6 years after that comment and Nintendo have yet to release a system with PS3 / X360 level of performance.

What? Wii U may have been weak for a console released in 2012, but it did match those systems in performance, and most likely slightly surpassed them.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[BRiT]

What? Wii U may have been weak for a console released in 2012, but it did match those systems in performance, and most likely slightly surpassed them.

That is highly debatable; maybe GPU-wise but not CPU-wise and absolutely not from a bandwidth perspective.

 

[Goodtwin]

That is highly debatable; maybe GPU-wise but not CPU-wise and absolutely not from a bandwidth perspective.

It's accepted, even here, that Wii U is comparable to a 360/ps3. We do not know bandwidth of the edram, but even low estimates put it higher than main memory bandwidth of either ps3 or 360, 360 has insane memory bandwidth for rops only. Even though CPU is an obvious short coming, GPU and memory improvements are enough to give it the leg up in those areas. Wii U is a 35 watt 360, why people need to short change a console striving for modest performance astounds me. It's a perfect fit with the 360/ps3, just a shame it came out 2 years to late.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[Grall]

Wuu's main memory is only 64-bit and a pathetic 12.5ish GB/s, and CPU cores lack SIMD support. That's a significant weakness compared to PS360. Also, GPU advantage vs. 360 in particular is debatable; shader power may be slightly stronger, but Wuu Bayonetta lacked 360's fullscreen post processing effect despite supposedly being more powerful hardware and several years of additional software development of the engine.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Doubt this conversation is worth having. If we count on-screen results instead of paper metrics, Wuu is comparable to PS360, no? And whether we consider Wuu less powerful or not, the crux is that every N. console comes with a rumour of outlandish power which is always bunkum - that's the take home point.

 

[Entropy]

If the dev kits use fan cooled Tegra X1, where is the outlandish performance claim? That constitutes a rather narrow performance band, and the only speculation is really whether Nintendo will offer add on SCDs or not.
This particular rumour is actually quite down to earth. Even if they went with a 16nmFF Tegra, the advancements in process and architecture is likely to go into dropping active power to get a good portable experience rather than increasing absolute performance much. While removing the battery power constraint would allow higher frequecies, there still probably won't be active cooling on the device, so barring a version of the dock with additional processing power, we're still likely looking at performance in the pixel c to Shield TV interval.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This particular set of rumours isn't outlandish, as you say. But that's because it's rumoured spec, rather than vague dev comments about how awesome the hardware is which was more Brit's general observation.

 

[turkey]

If the dev kits use fan cooled Tegra X1, where is the outlandish performance claim? That constitutes a rather narrow performance band, and the only speculation is really whether Nintendo will offer add on SCDs or not.
This particular rumour is actually quite down to earth. Even if they went with a 16nmFF Tegra, the advancements in process and architecture is likely to go into dropping active power to get a good portable experience rather than increasing absolute performance much. While removing the battery power constraint would allow higher frequecies, there still probably won't be active cooling on the device, so barring a version of the dock with additional processing power, we're still likely looking at performance in the pixel c to Shield TV interval.

A dock with active cooling?

as a totally unrelated comparison my Li-ion drill battery charger has fans built in which force air through the battery to cool it whilst charging. I am not sure how you can make this less noisy but I suppose its possible assuming the design affords open air cavity for this and does not go full premium phone with a solid uni body chassis.

Totally crazy but Nintendo don't seem to follow others and do deliver their own thing.

 

[Goodtwin]

Wuu's main memory is only 64-bit and a pathetic 12.5ish GB/s, and CPU cores lack SIMD support. That's a significant weakness compared to PS360. Also, GPU advantage vs. 360 in particular is debatable; shader power may be slightly stronger, but Wuu Bayonetta lacked 360's fullscreen post processing effect despite supposedly being more powerful hardware and several years of additional software development of the engine.

I don't remember a single developer complaining about Wii U's memory. Yes the main memory has low bandwidth, but if all your rendering operations are happening in the much much higher edram, it doesn't matter much. Bayonetta runs at a higher frame rate on Wii U with no screen tearing, and was a port, not built from the ground up on Wii U. It was actually orriginally built around the 360 hardware. It's the cpu, it was always the cpu that caused porting headaches.


Isn't Nvidia showing off Tegra X2 next week? If so, and NX used it, we should here from Nintendo very soon.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[Blazkowicz]

Wuu's main memory is only 64-bit and a pathetic 12.5ish GB/s, and CPU cores lack SIMD support. That's a significant weakness compared to PS360. Also, GPU advantage vs. 360 in particular is debatable; shader power may be slightly stronger, but Wuu Bayonetta lacked 360's fullscreen post processing effect despite supposedly being more powerful hardware and several years of additional software development of the engine.

The CPU has "3DNow!", so to speak, like SIMD that operates on two floats.

 

[sebbbi]

The CPU has "3DNow!", so to speak, like SIMD that operates on two floats.

WiiU has paired float math operations, including multiply-adds. Throughput = two mad per cycle. Xbox 360 SIMD is four wide and can do multiply-add per cycle. Throughput = 4 mad per cycle. Xbox 360 also has 2.5x clock advantage. So it total Xbox 360 peak flop rate is roughly 5x.

 

[Entropy]

WiiU has paired float math operations, including multiply-adds. Throughput = two mad per cycle. Xbox 360 SIMD is four wide and can do multiply-add per cycle. Throughput = 4 mad per cycle. Xbox 360 also has 2.5x clock advantage. So it total Xbox 360 peak flop rate is roughly 5x.

Although this may be inappropriate for this thread, I have to ask if you have any opinion on just how common code that ran at peak fp rate was on the 360. The CPU always seemed extremely top heavy in terms of peak fp vs. general code performance and overall capabilities. But then, my coding experience is from chemical science as opposed to games.
If (close to) 30% of CPU cycles were spent in tight, full rate loops, then you are obviously forced to find other ways to achieve your results, if on the other hand it was typically on the order of 5%, then the lack of strong SIMD capabilities per se are not necessarily a big deal when porting.
I never really saw any utilization statistics.

 

[Grall]

I don't remember a single developer complaining about Wii U's memory.

A: that you/we haven't heard any complaints doesn't mean there aren't any.

B: we haven't really heard ANY devs talking about wuu hardware, off the record, in-depth. Perhaps this is because there are very few games that actually try to push the console.

C: drawing takes place in eDRAM, but textures have to come from main memory. 12.5GB/s is seriously pathetic any way you choose to look at it.