Looks like related to streetpass to me.
Agreed. I couldn't decipher anything that clearly pointed to a new system at least, although admittedly I find that kind of text without illustrations difficult to bring into clear focus. They describe technical ideas in some kind of intentionally vague legalese. Bizarre.
I do find it hilarious that the speculations regarding NX are all over the place. Stationary, portable, both, or crossover, there are proponents for all. Given Nintendos infographic and the way Iwata phrased his comments, I'm inclined to believe we, at least initially, are dealing with a single hardware platform.
So - portable or stationary or crossover?
Scott Arm pointed out that Nintendo aguably will already be adressing the portable market through iOS and Android games, and that making a stationary console might complement those offerings better. On the other hand, the 3DS is still selling nicely validating that there is a niche for dedicated portable gaming systems, and the 3DS has been around for longer and is thus more ripe for some kind of replacement. Making a pure mobile console seems at odds with "brand new concept" though. Also, IF the recent AMD contract reveal does indeed refer to Nintendo, mobile SoCs is where AMD have very little design experience. Why wouldn't Nintendo simply turn to any other high-volume mobile SoC provider? Direct backwards compatibility with the WiiU? Nah, the PPC CPUs is probably more of a hurdle than running the graphics code.
Could it be a "crossover" device? Well, if we take that to mean (and this is not the only crossover scenario) a portable system that can connect both to TV screens and to other controllers for local multiplayer, that is a possibility, and would qualify as a "brand new concept". Could it offer a reasonable stationary experience? Well, as I have pointed out in this thread, Samsung is already producing on 14nmFF, offering substatial improvements in performance and seemingly density as well over their 20nm planar process. The same process is offered by Global Foundries for flexible second sourcing, and both Samsung and TSMC are looking to transition their cutting edge customers to 10nm lithography at the end of 2016/start of 2017, freeing up well run in and cheap production capacity on 14/16nmFF. LPDDR4 will be regular fare by then, so at best we could be looking at roughly 2-3 times Apples A8x for a dedicated gaming SoC, or a bit below the XBoxOne. At best. Example grapics IP here
GT7900. Note reference to "game console" in the graphic. Would that be acceptable for such a device? I would think better than xbox/PS3/WiiU level graphics would be required, but it is also quite possible. XBoxOne/PS4 definitely seems a bit out of reach however, and CPU and GPU architectures and capabilities wouldn't overlap for smoothest possible porting. The living room part of the experience wouldn't bring much new to the table, the value would be in overall flexibility as well as a very strong portable game system, obviously.
The last option would be a stationary console, and this is where we know that AMD can easily provide very capable solutions, and that they are busy plotting to take advantage of the APU+HBM market opportunity in PC space. Such a solution, even if no bigger than 200mm2 or so, would comfortably outperform the PS4 in a rather modest power envelope, and would allow
very easy porting of XB1/PS4 titles. That would require "brand new concept" to mean "courting 3rd parties for real!"
. I can't really bring myself to believe this option despite the very straightforward hardware concept. It would mean targeting the "tweener" market, which could actually be a decent move if the PS4/XB1 generation has a lifespan similar to the previous. But it doesn't feel like Nintendos modus operandi. Maybe some DeNA mobile tie ins that we can't envision right now would make it more interesting. But where would it leave their nicely profitably dedicated portable business? Would the mobile products fill that niche?
Nintendo is an interesting company in a challenging situation. It will be very interesting to see how this will play out over the next few years.
