Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

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Doesn't battery consumption go up with these higher resolutions?
Yep. Again, if Nintendo are going to just pursue a market that wants physical buttons and days-long battery life, they aren't doing anything new and won't have a chance of reaching a new audience IMO. If they want to be massively desirable, an iThing like product with a day's (4+ hours gaming?) battery life in mobile mode that can charge off ubiquitous USB power supplies is more likely to hit that spot then another DS style product.

Beside, if they go DS size, clamshell or not, they could cram in a load of battery! ;)
 
Yep. Again, if Nintendo are going to just pursue a market that wants physical buttons and days-long battery life, they aren't doing anything new and won't have a chance of reaching a new audience IMO. If they want to be massively desirable, an iThing like product with a day's (4+ hours gaming?) battery life in mobile mode that can charge off ubiquitous USB power supplies is more likely to hit that spot then another DS style product.

Beside, if they go DS size, clamshell or not, they could cram in a load of battery! ;)
If they try to get phone market they won't get either.
 
Nintendo is using 480p TN screen on Wii U.
Non-native games will be blurry. And Nintendo rarely uses any form of anti-aliasing even on Wii U.
There is another reason for Nintendo to keep a low resolution on the WiiU game-pad and that is low latency wireless transmittance.
If non-native rendering resolutions are perceived as blurry depend on both resolution/viewing distance, and scaler quality. I suspect pixels will be small, and scaling will be OK. The issue is progressively less of a problem as time marches on.

Shifty, in all seriousness, I believe the "mobile platform with stationary connectivity" is enough of a new concept. It is for me. I hoped/assumed that the Vita would offer it, but it was not to be.
 
If they try to get phone market they won't get either.
I haven't described a phone, although a phone that plugs into your TV and plays Mariokart will have some potential. That's one reason to target tablet size - it's better suited for new wave gaming. A 7-8" screen is way better for gaming on than a 3-4" screen, in the same way a 40-50" TV is a better experience than a 28-32" TV. A tablet won't be pocketable, but I think the idea is plenty good enough to reach a significant audience even if some of the old 3DS generation are left behind.
 
I haven't described a phone, although a phone that plugs into your TV and plays Mariokart will have some potential. That's one reason to target tablet size - it's better suited for new wave gaming. A 7-8" screen is way better for gaming on than a 3-4" screen, in the same way a 40-50" TV is a better experience than a 28-32" TV. A tablet won't be pocketable, but I think the idea is plenty good enough to reach a significant audience even if some of the old 3DS generation are left behind.
As I said before it will be too expensive and big for a handheld and too underpowered for a console.
 
Nintendo is making a console.

This generation has proved the market for consoles is healthy. PS4 is even seeing somewhat revitalized console market success in Japan.

Nintendo said it wants to be like iOS/Android w/ an OS and software across devices.

NX is a stand alone console that shares its OS, software and apps with Nintendo's next dedicated portable.

Hybrids appeal to nobody and require extra steps for big screen functionality which would be a consumer turn off.

NX is a console, period.
 
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.
 
@Entropy AMD is doing graphics for Mediatek SoCs. Though I do not think Nintendo will do the same.

Nintendo is very keen on partners people though. You can read that they are seeking people in companies which they trust and stick to them (you can read about N64 and Wii U creation).
Next console hardware is certainly AMD APU (or Wii U 1.5).
 
Gamecube was up to date for the time it launched, why nobody think that they can do it again?
By now they must have learned to not bet anything on the controller
 
Gamecube was up to date for the time it launched, why nobody think that they can do it again?
By now they must have learned to not bet anything on the controller

Because the decade and a half of time that has passed where they havent even come close to pulling that off.
 
Gamecube was up to date for the time it launched, why nobody think that they can do it again?
Not quite. It did not have DVD and had some hardware limitations. Most games had 18-bit color output (banding). 24 MB RAM (less than PS2). Also GC and Wii have pinstripe effect on 480p output.
 
It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately. When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brothers in a family of systems.

Still, I am not sure if the form factor (the size and configuration of the hardware) will be integrated. In contrast, the number of form factors might increase. Currently, we can only provide two form factors because if we had three or four different architectures, we would face serious shortages of software on every platform. To cite a specific case, Apple is able to release smart devices with various form factors one after another because there is one way of programming adopted by all platforms. Apple has a common platform called iOS. Another example is Android. Though there are various models, Android does not face software shortages because there is one common way of programming on the Android platform that works with various models. The point is, Nintendo platforms should be like those two examples. Whether we will ultimately need just one device will be determined by what consumers demand in the future, and that is not something we know at the moment. However, we are hoping to change and correct the situation in which we develop games for different platforms individually and sometimes disappoint consumers with game shortages as we attempt to move from one platform to another, and we believe that we will be able to deliver tangible results in the future.

http://nintendoeverything.com/iwata...bsorb-the-wii-u-architecture-adequately-more/

"Like brothers in a family of systems", "various form factors", "various models", "different platforms"... Iwata's own words are unequivocal, though he considers the future possibility, there is no 'merged console''. Handheld and home console are separate devices with a unified development platform. Case closed.
 
Look at this Nintendo conference slide: "smart device, "future handheld", "future console".

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No hybrid.
 
Look at this Nintendo conference slide: "smart device, "future handheld", "future console".

No hybrid.
I don't think that precludes a hybrid. A hybrid only need be a handheld/portable with HDMI out and controller support. You could provide a lighter-weight graphics experience via the handheld, and the full fat version on the dedicated console.
 
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