Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[Grall]

Google-Nintendo partnership too good to be true I think. Internal Nintendo company culture being what it is, how would the two mesh?

IF it's true (and pigs can fly, they just never do it when people are around), then...pretty awesome, I think. No particular love for Android, but Nintendo needs help with a lot of things - not just developing non-shit hardware, but writing software for it also, and Google excels at both.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yup. Android has had a crazy amount of testing across a crazy amount of diverse hardware and it works well. Unless Nintendo have software engineering resource to spare, it's difficult to justify rolling your own OS today if a freely available solution can be made to work with some tweaking. They'd obviously roll their own UI but why re-invent the core OS. Madness.

A quick look at the licences for PS4 (and PS3) shows how much Sony leverage software that's been tried and tested. Ditto Apple in OSX.

 

[insanepunkclown]

You guys are hilarious with Nintendo using someone else's OS.

You can run android applications on Windows and Ubuntu via an application designed to do so.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You guys are hilarious with Nintendo using someone else's OS.

Why is that more hilarious than Nintendo writing their own OS, especially given their track record (how crap was Wii U at launch)?

 

[Cyan]

Google-Nintendo partnership too good to be true I think. Internal Nintendo company culture being what it is, how would the two mesh?

IF it's true (and pigs can fly, they just never do it when people are around), then...pretty awesome, I think. No particular love for Android, but Nintendo needs help with a lot of things - not just developing non-shit hardware, but writing software for it also, and Google excels at both.

I hope the rumour is not true. We don't need this again --not because of the Google-Nintendo partnership, which is ok to some point.

Not to mention the lack of security. And the global slowness of Android is the icing in the cake. I have an Android smartphone and it's not nimble, I can tell you.

 

[DieH@rd]

Why is that more hilarious than Nintendo writing their own OS, especially given their track record (how crap was Wii U at launch)?

I think Nintendo is more worried about attracting 3rd party support. No matter what OS they use, many things will most likely be very weird and limiting [at least with Android, menus will run fast from day 1 ].

And since Android can run on anything, they can freely start looking at really wide array of hardware. No matter if they are making a handheld, home console or some hybrid, I hope they will go to AMD and get from them some nice modern, efficient and fast package [which could be made from ARM or X86 CPU cores, PowerVR/Readeon GPU modules, or anything else Nintendo wants].

 

[Alucardx23]

I like this option for Nintendo, it would be a good decision on their part with the lack of 3rd Party support. With consoles like the Nvidia Shield out there developers have to start thinking about porting their big games to Android and Nintendo can take advantage of that.

 

[wco81]

Maybe they'll branch, like how Amazon came up with their own derivation.

If android developers want to dabble and make games for it, but not officially license, maybe there will be attempts to side load, root, etc.

 

[Rikimaru]

It won't be a standard Android. Just Kernel and environment. Anything else would be done by Nintendo.
You won't be able to sideload apk. I think even packages will be different.

Rooting not possible of course.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Not to mention the lack of security. And the global slowness of Android is the icing in the cake. I have an Android smartphone and it's not nimble, I can tell you.

What lack of security? Because it's likely Nintendo would be using the kernel, I/O and devices subsystem and I'm not aware of any significant exploits in these parts of Android, which is heavily based on the linux kernel. it is the choices made regarding the Google Play store, applications and user permissions which are generally the point of compromise and none would exist in a console.

Out of curiosity, what make/model/carrier phone do you have, and what are you comparing it too?

 

[Goodtwin]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is just a false rumor, but if its is true, it would be a major step in the right direction for Nintendo. They have already made strides with Indies with the 3DS and Wii U, and this would all but secure widespread Indie support, as well as the larger publishers who are pursuing the Android market. Basically, its a Nivida Shield that actually has a chance for large scale success.

 

[Rodéric]

I don't see the benefit for Nintendo, except that they cut on OS writing costs.

 

[DieH@rd]

I don't see the benefit for Nintendo, except that they cut on OS writing costs.

IMO, benefit is easier game development, easier OS/app development, and easier access to any modern hardware architectures that can scale from 2W to 200W.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Google-Nintendo partnership too good to be true I think. Internal Nintendo company culture being what it is, how would the two mesh?

IF it's true (and pigs can fly, they just never do it when people are around), then...pretty awesome, I think. No particular love for Android, but Nintendo needs help with a lot of things - not just developing non-shit hardware, but writing software for it also, and Google excels at both.

Didn't they already work on an OS together, though? I remember hearing about something way back in the days before Android was a thing.

 

[insanepunkclown]

Why is that more hilarious than Nintendo writing their own OS, especially given their track record (how crap was Wii U at launch)?

...At launch... At launch... Should we live in the past?

IMO, benefit is easier game development, easier OS/app development, and easier access to any modern hardware architectures that can scale from 2W to 200W.

Basically nothing.

 

[Grall]

We don't need this again

That's ridiculous. Ouya was a tiny fly-by-night operation in comparison to Nintendo, with neither the resources, legacy or expertise A: they needed, and B: which Nintendo has in spades.

 

[Rikimaru]

Didn't they already work on an OS together, though? I remember hearing about something way back in the days before Android was a thing.

You do not need to communicate with Google to fork Android.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I hope the rumour is not true. We don't need this again --not because of the Google-Nintendo partnership, which is ok to some point.
And the global slowness of Android is the icing in the cake. I have an Android smartphone and it's not nimble, I can tell you.

Ouya failed for many reasons, not least because it had a limited software selection and no-one bothered targeting it as it was a small fish in a big pond. A Nintendo console would have as much interest as any Nintendo console, regardless what OS it's running.

As for Android being slow, what model phone and Android? Google have done a lot to improve it, but manufacturer's front ends can slow it down.

I don't see the benefit for Nintendo, except that they cut on OS writing costs.

The rumour says for 3rd party support. If devs don't need to port games to the platform, it can be sure of a full library (full of what is a matter of opinion ).

...At launch... At launch... Should we live in the past?

It sets precedent. Nintendo have shown fairly weak abilities regards system software. Their OS and online components have been laughably bad. Given that history, is there reason to be confident they can put together a superb OS comparable to those worked on for many years by other OS firms/organisations? Android would provide them everything they need in a working package with mobile integration to boot. If Nintendo make money off the hardware and selling games, giving up some of that to ease development and have a potentially far larger audience makes a lot of business sense. The cost and gains of a proprietary OS are difficult to argue in favour for.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Ouya failed for many reasons, not least because it had a limited software selection and no-one bothered targeting it as it was a small fish in a big pond.

My $100 bet is that Ouya failed mainly for a very, very simple reason: intolerable latency issues with the gamepad.
Many people were looking at it as the next best thing for emulation and imaginative 2D or simple 3D games.
The gamepad issues killed it all in one fell swoop.




As for the NX using a forked Linux/Android: makes sense to me.
Even more sense if the NX ends up having (or being) a tablet controller capable of actually playing pre-authorized Android games.

 

[Shortbread]

Now I can picture Nintendo's next system being a hybrid of both worlds. A tablet on the go, and docked into a docking station for home gaming. Nintendo wins both ways....