Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[Rikimaru]

That said, revised CPU config and revised memory subsystem implies a whole new IC solution. Hard to imagine everything else would be left untouched if they are doing such a major overhaul.
Believability score 3/10

Wii is literally Gamecube 1.5 with die shrink and new chip with added ARM core.

Not revised memory. Just faster. Like 2133MHz DDR3 chips that xbone uses (1600MHz in Wii U).

NX could be 28nm Wii U without SMP bugs and higher clocks.

 

[Entropy]

Wii is literally Gamecube 1.5 with die shrink and new chip with added ARM core.

Not revised memory. Just faster. Like 2133MHz DDR3 chips that xbone uses (1600MHz in Wii U).

NX could be 28nm Wii U without SMP bugs and higher clocks.

Possible, I guess. This seems to be a complete fabrication, so I doubt it's worth overanalysing. If they would still be doing the MCM and optical disc drive, $149 would be surprisingly competitive pricing, and the price point may be worth some consideration if nothing else since Nintendo representatives have repeatedly stated that they believe the WiiU became too expensive to catch on, something their 3DS experience would tend to reinforce. I'd expect the NX to be built to a very carefully considered price point.

 

[Rikimaru]

I think rumor itself is a fabrication. But reusing Wii U is very possible.
$150 is too low though. $199 I think, with new gimmick.

 

[wco81]

Hell forget about NX keeping up with other consoles. Maybe it will be eclipsed shortly after its release by mobile devices.

Nintendo, standing still.

 

[rokkerkory]

Nintendo NeXus needs to hit out out of the park. Come on Ninty give us the goods, ante up.

H/W has to be at least as powerful as PS4.

 

[Goodtwin]

I'm not inclined to believe this new rumor, but I am not completely dismissing it as a potential option either. I really do think that Nintendo will aim for a very aggressive price. Perhaps NX will start out as a reboot of the Wii U. Instead of being a direct replacement, its really a lower priced Nintendo console looking to capitalize on the late adopter market. I hope this isn't the case, but perhaps in its earliest form, NX will be a low cost gaming alternative that can play Wii U games. Perhaps Wii U and NX will be cross platform, and then down the road release a new model that is designed to be the true successor.

I hope this isn't true, because if this is their plan, they should have released a Wii U without the tablet controller two years ago as low cost alternative.

Even shooting for an aggressive price, I think Nintendo could build a more powerful console for even $149-199 than what the Wii U has under the hood. AMD could probably build Nintendo an APU for pretty cheap that outperforms Wii U by a decent margin. Nintendo has done competitive hardware for cheap before, the Gamecube shows that.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm not inclined to believe this new rumor, but I am not completely dismissing it as a potential option either.

I don't believe this rumour. I don't entirely disbelieve this rumour!

 

[wco81]

Yeah in a way, it would be an admission that the WiiU was a mistake, especially the tablet controller.

 

[Goodtwin]

Even Nintendo cant really deny that the tablet controller didn't have the appeal that they hoped it would. Perhaps Nintendo is interested in seeing just how far their games alone can take them. Lets say for example that NX launched for $149 alongside Diddy Kong Racing 2, Metroid Prime 4, and Mario Galaxy 3, and can play all Wii U games that done require the Gamepad. Basically, will consumers buy a Nintendo box to play a limited number of games if the price of entry is low enough, and the launching software lineup is desirable?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Even Nintendo cant really deny that the tablet controller didn't have the appeal that they hoped it would.

I think it's hard to lay the cause of the Wii U's lack of sales on any particular aspect. If I had to have put my finger on the most significant failure it would be the third party hostile development environment. The controller may actually have been pretty good if third parties had a chance of getting to grips with it.

I think even if you put the combined excellence of the first party studios of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony together, you couldn't support a console on those games alone. People will also want Call of Duty, Far Cry, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, GTA. Red Dead Redemption and so on.

It's almost like Nintendo took Sony's PS3 hostile development environment as a challenge? You think that mother is hard to develop for, try this fucker. Yeah, good luck with the mostly Japanese documentation assholes!

 

[wco81]

I think the fact that the Wii didn't sell a lot of third party games hurt the WiiU as well.

The gamers that the Wii attracted were casual gamers and content to play just a handful of first-party games perpetually and not buy any other games, especially third party games.

That and the Wii U couldn't demonstrate that it would provide a better experience on those third party games than the older consoles (PS3/360) which it was trying to compete against. Some of that was graphics but probably also online experience. Why would you buy Call of Duty for the WiiU instead of the other consoles?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think the fact that the Wii didn't sell a lot of third party games hurt the WiiU as well.

The gamers that the Wii attracted were casual gamers and content to play just a handful of first-party games perpetually and not buy any other games, especially third party games.

This article suggests Wii attach rate was about as high as PS360's. And here's another showing for the first 2.5 years, Wii and PS3 software sold as well.

 

[ArcticCircle]

I think the fact that the Wii didn't sell a lot of third party games hurt the WiiU as well.

Wii had a great 3rd party sales. They sold over 100 million consoles and 900 million games. That's 9 games par console lifetime sales. Out of those 900 million, there were over 540 million units of 3rd party software sold to consumers. We generally dismiss these sales because some were shovelware, dance games, fit games and such non-tratitional games. Pretty good for Gamecube v1.5

 

[liolio]

The Latte GPU (32MB EDRAM and all) combined with higher memory bandwidth and a fairly decent ARM CPU (4/8-core A53 @ 1.8GHz?) wouldn't actually be all that bad, if the NX turns out to be a handheld with a 720p screen.

Not that I give the unsourced (joke?) rumor much credit but on the topic of the WiiU was it ever settled how many SIMD arrays the design includes?
160 or 320, if it is the former it needs a lot more than bandwidth to compete. If is the later, a fully functional Redwood HD5570 (650 MHz, 400 ALUs, 8 ROPs, a 128 bit bus linked to GDDR5) lands right in between a Shield Tablet and a shield TV in GFX Bench. There will be better than the Tegra X1 in 2017, quite possibly cheap Android TV device selling for 99€ should provide the level of performance Nvidia delivers now. That would be underwhelming for a dedicated gaming device.

 

[function]

160.

Not enough shaders. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[trainplane]

If NX can match PS4 hardware in 2016, they could have 2-3 years being on equal footing with the current consoles before being eclipsed. And I think the next generation will be a bit different if MS/Sony uses AMD again (if they make a follow up console at all). MS and Sony will likely sell both current generation and next gen consoles at the same time with current gen as the low price point and the next gen as the high end model. And most games will be natively cross-compatible with improved performance on the new models, with a few games new models only. It'll be the iOS/PC model. The NX can be marketed as the value console alongside the XB1/PS4 which is fine for many people.

 

[Entropy]

Not that I give the unsourced (joke?) rumor much credit but on the topic of the WiiU was it ever settled how many SIMD arrays the design includes?

Function here argued that it should be 160 ALUs based on conjecture from the die shot, but I don't know if it was ever corroborated.

 

[Rikimaru]

If NX can match PS4 hardware in 2016, they could have 2-3 years being on equal footing with the current consoles before being eclipsed.

But current market is already divided between Sony and MS. And I'd even say that Sony won. Marketshare reset only happens at the start of new gen.

 

[Entropy]

But current market is already divided between Sony and MS. And I'd even say that Sony won. Marketshare reset only happens at the start of new gen.

But that assumes that all consoles launch more or less in sync.
The bulk of console sales have historically been a few years into a generation, and while I'm not at all convinced that this generation behaves the same, lets assume it does for arguments sake. The hypothetical scenario being that Nintendo brings a console to market 3-4 years into this generation that is architecturally similar, but twice as performant as the PS4, and they sell it at $299. By emulation/remastered ports, they bring the top titles from the WiiU to the table, + their new production. Also, ports would be as easy as can be to do, and the Nintendo version would always be the definitive one - FullHD, 60Hz if nothing else. There would be no PS5/XB2 on the horizon.
I think many hypothetical consumers in this scenario, and they would represent the bulk of the buyers this generation, would consider that option.

Or.... any of a number of hypothetical market positionings, any of which could be the one Nintendo goes for.
It's just not written in stone how the future will unfold. Nintendo walks to the beat of a different drummer. That's what makes them interesting.

 

[Rikimaru]

The hypothetical scenario being that Nintendo brings a console to market 3-4 years into this generation that is architecturally similar, but twice as performant as the PS4, and they sell it at $299.

But they can not do this. They can not make a 2xPS4 at $299 in 2016-17.