Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[Deleted member 13524]

Of course, you don't have to max the hardware out and Nintendo could still stick with simple graphics to fit a budget, letting 3rd parties go expensive with variety,

Exactly. Current phenomenons like Minecraft or Rocket League don't push the hardware and they're perfectly fine with that.

but it has been N.'s reasoning none-the-less, to have hardware with lower expectations from users so they needn't spend so much making games.

Reasoning != excuses.. I call that just hard to swallow excuses just like size and power consumption.

 

[Grall]

Actually, they've said they like weaker hardware because it keeps costs down.

Aye; we know this has been a marked strategy for them at least since they started work on the Wii (or Gamecube Reborn, really). The company has never really embraced the HD era at all. However, one has to question their dedication to this strategy as it has not led them to much success recently, and I don't think there's any reason to believe a WiiU Redux would do much, if any better than its predecessor.

They're riding on hitching the thing to their mobile system, but portable games on big-screen TVs have never had much of an impact on other formats, so I'm sceptical it will make a remarkable difference for Nintendo. I think people will notice the huge difference in fidelity between other consoles and Nintendo's el cheapo NX (which probably isn't going to be all that cheap either), and they'll want to buy the more powerful system. Also - games availability. Again.

If your console can't comfortably run the big, verrry expensive main franchises as they are, 3rd parties aren't going to bother spending further resources re-making an already expensive game into running on a niche platform. And bad - or almost no - 3rd party support gives poor software availability, which also makes people not want to buy the NX. And then there's online multiplayer, networking and social features. Miiverse is cool and all, but it's limited in appeal. It can't be the full extent of the platform's social features, not when competitors offer so much more, including realtime streaming of other players and whatnot.

 

[orangpelupa]

yeah, too weak HW can make developer need to give more effort for porting stuff to Wii3. With its late release, it will be nice for it to be more powerful and easy to port stuff to.

even more awesome, if games ported to Wii3 automatically works on Wii3handheld unit with lower quality (same os API, etc, no need to recode stuff, just adding lower quality presets).

 

[MrFox]

If Nintendo makes powerful console next gen, they will finally have realistic visuals in Mario games !

no wait... this is freaking me out.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't see what the power of a platform has to do with realistic and expensive asset creation.
Just because NX might be more powerful than the ps4 (as an example) doesn't mean that Mario Kart needs to mutate in a Need for Speed realistic racer.
What it does guarantee is that it will run perfectly, with more effects here and there and all the IQ bells and whistles we should expect. No need to spend excessively on 'realistic' assets.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yep. But Nintendo for some reason hasn't seen it that way. I don't know if they just feel competition with big-spender third parties would make their games look simple or not. As we all know though, good art is all a game needs. Good art with decent IQ is IMO more important than state-of-the-art pixel pushing couple with shimmers and low framerates.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't see what the power of a platform has to do with realistic and expensive asset creation. Just because NX might be more powerful than the ps4 (as an example) doesn't mean that Mario Kart needs to mutate in a Need for Speed realistic racer.

Exactly. As somebody who still writes a fair amount of code I don't think I've ever expressed the view that the current problem would be easier to solve if we didn't have all this computational power. Artificially limiting your hardware means there will be gameplay mechanics that will be very hard or even impossible. How is this good for devs or customers?

Nintendo: We can out-crazy Ken Kutaragi.

 

[AlNom]

I don't think there is much sense in targeting beyond PS4 as the amount of GPU grunt needed to produce tangible differences isn't worth the cost with just one major node transition (wrt power & density).

Architectural improvements - sure, but I'm not expecting a leap otherwise.

A super-clocked XO-level of silicon would be cute.

 

[Esrever]

Maybe nintendo will have voxel rendering

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know that there's a hardware solution to voxel rendering. It's also fraught with issues. Far, far more sensible to use conventional programmable graphics hardware that devs can use however they choose, including using the existing triangle-based asset creation tools.

 

[Cjail]

Artificially limiting your hardware means there will be gameplay mechanics that will be very hard or even impossible. How is this good for devs or customers?

What do you mean with "artificially"?
Economically, technologically, physically there will be always be point where we/they can't or won't go.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yep. But Nintendo for some reason hasn't seen it that way. I don't know if they just feel competition with big-spender third parties would make their games look simple or not.

Shifty, it's really not that as it doesn't even make sense from a developer's POV. More powerful hardware always means less effort to achieve a certain objective. Do you think all the dozens of 2D/3D Indie platformers coming out every day are super optimized for the hardware in the XBone or the PS4? As long as it does 60FPS at the target resolution, who cares if the engine is doing lots of redundant cycles, occupying excessive/useless amounts of memory or using inadequate instructions?

They put terrible hardware in the Wii and Wii U because equipping the console with cheap components means higher margins when selling them to the public.
It worked well for the Wii because of the waggle phenomenon and they thought they'd get away with the same for the Wii U.

Now of course they would never come out in public and say "we put bad hardware in the consoles in order to make more money from them", as if implicitly telling the customers "we're giving you less bang for the buck with our console than our competitors as far as hardware goes".
No company would say something like that in public.

As we all know though, good art is all a game needs. Good art with decent IQ is IMO more important than state-of-the-art pixel pushing couple with shimmers and low framerates.

And Nintendo knows that as well. They know Mario Kart owes nothing to Need for Speed, and Mario owes nothing to Tomb Raider. Which is why those are really bad excuses.

I don't think there is much sense in targeting beyond PS4 as the amount of GPU grunt needed to produce tangible differences isn't worth the cost with just one major node transition (wrt power & density).

Well the PS4 is already struggling to do 1080p in many titles and for VR they will really have to cut back on IQ. Targeting for PS4 visuals that can be done in actual 1080p wouldn't be all that bad. Say 22 CUs instead of 18, for example.

 

[AlNom]

They might be better off with higher clocks there since it affects everything else in the pipeline, not just shaders.

edit: Just to be clear, I was talking more in the context of silicon/die area wrt cost/target.

 

[Cjail]

IMO NX is doomed to be a mid-gen console.
Even if it will better, even if it will e more powerful PS5, and Xbox Twogether (see what I did there) will be better.
PS4 will have sold 50 mil by the time NX comes out so good luck beating it anyway.

 

[BRiT]

And there is always the online software experience which I'm convinced Nintendo has no chance to get even remotely right.

 

[Grall]

IMO NX is doomed to be a mid-gen console.

This is a valid concern. Thus, we could assume NX is purposefully designed to have a relatively short lifespan, and designed to be forwards compatible with a new "NXX" (to be follwed by NXXX, which will get a permanent "R" rating). This, because NX will be combined home and portable console, and Nintendo portables are traditionally forwards compatible. GBA ran GB games. DS ran GBA games. DSi obviously ran DS games, as does the 3DS as well I believe.

So we can expect the sequel to NX to also run NX games.

Assuming there will ever be a NX sequel.

 

[Goodtwin]

IMO NX is doomed to be a mid-gen console.
Even if it will better, even if it will e more powerful PS5, and Xbox Twogether (see what I did there) will be better.
PS4 will have sold 50 mil by the time NX comes out so good luck beating it anyway.

This isn't how business works, gamers like to pretend this is a winner take all situation when its not. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Nintendo isn't targeting a much lower install base than in the past. They could be have a target of 35-50 million units, and be very profitable in doing so. Nintendo is expected to post profits again this quarter, so having big numbers of hardware sales doesn't really mean big profits. Even though I expect PS4/X1 to only have a 5-7 year run before being replaced, there is still traditionally a carry over for a year or two, so even though NX would be mid gen, it should still have a 5 year cycle before being dropped by third parties. Assuming that adequate hardware brings third parties back.

 

[Rodéric]

I'm not even sure what third parties are waiting for honestly, just copy/pasting their existing games on one more target ?
Or do they, at this point, think Nintendo clients won't purchase their titles... Are Nintendo games so much higher quality that Nintendo clients will likely not purchase non Nintendo titles ?

Anyway, if NX is a continuation of the Wii/U & NGC+GBA interconnect, that ought to be interesting.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm not even sure what third parties are waiting for honestly, just copy/pasting their existing games on one more target ?

Yes if that target is millions of customers. It means low porting costs for a significant percentage increased sales (where the new console is a significant percentage of the market). If that's not an option, the third party cross-play games won't come, so no COD or FIFA or GTA or Assassin's Creed or Tom Clancy or Elder Scrolls etc. And without these, the new console has limited appeal to only Nintendo fans who aren't interested in other games or those who are willing to own two consoles. If Nintendo want to be as significant as they were in the (S)NES days, they need third parties and the full library of games.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

And there is always the online software experience which I'm convinced Nintendo has no chance to get even remotely right.

Nintendo doesn't, but DeNA might have that chance...