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Its hard to be overly critically of a product that had enormous success. Was Microsoft and Sony idiots for not having hardware that could play games like Wii Sports back in 2006? No, they were simply offering very different products. You cant slight one for everything its missing, and then dismiss all its acheivements that made it a success. The price point Nintendo wanted was $249, and I severely doubt a $399 Wii with better hardware would have sold 100 million units. Heck, the PS3 and 360 still haven't been able to match Wii's sales, and have seen solid support for nearly 4 years longer than Wii did. So I think its safe to say Nintendo made smart choices on the Wii hardware. Its apparently exactly what the mass market wanted. Was it what the core gamer market wanted? Probably not, but they have Sony and Microsoft catering to them, so why have a third manufacture doing the same thing? I suppose some people want purchasing a console to be like purchasing a Blu-Ray player, doesn't matter which manufacture you choose, they all do the exact same thing.
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Deleted member 11852
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If you've living in the moment the Wii made sense. But if you exist in a generational product market intended to appeal to each successive generation where brand and repurchasing is key then I think it's clear that Nintendo dropped the ball.
My aunt, who has never before nor since expressed any interest in videogames, bought a Wii. Because it was a form of fun exercise. She never bought any games for it, just the basic package with Wii Sports. I recall she was pondering getting the Balance Board but she never did. My admittedly anecdotal experience is that this is why the Wii sold so well: a fun variation of exercise for a certain clientele. Just look at Wii hardware sales vs. software sales relative to 360 and PS3 software sales.
For how many über occasional Wii owners that Nintendo gained, how many real gamers (who would buy multiple games resulting in real profit) did Nintendo lose? Their hardware choices made it difficult for developers to support the platform thereby reducing the appeal of the platform to those (like me) who liked Nintendo games but couldn't justify the cost for just Nintendo games.
Games are largely a commoditised market no matter how much this may surprise (or sadden) Nintendo. I couldn't imagine existing in a single console ecosystem. Fortunately my neighbour has an Xbox One which makes it easier for me. The bleak truth is I can't see me ever buying another Nintendo hardware platform.
If they hadn't bothered with BC, they could have provided considerably more graphical power at little more cost. We had long discussions on this at the time. Wii was shockingly underspecced - not just 'conservative' or 'efficiently targeting a lower a power envelope'. Where the convention is an order of magnitude advance each generation, Wii wasn't even a two-fold increase on the previous generation. And by going that route, they limited their offerings considerable to a throw-away niche. That Wii was a massively popular and economically successful product is not in question. It's the use of Wii as an example that specs don't matter that's being challenged, because they do. Only if you have a suitably potent 'gimmick'/feature that trumps the benefits that naturally come with more power can you afford to spec lower, and those gimmicks/features are few and far between.
That's the the classic line of reasoning behind most business faliures. Thinking too much from the perspective of the company, and forgeting to think from the perspective of the consumer.
Instead of whining that multiplats take away valume from your platform, find ways to add value to it yourself. That's what nintendo did with their exclusive games, and wii mote on the wii gen. But when they make it hard for thirds to publish their multiplats, they are not adding any value, they are reducing it instead. With Wuu, they took more value out of it than they managed to add. How were they surprised the thing did not succed?
east of eastside
Newcomer
Third-party AAA is irrelevant to Nintendo, the third-party support that Nintendo cares about are the ones supporting 3DS. NextDS third-party software compatible with the NX is Nintendo's concern as it creates its own little portable/console, walled, Nintendo garden niche.
Nintendo will never compete head-to-head with Microsoft and Sony.
NX success will draw more AAA ports than what Wii U got but it won't even be a secondary focus of Nintendo's strategy.
Nintendo will never compete head-to-head with Microsoft and Sony.
NX success will draw more AAA ports than what Wii U got but it won't even be a secondary focus of Nintendo's strategy.
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Deleted member 11852
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Unless this thing is über easy to develop for, i.e. PS4/XBO ports take a small team a few weeks, I can't see Activision, EA or Ubisoft looking at it until it sells a metric ton of units. And I don't see it selling a metric ton of units with just Nintendo pushing it. I can't see how they break this chicken and egg scenario.
Goes to show why Nintendo is lagging other consoles. Third party pubs are in business of selling games not in the business of making a console manufacturer's platform extra special. It makes no sense to think third party pubs should limit their consumer base to help a platform expand its userbase unless compensated for doing so.
Its no wonder Sony and MS have out maneuvered Nintendo in the console space.
PS4 should be a lesson to Nintendo. Create a reasonably powerful console, with a standard controller and a large line up of third party / indie games at a reasonable price and you have a hit on your hands.
Exclusive games don't really matter anymore, people do like them but having all the third party content available is far more important to most people esp the more casual gaming audience who loves CoD, Assassin's Creed, WWE and Fifa / Madden.
I really hope Nintendo create an x86 based platform (to encourage third parties to at least make ports for it). My ideal specs -
AMD APU.
8 Core CPU @ 2GHz.
2 TFLOP GPU.
16GB's of GDDR5 RAM.
500GB HDD.
Standard WiiU Pro controller with improvements like analogue triggers.
$299 at launch in November 2016.
The high RAM amount is the most important part of those specs because going with 16 instead of 8 means 'down ports' will be possible when PS5 and XB4 arrive in late 2019 / 2020. Engines can always be scaled down for the slower CPU / GPU.
Exclusive games don't really matter anymore, people do like them but having all the third party content available is far more important to most people esp the more casual gaming audience who loves CoD, Assassin's Creed, WWE and Fifa / Madden.
I really hope Nintendo create an x86 based platform (to encourage third parties to at least make ports for it). My ideal specs -
AMD APU.
8 Core CPU @ 2GHz.
2 TFLOP GPU.
16GB's of GDDR5 RAM.
500GB HDD.
Standard WiiU Pro controller with improvements like analogue triggers.
$299 at launch in November 2016.
The high RAM amount is the most important part of those specs because going with 16 instead of 8 means 'down ports' will be possible when PS5 and XB4 arrive in late 2019 / 2020. Engines can always be scaled down for the slower CPU / GPU.
east of eastside
Newcomer
Nintendo lost third-party support with N64. Mainstream third-party support hasn't mattered to Nintendo since then. Read a Next Gen magazine interview of NCL senior execs from the late 90's, their go-it-alone strategy is fully explained there. Nintendo software dominates Nintendo hardware, and that's what their business is.
The only third-party that Nintendo cares about is stuff like Sonic and Monster Hunter that caters to Nintendo's core audience and compliments their own software. AAA third-party is Microsoft and Sony's market/audience and Nintendo will never compete head to head with them for that market again.
NX can succeed positioned as a must have, nostalgia box/family Entertainment, low cost, 2nd console.
The only third-party that Nintendo cares about is stuff like Sonic and Monster Hunter that caters to Nintendo's core audience and compliments their own software. AAA third-party is Microsoft and Sony's market/audience and Nintendo will never compete head to head with them for that market again.
NX can succeed positioned as a must have, nostalgia box/family Entertainment, low cost, 2nd console.
Well, exclusive games matter a lot and always will. If you could only play Gran Turismo on the PlayStation, wouldn't you feel jealous of PS owners and would want to buy one?
Nintendo are doing a great job offering unique experiences you can't find anywhere else. Their problem is that their style got out of fashion, and only our traditionalist hearts love Nintendo for what they have been, but development changed and they should open the door to 3rd party developers.
Ideally, you could play AC, CoD for your Call-of-Dutier son,
(I'd rather than having a Call of Dutier son) and so on, on a Nintendo console, plus their unique software.
Rikimaru
Veteran
Specs and price contradict each other.
Nintendo can not make a console more powerful and cheaper than PS4 until 14nm and stacked RAM and new flash memory with great cell longevity will be available and cheap.
Well, by 2017 the cost per transistor of Samsung/GF 14nm FF will be lower than TSMC 28nm was in 2013 by a good margin. Also, with HBM there are both costs and savings. In the timeframe we are talking about I can't see there being a significant penalty vs. a 256-bit external bus to GDDR5 mounted on a PCB. It would perform better though in terms of bandwidth and power draw, because of intrinsic properties and better lithographic processes. That applies to the APU itself as well. AMD spending the same transistor budget on S/GF 14nm in 2017, will yield better performance than they could achieve with TSMC 28nm in 2013.
This is all completely academic though, since we neither know if Nintendo intends to produce a stationary console at all, nor what power budget they would allow it, nor the cost of hardware they would accept. We could fill page after page with speculated specs, each spec sheet followed by pages of derisive comment on the hypothetical console.
Rikimaru
Veteran
Even Intel had problems with 14nm not a long ago. Post 28nm is much more troublesome than previous shrinks. Also 256 bus is costly. Cerny even talked about GDDR5 128bus+EDRAM. nvidia cheaped out on 960 bus.Well, by 2017 the cost per transistor of Samsung/GF 14nm FF will be lower than TSMC 28nm was in 2013 by a good margin. Also, with HBM there are both costs and savings. In the timeframe we are talking about I can't see there being a significant penalty vs. a 256-bit external bus to GDDR5 mounted on a PCB. It would perform better though in terms of bandwidth and power draw, because of intrinsic properties and better lithographic processes. That applies to the APU itself as well. AMD spending the same transistor budget on S/GF 14nm in 2017, will yield better performance than they could achieve with TSMC 28nm in 2013.
This is all completely academic though, since we neither know if Nintendo intends to produce a stationary console at all, nor what power budget they would allow it, nor the cost of hardware they would accept. We could fill page after page with speculated specs, each spec sheet followed by pages of derisive comment on the hypothetical console.
HBM has much more bandwidthand takes up a lot less die area. GDDR5 is at the end of the road.
nvidia even promised 32GB Pascal GPU next year (but it's nvidia though, price will be high)
The yield issues that Intel had with 14nm does not transfer to TSMC or Samsung. Intel transitioned to FinFet already at 22nm, and although they have been tweaking their FinFet structure for this second generation, they have made major changes to other parts of their lithographic process and adding complexity the others had already faced.
TSMC and Samsung on the other hand, largely adds FinFet transistors to a process that is mostly similar to their 20nm planar processes, and they have been working on their FinFets in parallel to the 20nm process. Thus, they will not enjoy the density scaling from 20 to 16/14nm that intel did when going from 22 to 14, but on the other hand the issues they face are less complex. And the transition from 20nm to what they call 16/14nm is also "quicker" from 20nm because, well, not all that much has changed. (you could also uncharitably regard it as a really slow transition from 28nm). Both Samsung and TSMC are well underway with their 10nm processes which are rather substantial "full node" steps from their 16/14nm processes, and are projected to reach volume production around the end of 2016/start of 2017.
Samsung is already in volume production at 14nmFF and TSMC is expected to be so in July.
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I don't see why they couldn't use a Carrizo based APU for the same price as the PS4 APU with significantly enhanced performance. The Puma+ cores and GCN1.2/1.3 architecture should easily outperform the PS4 even if it only came with 8 CPU and 18 GPU cores. Then account for the fact that other components will have come down in price since the PS4 launched (memory and HDD being the two big ones) and it would probably be possible to sell such a console for a little less than the PS4's current selling price.
east of eastside
Newcomer
The Marconix mask roms made a huge jump in capacity of 8x or 16x from DS to 3DS having an 8GB max capacity. A similar leap from 3DS to NextDS could make 64 or 128GB cartridges possible and also serve as the optical disc replacement for NX. Forgoing an optical disc drive and having a smaller PSU and overall case design could be another key cost advantage NX would have over PS4/X1 while still maintaining power parity.
Cartridge-based (and digital) may sound unlikely, but, after all, Iwata said this was a "brand new concept" and fits with a console/portable fusion strategy.
Cartridge-based (and digital) may sound unlikely, but, after all, Iwata said this was a "brand new concept" and fits with a console/portable fusion strategy.
Rikimaru
Veteran
It won't significantly outperform PS4. Some game companies even make parity with xbone.
And it will be more expensive. Sony gets semiconductors not only for PS4. For example earlier PS4 had almost identical laser to PS3 Super Slim. Also they know how to make a deal.
They say Sony helped Samsung to make 4Gbit GDDR5, maybe a discount here too.
PS4 is very cost effective. It does not have any unnecessary components. Look at PS4 and xbone teardown. PS4 is 1 solid frame with everything out perfectly.
No. ROMs will be always more expensive than discs at similar capacity. And at 25-50GB significantly more.
Also most big 3DS cartridges are NAND flash.
The colour compression tech in GCN1.2 alone should give around 40% more effective memory bandwidth compared to the PS4. That's a significant improvement. CPU performance is also a weak spot for the PS4 so much higher clocked Puma+ cores would have a big effect.
It would definitely be notably faster than the PS4. As to the cost, the APU itself should be similarly priced to the PS4's APU, I couldn't speak to the other components but I see no reason why it couldn't be priced at the same level as the PS4.
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