Nintendo GOing Forward.
- Thread starter Wynix
- Start date
Is the mobile market being so vast not diverse enough to support a niche of users who would value premium games over the garbage that's currently available? Why is the consumer confidence for premium game software low? Is it because there's a dearth of premium games on the market?
I think Nintendo games would be a great fit for the mobile market and if they went the F2P route it would be disastrous. I see little reason why they wouldn't be able to carve themselves up a sizable niche in the mobile space. What exactly is it going to cost them to acquire users? Maybe it will cost the development of a game or three to test the waters. They could release a game with one of their main franchises to attract people's attention. If it ends up being good then it could attract a few million in sales. I don't see this as being unachievable given the sheer vastness of the mobile market. If it was Pokemon and good then it would sell millions.
Well this is interesting: http://www.vgleaks.com/nintendo-registers-eye-tracking-enabling-3d-viewing-conventional-2d-display/
Have to get my patent rant out the way first...
Putting that to one side, it appears that they aren't patenting a solution for eye-tracking, and so it's difficult to say what they're intentions are. Similar already exists on iPad here.
Without a differentiating technology, I don't see how they could defend any USP. About all it shows is they aren't chasing VR at the moment, I guess.
WTF?! What a load of bollocks. Not only for patent-speak madness, but the fact that they are claiming 'tracking a part of a person and updating the screen accordingly' when this dude showcased exactly that with Wii in 2007. It's effin ridiculous that this patent be allowed.
FFS! What has the industry been doing for years?!! As if head-tracking based cameras aren't already a Real Thing. It's a completely arbitrary patent with zero technological basis. There is no emoticon of sufficient vehemence to reflect my true reaction to this.Patent said:
Putting that to one side, it appears that they aren't patenting a solution for eye-tracking, and so it's difficult to say what they're intentions are. Similar already exists on iPad here.
I bet it's already been patented by the likes of Sony, Samsung, Sharp etc.
Nintendon't patent fast enough.
Fourth Storm
Newcomer
One thing I was just thinking of: If Nintendo were to stick with a PPC750 variant in their next console/handheld would that not limit them to 4GB of RAM due to 32-bit address space limits?
Hrm, does PPC750 have any sort of PAE ? That would be it's own hell and don't think the developers would like that.
Fourth Storm
Newcomer
Not that I know of. Since Nintendo seem hellbent on having their next console "absorb the Wii U architecture," some tinkering with the MMU might be in order. That is if they have any hope of getting PS4/Xbox One ports. If they go with less, they will be falling even farther behind than they did with Wii, which at least had more RAM than the previous generations RAM champ, Xbox. Furthermore, I do not see how they plan on carrying the architecture into the future, as Iwata indicated, without some major customizations. Perhaps they can throw AltiVec on there while they're messing with stuff.
On the plus side, Takeda has indicated a gradual shift to a more standard IDE, which I'm assuming means better Visual Studio support. We'll see how it goes...
Trading up to 64-bit CPU shouldn't be too big a deal, normally, if Nintendo hadn't been Nintendo. There's the issue with the dual-issue FPU instructions added to gekko, which has carried over to every subsequent console... Right there's the problem with hanging on to obsolete old hardware for too long!
Just been reminded of Amazon's phone.
http://mashable.com/2014/06/18/amazon-fire-phone-3d-dynamic-perspective/
Head-tracking perspective patents date back to 2008 and they have a product on the shelves using it.
Here is some interesting quotes from AMD.
An APU consisting of ARM CPU + GCN2.0 GPU? I'll stop my speculating here otherwise it will go out of control.
Bonus info:
Perhaps one of these design wins will be for the next generation of Nintendo hardware.
An APU consisting of ARM CPU + GCN2.0 GPU? I'll stop my speculating here otherwise it will go out of control.
Bonus info:
Also recently I read a rumour saying shield 2 will be revealed on 22nd July.
edit - beaten by Wynix
I think that AMD is perfect choice for future Nintendo hardware, with great ability to craft any type of APU [ARM+Radeon, or even maybe X86+Radeon, all possible power envelopes]. Nintendo wanted to create ecosystem where game porting between home and portables will be easier. They cant do that while their home consoles are still running on ancient PowerPC.
I think that AMD is perfect choice for future Nintendo hardware, with great ability to craft any type of APU [ARM+Radeon, or even maybe X86+Radeon, all possible power envelopes]. Nintendo wanted to create ecosystem where game porting between home and portables will be easier. They cant do that while their home consoles are still running on ancient PowerPC.
Surely AMD would want a platform that can help get them into handsets? So an AMD ARM+whatever for handheld console would represent a good venture for AMD a a precursor to getting into phones/tablets, unlike nVidia who's trying to go it alone and hasn't enough clout in the handheld space to make anything of their hardware.
That said, I still don't see people buying a new Nintendo handheld these days. 3DS can do it for library and cheapness, but a new full-price handheld when the handheld market is shrinking seems quite the gamble. Going by Wiki sales, sales of 3DS have been declining YoY since launch (figures in millions):
Y1 15.03
Y2 14.81
Y3 12.9
And if we compare Y4's first Q sales against other years...
Y1 1.23
Y2 2.1
Y3 1.25
Y4 0.59
That's including things like the 2DS. Given the price reduction of 3DS so early, it looks like $170 is about the limit for whatever hardware they might choose.
Actually, I think a Nintendo mobile phone/game device might actually be their best option. Include Android so the Japanese can play all their click-fest games, and an SD card for Nintendo games. One could argue that allowing access to Android undermines Nintendo's sales of software, but surely it's better to have people use those games on a Nintendo handset and add the occasional Nintendo game rather than play an Android phone and not both with a Nintendo at all.
They need something to either complement or substitute the mobile if they want to remain in hardware.
That said, I still don't see people buying a new Nintendo handheld these days. 3DS can do it for library and cheapness, but a new full-price handheld when the handheld market is shrinking seems quite the gamble. Going by Wiki sales, sales of 3DS have been declining YoY since launch (figures in millions):
Y1 15.03
Y2 14.81
Y3 12.9
And if we compare Y4's first Q sales against other years...
Y1 1.23
Y2 2.1
Y3 1.25
Y4 0.59
That's including things like the 2DS. Given the price reduction of 3DS so early, it looks like $170 is about the limit for whatever hardware they might choose.
Actually, I think a Nintendo mobile phone/game device might actually be their best option. Include Android so the Japanese can play all their click-fest games, and an SD card for Nintendo games. One could argue that allowing access to Android undermines Nintendo's sales of software, but surely it's better to have people use those games on a Nintendo handset and add the occasional Nintendo game rather than play an Android phone and not both with a Nintendo at all.
They need something to either complement or substitute the mobile if they want to remain in hardware.
Megadrive1988
Veteran
Nintendo's next handheld powered by semi-custom AMD graphics, rather than another PICA GPU from DMP?
Fully programmable shaders this time?
Dunno exactly what AMD & Nintendo are cookin', but sure smells good
Fully programmable shaders this time?
Dunno exactly what AMD & Nintendo are cookin', but sure smells good
on their roadmap, Nintendo says that they will unify the handheld and home console design to make games easily available on both of them.
so if they change to AMD for both, this will be the 1st time nintendo dropping full/partial hardware BC together on both home and portable.
so if they change to AMD for both, this will be the 1st time nintendo dropping full/partial hardware BC together on both home and portable.
Nintendo already used emulation: for the virtual console.
Changing to AMD/x86 would still leave a possibility for near perfect Wii/Wii-U emulation, as even hobbyist developed Wii emulators run with about full compatibility, on pretty standard hardware. Nintendo can 1up them probably
Only problem could be the Wii-U as it's basically 3 Wii processors taped together, running at a higher clock speed.Well, AMD can always create APUs that have BC modules inside of them if Nintendo requests it. For example, 3DS successor can have 3DS GPU embedded on the chip.
Fourth Storm
Newcomer
Nintendo already used emulation: for the virtual console.
Changing to AMD/x86 would still leave a possibility for near perfect Wii/Wii-U emulation, as even hobbyist developed Wii emulators run with about full compatibility, on pretty standard hardware. Nintendo can 1up them probably
I don't think emulation of the Wii U's CPU will be that easy. AFAIK, Dolphin requires a CPU with pretty high single-threaded performance. For Espresso, the requirements would be even higher, and I doubt that (if Nintendo do switch from PPC) the CPU core they choose will be that capable. Also, do not downplay the work of the Dolphin project community. They've done an amazing job whereas Nintendo's internal emulation team cannot even seem to get Star Fox or Yoshi's Island SNES running on VC.
Thinking more about it, I don't think traditional BC is a worthy endeavor for Nintendo's next home console. They would either have to include a Gamepad or require users to purchase it separately (or the handheld if they went that route). Any way you slice it, you're reducing the amount of users who benefit from such a costly feature. A better idea would just get VC games to carry over and perhaps tweak and recompile some of the Wii U software (there won't be much - let's face it) to run on the different architecture. Offer the Wii U games as downloads and for a small upgrade fee (or better yet, free) if you already own the game on Wii U.
Unless, of course they sell a home console that's a kind of hub and steroid boost for a 3DS successor, in which case you'd have everything required anyway...
I agree about that, your licence should carry on, you bought the title you should be able to benefit from it whichever machine you run it on, like a PC game...
Benefits for end-users would be huge, plenty of back catalog to play with if games dry up at any period, a lot of different kind of games... Huge benefit.
(I like to play Chrono Trigger for exemple, it's a great game and I find it better than many "modern" games...)
I think I'd love a HUB like home console streaming HQ frames to my handheld pad, and I could either play a different version of the game on the go, or the same (with lower image quality)... (And the other way around, play handheld games HQ on the HUB, the whole idea being to broaden the genres available. I loved to play Minish Cap almost as much as I loved playing Ocarina of Time...)
(And a modern Handheld could have a High Quality 720p 3D screen.)
We are quite close to that setup on the Wii U already...
