That being said, if the NX sells decently at launch, third parties will make games for it. Even if means hurting the potential of the XBO/PS4 version.
3rd party developers are not going to be as likely to make games for a console that requires additional work. In this case, doing any other instruction set besides x86 means a lot more work than porting x86 games from PC/PS4/XB1. Why in the world would Nintendo want to do that? What advantage would the ARM SoC provide over x86 CPU? I guess to play NX handheld games on the NX home console?
MS btw is pretty close to giving up on the XBone, so it seems pretty unlikely you will see another console from them.
Source?
"Xbox One is the most important gaming product at MS. Team Xbox is 100% committed to making it our best console generation ever.
12:46 AM - 25 Oct 2015
Asked whether there will be another generation for Microsoft’s consoles or not, Spencer’s answer was definitely positive: "@captaingamepad I fully expect there will be."
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/10...talks-about-new-xbox-one-experience-and-more/
Xbox One is crushing Xbox 360 sales. Just because PS4 is outselling XB1 doesn't mean XB1 is not the most successful Xbox console ever up to now.
I'll bet
anyone on this forum that there will be a successor to the Xbox One. The winner gets a brand new $700 flagship generation GPU in the year the successor of Xbox One comes out.
You know that AMD can make ARM chips too, right? They had a 20nm A57 + GCN tablet chip designed and ready as part of Project Skybridge, which got cancelled due to GloFo's failure to deliver (again). That means that the hard work of getting ARM IP and AMD IP to play together nicely is done.
There's no reason why they couldn't get a PS4 level APU, but with the Jaguar cores swapped out for A57/72.
1) So then you expect this PS4 level APU with ARM CPU cores to be made on 14nm/16nm node then?
Nintendo
is already sending out NX development kits. So how do you expect that NX would have 14nm/16nm APUs with ARM cores when no such products even exist as of right now?
2) What advantage would Nintendo gain by going with ARM CPU cores + GCN over X86 CPU cores + GCN?
If ARM CPU cores were superior to x86 CPU cores, why didn't MS/Sony utilize them? You state that AMD couldn't get ARM APU on 28nm nor on 20nm, so how are they going to do it for the NX?
3) Did you guys know that existing consoles already use ARM as secondary/supporting CPUs for background tasks?
Wii U:
"The
Latte chip also includes a secondary custom ARM9 processor with 96 KB of SRAM memory that handles system tasks in the background during gameplay or while the system is in sleep mode, and dedicated hardware audio DSP module.[76]"
PS4:
"PS4 includes a
secondary ARM processor (with separate 256 MiB of RAM) to assist with background functions and OS features.[40]"
But why is it that the ARM is a secondary not the primary processor? It's because it's not good enough to be the primary, that's why.
Lack of GPU power has nothing to do with the CPU design. Nintendo could ask AMD or NVidia to build a 300mm ARM APU with more GPU power than the PS4. Depending on the core design a ARM CPU will not be slower than the PS4/Xbox One CPU.
That's not the point I am making at all. Read my responses above in this post. You state that an ARM CPU design would not be slower than an x86 CPU design based on what basis? When was the last time AMD has successfully manufactured a good ARM CPU core? When does AMD plan to introduce its ARM cores/APUs? 2017, not 2016:
"dvanced Micro Devices on Wednesday said that it will delay high-volume shipments of microprocessors powered by i
ts custom ARMv8-compatible “K12” cores to 2017. The company did not reveal any reasons behind the postponement.
AMD’s “K12” core is the company’s first 64-bit ARMv8-A-compatible microprocessor engine designed entirely in-house. Development of the core is led by Jim Keller, who also heads development of “Zen” micro-architecture.
http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...introduction-of-k12-based-processors-to-2017/
x86 doesn't lead to seamless cross-platform ports. The 3 consoles still use different graphics APIs. You have to build a seperated render path for all of them no matter if x86, ARM or PowerPC. If cross platform ports would be easy on x86 we would see more Linux games.
Nintendo choosing AMD for the second time goes beyond AMD’s traditional strong points with APUs. It allows all the developers that worked on games for the PC, PS4 and XBOX ONE to carry over their experiences to the Nintendo NX home console (not NX handheld) without having to go through another the hurdle of working on a different architecture like IBM’s PowerPC/ARM.
Therefore, I disagree with your point. X86 leads to the most seamless cross-platform ports compared to any other solution Nintendo can choose. The only way for your statement to be true is if cross-platform ports of x86 PC/PS4/XB1 games would not be any harder/more costly to perform than to perform than same task onto an x86 AMD-powered AMD APU. There is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, the opposite is true as we've seen with Ouya and NV's Shield / TV that x86 game ports to ARM isn't as favourable.
And I don't see why Nintendo need cross-platform ports. There are already 40 million consoles out there which can play the latest Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, Fifa etc. Nintendo will not get people to buy their console with cross-platform ports.
Nintendo will not get the mass market to buy their console without cross-platform ports either. But here is a better question, why design a console from the get go that makes things more complicated? What does the NX stand to gain to have an ARM Soc or ARM + GCN over an x86 APU + ARM Secondary processor - the exact strategy utilized by PS4 with its integration with the PS Vita?
They need a strong exclusive line up and Nintendo's relations to third parties are good enough for this. Most major publishers are willing to develop games for Nintendo consoles if they see the opportunity for good sales figures
Good sales figures do not come from thin air. Do you think when Nintendo was making "lessons learned" documentation on the Wii U and they reached out to 3rd parties, they didn't ask them what Nintendo did wrong with the Wii U and what 3rd parties would like to see from the NX to fix things?
So let's see these developers are making PC/XB1/PS4 games. Why would they recommend Nintendo to make an ARM SoC powered NX home console when all 3 primary platforms they make games for are x86? Look at the abysmal level of PC-cross-platform software support available for Android gaming (ARM) and NV's Shield TV? That should already tell you that porting x86 games to ARM SoCs is not as seamless as a situation if the NX had an x86 APU similar to the ones found in XB1/PS4.
Another way to look at it is name 1 successful home console that's powered by an ARM SoC? There is no such console. NV's Shield TV has failed to capture console gamers despite having cutting edge ARM SoC and an extremely attractive price.
One more point, an x86 APU would have more horsepower to provide emulated backwards compatibility to older Wii U games which can be achieved by a significant performance jump that the new x86 APU is bound to bring. MS has already shown that it's possible to achieve this goal with Xbox 360 -> XB1 emulation. Can you perform this task with an ARM SoC?
You're assuming that Nintendo cares about third-party ports at this point. That ship has sailed. Being able to share games between the console and handheld is more important for them. Thinkb of the NX handheld as the iPhone and the NX console as the iPad. That's the kind of set-up they're going for. It needs to be easy to port games between them, so the need to have the same hardware architecture and OS. I know that you think that the NX is just a console, but it's not. It's a platform encompassing a handheld unit and a home unit (though the units are separate and it's not just a handheld with a dock for home use like some people here think).
I actually don't. I think there will be distinct NX devices, such as the home console and the NX portable/handheld. But let's look at what you are assuming:
- You are assuming that Nintendo has
completely given up on 3rd party support. In that case, there is even more reason for them to not have abandoned the Wii U so quickly
- You are assuming a primary x86 APU with a secondary ARM supporting SoC is not a better / viable option
- You are assuming the NX home console may require/is better off with an ARM SoC vs. an x86 APU when PS4 integrated easily with PS Vita. So why would we assume that it's better to have an ARM SoC as the primary backbone of the home console over an x86 APU that's been proven to be extremely successful for XB1/PS4?
I am willing to entertain the idea of an ARM CPU + GCN GPU but I won't accept that the NX will be solely powered by an ARM SoC. There is no ARM SoC powerful enough to have any shot of even matching the XB1 in 2016, and for sure not any such product from AMD. However, it would be more even more effective to go just go X86 APU + secondary ARM (aka PS4's approach).
What I said is true. If you believe otherwise you haven't been paying attention. Again, I'll use the analogy: NX handheld is to NX console what iPhone is to iPad.
This is where we have the disagreement. Your analogy suggests the NX handheld and NX home console are both portable devices then (iphone and iPad are, which is the only way your analogy would work). I think the NX handheld and NX home console are going to be more like PS Vita + PS4, respectively. In other words, the NX handheld + NX home will form the NX eco-system. The question is what's better, ARM CPU cores + GCN or x86 APU + ARM cores as secondary (the PS4 approach)?
@RS I wouldn't count arm out. There is plenty of knowledge and experience with the isa -ask exophase and he could expound on such a topic. Not to mention that arm currently has cores with higher ipc than anything amd has released so far. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have 16nm ff macros for chip designer to just run with. Also you under estimate what a company like imagination could pull together in terms of a gpu. Let's not forget nvidia, I don't know if they have a semicustom (or what ever parlance) division but they have the IP and talent to pull off an arm based console chip.
Fair enough. The thing is when was the last time AMD designed a good ARM core/SoC? Never. Based on what I provided earlier, K12 isn't even slated until 2017. So what ARM CPU core is AMD going to provide Nintendo with? Off-the-shelf cookie-cutter version?
Look at what we had in ARM SoC land in 2013:
Samsung S4 Option 1:
Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800, Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400
Samsung S4 Option 2:
Exynos 5 Octa 5410, Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
Why didn't MS/Sony just ask AMD to use off-the-shelf ARM designs for the CPU component and add GCN for the graphics back in 2013?
Look at this:
E8870MXM and E8870PCIe
12 Compute Units; 1.5 TFLOPS single precision (Peak)
4GB GDDR5 Memory; 128-bit wide
< 75W Thermal Design Power
Dual HD decode of H.264, VC-1, MPEG-4 and MPEG-2
AMD Eyefinity technology for up to 6 display outputs
Support for DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, and OpenCL 2.0
http://www.techpowerup.com/216403/amd-expands-embedded-graphics-lineup.html
Nintendo can up the memory from 4GB to 8GB GDDR5 and play around with clock speeds to drop the TDP closer to 60W and still beat XB1's APU. They can do all of that without requiring a complex combination of a very custom ARM CPU + GCN APU design.
As far as the GPU component goes, there is nothing in ARM land that is even on the map as a substitute for GCN.
MS's surface Pro 3 wipes the floor with iPhone 6S's graphics performance and the Surface Pro 3 would get destroyed by an HD7790.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph9662/77654.png
Therefore, for the NX home console, PowerVR, Imagination, etc. none of those are even options. NV graphics wouldn't be considered for the NX since they'll never hit the necessary price/performance which means that option is out automatically.