[NintendoLife]AMD in new Nintendo console?

[RussianSensation]

PS4 is likely to be $299 this holiday, or perhaps $349 with a game bundle.

By holiday 2016 there is no reason at all why Nintendo cannot make a roughly PS4 level piece of hardware, sell it for around $249 and make a small profit on each unit sold, or break even.

Sure there is because neither MS nor Sony can afford to drop their consoles to this price and their hardware is inferior to what you outlined. There is no way a new console from Nintendo can cost $249 and wipe the floor with PS4 and yet Sony would be selling PS4 for $299. Sony and MS have far greater economies of scale and ability to bargain with suppliers than Nintendo. That means if Nintendo could sell a $249 console by Q4 2016, Sony and MS would be able to sell theirs for less. Nintendo would always lose in that scenario. MS and Sony both know almost all of the profits is in the software and XB Live / PSN which means their goal is to price their consoles as cheap as possible without losing $ to get that install base as high as possible in the shortest amount of time. It's no wonder there are $150 Xbox 360 trade-in deals that MS likely sponsors with BestBuy/Gamestop, etc. Nintendo has no hope of competing with Sony/MS when it comes to providing far faster hardware but yet sell their next gen console cheaper.

You also didn't address the elephant in the room -- let's just go wild and assume NX is 5X faster than PS4. Who is going to spend tens of millions of dollars specifically making next generation games for this console only? Nintendo isn't Activision, Ubisoft, or EA so they cannot do it. 3rd party developers aren't going to make separate versions of Far Cry 5, the next AC game, the next COD, the next Madden, Fifa, etc. Unless 2 of the 3 major consoles have next gen hardware, any additional horsepower, even if it's 50% is largely wasted. Even now, most XB1 and PS4 cross-platform games look very similar and yet the PS4's GPU is 50% more powerful.

Today on the PC we can buy a 5960X and quad-sli 980Ti but can you find any PC game that blows The Order 1886 or Uncharted 4 away graphically? Developers go for the mainstream market and if NX is way more powerful than PS4, it completely misses that market with little benefit to show for all that extra horsepower. One of the big problems with the Wii U was that it's hardware wasn't powerful enough to simply do straight ports. However, it doesn't work the other way -- if your hardware is much more powerful, it doesn't mean all of a sudden 3rd part firms will start prioritizing your console over 50 million XB1/PS4 users!

 

[monstercameron]

Did you actually bother to look at the games you can buy for current Nintendo systems? It goes way beyond just Mario.

On the 3DS, there's:

• Fire Emblem Awakening. One of the best strategy RPGs in recent memory.
• Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. 2D style Zelda at its finest.
• Bravely Default. A return to the classic style of JRPGs by Square Enix.
• Resident Evil Revelation
• Monster Hunter 4.
• Super Smash Bros. On a handheld. It's just crazy when I think about it.
• Pokemon X & Y and OmegaRuby & AlphaSapphire. Yes, Pokemon games are formulaic. That doesn't change the fact that it's still an incredibly addictive and fun formula.
• Kid Icarus Uprising
• Shin Megami Tensei IV
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3D
• Tomodachi Life
• Mario Kart 7
• And finally, yes, Super Mario 3D Land. It is a new game style for Mario, relatively -- the level layout and camera control makes for a different gameplay style than stuff like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Galaxy.

And of course, there's several remakes of classic Nintendo games, like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and StarFox 64. There's upcoming games, like Fire Emblem Fates.

On the Wii U, there's:

• Bayonetta 2. Some of the finest action gaming out there, courtesy of Platinum Games.
• Splatoon, an inventive take on the shooter genre (and a completely new IP from Nintendo)
• Super Smash Bros. I mean, it's Smash Bros. In what other game can you have Pac-Man gobble up Ryu from Street Fighter?
• Mario Kart 8
• Hyrule Warriors
• The Wonderful 101
• Pikmin 3
• Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze
• ZombiU
• Again, Super Mario 3D World. And again, it's an inventive new approach to Mario, same gameplay style as 3D Land, but bigger and better, with a Super Mario Bros 3-style overworld and more playable characters.
• Also, New Super Mario Bros U.

There's remakes, like Legend of Zelda Windwaker HD, and there's some games to look forward to, like the upcoming new Zelda and Xenoblade Chronicles X.

When it comes to exclusive games, Nintendo is the best in town, over both Sony and Microsoft. There honestly isn't a single exclusive currently available on PS4 or Xbox One that isn't a remake that really interests me. Every other good game they have can be bought on PC. But I own a 3DS and play the heck out of it, and I want a Wii U, because they have games I can't get on PC. That's why I want the next Nintendo console to succeed -- I want it to be the perfect trifecta of having great exclusives, having third party support, and having great technical specs.

bayonetta is probably the only good game you listed...everything else is either a remake or rehash.

 

[Red Hawk]

Sure there is because neither MS nor Sony can afford to drop their consoles to this price and their hardware is inferior to what you outlined. There is no way a new console from Nintendo can cost $249 and wipe the floor with PS4 and yet Sony would be selling PS4 for $299. Sony and MS have far greater economies of scale and ability to bargain with suppliers than Nintendo. That means if Nintendo could sell a $249 console by Q4 2016, Sony and MS would be able to sell theirs for less. Nintendo would always lose in that scenario. MS and Sony both know almost all of the profits is in the software and XB Live / PSN which means their goal is to price their consoles as cheap as possible without losing $ to get that install base as high as possible in the shortest amount of time. It's no wonder there are $150 Xbox 360 trade-in deals that MS likely sponsors with BestBuy/Gamestop, etc. Nintendo has no hope of competing with Sony/MS when it comes to providing far faster hardware but yet sell their next gen console cheaper.

You also didn't address the elephant in the room -- let's just go wild and assume NX is 5X faster than PS4. Who is going to spend tens of millions of dollars specifically making next generation games for this console only? Nintendo isn't Activision, Ubisoft, or EA so they cannot do it. 3rd party developers aren't going to make separate versions of Far Cry 5, the next AC game, the next COD, the next Madden, Fifa, etc. Unless 2 of the 3 major consoles have next gen hardware, any additional horsepower, even if it's 50% is largely wasted. Even now, most XB1 and PS4 cross-platform games look very similar and yet the PS4's GPU is 50% more powerful.

Today on the PC we can buy a 5960X and quad-sli 980Ti but can you find any PC game that blows The Order 1886 or Uncharted 4 away graphically? Developers go for the mainstream market and if NX is way more powerful than PS4, it completely misses that market with little benefit to show for all that extra horsepower.

Microsoft has dropped the price of the Xbox One. For all we know, Sony could drop the price of the PS4, but the PS4 is still selling by the truckload, so there's no market pressure for them to drop price. As long as people are lining up to buy the PS4 at $400, Sony's not going to drop the price. That doesn't mean that the NX can't have better hardware at the same or lower price. If anything, an NX that's superior to the PS4 launching at the same or lower price is the one thing that can force Sony to drop the price at all.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you read more than a few posts back you'd see I have a number of points of view specifically addressing practical reality. It is, in fact, quite possible that I can have an opinion on both theoretical and practical. And condescending walls of text aren't any more relevant than what I posted.

My response to you was in no way condescending. Not sure why you took it that way. You simply provided no strong points for why HBM1 or HBM2 was the viable choice over DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5 arrangement. HBM1/2 have lower yields, cost more and provide little to no direct benefits for this 28nm generation of GPUs over the far cheaper DDR3/4/GDDR5 setup ala XB1/PS4. Fury benefited from HBM because AMD didn't have the resources or time to create an all-new architecture like NV did with Maxwell which meant HBM was the next best thing they could do to try to net some improvements in perf/watt. But unless you think NX will have a 600mm2 APU, why would Nintendo want to waste all that memory bandwidth and end up paying the early adopter HBM premium?

For example, you did not address why would a console with 4096-bit or 8192-bit bus would even make sense in the context of the CPU power? What is the point of all that wasted bandwidth that comes at much higher cost and lower yields + the added manufacturing complexity of the interposer?

Considering AMD couldn't even scale HBM down to R9 270/270X/280/280X/290/290X and couldn't even get a single R9 200/300 series mobile dGPU with HBM, do you honestly think it's that beneficial/easy to just slap HBM on existing lower end 28nm GCN parts? It probably makes no sense to spend hundreds of millions of dollars redesigning all of these chips to work with HBM1/2 to save 30-35W of power.

Nintendo could just take an off-the-shelf R9 270X and downclock it.

If you argue that HBM1/HBM2 will become even more affordable in 12 months, that means DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5 will become also more affordable so that argument goes in circles. Since the manufacturing facilities making DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5 are mature, it's going to be a lot cheaper to order large quantities of 8GB of this mature memory types than getting 8GB of HBM1/HBM2 on the NX.

Also, your entire theory contradicts the way Nintendo has been designing consoles for the last 3 decades. They do not use cutting edge tech in their consoles and they do not aim to sell $499 consoles either.

Finally, I don't think engineers at Nintendo just design their console in a vacuum. For all intents and purposes, a console more powerful than PS4 wouldn't matter unless 3rd party developers took advantage of all of that hardware. By Q4 2016, the total user base for XB1 and PS4 will be huge which means almost all developers would make games that can sell to as many console gamers as possible - aka XB1+PS4 gamers, not NX gamers. PS1 was much weaker than N64 and PS2 lost to the GameCube and the original Xbox in terms of power but PS1/PS2 trounced their competition. Trying to win the console generation purely based on power isn't going to work for Nintendo and they know it.

Microsoft has dropped the price of the Xbox One. For all we know, Sony could drop the price of the PS4, but the PS4 is still selling by the truckload, so there's no market pressure for them to drop price. As long as people lining up to buy the PS4 at $400, Sony's not going to drop the price. That doesn't mean that the NX can't have better hardware at the same or lower price. If anything, an NX that's superior to the PS4 launching at the same or lower price is the one thing that can force Sony to drop the price at all.

Right but my point is that if NX is more powerful and costs less than PS4, that would either mean Nintendo is losing a ton of $ on it or Sony is making large profits on PS4 hardware in 2016. In the former case, this contradicts how Nintendo sells consoles. In the latter case, Sony could just drop their price to undercut the NX and Nintendo's advantage will be wiped out.

Let's not forget by Q4 2016 there will be so many new games out on XB1 and PS4 while what exactly will the NX have? The total userbase for PS4/XB1 is already at 37 million or so and it's likely to end with 45 million by 2015. By end of 2016 the combined XB1+PS4 userbase might be at 60-65 million. Console gamers wants to play with their friends online and/or want lots of games to choose from for their console. NX will be at a severe disadvantage in both of those areas compared to XB1/PS4 by Q4 2016. That means if Nintendo is banking on making a more powerful console than PS4, it won't be enough. Someone who wants the most cutting edge graphics is gaming on the PC anyway but how many console gamers will want a Nintendo NX that has very little games on it and very little of their friends playing online on it?

Nintendo should have waited 1 year to launch the Wii U and made it a traditional console with the power of XB1, launched Fall 2013/Spring 2014. Now the NX will launch in no-man's land right smack in the middle of this current generation of consoles. Nintendo's timing is horrible for making a powerful console. I am guessing they are going to try to innovate or underprice the competition because I don't see any other way for their console to succeed.

 

[Red Hawk]

bayonetta is probably the only good game you listed...everything else is either a remake or rehash.

Are you blind? I only named a couple of remakes, most of the games I listed are original games. As for "rehashes" -- ok, most of the games are continuations of existing franchises (except for, you know, Splatoon, Tomodachi Life, Wonderful 101, and ZombiU). Most games today period are continuations of existing franchises, that doesn't keep them from being great games. Between Fire Emblem Awakening, Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds, and Super Smash Bros, there's more inventive and interesting gameplay than all the exclusive, non-remake games on PS4 and Xbox One. I'd much rather play them than, say, Killzone: Shadowfall, or The Order 1886. The exclusive, non-remake game on PS4 that can really be argued as a system seller is Bloodborne, but it's in the survival-type genre that I really just don't care for.

What else is there to compare to? Xbox practically has no true exclusives besides Halo -- Ryse, Titanfall, and Dead Rising all came to PC. My point stands that Nintendo has the best exclusive games of any console maker.

 

[monstercameron]

Are you blind? I only named a couple of remakes, most of the games I listed are original games. As for "rehashes" -- ok, most of the games are continuations of existing franchises (except for, you know, Splatoon, Tomodachi Life, Wonderful 101, and ZombiU). Most games today period are continuations of existing franchises, that doesn't keep them from being great games. Between Fire Emblem Awakening, Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds, and Super Smash Bros, there's more inventive and interesting gameplay than all the exclusive, non-remake games on PS4 and Xbox One. I'd much rather play them than, say, Killzone: Shadowfall, or The Order 1886. The exclusive, non-remake game on PS4 that can really be argued as a system seller is Bloodborne, but it's in the survival-type genre that I really just don't care for.

What else is there to compare to? Xbox practically has no true exclusives besides Halo -- Ryse, Titanfall, and Dead Rising all came to PC. My point stands that Nintendo has the best exclusive games of any console maker.

yeah it is good that you like those game but I dont. I play pretty much league of legends only, good games are just hard to find. For me those kiddy games are just boring...and thats why all the mountain dew kids dont want em.

 

[Red Hawk]

yeah it is good that you like those game but I dont. I play pretty much league of legends only, good games are just hard to find. For me those kiddy games are just boring...and thats why all the mountain dew kids dont want em.

So, your taste is extremely limited, is that what you're saying? Just because you don't like different types of games doesn't mean they're not good. Like I said, I don't personally like the genre that Bloodborne fits in. I don't like the genre of Grand Theft Auto, or The Last of Us. I still acknowledge that they're good games.

League of Legends is arguably kiddy in its own way, by the way. Certainly no less kiddy than something like Fire Emblem or Legend of Zelda.

 

[RussianSensation]

My point stands that Nintendo has the best exclusive games of any console maker.

If you like those sorts of games, yes you are correct. However, if someone likes Halo, Forza, Gears, Rare Replay, Quantum Break and more mature games like No Man's Sky, Uncharted, the Last of Us, Bloodborne, etc. and one doesn't have a PC, then the Wii U is not a great console. Also, it's easy to ignore all of the 3rd party games but for many console gamers who don't own a PC, they buy AC, Far Cry, Shadow of Mordor, The Witcher 3, etc. on their console. By Q4 2016, there will be even more exclusives and 3rd party games on XB1/PS4 and even more people will own XB1/PS4 which means a higher likelihood that a console gamer's friend will already own an XB1/PS4, which gives new gamers more incentive to buy a console their friends own, not the NX!

Even if Nintendo's NX has 5960X and 980Ti SLI and they tell a console gamer here our system is 6X more powerful than PS4 for $299, the console gamer will just say: "So what, all my friends are gaming on PS4/XB1 online and your console has no 3rd party games or exclusives worth buying besides the new Zelda game. Meh"

That's why if Nintendo is banking on winning this generation with more powerful hardware and no change of strategy, they are going to lose again.

The very same reasons major development studios complain that the Wii U is too weak for them to easily port existing gen games that can work on XB1/PS4 are the reasons why the NX won't be way more powerful than PS4 because if it is, NX's "next gen" games won't work on XB1/PS4 either. 3rd party developers will not make separate XB1/PS4 and NX versions of the same game as it's not viable. For that reason, it would be financial suicide for Nintendo to make a way more powerful console than PS4 in 2016. If Nintendo had 5-10 game studios it owned that could all take advantage of Nintendo's more powerful hardware, and if Nintendo's track record of 3rd party games was stellar, then it could be justifiable.

Right now Nintendo doesn't have a clear strategy of what it wants its consoles to be and that is why it's failing. Young kids nowadays and casuals just play smartphone/tablet games and they already own a tablet/smartphone by the time they are 12-14. If someone wanted Nintendo's 1st party games, they could just as easily pick up a used Wii U and enjoy a massive library of older NES->Wii U games. That's why the NX needs to have something unique about it that you can't get on XB1/PS4.

 

[Red Hawk]

If you like those sorts of games, yes you are correct. However, if someone likes Halo, Forza, Gears, Rare Replay, Quantum Break and more mature games than Nintendo makes like No Man's Sky, Uncharted, the Last of Us, Bloodborne, etc. and one doesn't have a PC, then the Wii U is not a great console. Also, it's easy to ignore all of the 3rd party games but for many console gamers who don't own a PC, they buy AC, Far Cry, Shadow of Mordor, The Witcher 3, etc. on their console. By Q4 2016, there will be even more exclusives and 3rd party games on XB1/PS4 and even more people will own XB1/PS4 which means a higher likelihood that a console gamer's friend will already own an XB1/PS4, which gives new gamers more incentive to buy a console their friends own, not the NX!

Even if Nintendo's NX has 5960X and 980Ti SLI and they tell a console gamer here our system is 6X more powerful than PS4 for $299, the console gamer will just say: "So what, all my friends are gaming on PS4/XB1 online and your console has no 3rd party games or exclusives worth buying besides the new Zelda game. Meh"

That's why if Nintendo is banking on winning this generation with more powerful hardware and no change of strategy, they are going to lose again.

The very same reasons major development studios complain that the Wii U is too weak for them to easily port existing gen games that can work on XB1/PS4 are the reasons why the NX won't be way more powerful than PS4 because if it is, NX's "next gen" games won't work on XB1/PS4 either. 3rd party developers will not make separate XB1/PS4 and NX versions of the same game as it's not viable. For that reason, it would be financial suicide for Nintendo to make a way more powerful console than PS4 in 2016. If Nintendo had 5-10 game studios it owned that could all take advantage of Nintendo's more powerful hardware, and if Nintendo's track record of 3rd party games was stellar, then it could be justifiable.

Right now Nintendo doesn't have a clear strategy of what it wants its consoles to be and that is why it's failing. Young kids nowadays and casuals just play smartphone/tablet games and they already own a tablet/smartphone by the time they are 12-14. If someone wanted Nintendo's 1st party games, they could just as easily pick up a used Wii U and enjoy a massive library of older NES->Wii U games. That's why the NX needs to have something unique about it that you can't get on XB1/PS4.

Well I am mostly talking about games that exist here, in the present. Microsoft hasn't released Halo 5 yet, Halo only exists on the Xbox One right now as a remake. The Last of Us is also a remake, Uncharted has yet to come out on PS4. If we're talking remakes, you can't get much more iconic than the Legend of Zelda games.

I get someone may just prefer the more realistic aesthetic of PS4 and XBone exclusives over the more cartoonish aesthetic Nintendo games tend to have (it's not a matter of "maturity", something can have a very cartoonish aesthetic while having a highly mature and developed storyline. Case in point: Inside Out. Maturity =/= goriness and raunchiness). But I don't think that changes how much better designed Nintendo exclusive games are over XBone and PS4 exclusives. Whether or not you prefer the aesthetic of, say, The Order 1886 and Killzone Shadowfall over Bayonetta 2 and Super Mario 3D World, the latter are pretty indisputably better designed games. They are better in that objective sense.

Nintendo needs better 3rd party support, absolutely, which is why I was only talking up their exclusives. Nintendo does have a bunch of first party studios -- there's a bunch of internal Nintendo EAD studios, and there's Monolith Soft, HAL Laboratories, Intelligent Systems, Retro Studios, etc. Nintendo definitely has the development resources to pour into development of games for the NX.

 

[RussianSensation]

Microsoft hasn't released Halo 5 yet, Halo only exists on the Xbox One right now as a remake. The Last of Us is also a remake, Uncharted has yet to come out on PS4. If we're talking remakes, you can't get much more iconic than the Legend of Zelda games.

Right by presumably if NX launches in Q3-Q4 2016, a lot of XB1/PS4 exclusives like Uncharted 4 and Quantum Break will have launched. On top of that, 1-1.5 years of many more 3rd party games will be added to the library of both of those consoles. Inevitably on NX's launch date, XB1/PS4 will have both more exclusives and hundreds of more 3rd party new and used games to choose from -- big obstacle for Nintendo to overcome.

I get someone may just prefer the more realistic aesthetic of PS4 and XBone exclusives over the more cartoonish aesthetic Nintendo games tend to have (it's not a matter of "maturity", something can have a very cartoonish aesthetic while having a highly mature and developed storyline.

If the main differences were just in the 1st party titles, then it would be a stronger case for Nintendo but since N64 they have a very weak 3rd party line-up of games and if anything it has gotten way way worse since N64 with every generation. One would think that the Wii U with its best line-up of 1st party games is the perfect console for PC gamers because most of cross-platform games are better on the PC than on XB1/PS4. However, PS4 managed to sell well over 20 million consoles in less than 2 years despite almost no exclusives worth buying! That suggests that modern console gamers are much less driven to buy consoles because of exclusives. I mean there is hardly a major difference between XB1 and PS4 as of now.

Nintendo does have a bunch of first party studios -- there's a bunch of internal Nintendo EAD studios, and there's Monolith Soft, HAL Laboratories, Intelligent Systems, Retro Studios, etc. Nintendo definitely has the development resources to pour into development of games for the NX.

Where were these studios during the Wii U generation then? Whatever games they made only attracted 10 million consumers since 2012.

I think some of the points you've made only highlight that powerful hardware won't fix some of the underlying weaknesses of Nintendo. In other words an NX with XB1 hardware but a lot of 3rd party games and strong online gaming would be far better than an NX with a 5960X and 980Ti SLI but the same shortage of 3rd party games and online platform that's not on par with PSN+/Xbox Live.

 

[Pwndenburg]

Nintendo just doesn't seem like the learn your lesson kind of company to me. The probably all huddled up and thought "we just tried the wrong gimmick this time." If it is true that is weaker than an Xone than it tells me they are more interested in going handheld for more of the business. I wish they would try to compete, but it would appear the old stereotype of JP companies has some validity. The tend to think long on an approach and be very stubborn towards changing that approach without that same length of thought.

 

[Headfoot]

You simply provided no strong points for why HBM1 or HBM2 was the viable choice over DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5 arrangement.

I literally never claimed that or anything like that. Why do you people keep putting words in my mouth?

 

[Timorous]

Sure there is because neither MS nor Sony can afford to drop their consoles to this price and their hardware is inferior to what you outlined. There is no way a new console from Nintendo can cost $249 and wipe the floor with PS4 and yet Sony would be selling PS4 for $299. Sony and MS have far greater economies of scale and ability to bargain with suppliers than Nintendo. That means if Nintendo could sell a $249 console by Q4 2016, Sony and MS would be able to sell theirs for less. Nintendo would always lose in that scenario. MS and Sony both know almost all of the profits is in the software and XB Live / PSN which means their goal is to price their consoles as cheap as possible without losing $ to get that install base as high as possible in the shortest amount of time. It's no wonder there are $150 Xbox 360 trade-in deals that MS likely sponsors with BestBuy/Gamestop, etc. Nintendo has no hope of competing with Sony/MS when it comes to providing far faster hardware but yet sell their next gen console cheaper.

Sony is making a profit on every PS4 sold (in the US, not 100% sure about other markets). They could likely make a profit at $349 as well considering they have switched to higher density GDDR5 chips meaning they only need 8 instead of 16.

By holiday 2016 the PS4 will be $299, perhaps even $249. We both know Nintendo cannot compete straight up with Sony / MS so there is little point in them releasing a 2x more powerful console for $399 as who would buy it apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

You also didn't address the elephant in the room -- let's just go wild and assume NX is 5X faster than PS4. Who is going to spend tens of millions of dollars specifically making next generation games for this console only? Nintendo isn't Activision, Ubisoft, or EA so they cannot do it. 3rd party developers aren't going to make separate versions of Far Cry 5, the next AC game, the next COD, the next Madden, Fifa, etc. Unless 2 of the 3 major consoles have next gen hardware, any additional horsepower, even if it's 50% is largely wasted. Even now, most XB1 and PS4 cross-platform games look very similar and yet the PS4's GPU is 50% more powerful.

I doubt Nintendo will go to that level of performance because you are quite right that devs are unlikely to spend the time to make use of it beyond higher in game settings or better AA modes. That is why I suggested something like an 8core Puma CPU with a 2Tflop GCN 1.2/1.3 GPU and 8GB of GDDR5. Basically a PS4 with a touch more grunt to get some of those games that struggle to hit their target frame rate up to par.

They could also launch a console like that for Holiday 2016 at $249 - $299 and not lose much if any money per console because the tech is already there and proven thanks to PS4 and Xbox One.

Today on the PC we can buy a 5960X and quad-sli 980Ti but can you find any PC game that blows The Order 1886 or Uncharted 4 away graphically? Developers go for the mainstream market and if NX is way more powerful than PS4, it completely misses that market with little benefit to show for all that extra horsepower. One of the big problems with the Wii U was that it's hardware wasn't powerful enough to simply do straight ports. However, it doesn't work the other way -- if your hardware is much more powerful, it doesn't mean all of a sudden 3rd part firms will start prioritizing your console over 50 million XB1/PS4 users!

Hence why I think it would be dumb for Nintendo to go for a mega powerful console. They are better targeting PS4 level specs + 10% at $249 - $299. I doubt they can make huge savings with much weaker hardware and they would not have as easy a path for 3rd party devs to port their games making it less desirable for consumers.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Nintendo would be crazy to not follow the rest of the industry. Triple AAA titles are stupidly expensive to create. The entire industry is moving towards streamlining the process to keep costs down. That means nintendo needs to stick to x86 and (meant vulkan too much low headroom talk) direct x if they want to stay relevant.

Otherwise enjoy their 3 exclusive titles per console cycle.

 

[Unoid]

Nintendo would be crazy to not follow the rest of the industry. Triple AAA titles are stupidly expensive to create. The entire industry is moving towards streamlining the process to keep costs down. That means nintendo needs to stick to x86 and direct x if they want to stay relevant.

Otherwise enjoy their 3 exclusive titles per console cycle.

I agree except for the direct X part.

 

[swilli89]

bayonetta is probably the only good game you listed...everything else is either a remake or rehash.

Why don't you say the same thing about ppl spouting out titles like Uncharted, Forza, Halo?

 

[monstercameron]

Why don't you say the same thing about ppl spouting out titles like Uncharted, Forza, Halo?

you can do that if you'd like

 

[swilli89]

you can do that if you'd like

No I'd like you to offer a somewhat small semblance of objectivity by doing it yourself.

 

[monstercameron]

No I'd like you to offer a somewhat small semblance of objectivity by doing it yourself.

the discussion is around nintendo. I dont see why this even matter.

 

[jpiniero]

Nintendo would be crazy to not follow the rest of the industry. Triple AAA titles are stupidly expensive to create. The entire industry is moving towards streamlining the process to keep costs down. That means nintendo needs to stick to x86 and direct x if they want to stay relevant.

Nintendo would be crazy to do x86 with AMD likely to lose the license when they go bankrupt or get bought. Plus, the industry is moving more toward mobile really. TBH, I think they should get out of hardware and I'm sure they will eventually.

 

[RussianSensation]

Nintendo would be crazy to do x86 with AMD likely to lose the license when they go bankrupt or get bought. Plus, the industry is moving more toward mobile really. TBH, I think they should get out of hardware and I'm sure they will eventually.

I've been hearing about AMD going bankrupt for at least 10 years and about Nintendo needing to leave the console hardware business also for another 10 years. Wow, maybe you should apply to AMD and Nintendo with crazy wild predictions like that. The irony is that in the last 10 years Nintendo's console gaming business has made more $ than MS's and Sony's combined. As far as AMD going bankrupt, every "arm chair" analysts at AT who claimed this is yet to become a millionaire from shorting their stock or buying put options but yet they are 100% confident in these predictions.

I literally never claimed that or anything like that. Why do you people keep putting words in my mouth?

My bad. I misunderstood you then. Earlier on you claimed that AMD would be pushing HBM for their semi-custom business and then went on to defend the 4GB limit of HBM1. Either way, it sounds like you were more interested in discussing the theoretical possibility of a Nintendo NX HBM console rather than practical. AMD can push HBM to Nintendo but how do you push something that's worse on paper? There will need to be some specific benefits to Nintendo for AMD to be able to pitch HBM1 or HBM2 to Nintendo vs. using a traditional DDR3/DDR4/GDDR5 GPU sub-system.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

I'd be willing to bet money that the deal between MS, Sony and AMD grants them the right to manufacture their chip in case AMD for some reason can't continue to do it for them, and that both companies have asked for and gotten a nod from Intel that they would be allowed to do so (obviously at some cost). As far as Intel is concerned, the game consoles do nothing but strengthen the x86 ecosystem -- they are not competitors in any of their primary markets, so there's no reason they'd want to kill them.

Companies as big as MS and Sony don't base their major business decisions on the survival of companies as shaky as AMD; but, these kind of licensing issues are usually also always something that can be dealt with.

Nintendo would just be one more of the same.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'd be willing to bet money that the deal between MS, Sony and AMD grants them the right to manufacture their chip in case AMD for some reason can't continue to do it for them, and that both companies have asked for and gotten a nod from Intel that they would be allowed to do so (obviously at some cost). As far as Intel is concerned, the game consoles do nothing but strengthen the x86 ecosystem -- they are not competitors in any of their primary markets, so there's no reason they'd want to kill them.

Companies as big as MS and Sony don't base their major business decisions on the survival of companies as shaky as AMD; but, these kind of licensing issues are usually also always something that can be dealt with.

Nintendo would just be one more of the same.

Exactly. The contracts are probably drafted in such a way that allow the end customer (MS/Sony/Nintendo) to pay directly to the fabrication facility to manufacture the chips.

Besides, for years we have heard how none of the next gen consoles will have APUs, nevermind AMD APUs but yet no one at AT has proposed a reasonable alternative to AMD's APUs. Consoles won't have an i3 since there are not enough cores for MS/Sony to have background tasks running in the background and still game while an i5/i7 is way too costly from Intel. NV doesn't give good prices on GPUs and MS learned it the hard way with the original Xbox.

Therefore, despite what some people wish the NX to have, going with AMD makes the most sense since no other firm in the world can provide a combined CPU+GPU package at comparable price/performance. I wouldn't be surprised if some elitist PC gamers hate the consoles even more because they don't have Intel+NV parts in them. :hmm:

 

[NTMBK]

Nintendo would be crazy to do x86 with AMD likely to lose the license when they go bankrupt or get bought. Plus, the industry is moving more toward mobile really. TBH, I think they should get out of hardware and I'm sure they will eventually.

That's the same crap people said before the PS4 and XBox One were announced. "They'll never go with an AMD APU, it's far too risky! AMD are totes going bankrupt!"

 

[mrmt]

Exactly. The contracts are probably drafted in such a way that allow the end customer (MS/Sony/Nintendo) to pay directly to the fabrication facility to manufacture the chips.

It's easier to just put the contracts and the necessary IP (or access to the necessary IP) under a different entity and spin off as soon as bankruptcy proceedings start. The consoles are a viable business after all and it operates independently from AMD corporate structure.