NX entering production in October (Thoughts and Theories?)

So the NX is officially going to enter mass production in October.

Now, I don't feel like just retyping what is written in the artical, and much is speculation/educated guesses anyway. Instead I've choose to give my opinion and some theories on when we'll see the NX and, what will come with it.

• 2016 release: No-brainer at this point. I'm predicting a similar release to the Wii U, with a November release for USA, and December for UK/EU, with Japan following in early 2017. Though they could surprise with a worldwide November release.
• Traditional Controller: I believe Nintendo will now have learnt that "Unique" controllers are not for most people. Those who buy the systems will eventually get used to them, but a lot will use it as a reason to avoid the system. Personally, I believe Nintendo will take the design of the Wii U Pro Controller and bring that forward as the controller for the NX. I also believe they should not support any other controller for the system, while it did save some people money, in the long run it just confused more people.
• Zelda an NX launch title: Again I think this is a no-brainer. The reason we've not seen Zelda U is because development of the title has shifted to NX to give it a much needed system seller at launch (something Wii U didn't get). A dual launch like Twilight Princess had for GCN and Wii is also possible.
• Best launch for A Nintendo system: Kinda ties into the above, but there was a ton of titles people were expecting to see for Wii U this year, Metroid Prime 4, Animal Crossing, Mario Galaxy 3 and Paper Mario 5, to name a few. However if Nintendo has any of these in development, none would likely be ready this year anyway, so holding them for the launch of the NX would give the system some much requested titles for launch and the best possible start to it's life. It's also possible that if 3rd party developers/publishers see that the NX is on par/better than the PS4/X1 in terms of power, they might also look to release there games on the NX as well, at least at launch to see how well the system does, then decide from there if they continue.
• Club Nintendo's Replacement: With Club Nintendo shutting down, we'll soon be seeing something new take it's place, something Nintendo has promised will link all our Nintendo experiences together. But what will that mean for NX? Personally I believe it'll mean a number of things:

1. Universal purchases. Have Virtual console games on Wii U? Bring them over to NX for free, and at launch.
2. Achievements/trophies. Whatever Nintendo would name there version, regardless of if they want to have them, they need to have them, far too many people enjoy these to simply ignore them again.
3. Most importantly, online. Now you could argue, that while not as good as X1 and PS4's online, there's nothing technically wrong with the Wii U's online, other than just been minimalist. This needs to change however, especially if they want 3rd parties to take it seriously. The system needs mic support for both game and party chat (not things I'm a fan of, but the majority are), it also needs to feature Twitch streaming, YouTube uploads, and other things that the modern gamer has come to expect from consoles. But more important than any of that, the connection needs to be good. Far too often online games lag to the point of been unplayable on Wii U, this can not happen with NX, it's online needs to be good, or it will lose 3rd parties almost as fast as Wii U did, and it'll follow it to the grave.

To be honest, I am not sure about Nintendo kickstarting the ninth generation this early in the game. Hopefully it will happen 2018 at the earliest...

@LauriAJ: I don't really see this as them kickstarting Gen 9, so much as restarting Gen 8. Wii U has failed, more so than any system before it. Sure the system is fun and has some good games, but it's not selling, and Nintendo needs a home console that is shifting units so they can remain both relevant and in profit.

It's been announced that the NX is entering mass production this coming October, so a 2016 is highly likely. Which also ties into them mentioning at E3 this year that they'll be ready to show us what exactly the NX is next year.

Is this a joke? I go outside for a few hours to cut grass and now there is a production date for this console? I feel like Han Solo after he was freed from carbon freeze.

Found another, more interesting topic on this, than GS's current one. Now the info in this is a rumor, and needs to be treated as such, but if it's true then we could all be playing NX this time next year.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/07/rumour_nintendo_nx_shipping_this_time_next_year_20_million_sales_targeted_in_first_12_months

According to NintendoLife, Chinese manufacturer Foxconn will be heading development of the NX and the system will launch in July 2016. It states that Nintendo are expecting sales of 20 million in the first 12 months (Wii U has barely managed half that).

The first two parts, I could actually believe, but I don't think Nintendo are going to put 20 million as there sales prediction after the Wii U. Between 6-10 would be a more realistic prediction, which also gives them a better position if it outsells that, and hits that 20 million.

Iwata on making sure NX avoids the issues of the Wii U/3DS, 3rd party collaborations coming.

http://gonintendo.com/stories/237598-iwata-on-making-sure-nx-avoids-the-issues-of-wii-u-3ds-3rd-party

Everything is sounding incredibly positive so far. Will wait till next E3 when they actually show off the system to make a decision, but so far it's heading in the right direction.

Nintendo's online is fine. It has had no downtime compared to the twins. It has video chat and games can support voice chat without issue. CoD BLOPs 2 has voice chat as well. I don't really see the need for system wide voice chat outside of using it as a means to silence critics.

@bunchanumbers: TBH, that's the only chat on consoles I like. I would rather talk to my friends while playing any game I wish, instead of been forced to play whatever there playing just to talk with them.

It's the handheld most likely. The console will launch in 2017 unless they pull a Gamecube. 20 million shipment is crazy, but the Wii has come close to shipping/selling 20 million in a year. The 20 million shipment could either be for the handheld or both.

The Wii U is a paper weight, that is the conclusion.

I'll get the use out of my Wii U presuming I get can play Zelda U on it. That'll justify my purchase. Alongside Starfox, Smash Bros, 3D World, and a few others.

They haven't really even technically announced the system, they haven't shown anything to gauge consumer interest or anything. To go into production of a completely unknown quantity because what you have out is struggling, would be incredibly dumb. What could happen is you end up carrying two struggling machines on your bank account. I don't think this is remotely true.

Look forward to their announce at E3 2016..may launch Christmas that year. Just hope its good & the drop the "Wii" name. Bring it on! :P

Im ready, im hoping its a hybrid system like most, will be awesome.

Hopefully it's quite strong and has no backwards compatibility. BC will cost too much(Wii u hardware inside) or if it's barely stronger it will downclock. Both are bad options.

Wii U's online is horrendous. Hopefully this time they put a working wireless chipset in the NX. Wireless AC 2x2, native ipv6, etc.

@JigglyWiggly_: Wii Us online is great, check your internet connection mate. Also, a Nintendo console without backward compatibility?, that would be a mistake and flop the console in a heart beat.

this looks good.

@mesome713:

No, I have a 150 megabit connection(goes up to 180) and I use the wired lan adapter. My connection is perfect. One of my other friends also has a lan adapter and he's a big pc gamer as well. We get 0 lag playing with eachother.

Then playing Smash 4 for glory is a horrible experience. There is no region based matchmaking, it pairs you up with anyone across the world. That is completely unacceptable for a fighting game.

That along with the Wii U's terrible online chipset. It uses a draft-n solution which is SINGLE band. The range is crap, the jitter is crap, everything about it is horrible. This is what people use to play.

Before my friend got the LAN adapter he was on wifi and his wii u was a foot away from his router. The games weren't too bad, but you could feel some jitter. When he got the lan adapter there was 0 lag, it felt like playing on LAN. (We ping 25ms to eachother, we live nearby)

I checked with my openwrt router and the download speeds from Nintendo's servers are total crap. I get a varying speed of below 20 mb/s. It goes everywhere. On steam I get my full 180 mb/s.

@JigglyWiggly_: Thats one game mate, and its not all that bad, every so often you get bad lag and have to jump out and join another battle. Go play PS4 and Xbox and see all the server problems they have on games. They have some of the worst lag problems ive ever seen. We use to joe with Dark Souls about lag stabs cause servers were so bad. MLB the show sucked online, NBA2k games seem to always have lag issues. Madden has lag problems. i can name games all day.

Go play Mario Kart Online, its perfect. or come play some Splatoon, again, flawless.

Those two games you listed are not fighting games. MK has a lot of clientside netcode, you can't have that in a fighting game. (Each clients data can differ quite a large amount in that game since it's not crucial what's really happening in that game)

Splatoon is far from flawless. There are warpers in that game. One of my friends stopped playing the game due to the warpers and being constantly paired with Japanese players. There are no region locks in that game. Also you can't even pair up with your friends in that game, it might put your friends on the enemy team.

As for the games you listed, I've never played those games you mentioned so I can't say. It depends on whether the game you're playing is p2p or is server based.

USF4 on xbox 360 from what I've seen is pretty good lag wise. They atleast have the courtesy to let you select a game and pick someone with green bars. Also downloads from XBL and PSN are way faster than Nintendo's servers. It's noteworthy that since the Wii U doesn't even have a built in ethernet port, more people are going to be using wifi on it compared to x360/ps3+nextgen.

@spike6958: I know you mentioned this in a later comment, but you should modify your OP and change remove "officially". Thanks for the information anyway.

Personally, I can't see how this can be true. It just seems far too soon. I think they start production about 6 months before launching right? It also seems odd to have rumours on production start date before the console is even unveiled.

Whats also funny is those systems games that have bad lag problems on the servers are paid for by fans. Now that shat is funny. Wii U online is just plain awesome for what it is, and best of all, its free.

@JigglyWiggly_:For me personally, I wouldn't call the online horrendous at all. It's actually really good. I play MK8, Splatoon and Smash 4 online and have no issues. Though with Smash 4 I avoid the "For Fun" matches, I'd imagine that they'd be too laggy. But the For Glory mode seems stable to me. Maybe 1 in 10 games is laggy. MK8 and Splatoon are perfect (Splatoon had a couple issues close to launch, but I haven't seen lag ever since).

I like that the Wii U has free online. I don't like that the PS4 forces you to pay to play online.

PC online is free except for some mmorpgs. It's not really an excuse.

PC online is also better than all the consoles. Nintendo could try to atleast try to get somewhat close with the NX.

@JigglyWiggly_:PC is an open platform, your internet is supplied by an ISP, whose business rides solely on the quality of that product. Whereas on consoles, its supplied by the manufacturer and is just part of the package. The two are incomparable. When it comes to paying for online play, I don't think Nintendo should go that road. I mean half the features of the Live and PSN, that your supposedly paying for--are not used. So I think the fair way to do it, would be to have basic online play and voice chat, free. Then have different tiers of service you can choose to pay for.

@spike6958: I've been reading the rumors too and they sound interesting and plausible. However, none of this is official, it's all rumor at this point.

It's still fun to read and speculate though. 20 million units is lofty so I'm wondering if they are going to sell it on the super cheap ($199-250 range maybe?).

I agree with the Zelda prediction.

I bet they're timing it so a new Mario game will be a launch title as well.

Reggie and Shiggy both said having weak launch lineups hurt WiiU and 3DS so they're going to make sure two killer apps are available from the get-go.

But again, it's all rumor, none of this is official yet from my understanding.

Are we sure this thing is actually what we think a ''home console'', and Nintendo isn't just defining whatever this thing as one? I mean they keep using that term ''third pillar'' maybe that's actually the case this time.

People use tablets in there home. Just seems like a crazy turnaround if this is actually true. In three years you already know exactly everything the system will do, what it will look like, and are ready to manufacture it?

I suppose Microsoft had that crazy turnaround with the 360. But that 4 years later.

On the topic of other off the wall theories and predictions, here are some of mine from a thread I made a month or so ago. Not sure how much of this I still think will happen but with Nintendo, you never know :)

I see a lot of evidence that this is the case and that NX will be as much a service as it is a console:

It predict there will be a physical console for those who want the traditional console and physical copies... This keeps retailers happy too.

However, I think the console will be more like a middle of the road PC in terms of architecture so it is really easy to develop for.

The kicker is there will also be a Steam like service that allows 3rd parties to sell games so their playable on PC (like Steam) but where this is different is that 1st party Nintendo games will be available to play on the PC too- but only if you buy or have this Steam like service.

It makes sense. They took majority ownership of DeNA who specializes in these types of services that unify a bunch of different platforms. Plus they want to get their games into more hands and get third party support. If 3rd parties are already porting to PC then this is a way to tie Nintendo to these companies and games.

Also, a simple firmware update to the wiiu and 3DS make the platform usable with them too.

Plus, games can be played on iPads and phones for portable experiences.

Am I nuts or does this sound possible?

@roboccs: It's possible but I don't think that'll happen with Nintendo titles being available on PC. I think Nintendo wants their software exclusive to their own built hardware.

I agree though that NX will be just as much of a service as it will be just another console. Hopefully this will mean that the NX will be different in terms of the service and OS by the way it caters to a particular gamer and hopefully not different by control scheme. I really hope a more traditional controller will be around this time.

@thebobster92: Yeah, after thinking about it more I don't think the PC thing will happen either. When I made this post a few months ago I was trying to think outside the box a bit. You're right about exclusivity... Other than mobile games that is.... :P

System wide voice chat is extremely useful. I used it a ton on the 360 since it's 2006 release. Would be great in 2016 if Nintendo finally supported it.

Jump online, see your friends are online and in a group chat with a notification at the boot up screen. Press a single button to join their chat, see what they're playing/ what they wanna play, then jump into a game together.

@kenakuma: Nintendo though refuses to let their loyal fans have fun. But yes, hopefully they'll change this with the NX.

@roboccs: Anything is possible with Nintendo, they are wacky like that....for me just want to have a Nintendo console with 1st party titles & 3rd party titles games (SNES nostalgia)...& just load the disc & start playing simple. None of this BS oh load the disc in then gotta install crap. As for internet play should hopefully continue to be free...definitely do not like the route the other 2 take where you gotta pay. :P

Since this is a rumor, it is hard to believe as I do not think that Nintendo will be able to produce 20 million NX units if they are home consoles. It would be more realistic if they are either all handheld systems are a combination of both handhelds and home consoles if the NX refers to both.

I am also not convinced on a July 2016 release date as I do not see it being profitable outside the holiday season.

I am thinking the concept will be something like this:

https://gamestick.tv/

except maybe as a 3DS.

it will be good

Here's a couple things i'm tpretty confident for NX.

1) Price.... Nintendo HAS to be a cheap/affordable console starting at 200$ or less.

2) Backwards compatibility ... Plays Wii U and 3DS games. All Wii U games transfer at no charge.

Some other ideas,

3) A account system, so that games can be shared between devices on the account.

4) Some unique-ness - not sure what yet. I'm thinking low entry cost to get involved with NX, but more accessories people will able to get.

5) More benefits for Wii U owners. Extra Eshop cash for converting.

6) 3rd Party support at launch, but remains slow after that.

I have mixed feelings about NX coming so soon. I just bought the Wii U on Christmas 2014, and we are talking about a new console 2 years after the launch of Wii U. I like the Gamepad even though it is something that the majority of gamers didn't give a try. These HD games are reported to take a long time to develop-like 2 years, but before the developers can get really good at making a game for the console they have to start over with a new one.

Personally, I wouldn't mind staying with the Wii U for another 8 years even if Nintendo's competitors moved on to Virtual Reality games. But Nintendo needs to move on to be competitive. My guess is that Nintendo is going to go all digital because that has been the trend in the industry for a long time. The profit advantages are obvious. I will say that Nintendo has been trustworthy with the way they transferred Wii-Ware and Wii Virtual Console games over to the Wii U. But those are only $5 or $10 games. My concern, my fear; is that we will have to pay $30-$60 for digital games in the future. I could live with digital games if they were priced similarly to android games with a $1 to $5 dollar entry, but no more than $20 for a complete game.

If Nintendo is careful about the value of the hardware and games, and they continue to be trustworthy with their digital content I could accept an android-like implementation. Maybe Nintendo will be able to get the 3rd party support and online features they need with the NX. Maybe their will be more rpgs and other games for the NX home console like the 3DS gets.

EVERYTHING on this list is a MUST for this thing to even stand a chance. They need to nail at least 5 out of 6 of the items you listed at the very minimum.

Currently I remain a skeptic as well. Starting to produce (not release) a console less than three years before the Wii U is out? Releasing it in July of '16 which is less than four years for the predecessor? Nintendo has been very dumb lately but even they can't be this dumb. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see a "new" Nintendo console that is fully supported.

Even though it seems highly unlikely, I could see a summer release being somewhat smart. This time of the year is normally sparse when it comes to gaming while the holiday season has plenty of competition that tends to rough up Nintendo. Making a product available for purchase when not much else is available could be smart if implemented properly.

Price I think will be the biggest factor. They can eat the loss with every console sold with their amazing software if they sell a console at $199.

Also, I like the idea someone else put where WiiU owners get additional discounts.

Right... Nintendo has to make the console affordable for everyone. I think they realized they screwed up by a more expensive product, easier for kids to break. It seems like people want to play these great Nintendo HD games, they just don't want to at the 275-300$ Range just for the console and a game. The system launched at 350$ and dropped 50 pretty quick. They really haven't dropped the price much since then.

With a console sooo close to the Wii U, in order not to alienate the existing fans, i think they have to provide an extra significant bonus. Many people bought in around 2014 with Mario Kart/Smash, and now 2015 we are talking new system, and not much on the radar for 2016 games. I gotta think Nintendo would have to offer 50$ in shop credit, IF you transfer within the first 3-6 months. I think if they don't go above and beyond like that, people will just stuck with their Wii U and play it by ear with this new console. (Except the 1-2 million die hard fans) I think the people who own a Wii U enjoy it.

A few things:

1.) The price of the Wii U wasn't bad if you compared it with other Nintendo consoles because it was a nice jump from its predecessor. Comparing it with other technology on the market at the time of release, it was steep.

2.) Other consoles, manufacturer aside, always changed from the initial release during the generation into something smaller, cheaper, etc.., The Wii U is still the exact same console today that it was in November of 2012 complete with an expensive tablet and price.

3.) With a new console of some sort sure to be released relatively soon, someone will end up pissed and a repeat of the 3DS Ambassador Program will need to happen X10. Digital games won't cost Nintendo anything. Perhaps a worthy pre order bonus woudl work.

I'd like for the NX to be competitive. Is that too much to ask for?

@kenakuma:I disagree with the price, they aren't going to sell a console for a huge loss, so the only way to have a system at such a cheap price point would make it weak and basically comparable to the Wii U in the power department. That is the fast road for the 3rd party to quickly abandon the system with is major AAA release and they would be right back to square one. People want the NX to be competitive, then they need to be willing to spend some money--that goes for the consumer and Nintendo. A system that is more powerful than the current competition at a price point that is similar(probably a little more expensive). The consumer will have to pay a little more than usual or a Nintendo platform and Nintendo would have to be willing to sell at a loss initially.

Nintendo probably won't want to take a huge loss on selling the NX at launch, but chances are they will have to get out of their comfort zone and take some sort of loss on the system at launch. They tried selling the Wii-U at launch without taking a loss and that backfired on them bad and they ended up having to lower the price down the round to where they were taking a loss but not reaping any of the benefits of selling a console at launch for a loss. They can't make this mistake again.

It's too rushed. They need to focus on their games and 3rd party support as they work on hardware details. The games need to be there on launch day. And it probably needs to be pretty powerful which will be tough considering the PC market vs what it once was when Nintendo dominated.

I am one of the people that doesn't want to pay more than $300 for a console. I don't want to buy the most expensive console for bragging rights. I don't care about my console winning the popularity contest. I love Nintendo, their characters, and the fun factor. If they go back to traditional controllers (like the Wii U Pro Controller) I can live with that; but I don't want to pay $500 for a console, one controller, and one game every couple of years. Wasn't there a time when you got two controllers with your console (NES and SNES)? I certainly don't want to see consoles move to a 3-year life cycle at the $300 price point. I would buy a new console every 3 years if it was around the $100 mark. I just see the future for gamers is having to deal with console companies trying to leap-frog each other, with new power specifications every couple of years; when the focus should be on making fun games.

I have been doing a lot of researching the current tech available that could be used in the NX and doing some number crunching and looking at power consumption, etc.

First off, we need to really outline the chipset in both of the current consoles(PS4 & XB1). Both are very similar to AMD's jaguar based apu's. Both chipsets basically are two quad core jaguar apu's manufactured onto the same chip. This also is where you see both of them having higher powered gpu's on the apu than any of the current pc apu's on the market. The XB1's gpu portion has 768 shader processors(SPU's). Sort of like taking two quad core jaguar apu's that have 384 SPU's and combining them onto a single chip. An apu with those specs are totally available for purchase in the market. Taking a look at the PS4's apu, you have basically the same 2 quad core jaguar modules as the XB1, but the gpu portion is much larger with 1152 SPU's. A quad core apu with half of that(576) is closely matched in their top end APU. The choice of the jaguar cores were obviously for low power consumption.

Now where I get to the Nintendo NX. Not long ago AMD outed that it was working on a chipset for an upcoming unannounced game console. All they could say is it was X86 based, but also included an ARM processor. AMD's newest line of apu's are carrizo, which include an ARM proccessor on the die for security. If this is utilized in a game console the ARM could be used for other purposes besides pc security. Think about the OS/home screen/console menu running of the ARM and the games had full access to the other cpu.

The carrizo apu's are available with excavator cpu cores or puma cpu cores. As much as I would love for the NX to include the excavator cores, I believe that the puma cores would fit the power envelope for Nintendo better, so they will probably go with an 8core design like the ps4 and xb1. The puma cores have increased power to power consumption efficiency. They are designed to run at 15w to 30w, power based on the power utilization. The puma cores are also roughly 10% more efficient than jaguar cores, so the cpu in the NX would have a jump on the ps4 and xb1. Given the decrease in power consumption of the puma cores, the base clock speed is usually 2.0GHz ranging up to 2.7Ghz, so the clock speed will most likely be faster than whats in the ps4 and xb1 even if the underclock for even more power saving.

Given the fact that the carrizo apu's are paired with either 512 SPU's or 384 SPU's, using the smaller one in a dual setup on the same chip like the ps4 and xb1, would put it exactly even gpu-wise with the XB1 at 768 SPU's. Using the larger setup would put it at 1024 SPU's. This is still shy of the 1152 of the PS4, but I would like to believe that the newer "tonga" gcn cores are more efficient than the "pitcairn" gcn cores found in the PS4. Couple that with a more efficient cpu and you will have a machine more powerful than the PS4, but not really by much. It would be a smaller gap than there is between the XB1>PS4 in terms of performance, unless having the more powerful puma cores and a dedicated ARM really shows some improvements. Nintendo could go with something a little more powerful gpu wise, but I really don't see it. Considering they chose AMD instead of Nvidia, there isn't really anything they could use that would fit in their power envelope. I could see them taking a "middle of the road" approach and using a setup with their apu to have two 448 SPU's meet the power of the mobile R9 m280 that has 896 SPU's. Using two of the 896 SPU(1792 total)chunks would make it marginally better than the PS4, but I don't know if they would even fit on the apu or if it would drive the power draw up too much.

Then there is the topic of ram. I don't know if going all gDDR5 would be good like Sony did. But I don't like the all DD3 setup with a small cache of high speed eram to boost it. I feel like a pc-like setup with a combo of DDR3 and gDDR5 would be better. I would like to see like 6GB of DDR3 2133 and 4GB of gDDR5. This would give it a total of 10GB. Both the PS4 and XB1 dedicate 3 or 3.5GB of ram to their OS. This only makes roughly 4.5GB of ram available for games. I don't see Nintendo dedicating that much to the OS, but dedicating 2GB would be plenty and that would leave 8GB for games(4GB of DDR3 2133 and 4GB of gDDR5) 8GB's for games is actually a considerably larger amount than the 4.5GB of the PS4 and XB1.

Also they need an HDD, and it needs to be faster than the slow 5400rpm drives in the ps4 and xb1. Also there is the bluray drive. Both the others use a 6x bluray drive because they are cheap. 16x bluray drives can be bought for roughly $50-$60 by consumers, so a 16x bluray drive could allow Nintendo to use that put the disc in and play thing that they have been going with for quite awhile. No need for installs, but I think it is critical that the option to install should be available for every game. For the gamers that do want a boost in loading, etc.

If you start adding all these things up, you can start to see a slightly more powerful console coming together that could launch at a $300-$400 price point. Nintendo CANNOT get the pricing wrong, if they go all gung ho and launch a beastly $500 machine it will most certainly fail against a $350 PS4 with an install base of 30mil and a $300 XB1 with an install base of 20mil. I am assuming those numbers though because the NX will probably launch fall/winter 2016. Hell, $400 might be a hard pill to swallow for many nintendo fans. Below $300 isn't at all possible. If they made a console sub-$300, it would not doubt be weaker than both. The Wii U is still $300, but it does have the gamepad. I honestly believe that the $300 price point will be the most strategic move that they could make while being "better" and competitive in the market.