Nintendo NX Reality Check

TIME: 14 Things Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima Told Us

Everyone is going on about Nintendo NX, but as we've seen with the WiiU, Nintendo is throwing out all thier best ammunation and all of their go-to bulletproof strategies but still appear to be falling short. My question is, what do you guys think the NX is going to fix?

What do you expect from the NX that the WiiU isn't capable of doing?
What do you expect from the NX that's the other 2 consoles aren't doing?
What are the current problems you think the NX will be a solution to?
What sort of games do you expect with the NX and why aren't those games doable on the WiiU?
Do you expect the NX to be a standard console like the gamecube or do you expect "innovative" (don't get too hung up on the airquotes, it's only to suggest there's subjectivity in what people think deserve to be praised as innovation) like the wii/U?
What would the NX have to do to win you over?
What would the NX have to do to differentiate itself from the others?
What kind of games do you expect from the NX?
What level of hardware do you expect from the NX?

No antagonization here. Just a discussion.

Wii U is a failure and Nintendo has stated they won't follow the Wii model, they will try to go after the Blue Ocean again after rejecting it prior the Wii U. NX will be its own identity that won't share the Wii name. Nintendo is now opening up its IP to merchandising and theme parks, Amiibos to them, despite selling out all the time, is consider a failure due to being sold as collectors items instead of something people want. Their Quality of Life strategy is being shelved and won't be the focus on the NX. Unified Account system with eShop on Wii U and 3DS as well as mobile and PC platforms. Mobile strategy isn't about making games for phones, but to bring IP awareness instead.

I could go on as I made a thread deciphering Kimishima's Time interview, but @charizard1605 locked it.

First time I've ever read a large paragraph that said absolutely nothing at all.

A lot of assumptions there.

We know literally nothing about what the NX is supposed to BE. All it is right now is a bunch of talk, on both sides of the equation. Until we see the hardware, and see what it can do, we can't say anything about whether it will be successful or not.

I really don't think the NX is meant to fix anything. I mean its not as if a new success will erase an old failure. The NX has the potential to be an all new beginning for Ninty. But we wontbe able to answer any of the questions raised in the OP until we k ow what it actually is. I do know that I am excited for one simple reason: Nintendo has put $1.3BN into R&D the past couple of years. That's a nhuge number for Nintendo.

It may get more than 6 games each year?

The NX is meant to fix droughts, and the hardware issue. What kind of games could be made that aren't possible on Wii U? A hell of a lot, in terms of scope and interactivity. Regardless, it will be a generational leap from the Wii U in visuals alone. The PS4 hardly offers any new gameplay possibilities with its hardware, so the NX wouldn't be alone in that regard if it doesn't. The Wii U's cpu is a real problem, even compared to the 360's chip. In fact the Ps4's cpu isn't enough to have a big increase in gameplay possibility. The combination of a beefier cpu than Ps4, a significantly better gpu and at least twice as much memory will open up possibilities for Nintendo and the hardware won't give AAA 3rd parties the cold shoulder.

Games, and better hardware is all it needs to differentiate itself (like Ps4, except it has no games :P). Hardware wise they won't be hamstrung by a Cpu architecture from 2001 and Backwards compatibility, so marketing is their biggest challenge. Ps4 is selling buckets and Sony's first party is paltry in comparison to Nintendo's, so clearly it doesn't take much except a good image to sell a console. Not only that but the market has grown since last gen and is healthier than it was back in '06. Their image is their absolute biggest problem, after the hardware and their software drought situation is addressed.

I expect a significantly better CPU than Ps4 (a given), 16-24gb's of memory, and at least a 7950 level gpu with a more efficient architecture and newer feature set.

For the record Kimishima has not said they're going for the blue ocean strategy, only that they're going in a different direction than Wii and Wii U took.

You can call me delusional. I think NX is going to be huge for Nintendo and huge for gaming in general. I don't think I've ever seen a situation where 3rd party publishers were announcing games for the system before it could even be unveiled but that happened with NX. Its pretty clear to see that there are developers and publishers who are excited for it.

Some people want Nintendo to fail for corporate slave reasons. Do we really want a Sony and MS only console space? Without Sony giving a kick to MS at e3 look what we'd have, and look at how Sony is getting arrogant again since they're in the lead. Even if someone didn't like Nintendo consoles, the competition is better for everyone.

http://mynintendonews.com/2015/10/16/report-dev-kits-suggests-nintendo-nx-likely-more-powerful-than-ps4-and-xbox-one/

[O]ne software demo included with the kit crunches so many polygons that it’s currently impossible to run at 60fps using a current-generation Intel (we’re assuming a Core i7 Skylake) CPU and a nearly top-of-the-line graphics card

Using AMD Carrizo APU's 250 mm^2 size chip with 14 nm or 16 nm process technology leads to nearly top-of-the-line graphics card with about 44 CU i.e. R9-390X is nearly the top of the line GPU SKU for AMD.

Nintendo has another 100 mm^2 APU chip budget for the hand held device.

PS4's APU has 348 mm^2 size chip.

XBO's APU has 365 mm^2 size chip and about half of the chip was wasted for 32 MB ESRAM.

AMD Jaguar/Puma to be replaced by AMD ZEN

Like mobile Intel Corei7 quad core, AMD ZEN with quad cores has 8 threads.

On the desktop/workstation PCs, AMD plans to scale towards 16 ZEN cores. Intel plans for 10 core solution for i7 extreme editions in year 2016.

It looks like AMD is focusing on servers and mobiles, with desktops coming last. AMD didn't bothered updating Steamroller APU desktop parts with Excavator APU (with AVXv2 SIMD support) parts.

After the Wii and WiiU I'm unfortunately going to have to keep my hopes semi-low. No matter what the launch is like, I won't buy one until after a year or two. I am so excited to see what NX is all about though, and I'm ready to welcome Nintendo back with open arms. Especially because 1st party from Sony and Microsoft is getting so stale.

The NX will be more like Gamecube than Wii U, but with some kind of unique feature that sets it apart from the PS4/XB1.

I don't expect big third party support out of the gate, but I do expect Platinum to make another exclusive title for the NX.

I predict the NX will have the best set of launch games of any previous Nintendo console released so far.

@emgesp: I like the sound of it being more like Gamecube then Wii U...

certainly is , now we're at a stalemate with sony and microsoft, hence we got such weak consoles. If anyone tried to release a console in the past, that was relatively as weak, the console would have failed the day before it released.

Now nintendo is in such a good position, they will have to try hard to release a console that is actually weaker than the ps4 and x1.

Ummm what? who are these devs or publishers cause I've yet to see anyone (publisher or dev) get excited for the NX, specially if it's rumored to be announced at E3 in 2016, then shipped later next year. You'd think we would hear from Nintendo or something from devs but no, which honestly concerns me (greatly) if all of those rumors are true it being released in 2016.

Here's another source

http://gonintendo.com/stories/244909-rumor-nx-has-industry-leading-chips

http://www.nintengen.com/2015/10/nintendo-nx-tech-demo-not-able-to-run.html

SqaureEnix accidentally announced Dragon Quest XI for NX, then quickly apologized for it and removed the statement. There might be others, but i cant remember.

It's Nintendo's solution to their drought problem.

E6760 uses AMD "Turks" VLIW5 DX11 GPU e.g. SKUs are desktop 5570 and mobile 5770M. Up to 400 stream processors or 5 CU x 80 stream processors per CU. Lesser Turks variant is Radeon HD 5550 with 320 stream processors or 4 CU x 80 stream processors per CU i.e. a single CU block was disabled.

Wii U ultimately used a slightly older mobile Radeon HD 4670M with VLIW5 DX10.1 GPU and Up to 320 stream processors or 4 CU x 80 stream processors per CU.

The main differences between Radeon HD 4670M and 5770M are around the tessellation hardware, register storage capacity and register I/O path (to support DX11's extra shader states and related shader type e.g. hull shader and domain shader types which interacts with the tessellation hardware).

Custom DX 10.1/OpenGL kitbash pipeline: spill data into memory = slower.

DX 11 pipeline: Better.

You're thinking they will develop for one platform instead of two. Perhaps draw in the handheld third party support as well. It would certainly help a lot.

What do you expect from the NX that the WiiU isn't capable of doing? Playing 2D platformers in 4K

What do you expect from the NX that's the other 2 consoles aren't doing? Talk about those games in MiiVerse

What are the current problems you think the NX will be a solution to? Getting rid of GamePad and motion controls should make future piracy of Nintendo games more obtainable.

What sort of games do you expect with the NX and why aren't those games doable on the WiiU? Nintendo made the Wii U to play the same muliplats on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the NX will be made to get the same games that are on the XBO and PS4.

Do you expect the NX to be a standard console like the gamecube or do you expect "innovative" (don't get too hung up on the airquotes, it's only to suggest there's subjectivity in what people think deserve to be praised as innovation) like the wii/U? Integrating the mobile community onto a Nintendo system and Nintendo onto the mobile community is innovation, it's going to change the face of gaming (for NIntendo at least)

What would the NX have to do to win you over? show more support for Wii U before releasing the NX

What would the NX have to do to differentiate itself from the others? it can't or won't, just like the Wii U Nintendo will try to court third parties to get the same exact games that PS and XB owners can play on their systems, when the NX comes out people will ask "why spend money on a new system to play the same games I can buy on the ones I already own?"

What kind of games do you expect from the NX? $60 2D platformers and $60 mini-game collections.

What level of hardware do you expect from the NX? Generation 8.5, 50% more powerful than PS4, no voice chat

Sorry if that sounds cynical, just trying to be real about what I actually expect from them

For people who are pessimistic about Nintendo's future, i implore to watch this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f4e2otLh8jw

Nintendo not only have nothing to worry about, but if this works as described in the patent, they are futureproofed forever.

1.5X x 1.84 TFLOPS would be 2.76 TFLOPS. Mobile Tonga Pro with 28 active CU at 800 Mhz =2.867 TFLOPS. Mobile Tonga Pro reserves 4 CUs for yield issues.

The following GPU is Mobile Tonga XT with full 32 CU and 3 TFLOPS.

I mean, most of us are hoping for the best but in reality we should be ready for the worst. One of the most important things Ninty has to try and do is to rebuild their relationship with 3rd parties. Having a decent amount of 3rd parties on their home console would mean they can space out their 1st party releases a bit more and even avoid situations like Splatoon where the game released still lacking quite a bit of content.

Can they do that? Who knows! Only time will tell.

Outside of that they need mostly marketing. Marketing opened the world to the X360 in 05/06, created the phenomena that was the Wii in 06, saved the PS3 in 2009 and launched the PS4 to massive heights in 2013 (yes, well aware that in all these examples there were other factors, but without the marketing push those factors wouldn't have had the same impact). As we all know, WiiU's marketing has been amazingly terrible, starting right with the name of the console. "Predictable" as it would be, Wii 2 would have been a much better name, at least people would know it's a new console rather than "oh, is that the tablet for the Wii?" situation they faced for quite a while.

Decent hardware too, but at this point if they're not considering a decently powered machine they've failed from day 1 really. Unless they somehow manage another Wii-like gimmick and respective craze (which, lets be honest, is hard to achieve), the current market is all about the power and 3rd parties.

Of course, power +marketing + great games (exclusive or otherwise) is the best way to go, but since it's Ninty I'm sure they'll have the game part covered in any scenario.

Very informative and interesting. If Nintendo does what these guys think they could be doing the NX will be historic.

lmao I lost interest in this thread...Nintendo is a shit show, but sony PSX just made them seem like a lot less of a shitshow

Everyone who has been following Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony... I mean gaming companies in general for a while knows:

everyone can be a shitshow some time.

The Nintendo NX has to be on par with Xbox one and PS4. I order to receive third party ports. Nintendo cannot support a console just by themselves. Strong second party and third party support as well a indie support is needed in addition to Nintendo's first party offerings.

Nintendo has to take more chances with creating New IP's they managed to do that with Splattoon. While Super Mario Bros, Metroid, and Legend of Zelda are fine. Nintendo has to create New IP's for the Nintendo NX era. Plus continue with other Nintendo IP's other than the big three. F-Zero, has not seen a recent release. Nintendo has a wealth of IP's to use.

Second Party's can handle Donkey Kong, Kirby, Star Fox, etc. Retro and Hudson soft are Nintendo second party developers, Give them something like Ice Climbers to reboot or Pilotwings.

Allow the indie developers more freedom to develop games for NX. The blinding of Issac to forever to make it to Nintendo.

The Nintendo NX has to bring back third party support, so it should have proper on-line multiplayer, No friend codes