Nintendo NX: new rumours

[Master Disaster]

So The Know reported yesterday that there has been a fresh batch of Nintendo NX rumours released by an Industry Insider who does have form for correctly leaking Nintendo stuff in the past (Emily Rogers who is a confirmed affiliate by NeoGaf). Now this is a video article so I cannot provide quotes but I will round up the details then provide the video at the end.

 

1) The Nintendo NX DOES NOT contain a separate handheld device which can be played separately from the console, this apparently comes from developers who are in possession of Dev Kits for the device.

2) The device will be X86 and not ARM using AMD Hardware (this is hardly news at this point)

3) The device might be significantly more powerful than previously thought, apparently it will be more powerful than the current PS4 model!

4) Most (if not all) of the launch titles will be ports of existing Wii U Games including Splatoon, Mario Maker, Zelda & Smash Brothers

5) Third party titles for the NX wont arrive until mid 2017

6) Nintendo are making it significantly easier for third parties to port games to the NX

 

On a separate tangent apparently the next Zelda game will contain a playable female link character!

 

Expect more NX info at E3 but the final rumour is Nintendo might release at least some small details at the Nintendo Investor conference on April 27th.

 

Source

 

Well the NX is shaping up to be a decent little system, what with X86, expanded third party support and MOAR POWAH. Just a shame they wont be releasing to many new games for the system early in its life.

 

Its becoming clear that Nintendo is now regretting the decision to stick with underpowered hardware for so long and in the process piss of pretty much all third party dev studios and now they're realising that they won't sell units unless they start to attract some of the third parties back to develop for the new system.

 

Whats crazy is Slightly Mad Studios hinted at this fact back when Pcars launched and they announced they had to pull the Wii U version because the system couldn't handle the game. Ian Bell stated that the project wasn't dead and would be shelved until Nintendo provided them with hardware which was capable of running Pcars, and he didn't say if, he said when which caused a lot of users to begin speculating that this is the path Nintendo would go down for the NX.

 

Thoughts?

[Coaxialgamer]

It would actually be pretty nice if Nintendo managed to stay relevant 

[thexzenon]

It would be nice to have a powerful console from Nintendo with decent multi-platform games. Some games on the Wii U look really nice and interesting (unlike most games on the PS4 and XBone), but the lack of titles is not a great selling-point.

 

Come on Nintendo, I wanna play some Zelda and FIFA on your consoles

[Ashaira]

if it can play my wii u games i am fine with selling my wii u and getting one

 

[79wjd]

Damn is that render ugly.

[ThreePinkApples]

Just to say, /r/NintendoNX have been filled with false rumours the last few weeks. It has calmed down, but many of the YouTube rumour videos are based on stuff that are probably just made up. 
But some of the things are more real, based on who "leaked" it. 
That there will be Wii U Games that are ported to NX seems to be true (and obvious). The leaker mentioned 4, but what does games are, have been pure guesswork. But I agree with Splatoon and Mario Maker are quite likely, both are very popular and would really help the launch. Also it is too early for Splatoon 2, and a Mario Maker 2 doesn't really make sense. 

 

There have been quite conflicting rumours about if the device is X86, PowerPC or something else. But x86 seems most likely, as the rumours about easy porting have come from some more believable sources. 

I don't know where the "Third party titles in the middle of 2017" comes from. I haven't seen that rumours yet myself. But I have seen partly confirmed developers saying that they are working on games that are supposed to maybe release late this year (being launch game or close too launch). 

"Significantly more powerful", that, has also had quite conflicting rumours. The conclusion is that it probably is at least as powerful as the PS4.

 

My only "source" for this is what I've read i /r/NintendoNX the past month, and analyzing based on that. 

 

Also, the part about choosing gender for Link, it kinda makes sense, but is also an easy rumour to create. Linkle being officially accepted in Hyrule Warriors Legends, and also because a quite old leak/rumour about Zelda U talked about there being two main characters, male and female, which maybe were brothers/sisters. 

 

 

 

[rattacko123]

The nintendo NX might explain why Sony and Microsoft are going to be releasing new consoles soon. If the NX is more powerful than the PS4, Sony wouldn't want their console being inferior so they would want to upgrade.

[Pesmerga]

a Nintendo console with its games plus  all the other multiplatforms? yes please.

[spellmanuk]

im guessing they wanna get back to snes n64 days where they have all the games published on the program so now it would be a choice between the ps4 xbone and nx image playing fallout 4 you could essentially have the iphone app on the controller for the pip boy 

[tsk]

If Nintendo puts out a no bullshit console unlike the wii-u, I'll buy it. 

[christianled59]

So we will be seeing better console graphics on a Nintendo console. That's a first in almost 2 decades. 

[RexinOridle]

Nintendo is a piece of shit, as their relevancy, proprietary and attitude.

[Yog]

5 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

It would actually be pretty nice if Nintendo managed to stay relevant 

Nintendo is still very relevant to a lot of people. They might not have a lot of third party games, definitely not any important ones, but their first party games are some of the most popular out there and a lot of people still feel it worth buying the consoles for those. Heck, even Luke thinks having a PC and a Wii U is ideal (I'm pretty sure I'm not lying and have heard him say this multiple times). Makes sense to me, considering most third party games eventually make it to the PC and Nintendo probably has the most first party content (and depending on the type of game you like they might have the best).

 

 

[GoodBytes]

21 minutes ago, Yog said:

Nintendo is still very relevant to a lot of people. They might not have a lot of third party games, definitely not any important ones, but their first party games are some of the most popular out there and a lot of people still feel it worth buying the consoles for those. Heck, even Luke thinks having a PC and a Wii U is ideal (I'm pretty sure I'm not lying and have heard him say this multiple times). Makes sense to me, considering most third party games eventually make it to the PC and Nintendo probably has the most first party content (and depending on the type of game you like they might have the best).

Fully agree. That is what I have too. I have a gaming PC, and WiiU. Why would I buy a game on my console (no matter the specs), if it will always be better on my PC (controls and/or graphics and modding, let alone cheaper price). So while people bash Nintendo and its console, or plainly decides to ignore it, I am having a blast with it, especially when friends are over.

 

One thing that Nintendo does right is its games (massively the majority of times), and treat well its IP, making them never tired experience or have a game full of bugs, or no attention to details.

[Coaxialgamer]

22 minutes ago, Yog said:

Nintendo is still very relevant to a lot of people. They might not have a lot of third party games, definitely not any important ones, but their first party games are some of the most popular out there and a lot of people still feel it worth buying the consoles for those. Heck, even Luke thinks having a PC and a Wii U is ideal (I'm pretty sure I'm not lying and have heard him say this multiple times). Makes sense to me, considering most third party games eventually make it to the PC and Nintendo probably has the most first party content (and depending on the type of game you like they might have the best).

 

 

not what i meant. I meant that it would be sad if Nintendo died out

[Squirrel724]

I don't get why people keep posting rumors that the nx will be faster than the ps4 as news. It HAS to be faster than the current consoles as it needs to compete with the next generation (ps5). Nintendo will have a massive problem if the NX is less powerful than the current consoles.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, RexinOridle said:

Nintendo is a piece of shit, as their relevancy, proprietary and attitude.

They're the only console manufacturer who demand 60 fps out of games on their systems, IMO that puts them ahead of both Sony and MS.

[tobben]

1 hour ago, Squirrel724 said:

I don't get why people keep posting rumors that the nx will be faster than the ps4 as news. It HAS to be faster than the current consoles as it needs to compete with the next generation (ps5). Nintendo will have a massive problem if the NX is less powerful than the current consoles.

It doesn't have to, that's not how Nintendo operates. The wii or

wiiu sure as heck wasn't more powerful than any current gen

consoles, let alone next gen, but they were still relevant. If you 
want powerful you can build a pc. 

 

That being said, it doesn't hurt, depending on the price tag.

[skywake]

As a "Nintendo fanboy", addressing a few things @LinusTech said on the WAN show about this topic....

 

- Cloud saves? Yes, should already be a thing. You can manually backup your Wii U/3DS saves but in 2016 that's not good enough

- SNES games only on the New 3DS? The CPU in the original 3DS is so underpowered it looks at the original 2007 model iPhone with envy.

- When the rumours say dual-screen? I'm pretty damn sure they mean in the same way the Wii U is. With a screen on your controller for shield-like off-TV play

 

- Last point, and it's a long point, the ports of the Wii U games. I'm kinda getting sick of people complaining about console makers porting their games over to newer systems. Not everyone who buys the new platform has played those games. Something especially true for the Wii U given that it's is the least successful platform since the Dreamcast. And it's not like this is a new thing either. How many NES games were ported over to the Gameboy? What about Super Mario Allstars on the SNES? Pretty much the entire GBA library was SNES ports and it was also a fair chunk of the DS' library. This isn't a new thing. Hell, we don't even know how these Wii U ports are being handled. Given the rumoured architecture switch these games are going to have to either be emulated or ported to work on NX. For all we know Nintendo could be doing what the XBOne did and making these games available for people who have a Wii U copy.

 

/rant

[Squirrel724]

20 hours ago, tobben said:

It doesn't have to, that's not how Nintendo operates. The wii or

wiiu sure as heck wasn't more powerful than any current gen

consoles, let alone next gen, but they were still relevant. If you 
want powerful you can build a pc. 

 

That being said, it doesn't hurt, depending on the price tag.

But it was more powerful than the original xbox and ps2. That is what I was saying, the nx has to be more powerful than the current consoles or else Nintendo falls a complete generation behind meaning that the NX would have 0 third party support, just like the Wii U.

[GoodBytes]

48 minutes ago, Squirrel724 said:

But it was more powerful than the original xbox and ps2. That is what I was saying, the nx has to be more powerful than the current consoles or else Nintendo falls a complete generation behind meaning that the NX would have 0 third party support, just like the Wii U.

The WiiU was more powerful than the XBox 360 and PS3, and more energy efficient and smaller size. But only marginally more powerful. They used IBM PowerPC fastest chip (at a reasonable level in terms of cooling, and cost). You can see why they went with it:

 -> Fastest chip, despite only being marginally faster than the XBox 360 one.

 -> Has more memory and GPU performance to compensate.

 -> Has a the game pad controller as a unique thing.

 -> Every developers at Nintendo perfectly knows the PowerPC architecture above and beyond for deep optimization (they have been using it since the GameCube)

 -> XBox 360 uses PowerPC so third party dev should be ok using it.

 -> Inexpensive console.

 

It all made sense in terms of decision making. However, what killed Nintendo, is that they ignored the fact that developers prefers x86 CPUs, and was only forcing themselves for PlayStation cell chip, and PowerPC chip of the XBox 360, as they had no choice due to market share. They aren't great chips in reality. And the minor performance increase from IBM PowerPC chip was marginal to a point that Microsoft and Sony decided to look somewhere else, and went with x86. That really killed Nintendo third party support. Even if IBM chip was faster, and the console had more memory, the simple fact that the you have 2 competitor console using the same chip, games would be develop, and optimized on those chips, as both market share would be combined in the dev studio head. All they have to deal with is OpenGL version of PlayStation 4 (GNMX), and DirectX of the XBox One (which is the same for PC, so good). So basically, it is 1 major headache gone by having both console not only using the same chip, but also uses something that all devs knows deeply, and all PC compilers are deeply optimized for: x86 architecture.

 

The biggest problem Nintendo has is that, when they design a console, they NEVER really consider third party devs. They see it as a toy. Everything is designed around THEM, and not considering others. And in the recent years, this has hurt them more than anything. Hopefully this will change with the NX. Even if the performance is identical to the PlayStation 4, while it will kill a lot of hype, especially if it doesn't have anything really special, it would be a big for Nintendo, as a move, as a company, if they do.

 

[Humbug]

http://wccftech.com/nintendo-nx-allegedly-custom-14nm-polarislike-gpu-vulkan-support-luigis-mansion-3-development-ip/

[TetraSky]

Quote

On a separate tangent apparently the next Zelda game will contain a playable female link character!

 

Here's hoping that's true. Link already looked like a girl, might as well get an actual female character, not like it actually matter what gender Link is.

[MMKing]

Even if Nintendo goes for a 14nm AMD x86 APU. I doubt the console will be significantly faster than the PS4. More likely the chip will be significantly smaller, considering how expensive a 348mm^2 chip would be this early in the 14nm production. Though i do think it will be faster, somewhere in the range of 15-25%. So much faster that it's not in question, but not so much faster that the console cannot compete in price.

 

As for memory. Shared memory is already the consensus between Microsoft and Sony, i doubt Nintendo will risk 3rd party support by not having 8GB in total. Memory speeds may have an effect on FPS, but with next generation APIs giving more freedom AND responsibility to developers regarding memory usage, not having at least 8GB would be a huge mistake in my opinion.

[ThinkWithPortals]

On 15/04/2016 at 11:09 AM, Master Disaster said:

 

Nice. I hope it doesn't actually look like that render, that thing is butt ugly, but I'm super excited for this.