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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - What If The NX Console Is Portable Too?

Soundwave on 16 September 2015
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:

OK, NX will probably have handheld and home console that will probably have same type of CPU, same type of GPU, same type of memory, same OS, same or similar API, devs kits and code base, it will basically be one same platform with two devices that only have different power, and you are saying "it'll probably be less work to do so than it was to make a game for both PS3 ans X360"!?

Making one game for NX handheld and home console it will be incomparably require less work than making same game for PS3 and Xbox360, it will be much more similar making same game/app that works on iPad and iPhone.

So basically developers with little extra effort (that is incomparably less than making same game for another platform) will have one game on two console devices, I think that will be very attractive for 3rd party developers.

No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

It'll still be better support than what Nintendo is getting now. 

Hell, the NX already has a far bigger third party catch (Dragon Quest XI) than the Wii U ever did, lol. 

Publishers (suits) decide what games are made and for what too, not the developers, the developers are just the grunts who get paid to do what upper management tells them to. So if NX sells well and has decent demographics, then the bigger publishers will make games for it. It's really not much more complicated than that. 

Also nobody said Nintendo has to make a console that's 10x better than the portable. It may be (knowing Nintendo) as small as 1.5x-2x gap and thus being able to be sold for very cheap. 



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potato_hamster on 16 September 2015
Soundwave said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

It'll still be better support than what Nintendo is getting now. 

Hell, the NX already has a far bigger third party catch (Dragon Quest XI) than the Wii U ever did, lol. 

Publishers (suits) decide what games are made and for what too, not the developers, the developers are just the grunts who get paid to do what upper management tells them to. So if NX sells well and has decent demographics, then the bigger publishers will make games for it. It's really not much more complicated than that. 

Also nobody said Nintendo has to make a console that's 10x better than the portable. It may be (knowing Nintendo) as small as 1.5x-2x gap and thus being able to be sold for very cheap. 

Just for clarity, when I was referring to developers above, for all intents and purposes, i was referring to publishers, development studios, or whoever makes the decisions on which platforms the game is going to support. Who makes that decision is up to the contract signed between publishers and development studios if they're not one in the same. But yes, I will fully admit that such an approach will make it easier for those making to the decision to support both NX and NX portable rather than just supporting one or the other, but the added expense if they don't have that choice will make it a much harder and expensive decision to support, as I outlined above. Nintendo has to very very careful here. Nintendo is not in a position to force terms on developers, and they need to bring great developer tools, better support and most importantly a very flexible platform development model if this is the direction they decide to go in.



Miyamotoo on 17 September 2015
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:

OK, NX will probably have handheld and home console that will probably have same type of CPU, same type of GPU, same type of memory, same OS, same or similar API, devs kits and code base, it will basically be one same platform with two devices that only have different power, and you are saying "it'll probably be less work to do so than it was to make a game for both PS3 ans X360"!?

Making one game for NX handheld and home console it will be incomparably require less work than making same game for PS3 and Xbox360, it will be much more similar making same game/app that works on iPad and iPhone.

So basically developers with little extra effort (that is incomparably less than making same game for another platform) will have one game on two console devices, I think that will be very attractive for 3rd party developers.

No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.



potato_hamster on 17 September 2015
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.

That's only attractive if they're choosing between one or the other. Let's be practical here. They're not choosing to do one or the other, they're choosing between doing PS4/X1/NX or PS4/X1. Think of the sales the PS4 and X1 will have in 1-2 years from now. Do you think game developers will decide not to develop for two platforms that will more than likely have close to 100M install base in two years? So if a company is choosing between just doing PS4/X1 /NX or just PS4/X1, it's going to be very difficult for them to justify that, as in that stance it's the most expensive platform to develop for, nearly doubling the budget of just developing for the PS4/X1, especially when Nintendo hardware sales have been on the decline for a while now. There is no reason at this point to expect the NX to sell better than the Wii U and 3DS combined over the same time frame. Bear in mind how poorly the 3DS sold when it first hit the market. If the NX combined sales first year is less than 15 Million it's finished as far as third party is concerned, and then Nintendo has absolutely nothing to go back on.

Of course it's more attractive than developing for the Wii U or 3DS individually. However, that doesn't really matter. If you were going to develop for one of those platforms anyways, it's makes it easier to make the jump to make the game the other platform as well, but that doesn't really make much of a difference if you didn't have much intention of developing for these platforms in the first place. Any why would they? If anything you can expect one to cannibalize the sales of the other as people will no longer need to buy both to get the "full Nintendo game experience". Bearing that in mind, if it's anywhere near as close as difficult to port a PS4/X1 game to the NX home as it is for developers to port it to the Wii U, they won't bother. It's simply not worth the hassle, much less the added developmnent cost of making a game for two extra platforms instead of one.



Miyamotoo on 17 September 2015
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.

That's only attractive if they're choosing between one or the other. Let's be practical here. They're not choosing to do one or the other, they're choosing between doing PS4/X1/NX or PS4/X1. Think of the sales the PS4 and X1 will have in 1-2 years from now. Do you think game developers will decide not to develop for two platforms that will more than likely have close to 100M install base in two years? So if a company is choosing between just doing PS4/X1 /NX or just PS4/X1, it's going to be very difficult for them to justify that, as in that stance it's the most expensive platform to develop for, nearly doubling the budget of just developing for the PS4/X1, especially when Nintendo hardware sales have been on the decline for a while now. There is no reason at this point to expect the NX to sell better than the Wii U and 3DS combined over the same time frame. Bear in mind how poorly the 3DS sold when it first hit the market. If the NX combined sales first year is less than 15 Million it's finished as far as third party is concerned, and then Nintendo has absolutely nothing to go back on.

Of course it's more attractive than developing for the Wii U or 3DS individually. However, that doesn't really matter. If you were going to develop for one of those platforms anyways, it's makes it easier to make the jump to make the game the other platform as well, but that doesn't really make much of a difference if you didn't have much intention of developing for these platforms in the first place. Any why would they? If anything you can expect one to cannibalize the sales of the other as people will no longer need to buy both to get the "full Nintendo game experience". Bearing that in mind, if it's anywhere near as close as difficult to port a PS4/X1 game to the NX home as it is for developers to port it to the Wii U, they won't bother. It's simply not worth the hassle, much less the added developmnent cost of making a game for two extra platforms instead of one.

Why they will need to choose!? How many game we have for PS3/Xbox 360 and PS4/Xbox One!? Its new platform and console, same like PS4/XboxOne were, you could easily same for PS4/Xbox One when they were launched in comparison with PS3/Xbox360.

One of the biggest problem with 3DS and Wii U were software droughts, 3DS had very bad start and Nintendo invest huge amount of energy to revise 3DS with some big hits and price cut and that certainly impacted on Wii U lineup and first year. Also Wii U had some serious bad decisions like terrible and misunderstood marketing (lots a people think Wii U is gamepad addon for Wii), bad launch titles, high price in comparison with PS3/Xbox 360, not appealing gamepad... Nintendo already planning to resolve software drought problems with unifying platform, and they will certainly correct those Wii U mistakes.

 

Thats a whole point, Wii U basically don't have any 3rd party support, 3DS have some but weak and mostly Japanese, this unifying stuff will certainly bring more 3rd party on board (not to mention hardware architecture, API, devs kits...that will be much attractive and easier for developing than those on Wii U), especially if NX platform will sell good. Square Enix already bassily announced Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI NX even NX isnt reveld yet.



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Soundwave on 17 September 2015

I think what Nintendo should do is set up the development infrastructure of the NX system so that at minimum it's very easy to take a game that's running at say 960x540 resolution and bring that up to 1920x1080 with anti-aliasing.

And make that process very easy for the developer. So at minimum, if a developer doesn't feel like making hugely variable games, it's easy enough for them to make a "console version" even if it is just the handheld engine running at a higher res with AA.

Let the developer decide how much of the high-end NX model's power they want to use, some devs may say "hey cool, on the console we can upgrade the textures and lighting" and may choose to do that. But it's not like there's a gun to anyone's head here.

Getting back to a variable hardware setup if they do use HBM2 RAM, at 40GB/sec say that would be quite a bit for a target resolution of say 960x540 right (1/4th of 1080p)? If it's pushing 1/4th the resolution, a corresponding memory bandwidth of 1/4 makes sense right?

That stuff interests me, I wonder how far they can get this thing to scale and still have relatively nicely playable versions on the handheld.



potato_hamster on 17 September 2015
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.

That's only attractive if they're choosing between one or the other. Let's be practical here. They're not choosing to do one or the other, they're choosing between doing PS4/X1/NX or PS4/X1. Think of the sales the PS4 and X1 will have in 1-2 years from now. Do you think game developers will decide not to develop for two platforms that will more than likely have close to 100M install base in two years? So if a company is choosing between just doing PS4/X1 /NX or just PS4/X1, it's going to be very difficult for them to justify that, as in that stance it's the most expensive platform to develop for, nearly doubling the budget of just developing for the PS4/X1, especially when Nintendo hardware sales have been on the decline for a while now. There is no reason at this point to expect the NX to sell better than the Wii U and 3DS combined over the same time frame. Bear in mind how poorly the 3DS sold when it first hit the market. If the NX combined sales first year is less than 15 Million it's finished as far as third party is concerned, and then Nintendo has absolutely nothing to go back on.

Of course it's more attractive than developing for the Wii U or 3DS individually. However, that doesn't really matter. If you were going to develop for one of those platforms anyways, it's makes it easier to make the jump to make the game the other platform as well, but that doesn't really make much of a difference if you didn't have much intention of developing for these platforms in the first place. Any why would they? If anything you can expect one to cannibalize the sales of the other as people will no longer need to buy both to get the "full Nintendo game experience". Bearing that in mind, if it's anywhere near as close as difficult to port a PS4/X1 game to the NX home as it is for developers to port it to the Wii U, they won't bother. It's simply not worth the hassle, much less the added developmnent cost of making a game for two extra platforms instead of one.

Why they will need to choose!? How many game we have for PS3/Xbox 360 and PS4/Xbox One!? Its new platform and console, same like PS4/XboxOne were, you could easily same for PS4/Xbox One when they were launched in comparison with PS3/Xbox360.

One of the biggest problem with 3DS and Wii U were software droughts, 3DS had very bad start and Nintendo invest huge amount of energy to revise 3DS with some big hits and price cut and that certainly impacted on Wii U lineup and first year. Also Wii U had some serious bad decisions like terrible and misunderstood marketing (lots a people think Wii U is gamepad addon for Wii), bad launch titles, high price in comparison with PS3/Xbox 360, not appealing gamepad... Nintendo already planning to resolve software drought problems with unifying platform, and they will certainly correct those Wii U mistakes.

 

Thats a whole point, Wii U basically don't have any 3rd party support, 3DS have some but weak and mostly Japanese, this unifying stuff will certainly bring more 3rd party on board (not to mention hardware architecture, API, devs kits...that will be much attractive and easier for developing than those on Wii U), especially if NX platform will sell good. Square Enix already bassily announced Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI NX even NX isnt reveld yet.


You've yet you name a compelling reason to think that third parties will be more willing to come on board when a) developing a game for the NX, especially if all platforms are required to be supported will be more expensive to develop for than the Wii U, b) Nintendo sales are dwindling to a point where sales expectations are the lowest they have been since Nintendo released the Original Game Boy c) Nintendo completely messed up supporting and encouraging third parties to make games for their platforms and the ones that did made weaker, buggier games than the PS4/X1 counterparts (Like Watch_Dogs and Arkham City for example). As of right now it is much harder to make a poor game on the Wii U than it is to make an average game on the PS4 or X1, and the tools and dev kits for the Wii U are better than the Wii in my experience.

What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire confidence that their development kits and API will be more developer friendly than literally any of their previous platforms, despite the added complexity of creating a developer kit that not only supports multiple platforms, but needs to be competitive price-wise to PS4 and X1 dev kits? What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire confidence that they're willing to support third parties at least as well as Sony and MS do at the present? What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire conifence in developers that this NX platform will actually be more sucessful than the 3DS or Wii are individually?

Ohh, that's right. Absolutely none that you know of. It's just pure speculation and hope beyond hope that Nintendo can pull of something they've literally never been able to do in the past.  Look how many third party titles were successful on the 100 million + selling Wii (Just 2 Non-Nintendo Wii games sold over 4M copies, the next highest? 2.2 Million). So not very many. Nintendo has proven that having marketshare does not guarantee any type of success by third parties, and before you blame the quality of the games, remember that thing I said about how hard it is to just make a poor game on the Wii and Wii U. Making video games is a multi-million dollar gamble. What makes you think anyone is willing to bet on Nintendo at this point? What makes you think that selling to a market of 70 million NX (let's be very generous and assume its this successful) is going to be better for third parties than selling to a market of 100 million Wiis?



Miyamotoo on 18 September 2015
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:


Probably not the same dev kits. You better hope for third party's sake they each platform doesn't share one dev kit. The cost of such a dev kit would be signifcantly higher than the dev kits of other platforms. And yes, I maintain probably, because I've worked with Nintendo's developer tools and API. They are absolutely abysmal, and I do not have the confidence in Nintendo to make such tools well enough that it would actually be less work than using and working with the tools made for say, the X360 or PS4. So yes, I'll continue with "probably" because Nintendo needs to me prove to me they can actually make a developer friendly dev kit and tools package, much less one that can make developing for separate platforms easier. You might have that confidence but I certainly do not.

How on earth can you decide how much "extra effort" it will be, much less decide that it will be incomparaly smaller? It could be 50% less effort, or 80% less, or it might be 10% less. We can't possibly know that at this point. Making a game for the PS4 and X1 typically requires minor codebase changes, no asset changes, and is more of matter of optimizing the engines for each platform since the platforms are so similar in terms of both architecture and performance, and while this is non-trivial, it is less work than say, porting a PS4 game to the Vita (something I have actually done). These NX platforms, while the arcitecture will undoubtedly be similar if not a "scaled back version of identical architecture" has entirely different obstacles to overcome. These differences in processor speeds, cache sizes, ram sizes, bus speeds etc require additional work to accomodate these restrictions. You might need to redo all kinds of things such as 3D models, animation rigs, animation, AI, textures etc. so that the game will run acceptably on weaker hardware.  Making an iPhone 5s game work on the iPhone 4 also requires a lot of this work. That's why there are many apps out there for iPad that aren't found on iPhone or for iPhone that aren't found on iPad, or for iPhone 6 that won't run on iPhone 4. It's not a "little extra effort", considering you're likely millions of dollars in man hours to see it done.

The effort involved won't be "incomparably smaller". Let's be generous and let's say it'll 50% less effort than supporting an entirely new platform. Sure that's a comparative savings, but consider this. Let's say a developer wants to develop a game. It costs X to make it on PS4, an additional 0.8X to support it on X1 as well since the platforms are so similar. It'll still cost 1.35X to support it on NX (0.9X for NX since the architecture is so fundamentally different, + .45X for NX portable, because you need to support both). So, instead of spending 1.8X to make a game for PS4 and X1, it'll now cost  3.15x. That's almost double the cost of making a PS4/X1 game. Not exactly "very attractive", is it? The sales on that additional platform would have to justify the additional cost, and you're facing an uphill battle since it's more expensive to make an NX game than it is to make a game on any other single platform. I really don't think that is going to fly.

Like I wrote, No one said that wouldnt require extra effort, but that effort will be incomparably smaller than making game for completely different platform or making game for Xbox360/PS3, Vita/3DS or even PS4/XboxOne. Thats the all point.

 

So what are you saying is that game for PS4/XboxOne cost 1.8x, and for NX Home/Portable cost 1.35x and that isnt very attractive!?

You are getting game for cost of 1.35x on two platforms, how that isn't very attractive!? We are still getting one game for Xbox360/PS3 and in same time for PS4/Xbox One, so how exactly for those developers NX wouldn't be very attractive!?

One thing is for sure, NX platform would be incomparably more attractive than making game for Wii U alone or even 3DS alone, thats whole point, with Nintendo plan NX platform will have much better support than Wii U/3DS had, hell if just next Nintendo home console had ARM or x86 instead PPC and console itself have better sale it would be had much better sale not to mentioned all this Nintendo unifying stuffs that will make NX platform attractive to developers.

That's only attractive if they're choosing between one or the other. Let's be practical here. They're not choosing to do one or the other, they're choosing between doing PS4/X1/NX or PS4/X1. Think of the sales the PS4 and X1 will have in 1-2 years from now. Do you think game developers will decide not to develop for two platforms that will more than likely have close to 100M install base in two years? So if a company is choosing between just doing PS4/X1 /NX or just PS4/X1, it's going to be very difficult for them to justify that, as in that stance it's the most expensive platform to develop for, nearly doubling the budget of just developing for the PS4/X1, especially when Nintendo hardware sales have been on the decline for a while now. There is no reason at this point to expect the NX to sell better than the Wii U and 3DS combined over the same time frame. Bear in mind how poorly the 3DS sold when it first hit the market. If the NX combined sales first year is less than 15 Million it's finished as far as third party is concerned, and then Nintendo has absolutely nothing to go back on.

Of course it's more attractive than developing for the Wii U or 3DS individually. However, that doesn't really matter. If you were going to develop for one of those platforms anyways, it's makes it easier to make the jump to make the game the other platform as well, but that doesn't really make much of a difference if you didn't have much intention of developing for these platforms in the first place. Any why would they? If anything you can expect one to cannibalize the sales of the other as people will no longer need to buy both to get the "full Nintendo game experience". Bearing that in mind, if it's anywhere near as close as difficult to port a PS4/X1 game to the NX home as it is for developers to port it to the Wii U, they won't bother. It's simply not worth the hassle, much less the added developmnent cost of making a game for two extra platforms instead of one.

Why they will need to choose!? How many game we have for PS3/Xbox 360 and PS4/Xbox One!? Its new platform and console, same like PS4/XboxOne were, you could easily same for PS4/Xbox One when they were launched in comparison with PS3/Xbox360.

One of the biggest problem with 3DS and Wii U were software droughts, 3DS had very bad start and Nintendo invest huge amount of energy to revise 3DS with some big hits and price cut and that certainly impacted on Wii U lineup and first year. Also Wii U had some serious bad decisions like terrible and misunderstood marketing (lots a people think Wii U is gamepad addon for Wii), bad launch titles, high price in comparison with PS3/Xbox 360, not appealing gamepad... Nintendo already planning to resolve software drought problems with unifying platform, and they will certainly correct those Wii U mistakes.

 

Thats a whole point, Wii U basically don't have any 3rd party support, 3DS have some but weak and mostly Japanese, this unifying stuff will certainly bring more 3rd party on board (not to mention hardware architecture, API, devs kits...that will be much attractive and easier for developing than those on Wii U), especially if NX platform will sell good. Square Enix already bassily announced Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI NX even NX isnt reveld yet.


You've yet you name a compelling reason to think that third parties will be more willing to come on board when a) developing a game for the NX, especially if all platforms are required to be supported will be more expensive to develop for than the Wii U, b) Nintendo sales are dwindling to a point where sales expectations are the lowest they have been since Nintendo released the Original Game Boy c) Nintendo completely messed up supporting and encouraging third parties to make games for their platforms and the ones that did made weaker, buggier games than the PS4/X1 counterparts (Like Watch_Dogs and Arkham City for example). As of right now it is much harder to make a poor game on the Wii U than it is to make an average game on the PS4 or X1, and the tools and dev kits for the Wii U are better than the Wii in my experience.

What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire confidence that their development kits and API will be more developer friendly than literally any of their previous platforms, despite the added complexity of creating a developer kit that not only supports multiple platforms, but needs to be competitive price-wise to PS4 and X1 dev kits? What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire confidence that they're willing to support third parties at least as well as Sony and MS do at the present? What steps have Nintendo taken to inspire conifence in developers that this NX platform will actually be more sucessful than the 3DS or Wii are individually?

Ohh, that's right. Absolutely none that you know of. It's just pure speculation and hope beyond hope that Nintendo can pull of something they've literally never been able to do in the past.  Look how many third party titles were successful on the 100 million + selling Wii (Just 2 Non-Nintendo Wii games sold over 4M copies, the next highest? 2.2 Million). So not very many. Nintendo has proven that having marketshare does not guarantee any type of success by third parties, and before you blame the quality of the games, remember that thing I said about how hard it is to just make a poor game on the Wii and Wii U. Making video games is a multi-million dollar gamble. What makes you think anyone is willing to bet on Nintendo at this point? What makes you think that selling to a market of 70 million NX (let's be very generous and assume its this successful) is going to be better for third parties than selling to a market of 100 million Wiis?

Wii U has terrible devs quit on launch and Nintendo has terrible communication with 3rd parties, later they improved their devs kits and communication but already it was too late, so we cant expect that with new platform devs kits and communication will be good from start. With Wii U nintendo saw that they cant carry alone console and to expect great sales, so they will do lota a things in order that next home console or platform be much more attractive than Wii U.

 

Things that Nintendo will do to make new home console or platform much more attractive than Wii U was:

-Much more friendly architecture than Wii U-s, we already know that will be ARM or x86, thats much better than PPC, maybe it will have very similar architecture like PS4/Xbox One.

-Better communication and better devs kits and API with and for developers.

-Unified platform, developers will be able to make ease (compared with to other platforms) same game for two console devices in same time.

-Certainly better sales of console than Wii U had, Nintendo made so many big mistakes with Wii U, if they only correct half of them (Nintendo already addressed majority of them and we can expect that majority of them will be corrected and will not be repeat on next hardware too) next Nintendo home console will have much better sales (what really is not so difficult).

All this points guarantee that next Nintendo platform will certainly have much better 3rd party support than they having this gen, not to mentioned how good Nintendo itself will use unifying platform for releasing faster and more games than this gen, preventing software droughts like this gen.

 

Unifying platform is great plan for Nintendo in modern era because Nintendo this gen realised that they can't effectly support two completely different platforms, unifying platform will certainly be more attractive for 3rd parties too than 3DS/Wii U were.

 

We starting to go around with our points.



Soundwave on 18 September 2015

I think NX will have OK third party support to start with. Whether developers stick around will depend on sales of the system. 

Nothing that challenges Sony, but take the 3DS support, mix in the Vita support, and some OK Western support. Some Western devs won't support it, others will, we'll see how it shakes out. 't. 

And if you're still going to complain about that, well enjoy the Wii U, which has basically shit for third party support today aside from LEGO games.

Beggars can't be choosers. If you're always going to look at the PS4 and say "yeah but PS4 has this, and that" you're never going to be happy with a Nintendo platform going forward I doubt. 



Zoombael on 18 September 2015



Hunting Season is done...