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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - AMD Confirms Nintendo NX 2016 Launch?

Kagerow on 26 January 2016
zorg1000 said:
Kagerow said:

 

Second HALF OF 2016, not second quarter.

Ship them in July/August, devices release in Nov/Dec.

If they're shipping in July/August, that would mean at least 2016 Q3. That confirms NX isn't launching at 2016.

Once chip is received, they need to print the circuit board, put the chip in, complete the parts, test it, then send it to assembly to assemble with parts.

Then it needs to be packaged, while sending samples and getting licenses while planning for the distribution.

Even playing cards are completely printed at least 3 month before launch. I doubt console is going to be any faster.



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Conina on 26 January 2016
Kagerow said:
zorg1000 said:
Kagerow said:

 

Second HALF OF 2016, not second quarter.

Ship them in July/August, devices release in Nov/Dec.

If they're shipping in July/August, that would mean at least 2016 Q3. That confirms NX isn't launching at 2016.

Once chip is received, they need to print the circuit board, put the chip in, complete the parts, test it, then send it to assembly to assemble with parts.

Then it needs to be packaged, while sending samples and getting licenses while planning for the distribution.

Even playing cards are completely printed at least 3 month before launch. I doubt console is going to be any faster.

They start mass production of the CPU/APU this year, the chip design with samples gets done way earlier.

And they first design the chip and only after that they design the other parts? Maybe they worked this way in the eighties...





Thunderbird77 on 26 January 2016
UncleScrooge said:

Sorry, incredibly wrong specs and there won't be a handheld version of anything. There will be a handheld and a home console.

First of all: I expect there to be a home console and a handheld that share the same architecture and operating system. So we are probbaly talking about the same thing, just using different words. 

Second: If you have insight into these kinds of things, I'd be glad to learn more! Here's what I did: I looked at Nintendo's past consoles and handhelds and it turned out that aside from the Wii each console / handheld from the GC / GBA generation onward followed Moore's Law. The Wii was the exception to the rule, because Nintendo designed it to be a disruptive product. GBA to DS, DS to 3DS, N64 to Gamecube and Wii to Wii U all followed the same trajectory. So I concluded this would apply to NX as well. When I did the (very basic, uneducated) math for RAM, CPU and TFLOPS, NX home console sat exactly between PS4 and Xbone in power (if released in late 2016). The next handheld was more powerful than a PS Vita but not by leaps and bounds. Again, just doing some basic maths. I'm not claiming to be an expert.

I also looked at the rumors circulating around the internet. We have Square Enix who almost-confirmed Dragon Quest XI for NX and rumors pointed to NX being roughly as powerful as PS4 and Xbox One. And to me that makes sense. Nintendo wants third parties to be on board and having a console similar in power and architecture to PS4 and Xbox One would make it easier for third parties to develop games for Nintendo's console. At the same time the console wouldn't be more expensive: Nintendo never made a console or handheld more expensive (or powerful) than it had to be. Coincidentally, this power range is exactly what the power trajectory of Nintendo's past consoles would suggest as well. It just all falls together pretty nicely.

So, that's the logic behind my claim. But I'm no expert, so if you have inside information I'm happy to learn more! Especially why these specs are "incredibly" wrong (why not just a bit?). 

In that case it's still a HC and  HH, not versions of anything.

Wii U didn't follow the regular hardware jump. Since the wii used the same specs from GC, Wii U's hardware jump was far bigger than usual. For a Wii U successor, everything points to a $299 machine at launch and much better specs than a ps4.

For the next handheld, the traditional jump would lead to a ps360 level handheld. However, mobile technology advanced quickly in the past few years due to the mobile boom. Because of that, we can expect the 3ds successor to have power in between ps360 and wii u while still costing $199 at launch.





Soundwave on 26 January 2016
Thunderbird77 said:
UncleScrooge said:

Sorry, incredibly wrong specs and there won't be a handheld version of anything. There will be a handheld and a home console.

First of all: I expect there to be a home console and a handheld that share the same architecture and operating system. So we are probbaly talking about the same thing, just using different words. 

Second: If you have insight into these kinds of things, I'd be glad to learn more! Here's what I did: I looked at Nintendo's past consoles and handhelds and it turned out that aside from the Wii each console / handheld from the GC / GBA generation onward followed Moore's Law. The Wii was the exception to the rule, because Nintendo designed it to be a disruptive product. GBA to DS, DS to 3DS, N64 to Gamecube and Wii to Wii U all followed the same trajectory. So I concluded this would apply to NX as well. When I did the (very basic, uneducated) math for RAM, CPU and TFLOPS, NX home console sat exactly between PS4 and Xbone in power (if released in late 2016). The next handheld was more powerful than a PS Vita but not by leaps and bounds. Again, just doing some basic maths. I'm not claiming to be an expert.

I also looked at the rumors circulating around the internet. We have Square Enix who almost-confirmed Dragon Quest XI for NX and rumors pointed to NX being roughly as powerful as PS4 and Xbox One. And to me that makes sense. Nintendo wants third parties to be on board and having a console similar in power and architecture to PS4 and Xbox One would make it easier for third parties to develop games for Nintendo's console. At the same time the console wouldn't be more expensive: Nintendo never made a console or handheld more expensive (or powerful) than it had to be. Coincidentally, this power range is exactly what the power trajectory of Nintendo's past consoles would suggest as well. It just all falls together pretty nicely.

So, that's the logic behind my claim. But I'm no expert, so if you have inside information I'm happy to learn more! Especially why these specs are "incredibly" wrong (why not just a bit?). 

In that case it's still a HC and  HH, not versions of anything.

Wii U didn't follow the regular hardware jump. Since the wii used the same specs from GC, Wii U's hardware jump was far bigger than usual. For a Wii U successor, everything points to a $299 machine at launch and much better specs than a ps4.

For the next handheld, the traditional jump would lead to a ps360 level handheld. However, mobile technology advanced quickly in the past few years due to the mobile boom. Because of that, we can expect the 3ds successor to have power in between ps360 and wii u while still costing $199 at launch.

 

They could go well beyond that. The Apple A9X in the iPad Pro is basically equivalent to a GT730M GPU ... that GPU can even run decent, playable versions of high end PS4/XB1-only games like The Witcher 3 and Assassin's Creed Unity at 720p no less:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7o4l1NEoxs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJQTFk6wo0U

This A9X chip isn't even that expensive, it's pegged to cost about $38 to mass produce

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/12/02/how-much-does-the-apple-a9x-cost-to-make.aspx

 

If Nintendo could combine their portable userbase with game engines that developers actually work on (rather than forcing them to use a different engine for a portable game, which ends up being more trouble than most developers are willing to bother with) ... that would be a game changer for them IMO. 

Developers want the userbase the Nintendo portables get, but they don't want to have to program a completely seperate version of a game for it. 



Stefan51278 on 26 January 2016
Soundwave said:

This A9X chip isn't even that expensive, it's pegged to cost about $38 to mass produce

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/12/02/how-much-does-the-apple-a9x-cost-to-make.asp

 

Yeah, that chip does cost 38$ to mass produce. No, it doesn't just cost 38$. Apple iterated this chip for years, invested millions after millions and sold a alot of predecessor-chips to customers to get where they are at the moment. No way Nintendo could buy this chip with that high perfomance/low-power for 38$ per chip ;)





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Soundwave on 26 January 2016
Stefan51278 said:
Soundwave said:

This A9X chip isn't even that expensive, it's pegged to cost about $38 to mass produce

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/12/02/how-much-does-the-apple-a9x-cost-to-make.asp

 

Yeah, that chip does cost 38$ to mass produce. No, it doesn't just cost 38$. Apple iterated this chip for years, invested millions after millions and sold a alot of predecessor-chips to customers to get where they are at the moment. No way Nintendo could buy this chip with that high perfomance/low-power for 38$ per chip ;)

 

PowerVR is looking to put an even more powerful 16-core version of this chip (7900) which is getting into XBox One territory full stop (800 GFLOPS) into cheap Android set-top boxes. 

I don't think these chips cost that much money and Apple is not the only vendor for them. Nvidia has a comparable chip too (the Tegra X1) which has been sold in a micro-console for a year already and that costs $199.99 with 3GB RAM and a fat profit margin. 

These chips are cheap. I think AMD could give Nintendo something similar if they wanted and AMD has very low margins (that's why they get all the console contracts). 



Stefan51278 on 26 January 2016
Soundwave said:
Stefan51278 said:

Yeah, that chip does cost 38$ to mass produce. No, it doesn't just cost 38$. Apple iterated this chip for years, invested millions after millions and sold a alot of predecessor-chips to customers to get where they are at the moment. No way Nintendo could buy this chip with that high perfomance/low-power for 38$ per chip ;)

 

PowerVR is looking to put an even more powerful 16-core version of this chip (7900) which is getting into XBox One territory full stop (800 GFLOPS) into cheap Android set-top boxes. 

I don't think these chips cost that much money and Apple is not the only vendor for them. Nvidia has a comparable chip too (the Tegra X1) which has been sold in a micro-console for a year already and that costs $199.99 with 3GB RAM and a fat profit margin. 

These chips are cheap. I think AMD could give Nintendo something similar if they wanted and AMD has very low margins (that's why they get all the console contracts). 

 

Maybe some cheap chip with 8 little cpu-cores and standard-arm-design, but Apple's A9X is none of that. That is a highly power-efficient-chip and not easy to get for Nintendo. It's not just pure random that an more expensive Intel-CPU with four Cores burns an AMD with eight Cores. Today it is more important for Chips what energy they use than which perfomance they have.

What also would be needed for X86 in the home console and ARM in the Handheld is a really good development-kit. Developers which didn't want to port games to the Wii U for having the PowerPC-CPU won't applaud for porting their code to two CPU-Architectures



Soundwave on 26 January 2016
Stefan51278 said:
Soundwave said:

 

PowerVR is looking to put an even more powerful 16-core version of this chip (7900) which is getting into XBox One territory full stop (800 GFLOPS) into cheap Android set-top boxes. 

I don't think these chips cost that much money and Apple is not the only vendor for them. Nvidia has a comparable chip too (the Tegra X1) which has been sold in a micro-console for a year already and that costs $199.99 with 3GB RAM and a fat profit margin. 

These chips are cheap. I think AMD could give Nintendo something similar if they wanted and AMD has very low margins (that's why they get all the console contracts). 

 

Maybe some cheap chip with 8 little cpu-cores and standard-arm-design, but Apple's A9X is none of that. That is a highly power-efficient-chip and not easy to get for Nintendo. It's not just pure random that an more expensive Intel-CPU with four Cores burns an AMD with eight Cores. Today it is more important for Chips what energy they use than which perfomance they have.

What also would be needed for X86 in the home console and ARM in the Handheld is a really good development-kit. Developers which didn't want to port games to the Wii U for having the PowerPC-CPU won't applaud for porting their code to two CPU-Architectures

I just really just used the Apple A9X as an example of PowerVR's tech, they have even better processors. 

 

A GT7900 is more powerful than a GeForce GT730M. The Apple A9X is basically a custom order 12 cluster 7XT chip so it's right into between the 7800 and 7900 above. 

PowerVR is targeting "low cost Android consoles" for the 7900 chip:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/imagination-powervr-gt7900-android-consoles,28638.html

Sony was smart to use PowerVR for the Vita, they basically have the same GPU as the top of the line iPad for that time ... thing is mobile tech has advanced considerably since then where you can literally probably have PC/PS4 ports now, not just some crappy Call of Duty spin-off the Vita got. Today you literally could port the actual recent COD game. 

PowerVR is one vendor, but Nvidia is doing similar things, so are the Qualcomm Snapdragon guys, I think AMD can give Nintendo similar types of processors too. 



Stefan51278 on 26 January 2016
Soundwave said:
Stefan51278 said:
Soundwave said:

 

PowerVR is looking to put an even more powerful 16-core version of this chip (7900) which is getting into XBox One territory full stop (800 GFLOPS) into cheap Android set-top boxes. 

I don't think these chips cost that much money and Apple is not the only vendor for them. Nvidia has a comparable chip too (the Tegra X1) which has been sold in a micro-console for a year already and that costs $199.99 with 3GB RAM and a fat profit margin. 

These chips are cheap. I think AMD could give Nintendo something similar if they wanted and AMD has very low margins (that's why they get all the console contracts). 

 

Maybe some cheap chip with 8 little cpu-cores and standard-arm-design, but Apple's A9X is none of that. That is a highly power-efficient-chip and not easy to get for Nintendo. It's not just pure random that an more expensive Intel-CPU with four Cores burns an AMD with eight Cores. Today it is more important for Chips what energy they use than which perfomance they have.

What also would be needed for X86 in the home console and ARM in the Handheld is a really good development-kit. Developers which didn't want to port games to the Wii U for having the PowerPC-CPU won't applaud for porting their code to two CPU-Architectures

I just really just used the Apple A9X as an example of PowerVR's tech, they have even better processors. 

 

A GT7900 is more powerful than a GeForce GT730M. The Apple A9X is basically a custom order 12 cluster 7XT chip so it's right into between the 7800 and 7900 above. 

PowerVR is targeting "low cost Android consoles" for the 7900 chip:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/imagination-powervr-gt7900-android-consoles,28638.html

Sony was smart to use PowerVR for the Vita, they basically have the same GPU as the top of the line iPad for that time ... thing is mobile tech has advanced considerably since then where you can literally probably have PC/PS4 ports now, not just some crappy Call of Duty spin-off the Vita got. 

Ahh, okay…yeah, PowerVR has some nice GPU-Core-Designs, that is something we can agree on. But if they use AMD for their chips…would AMD want to license those GPU-Cores instead of using their own designs?

What I would like to see is what AMD could achieve with their new power-efficient architectures for CPUs and GPUs and 14nm-chip-production for a mobile-chip like this. Maybe we will never know it, but this would be the best chips for multi-device-games that Nintendo wants to make ¯_(ツ)_/¯





Soundwave on 26 January 2016
Stefan51278 said:
Soundwave said:
Stefan51278 said:
Soundwave said:

 

PowerVR is looking to put an even more powerful 16-core version of this chip (7900) which is getting into XBox One territory full stop (800 GFLOPS) into cheap Android set-top boxes. 

I don't think these chips cost that much money and Apple is not the only vendor for them. Nvidia has a comparable chip too (the Tegra X1) which has been sold in a micro-console for a year already and that costs $199.99 with 3GB RAM and a fat profit margin. 

These chips are cheap. I think AMD could give Nintendo something similar if they wanted and AMD has very low margins (that's why they get all the console contracts). 

 

Maybe some cheap chip with 8 little cpu-cores and standard-arm-design, but Apple's A9X is none of that. That is a highly power-efficient-chip and not easy to get for Nintendo. It's not just pure random that an more expensive Intel-CPU with four Cores burns an AMD with eight Cores. Today it is more important for Chips what energy they use than which perfomance they have.

What also would be needed for X86 in the home console and ARM in the Handheld is a really good development-kit. Developers which didn't want to port games to the Wii U for having the PowerPC-CPU won't applaud for porting their code to two CPU-Architectures

I just really just used the Apple A9X as an example of PowerVR's tech, they have even better processors. 

 

A GT7900 is more powerful than a GeForce GT730M. The Apple A9X is basically a custom order 12 cluster 7XT chip so it's right into between the 7800 and 7900 above. 

PowerVR is targeting "low cost Android consoles" for the 7900 chip:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/imagination-powervr-gt7900-android-consoles,28638.html

Sony was smart to use PowerVR for the Vita, they basically have the same GPU as the top of the line iPad for that time ... thing is mobile tech has advanced considerably since then where you can literally probably have PC/PS4 ports now, not just some crappy Call of Duty spin-off the Vita got. 

Ahh, okay…yeah, PowerVR has some nice GPU-Core-Designs, that is something we can agree on. But if they use AMD for their chips…would AMD want to license those GPU-Cores instead of using their own designs?

What I would like to see is what AMD could achieve with their new power-efficient architectures for CPUs and GPUs and 14nm-chip-production for a mobile-chip like this. Maybe we will never know it, but this would be the best chips for multi-device-games that Nintendo wants to make ¯_(ツ)_/¯

 

PowerVR is just an example, like I said Nvidia does similar things, so does Qualcomm/Snapdragon, I'm guessing AMD isn't incompetent so they could give Nintendo a similar type of chip. 

I use PowerVR because they're very visible and the iPad is a product everyone has a frame of reference for. 

Tegra X1 is another example, it can probably handle PS4/XB1 ports, especially at a reduced resolution, and that Nvidia Shield is sold at a large profit for $199.99 in a console for like a year now. 

This is just to illustrate how powerful these mobile chips are getting. PS4/XB1 ports could actually run on a Nintendo portable, which would be ideal for a unified platform because then developers can more easily make two versions of a game without having to gimp the portable version so much. 

That IMO is Nintendo's key to getting third party support, if developers can actually take the PS4/XB1 games they're working on and make an NX version of that that actually works with the portable model ... Nintendo is in business.