StuOhQ said:
Truth be told, the GCN was the last truly original architecture Nintendo produced. It seems weird to that, simply because Nintendo has boasted so emphatically about how "original" both the Wii and Wii U were. That may be true in terms of adding a new gameplay mechanic. In terms of building a next generation console from the ground up... not so much. They've been essentially adding "Expansion Paks" to the GCN for the last two generations. Up until that point, each of their consoles had been total game-changers in terms of graphics and performance. SIDE NOTE: That may have something to do with the fact that, while I still love Nintendo, I was totally smitten with everything they did until the Christmas of 2005. Those of you who were there, and were Nintendo fanatics at the time, will never forget. |
See the thing is they are using a CPU design from 1997. There are only so many speed improvements you can do. They need a whole new architecure. A souped up Pentium 4 is still a Pentium 4, it has none of the technological advances seen in newer CPUs.
Gamecube (485 MHz PowerPC 7XX) -> Wii (bump speed upto 729 MHz, still same old PowerPC 7XX) -> Wii U (Increase core count to 3 & bump speed upto 1.24 GHz, still same old PowerPC 7XX with no improvements)
Let me guess NX: 6x PowerPC 7XX @ 2.5 GHz while still lacking all the advanced intruction sets that the PS4 and Xbox One have.
No developers will touch that.
If Nintendo were smart they would contract an OEM for a new design but the thing is no OEM has shipped a new custom core to nintendo. It was known that AMD shipped new APU designs to SONY/MS in 2012, why is there no word of AMD shipping a new design to NIntendo in 2015? AMD has said they will ship a new custom core to a client in H2 2016. No way Nintendo is combining consoles+handhelds, switching CPUs, and having launch games all in 1 year.
