Squilliam said:
HappySqurriel said:
Unlike with the Wii, Nintendo will (most likely) need to change the entire hardware architecture of their next generation system; and even if they choose to maintain the strategy of the Wii (and produce a very low cost, small and low energy consumption console) it is likely that the console would be a noticeable graphical improvement over the HD consoles.
To understand what I mean, consider that what is available as a GPU for a low cost ($500 to $750) laptop probably falls fairly close to the energy consumption and cost requirements for a console like the Wii, and the GPUs in this class are already in the performance range of the HD consoles; and in some cases they outperform the HD console’s GPUs. If you assume a Q4 2011 release, the GPUs available in this range would clearly outperform the HD consoles.
If Nintendo is willing to go for a somewhat more expensive and energy hungry chip (possibly to the extent that is possible if they moved to a laptop disc-drive to make space and used a fan for cooling) they could produce a system that is (potentially) dramatically more powerful than either the HD consoles.
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You should know that the price of the GPUs in the laptops is dictated as much by the lack of 40nm TSMC fabrication capacity as it is by the cost of the raw silicon and chip NRE.
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When I was talking about cost I wasn’t really focusing on direct manufacturing costs; in a large part because I believe this can be dealt with indirectly. Basically, when you strip away the unnecessary hardware (primarily the LCD monitor and battery), the hardware costs of the remaining components have to be in a similar range to a low cost console in order to cover the manufacturer and retailer profits; and to be able to cover the licensing costs of the operating system.
