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amak11 on 02 August 2014
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spemanig said:
amak11 said:

Work required in porting still doesn't matter. x86 isn't efficient and is extremely power hungry. Nintendo chose ARM for a reason, powerful and efficient. You can only find that on RISC based systems. Besides, PS4 and Xbox One still require a decent amount of porting between the two consoles, it makes zero difference with the Wii U involved. 


Again, I'm not tech savvy, so forgive me, but if the Wii U and 3DS successors both used ARM, wouldn't porting from the PS4 to that still require much more work and money than to each other? If x86 isn't efficiant, why are they being used by the PS4 and XBO? What's stopping Nintendo from using them next generation?


Usually not, A lot of companies use engines that are very diverse and have support for both consoles. let say you build a game in Unity. It has both Wii U and PS4 support, It's just a matter of optimization from there 

MS and Sony are using them because it's easy for developers to make games for, not for efficency. Efficency in technology is just a faster way to do things. powerPC will always have the advantage over x86 in this category. It's the difference of sending 3 large men carrying a ton of barrels each (x86) and  a ton of men carrying a single barrel each (ARM/PowerPC). Both groups will finish their task, but the people carrying single barrels will be done first. The RAM you put in to it is the steroids. 

X86 just don't fit in to Nintendo's philosophy. Hell the Wii U uses less power than the Wii. There is always more to consider than raw unadulterated power. Look at Sony last gen. The cell had huge potential, and it wasn't used by anyone except internal devs.