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Soundwave on 29 September 2014
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Cobretti2 said:
Soundwave said:


I honestly don't think Nintendo has much interest in competing on power, nor do they have any interest at all in making PS4-level visuals for their games when they just started making PS3/360 level visuals and those visuals suit their games just fine though. I'd buy it sure, but I don't think they'll make it. 

A handheld displaying Wii U graphics will be tough even for a 2016 launch. The Tegra K1 is close, but Nvidia is likely blowing some of the numbers out of their ass, but by 2016 that will probably a reality. 

I think what they'll do is take their handheld chip (roughly 300 GFLOPS) and simply take 2-3 of those cores and throw them into the "console variant" (netting you 600GFLOPS-1 TFLOP). It will literally be the exact same chip/architecture though, just scaled up. This should also run at about 12-14 watts, which is far lower than even the Wii U so I'm guessing Nintendo will like that, the console casing can also be ridiculously small, like three iPhone 5s stacked on top of each other. 

They could sell such a device for like $179.99 to start with too ... it would be ridiculously cheap for them if they're using mobile chips (just like the Vita TV). 

It just fits Nintendo to a tee and it could theoretically be a decent jump up from the Wii U. 


The GLOPS you quoting will not be enough of a jump to warrant a new system. The XBOX ONE is what like 1.2TFLOPS and it is struggling to do 1080p. This has put off a lot of people already.

If they aim for barely xbox one stats then there is no point releasing another console to replce the Wii U as there won't be any significant reason to buy it over a Wii U (apart from the very low price). 


I think it is basically the direction Nintendo will go in. It will be good enough to play Wii U level graphics (which IMO is the max they are willing to spend in terms of game budget), but in 1080p/60 fps while playing at home with perhaps better effects, and will be able to play those same games on a lower resolution in handheld form without massive sacrifices having to be made to every games. Thus you can have a near seamless experience where you can take a game like Mario Kart 9 and play it on the road, and then continue playing when you get home. The resolution and a few graphical effects scale up and down but that's about it. 

The focus will be on the handheld variant I think, that's the one most people will buy.

You can't have too big of gap with this model because otherwise ports will quickly become unworkable for many games, like take the Vita ... it can't handle ports of even most PS3 games (forget about PS4). 

The "console" variant will just be kind of like a bonus model for people who like to play their handheld games on the TV at home. It's kind of like the iPod Touch ... Apple offers it for people who basically want an iPhone but don't want/can't afford the phone part, but iPod Touch sales are basically gravy to Apple, if it sells great, if it doesn't it's not a huge deal. 

The main thing is Nintendo's library will now be fully playable in the hardware format most people prefer their Nintendo gaming to be done on -- the portable. So things like the 3DS having 4x the userbase of the Wii U but not having the top games like Mario Kart 8 and Zelda U will be rectified in this model. They don't have to work so hard to make sure the console sells, this way they will be ensured a good sized userbase for all their releases no matter what (Fusion will sell 60 million minimum, which means Nintendo never has to deal with a sub-30 million userbase).

It actually is kind of weird the system Nintendo has now, where their best selling hardware each generation doesn't have the top tier Nintendo games. Smash Bros. has been available in Nintendo consoles for 15 years now for example, it's just now coming to their portable line.