Will Sony and MS have the courage to compete with Nintendo in 2016?

[JustBeingReal]

DanneSandin said:

JustBeingReal said:
Nintendo would never release their next gen console 4 years after the release of the last one, which is what you're suggesting if they release Nintendo Fusion or whatever it's going to be called at the end of 2016. As others have said New 3DS hasn't even launched in the west yet, a year and a few months shy of 2 years on the market was never going to be the lifespan of their most current handheld.

Most likely New 3DS was released to keep 3DS architecture on the market until it's time to launch this unified Handheld/Home console that has been rumored (assuming the rumors are true).

Another factor that disputes this assertion of a 2016 release is that some major Processor and Memory architectural changes will be occurring in 2016, which means that those developments need to filter down into manufacturing for costs to become reasonable to implement for the console market.
AMD will start to manufacture a new ARM CPU core (for the handheld) and they're also re-entering the multi-threaded CPU core market with their Zen line of processors.

There's also the advent of Universal Memory which will potentially go into production for the server market next year, but costs will be very high in the beginning, so a few years to reduce that would make all of this brand new technology much more affordable and that means Nintendo can still be the pioneers of all of this new tech in the home console and handheld markets.

By 2017-2018 cost of manufacturing will have come down.
Launching in 2016 is a mistake, makes no sense unless Nintendo wants to use archaic technology compared to what's going to be available to them a year or so later.

Another factor to consider is that Sony and Microsoft won't be launching until 2019 at the earliest, if Nintendo shares similar architecture to PS5 and XB2, as well as having comparable performance, which will be a huge improvement over PS4 and XB1 then they put themselves in a position to actually gain 3rd party support.

With fusion the handheld market may become a consideration to 3rd party publishers if porting to the handheld side is a none issue from a development point of view, because this unified API will just mean it's a part of building the Nintendo console version of those 3rd party games.

Nintendo may just hit the nail on it's head if they can wait and build Fusion as the first console platform to use Unified Memory, AMD Zen and their ARM K12 technology, along with the current GPU tech of the time.
Sony & Microsoft will use the technology a year later, so it makes sense for 3rd party to port across all platforms.


Nintendo would be fools to go with the older technology that would be available at production for launch in late 2016. 2016 makes no sense! Not from a launch schedule of past platforms point of view, on the handheld or home console markets and absolutely not when you look at the huge upgrades in technology that will potentially be available to any console platform holders a year later.

TBH keeping within a year of the launch schedules of Sony and Microsoft actually makes the most sense because it means costs will be that bit cheaper and Nintendo has always been about launching at an affordable price.

IMO 2018 would be the sweet spot for Nintendo, it gives Wii U 6 years on the market, New 3DS is seen as a slight evolution over 3DS, so 3 years on the market would be fine and then Nintendo launches with the new architecture to back the fusion home console.

All of these things just work so logically together, even if you take out the whole fusion handheld/home hybrid console aspect you still have the home console platform sharing similar architecture to what the next Sony and Microsoft platforms use and being different to the majority is what has caused the majority of issues with Nintendo getting support from 3rd party publishers.

A 2018 launch actually makes the most sense and it's Nintendo that actually needs to have the courage to compete, not Microsoft and especially not Sony that needs to worry about anything, especially when they can outsell Nintendo within a year of being on the market, when Nintendo has already had 2 years on them.
Nintendo needs to do whatever they can to get 3rd party support back, like it had in the SNES days.

This is a great post! But I see two problems with it.

1) It's NINTENDO we're talking about here; they make plenty of stupid decisions and don't care about appeasing the 3rd parties, so going with older technology is something they might do, however stupid.

2) PS5 and XB....2??... to launch in 2019, at the EARLIEST? I'm not quite sure about that. We're already hearing rumblings about the tech being weak. I think we might be heading into a 5 year gen, like in ye olden days. PS4 and XB1 isn't that giant leap that PS360 were. I think that the new HW will launch in 2018/19

Thanks :)

 

1) I'd agree if moving over to unified memory and advanced, but cheap (if production starts somewhere between July-August 2018) processing technology wasn't easily accessible to them.

It also benefits their own developers.

The past choices only became stupid in hindsight, like N64's cartridge tech, cartridges had been standard for multiple generations and CD had been very expensive prior to PS1 coming out.

Gamecube didn't really have any stupid hardware querks.

Wii was the market leader and it's tech appealed to the masses, outside of the normal gamer crowd, so I'd argue that it's not necessarily stupid what Nintendo has done, at least from a perspective of the kind of technology they've used in their platforms.

 

X86 becoming a standard within the console market hasn't happened until the 8th gen, it's likely one of the primary reasons why Wii U doesn't get 3rd party support. Nintendo actually wanted 3rd party support for the Wii U, which is apparent from Reggie's comments when Wii U was unveiled, maybe it was all marketing fluff and no actual action (which is one stupid moment for Nintendo I'll give you,  given that devs later said that Nintendo's support for their hardware to external studios was very much lacking) to make the 3rd party/Nintendo relationship a solid one, but from a business and importantly a financial point of view if Nintendo wants money, then they need to develop their next system to work for all of their potential developer base.

Wii U appeals to Indies and Indies are the future too, so even if Nintendo looks to appease both their own studios and indies then they need to use technology that makes everyone's lives easier, which means Universal Memory (because of the flexibility that will bring) and obviously the cheaper, but more advanced AMD tech will just be so much better compared to what is currently in use on basically every console and PC.

The benefits of waiting for this memory  and processing architecture to become a thing are glaringly obvious to anyone that even takes a slight interest in the market, Nintendo are apparently looking to hire talented advisors on this, like Mark Cerny type figures to build their next platform, so it just makes sense that they'd use this tech in their next box.

 

2) We don't hear these rumblings from anyone besides people that don't develop on PS4 and XB1. At PSX the developers were saying that there's a lot of potential for what can be done on PS4, XB1 is similar architecture so by extension it to has a measure of that same potential, there's quite a bit of life left in both boxes, with GPGPU, HSA and all of those features that can be tapped into, that just hasn't happened yet.

Both consoles have the legs to achieve some amazing things 4-5 years from now, optimization has barely started, right now the results we're seeing are from just filling up the resources of each platform, not using them efficiently and refining code to the upteenth degree.

2019 would mean a 6 year standard, which fits with when Sony has released in the past. Sony and Microsoft don't want to P*** Off all of their install base by releasing too soon. The tech in both consoles isn't weak for it's intended market.

 

I guess it's always possible that with the tech being available to the industry that Sony and Microsoft will bite earlier and release in say 2018, but I just don't buy they'd be willing to annoy their respective install bases. A 5 year generation isn't really necessary when we haven't yet seen what PS4 or XB1 can really do. It's only when technology has been fully taken advantage of and developers can't do anything new with either system that it becomes necessary to release the successor to your current platform.