| padib said: I understand your concerns, let me try to answer some, others I can't because I am not a computer engineer, but a software engineer. 1) The APIs will not differ. It will be one single API this is official from Iwata jan 2012. 2) The consolidated software library will free up development resources for Nintendo, and combine all the games together. This does two things: first it allows Nintendo to increase development focus. Instead of making two Mario Karts, they need only 1, same goes with the other examples you mentioned. It will also allow them to create games of a greater scale, possibly MMOs, or even new worlds, new IPs. The second advantage is that gamers get a better offering, basically needing only to buy one hardware to enjoy all of Nintendo's offerings. It is also likely that the price will be more affordable as games are more likely to follow gameboy-line pricing, which is the lowest common denominator. 3) I don't know how it will be achieved from a hardware standpoint, and what the limitations of ARM, custom ARM, and non-ARM might be. I don't know what the weakest link will be. However, I know two things: One, Nintendo is not interested in the graphics arms race. Two, Nintendo merged their R&D departments, basically doubling their R&D capacities. Nintendo is good with hardware so I'm optimistic they will pull it off. @Cheebee. Reminds me of the Kinect and Move. Late to the party, but Kinect Adventures is still to this day Microsoft's highest-selling IP. |
1) I'm a little skeptical here. They can be similar, but not equal. Mobile GPUs have less graphical functions than console/desktop ones. They must differ at least on this.
2) Publishers would hate to retail full console games by handheld pricing. This guys are putting DLCs and every monetization technic they can think in 60 bucks retail games. That's because they are needing more money. Handheld pricing would make these guys cry.
Making games that work in massively different hardware isn't an easy task. There is a full 7 to 10 years difference in power between home consoles and handheld/mobiles. It would be like assuming that every PS4 games could be easily ported to PS Vita and, worse than that, assume that this can be an automatic process and the SDK will make this happen for you. In the end, you would end tunning your game to the lesser denominator. It looks like a formula where they would end up with a next gen console that would be weaker than the previous gen offers.
4) The weakest link is always the handheld/mobile. It runs on a battery and usually don't use active cooling (and when it does, it's way less than a PC/console cooling system). We can have easily 500w, 700w consumed on PCs, while home consoles will vary between 100 to 250w, with hardware revisions usually making it less power-hungry. A tablet usually will do 10, 12w max. A mobile or handheld need to use 5 or 8w. The only way a 5w device can outperform a 250w one is when it uses much newer tech, probably 10 or 12 years ahead.
I know they aren't on the graphics arm race, but what this proposes is that they would do their weakest home console in history. Wii was weak, but it at least outperformed the GC and the XBox easily. Wii U outperforms PS360 even more handly. A next gen console with this Fusion thing would probably end up less powerful than PS4/X1 and lining up agains PS5/Xwhathever. And while Wii and Wii U had price advantages with their simpler hardware, the Fusion console would actually have an underused hardware. It would pack more expensive components that would be used badly.
For me, all of this just looks like a disaster: expensive, weak, unoptimized and wouldn't bring any advantage since even PS4 has more 3rd party support than 3DS and Wii U combined. My issue here is that both Nintendo consoles don't have 3rd party support and most games both have are very similar. The only one that would benefit would be Nintendo, that would just have to make one game. If they finally quit competing with MS and Sony and now just want a box for their 1st party games, then they could pull this off. It would be on par with their strategy of doing what they want and just tell 3rd parties to screw themselves.
I just think that strategy (their current one) is pretty bad. In the end of this gen, probably PS4 will outsell Wii U and 3DS combined numbers. We can argue that their next portable will have even more problems competing against mobile phones. I think someone should make a mobile phone that was also a handheld and this someone should be Sony or Nintendo.
