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curl-6 on 04 March 2015
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sc94597 said:
curl-6 said:

The thing is though, to produce a portable that spits out Wii U grade graphics or better, at 720p, would require Nintendo to invest in high end hardware for the first time in, what, 15 years? It's just hard to see them going all out when they haven't for two generations. And there's also battery life to consider, and Nintendo's penchant for making things needlessly expensive with non-standard parts.

The DS and 3DS weren't that far behind on the tech curve. It was just Sony went all out with the hardware in their handhelds, for some reason. 

GB ~ NES * , GBA ~ SNES *, NDS ~ N64 *, 3DS ~ Gamecube *, New 3DS ~ Wii *, Next Handheld ~ Wii U * sounds about right. This is especially true if we consider that the smartphone boom has made the hardware necessary quite cheap. 

* Some ways better and some ways worse. For ecample GBA was capable of better 3D rendering while SNES had better sound. NDS has higher resolution textures which were more detailed, while N64 had texture filtering and higher polygon counts (as well as a higher resolution.) 3DS is capable of better shading and overall features, while GC has higher geometry and better textures on average. Possibly most games will run at 540p anyway, to save resources for other things, even if the display was capable of 720p. 

If we are looking at a late 2016 release, then the necessary hardware would be more mid-end than high-end, which coincides with Nintendo's history of handheld development. 

So you're saying that by the end of next year, a portable system that could run Mario Kart 8/Bayonetta 2 graphics at 720p would not be high end?