Source: NX "Is Definitely Not Aiming To Compete With PS4 On Horsepower"

[MajorMalfunction]

Scoobes said:

JEMC said:

But, and that's my biggest doubt with all the theories of a handheld and a home console sharing the same hardware design, wouldn't an x86 based handheld be too power hungry? Because the autonomy of the 3DS is rather low despite using an ARM chip, and ARM has quite a big advantage over AMD in power efficiency.

And that makes me wonder: could an x86 processor emulate an ARM one?

Because if it can, it would make more sense for Nintendo to launch the handheld version of NX with an ARM based APU and use an x86 APU for the home console. That way, you are offering the publishers 3 options: 1-Develop their games for both platforms. Of course, that would mean developing for an ARM CPU, but the home console could run the game at a higher resolution and maybe even higher graphics quality thanks to its more powerful GPU; 2-Develop only for the handheld. It would limit the market without a good reason except for the development being maybe cheaper and shorter or because they want to take advantage of the "gimmick" it will have (like the dual screens, 3D display or whatever Nintendo comes up with next); and 3-Develop only for the home console. That will allow developers to make use of the full potential of the hardware (whatever it is) as well as also use whatever new trick Nintendo has decided to use.

I think that going this way, Nintendo would cover most of their bases without incurring in too many extra costs and without upsetting any of its customers. But of course, that's only if an x86 processor can emulate an ARM one.

An AMD x86 CPU would be far more power hungry than an ARM processor. That said, AMD are in a position (or will be in about 2 years time when they round up development on their ARM chips) where they can actually supply an ARM and an x86 SOC to Nintendo (with the same GPU architecture on both chips).

This would fit quite favourably with the NX concept. And whilst x86 CPUs can emulate ARM processors, I'm not sure Nintendo would favor this as it's fairly inefficient. I think they'll probably look to make dev tools that can translate the same set of code for both architectures. I think Sony do something similar with PS4 and Vita.

Another option is to put an ARM CPU and an x86 CPU on the same SoC, and have an ARM/GPU SoC for the handheld and an ARM/x86/GPU SoC for the home console. It's a little crazy, but hear me out: ARM had great support for co-processors. Something as ubiquitous as a CPU's MMU is a co-processor on ARM, at least pre-ARMv8. After ARMv8, the MMU was integrated with the CPU and coprocessor support was phased out, so Nintendo would have to add it back in. Other components like USB controllers, etc. would be separate chips from the SoC. In both cases, the OS would run on the ARM CPU. I've looked at die shots for all the 8th gen consoles, and all 3 use ARM CPUs as part of their security during boot time, so it's not totally far-fetched. I'm not convinced that this isn't a terrible idea, but it seems, at the very least, plausible.