| Soundwave said: New transistor tech is probably more risky for companies like Apple because they have much higher order volumes to hit. No offence to Nintendo, but they're in the kiddie pool by comparison (so is Sony). But Apple needs to hit monstrous volume for a new iPad or iPhone, but they still use not even new, but modern transitior tech. If Sony didn't use 28nm on the PS4 and instead opted for the more mature 40nm or something ... they would likely be losing the console war right now because the XBox One would likely be more powerful. There's something to be said for being in step with technology. Some times you can be so risk averse that basically you cripple any chance you have of being competetive. I think Nintendo needs to wake up as well about what is actually "affordable tech". You know why a big reason is that a lot of parents/kids aren't biting on a dirt cheap 2DS? Because it's not actually that cheap. Sure the hardware is dirt cheap, but people aren't stupid, they know the games cost $30, versus an iPod Touch which may cost $199.99, but has a far better screen quality, does far more things than just play games, and has $1/free games. Guess which one is winning out? If Nintendo wants to charge $30 for portable games in the world of 2015 and beyond, I think they need to understand that people are absolutely right to expect more. They cannot continue to use the same formula they did in the 1980s and think that should work 100% today. Too much has changed. I don't agree that just slapping together a cheap piece of plastic and calling it a day will bring Nintendo success even in the handheld business anymore. Consumers are more savvy than that today, if you're going to bring something, you better bring something that impresses. |
New transistor tech is the most riskiest for the IDM (TSMC, Samsung, Intel and etc), not the chip designer or their customers because they have to pay for the operation expenses and the R&D costs. Aside from Intel been the leader of moore's law and Samsung only recently transitioning to 14nm, I'd say that Apple is using fairly new transistor tech ...
It did make sense to use 28nm at the time instead of 40nm because of transistor cost scaling benefits but it doesn't make much sense to do the same for 20nm or 14 nm transistors today because transistor cost is INCREASING due to multiple patterning. In otherwords if you ported that very same chip design on a 28nm transistor to a 20nm or 14nm transistor, it actually costs more to produce!
Some risk or gambling is good but adopting new transistor technology does not make much sense in Nintendo's case when they don't have any competitors on the handheld front and I doubt that phones are actual competitors to Nintendo's handheld lines ...
The selling point of gaming portables aren't features but better controls and higher quality games. That is where smartphones CAN'T compete and even if developers stop pushing shovelware there's still the issue of non-standard controller peripherals too ...
Nintendo doesn't have to compete with smartphones and it doesn't have to be that way either. The vita tried to get as feature loaded as phones and look how that turned out for Sony. Not much has changed, what has changed are the quality of Nintendo games and if there is quality software on the system consumers will buy it regardless ...
