| Solid-Stark said: The more I think about it, the more It seems like it will be a 2017 launch. I assume Nintendo will go with AMD and the "NX" is unified ecosystem of hardware and software between a handheld and a home console. With that said, I expect for Nintendo to go with possibly Zen architecture for home console and K-12 architecture for portable. CPU power is up in the air compared to the PS4/XOne since number of cores, core to core improvements, and clock speed can vary. But GPU wise, I'd imagine it can be around XOne level. I imagine it will retail around $299 or less if it turns out to lack a disc drive, seperate gamepad, and maybe even a hard drive. |
I doubt it. I think they will go with a mobile-centric design having studied what modern mobile chips are doing. AMD also has experience from the Mullins/Beema tech they just haven't followed through with that because PowerVR/Tegra/Samsung pretty much own the mobile market, but I'm sure if Nintendo asked they could be take their R&D on that end and expand it.
Even on the Wii U, Nintendo did not really use an off-the-shelf AMD GPU.
The console isn't really important to be honest. Because it can be hooked up to wall power, I mean anyone can give Nintendo the same amount of power roughly, PS4 level of power is nothing special these days, even a company like PowerVR could take a mobile-centric processor and scale it up to be in the same neighborhood.
It's all the portable IMO. That's far more trickier to engineer, how far can you push that envelope in a battery based, restricted (likely fan-less) form factor.
I think a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio for the portable to home version is ideal too, any more than that and it becomes an issue where the developer is basically going to have to start rebuilding assets or completely have to rework an engine from scratch which nullifies the whole point of a unified platform.
That's going to be the engineering trick with the NX ... anyone can give you a NX class GPU, whether it's not Nvidia, AMD, PowerVR, Qualcomm, whoever. That's easy peasy. Can they get a portable that can realistically function in a unified platform setup where developers aren't forced to dramatically downscale their game engines to run on the portable? *That* is going to be the real million dollar question.
