Ck1x said:
This has to be one of the biggest misconception when it comes to multiple spec software design. If you understand how level of detail works in gaming, these different levels of texture resolutions and lower-higher poly models are already in the games design and on disc. This is what helps these consoles to be able to run big open world games like the Witcher 3 at decent framerates. So all Nintendo needs to work on is an OS that talks to the hardware connected seamlessly as it operates the software it's running in real-time. This is probably the biggest task Nintendo has ever had to deal with so far. By making an expansive OS that is simple, powerful and forward thinking for generations to come since NX will be the start of a continuous ecosystem. Hopefully they just partner with someone that specializes in OS development, but this idea that developers need to make all of these different versions just isn't true and isn't going to make the games on the NX suddenly skyrocket. The PC already does this very well and games aren't more expensive to develop in that environment. My guess is that the NX will be very OS driven and will probably take up a major portion of RAM on the console and handheld. So hopefully Nintendo goes above and beyond with the amounts and type of RAM they include in the systems design. It's weird to me seeing people paint this as something near to impossible for Nintendo to achieve when PC has been doing it forever. You guys have to think about something for a minute, if Nintendo’s next handheld is anywhere close to the WiiU in power (after seeing games like Zelda U and Xenoblade Chronicles X), imagine what could be achieved on a 5" screen. The scaling of software won't be nearly as hard as many think because the handheld won't have as big of screen to render to and games would look pretty close to their console counter parts. |
I've made video games on Consoles, PCs, Handhelds, and phones for over a decade. Console video game development is an entirely different beast than PC game development. The biggest difference being optimization. PC games have a layer between the hardware and the game engine that handles things like giving instructions to whatever graphics card, processor, RAM etc. you have. It allows developers to develop for a multitude of different hardware specifications, but in doing so, you sacrifice performance and control. Because of this, and because of only a single sepcification that can be optimized for, developers can get far more out of a console than they can get out of a similarly spec'd PC. If NIntendo chooses to go in this direction, you can expect performance marginally better than what the Wii U offers from something about as powerful as an Xbox One. How do you think consumers would respond to such a product? Probably not well.
Not only that but Nintendo is one of the worst in the business at developing tools to facilitate ease of development. They are miles behind the likes of Sony and Microsoft. I have absolutely zero confidence in Nintendo being able to pull something like this off and actually getting third parties on board.
