[Rumour] Latest information about NX !

[JEMC]

mountaindewslave said:

JEMC said:

That's great and all that, but there is a big problem: we're talking about Nintendo.

I remember when we were having the same discussion about Wii U, with many of us making the same mistake of believing Nintendo would use modern hardware. And look how Wii U ended.

Taking for granted that Nintendo will use Zen and Polaris is a mistake and goes against all what Nintendo has done in the past, always going for tried and tested hardware for their products. In fact, if this rumor is true (something that I don't believe) then NX looks to be an hybrid device, and for that, an ARM processor seems more likely.

big difference is Nintendo went into the Wii U from having succeeded with the Wii with gimmicks and mediocre power/hardware. Obviously from that perspective they figured continuing gimmicks (of sorts) would work, the Wii U with the tablet controller

I would find it very hard to believe that Nintendo, in the midst of failing with the Wii U, said "oh hey, lets try another gimmick woooh". they're not stupid. Nintendo is a business and in some ways is more about focusing on profit than any other companies in the video game industry. There's no way they aren't focusing on either going for power for their next system, or possibly the concept of unifying their platforms

one way or another I think it will be one of those two options because both are sound concepts to bring back the casual fans and to either help get the third parties more interested (more powerful system) OR to give Nintendo less work to do (Unified platform)

You missed the point of my comment. I'm not talking about how powerful the console can be, but the kind of components they will use.

Let's go back to 2014 for a second, shall we?

http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/anton-shilov/amd-could-power-yet-another-gaming-device-chief-financial-officer/

AMD announced two new semi-custom design wins back in October. The design wins are expected to bring the company combined total lifetime revenue of approximately $1 billion over approximately three years starting 2016. Previously the company revealed that both semi-custom chips would integrate Radeon graphics, one would be based on ARM architecture, whereas another one would feature x86 general-purpose cores. Apparently, one of the semi-custom APUs is projected to power a “beyond gaming device”, which means that another will power a device that could fit into the “gaming” category, something AMD denied previously.

“I will say that one [design win] is x86 and [another] is ARM, and at least one will [be] beyond gaming, right,” said Devinder Kumar, chief financial officer of AMD, at the Raymond James Financial technology conference. “But that is about as much as you going to get out me today. From the standpoint [of being] fair to [customers], it is their product, and they launch it. They are going to announce it and then […] you will find out that it is AMD’s APU that is being used in those products.”

Given that neither Sony nor MSoft have shown signs of launching a new device this year, and that neither Apple or Samsung would use an AMD APU (they would use their own ARM processors), that leaves only Nintendo. That also means that we've known since late 2014 that Nintendo's new machine would launch in 2016 (and also shows how pointless the "NX will launch in 2017" threads are).

Now, with that in mind, let's take a look at Nintendo's history with the hardware on their machines: they have never used bleeding edge technology. If Nintendo is known for something, is for their "try and tested" pholosophy. Wii U? Old tech. Wii? Old tech. Gamecube? I wouldn't say old, but certainly not new. N64? The same as Gamecube. SNES and NES? Barely more powerful than a calculator .

Now, knowing both things, that the NX design was decided in 2014 and that Nintendo doesn't take risks with the hardware, tell me how likely is that Nintendo goes for a Zen based CPU (a processor that still hasn't launched to the market and that has been delayed several times) and an Artic Islands, now Polaris, GPU? Because I'd say that the chances of that are zero, which is the point I made with Pemalite.

Does it mean that NX will be underpowered? Not really. If we're talking about a home console they can still use faster Jaguar processors than those used in the PS4/X1 or even an Excavator based quad core like the one found inside their Carrizo APUs and a Tonga XT GPU to outmatch if not simply murder the competition.