Emily Rogers: NX Below XB1/PS4 In Power; Battery Life Is Not Great

[JEMC]

shikamaru317 said:

JEMC said:

Oh, my... I hope this isn't true, for Nintendo's sake.

This was always one of the dangers of going with an hybrid device, if you do everything perfect, you'll hit the ball out of the park, but if you make any mistake you'll end with a device that won't worth neither as a handheld nor as a home console.

With not only a fan, but a lousy one, a screen too big to carry it in your pocket and bad battery life, this device doesn't sound like a good handheld. And with the low power processor, those detachable controllers and again the loud fan, it doesn't bode well as a home console either.

 

Well, at least she's now sure that it will be region free. Let's look at the positive part of it!

Yeah, this is basically the worst possible way to do a hybrid device imo. Back when the Nintendo Fusion rumors first sprung up, this is not what came to my mind at all. I always thought something more along the lines of a 250-300 gflops Vita sized handheld and a seperate console that's on par with XB1/PS4, both on AMD x86 architecture for easy porting between the two, and easy PC/PS4/XB1 to NX console porting. Both able to play the same games with cross saves, games running at 540p-720p on the handheld and 900-1080p on the console, with lower graphics quality on the handheld (so like the difference between PC low and PC high between the two). 1st/2nd party devs releasing on both, 3rd party devs having the choice to release on just one device. Handheld and console sold seperately, with a bundle that saves you some money over buying both seperately. 

By trying to make one device that does the job of two, it sounds like they ended up designing a device that's both a bad handheld and a bad console. 

My first thoughts were of a single, multitouch screen, ARM powered handheld a little more powerful than PSVita and an x86 based home console with a regular controller and (at best) roughly on par with current consoles. Both devices could share most of its games (think of Smash 3DS/Wii U or Mario Kart 7/8) and the handheld would act as an additional controller similar to the Wii U Gamepad.

Going that way, Nintendo would still be able to cater both handheld and home console users while maximising their software productivity and still hoping (minimally) to appeal third parties.