Global Hardware 14 July 2018

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Lawlight said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

But just like the hybrid brilliantly solves Ninty problem to keep portables as healthy as possible injecting in them some additional selling power from home consoles, and even more from being, well, a hybrid, it could also solve MS and Sony problem of not being even remotely as good as Ninty to understand the portable market and so, after PSP, not having anymore a portable market with potential sales that could justify production by itself, but that could still be an attractive supplement to sales of home consoles. A hybrid is a brilliant idea, because while currently it can work well for a mainly portable-focused console maker like Nintento, in two or three years CPU tech advancements will make it viable also for mainly home console ones.

The portable market is dead outside of Japan so why do Sony and MS need to understand that market? CPU might make advancements but battery technology won’t. As games advance in terms of requirements, handheld mode will be left behind. It already cannot run games that came out 3 years ago.

 

Miyamotoo said:

Lawlight said:

The portable market is dead outside of Japan so why do Sony and MS need to understand that market? CPU might make advancements but battery technology won’t. As games advance in terms of requirements, handheld mode will be left behind. It already cannot run games that came out 3 years ago.

No its not, over 70% of 3DS sales are outside Japan, you be sure that plenty of people even on West are buying Switch because it's handheld side.

As Miyamotoo wrote, it's not dead, but undeniably mobiles stole a slice of casuals from it. As sales are showing, the hybrid solves the problem, giving it back enough users to remain viable.
Sony and MS don't need to understand the old portable market anymore, Ninty did the job for them finding the new hybrid market. But as I wrote, while the new concept is already working with Ninty approach, to work with MS and Sony one it will need far more powerful mobile CPU cores (GPU isn't a problem, as graphics are scaled down when using a hybrid undocked). Battery life, this is a good objection for MS and Sony approach, that's why, unlike Ninty, that didn't even consider x86 architecture anyway, they need all the possible advances in the next evolutions of Zen architecture, at least 7nm Zen 2, as 14nm Zen and 12nm Zen+ won't probably offer enough performance per watt even in customised versions for consoles, and let's not even consider 28nm Excavator. But this is fine, both Sony and MS can wait for next gen until 2020 , and possible hybrid versions could even arrive in 2021 (devs will know it since they receive the devkits anyway, if this is the case, it will follow its schedule and plans, it won't happen by surprise) if some more time for the right mobile CPU will be needed.

PS: Batteries too evolve with time, BTW.