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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Should Nintendo launch in 2011-12 starting the next gen with monster power?

 

Should Nintendo launch in 2011-12 starting the next gen with monster power?

Launch in 2011- early 12 ... 115 63.89%
 
Launch in 2011, just larg... 42 23.33%
 
Re-release current Wii in 2011, just with HD 23 12.78%
 
Total:180
jarrod on 27 March 2010
Squilliam said:
jarrod said:
Squilliam said:

It'll probably be something along the lines of:

  • 512 MB GDDR5 on a 64bit bus with 2* 2Gb chips yielding about 35-40GB/S bandwidth
  • CBHD/BR based optical drive with no movie playback and around 18-25MB/S transfer speed.
  • 1-1.5B transistor CPU/GPU combined with embedded framebuffer of say 20MB or so and that'll be about 2-3* the performance of current generation 360/PS3 levels produced on the 32/28nm process at a ~100-150mm^2 area
  • Power = 35-50W
  • 2-16GB flash storage
  • External power brick
  • USB3.0
  • Wireless N
  • Blu Tooth

It'll be extremely well balanced hardware capable of outputting Nintendo games @ a clean 60FPS 1080P and everyone else will probably go 720P @30FPS for better graphics. Likely the CPU will be AMD X86 fusion with 320-400SP.

 

Something like this in 2012 makes sense imo.  Full Wii backwards compatibility too, and it'll probably uprender the old games (similar to wjat we see with Dolphin).  I'd also say they'll drop GC backwards compatibility (both games and controllers) but add GC games to the VC (along with Saturn/DC hopefully).  Blu-ray is 100% in, given Nintendo's close ties to Matsushita... I can't really see any reason they'd go for CBHD.  Maybe for iQue Wii HD. ;)

 

They'd probably drop the legacy controller ports, yes. However I would say that they will still allow people to play GC games as theres no harm in it. If you get Wii you get GC. The Blu Ray vs CBHD is a piracy/cost issue. The only thing against CBHD is whether they have the form factor they want for the drive whilst the benefits are lower cost and no piracy as they won't enable movie playback anyway.

The funny thing is, im pretty sure they'd go for something like a 4 Core menlow CPU (low power AMD) alongside a decent GPU which will still be terribly slow in comparison to future CPUs but it will be far easier to work with than the current console CPUs we have in the DX9 delights. However it will blow both the PS3 and Xbox 360 out of the water with total ease and at a lower power consumption such will be its efficiency.

Their biggest challenge if they go X86 is probably to stop hackers, so maybe they ought to offer Linux support standard as if they have an X86 CPU they will be targetted by people who want a cheap HTPC.

Well, for GC support controllers and memory cards are a mandatory part of that.  They'd have to run a new abstraction layer over GC games to rework CC-support and flash saving in, and honestly I just don't see them doing that for 10 year old legacy support cost wise.  I mean, technically they could've easily just emulated the GBC's Z80 and allowed GB/GBC games to play on DS/DSL/GBmicro, but Nintendo seems to want to to stop backwards compatibility at a certain point.  Plus this way they could resell dedicated GCN games for 1500 points each on the new and improved Virtual Console.



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Gintoki on 27 March 2010
Hephaestos said:
none of the above.... I see these dates as too soon.

Nintendo won't be the first to make the move this gen... actually they never are the first to make the move regarding consoles...

really?Did not they annonce 3DS?



axt113 on 27 March 2010
Gintoki said:
Hephaestos said:
none of the above.... I see these dates as too soon.

Nintendo won't be the first to make the move this gen... actually they never are the first to make the move regarding consoles...

really?Did not they annonce 3DS?

Well first off, Handhelds are different than consoles, in addition, the DS is a bit older than the Wii and its sales are starting to decline, also, we don't know all of the facts behind why they moved the 3DS now, were they expecting Sony to release something and moved to pre-empt it, or did they see an opening in Sony's strategy and decide to exploit it?

 

 In consoles on the other hand, the MOVE and NATAL are well known and well understood, and Nintendo has already cut them off with WM+, and are moving on with the Vitality sensor, they can afford to wait until after NATAL and the MOVE expend themselves, and until after the effect of the vitality sensor is seen before planning their next console's release, the Wii has yet to near the end of its run, so they can wait a while longer.



Rumors indicate that it is planning on following the first approach, sticking a new, motion-sensitive controller onto an existing console. Our perspective is that this is the worst of the three options.

-Clayton Christensen back in 2007 already knew Move would be a bad idea

jarrod on 27 March 2010

Honestly, I expect all 3 to launch new consoles in 2012. I think we'll see both 3DS and PSP2 in 2010/2011 too.



evo03 on 27 March 2010

I'd say 2012 for Nintendo. If the early launch of the 3ds is really successful however all bets are off. Launching early gives third parties time to really work with the system and hopefully avoid what happened with the Wii.



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HappySqurriel on 27 March 2010
jarrod said:
Honestly, I expect all 3 to launch new consoles in 2012. I think we'll see both 3DS and PSP2 in 2010/2011 too.

I mostly agree, but I also believe that there is an outside chance that any of the consoles could be replaced in 2011 or 2013 as well. Basically, if the hardware manufacturers start seeing stagnating or declining hardware or software sales for an extended period of time they may decide that further growth requires new hardware. For Microsoft or Sony this situation could be made worse if Natal or Move was not well received in the market because it would indicate that producing an add-on would simply not be enough to improve their market position.

 



Gintoki on 28 March 2010
axt113 said:
Gintoki said:
Hephaestos said:
none of the above.... I see these dates as too soon.

Nintendo won't be the first to make the move this gen... actually they never are the first to make the move regarding consoles...

really?Did not they annonce 3DS?

Well first off, Handhelds are different than consoles, in addition, the DS is a bit older than the Wii and its sales are starting to decline, also, we don't know all of the facts behind why they moved the 3DS now, were they expecting Sony to release something and moved to pre-empt it, or did they see an opening in Sony's strategy and decide to exploit it?

 

 In consoles on the other hand, the MOVE and NATAL are well known and well understood, and Nintendo has already cut them off with WM+, and are moving on with the Vitality sensor, they can afford to wait until after NATAL and the MOVE expend themselves, and until after the effect of the vitality sensor is seen before planning their next console's release, the Wii has yet to near the end of its run, so they can wait a while longer.

True that.

However Ninty indeed made the first move on something here.



freebs2 on 28 March 2010

date: I sometime during 2012
power: more powerful than ps3 for sure (it will be 6 years old at that time), but not the not a monster power....just enough power to make 3rd party developers publish their multy-platform games also on that console, too much power could only mean higher price for consumers, and casual gamers would not be willing to pay an higher price than wii.



Nintendogamer on 28 March 2010
Mazty said:
They'll probably go for an improved wii. Either way Nintendo have shot themselves in the foot. They may be ahead at the moment, but the market buying the wii will not bother to buy an improved wii as surveys indicate that many wiis are now dust collectors, with serious gamers playing on either the xbox or ps3, resulting in all the hardcore franchises on either the ps3, pc or 360, and not with nintendo.
It's hard to see what Nintendo could do as many people who own HD tvs either already own a wii or are not bothered by one, as hd is for impressive visuals, something the wii is incapable of, and without bluray, is still incapable of delivering in terms of media playback.

Everything is a dust collector though if you don't clean them. Serious gamers? why so serious they're only games after-all.



Buying in 2015: Captain toad: treasure tracker,

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new 3ds

yoshi woolly world

zelda U

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Kenryoku_Maxis on 28 March 2010

I think they should definitely release their console around 2012, which will be before both Sony and Microsoft plan to release theirs. And this will give them the leg up, possibly like the PS2 did last gen, especially going in as the 'dominant' console.

However, I think they will need to make their system more powerful this time. Something on the level of what the GameCube was last gen. On par with the most powerful system coming out next gen. But I also think some other good ideas from the GameCube could be utilized, such as using a unique media source (they don't just have to limit themselves to DVD or Blu Ray) and faster read times.



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