Ugh, backwards compatible. I fear this will hold once again the console.

When did Nintendo make the leap to x86?

What??? I love backwards compability, thats what makes xbox one and PS4 less appealing imo. though xbox one has some sort of backwards compablity, it has a long way to go.

It's a smart move by Nintendo, even if it may impact BC or whatever. Their biggest issue lately aside from the power difference between themselves and their competition is the difference in architecture (and we do know that that makes a difference, having seen the PS3's early struggles). Using AMD, means they'll be much much closer to the PS4/XB1 architecture and porting games will be far easier.

Good on Nintendo, I think.

The PS4 does have backwards compatibility. It's called PS Now.

OP: It's great to here that Nintendo is more likely to partner with AMD which means an Android based system may not be in the works.

Would you like NX to suffer even worse 1st party gaps than the WiiU did?

Aside from Zelda, we're still several years away from either a new Smash or Mario Kart -- the things we know are needed to push the NX

They say they could make use of software-based, rather than hardware based emulation, meaning the new chip could very well be x86.

That and no, PS Now is not backwards compatability, it's a paid streaming service.

Would make sense as most modern PowerISA chips are server grade Power8 chips (and upcoming Power9) and Nintendo takes power consumption to heart.

Software emulation is unlikely. Currently you need a strong i5 to properly emulate an Wii.

Wii U is too strong to emulate via software for the time being.

It hasn't... as the same article says four paragraphs later.

To be honest, the article is quite bad and with a lot of mistakes (IBM has never been a competitor to AMD's APU chips because their business is in the business and server market, not the personal computer one).