If it is so simple, then the vast majority of games available for the apple tv would be available for the iPod touch and vice versa. But their marketplaces are dramatically different, and there's a varitey of legitimate reasons why. For one, the controls for each are dramatically different - ipod touch with its touchscreen, apple tv with a remote. Secondly one is a handheld device vs something designed to be viewed on a television 6-8 feet away, which means you have to redo a huge chunk of the UI, and I haven't even gotten into accomodating the differences in the hardware - an extra GB of RAM when it comes to consoles can make a dramatic difference.

Regarding controls, there's been talk about ditching the double screen of the DS, and going to a touch screen, which means accomodating that, but you're right - they could be very similar, and it could be a minimal issue. But if there is any variance you're obviously adding additional development cost.

It's all fine and dandy that you really don't see the difference between a PC game engine and a console game engine. A PC game engine communicates with the system's OS, which controls/APIs which control the CPU, RAM, GPU etc. The PC game engine never sends instructions to hardware itself. It communicates through the OS which handles communicating with the processor, and whatnot. Because of this, you can get endless compatibility, because the hardware manufacturers just need to develop drivers/apis that tell the OS how to communicate with the hardware. Consoles on the otherhand don't really communicate with the hardware in the same way, yes, there's an OS that handles things like menu systems, online networking, cameras, controllers etc, and there are sections of the hardware such as the CPU, GPU and RAM that are dedicated to OS use, and are off-limits to the game engine. Aside from that, the Game engine communicates directly with the processor, gpu, etc, and of course use the API for higher level commands. As a result, you can get more out of the hardware, because you can optimize for that specific processor, and that specific hardware configuration. If there's a bottle neck in that specific hardware specification, you can accomodate that.  For the most part, you have a level of control with the hardware that is a tier greater than you have with a PC. As a result you can get significantly better performance out of a console than you could with a PC with identical specs.

As I said, Nintendo could go in this direction, make more or less the Nintendo version of Android, give developers PC-style access to the hardware, and keep those costs down, but in doing so they would be putting heavy constraints on what can be done on the hardware. Games would perform worst than people expect in nearly every way you can think of. Third parties or anyone developing an engine would have less control, and as a result, would have to work closer with Nintendo to work through issues related to the Operating System, API, etc in a similar way to how nVidia or ATi works with Microsoft to develop their drivers and APIs. I really doubt that kind of change would be welcomed by traditional game developers, but it may attact the iOS/Android development crowd, as that is the type of relationship they are used to having with hardware manufacturers.

If that is the case, then you need to ask yourself if you think the world would embrace Nintendo's more powerful version of the Ipod touch and apple tv.

AppleTV has an install base of approximately 25 million units.

iPhone and iPad have sold through somewhere near 1 billion hardware units. 

That's probably (just maaaaaybe) has something to do with the reason why not every iPhone game is on the new AppleTV to start with. If it starts to build a larger userbase, I'm sure more developers will start making more games with it in mind. 

It's probably not a good idea to ask me what I want out of Nintendo. I don't want them to have a PS4 competitor because I won't buy it. I also don't want them to have a home console at over $179 or a handheld over $119 because I won't buy those either. I don't have a Wii U or a 3DS, but I do still use my WIi and DS.

I don't pretend to have the answers for Nintendo. I don't pretend to know what Nintendo can do to make themselves sustainable as an industry leader in the future. I can only go by what I do know, which is my experience working with Nintendo, and based off of that knowledge along with my other industry experience, what will and won't work. First off, allowing a single developer take their portable version and do a super lazy upscale port will do nothing but hamper the image of the platform. All it takes is one screen shot of a game looking like pixelated trash on a 1080p TV and the console would be done for. How can you possibly instill consumer confidence that your new console is better than the old one if the new one objectively looks worse than a Wii U game? That would be game over.

I don't think for one second that a unified platform is the answer to Nintendo's prayers. It seems to me like a band-aid to a stab would. It might stave off their further decline for another generation, but I don't see it attracting a new audience, and I definitely don't see it attracting third parties. Personally I think that's a shame, because Nintendo should have a place in this industry, but Nintendo needs to stop shooting themselves in the foot, and consistently do things to make people like me interested in their product. Splatoon was the closest thing in a long time to pique my interest, but the rotational map/dlc/incomplete nonsense absolutely killed it for me. It seems to me that Nintendo just can't seem to put something out that either a) isn't a new coat of paint on something I've been playing for 20 years b) a new idea that shows a heap of promise but comes up short in ways that are completely unnecessary. It kills me to see them trip over themselves time and time and time again. And here we are with the NX on the horizon and it appears to be more of the same.

Hey man, that's 25 million potential new sales with just a simple recomplie and some slider adjustments! .... right guys?

Well to be fair, the peticular iPod model I'm talking about just came out 2 months ago and the Apple TV model I'm talking about releases next month with previous Apple TV models not even having access to games unless streamed through a separate iOS device so there is really no way to compare the amount of cross-device support or marketplaces.

I'm not simply asking about the difference between PC and consoles, I'm asking how is it possible that developers are able to make a single game that runs on a dozen or so separate pieces of hardware? Let's take Skylanders Superchargers for example, it's on PS3/PS4/360/XB1/Wii U/iPod/iPhone/iPad/Apple TV, that's 9 platforms, more if u include the various different iPhone/iPad models that it's compatible with. So why can a developer make a single game run on a dozen plus separate devices that have a huge range in power, different operating systems and different architectures without any problems but somehow it's way too costly/time constraining for a developer to make a single game available on 2 Nintendo platforms that share a common architecture/operating system and have similar specs?

As for ur last paragraph, that's exactly what I think Nintendo should release. A handheld and a console with similar specs that share the same architecture/operating system/online infrastructure/account system with most games being available on both devices and allows for cross-buy/play/save. There is also the new membership/rewards program that will make software more affordable. Then there is the mobile games/apps, theme park attractions, IP licensing that they are set to roll out in the near future.

Significantly reduced cost of entry into the Nintendo ecosystem+significantly increased software output+significantly increased brand awareness combined has the potential attract more people than 3DS/Wii U were able to.

But it's still based on P6. The P6 evolved into the Pentium 2, Pentium 3... Then with a momentary lapse of judgement with Netburst... Was used in Pentium M, which then formed the basis of Core Solo/Duo. - Then Intel developed the Core architecture, an iteration of P6.

The point was, despite them all sharing the same "starting point" they all increased performance over the Pentium Pro for one reason or another, sometimes those changes were tiny fundamentally and Intel simply took advantage of clockspeeds and better interface technologies.

Fact of the matter is, Nintendo's PowerPC derived CPU would have gone through a few revisions and respines and changes for the WiiU, it's a CPU based on broadway, it's not an exact clone with higher clocks... And let's be honest, Broadway/Gecko weren't completely inadequate anyway, they managed to get the job done.
In the end I personally think the WiiU has a better CPU to GPU performance balance than what the Xbox One or Playstation 4 does, even if it is still laughable in the grand scheme of things.

To put it into perspective anyway...
A Pentium Tualatin released in 2000 on a clock for clock, core to core basis would still be faster than an In-order Intel Atom released almost a decade later.

Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing or SMAA gained traction too. Was used for Watch Dogs and Dying Light and other games.
Pretty much every Unreal 3 powered game late in the generation used MLAA or a variation of.

Xenos wasn't VLIW. Or "Very Long Instruction Word" in the traditional terascale sense.

VLIW is a "SPU" or a "Unit" Broken down into 4-5 processing units, each capable of executing individual instructions in parallel.

Now, you *could* trace that back to the Radeon 9000 days, before the Radeon x1900 series, before the Radeon x800 series, but Xeno's being Terascale like? It's not.
Xenos shares more of it's funademental architecture principles with the Radeon x19xx series, which is actually a good thing, the Radeon 2xxx series was a dog.

I used to think so too. But I suggest you take a look at Morrowind with Tessellation, you might just walk away surprised on the difference that a "Primitive Tessellator" can make.

Normally I would say "Wait for the software". - But considering how poorly the console is selling... Everyone has abandoned that ship.

From my own playing around with a Radeon 6450, you would be surprised how well you can make something like Unigen Heaven look, even with low level factor Tessellation whilst keeping it at 30fps.

Skylanders probably isn't the best example to use. The game is basically shovelware, made as cheaply as possible, with little to no depth, with the main purpose being to sell little statues. That game makes money by being as cheap as possible to make while having a huge mark up on the cost of figures. Supporting all those platforms is extremely expensive for activision, but it really doesn't matter if they sell enough of those high-margin figures to justify it. But again, that is Skylanders. That is the the most widely available game ever made to sell more plastic figures. You take away those figures and the Skylanders game doesn't get made, much less for 9 different platforms.

For example, a better example might be  is not Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. That game is on the PS4/X1/PC/PS3/X360.  That sounds expensive, doesn't it? It was - one of the most expensive video games ever made. That game cost Konami $80 million just to develop, and was so expensive they broke part of the game off as a separate retail title called "Ground Zeroes". To get the "full game", gamers were spending $100 retail for it. They did this because they can, because it's Metal Gear Solid, because it's an established brand, because they had a good idea on how much it would sell.  Even with all that, rumors are swirling that the game was unfinished, and rushed out the door, that Kojima quit/was fired over how much that game was costing. Would Kojima have opted to just have the game on PS4/X1/PC and focus the budget otherwise spent on supporting other platforms on making the game better? Undoubtedly. Remember MGS4 came out for one platform, and one platform only, and it cost far less to develop.

As for the NX, why do I think third parties won't support it? There are a number of reasons:

Because it will be more expensive to support it than any other platform on the market, and that's obvious. No one should be arguing agsint the fact that supporting multiple specifications in a single platform has to be more expensive than supporting a single specification on a single platform. It's added complexity. It will require specification-specific changes. It will require specification-specific testing. There are no two ways around it. The NX will cost more to develop for than developing a single game for PS4 or a single game on Xbox One.

Because there is little to no reason to expect third party games to sell well on a Nintendo platform. They simply don't sell well, and never have. There are rare exceptions, but take the Wii as an example- an install base of over 100 million wiis world-wide. The five highest selling third party Wii games combined solid about as well as Super Smash Brothers, which was the 8th best selling Wii game. That is not good. The Wii U and Gamecube have even worse third party numbers. What makes anyone think any third party game will sell well on the NX?

So you're the head of a video game studio, and you plan on making a multi-platform game. Your market analysis and experience tell you if you develop a game for the PS4 and X1 it will cost you $3 million total, and you can expect to get 1.5 million in sales between the platform. Now you're deciding whether you want to add NX to the mix. You crunch the numbers and you figure it's going to cost you an additional $1.5 m to develop it for the NX, considering the arcitecture isn't X86, you'll have to do significant work to re-work the engine to support that platform, you'll have to redo all of the art and audio assets to not only be optimized for the NX's hardware, you'll have to do all of that extra work to support the extra specification, etc, but the gameplay mechanics, story, ui and animation can all be carried over with little re-work. So now your budget just blew up by over 30%. At the very least you should expect another 30% in sales to make it worthwhile. So, do you think your game, which will sell 850k on PS4, and 650k on X1 is going to sell 500k on NX? probably not. History certainly hasn't shown as much. In the meanwhile you've got half the money you need for the sequel on PS4 and X1, which will more than likely generate more money than it would if it was invested in porting a multi-platform game over to NX. So again, why would I bother?

As for my last paragraph, If that's what you want, I wish Nintendo the best of luck going up the likes of Apple and Google. If you think Microsoft and Sony were stiff competition, you haven't seen anything yet.

The starting point doesn't matter much and sure Intel took advantage of Dennard scaling but those days are over ... 

@Bold The problem with that statement is Marcan didn't disclose that it wasn't a clone. He straight up said it was 3 broadways on die! 

I think it is the X1 that has the best CPU to GPU performance ratio. In terms of floating point performance, it is the X1 that has the least skewed ratio when considering the Latte has 176 GFlops for a fair estimate. In terms of integer performance, it is also the X1 since Nintendo's PPC 750 derivative is weaker in this aspect than it's floating point performance. For branching, I think this is where Espresso may have an advantage but AMD's VLIW5 architecture was notorious for been poor in that aspect. With GCN you can actually write highly performant uber-shader code just like other modern GPU architectures and it even supports indirect branching too which further puts VLIW5 to shame. You can very much get more CPU performance on the HD twins in other ways like programming a GPU like GCN as if it were a CPU! Afterall the only thing special to a GPU are it's fixed function units ...

For the majority of last gen it was FXAA, SMAA only started getting interesting on current gen ...

It definitely has some differences with Terascale but Xenos is most certainly VLIW ...

Games as well as hardware used to be very different back then. Most of the meshes in that time were only made up of hundreds of vertices and the truform was only built for small amounts of data expansion so that devs wouldn't go around abusing it too much. Games today are compute limited and increasing the amount of fragments will have some large impacts on shading and rasterization performance ...

We did wait for more software and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone arguing that the WII U has a definitive or absolute edge over the sub-HD twins in performance ...

An HD 6450 is pathetic even in Unigine Heaven ...

MGSV probably isn't the best example either, that games budget isn't due to the amount of platforms but because it has one of the largest open-worlds ever in a game, one of the most visually impressive games ever, features things like motion capture and big name celebrities as voice actors.

I'm not sure where u r getting ur info from, according to this site over 150 Wii titles sold over 1 million, over 2/3 of those were 3rd party.

But anyway, u keep bringing up PS4/XB1 when I repeatedly say the objective is not to get the games on those consoles to come to NX, it's to unify the software library that Nintendo handhelds receive with the software library that Nintendo consoles recieve. I highly doubt anybody will need to significantly rework their engines or redo all artwork when these devices were designed with the sole purpose of being cross-compatible. Of  course it won't be exactly the same as making one game on one platform but for example Capcom releases Monster Hunter 5 for NX Portable and they estimate it will cost an additional 10% to bring the game to NX Console than that's something that could very well be worthwhile for them.

Nintendo doesn't need to beat Apple/Google, they simply need to create a large enough ecosystem for their IP to sell on and be profitable. 3DS+Wii U will sell about 80 million when all is said and done, that's while being the most expensive generation ever to get the full Nintendo experience, along with both devices suffering software droughts at points and having lackluster marketing that led to consumer confusion.

So again, with a unified ecosystem & membership/rewards program that makes cost of entry significantly lower, a much more consistent software release schedule, and stronger brand recognition due to various types of IP licensing (mobile apps, theme park attractions, films/series, merchandising), it's not at all unrealistic for Nintendo to increase their consumer base compared to 3DS/Wii U.

You talk about "removing bottlenecks" and "working out the specifics" and "grand scheme of things" without actually pointing out what those mean. I can surely overclock any CPU 10-15% and I doubt it would any significant, even if I coded software specially for it. The X1 CPU is theoretically clocked 10% higher than the PS4's and it doesn't seem like a big deal.The Carrizo benckmarchs point to a nice increase, but it does not break any "bottlenecks".

I agree, though, if Nintendo plays their card well, they could get a bigger piece of silicon (since 28nm is more mature now) and underclock / undervolt it to get to X1 or even better levels of performance, but keeping a smaller case / cooling system. The thing is, Nintendo hasn't played her hand well when it comes to console hardware since the GameCube. And that's being generous for not taking into account the controller and media storage...

If only Nintendo could ditch AMD and get a Maxwell GPU, now we're talking about a mix of good harware and low power consumption / heat. A Geforce GTX 965M consumes less than two thirds of the graphics inside the PS4 and brings an almost even performance. Not to mention it shouldn't be very expensive, since it's basically a GM204 chip with half its units disabled. Yields would be very high...