I knew this thread would end up just being another NX thread. *sigh*

Why would I have faith in Nintendo putting out a device that the average gamer wants? They haven't done that since the N64. They're a dinosaur who refused to adapt, have rested on their laurels and churn out rehash after rehash after rehash while their marketshare gets smaller and smaller and smaller. They got lucky with the Wii becoming a fad and have done absolutely nothing to keep any of that momementum going forward.  What evidence do you have to have reasonable expectations that this home console is going to do better than the last, or this handheld is going to do better than the last. There has only ever been one Nintendo home console that sold better than its predecessor. There has only ever been one Nintendo handheld that sold better than its predecessor. It's all right there for you to see, you just choose to ignore it. Maybe you've forgotten but their marketing has made grand claims for every console every single time.

For example: There was a patent Nintendo made a year or so before the Wii U's release that involved being able to take a controller from one console and sync it to another to upload things like save files, profiles etc and do things like split-screen gaming on multiple Wii U gamepads). Did that sound plausible? For sure. Did that happen? Nope.  There were also rumors swirling about at the time about Nintendo and Rockstar teaming up to create a new Nintendo franchise, and that the Wii U was going to be a direct play at trying to get the "hardcore gamer" back from Sony and MS. Did any of those happen? No, and not really. Nintendo made practically no effort in trying to convince people that that the Wii U could go toe-to-toe with the likes of the PS3 or X360, much less the PS4 or X1.

Yet here you are eating it all up. Clinging on to every rumor. Turning every phrased out of Nintendo marketing into what you believe is the best possible outcome for Nintendo's next console.You have an idea in your head of exactly what the NX will be based off of about 3 paragraphs from Nintendo, despite the fact I have pointed out multiple ways those phrases can be interpreted. You dismiss them outright. Prepare to be very disappointed if you're even willing to admit it to yourself that you were wrong. There is no way the console Nintendo puts out will even closely resemble what you believe it to be, yet I'm willing to bet when its announced you'll be shouting from the rooftops about how fantastic Nintendo is, and how they're delivering the console(s) that people want.

I'm very much aware that there are major differences between PC development versus console development, which is why I suggested that it would be a great idea if Nintendo contracted this to someone that's very experienced at it. You come across like it's the furthest thing from being possible even though we know next to nothing about the NX. The whole notion that PC development of yesteryear is the same as today needs to go away quickly. This is why fanboys believe that systems like the PS4 and XbOne perform so much higher than a much more powerful PC, which is just crazy talk!

The advancement in graphics API have allowed even PC developers to code as close to the metal and improve performance at the same time. The lowest denominator is what's truly holding gaming back and that includes the current consoles because they aren't as future proof as many would believe. The latest patent from Nintendo shows that they've been researching ways to increase supplemental processing power through multiple factors. So this could lend more credence to an adaptive software to hardware approach as well. People shouldn't just rule stuff out because a company isn't or wasn't known for doing something in the past. Apple wasn't known for making phones before the iPhone or music devices before the ipod. Things change and businesses go where they can grow their market and revenue, it's as simple as that.

Well unified platform definitely isn't what average gamer wants. And if you open eyes and look what all they are doing, you will see that they changing a lot: Amiibo figrues, new account system and services, mobile games, expanding the use of their IPs (for instance Nintendo theme park), completely new unified NX platform...are all huge changes for Nintendo.

Why I think this platform will perform better than last!? Because Wii U was bloody mess, they done everything wrong with Wii U, and when you have very bad product you will try hard next time to perform much better, and everything Nintendo said about Wii U mistakes they done, NX and new platform for me is very positive. Remember, after worst selling Nintendo console to that date (GC), Nintendo had its best selling console. Thats also fact.

Again, it not just about patent, but that patient is basically what Nintendo says about new platform.

And no, I don't believe in rumours, but even those rumours are on pair what Nintendo said and their recent patents.

Yeah, themes like theme parks are huge changes for Nintendo. It's not like they've done past experienments like Super Mario TV shows, live action movies, Nintendo themed cereal and other foods, clothing, action figures, dolls, RC cars, and on and on. Are you forgetting about "The Wizard" a full-length feature commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3? This is the norm for Nintendo. They've been doing things like this for a long long time. It's what Nintendo has always done.

The Super Nintendo sold worse than the Nintendo, making the SNES the worst selling home console in Nintendo history at that time. How did the N64 do? Ohh right. It sold worse than the SNES, making that the worst selling home console in Nintendo History. So after that was the Gamecube. How did that sell? Ohh right, worse than the N64, making the Gamecube the worst selling console in Nintendo history. Your "fact" is the most blatant piece of cherry picking I've seen from a Nintendo fan in a long time. Will the NX home sell better than the Wii U? Almost undoubtedly. It can't get much worse than that!

Funny how you did not mention biggest and more important changes like new account system and services, mobile games and completely new unified NX platform.

SNES was best selling console in its own gen, N64 was second best selling console in it's gen, so both were success in one or other way. But GC was faile, worst selling console of that gen and it was sold 6x worse than best slling console of that gen, so Nintendo realise they need to change approach and they did. But with Wii U they where to relaxed and they made so many mistakes. After Wii U, you can be certain they are not "relax" at all and they will try hard to have much better product.

 I think pretending that PC game development has evolved to be more efficent and that the majority of PC game developers and leveraging advanced APIs to be as close as "to the metal" as consoles is a bit laughable. Just take your average AAA PC game and look at how astoundingly inefficient PC games are, and how the modding community takes over and churns out enhancements that the developers easily could have implemented given the time and money. You can't possibly argue that PCs are as close to getting the max performance out of the hardware as consoles are. The mere fact that you can code hardware specific enhancements for consoles means that consoles should always get more out of the hardware than PC games will.

Now is that to say that consoles can out perform much higher spec'd PCs? Absolutely not. Anyone who says so is drinking some console kool-aid. High performance PC games should always look better than their console counterparts. Always. The fact that a game like Uncharted 4 can stun some PC fans, by achieving graphical fidelity PC fans did not think were possible for such hardware specs speak for two main things: 1) console developers design everything from getting the most out of the hardware they're given and 2) how PC developers simply don't put nearly as much emphasis on efficiency. However, consoles are as futureproof as Sony or Microsoft want them to be. The fact that they have tens of millions of users and the potential to sell millions of games mean Sony or MS can dictate what those lowest common denominators are. Does that mean that as consoles age they start to hold PCs back? Absolutely. But as Sony demonstrated, no one is buying a $600 console, regardless of how "future proof" it might be. There will always be a compromise between performance and affordability that PCs do not have to make.

So that brings us back to Nintendo, and your stance that a "PC style engine" approach is reasonable. I don't come across as it being the furthest thing from possible (it certainly is) I see it as an incredibly dumb move. Nintendo prides itself on making affordable, efficent hardware. They don't focus on power, they focus on games, which means they don't necessarily need to have X1 level of graphics so long as they're above the standards of the Wii U in their eyes. If they took your approach, they would need to compensate for the performance loss by increasing its power.  They are giving up performance (even though as you said, API improvements have lowered the performance decrease, the fact remains that there is still a signifcant performance decrease at play here) all the while pushing for smaller efficient chipsets that produce less heat and use less energy. That seems a bit contradictory.  Don't believe its an issue? Compare the specs of an iPhone 6 to a Vita. The iPhone 6 blows it out of the water, yet in terms of game performance. Many of the iPhone's top games in terms of graphical fidelity are only marginally better than Vita counterparts. Why is this? Well as you said, they're not as "to the metal" as Sony is with the Vita, and along side that, iPhone developers have to develop for the lowest common denominator. I believe in Apple's case they say your game must perform respectfully on hardware 2 generations old. So that's what developers design for. They certainly aren't optimizing the performance of their game for every iPhone sku in those three generations.

And again, iPad games are not iPhone games. Even within that ecosystem, you have to do a non-trivial additional amount of workto make an iPad game work for the iPhone. There would undoubtedly be additional work a developer would have to endure if Nintendo were to take such an approach.

So let's imagine Nintendo takes your approach and the NX home performs better than the Wii U, and obviously worse than the PS4 and Xbox One. What if the NX portable is only a small step over the 3DS in terms of perfomance? How is the average consumer going to react to a console that performs worse than it's competition that is over 3 years older? Probably not well, even if they can buy one game for their NX home and play it on their NX portable. It doesn't make a lick of difference if no one is going to bother spending $500 on hardware to take advantage of such a feature. This, coupled with the the fact that added devopment work that could be mandatory, development costs for the platform would undoubtedly be higher than it would be to develop a PS4 game or Xbox One game. To me, this console isn't looking to appealing to anyone that isn't Nintendo and Nintendo's diehard fans, who to be honest, are more than likely going to buy any hardware Nintendo puts out regardless of its features or software ecosystem.

The only ones we actually know about is an account system that finally brings Nintendo into the millennium. Sony and MS have had this since 2001. Mobile games is yet another foray into related but not necessarily beneficial things. I could argue just as hard that "The Wizard" was far more important than any Mii creator on the iPhone ever will be. As for the "NX unified platform", well we've covered what we actually know about that already (not much).

Nintendo's sales relative to their competitors is kind of irrelevant don't you think? The fact that they finished second compared to the Playstation is somehow better because of how abysmal the Sega Saturn was? That doesn't make much sense. Technically the Dreamcast went up against the likes of the Gamecube, so even the GC didn't techncially finish last it's "generation", so there's that. As for Nintendo "trying hard to have a much better product", are you saying they weren't trying as hard with the SNES, N64 and GC, all of which had poorer sales than their predecessors? Let's be clear. Nintendo has tried its very best every generation to make a successful product. That did not change with the Wii U. It just completely missed the mark. The NX might miss the mark even further for all we know.

No, I said what I meant, "with Wii U they where to relaxed after biggest sixes ever for them and they made so many mistakes, and after Wii U certain they are not "relax" at all and they will try hard to have much better product".

I'm saying they didn't relax. They weren't not trying their hardest to make a successor to the Wii that was equally successful. They just failed.