SNES was the most powerful when it came out. N64 was more powerful than PS1 and Saturn. Gamecube was most powerful that gen. I just disproved your post. You're welcome.

Not trying to be critical here, but could you rephrase that just a bit for the faint of heart. 

And yes, Nintendo trying to be the special snowflake is a result of their blue ocean strategy. It worked for the first Wii but going off to do their own thing again will just confuse more potential customers.

This made me chuckle. :)

Gamecube was not more powerful than the original Xbox.

That's a great question. There really are too many factors, and too many unknowns, to make that kind of prediction with reasonable certainty. I would say that Nintendo is in deep no matter what choice they make in regards to power/price point, but I would go with a more powerful system/higher cost as opposed to the the opposite.

Because mainstream consumers aren't against going all-digital. That's your problem. You think an all digital console will cause this mass exodus. It won't. You think it's actually a negative point for enyone who doesn't frequent a gaming forum. It isn't. No one is as passionate about this non-issue as you are. No one but you is going to see the NX and go "humbug - they're FORCING digital on us." They'll go "oh wow, this thing is neat" and not even pay attention to the fact that it's digital only because, newsflash, everything is nowaways. People are used to all digital and have been for a decade. Nobody thinks about physical anymore outside of console gaming and nobody but the 2% will even notice when it's gone. NX will come out, will provide a user experience that is quicker, easier, more streamlined, and more modern than anything physical could ever achieve, and that will make physical media platforms like PS4 and XBO look completely obsolete by comparison. I guarantee you the PS4K2 and the XB3 will be digital only in response to the NX if they don't release a digital only revision of the PS4K and XB2 first. The equivalent of Blackberry releasing a touch screen phone after the iPhone.

And don't be mistaken - I have never once said that digital only would be the selling point. It's not. Digital only is merely a means to an end, but it is the means. People aren't going to want the NX because Nintendo markets it as digital only, because they won't market it as digital only, just like Apple doesn't market the iPad as digital only or the Apple TV as digital only. It's 2016 - that's not some out-there prospect anymore. Digital only is the means to that end. It's the glue that keeps it all together, not the product. Like I said, it's about UI, OS, firmware, the unified platform, and marketplace. That's the selling point. What's going to sell the NX is simply that it'll frankly be a better, more modern product than the PS4 or XBO are while still being on par. That's all that matters. PS4 is the Blackberry. NX is the iPhone.

They aren't the same now. The NX platform is going to change that. It will be the same as mobile platform in that specific way. That's a literal quote from Iwata. It will be like iOS and if you knew anything about those platforms, you'd know that they are tailor made to make scaling between hardware SKUs as seemless as possible. That's why the App Store is successful. It's easy to develope for on everything. That's the entire purpose of making this platform the way it is. To solve that issue. It doesn't matter if the handheld is way less powerful. That's the point of scaling down. The NXDS versions of games won't look as good as the console variations, and they won't need to. The smaller screen with higher pixel density as well as the law of diminishing returns makes up for the massive drop in resolution and asset quality, and all those extra recourses will be used to make the game look and run better. That's why Vita games looked comparable to PS3 games even though it was much weaker than the PS3. A sheild-level handheld running games at a 540p resolution would easily make games that look comparable to PS4/XBO/NX games. Easily. It doesn't need to be even remotely as powerful as those platforms to output comparable graphics. Again, that's just maths.

And calling the NXDS versions of games "worse versions" is an extremely disingenuious thing to say that erroniously dismisses the entire allure of handhelds. No one buying the NXDS cares that the versions are worse. No 3DS only owner cares that Smash 3DS is inferior to Smash Wii U. Still sold more copies. It's good enough. Looks good enough and runs well enough. That's going to be the case for like 90% of NX games. If Smash 3DS had cross buy/save/play with Smash Wii U, literally no one who owns both systems would give a flying shit that it was inferior, and those people would probably play it more. Nobody who likes handhelds cares that it doesn't run games at 1080p 60fps. That's not what they're for and no one will ever be disappointed in that. If someone owns both the NX and the NXDS and buys COD, you bet your ass they'll be excited to play it on their lunch break with the same save as the one they have are home without needing to think about it. That's a fucking dope luxury.

Of course the NX is going to have two screens. Both the handheld and the console will.

I can't believe what I'm reading in this next paragraph. To think that someone genuinely can't understand the concept of a coupon is baffling. My Nintendo rewards are merely a tool that makes buying software cheaper for dedicated users. They are independant of actual sales. Obviously. It's additive. I'm not going to explain to you the psychology of why this kind of thing works, but what I will say is that it's not this killer app for the platform. None of this stuff is. Everything combined is what will sell the NX, not one of the little things by themselves. No one is buying a PS4 because of PS+'s monthly subscription games for example, but that's obviously a system that adds percieved value to the ecosystem there. "PS4 gives you free games every month." Well, no it doesn't, but by that point the truth doesn't matter; the good PR has done its job in making the PS4 look like a better economic investment. That's what My Nintendo is doing, but rather than using a subscription based model, it's using a more active reward system. One that will undoubtably be integrated directly into the UI of the platform it was actually built to take advantage of. That's good because it makes every single purchase you make feel like a return on your investment towards more software. And software bought with coupons still reward points, which adds to that. Platinum Points are the same thing. The whole thing is meant to make the user feel like the entire NX ecosystem is a clockwork of ways to save the user money. That, in turn, becomes the identity of the NX eshop - its marketplace. That's why I compared it to Steam. When people think of Steam, they think of sales even though that's a gross eggaduration. My Nintendo is a program that allows Nintendo to cultivate that mindset with the NX eshop. Since the eshop will be the only marketplace for the NX, it will gain that same kind of identity. And that's on top of regular sales, which occur on a weekly basis. With a digital only platform, Nintendo has complete control of the consumers buying experience. That's a good thing for Nintendo, because they don't need to rely on retail chains to represent their games correctly. They advertise what they want in the way they want, and that's good, because they have their best interests in mind.

Also, get out of here with used games lmfao. Anyone who thinks that used games are what's going to stop the inevitable digital renaissance is out of touch with reality. It's a non-factor that only benefits Gamestop. PC gets along fine with no used games, and so will NX. There are a non-factor.

No, the best argument is "Look at how awesome and modern our platform is. Nintendo games, third party games, and the device is really good." Boring to type. Exciting to watch.

To end it, I'll just leave you with my favorite Miyamoto quote from E3 2014:

"So, particularly with digital downloads now and the idea that you're downloading the right to play a game, that opens up the ability to have multiple platform digital downloads where you can download on one and download on another. Certainly from a development standpoint there is some challenge to it, because if you have two devices that have different specs and you're being told to design in a way that the game runs on both devices, then that can be challenging for the developer—BUT if you have a more unified development environment and you're able to make one game that runs on both systems INSTEAD of having to make a game for each system, that's an area of opportunity for us." - Miyamoto with Kotaku

This makes much more sense.

If AMD has a new gen of GPUs ready, that are able to do 2.5 Tflops (36% faster than PS4) for less than 50watts.

That sounds like something Nintendo could use, and ask AMD to make them a semi custum APU, with ARM + Polaris 11.

But studios have been porting from PowerPC to X86 for over a decade. Developers could develop in Universal Fat Binary and make the games bi-compatible. All these techniques exist

There is no way Nintendo can hit the $250-$300 price target with those specs while having far worse economies of scale than SONY.

People here seriously underestimate how much volume affects specs. Considering Nintendo postponed NX launch to March 2017, I'm guessing they aren't very confident about their next console, meaning they will place far less orders from suppliers than SONY is. Nintendo would need to buy specs half as strong as the PS4 to even get the $400-$500 pricepoint without taking a loss.

Ha ha ha ha!  Get real. History repeats itself.

Look at what happened to Microsoft when they said no used games on XBox One. It destroyed them.

If Nintendo says no used games, I say goodbye to Nintendo.