Before I get into this, I'm just going to say that this is the last post I plan on replying to in a big way in this thread. I'm driving myself crazy. Though I'll obviously offer clarifications if need be.

Okay.

1. I've always disagreed with the notion that handhelds were declining in relevance because of mobile. Mobile is a completely different market from a software POV with a completely different gameplay experience. I think that 3DS and Vita just sold poorly compared to their predicessors, but that has more to do with the products themselves than the market, especially in the Vita's case. It's giving the Vita a huge pass to say that mobile is what did it in, and not that is wasn't a good product. I love the 3DS, but it's not a modern system at all. I'm not talking about the power, but the feature set. The most modern feature on it was street pass. It's not always online (like phones, not like XBO), it has terrible communication options, and it UI is extremely slow and clunky. The keyboard is terrible and the screen is resistive, and this thing game out at a time when people were used to better. The 3DS is great, but it's drop from the DS had very little to do with mobile. All mobile did was shine a light on how out of date it was tech wise. When DS game out, there wasn't much tech in a portable formfactor that compared with it until the PSP. When the 3DS came out, people were used to imessage on their iPhones. I know that sounds silly when you're talking about a gaming platform, but it makes 3DS a less desirable device to own because it seems so out classed, an issue I don't think the NXDS will have.

I don't think the NXDS will make that mistake. First, I think the NX will have a "free" internet data plan, not unlike the Kindle Fire. Iwata talked about implementing something like this, but it never came into fruition with the 3DS. By free, what I really mean is that the costs will be integrated into the costs of hardware and software. I think it absolutely will with the NXDS, especially with how much it will rely on cloud for saves and downloading software. Needing to be connected to your home wifi to download a game is absurd for a portable system, so the data plan will fix this. This means the system will be always online. It goes without saying, but no it won't brick your console if you're not connected. I think that Nintendo will upgrade their messaging feature and communication in general with the NXDS, bolstered by more power being dedicated to the OS so it runs smoothly. And it's a hope of mine that they'll finally move onto capacative touch. They can't ignore a generation of children that grew up with finger touch, and finger touch on 3DS feels like shit. There's more, but the gist is that the 3DS just wasn't as good of a product of its kind for its time as the DS was, and that's why it failed to reach the same hights. I think the NXDS will be, and it will sell immensely well in turn.

2. Well the unified library means more games, but that doesn't really matter for this example. People will want the NX console because people in the west prefer home consoles. That's really it. For evample the Apple ecosystem is a great one that encourages people to own all products, but I had a Macbook for 3 years before I ever wanted an iPhone. I just really like macs and didn't care enough to buy an iphone until later. The success of one isn't dependant on the success of the other. The NX will have plenty of pros that make it a desirable machine of its own merrit. The unified plaform and cross features are more of an incentive to own both than it is an incentive to own one or the other. The only one that isn't is cross play, but that benefits users that only own one as it means more players in multiplayer games.

3. I just flat out disagree with that. At least to the point where it will have a significant detrimental effect on its perception. The Wii had that bad perception because it was a generation behind, power wise. The Wii U had that bad perception because it was a generation behind, power wise. The NX isn't going to be a generation behind, power wise. The differences between PS4 and XBO versions of games are hard enough to destinguish to the untrained eye. It's going to be the same with the NX. And as long as that's the case, the situation is going to look much more like the PS2 compared to the GCN and OGXB than the Wii compared to the PS360 or Wii U compared to PS4/XBO. Then it's going to have all those features and that ecosystem that's going to make it look far more modern by comparison. "The PS2 is weaker, but it has a DVD player" sort of thing.

4. This is perhaps the most frustrating thing to have to explain, because I totally get why it's difficult to understand. I know that UI has never been a selling point for a console. Consoles have never had UI's good enough to be the selling point. NX will. On top of that, I've already made clear that the UI isn't going to be marketed as the NX's killer app gimmick. When I say that the boring stuff is what's going to sell the NX, I mean it just like that. Nintendo is going to unveil the NX and the layman is just going to look at it and think "that's a really cool looking console. I really want that." They aren't going to say "My Nintendo looks like the reason I have to buy this" or the "UI looks amazing - I must preorder" or "it being digital only is a killer app for me." But the reason they are going to think that the console looks so cool is because of all that "boring" stuff. Because the firmware, the OS, the marketplace, the UI, the ecosystem, being digital only, etc are working together to make for a very prestine, sleek, and polished end product that is of its time. That's why I keep saying "smart console." Because that's the feeling all that stuff put together will give people. That feeling that I put into the words "smart console" is the killer app, and that feeling is the result of all those other things working together.

And yes, it'll do all the same basic things as in it'll play games in a similar way, but the experience won't be the same at all. It's more than just selecting stuff with a touch screen. It's a platform where an entire audience of consumers will be digital only on a console for the first time, and that experience is completely different. Selecting any game you want to play by just tapping an icon is a completely different experience to the disc swapping that most people are used to. Interacting with an online market place exclusively for your game purchases instead of going to Gamestop or Amazon is going to be a totally new experience for a lot of console consumers. Hearing about a game and buying the download on your phone and then having it ready when you get home is a completely new experience to a vast majority of console consumers. Even though those are all things possible on other systems, no one can understand that day and night difference those experience make until they are fully immersed in an ecosystem like that, and NX will be many peoples first experience with it, which is hightened by the superior touch UI and My Nintendo and everything else. Bringing that experience, which is commonplace in PC gaming, and applying it to a console format is a shift that is equivalent to, again, the iPhone taking commonplace desktop features and applying it to a cellphone form factor with a sleek and attractive touch screen UI.

5. Oh, that's another point. I think NX and NXDS will get new revision each as requently as every two years, and unlike the PS4/XBO, they are being built for it from the get go. I actually thought the NX would do it first, so I was suprised when rumors of a PS4K emerged. When I say that NX will not have a generation, that's what I mean. The NX is the legacy platform. It's going to be iterated on indefinitely, or at least until technology makes that model obsolete. I also don't think the PS4 or XBO will have traditional console successors, and I definitely don't think they will retire until at least 2020, but more likely 2021, but that's another issue. Either way, NX will have a great many years to compete with the current generation of hardware. That's why I meantioned BC. It's not important because of letting people tranfer old games. It's important because it allows Nintendo and 3rd parties to add games to this marketplace from all generations indefinitely without regard for generation and without allocating recourses to starting all over again. The generational devide is an imaginary one exclusive to consoles. It doesn't exist on PC and NX will attempt to erase that on consoles.

6. I don't really think that matters. NX games are only competing with themselves price wise. I've never even heard of people looking at the price of multiplats discounts on competing platforms to determine what platform they will buy. A controlled platform does mean "no competition," but Steam proves that that's not really an issue. And Apple and Android. Also, games drop in price permanently on the eshop, too. It's not just discounts.

7. That is absolutely 100% true. But not enough to stop the NX from succeeding despite that. And with Microsoft opening up to cross platform play, I definitely see a future where Microsoft and Nintendo allow cross play between NX and XBO multiplats. That's great PR for MS, good momentum for Nintendo, and both of them benefit from a larger online playerbase. If NX and XBO have crossplay, I do not see a future where Sony does not give in and all three have crossplay with each other by the end of the 8th generation. So while I think that is the biggest point for PS4 against NX, I do not see that being the case for very long. MS said they're open to crossplay because they want crossplay. Sony was sly about crossplay because they have no reason at the moment to allow it. Nintendo does.

That last bit about cross play with XBO is just something I think could happen rather than something I'm sure will happen like with the other NX predictions.

But yeah, that's it for me. I'll do a breif response to your rebuttle, but that's essentially it for me in this thread. I'm going to start just calling NX a smartconsole again and telling people to look at this thread if they want to see what it means. Way too stressful.

No. They designed the CPU and GPU as well as the single die containing the CPU and GPU (APU), but the overall SoCs were designed by SONY and MS for their repective platforms.

Just wait for things to be confirmed before burning Nintendo alive lol

An APU is technically an "SoC" if you didn't know ... 

All credit goes to AMD for the IPs, no credit goes to Sony for designing the chips themselves ... 

You're not understanding this at all.

Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Accelerated_Processing_Unit

And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip

I never said PS4 and Xbox One had vastly different architectures, they both use the same AMD Jaguar CPU cores and the same 7000 series GPU core technology, only Xbox One has a slightly faster clocked CPU, fewer GPU cores, but clocked slightly faster, a custom DSP (shape) and 32MBs of eSRAM.

Sony has more GPU cores, along with modified Asynchronous Compute technology, featuring 4X the ACEs.

Sony paid for their R&D, Microsoft paid for theirs and both got what they paid for, AMD would definitely do the work to design the chips each company needed.

AMD would have done R&D once for Sony, then once for Microsoft, you're putting words in my mouth.

Both platforms have APUs, they're both Systems on a Chip, because that's what an Accelerated Processing Unit is.

Really appreciate the detailed explanations, Spemanig. You really know a lot about this stuff. You should like, do a podcast or something, haha.

Thank you. :)

I... plan to do a lot more than just a podcast lol, but that's a bit more into the future.

Only thing xbox had over gc was a gpu that was slightly better, whereas gc had a superior cpu and faster ram. Xbox couldn't handle windwaker without massive stutter. I'll let you do the reading.

The Xbox and Gamecube had different strengths. The GC was built to run games will all of it's effects on. It's the reason Lucas Arts had to cancel the Rogue Squadron port to Xbox. It couldn't handle the game. 

Awesome, looking forward to it. :)

And don't worry, you're not the only one going crazy over the NX. We all are.