The UE4 one would be very easy to scale to handheld or console, so long as the platform runs UE4. The 3DS one is likely coded to the very core for the 3DS (wouldn't be surprised if the regular 3DS has to boot into OS-free mode and unlock the RAM) and would be a pain in the ass to port.
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More hints that AMD is building Nintendo NXs processor (VentureBeat)
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The UE4 one would be very easy to scale to handheld or console, so long as the platform runs UE4. The 3DS one is likely coded to the very core for the 3DS (wouldn't be surprised if the regular 3DS has to boot into OS-free mode and unlock the RAM) and would be a pain in the ass to port.
What makes you say that? I'm not challenging your opinions by any means I'm just legitimately curious since you always seem to have well thought out and level headed posts.
LordOfChaos
Member
Yup, it is.
Not that it's a huge deal with 2GB, though 64 bit could speed up some things.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I am not at all confident that the NX is at such a point with Epic that they already have UE4 compliance and that Square-Enix is comfortable enough with where their progress to publicly pontificate on it.
I mean, if it is, great! They should also be working on getting KH3 on there. But just playing the odds, it really doesn't seem like Nintendo.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
So know 100% sure but dont know which one?
LordOcidax
Member
The version that is not on a Nintendo platform. That make sense.
Definitely upscaled 3ds version.
Just for reference, Beril had good insight on this a few days back seeing as how he knows the 3DS pretty well, I'd say he has a good point here:
Trevelyan9999
Banned
Are you saying the Unseen64 guy said he got good news regarding the NX's power compared to PS4, or are you saying both that guy and Matt were saying two different things?
Just trying to clarify, also if you have link to where this was said, that would be nice.
Calamari41
41 > 38
It would be way way easier to port the PS4 version than the 3DS version if the NX does run UE4, right?
ShockingAlberto
Member
The 3DS version isn't as fundamentally dual-screen as people seem to think.
The 3D/pixel thing as simultaneous styles is only used in the intro. In the rest, you switch whenever you feel like it, it's not one on one screen and one on the other.
The 3D/pixel thing as simultaneous styles is only used in the intro. In the rest, you switch whenever you feel like it, it's not one on one screen and one on the other.
lwilliams3
Member
I see what you mean. If the NX is already set to get the PS4 version, that would signify a major change with Nintendo. People are already thinking this is the case, so I hope we will get some clarifications soon to narrow our expections.
A port of the 3DS version to the next handheld makes sense to me. I'd be surprised if Square wants to jump aboard Nintendo's next console so quickly after how the WiiU turned out. I think all third parties are going to be very cautious with it. Then again maybe Horii's just doing it on a whim. He did develop a second version of DQXI for a system that isn't doing well in Japan at all. Should be interesting to see.
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
Not saying it's not being considered or even being developed on (who even knows if third parties have devkits at this point) but things can change. Especially considering that the we, the gamers, know nothing about a system that was announced way too early. Hell, remember Bioshock Vita? Saint's Row 3DS? DJ Hero 3DS? Aliens: Colonial Marines Wii U (terrible example I know)? That unprecedented partnership with EA? Point is until the NX is officially unveiled and Square definitively said DQXI is for sure coming to it. Everybody should treat this as a possibility.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Sony has a bit of a history with shooting off titles still in negotiation, though.
Resident Evil Portable, Agent, Bioshock Vita, etc. Even lesser things like Battlefield 2142 with Battlefield 3. Whenever it's possible, they always try to encourage third parties to say something's a sure bet even if it's only in talks.
Trevelyan9999
Banned
Thanks, I appreciate the links.
The key is:
What he said originally: "The NX is definitely not aiming to compete with the likes of PS4 on a power level. Absolutely sure of that now."
So it could mean a few things: The NX is just a handheld, the NX is a handheld and a different version of NX is a console and he was only told handheld specs, or he heard something new regarding the NX's power as a console (or it's gimmick) that he now can't mention.
Knowing the popularity (or lack thereof) of Dragon Quest worldwide, the current state of home consoles in Japan and what the NX will likely end up being (an ecosystem of Nintendo devices sharing the same library), the NX version of Dragon Quest XI that would make the most business sense would be a port of the PS4 version.
Japanese gamers aren't gonna buy a new handheld and especially not a new console to play a slightly upgraded version of a 3DS game they played a year ago. The vast majority of western gamers won't give two shits about a slightly upgraded version of a 3DS Dragon Quest game,
Which brings us to the PS4 version. It's not unreasonable to think that home consoles have declined so much in Japan that DQXI PS4 will have a hard time selling enough units to make a decent return on investment. Unlike Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest is not the kind of franchise that can count on western sales to make up for lower sales in Japan. I doubt Square-Enix will be okay with middling sales of an ambitious, expensive HD Dragon Quest just because the 3DS version will make bank - they'll want to sell the high-end version to as many people as possible as well, and this is where a next-gen handheld that can run the UE4 version comes in.
Japanese gamers aren't gonna buy a new handheld and especially not a new console to play a slightly upgraded version of a 3DS game they played a year ago. The vast majority of western gamers won't give two shits about a slightly upgraded version of a 3DS Dragon Quest game,
Which brings us to the PS4 version. It's not unreasonable to think that home consoles have declined so much in Japan that DQXI PS4 will have a hard time selling enough units to make a decent return on investment. Unlike Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest is not the kind of franchise that can count on western sales to make up for lower sales in Japan. I doubt Square-Enix will be okay with middling sales of an ambitious, expensive HD Dragon Quest just because the 3DS version will make bank - they'll want to sell the high-end version to as many people as possible as well, and this is where a next-gen handheld that can run the UE4 version comes in.
They seem to follow a pattern where the baseline of the new handheld's carts is double the largest possible cart size of the previous one. I think a range between 16 GB and 64 GB (possibly even 128 GB) would be enough for most games.
This gen was 2-4GB, so yeah, it'd be only 4-8GB if they just doubled the cartridge capacity.
Jorok Goldblade
Member
There could also be some internal shuffling of which system hits the market first, depending on changing outlooks. The handheld could have been set to launch first, but strong performance from their stopgap New 3DS could have encouraged them to give the 3DS some more brething room while focusing on the home console. Shifting the release schedule could lead to some serious confusion for those of us interpreting leaks, as we're seeing leaks for two different products being used interchangeably.
Makes Sense.
Especially if they are using NX as Code Name for multiple Products.
Mr. Pointy
Member
540p graphics means they wouldn't need to stretch much past 8GB. Maybe 16GB if Nintendo can get the costs on ROM / NAND down.
I was referring to the idea that the NX Console could use the same cartridges as the NX Handheld.
The problem with this is 3ds games are already visually suffering from storage capacity woes.
Trevelyan9999
Banned
Are you referring to the 3DS game card storage? Last I heard was they could go all the way up to 8GB: http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/24569/3ds-cartridges-could-store-up-to-8gb
Things like this don't just change on a dime or at all once contracts are set and planned. Also, the bolded has not happened, the N3DS has done nothing more than flatline the baseline but their hardware is still struggling. Moreover, the 3DS is lacking and incapable of ever getting a lot of middleware support which is causing it to lose a lot of "easy" software to Vita.
I'd be incredibly surprised if a handheld wasn't first to replace the 3DS; there's a market that they still have a grasp of there and they need to stop the bleeding to mobile. You don't go chasing a market you barely have any foothold in while letting a market you do have slip away. The sooner people realize this the sooner we can stop asking for a WiiU replacement first.
*if* Nintendo was pushing towards a high power direction for the console, but using an APU approach (which seems sensible and cost efficient), the PS4 and Xb1 are already big chips. Assuming no process node shrink if released next year, I can't see them being able to go any bigger at 28nm, which means the same die area would cost the same amount to produce as for Sony and MS. And there aren't any big leaps in GPU architecture from AMD either.
Yes it would be a few years newer, but the landscape hasn't changed enough to make a more powerful console likely. We'd need smaller process nodes to be more mainstream (possibly 2017 for this, outside of Intel CPUs and mobile chips), and possibly HBM to be more readily available too.
If they release in 2016 they will be held back by similar limitations that Sony and MS had - it will effectively be the same generation of console. 2017 and you'd be looking at the possibility of starting to see significant improvement, but even then Nintendo would need to be willing to invest in leading edge tech like 16nm/HBM which seems unlike them.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
The latest AMD apu's would be like the puma+ stuff, and it has a nice clock speed boast. That is over Jaguar.
If Nintendo went for Carrizo though, it would be a huge leap over the ps4/xb1.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
It wouldn't be such a big leap over ps4/xbone (2GHz over 1.75GHz/1.6GHz, exact same IPC) and it would be better served by A57 anyway (better power efficiency at same node, very similar IPC).
that in itself would not make the PS4 inferior, but from a business standpoint it makes perfect sense for Nintendo to make the NX more powerful than the PS4.
My Reasons:
1 if the PS4 is more powerful and assuming they cost the same, why would anybody in their right mind (not counting fanboys or first party games) choose the NX.
2 the NX will have to compete with the PS4 and Xbone for about 3 years, and then PS5 and whatever MS calls their NextBox for another 3 years, so the NX needs to be future proof.
3 Only reason the NX comes so fast after the Wii U, is that the Wii U is a sales disaster IMHO
4 With the NX being at least 1,5 years away, it is likely that AMD will be able to produce APU's smaller than 28Nm, thereby enabling greater amount of transistors on chip.
One important issue I feel Nintendo will have to struggle with is the likely 250watt max power limit in order to keep cost and size down.
Regarding "The PS4 version of the game is being developed in Unreal Engine 4, which suggests that Nintendo's next console will have the horsepower to drive Epic's new engine.
Pretty sure the "new engine" is referring to UE4." : could be, but I feel my points above still stands.
geordiemp
Member
Was it not Iwata who said the market to expect Nintendo like profits soon ? Cant be bothered to look for the link
Ps4 is not sold at those margins I dont believe, their business model is PSN subs + royalty on software, both their own and third party.
Nintendo have a different business model, they expect high margin on their hardware, so you have to factor in that Nintendo will add more % to the new customer cost than a MS or Sony would do. MS in particular on black friday...they given it away...
Maybe Nintendo will subsidise the hardware lowering adoption prices by using profit from amiibo like toys...It is very interesting to see what happens for sure.
I agree, but Nintendo works on mature nodes so i think that 14/16nm is less likely to happen than 28. Then if it does, cheers! If it doesn't, we expected that.
Modified Android OS doesn't mean they'll use Android with a skin obviously. Nikkei leaked that and while they could definitely be wrong, when they leaked 3DS XL Nintendo said it wasn't true. So i won't take what Nintendo PR said as gospel in this case.
And about the CPU, A53 has very good performances considering how power efficient it is. That's good for battery and overheating issues.
About the handheld screen
About the console being "less powerful" than the Wii U
Yep.
Agreed, i think it's pretty obvious too.
Yes.
That will never happen.
Claude Augario
Member
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think both versions of DQXI could hit the NX.
BishopLamont
Banned
yeah this is the first thing that springs up with that nx announcement
3DS game cards range from 1 GB to 8 GB, so the baseline for a hypothetical NX cart would be 16 GB, if they follow the same pattern.
Which is still not enough. For reference, Xenoblade X almost completely fills a 25GB disc.
OrbitalBeard
Member
16 would be the baseline for developers ...carts could go larger, possibly as high as 64 gigs.
If they are just doubling the cart sizes from the 3DS like Nintendo normally does, then 16GB would be the maximum (in theory).
There will be a 3D slider on the NX controller. 3D on our TV's without glasses . =D
OrbitalBeard
Member
No, they double the largest previous gen cart size and that becomes the baseline.
The largest DS cart is 512 megabytes.
The smallest 3DS cart is 1 gigabyte.
The largest 3DS cart is 8 gigs, meaning the baseline for NX carts would be 16 gigs.
Toadthemushroom
Member
Yeah, I'm really just wondering whether the wholesale prices of NAND have fallen to let Nintendo do something like 4/8/16GB storage tiers for game cards. Ideally the NX console at the very least needs to ship with a decent amount of on-board storage though, Wii U was a bit of a stumbling point as external HDDs just aren't as prevalent as MicroSD among the average consumer.
I'm nitpicking, but I think Smash Wii U/3DS is how not to do it, and it's that kind of situation that Nintendo wants to avoid next gen -- having to build two entirely separate games in that sort of way. It did work to some degree for Smash, but Nintendo ended up competing with itself. The average person will always pick a 3DS over the Wii U because they see the same franchises, and there was always a Wii U version of games that were on 3DS (Lego City, DKC Returns, 2D Yoshi, NSMB).
Oh, this makes a lot of sense, thanks!
Then that would work. Wouldn't that mean that 128GB would be the maximum?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
The tech for economical 128gb flash cards does not exist. 8-16 gb would be adequate for most handheld games and maybe 32 could come later as costs reduce.
The smallest 3DS cart is actually 128MB (Pilotwings Resort).
Commercial used ROM sizes
GB/C: 32kB to 8MB
GBA: 4MB to 32MB
DS/i: 8MB to 512MB
3DS: 128MB to 4 GB (8GB available but so far unused)
OrbitalBeard
Member
sörine;173748933 said:
Oh wow, you're right. Is Pilotwings the only game that has used a cart of that size? Are there any 512MB 3DS carts?
Looks like the "baseline" theory is nonsense, based on those numbers, but it does show that Nintendo dramatically increases cart sizes each generation. I'd love, love love NX to use carts across both devices, though it wouldn't surprise me if that ends up not being the method they go with.
sörine;173748933 said:
Guess that puts a lid on the pattern theory. Still, I think having carts used as a storage medium would really help drill home the whole unified ecosystem concept. If Nintendo can get carts up to an acceptable size for 9th gen games, they should opt for that instead of sticking with discs.
I'm sure other 3DS games used 128MB, but Pilotwings was the only first party game I think.
Taking a wild guess I think NX ROM sizes will probably range from 1GB to 16GB initially, with 32GB and possibly 64GB being adopted later cycle depending on lifespan and publisher demands. As the industry pushes further towards digital though this becomes less and less important.
Taking a wild guess I think NX ROM sizes will probably range from 1GB to 16GB initially, with 32GB and possibly 64GB being adopted later cycle depending on lifespan and publisher demands. As the industry pushes further towards digital though this becomes less and less important.
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