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[Shin Johnpv]

Understood, but a Z3, which costs about $600 now off contract, will almost certainly have a $200 or less equivalent available by 2017. So to predict a 2017 Nintendo handheld with specs inferior even to today's flagship phones seems wrong to me.

Also, Sony put out a $400 PS4 that was gobbled up by millions. It doesn't even have Nintendo quality games.

I'm not going to get into predicting specs, cause I don't know where mobile chips are going to go in the coming years. I'll give you it is likely that you could have something equivalent to today's flag ship phones in the 200 dollar range in a couple of years. There are too many things it depends on to know for sure. Hell graphene batteries could become affordable, and viable for a product launching in 2017, which would change everything.

In regards to your other statement, there's a reason I referenced the 3DS, Vita, and PSP. They're handhelds. A 400 dollar console is doable, I never said that it wasn't. I was only commenting on the costs of, and what people are willing to pay for a handheld device.

Expecting Nintendo to match or exceed a 2017 flagship phone that costs 600+ dollars off contract, on a 200 dollar handheld that they can't be loosing hundreds of dollars on is wrong. They just can't compete in that segment.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

http://press.ihs.com/press-release/...ries-astronomical-bill-materials-ihs-teardown

The BoM for a Galaxy S5 is $256 including manufacturing. The SoC (Snapdragon 801) accounts for $41 of that. And this is considered "astronomical" compared to most other smartphones.

And for the record I don't expect Nintendo's next handheld to beat smartphones/tablets available at its time of release, but it should easily beat the ones we have available today.

I'm not going to say its not accurate but I'm always leery of those sites where its their estimate of what it costs. Its pure speculation. They even say so themselves.

The table attached presents the preliminary BOM and manufacturing cost estimate of the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone. Note that this teardown assessment is preliminary in nature, accounts only for hardware and manufacturing costs, and does not include other expenses such as software, licensing, royalties or additional expenditures.

I will agree with you on the second point, I just don't expect them to match 2017 smartphones, which is more what I was commenting on. Something from this year probably yeah. Though I think they'll make different choices than a smartphone manufacturer. I don't expect gorilla glass, or a 1080p screen on the next handheld.

 

[DizzyCrow]

Confused parents. They tried to hook them on feeling confused by doing so many confusing things that even confuse the press because what how where is my foot. This generation was all about acclimating people to confusion, getting them hooked on the feeling and then next time cashing it by designing the console to look like a hair dryer, partnering with a mental health institution and advertising is as a jetski. Win.

LMAO

If they're targeting for 2017 and $199-$249 and with PS5/XB2 probably releasing in 2019, I think they will try sell it as a machine for exclusive games, a two year head start over Sony/MS should give enough time to market the damn thing

Spoiler

if they bother to do it right this time

If Nintendo (hopefully) ditch the gamepad they should ditch the second screen on the handheld too, it is as underutilized as the gamepad screen, but they should keep the clamshell design, hell just remove the touch screen from the N3DSXL, change the top screen to 5" 16:9 without 3D and add a second circle pad.

 

[ozfunghi]

Well half of it may as well not be there

I'll give you that, unfortunately

If they haven't free'd up some of the OS dedicated memory by now, they never will. Unless, maybe for Xenoblade X or Zelda U. But that's too far into the system's life to matter for more than a handful of games.

 

[Astral Dog]

512MB *2 = 2GB?

eh, for games.
Im not saying they will do it again though, just a possibility.

 

[shark sandwich]

I will agree with you on the second point, I just don't expect them to match 2017 smartphones, which is more what I was commenting on. Something from this year probably yeah. Though I think they'll make different choices than a smartphone manufacturer. I don't expect gorilla glass, or a 1080p screen on the next handheld.

Yeah I think 1080p is out of the question. That is complete overkill for a ~4 inch screen. Nintendo is not going to try to make the Cadillac of handheld gaming machines. That's essentially what Vita tried to be, and look how that turned out.

I think something like a 720p screen and a SoC similar in power to today's Tegra K1 but smaller/more energy efficient would be reasonable expectations for a 2016 Nintendo handheld.

I just wanted to point out that the component costs for high-end smartphones are surprisingly cheap. Galaxy S5 is actually way on the expensive side compared to iPhone and past Galaxy S models.

 

[Log4Girlz]

And for the record I don't expect Nintendo's next handheld to beat smartphones/tablets available at its time of release, but it should easily beat the ones we have available today.

Would be nice, but I'm not sure. But again, would be very nice. Getting games pushing that hardware, even if its not "to the metal", will give some very nice results. If they don't bother with a 1080 p screen (which borders on pointless IMO) then we'll get very close to Xbox 360 or Wii U performance at a lower resolution with slightly degraded effects (and only very slight).

Holy shit that will be nice.

And considering they have mentioned the possibility of creating more hardware, then it would not surprise me one bit if they come out with a slightly super-charged tablet device with slightly more powah.

 

[ozfunghi]

eh, for games.
Im not saying they will do it again though, just a possibility.

Sure. But the the XB1 and PS4 also have large chunks dedicated to the OS. Even the 512MB inside the PS360 had a considerable amount dedicated for the OS. I think it was 80 and 50 MB or about? That may not seem like much, but it's at least 10%. I just don't know how much we should consider what they did in the past. I think they'll need to start with a clean slate, by which i don't mean to say they'll be going all out on hardware. I think they'll still go with the same ideology (small, quiet, power-efficient) but will start from scratch.

I could see them do something like 8+2 (for OS). I'm not holding my breath for a 16GB console.

 

[DizzyCrow]

With 16GB(or even 8GB) of RAM could Nintendo games (considering their usual small sizes) be loaded entirely on the memory like some Linux distros? Is there any advantage doing that with games?

 

[OminoMichelin]

With 16GB(or even 8GB) of RAM could Nintendo games (considering their usual small sizes) be loaded entirely on the memory like some Linux distros? Is there any advantage doing that?

Faster loading times. I think rayman legends is loaded entirely on the RAM, but I might be remembering wrong.

 

[Nikodemos]

Could HBM become cheap enough by 2016 as to allow Nintendo's next handheld to use 2 GB as unified memory?

 

[joesiv]

I'm not going to say its not accurate but I'm always leery of those sites where its their estimate of what it costs. Its pure speculation. They even say so themselves.

Perhaps, but I'd say it's probably a closer estimate to actual cost to manufacture than a "off contract customer price".

I work in the electronics industry, and the customer price that we advertise (and we don't actually expect, but are happy to provide, customers to pay) is pretty much a number pulled out of the sky. It has a lot to do with perceived value, and making a lot of profit off purchases made outside of our partner group (in the cell phone world, that would be the carriers).

Let's just talk this through...
- You have a bill of materials of $200
- The customer walks into the cell phone store and sees the newest phone for $800, ouch
- The carrier says, oh you can have it for $100, if you sign up for our overpriced data plan for 3 years, just $30/m ($1080)
- The customer thinks about it, he's likely to get a data plan anyways... he goes for it
- The carrier gets about half, $590, the phone maker gets about half $590, an the customer gets a "$800 phone" for $100! He's happy too!

However, if the "off contract price" was only say $300, for the $200 phone, the customer would be less inclinded to sign up for the over priced data plan, and both the carrier and maker have to share the $300, $200 of which was original cost, so $100...

Inflating the "off contract price", makes the world go around, so to speak.

Of course all my numbers are just for example, but that's how it sorta works.

 

[Robottiimu2000]

I honestly find it hard to believe that Nintedo is about to give up the touch&double screen. On the contrary, They are more like to improve on that with capacitive display. We've all seen the graph which indicates that if you count wii as anomaly, then the home console market is a downward spiral for Nintendo which needs to get all the help it can get. Synergy from the portable market would be most beneficial.

3DS is at the moment the best console for Nintendo and I think WiiU is a clear indication with the double screen / touch sceen that at least for now their plan is the unification of these two systems. The ability to use 3DS as controller with Smash Bros. and the launching of amiibo as the use for NFC, are both imho indication of Nintedo trying the ice with a stick to see if it holds. Also the fact that they launched the "same game" for both platforms argues that Smash is in fact a test subject for their unification plans.

If Smash is a success (as it would seem to be at least for now. amiibos selling well as well as the games selling well on both machines) there is no way Nintendo is going to break a functioning formula rather improve upon it. As for the successor generation for wii/DS the 3DS is obviously been doing a better job so far. If nothing else Nintedo wants to move to that direction with it's home console as well.

 

[Effect]

If they can't get the cost down for the gamepad I doubt they go with it again. As much as I enjoy the Wii U and like the gamepad (would miss it) it wasn't worth it for the trade off in making the system overall less powerful then it could have possibly been. I would have been fine with an updated Wii remote with more buttons and the Pro controller. That hurt the Wii U and Nintendo and I think they know it. Regardless of what Nintendo wants to do with their own games not having third party software to balance their output is a problem and has been for a very long time. Until now there were mid-tier developers that could offer software when the very big studios didn't. They're almost all gone as a result of moving to HD or have been eaten up by the bigger studios that have no interest in spending the extra effort on Nintendo hardware. It's never been as bad as it has and don't think they can allow that to continue. At the very least they need to put out a system that would allow for easy ports and more importantly cheap ports. So in case they don't sell they sell enough to cover any cost and third parties won't feel they have to go out of their way to make them work. Which is what the have to do now which is why they don't bother. Why they won't even with the Wii U install base growing.

Having the console and hand held teams work together helps Nintendo so they don't have to staff up but that doesn't solve their third party problem. Indies and digital games do not address it either. Regardless if they focus on "core" gamers or 'casuals" again that needs to be addressed.

 

[Robottiimu2000]

If they can't get the cost down for the gamepad I doubt they go with it again. As much as I enjoy the Wii U and like the gamepad (would miss it) it wasn't worth it for the trade off in making the system overall less powerful then it could have possibly been. I would have been fine with an updated Wii remote with more buttons and the Pro controller. That hurt the Wii U and Nintendo and I think they know it. Regardless of what Nintendo wants to do with their own games not having third party software to balance their output is a problem and has been for a very long time. Until now there were mid-tier developers that could offer software when the very big studios didn't. They're almost all gone as a result of moving to HD or have been eaten up by the bigger studios that have no interest in spending the extra effort on Nintendo hardware. It's never been as bad as it has and don't think they can allow that to continue. At the very least they need to put out a system that would allow for easy ports and more importantly cheap ports. So in case they don't sell they sell enough to cover any cost and third parties won't feel they have to go out of their way to make them work. Which is what the have to do now which is why they don't bother. Why they won't even with the Wii U install base growing.

Having the console and hand held teams work together helps Nintendo so they don't have to staff up but that doesn't solve their third party problem. Indies and digital games do not address it either. Regardless if they focus on "core" gamers or 'casuals" again that needs to be addressed.

I've heard this "fact" of the expensiveness of the gamepad several times, but is there any proof to back it up? I've somehow got the feeling that Nintendo is selling their console expensive and that is their own wish for profit not the fact that it wouldn't be possible to sell cheaper?

And for the next revision of their "gamepad", I would see the possibility that the gamepad and the portable console are the same device?

 

[LeleSocho]

Where are you getting your data? According to Anandtech's tests, iPad Air lasts 7 hours while playing 3D games, and iPhone 5s lasts 3.75 hours (which is about the same as a 3DS). That's quite a bit different from "1 hour". And while screen resolution does make a difference on battery life, it's not a huge difference - what uses the most battery life in any handheld device is the screen's backlight, not shifting pixels around, unless it's an OLED screen.

The thing about tablets and phones, though, is all that cool tech comes at a price, literally: a big part of the $600 or $700 those phones and tablets cost is the battery and the screen, and the miniaturization to cram them into such a small/light package.


Right, and did you ever bring up the meter to see how much of that RAM is ever used while gaming? It's rare that a PC game ever uses much more than 4GB, even MMO's, and they never use 8GB. On a PC the only reason to have 16GB or more is multitasking with productivity software, and the only reason you want 8 for gaming is the OS takes like 3 GB for itself (Nintendo's OS's aren't that gigantic). Consoles often have unified memory so have to share with video RAM, but even then the highest RAM normally used in video cards these days is 3GB, and that's not needed often except when gaming at 4K with high resolution textures.

Your numbers are not entirely true, using the same source as yours (Anandtech) the numbers are around less than two and a half hours for both iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 while for the iPad Air1 they have not used an up to date benchmark because it doesn't use nearly as much the full power of the gpu in fact if you see on the iPad Air2 review using the more stressful test you only get less than 4 hours, and this is with an huge battery size compared to what an handheld could carry.

You mention the backlight as primary reason for battery life, but the higher pixel density you have you also need more powerful backlight to light them all, between the higher resolution per se and the more powerful backlight it costs a shit ton of energy putting a very high res display on an handheld and all with negligible differences once you passed 300+ ppi

On the ram, both Nvidia and AMD with their next generations gpu aren't going to double the ram pool of their video cards just because developers will use them with time with no doubt about it, and Sony and Microsoft will also allocate less and less space for the their consoles OS just like they did last generation to give more room to developers when the time will come
You are falling into the same cycle that every now and then pops up with the "You'll never need more than X amount of ram to do this"... technology grows people will always need more of everything.

Well, which is it? Wrong is absolute, debatable is not. World of difference between the two.

I thought it was obvious, but I should have specified that, by Bluray, I meant one 1080p movie, not an entire disc's content. There is no current reason to load 50GB of data into RAM, that's what storage is for. Anyway, even if a console is envisioned as a multimedia entertainment center, there isn't much need for more RAM. Graphics processing with combined CPU/GPUs might complicate that, though.

Dude, you are so wrong about the battery life of phones. Sony's Z3 can go a full day "on" and two full days with intermittent use. Even my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 with 2560x1600 resolution can do like 4 hours of Android gaming on a single charge. Both of those have 3GB RAM, by the way, and the Note 12.2 has been out for a year.

If Nintendo's next generation does't aim to complete with phones and tablets, both of which have their own gaming ecosystems, then Nintendo will not have treated a major problem it suffers from now, and it will fall further behind. Its future handheld must compete with tablets and phones. How many redundant pieces of electronics do you really want, anyway?

If you were current on your portable RAM information, you would know that phone and tablet RAM usage has been limited by OS as much as anything else. Android 5.0 Lollipop supports 4+GB of RAM. You will start to see manufacturers using it very soon, especially in larger format tablets, and aps, including games, will follow.

If you have ever built a computer, you know that performance bottlenecks are a bigger consideration than any individual specification. The speculation in this thread ignores bottlenecks and future-proofing.

I wanted to be nice but since you wanted to look snarky and all i'll say it bluntly, you are factually wrong, your ideas make awful business decisions and what you say is only convenient for what you want to see.

You never mentioned movies and backpedaled to it so yes your statement about blu ray is absolutely wrong, for what you say about the ram i redirect you to the first part of my post, this is 2003's "4GB is all you need to have forever!" all over again.

On the battery you are showing half truths the "one full day" of your Z3 is like you said with intermittent use and likely without using not even half of its power therefore with a negligible amount of battery used every time you use it for the tablet i redirect you once again to the first (and more polite because of who i was talking to) part of my post, probably not using very stressful benchmark and with an incredibly bigger battery compared to a small device.

If you were current on portable ram information you would see that in 7 devices capable of going 4+GB of ram not even one of them surpasses the 2GB mark and your comment on how apps will eventually use them contradicts your own ram argument you made at the beginning of the post.
And if you ever built a computer or knew something about them you will know how much of a bottleneck would be an hardware and a small battery that has to run an incredibly high resolution display.

On your vision of Nintendo's next generation i refuse to comment because with its absolutes ("must compete") it's incredibly dumb and shows that you essentially haven't followed nintendo's philosophy and strategies these last 10 years. I want few obsolete devices as much as you do but that doesn't change the facts.

 

[DizzyCrow]

I honestly find it hard to believe that Nintedo is about to give up the touch&double screen. On the contrary, They are more like to improve on that with capacitive display. We've all seen the graph which indicates that if you count wii as anomaly, then the home console market is a downward spiral for Nintendo which needs to get all the help it can get. Synergy from the portable market would be most beneficial.

3DS is at the moment the best console for Nintendo and I think WiiU is a clear indication with the double screen / touch sceen that at least for now their plan is the unification of these two systems. The ability to use 3DS as controller with Smash Bros. and the launching of amiibo as the use for NFC, are both imho indication of Nintedo trying the ice with a stick to see if it holds. Also the fact that they launched the "same game" for both platforms argues that Smash is in fact a test subject for their unification plans.

If Smash is a success (as it would seem to be at least for now. amiibos selling well as well as the games selling well on both machines) there is no way Nintendo is going to break a functioning formula rather improve upon it. As for the successor generation for wii/DS the 3DS is obviously been doing a better job so far. If nothing else Nintedo wants to move to that direction with it's home console as well.

And who said they can't remove the touchscreen from both? It would be easier for devs port multiplatform games if they hadn't to spend time figuring what to do with the second screen instead of guaranteeing the quality of the game or shoehorning something useless. The 3DS success has nothing to do with the touchscreen, it comes from the high quality games, how many of the best and most successful games on 3DS wouldn't be perfectly playable without it? Few games use it for anything other than maps, inventory, battle commands, menus in general and mini-games, things that the entire game industry manages to do without a second or touchscreen. " there is no way Nintendo is going to break a functioning formula rather improve upon it" they already did that with the gamepad.

 

[10k]

Hey guys i just got hired to be a lead graphics engineer for a major video game company. I'm so excited.

 

[DizzyCrow]

Hey guys i just got hired to be a lead graphics engineer for a major video game company. I'm so excited.

Pics with Reggie or it didn't happened.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Your numbers are not entirely true, using the same source as yours (Anandtech) the numbers are around less than two and a half hours for both iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 while for the iPad Air1 they have not used an up to date benchmark because it doesn't use nearly as much the full power of the gpu in fact if you see on the iPad Air2 review using the more stressful test you only get less than 4 hours, and this is with an huge battery size compared to what an handheld could carry.

I still don't see any numbers anywhere that says you get less than 1 hour of gaming on tablets and phones, which was what I was arguing about. Tablets and phones get better battery life than current handheld gaming systems, so adopting their technology wouldn't be a battery life killer (a pricetag killer, though...)

On the ram, both Nvidia and AMD with their next generations gpu aren't going to double the ram pool of their video cards just because developers will use them with time with no doubt about it

I agree, they won't be doubling the RAM, because that would drive the cost of the cards up quite a bit, as gddr5 memory is rather expensive. Right now most video cards come with 2GB RAM, and those cards are capable of running all games at max quality at 1080p. In a few years I could see them switching up to most cards coming with 3GB RAM with a few 4GB cards available at the highest end.

You are falling into the same cycle that every now and then pops up with the "You'll never need more than X amount of ram to do this"... technology grows people will always need more of everything.

No, I never said anything of the sort, I was responding to the person who said it should come with tons of memory because his personal computer already had 32GB - I was pointing out that Windows PC's don't need anywhere near that to run games, to run every game currently available at maximum quality requires less than 8GB RAM, and that's on a PC where the OS is taking up 3GB. I would bet my car that Nintendo's next-gen console is not going to have an OS taking up 3GB of RAM. So it could come with 8GB without rendering it incapable of the best graphics that are available on PC games today.

 

[sörine]

The Wii U has four times the amount of RAM as the XBox360 and PS3. Is it really that unreasonable to suppose that their next console will have twice the RAM of the XBone and PS4?

I feel like 12GB for a 2017 console launch seems like a safe guess. 8GB for games and 4GB reserved for OS and background services/steaming. Plus whatever on chip memory there might be (64MB edram/framebuffer?).

8GB is less likely than 16GB though imo. Especially as expands Miiverse towards streaming, which I'm sure they will. They're getting cozier with both twich and niconico even now.

I am quite astonished at the possibility of the BOM for the GamePad being close to $150... This is not far from the estimated BOM for an iPhone 6 Plus at $211 or so. The mind reels. I have to refuse to believe that their supply chain is gouging them that much...

Still, I think they would not have priced them at the cost of refurbished units or much in line with them, given their pricing strategy with 3DS too, so I still think $299 for the Premium model would have been more likely... Anyways, even $249 for the Premium model would have had a perhaps tougher life than he current model in some ways... It would have not eliminated the software draughts in the long launch window, it would have not made the console more performant, and it would have removed pneumonia selling points or differentiation factors.

Oh, I don't think a Gamepad's BOM & manufacturing is $150 (or was 2 years ago), but I doubt the console itself is $200 either. I just meant the costs are probably somewhat proportional to each other and show how much the Gamepad likely shot the overall system price up. The console was engineered to focus on efficiency and be incredibly low cost from the outset, much like Gamecube.

I could've seen $249/$299 too (which is what PS3 was at the time) but those prices would've dropped quickly. The Gamepad is still artificially inflating the system cost though, Nintendo really should've decoupled it and given consumers a cheaper core option.

No it doesn't. Replacement parts for cars that are sold for example for 1000$ at your dealer are sold for 100$ from the supplier to the car manufacturer (of course the car manufacturer wants to make a penny from it as well as the dealer, they both have to keep stock, VAT etc. but you get the point). I really can't see the Gamepad costing Nintendo more than 30-40$ when the cheapest tablets are sold for like 50$ to the customer.

Except in this case Nintendo is both dealer and supplier, and their CS isn't a for profit endeavor but a post-sale service. Comparing that to the automative industry is embarrassingly off the mark.

 

[DizzyCrow]

Oh, I don't think a Gamepad's BOM & manufacturing is $150 (or was 2 years ago), but I doubt the console itself is $200 either. I just meant the costs are probably somewhat proportional to each other and show how much the Gamepad likely shot the overall system price up. The console was engineered to focus on efficiency and be incredibly low cost from the outset, much like Gamecube.

I could've seen $249/$299 too (which is what PS3 was at the time) but those prices would've dropped quickly. The Gamepad is still artificially inflating the system cost though, Nintendo really should've decoupled it and given consumers a cheaper core option.

If they did that the gamepad support would be even worse, they should have just improved the Wiimote, bundled the Pro Controller and sold it at $299.

 

[Tidus_Great]

Not interested in a new console until 2020 minimum. With all the games it's too overwhelming to own a bunch of consoles not to mention the money all this stuff costs.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Not interested in a new console until 2020 minimum. With all the games it's too overwhelming to own a bunch of consoles not to mention the money all this stuff costs.

By 2020 all of the console manufacturers will have new systems out. That's how this works. I would not be surprised if all 3 are out by 2019.

 

[DizzyCrow]

There will be some crazy optimization if the same core OS will run in 2GB and 16GB of memory, considering that the Wii U OS occupies six times more memory than the 3DS has.

 

[DizzyCrow]

Wrong thread

 

[blu]

I am hesitant to ever disagree with you, blu. And I know how you love the POWER architecture, so it means something when you say it's time to move on...

The main reason why I hold to my stance (besides Nintendo's history over the last decade +), is Iwata's comment on their next generation absorbing the Wii U's architecture. Granted, the way Iwata uses the word translated as "architecture" does seem odd at times--it sometimes seems to refer more to development tools. I do see BC as something which Nintendo values, and with the console and handheld sharing a library, having the portable act as a Gamepad for Wii U BC and other dual screen experiences makes sense. It gives consumers a reason to buy both, without forcing an expensive peripheral into the core package. Additionally, the last time Nintendo had a poorly selling console with GCN, they made it a point to include BC in the successor (although this may be a happy result of the common architecture, which was settled on for other reasons, such as cost).

The other major factor is that they would be making a huge mistake if they choose to reboot the Virtual Console yet again. Hopefully, they had some foresight and the games/emulators are easily portable and not running close to the metal.

I've speculated that IBM will license the architecture to Nintendo to be included on an SoC going forward. I don't know who would put the legwork in to further mutate the base design, so that's a valid point. Additionally, if they want over 4 GB of RAM in the home console, they would need to incorporate some sort of physical address extension. I wish we had more to go on, but I suppose it is still really early to be making guesses at this point.

Nintendo licensing Gekko from IBM and using it with a third-party foundry to carry on with Espresso is a viable scenario taken in isolation. Not in the big, picture, though. Thraktor wrote a solid post on the subject, and since I agree with many points there I will not re-iterate those, only restate the gist of it:

In order to continue on the PPC path, nintendo need to take the tech further. Since they cannot do it on their own, somebody has to do it for them. Yes, nintendo can approach any of the former PPC powerhouses who make ARMs nowadays with the 'make me a 750-derived ppc' request, and those could potentially agree. Or nintendo could approach IBM yet again. But that would be an economically non-viable behaviour - a project astray of the current focus of those companies. So they will charge nintendo dearly, as that will not be a semi-custom design. It will be a one-off 'special order'. And that is before we go to the lengths of discussing who will provide the GPU to that. Remember how Iwata said they had a hard time getting IBM, AMD and Renesas to cooperate efficiently during the final stages of the MCM development where bugs and quirks were being ironed out? This is usually what happens during one-off gigs when all parties claim their part of the deal is fulfilled, and whatever is not working must be somebody else's fault. I don't think nintendo want to do that again. You want to limit your core suppliers to two IP vendors, at most, and those must be _already_ comfortable working with each other's IPs, or they should have clear prospects of working with each other in the future. One-off gigs == headaches.

On a wild tangent, turns out nvidia were serious about their promises: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads-power8

 

[Shin Johnpv]

Considering AMD is making their own ARM chips, and Nintendo's already close relationship with AMD, I REALLY think we're going to see an AMD APU that sports an ARM core.

 

[DizzyCrow]

I was thinking if they really make one game exactly the same to run on both, they can't charge $100 just to play it on two platforms and with cross-buy how they would prevent people got two games for the price of one?

 

[TheMoon]

I was thinking if they really make one game exactly the same to run on both, they can't charge $100 just to play it on two platforms and with cross-buy how they would prevent people got two games for the price of one?

You're thinking it's a 1:1 exact same game experience. But you're forgetting that they're designing the games for the platform usually. Think Smash 4. Same game, different experience on both. I don't think this is a case where you can buy one piece of software that is the exact same experience on portable and home console, I think that's a dumb idea. Why sell one piece of software when you can sell two. They were always talking about assets, not the actual games that they want to easily use between platforms. Think more along the lines of making the SM3DW engine run on both and using it to create two games from a shared asset pool with the same engine for two systems. Like if SM4DW were a WiiTrii game and Captain Toad's Bling Bonanza were on 4DS, both releasing at about the same time or in close succession. I believe expecting Dark Zelda Scrolls to be playable on both the handheld and console is a mistake. Maybe you CAN send the game back and forth between both temporarily in a way but don't expect it to be basically platform agnostic.

 

[Hermii]

I'll give you that, unfortunately

If they haven't free'd up some of the OS dedicated memory by now, they never will. Unless, maybe for Xenoblade X or Zelda U. But that's too far into the system's life to matter for more than a handful of games.

Do we know they havent freed up anything?

 

[Canis lupus]

I don't expect the next console to have BC nor use the Wii name. Gamepad will be dropped, instead the 3DS successor(2016) will make do for remote play. I also expect by the time it releases(not before Holidays 2017) APU designs 1.5/twice as powerful as PS4 to be cheap enough for Nintendo to maintain their small form factor/~299 dollar principle.

I was thinking if they really make one game exactly the same to run on both, they can't charge $100 just to play it on two platforms and with cross-buy how they would prevent people got two games for the price of one?

A 1:1 Nintendo experience on console+handheld and cross buy at that will never exist. At best they'll go the Smash route for some of their once per generation games, or games that complement each other, but a game like Pokemon just won't work.

 

[DizzyCrow]

You're thinking it's a 1:1 exact same game experience. But you're forgetting that they're designing the games for the platform usually. Think Smash 4. Same game, different experience on both. I don't think this is a case where you can buy one piece of software that is the exact same experience on portable and home console, I think that's a dumb idea. Why sell one piece of software when you can sell two. They were always talking about assets, not the actual games that they want to easily use between platforms. Think more along the lines of making the SM3DW engine run on both and using it to create two games from a shared asset pool with the same engine for two systems. Like if SM4DW were a WiiTrii game and Captain Toad's Bling Bonanza were on 4DS, both releasing at about the same time or in close succession. I believe expecting Dark Zelda Scrolls to be playable on both the handheld and console is a mistake. Maybe you CAN send the game back and forth between both temporarily in a way but don't expect it to be basically platform agnostic.

A 1:1 Nintendo experience on console+handheld and cross buy at that will never exist. At best they'll go the Smash route for some of their once per generation games, or games that complement each other, but a game like Pokemon just won't work.

Yeah, that makes sense, when they talked about the iOS model I tried to imagine how it would work.

 

[Übermatik]

Two words:

Holographic. Storage.

Spoiler

I'll never give this dream up

 

[BY2K]

Two words:

Holographic. Storage.

Spoiler

I'll never give this dream up

You're insane. It's crazy expensive, even Microsoft and Sony isn't getting this anytime soon.

 

[Übermatik]

You're insane. It's crazy expensive, even Microsoft and Sony isn't getting this anytime soon.

Screw the price, you seen the size of the systems?

 

[Clefargle]

Two words:

Holographic. Storage.

Spoiler

I'll never give this dream up

Lol, keep dreaming man.

 

[DizzyCrow]

Two words:

Holographic. Storage.

Spoiler

I'll never give this dream up

Wtf, Nintendo is a joint applicant of the patent, even then I bet that Sony/MS would use it first.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Two words:

Holographic. Storage.

Spoiler

I'll never give this dream up

I read the wikipedia on this but i didn't understand it lol.

 

[Übermatik]

Yeah I wasn't serious. Go look into Holographic Storage.

 

[Thraktor]

I was thinking if they really make one game exactly the same to run on both, they can't charge $100 just to play it on two platforms and with cross-buy how they would prevent people got two games for the price of one?

People wouldn't get two games for the price of one, they'd get one game for the price of one, but would be able to play it on two different devices. Exactly as if I buy a game on an iPhone or iPad, I can (usually) also play it on the other device.

I don't think this is a case where you can buy one piece of software that is the exact same experience on portable and home console, I think that's a dumb idea. Why sell one piece of software when you can sell two.

Think of it this way: why make two pieces of software when you can make one? Let's do a few calculations:

Let's assume a game costs $X to make for a single device, and an extra 20% for a second device (we're assuming tools and system architecture are designed to make this as simple as possible, so I'd say that's fair). You have two different devices, one with a 50m install base and one with a 20m install base. Let's also assume that Generic Videogame Franchise (GVF) will have about the same sell-through ratio on each device, say A%. And, because there's going to be a high level of crossover of GVF fans between the two devices, let's assume that 50% of the people who buy it for the less popular device will also buy a copy of the more popular device. And we'll say that you make $Y per copy sold for either device.

Therefore, if you make two separate games, one for each device, your total cost is $(2X), and your total revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100) = $(Y*A*700,000)

Return on investment, then, is:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $([Y*A*700,000 - 2X]/2X) = $([Y*A*350,000 - X]/X)

Now, let's look at making a single game for both devices. Cost here is $(X*1.2), and revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100 - Y*20m*0.5*A/100) = $(Y*A*600,000)

Then for the return on investment:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $([Y*A*600,000 - X*1.2]/X*1.2) = $([Y*A*500,000 - X]/X)

So, under our assumptions, you would make a 43% higher revenue per dollar invested by making a single game for both devices rather than building two separate games.

The result is surprisingly resilient to changes in my assumptions above, by the way. Even if you assume that a dual-platform game costs 50% more to make than one for a single platform and you assume that 75% of those who buy it for the less popular platform would also buy it for the more popular one, you still end up with a better RoI by making a single game for both platforms.

Furthermore, this misses a number of important aspects of a "cross-buy" scenario for a company like Nintendo. Firstly, as I mentioned previously, it would free up their internal studios to release more games in new franchises, which increases the chances they'll create another "killer-app" a-la Wii Sports. Secondly, Nintendo could use cross-buy as a means to encourage people into purchasing digitally, by only offering it with digital purchases. While I don't have numbers in front of me, I'd be fairly confident in saying that Nintendo would make as much off a single digital purchase as they would off two physical purchases of games, which would make it worth their while even ignoring the above RoI calculations.

Fundamentally, it becomes more profitable for Nintendo to move to a cross-buy model the closer the home console and handheld hardware come to each other, even if a large proportion of customers would otherwise buy both games. With the coming generation, it's entirely feasible for Nintendo to use identical architectures for both CPU and GPU across both their devices, and although performance levels would still differ quite considerably between the two, with appropriate tools the cost of scaling assets down for the handheld version shouldn't be at all prohibitive. I can't really see any scenario where Nintendo wouldn't be more profitable by treating both of their hardware devices as a single platform when it comes to software development.

 

[DizzyCrow]

People wouldn't get two games for the price of one, they'd get one game for the price of one, but would be able to play it on two different devices. Exactly as if I buy a game on an iPhone or iPad, I can (usually) also play it on the other device.

I was thinking in the case that two people would share an account one with the handheld the other with the console, so they would pay half the price on games.

Think of it this way: why make two pieces of software when you can make one? Let's do a few calculations:

Let's assume a game costs $X to make for a single device, and an extra 20% for a second device (we're assuming tools and system architecture are designed to make this as simple as possible, so I'd say that's fair). You have two different devices, one with a 50m install base and one with a 20m install base. Let's also assume that Generic Videogame Franchise (GVF) will have about the same sell-through ratio on each device, say A%. And, because there's going to be a high level of crossover of GVF fans between the two devices, let's assume that 50% of the people who buy it for the less popular device will also buy a copy of the more popular device. And we'll say that you make $Y per copy sold for either device.

Therefore, if you make two separate games, one for each device, your total cost is $(2X), and your total revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100) = $(Y*A*700,000)

Return on investment, then, is:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $(Y*A*700,000 - 2X/2X) = $(Y*A*350,000 - X/X)

Now, let's look at making a single game for both devices. Cost here is $(X*1.2), and revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100 - Y*20m*0.5*A/100) = $(Y*A*600,000)

Then for the return on investment:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $(Y*A*600,000 - X*1.2/X*1.2) = $(Y*A*500,000 - X/X)

So, under our assumptions, you would make a 43% higher revenue per dollar invested by making a single game for both device rather than building two separate games.

The result is surprisingly resilient to changes in my assumptions above, by the way. Even if you assume that a dual-platform game costs 50% more to make than one for a single platform and you assume that 75% of those who buy it for the less popular platform would also buy it for the more popular one, you still end up with a better RoI by making a single game for both platforms.

Furthermore, this misses a number of important aspects of a "cross-buy" scenario for a company like Nintendo. Firstly, as I mentioned previously, it would free up their internal studios to release more games in new franchises, which increases the chances they'll create another "killer-app" a-la Wii Sports. Secondly, Nintendo could use cross-buy as a means to encourage people into purchasing digitally, by only offering it with digital purchases. While I don't have numbers in front of me, I'd be fairly confident in saying that Nintendo would make as much off a single digital purchase as they would off two physical purchases of games, which would make it worth their while even ignoring the above RoI calculations.

Fundamentally, it becomes more profitable for Nintendo to move to a cross-buy model the closer the home console and handheld hardware come to each other, even if a large proportion of customers would otherwise buy both games. With the coming generation, it's entirely feasible for Nintendo to use identical architectures for both CPU and GPU across both their devices, and although performance levels would still differ quite considerably between the two, with appropriate tools the cost of scaling assets down for the handheld version shouldn't be at all prohibitive. I can't really see any scenario where Nintendo wouldn't be more profitable by treating both of their hardware devices as a single platform when it comes to software development.

That's a strong case for cross-buy, the only problem I see is that the game design may be affected by having the games playable in both, the lack of Streetpass for example.

 

[Oregano]

Nintendo can also now release expansions to generate additional revenue. It might not equal the revenue of two software releases but it's significantly cheaper to make one game and an expansion using the same engine and assets.

 

[Thraktor]

I was thinking in the case that two people would share an account one with the handheld the other with the console, so they would pay half the price on games.

It's entirely possible to do this on platforms like iOS, Steam, PS3/4/Vita, but how common actually is it? Besides, by implementing cloud saves as standard, you make it significantly less practical.

That's a strong case for cross-buy, the only problem I see is that the game design may be affected by having the games playable in both, the lack of Streetpass for example.

There's nothing to stop them supporting minor platform-specific features like Streetpass (it's not something that's a major design feature of any games that I'm aware of).

 

[DizzyCrow]

It's entirely possible to do this on platforms like iOS, Steam, PS3/4/Vita, but how common actually is it? Besides, by implementing cloud saves as standard, you make it significantly less practical.

Knowing Nintendo, they would try to prevent digital game sharing at all costs, I think their current account policy reflects that mindset.

There's nothing to stop them supporting minor platform-specific features like Streetpass (it's not something that's a major design feature of any games that I'm aware of).

Fair enough.

Just to think in the quantity of awesome games the Wii U would have gotten if this was already in place.

 

[DizzyCrow]

.

 

[Mpl90]

People wouldn't get two games for the price of one, they'd get one game for the price of one, but would be able to play it on two different devices. Exactly as if I buy a game on an iPhone or iPad, I can (usually) also play it on the other device.



Think of it this way: why make two pieces of software when you can make one? Let's do a few calculations:

Let's assume a game costs $X to make for a single device, and an extra 20% for a second device (we're assuming tools and system architecture are designed to make this as simple as possible, so I'd say that's fair). You have two different devices, one with a 50m install base and one with a 20m install base. Let's also assume that Generic Videogame Franchise (GVF) will have about the same sell-through ratio on each device, say A%. And, because there's going to be a high level of crossover of GVF fans between the two devices, let's assume that 50% of the people who buy it for the less popular device will also buy a copy of the more popular device. And we'll say that you make $Y per copy sold for either device.

Therefore, if you make two separate games, one for each device, your total cost is $(2X), and your total revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100) = $(Y*A*700,000)

Return on investment, then, is:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $([Y*A*700,000 - 2X]/2X) = $([Y*A*350,000 - X]/X)

Now, let's look at making a single game for both devices. Cost here is $(X*1.2), and revenue is:

$(Y*50m*A/100 + Y*20m*A/100 - Y*20m*0.5*A/100) = $(Y*A*600,000)

Then for the return on investment:

(revenue-cost)/cost = $([Y*A*600,000 - X*1.2]/X*1.2) = $([Y*A*500,000 - X]/X)

So, under our assumptions, you would make a 43% higher revenue per dollar invested by making a single game for both devices rather than building two separate games.

The result is surprisingly resilient to changes in my assumptions above, by the way. Even if you assume that a dual-platform game costs 50% more to make than one for a single platform and you assume that 75% of those who buy it for the less popular platform would also buy it for the more popular one, you still end up with a better RoI by making a single game for both platforms.

Furthermore, this misses a number of important aspects of a "cross-buy" scenario for a company like Nintendo. Firstly, as I mentioned previously, it would free up their internal studios to release more games in new franchises, which increases the chances they'll create another "killer-app" a-la Wii Sports. Secondly, Nintendo could use cross-buy as a means to encourage people into purchasing digitally, by only offering it with digital purchases. While I don't have numbers in front of me, I'd be fairly confident in saying that Nintendo would make as much off a single digital purchase as they would off two physical purchases of games, which would make it worth their while even ignoring the above RoI calculations.

Fundamentally, it becomes more profitable for Nintendo to move to a cross-buy model the closer the home console and handheld hardware come to each other, even if a large proportion of customers would otherwise buy both games. With the coming generation, it's entirely feasible for Nintendo to use identical architectures for both CPU and GPU across both their devices, and although performance levels would still differ quite considerably between the two, with appropriate tools the cost of scaling assets down for the handheld version shouldn't be at all prohibitive. I can't really see any scenario where Nintendo wouldn't be more profitable by treating both of their hardware devices as a single platform when it comes to software development.

A very insightful analysis, Great work, Thraktor.

Yeah, I'm one of those who thinks that Nintendo will try to go as cross-platform as possible next gen, especially since it's Iwata himself who referenced iOS / Android as major examples of what they'd want to achieve. Same game, with some minor differencies in terms of features (like StreePass for handheld versions) and graphics (1080p, 60fps, better effects / shaders for consoles versions).

I also thought about how this could work in terms of selling both SKUs of games, an opinion I already expressed here on NeoGAF too. It basically takes inspiration from the model used by Sony back in 2012 when they had several PS3/Vita titles, but "completed" (remember how it was just possible to get the Vita cross-version only by buying the PS3 version, while it was impossible to buy the Vita version and then, with a discounted price, the PS3 version?). Basically

Game Handheld SKU - up to 39.99 - if you want the digital version of the home version, pay a "fee" of 9.99 - once you payed it, you have both: play wherever you like
Game Console SKU up to 49.99 - it contains a code for the handheld version as well

This is for games released at retail and with at least a mid-sized budget: I'd love to see no additional cost to get both, but I think the small fee would work given the (despite small) extra work needed to make the game work on the additional platform. Of course digital only titles would be completely cross-buy (buy on one platform, get it on another platform with no additional costs).

P.S. I saw your expectations in terms of specs for next Nintendo systems...isn't the gap a bit too large? I'm expecting something more like 3GB RAM for the handheld and 12GB RAM for the home console, i.e. a big gap (4x) but not an immense gap (8x).

Also, would your hypotetical specs for the handheld be enough to get games visually Wii U-like at 480p/540p, probably 3D included (in the same way 3DS has games visually Wii-like, with 3D included) ?

 

[Thraktor]

P.S. I saw your expectations in terms of specs for next Nintendo systems...isn't the gap a bit too large? I'm expecting something more like 3GB RAM for the handheld and 12GB RAM for the home console, i.e. a big gap (4x) but not an immense gap (8x).

Also, would your hypotetical specs for the handheld be enough to get games visually Wii U-like at 480p/540p, probably 3D included (in the same way 3DS has games visually Wii-like, with 3D included) ?

I really didn't put that much thought into those specs, to be honest, and I was speccing the handheld as if it were released at the end of 2016 and the home console at the end of 2017 (based on the ages of their predecessors). Although, now that I think about it, if you were to design both as part of a single eco-system, it would make more sense to release them at the same time, or the home console first (it's a bigger selling point to present the handheld as a scaled-down home console, rather than vice versa).

If both were released end 2017 then you might be looking at something along these lines:

Home console:
8-core A57 CPU
~3TF GPU
16GB RAM

Handheld:
8-core A53/4-core A57 CPU
~500GF GPU
4GB RAM

Given a ~6x higher resolution on the home console, you should be able to achieve a very similar "look" across both systems (and significantly better than "Wii-U like" on the handheld).

I don't know if they'll continue with 3D on the handheld. In theory there's nothing stopping them, but because of the increased power required (literally having to render twice as many frames), it makes it quite a bit more difficult to get close enough in performance to the home console to keep development costs down.

 

[Squall5042]

This sucks - there are a lot of Virtual Console games I want to buy, but I'm afraid these won't port over to the next console, a la Wii -> Wii U (and I don't want to pay an 'upgrade' fee).

 

[Mpl90]

I really didn't put that much thought into those specs, to be honest, and I was speccing the handheld as if it were released at the end of 2016 and the home console at the end of 2017 (based on the ages of their predecessors). Although, now that I think about it, if you were to design both as part of a single eco-system, it would make more sense to release them at the same time, or the home console first (it's a bigger selling point to present the handheld as a scaled-down home console, rather than vice versa).

If both were released end 2017 then you might be looking at something along these lines:

Home console:
8-core A57 CPU
~3TF GPU
16GB RAM

Handheld:
8-core A53/4-core A57 CPU
~500GF GPU
4GB RAM

Given a ~6x higher resolution on the home console, you should be able to achieve a very similar "look" across both systems (and significantly better than "Wii-U like" on the handheld).

I don't know if they'll continue with 3D on the handheld. In theory there's nothing stopping them, but because of the increased power required (literally having to render twice as many frames), it makes it quite a bit more difficult to get close enough in performance to the home console to keep development costs down.

Actually, not only I think next handheld will be released in 2016, but I'm the camp the handheld should be released first. Reasons?

1) Handheld business can't sustain itself for too long without a successor. Yeah, New 3DS is coming, and it'll help for some decent 2015 numbers (hopefully), but 2016 will already see quite lower sales, thus it would be the best year to launch the next iteration in the handheld business without losing too much momentum by leaving 3DS with an on-life support for too long

2) Getting the handheld out first means getting a good amount of third party content from Japanese developers being developed for the eco-system as soon as possible: home consoles are doing awful in Japan, and the trend don't seem to be changing any time soon (even if PS4 is going to get a good amount of games next quarter, but I have some doubts about sales after that).

3) Now, it could be said the same, inverted roles, for the West, i.e. being out first with the handheld limiting the eco-system potential and support from Western major third parties, but it's also true that Japanese third party developers support Nintendo handhelds far more than what Western third parties do for Nintendo consoles as a whole.
Also, 3DS shows not just the result of the mobile revolution in the handheld market, but the result of the mobile revolution + Nintendo's errors (like 3DS' launch price / marketing): an handheld launched with better games, a better price and a better pace of games overall could certainly achieve better results than what 3DS did in its first year (which, thanks to Holiday 2011, wasn't that low either, thinking about it), which would then get reinvigorated by the launch of the home console

4) It would be similar to what Apple did at the start, after all: first the iPhone, then the iPad. First introducing the concept with a cool, pocket-size device, that can be bought by as many as possible, and then getting them with a bigger device.

Not that I see both consoles releasing in the same year as absolutely impossible: if next handheld is out by Q1 2016, I would absolutely see the home being out for Q4 2014.
Also, about specs: 3GB RAM with the console being 199.99 max should be fiesable in 2016, right? 4GB RAM not that much IMHO, but 3GB should...