Topic: Switchmas Eve Rumors and Speculations Thread

[BranDonk Kong]

It will be an Nvidia Tegra chip. You can believe it will be AMD if you want to, but it won't. AMD has essentially no mobile presence, Nvidia makes the most powerful mobile chip you can buy. Nintendo is not going to pay for AMD to do R&D on a new technology, they're going to go with the company that's already making it happen - and this could be perfect for both companies because Nvidia has recently dropped out of the cell phone market.

[Shaymin]

I'm still trying to reconcile how Iwata could say "we are not saying that we are planning to integrate our platforms into one. What we are saying is that we would like to integrate software development methods, operating systems, and built-in software and software assets for each platform so that we can use them across different machines" then launch the exact opposite of that four years later. The best I could come up with was: a lot can change in a few years. Nvidia reportedly offered Nintendo an extremely lucrative deal (to the point where Nvidia only really gets to use NX to pitch its technology to other companies which may have been enough for the company). Maybe Nintendo management and internal hardware research and development teams saw Nvidia's offer and collectively decided, "Well, **** AMD. Let's do this instead."

Given what happened about a year ago, I suspect the philosophy has changed at Nintendo. If you want to make it so they're not Steve Jobs-ing or Walt-ing the company, doing a 180 on the "No hybrid" idea would make sense.

I really hope we can talk to some people at the company someday who can confirm (or deny, idk) that the NX probably got rebooted somewhere along the line, and that's why it's launching by the end of March instead of, I dunno, November.

[Agent-X-]

I'm still trying to reconcile how Iwata could say "we are not saying that we are planning to integrate our platforms into one. What we are saying is that we would like to integrate software development methods, operating systems, and built-in software and software assets for each platform so that we can use them across different machines" then launch the exact opposite of that four years later. The best I could come up with was: a lot can change in a few years. Nvidia reportedly offered Nintendo an extremely lucrative deal (to the point where Nvidia only really gets to use NX to pitch its technology to other companies which may have been enough for the company). Maybe Nintendo management and internal hardware research and development teams saw Nvidia's offer and collectively decided, "Well, **** AMD. Let's do this instead."

Given what happened about a year ago, I suspect the philosophy has changed at Nintendo. If you want to make it so they're not Steve Jobs-ing or Walt-ing the company, doing a 180 on the "No hybrid" idea would make sense.

I really hope we can talk to some people at the company someday who can confirm (or deny, idk) that the NX probably got rebooted somewhere along the line, and that's why it's launching by the end of March instead of, I dunno, November.

What happened a year ago is also a pretty good reason to suspect that Nintendo's grand scheme is not a home gaming solution throttled by mobile graphics technology. Nintendo's president should understand western gamers a lot better than Iwata did.


I'm still clinging to the hope that this Nvidia partnership is going to yield something technologically robust. Because the handheld portion of this deal is likely to require some power limitations for extended battery life, I'm thinking that the docked solution will boost performance (naturally). I'd like to see something like dual Tegra (handheld GPU + dock GPU) in SLI. Let's not be a tick below current generation consoles. Let's see something new.


So far, I'm not buying NX based on current information. A super handheld that outputs to the TV is okay. It needs to do something fresh and new though. I just don't care that much about taking my games on the go.

[BranDonk Kong]

That would require the developer to implement SLI support too though, which is already pretty rare on the PC these days, and the costs outweigh the benefits (for example, if you get 30 FPS in a game with a single GTX 1080, you're not going to get 60 FPS when you have two running in SLI). Battery life should not be that big of a concern. Having a single screen (so the device does not need to fold) means you can have a much larger battery.

[Adrock]

I doubt Satoru Iwata's death was the impetus for a potential reboot. The turnaround for that would be way too short. Iwata was saying the same things up until May 2015, right before he got really, really sick. Then, everything Nintendo and Tatsumi Kimishima have said and done since Kimishima was appointed president pointed toward the company continuing the course set by Iwata.

If anything, Kimishima may have chosen to cut back on or reorganize what Iwata was planning. Looking back at things Iwata was saying, it really sounded like Nintendo was planning an ecosystem featuring a shared OS, architecture, and library to be available in multiple form factors. That may not have changed. However, I could see Kimishima looking over the what the hardware team was working on and decided, "That's the one we're moving forward with for launch."

The most current crop of NX rumors doesn't sound like a straight-up hybrid. As it stands, NX sounds like a handheld that just so happens to optionally plug into a dock that connects to a television which isn't that crazy of an idea. The only part of it I'm having trouble imagining are the detachable controllers. That's a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

New 3DS was Nintendo experimenting (on a very small scale) with a form factor that actually used the spec bump to improve performance in games. A non-portable NX form factor that included better specs since it doesn't have to worry about heat or battery life could be in the pipeline though you really have to ask whether that's even something Nintendo should pursue. A72 ARM cores can match or exceed PS4's CPU performance and a Pascal GPU unhindered by heat and battery life may get in the ballpark of PS4's GPU performance. Sounds great on paper, but if Nintendo can't round up third party support, that performance is largely wasted. Nintendo would be better off focusing on a cheaper, portable focused form factor. If that's where Nintendo is now, I can't really disagree with direction.

[Agent-X-]

That would require the developer to implement SLI support too though, which is already pretty rare on the PC these days, and the costs outweigh the benefits (for example, if you get 30 FPS in a game with a single GTX 1080, you're not going to get 60 FPS when you have two running in SLI). Battery life should not be that big of a concern. Having a single screen (so the device does not need to fold) means you can have a much larger battery.

I don't really understand where that idea is coming from though. To date, I can count more than 360 mainstream games that support SLI. It looks to me like an overwhelming majority of major western games (COD, Assasin's Creed, Fallout, Skyrim, Sim City, etc) support SLI on PC. Why wouldn't this have appeal in a home console?
Frankly, I'm not seeing the benefits of a home docking station if I'm going to basically get the same gaming experience on the big screen that I do on the handheld.

[BranDonk Kong]

The home docking station doesn't necessarily mean that you get more CPU/GPU power, it could just mean that more actual electric power to charge the system and play at the same time, and to attach to your TV. Or it could end up being something along the lines of SLI, or it could be something entirely different that no one's thought of yet.

[Kairon]

The power-up Dock thing IS interesting, but I still have more belief in a second non-portable SKU (home console) that'll be bumped up in spec but otherwise play the exact same stuff, possibly even use the same media. You'd get a cheap portable console, and an expensive powerful home console, but they'd have a combined library of games that scaled up or down, and gamers could choose which price point and experience they want!

Whether the second SKU would launch at the same time would be a good question though...

As for the resurgence of X2 / Pascal rumors, that's about the upper limit of what I could ask for from a portable system, which makes me suspicious since Tegra X1 sounds much more Nintendo's style of tempered expectations. A newer chip would make more sense though from a power efficiency standpoint, but then wouldn't that increase price? Maybe a Tegra X1.5 is more likely than a full X2.

[Stogi]

Maybe tegra x1 in the handheld, tegra x2 in the console?

[Kairon]

Maybe tegra x1 in the handheld, tegra x2 in the console?

Could be, it'd make for a cheaper underpowered handheld that you could super gameboy to a TV, plus a pricey competent console to play all the exact same games but at more impressive visuals. You could choose the pricepoint/form factor to jump into, or you could buy BOTH for the best of both worlds! And it'd be a true shared library if they all used the same cartridges, so no matter which you chose you'd get the full game library (or almost so) and be able to play with anyone else no matter their handheld/console choice!

[MysticGohan]

I'm doubting it's tegra anything, no developers or Nintendo have responded to these leaks.

Quotes from SMD64: No Tegra could run ports that easy from PS4,nope. OsirisBlack also leaked PS4 Neo correctly: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1202462&highlight= …

It should also be noted that OsirisBlack has been slient concerning this NX Nvidia Tegra report from Eurogamer.

Just being honest here guys, Tegra X1 and X2 would need to be extremely downgraded to have any good battery life. Wii U portable? Meh

About bringing Third Party games to NX: "one that's easy to program and work on" no Third Party would port to Tegra

What's funny is that here are tons of options, here are few: http://wccftech.com/amd-raven-ridge-apu-14nm-glofo-amkor/ …

[Enner]

You don't comment on rumors or speculation when you have a long PR/marketing plan to follow or a Non-Disclosure Agreement to honor.

As for where these sources might be coming from, people under third-parties tend to have looser lips or have someone overhear something they shouldn't have. I've often gotten that the impression that Europe is a leaky place with Japan being the least.

[MysticGohan]

You don't comment on rumors or speculation when you have a long PR/marketing plan to follow or a Non-Disclosure Agreement to honor.

As for where these sources might be coming from, people under third-parties tend to have looser lips or have someone overhear something they shouldn't have. I've often gotten that the impression that Europe is a leaky place with Japan being the least.

That may be but amd had socs  Nvidia does not, this is reason to believe it'll be  amd for the home console.

[Parallax Scroll]

[Adrock]

As for the resurgence of X2 / Pascal rumors, that's about the upper limit of what I could ask for from a portable system, which makes me suspicious since Tegra X1 sounds much more Nintendo's style of tempered expectations. A newer chip would make more sense though from a power efficiency standpoint, but then wouldn't that increase price? Maybe a Tegra X1.5 is more likely than a full X2.

Going back to the SemiAccurate rumor from May and how it relates to these new rumors, the entire reason Nintendo chose Tegra is because Nvidia's offer to Nintendo was a steal. Margins on gaming platforms apparently aren't great, but that isn't the value of it which Nvidia learned the hard way after getting ditched by Sony and Microsoft. First, it makes the company look worse than AMD if it loses contracts to the competition. Second, Nvidia presumably wanted a product that it can regularly showcase to other companies what its technology can do. That's what its own Shield product was supposed to do except nobody cared/bought it.

The thinking behind the original SemiAccurate rumor is the Tegra division was basically told, "Figure it out or go home," so Nvidia's plan was to sell Nintendo on Tegra. Nintendo isn't the end goal here though I wouldn't be surprised if part of this rumored deal is Nvidia insisted on a "Powered by Nvidia's Tegra" or something of the sort on packaging and actual unit. If margins on gaming devices are minimal, why bother? You do it for brand visibility, to increase the value of the product, and ultimately to reach out to other companies with products that will have greater margins.

What this means for Nintendo is it'd get a great deal on a pretty advanced technology which is just about the only way Nintendo would do such a thing.

Just being honest here guys, Tegra X1 and X2 would need to be extremely downgraded to have any good battery life. Wii U portable? Meh

X1, yes. X2, no. The entire point of going with X2 is Nintendo would get better performance than the best X1 with greater efficiency. X1 is about twice as powerful as Wii U. X2 with decent battery life is expected to be in that range.

About bringing Third Party games to NX: "one that's easy to program and work on" no Third Party would port to Tegra

Porting to Tegra isn't that difficult. Just about all middleware supports ARM.

That may be but amd had socs  Nvidia does not, this is reason to believe it'll be  amd for the home console.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but Tegra is a system on a chip. If you're talking about contracts again, it's conceivable that Nintendo asked Nvidia not to announce anything as it would out NX immediately. If Nvidia were to announce a semi-custom design wins as AMD had, everyone would know it was Nintendo as both Sony and Microsoft very publicly jilted Nvidia.

I'm not really sure why you're so vehemently against Nintendo going with Nvidia's Tegra. I've been #TeamAMD for years now, but in light of everything above, it makes sense. If Nvidia offered Nintendo a deal that AMD couldn't match financially and/or technologically, I don't see why Nintendo would ever not take that deal.

[Parallax Scroll]

Another new Nintendo patent ?





https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&date=20151016&DB=&locale=en_EP&CC=HK&NR=1171403A1&KC=A1&ND=4


http://translationportal.epo.org/emtp/translate/?ACTION=description-retrieval&COUNTRY=KR&ENGINE=google&FORMAT=docdb&KIND=A&LOCALE=en_EP&NUMBER=20130020715&OPS=ops.epo.org/3.1&SRCLANG=ko&TRGLANG=en

[RABicle]

I can't say I understand why some of you are resistant to the idea that NX is a high powered handheld that streams to the TV. This is what I wanted NX to be and I think a single machine that does two roles is a simpler concept to market to normies too. There isn't two versions of games like Smash Bros, there's just one and you can have a multiplayer match with a friend at university or enjoy it by yourself at home.

Furthermore, I expect NX to be an iterative game platform, with hardware updates pushed out every 2 years or even quicker, just like we can expect to see with the PS4 and Xbox from now on. The success of the iPhone/iPad removes any doubts that consumers are resistant to this. Ditching backwards compatibility to switch to ARM represents a clean break from the past and repositions the NX not as a underpowered competitor to the PS4/Xbone but rather the high powered gaming tablet. There are a lot of developers out there that make great games for iOS/Android that feel hamstrung by lack of buttons and the flood of freemiun **** on the market.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Another new Nintendo patent ?





https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&date=20151016&DB=&locale=en_EP&CC=HK&NR=1171403A1&KC=A1&ND=4


http://translationportal.epo.org/emtp/translate/?ACTION=description-retrieval&COUNTRY=KR&ENGINE=google&FORMAT=docdb&KIND=A&LOCALE=en_EP&NUMBER=20130020715&OPS=ops.epo.org/3.1&SRCLANG=ko&TRGLANG=en

I didn't find that pic, but there was one that was just like that one, only the 2 halves where connected and the screen slotted in and out.

there was also a Game Pad pic and the previous "rumored" controller that had that fake mock-up made.

I haven't been following any of this for years, so this is all very interesting.

My question right now is: What is fact, and what is rumor?
or considering this is Nintendo and they haven't announced anything yet....
What is considered most likely fact, and what is pure rumor/speculation?

[Soren]

About bringing Third Party games to NX: "one that's easy to program and work on" no Third Party would port to Tegra

From the Digital Foundry article:

Typically speaking, OpenGL games port really well to Tegra X1, while DirectX ports, like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and the recently released Resident Evil 5, aren't so impressive.

But let's be honest. Ease of portability isn't the reason most western third parties won't be supporting NX, regardless of the chip inside the hardware. Also, I don't understand the criticism of Eurogamer for hitching their wagon with one source, while people do the same thing with SMD64 and other Gaf "insiders".

Furthermore, I expect NX to be an iterative game platform, with hardware updates pushed out every 2 years or even quicker, just like we can expect to see with the PS4 and Xbox from now on.

Please god, no.

[RABicle]

Furthermore, I expect NX to be an iterative game platform, with hardware updates pushed out every 2 years or even quicker, just like we can expect to see with the PS4 and Xbox from now on.

Please god, no.

It's the future Soren! We all manage it with our phones and PCs and they are more expensive devices. You won't be forced to upgrade, it'll be up to devs to decide to support older models and they will often strive to do so. But there will be a gradual march forward in processing power and us gamers will migrate forward at our own pace.

[Soren]

Furthermore, I expect NX to be an iterative game platform, with hardware updates pushed out every 2 years or even quicker, just like we can expect to see with the PS4 and Xbox from now on.

Please god, no.

It's the future Soren! We all manage it with our phones and PCs and they are more expensive devices. You won't be forced to upgrade, it'll be up to devs to decide to support older models and they will often strive to do so. But there will be a gradual march forward in processing power and us gamers will migrate forward at our own pace.

The only reason I upgrade my phone is because I get it for free when i renew my contract. All my laptops and PCs have lasted me 4-6 years and my current Mac Mini/Mac Book Pro combo are on age 3 and 2 respectively, with no plans to replace them soon. I'm not going to buy a Scorpio, Neo or any future NX upgrade because that **** is too much. I don't have the income to upgrade all my machines every 2 years nor do I trust developers to support legacy versions far along anyway.

It's the same as companies trying to capitalize off cord cutters. A while back we only had to worry about Netflix and Hulu. Now there are far more people in the game and eventually, some just don't get supported.

[MysticGohan]

As for the resurgence of X2 / Pascal rumors, that's about the upper limit of what I could ask for from a portable system, which makes me suspicious since Tegra X1 sounds much more Nintendo's style of tempered expectations. A newer chip would make more sense though from a power efficiency standpoint, but then wouldn't that increase price? Maybe a Tegra X1.5 is more likely than a full X2.

Going back to the SemiAccurate rumor from May and how it relates to these new rumors, the entire reason Nintendo chose Tegra is because Nvidia's offer to Nintendo was a steal. Margins on gaming platforms apparently aren't great, but that isn't the value of it which Nvidia learned the hard way after getting ditched by Sony and Microsoft. First, it makes the company look worse than AMD if it loses contracts to the competition. Second, Nvidia presumably wanted a product that it can regularly showcase to other companies what its technology can do. That's what its own Shield product was supposed to do except nobody cared/bought it.

The thinking behind the original SemiAccurate rumor is the Tegra division was basically told, "Figure it out or go home," so Nvidia's plan was to sell Nintendo on Tegra. Nintendo isn't the end goal here though I wouldn't be surprised if part of this rumored deal is Nvidia insisted on a "Powered by Nvidia's Tegra" or something of the sort on packaging and actual unit. If margins on gaming devices are minimal, why bother? You do it for brand visibility, to increase the value of the product, and ultimately to reach out to other companies with products that will have greater margins.

What this means for Nintendo is it'd get a great deal on a pretty advanced technology which is just about the only way Nintendo would do such a thing.

Just being honest here guys, Tegra X1 and X2 would need to be extremely downgraded to have any good battery life. Wii U portable? Meh

X1, yes. X2, no. The entire point of going with X2 is Nintendo would get better performance than the best X1 with greater efficiency. X1 is about twice as powerful as Wii U. X2 with decent battery life is expected to be in that range.

About bringing Third Party games to NX: "one that's easy to program and work on" no Third Party would port to Tegra

Porting to Tegra isn't that difficult. Just about all middleware supports ARM.

That may be but amd had socs  Nvidia does not, this is reason to believe it'll be  amd for the home console.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but Tegra is a system on a chip. If you're talking about contracts again, it's conceivable that Nintendo asked Nvidia not to announce anything as it would out NX immediately. If Nvidia were to announce a semi-custom design wins as AMD had, everyone would know it was Nintendo as both Sony and Microsoft very publicly jilted Nvidia.

I'm not really sure why you're so vehemently against Nintendo going with Nvidia's Tegra. I've been #TeamAMD for years now, but in light of everything above, it makes sense. If Nvidia offered Nintendo a deal that AMD couldn't match financially and/or technologically, I don't see why Nintendo would ever not take that deal.

Because amd has socs and a few they can't talk about yet.NX fits in that camp.

[ThePerm]

Furthermore, I expect NX to be an iterative game platform, with hardware updates pushed out every 2 years or even quicker, just like we can expect to see with the PS4 and Xbox from now on.

Please god, no.

It's the future Soren! We all manage it with our phones and PCs and they are more expensive devices. You won't be forced to upgrade, it'll be up to devs to decide to support older models and they will often strive to do so. But there will be a gradual march forward in processing power and us gamers will migrate forward at our own pace.

My computer is from before half life 2, and my phone is a no frills flip phone. I can buy a console every 4-5 years. I can't keep up with you upper middle class types. Believe me I tried.

[MagicCow64]

There's no need to prove that thing fake, it's a Raspberry Pi with a touch screen and an LCD. The Tegra X1 would die in a matter of seconds if you ran it without a heat sink. Here's a link to the device in the screenshot - http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/7-7-Inch-TFT-Touch-Screen-LCD-Display-for-Raspberry-Pi-Model-B-or-B-HDMI/1491443_32217991621.html

I feel silly trying to give more credence to this "leak", but it never claimed that picture was the NX, just that it was a facsimile of what the dev kit looked like. So, again, not proven fake yet. Keep it on the rumor bingo board.

[Adrock]

Because amd has socs and a few they can't talk about yet.NX fits in that camp.

You flat-out said Nvidia does not have SOCs which is entirely false.

That may be but amd had socs  Nvidia does not, this is reason to believe it'll be  amd for the home console.