Topic: The OFFICIAL Big N rumor thread *bring your own salt*

[Adrock]

a major game each month is too high of an expectation. Do you expect to pay $600 in games a year or $3000 in games for a console lifespan? I'd say 2-3 major releases every year half seems reasonable to support. A great game is a game you can play for several months though IMO. I dont want to play a game for 6 hours and it be done. I want to play a game thats 10-30 hours and still be fun to play over and over again.

I have neither the time nor the money to devote to a big game every month of every year of a console's life. I now even wait for sales and bundles. Still, a major release about every month isn't a bad benchmark for any console because the expectation isn't that consumers will buy each one. Some may, but many will not. Having a healthy release schedule, however, allows for people to have something available from either Nintendo or third parties close to every time people are finished with the last game they bought.

The problem with Wii U is that there was a gaping hole in the release schedule that Nintendo hoped would be filled by pretty much Rayman Legends alone. Then, that got pushed back leaving a lot of nothing. Delays happen. What Nintendo should strive for is still having enough other releases to fill the void, to soften the impact of a delayed title.

Still, that's easier said than done. How Nintendo has to go about doing that is an entirely separate discussion we've had many times before on NWR.

[shingi_70]

I just want Nintendo to start releasing more eshop titles for the Wii U and that alone would saite the core intend gamer.
 
Get some Denpamen on the system.

[Spak-Spang]

I agree that consoles should be shooting for about a good game every month from either first party or third party developers.  Not every good game should or needs to appeal to all gamers though.  And if you have a healthy variety throughout the year you could easily hit all genres and give fans a variety of games they want to play.

Also not all the games have to be full price retail games either.  They could be smaller releases as well. 

[Ian Sane]

a major game each month is too high of an expectation. Do you expect to pay $600 in games a year or $3000 in games for a console lifespan? I'd say 2-3 major releases every year half seems reasonable to support. A great game is a game you can play for several months though IMO. I dont want to play a game for 6 hours and it be done. I want to play a game thats 10-30 hours and still be fun to play over and over again.

*I* am not buying a game a month and I'm not expecting you or anyone else to.  Every game is not going to appeal to everyone.  That's the whole point of having a healthy release lineup.  So this game comes out one month and maybe you don't like it, even if a whole bunch of people do.  That's fine because you might like next month's game.  If you look at any videogame system with a healthy release lineup there are games for all genres and all demographics and the idea is that regardless of your taste, you will find something to play.  Nintendo consoles have not had that since the SNES.  You wait months and months for a major release to come out and if you doesn't appeal to you?  Tough ****!  Wait another six months, loser!  See, that's no good.  If you don't get why games like Wii Fit seem to inspire legitimate rage with some people THIS is why.  Because Nintendo releases a casual game that doesn't appeal to them and that means waiting months for ANYTHING else to show up.  With a healthy release schedule this does not happen.  Who cares if this game doesn't appeal to me when another one is due soon?

I'm not suggesting Nintendo themselves release a major game a month, I'm saying that that is what a console should offer, regardless of who is providing the games.  Since Nintendo cannot do this themselves then it is important that they have good third party support.  This four or five games a year crap is NOT normal.  If you think it is normal then you are living in a sheltered Nintendo bubble.

[ThePerm]

My beef is with the gluttonous consumerist over-appetite. My problem isn't just on the consumer side of the equation, its on the developer side. Doing what you suggest would probably be comparable to the budget of NASA in the 1960s. For a game to be worth a damn it has to have probably 2 years of development. So that's like 48 teams of people working on projects. Teams can be any where? between $3 and $30 million to make games in terms of budget. Thats an expenditure of like 1.4 billion dollars. That's what they make in a year,  not what they'll spend. Even over a span of 4 years 360 million is a lot to ask.

[alegoicoe]

Just read over kotaku that Nintendo is getting rid of the white 8 gig sku. I hope this is true and that the premium goes down to 300.

[Spak-Spang]

Again, we are not saying Nintendo itself must Publish 12 exclusive games per year...one a month for every year of a consoles life.

Nintendo should try to get 3rd party developers to work within the Nintendo time frame.  Give them incentives to releasing games at certain times and sharing preferred release months with 3rd parties and take the lesser months for the Nintendo games that will sell anyway. 

[Mop it up]

Just read over kotaku that Nintendo is getting rid of the white 8 gig sku. I hope this is true and that the premium goes down to 300.

Yeah, I've seen the same thing. Seems plausible, the Basic is always piled up unsold in stores. It needs to go, it's clear no one thinks it's worth getting over the Deluxe.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Deluxe takes its place at the $300 point, though this probably wouldn't happen till the holidays. They don't want to do it too quickly and tick off the early adapters. Again.

[alegoicoe]

Just read over kotaku that Nintendo is getting rid of the white 8 gig sku. I hope this is true and that the premium goes down to 300.

Yeah, I've seen the same thing. Seems plausible, the Basic is always piled up unsold in stores. It needs to go, it's clear no one thinks it's worth getting over the Deluxe.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Deluxe takes its place at the $300 point, though this probably wouldn't happen till the holidays. They don't want to do it too quickly and tick off the early adapters. Again.

Early adopters are already ticked, me being one of them. I woudnt mind if nintendo suddendly droped the price of the system, that means more support and hell more people enjoying the wii u.

[shingi_70]

Aww Yeah.


On the topic of the 8GB what did nintendo honestly expect. It went against all the reasons why the Wii was a success. Most people would have went with the one with a Game, more memory, and DDP. The *GB probably looked like a even worse after it was found out how much space it really had after all the updates.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Here's a rumor that should interest Ian Sane

Nintendo working on successors to both the 3DS & Wii U to replace sinking Wii U asap
Called Nintendo Fusion and developed together
http://www.nintendonews.com/2014/01/nintendo-fusion-could-be-nintendos-next-gen-hardware-name/

Buckets of salt required, but something to discuss none the less.
Any technically inclined people want to break down the supposed specs?

FUSION DS

CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU
COM MEMORY: 3 GB LPDDR3 (2 GB Games, 1 GB OS)
>2 130 mm DVGA (960 x 640) Capacitive Touchscreen
>Slide Out Design with Custom Swivel Tilt Hinge
>Upper Screen made of Gorilla Glass, Comes with Magnetic Cover
>Low End Vibration for Gameplay and App Alerts
>2 Motorized Circle Pads for Haptic Feedback
>Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback
>2 1mp Stereoptic Cameras
>Multi-Array Microphone
>A, B, X, Y, D-Pad, L, R, 1, 2 Buttons
>3 Axis Tuning Fork Gyroscope, 3 Axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer
>NFC Reader
>3G Chip with GPS Location
>Bluetooth v4.0 BLE Command Node used to Interface with Bluetooth Devices such as Cell Phones, Tablets
>16 Gigabytes of Internal Flash Storage (Possible Future Unit With 32 Gigbytes)
>Nintendo 3DS Cart Slot
>SDHC “Holographic Enhanced” Card Slot up to 128 Gigabyte Limit
>Mini USB I/O
>3300 mAh Li-Ion battery

FUSION TERMINAL

GPGPU: Custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU CODENAME LADY (2816 shaders @ 960 MHz, 4.60 TFLOP/s, Fillrates: 60.6 Gpixel/s, 170 Gtexel/s)
CPU: IBM 64-Bit Custom POWER 8-Based IBM 8-Core Processor CODENAME JUMPMAN (2.2 GHz, Shared 6 MB L4 cache)
Co-CPU: IBM PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core Co-Processor CODENAME HAMMER
MEMORY: 4 Gigabytes of Unified DDR4 SDRAM CODENAME KONG, 2 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz (12.8 GB/s) On Die CODENAMED BARREL
>802.11 b/g/n Wireless
>Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
>2 USB 3.0
>1 Coaxial Cable Input
>1 CableCARD Slot
>4 Custom Stream-Interface Nodes up to 4 Wii U GamePads or 4 DSc
>Versions with Disk Drive play Wii U Optical Disk (4 Layers Maximum), FUSION Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) and Nintendo 3DS Card Slot.
>1 HDMI 2.0 1080p/4K Port
>Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound
>Inductive Charging Surface for up to 4 FUSION DS or IC-Wii Remote Plus Controllers
>Two versions: Disk Slot Version with 60 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage and Diskless Version with 300 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage.

Alternate sources with additional thoughts on the subject:
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/21/nintendos-next-console-and-portable-reported-to-be-called-nintendo-fusion/
http://gaminrealm.com/2014/01/21/nintendo-next-gen-system-specs/

[Ceric]

Honestly, Looking at the Fusion DS the first thing that comes to my mind is ... Smart Phone.
Then looking at the Terminal DS... Home Console/Phone Dock Station/Entertainment Center.

That be very interesting.  Though with how things are moving to Download having the option for a disc that at its reference lowest spec holds 100GB... Wow...  Compression Who needs Compression?  It has a theoritical max in the Terabytes.  If you wanted games to stay retail Hello answer.

Now considering the current costs I found there have to be some way for Nintendo to make it cheaper but, you definitely have the space to drive a 4K or finer TV with Content.

I think this would be an excellent way for Nintendo to go but, it doesn't have as much Memory for general use than what I want and the type of Memory.  HVD Drives are stupidly expensive and lets say they release this 2 years from know they getting cheap enough to be put into a game console.  Same goes for HVD Discs.

An informed made up rumor.  If it was just Fusion DS then yeah.  I be willing to say that it could be pretty plausible if by going mobile Nintendo meant taking the DS line the NGage route.  Those two together I have to call Bull.

[Oblivion]

Even if this is real some of those specs sound like they are still below Xbox One and PS4. And I don't know why they replace the 3DS so soon.

[Ian Sane]

The name Fusion suggests the popular hybrid idea but that clearly looks to be two different systems.

Replacing the 3DS at this point seems unnecessary since it is successful.  And personally I only bought one back in October so I would pretty annoyed to see it replaced so soon.  The Wii U is on borrowed time but not the 3DS.  Though this design suggests that the two systems link together in some way so I guess they would consider it important to release them together.  Of course this could be a rumoured system for several years from now, being designed under the assumption that both the 3DS and Wii U get a normal lifespan and get replaced at the same time.  We had to guess that some connection between the two platforms was going to happen when Nintendo joined their hardware divisions together.

Nintendo's top priority for a new console should be to work with third parties to get something that works for them.  If this is some weird non-standard design that only Nintendo wants to work with then it will amount to squat.

So the console supports 4 Wii U Gamepads?  Why on Earth would you want to associate your new console with that thing?  The Fusion should distance itself from the Wii U as far as possible.  I like the 3DS slot though.  I guess to make that work you need this screen controller approach but it's obvious that feature has bombed and it would be silly to keep with it.  Though for all we know this was Nintendo's design prior to their sales reforecast and they will be moving in a different direction now.

How does this compare to the PS4 and XB1?  I shudder to think of the possibility of this being Nintendo's PS4 equivalent due to be released a year before the PS5 comes out.

[Ceric]

From what I can tell on Paper its a significant bump up.

[Adrock]

That rumor is silliness. A thumbprint security scanner? Really? Still, Nintendo's next console and handheld should launch within the same half-year to year of each other. Launching simultaneously might not be the best idea as I think it's more likely most people would buy one or the other rather than both at the same time. Guess which one would sell worse?

Four GamePads absolutely should happen in a successor. At launch. With a game that can be played with four. How goddamn ridiculous was it that Nintendo didn't think people would ask about two simultaneously? By the time a successor is ready (in a two to three years). Nintendo can probably sell a thinner, lighter GamePad with better battery life for $50.

[BranDonk Kong]

Even if this is real some of those specs sound like they are still below Xbox One and PS4. And I don't know why they replace the 3DS so soon.

No they aren't, but it's fake anyway.

[Ian Sane]

Four Gamepads seems rather unnecessary if the console connects to the handheld.  Why not just allow support of using the handheld as the controller?  I feel the reason this feature didn't catch on on the Gamecube was because Nintendo insisted on selling the cables separately.  I could find GBA owners with no problem but ones that had the cable, particularly when they didn't own a Gamecube?  That was pretty much impossible.  If they packed in the cable with every GBA or used the same cable that was used for GBA multiplayer it probably would have been much more popular.

Of course the other reason connectivity didn't catch on was that Nintendo didn't have that many great ideas for it and they still don't as the Wii U demonstrates.  So why stick to the feature when it is associated with a flop when you have never demonstrated it as some essential feature that has to be available?  No one would give a **** if Nintendo never bothered with screens on the controller ever again.  You can count the amount of good ideas to stem from this concept on one hand.

Though I'll admit that part of why I'm so hostile towards the concept is because I want this gimmick controller phase of Nintendo to end NOW.  They use that as an excuse to cut corners.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I think the screened controller should stay. Not in its current form, but more like a gamepad 2.0.
add multi-touch, add some level of processing power, add a 3DS player, maybe a slightly higher resolution screen.

I'm not sure 4 gamepads would ever be needed, or bought in the same household w/ only 1 system, but support for 4 could never hurt, even if we only ever use 2. There is alot of potential in a controller with a screen in and out of gaming usage.
My ambitions for the idea lay mostly in the non-gaming applications, but I'm sure there are plenty of uses in game, especially for head to head competition gaming, like FPS and Sports. a lot of the in-game uses may seem gimmicky, but they could also be immersive, and we have threads with game ideas using the game pads so I won't go too deep into that.

[Ian Sane]

I will say that if you're going to have screen controllers it would make sense to support four.  Nintendo being caught off guard by people wanting more than one was really weird.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Yes it was. we were all dumbfounded at Nintendo's major oversight.
I think that was the first pin to poke a hole in the HYPE bubble. It's been deflating ever since.

[Adrock]

Four Gamepads seems rather unnecessary if the console connects to the handheld.  Why not just allow support of using the handheld as the controller?

Why not both? The GamePad route is cheaper for those who don't want a separate handheld system. Also, real analog sticks > circle pads. Nintendo could stand to be far more accommodating.

Of course the other reason connectivity didn't catch on was that Nintendo didn't have that many great ideas for it and they still don't as the Wii U demonstrates.

That remains to be seen. For someone who likes to point out that Nintendo was so unprepared for HD development, is it that hard to imagine that those games are still in development? Of course, since this is you, "I didn't like it" means "No one liked it" therefore the idea was bad.

Add-ons are typically a hard sell. If you ask people to pay more, it's natural that they ask why. Four Swords Adventures even with two players is a lot of fun. I didn't have a chance to play it multiplayer until after the generation was over and I got the game, link cables, and extra GBA for relatively cheap. More importantly, GCN-GBA connectivity is also severely limited compared to what the GamePad can do so any comparison is woefully unfair. It doesn't make much sense to even talk about the two in the same breath.

So why stick to the feature when it is associated with a flop when you have never demonstrated it as some essential feature that has to be available?

That's terrible logic. Unworthy by association? That's like saying a player is bad because he's on a bad team. Maybe, but not necessarily. Also of note, the entire industry crashed in 1983. We wouldn't be playing video games as we know them today if Nintendo didn't try again. It's silly to just give up on an idea just because everything didn't go according to plan.

[nickmitch]

Of course the other reason connectivity didn't catch on was that Nintendo didn't have that many great ideas for it and they still don't as the Wii U demonstrates.

That remains to be seen. For someone who likes to point out that Nintendo was so unprepared for HD development, is it that hard to imagine that those games are still in development? Of course, since this is you, "I didn't like it" means "No one liked it" therefore the idea was bad.

I gotta side with Ian on this one.  With the Wii, you kinda understood the controller right off the bat.  The system even launched with a game that justified the concept.  With Wii U, we're a year in, and there's not one game that sells the gamepad that's even been announced.  Maybe it's right around the corner, but who the hell even knows?  Granted, off screen play is a sweet feature.  There just isn't a game that wouldn't be the same without the gamepad.

[Adrock]

ZombiU.

[nickmitch]

I think Yahtzee of Zero Punction mentioned in his review that a semi-transparent GUI would create the same effect of looking at the menu on the gamepad and having action on the main screen.