Topic: Switchmas Eve Rumors and Speculations Thread

[nickmitch]

I understand the hesitation regarding the high cost of hardware and the ill-fated GBA/GC experience when considering to do it all over again with the NX, but what is so wrong with that, other than developers not supporting it?

Developers not supporting something is an insurmountable reason not to do it. No dev support means another Wii U situation or a feature that might as well not be there.  This is a games machine we're talking about.  If there's a feature people aren't going to use to make games, it probably doesn't need to exist.

Also, people not willing to pay for a 4-player experience.

[Stogi]

I now understand what you're saying. If the NX console has controllers with screens, then using an NX handheld in a pinch is much more flexible. And that's not a bad idea. Still, I'd prefer motion controls as the possibility of getting multiple NX handhelds with a console isn't outlandish. You just need friends. So even if separate screen gameplay isn't fully supported, it's still possible as a feature that could be included into games. Madden may not expect players to have the necessary hardware, but they can still provide the experience in case players do.

[ThePerm]

Why was the Wii U a failure? Was it the controller, was it that it supported 5+ controllers? Was it that it had no support after the first year? Bingo. It had no support after the first year because developers didn't want to waste time to downgrade their games for Wii U. It is harder to downgrade games then to upgrade games because taking a 20,000 polygon object and turning it into a couple thousand polygon object is hard. Taking a game a pre-rendering the lighting as opposed to just using a ton of shaders is difficult. To say they are actually difficult is more or less to say they are time consuming. Development time costs money.

If the wii U had a cpu with a slightly faster clock speed we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. I remember reading developer interviews where they were like we could have ported the game fine, but we had to make so many changes to the programming of the game it wouldn't really be the same game. In programming having to figure out a totally different way to do something that was done automatically may take several days.

[nickmitch]

Very true, Perm. Well said.  But is being on par with the competition enough to sell the NX?  If devs can make a system powerful enough to port to without degradation, would they?  Are Nintendo games still enough to sell systems?  Does the Nintendo brand still have enough cache to sell on the promise of first party titles?

[ThePerm]

I don't think initially. I think If they can pull off the power and wow gamers again I think gamers will come back.  Will the nx be able to handle the game engines? Will it be easy to port. Will it take time to port? I don't care if you play a game and it has a black screen on the controller, but is otherwise the same game as the competitors system version of the game. A nice feature to the digital future is if you're using the same game engine and that game engine works on all systems sometimes its as simple as a drop down menu to port the game. If you can throw that game on an app store and it runs pretty bug free and it sells well then you've made money. The future of Nintendo is less barriers. Indy developers re going to have a bigger and bigger role as well. I'm going to continue to buy Nintendo titles because of my love for them. Third parties are always up in the air. If the game is good and its available on my platform than I can buy them. What makes Xbox one any different then ps4? The only thing nowadays is pretty much the first party titles.

There is still a possibility Nintendo will buy the Microsoft games division so Microsoft can go back to focus on OS and server world. That rumors been floating around for a while since the president of the company was tossing around the idea publicly. I kinda like the idea, because I'm using Windows 8 right now and its garbage(windows 10 does seem better though) and that's a round about way to get Rare back. Nintendo has the money and its sort of a juggernaut move. The move would be beneficial to both companies as it would get the assets over to Nintendo, some of the infrastructure of the xbox live, and then give Microsoft a bunch of cash to by cloud servers. The only issue is it would be counted as a huge cash loss for Nintendo. I think the benefits might outweigh the downsides though. Will it happen? Long shot. Yamauchi might have done it(as a sort of dick move), Iwata was warming up to acquisitions, Kimishima? Well he was a bank guy before hand.

[supermario2k]

I think it will do fine if it has the major third party games and the major Nintendo stuff. The biggest complaint I keep hearing is the current gen is all ports and remasters. The timing of NX is perfect to get into the real console exclusives for this gen and if Nintendo can get their good games out next to the 3rd party games their exclusives alone sell systems, their exclusives + 3rd party games that aren't gimped = SNES sales easily. Don't underestimate the Playstation gamers who were once die hard SNES fanboys making a return if the right games come along.

[Agent-X-]

What does Nintendo need to do to cure the developer support issue? They need to first recognize it. As someone who has been a fan of Nintendo since the 80's, it pains me to accept that they don't appear to see this as much of an issue. If they did, they would show more interest in matching their competitors. About their competitors, though, I'm not sure they recognize who their competitors actually are. I bet if we asked them, they would name Apple, Google, and perhaps Sony. After all, they show a ton more concern over the mobile market than they do the games one.


I'm slowly losing interest in the NX. Even though all we have are rumors to work off of, the more I hear about it the more I'm convinced they are bound to make the same mistakes as before. Nintendo seems destined to match whatever is currently on the market, go with custom hardware to do it, and have some showcase feature that is the centerpiece to the experience. I love the Wii U, but it is far from a success mostly for the reasons I've listed. Developers may not mind the challenges of working with a unique platform, but businesses hate spending additional resources on a gamble.


I would love for Nintendo to go the extra mile with their home console product. I want to see them embrace some industry standards such as the X86 architecture. Nintendo needs to be a little bold this time like opting to cram some additional hardware power into this box and sell at a small loss. As the consumer, I don't feel good about hearing Nintendo turning a profit from day 1. I need to feel their is a little something special in that box. More to the point, I want to feel that Nintendo has gone the distance in producing a gamer's machine with slick UI, smooth OS, and lots of interesting features.


If Nintendo wants to wow, they can. If they did, I believe they'd go with mainstream hardware and a "modern" online community that demonstrates they understand the competitive gamer's wants and needs. Plus, I'd like to see them do something like strike a deal with Valve and and make the NX into a fully compatible Steambox. If you can't get publishers on board from day 1, then bring them on through someone else's platform from day 1.

But nah, that would require robust hardware and forward thinking that goes beyond your own nose.

[ThePerm]

To say that they must go with x86 hardware is kinda missing something. x86 hardware is kinda garbage. The entire computer industry wanted to move away from it in the mid 90s. My own first personal computer was a 286. I has 386's and 486. The first Pentiums were like 586 processors. Nintendo has been using RISC architecture which runs more efficiently. Now there are things Intel and AMD have done over the years that have made x86 remain more popular, but that does not make them better. Its been a while since anyone has seen a truly remarkable power pc pc processor. ARM processors are also RISC based and they have been the way Nintendo has been going with their handhelds. Looking at the teardowns vs the specs of the wiiu espresso vs the ps4 jaguar there are some ways wiiU's processor is actually better.  5 more cores and a boost in clockspeed and it definitely would be comparing apples to oranges.

If I were to guess. There was some deal with IBM and ARM in 2011 to develop 14nm processors. What Nintendo might get is the fruit of this deal. They work with both companies for processors. NX might have a 8-16 core ARM based processor.

Thinking about these things...NX might not be a regular tv console. If they miniaturize enough then most of the guts might be in the controller. On the xbox one and ps4 that are huge i don't know if most of that is because they are using big ass computer architecture. Nintendo knows miniaturization. If they drop discs....

[Agent-X-]

Thinking about these things...NX might not be a regular tv console. If they miniaturize enough then most of the guts might be in the controller. On the xbox one and ps4 that are huge i don't know if most of that is because they are using big ass computer architecture. Nintendo knows miniaturization. If they drop discs....

I think that Nintendo's focus is leaving fans like myself behind. While I have owned a DS and a 3DS, I think that the worst aspects of Nintendo have emerged as a result of their battle against the mobile devices. They can stick the entire console into a controller, but it is not the thing I want. I'm not impressed by that, and I really don't care that I can still play on the TV. TV play is the main mode of play for most people. I'd be a lot more impressed if the mobile stuff ran in the cloud and could leverage your existing mobile phone as a terminal to access it.


That's beside the point though. I truly feel that Nintendo's priorities don't align with my own. I have hope that Kimishima will right this ship and demonstrate that he better understands North America than Iwata ever did.

[nickmitch]

#TeamButtons does not favor streaming games to existing mobile phones.

[Ian Sane]

After the Cube it feels like Iwata's idea for Nintendo's direction was that they should offer something really different than everyone else.  Like he felt the Cube was too similar to the competition and thus didn't stand out and didn't sell.  But I don't want Nintendo to offer something different in terms of consoles and controllers.  I want that stuff to be very conventional and the creativity to be used entirely in game design.

I also think that the Gamecube's problem was in how it was different - too many easily avoidable screw-ups were made.  It was the only console that didn't have DVD playback and the only one that was essentially offline.  It used different media than the others with a smaller capacity.  There were even little tiny things like Nintendo's idiotic policies regarding demo discs and how their memory card was 1/8 the size of the PS2 initially but cost the same amount or their Player's Choice games were $30 when everyone else had $20.  If you did a checklist comparison of features between the three consoles the Cube was often last and almost never first in anything.

So what I really want is for Nintendo to just stop fucking up the easy stuff.  They just routinely make mistakes that no one with the slightest familiarity with videogames should make.  They do things weird and different for no reason to the point where I wonder if it is policy that Nintendo always do things their own way.  Come up with a new gameplay idea for a game?  Great!  That's the area where people want creativity.  But stuff like friend codes and tying online purchases with the hardware instead of an account?  Fucking ridiculous.  The competition did it the right way years before and no one wants a special Nintendo way because it's just basic functionality and all that's needed is that it just works well.

I feel Iwata's approach has just encouraged Nintendo to make mistakes because when you're being all different you can conveniently avoid meeting industry standards.  You can also never admit to any mistakes because you can chalk that up as just being different and thus never learn or have to fix anything.  What I wanted from the Cube follow up was just a conventional console with the expected hardware upgrade and without all the stupid little easily avoidable mistakes and with Nintendo's amazing first party lineup.  And I really just want the 2017 equivalent of that from the NX.

Nintendo has never TRIED that.  They avoided correcting the mistakes of the Cube by being different and grabbing a new audience.  And had the Wii not caught on with that audience it probably would have had the same fate as the Wii U.  Their bad habits have just been reinforced with each generation.  So how about they actually get their **** together for a change instead of trying to disguise things with gimmicks and weirdness and if THAT fails then they can declare it hopeless and go back to being weird for no reason?  And if they "try it" and there's a Gamecube-esque list of easily avoidable mistakes to go with it then that doesn't count as a real effort.

[Wah]

No offence Ian Sane, but I'm getting real sick of your Nintendo-rambling-hating ****.

[ThePerm]

We've talked about the bubble before. It is just odd that they live in a bubble and they don't pay much attention to what the other companies are doing. In some ways it makes them unique in other ways it makes them jut plain weird. Would anyone of us make the same decisions Nintendo has over the years? No. I don't even think what Nintendo did with the Gamecube were grave sins. Microsoft did things different because they wanted to improve things in the console world. Noble, but you have to take into account when Nintendo started planning Gamecube they were competing against Sony and Sega. If you took Microsoft out of the equation then the design of the Gamecube makes a lot of sense. Form factor and control and design were made to compete against Dreamcast. They even made the name a weird nonsensicle compound word. Yamauchi had wanted to call it StarCube, DreamStar GameCast. Nintendo made a more powerful system than the ps2, but really they were aiming to compete with Dreamcast. I understand why they didn't do much with online games on Gamecube...they were inexperienced with it and the games were in its infancy.

online games are still in their infancy in types if you think about it. You have mostly shooters, and mmo. Minecraft came into existance in the last few years. Fighting games aren't even popular for online because you need super fast broadband for that to be good. Nintendo does have an amazing online racing game though.

With the "failure" of the Gamecube, I think Nintendo wanted to do something to remain in the mindshare. That's what came with the Wii. Nintendo did things mostly right with Wii U. I don't think they expected to get leapfrogged in tech so much. I really didn't either. I figured ps4 and xboxone would come out and there wouldn't be a huge clear noticeable difference. I think I was a generation off though. To a large extant they really don't look that different. My biggest comparison would be the difference between Blackflag on Wii U, and on Xbox One. You can see the difference but it isn't huge. Watchdogs looks shitty on Wii U though. They spent the extra time, but they really didn't optimize it enough to where I could continue to play it. I look to what was achieved by Konami in the cancelled ps4 game demo for Silent Hills PT. They jumped up from 60% realistic to 97% realistic.

If Nintendo's system can achieve the same level of realism than the key is going to be their output of games. Pikmin 4 could look fantastic. A Metroid Game could be fantastic. That Mario Galaxy 3 game could be great. The new Zelda game should launch with NX just as TP launched with Wii. The key is Nintendo getting these game out. Getting them out on a regular basis. And maintaining a steady schedule. A new Xeno game is probably coming out because that team seems to run well. There can't be gaps. Nintendo has to remember they are a games software company first.

The next step is getting exclusives. Making sure that the games people want to buy only come out on NX. We know an FF7 remake is coming out, what if that was only on NX?

So what I should say is they should run the company how they ran it in the SNES days.

[Kairon]

*shrug* Everyone has different tastes and opinions. I used to be a Blizzard fanboy and I really have not touched much they've made recently, nor have any interest in re-entering that universe, despite being utterly in love with their work with WC1-3, SC, and WoW.

As for Nintendo though, I like them taking risks, I like them making different choices, and I like the diversity in thought they encourage in the game industry. They're not the only perspective out there, maybe they're not even the best, but they're a perspective and viewpoint and value-set that I value as part of this medium.

As for x86 though, I don't see what people would have against ARM. I feel like a broken record, but the Tegra X1 (which uses ARM CPUs) can run Unreal Engine 4, display 4K, and run the upcoming Vulkan low-level API. x86 isn't much of a player in mobile because it hasn't been paying as much attention to the needs of that space as ARM has (Battery life is VERY important I say!). So ARM is definitely getting a lot of attention and use and support in the real world (which I imagine would be the same argument for x86: adopting widely supported non-custom tech to ease development), and isn't at all the odd-duck that the PowerPC tech was for Nintendo's last three console generations.

Actually, is there any reason why a Tegra X1 chip and ARM in a supposed "handheld" version of NX would be a bad thing? I'm curious what people's objections to that possibility are.

[Evan_B]

There's no way FFVII Remake is ONLY coming out on NX. That is a bad business choice for Square Enix in every regard.

Also, don't you guys get tired of doing this...? I honestly can't go into this thread without feeling exhausted. I know that specs are "important", but I'm sure Nintendo had much of this discussion long before you guys did. Or maybe they avoided it. Either way, arguing about what NX "should be" is a bit fruitless at this point.

[Wah]

I'm on the same boat as Evan here I couldn't be f*cked to read all this/

[Oedo]

There's no way FFVII Remake is ONLY coming out on NX. That is a bad business choice for Square Enix in every regard.

Square Enix wouldn't make it an exclusive just because; Nintendo would obviously have to throw a lot of money their way for that to happen. That might be a bad business move for Nintendo (without knowing anything about the NX or how aggressive they're going to be in getting other exclusives), but if Square Enix would get so much money up front that they could be reasonably assured they'd reach an acceptable level of profit on the game (short of something disastrous taking place), it could make plenty of sense for them.

[Evan_B]

No offence Ian Sane, but I'm getting real sick of your Nintendo-rambling-hating ****.

Honestly, if he cared about other people's opinions, he would have laid off on it a long time ago.

[ShyGuy]

We wants another rumor Nintendo, we NEEDS it.

[ThePerm]

I like endlessly throwing spaghetti at the wall. Then when we find out I can see how wrong/right we were.

[Shaymin]

SquareEnix said last year during Sony's dog and pony show that FFVII-R was "first on PS4". It's more likely to be "NX doesn't get it period" and it goes PS4/PC like Street Fighter V did.

[supermario2k]

I would think a Super Mario RPG partnership exclusive would be better than FF7 remake because that sort of has Sony's hands all over it.

[Kairon]

Also, don't you guys get tired of doing this...? I honestly can't go into this thread without feeling exhausted. I know that specs are "important", but I'm sure Nintendo had much of this discussion long before you guys did. Or maybe they avoided it. Either way, arguing about what NX "should be" is a bit fruitless at this point.

Haha, I've stayed clear of NX rumors until only a couple weeks ago and then I didn't drink the rumor koolaid, I drowned myself in it.

But yeah, I don't see much sense in talking about what it "should" be, that's sterile conjecture. What's more engaging is trying to tease out what it will be, trying to temper back any conspiracy tendencies and guess at Nintendo's internal trajectory and then how that will manifest.

[supermario2k]

Cut and dry, all I want is a PS4 that plays Nintendo games. Give me that I will be happy. I already have a PS4 so personally the only way I'd buy 3rd party games is if they are exclusive to it, or are the definitive version in some way. Price is a factor and so is timing. I was planning on waiting to see what NX was then comparing it to Playstation VR. I am already sold on Playstation VR and with NX being delayed, from what I was expecting, that means it had to be something really special to sway me from spending that $500 that is earmarked for Sony VR and give it to Nintendo instead.

IF however the NX is a VR and it does it in a way that suits me better than what Sony is doing then I might consider changing directions. But if it isn't going to have the 3rd party games, I mean exclusives be it true exclusives or really good exclusive features, then it had better be a bargain machine if it only plays Nintendo games and a handful of games I can get better versions of elsewhere.

[MagicCow64]

Cut and dry, all I want is a PS4 that plays Nintendo games. Give me that I will be happy. I already have a PS4 so personally the only way I'd buy 3rd party games is if they are exclusive to it, or are the definitive version in some way. Price is a factor and so is timing. I was planning on waiting to see what NX was then comparing it to Playstation VR. I am already sold on Playstation VR and with NX being delayed, from what I was expecting, that means it had to be something really special to sway me from spending that $500 that is earmarked for Sony VR and give it to Nintendo instead.

IF however the NX is a VR and it does it in a way that suits me better than what Sony is doing then I might consider changing directions. But if it isn't going to have the 3rd party games, I mean exclusives be it true exclusives or really good exclusive features, then it had better be a bargain machine if it only plays Nintendo games and a handful of games I can get better versions of elsewhere.

Okay, great, just go chill over at Push Square or whatever, and come back here and chime in if you decide to buy the PS4-identical Nintendo VR box that is never going to happen. Can't wait to hear from you again.

Apropos of which, bubbling up into "real news" are leaks about the XTwone, which is supposedly going to release in late 2017 and be 4x as strong as the XBone, and also significantly stronger than the PS4K, which is rumored to be releasing by the end of this year.

The tide seems to quickly be shifting toward this tacky arms race of iterative consoles, likely designed to milk as much money out of the ossifying core gamer base as possible. Any thoughts on how this affects NX plans? If anything I thought MS was going to fade off into branded PC boxes as they edged out of the dedicated console space, but instead they are supposedly doubling down with this new "Scorpio" device, along with a slim Xbone, and various Roku and Fire stick type things. It all frankly seems kind of senseless to me, outside of VR applications, which I don't care about and can't see taking off in a serious way anytime soon. I feel like whatever Nintendo's go up their sleeves, they're going to be portrayed as having been caught with their dingus out next to this new circus.