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More hints that AMD is building Nintendo NXs processor (VentureBeat)
- Thread starter Tom Nook Sawyer
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blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
The smaller the CPU is, the more relevant the instruction set is for the overall efficiency of the device. Multiple decoders dealing with different "domains" of the instruction space, and in different ways, at that, trace caches, u-op caches, instructions which grow in length so much that they hog even the widest decoders - all those things are typical for x86.
Fun anecdote: to ease their decoding problems, there's been a proposal within Intel for the introduction of compressed instruction streams, which would be decompressed at entry in the CPU, by dedicated logic in the decoder - so fundamental is Intel's roadblock with their venerable ISA. Can you imagine the transistor burden for a mobile cpu trying to do that? And how much longer do you think Intel will continue to enjoy their lithography advantage?
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Microarchitectures are more tedious to work with (incl. from the POV of the compiler) than one might think. BTW, if you strip the x86 front-end from Jaguar you end up with an intermediate quasi-RISC ISA, more or less.
Schnozberry
Member
Is anybody else expecting the home console to target some of the shortcomings of the Xbox One/PS4 designs, even if it doesn't have the raw horsepower? Nintendo is obsessed with efficiency, and I think they could achieve a well balanced developer friendly system that doesn't crush the bank by spending their money in the right places.
- Fewer cores, but higher clocks - Say Puma+ x86 cores at 2-2.5ghz.
- A mix of low latency on die memory with higher latency DDR5 - For example: 32MB of on die memory and 4 or 6GB of Shared DDR5
- Target a GPU that gets within range of XBone but doesn't break the bank - 8 GCN 1.2 CU's at 1ghz is roughtly 1TF of performance.
- Some high speed flash internal storage to avoid excessive load times - allow assets to be installed from disc.
- Target low OS overhead for maximum developer resource availability - avoid feature bloat.
lwilliams3
Member
- I have my doubts. Nintendo has traditionally not been very aggressive with higher clock frequencies. With the n3DS, they apparently did the opposite of that and added more two cores to the original ARM11 instead of increasing the clock speed. How does x86 or ARM's A57s scale in heat vs clock speed? Either way, I would expect the CPU for both the portable and the console to have at least four cores.
- Nintendo is very particular about their memory architecture, so I would expect something interesting for that.
- Fourth Storm had a good post about this eariler. Nintendo's price range will be a huge factor with the GPU.
- Flash storage is definitely possible. I don't know about it being super fast.
- After what happened with the Wii U, I hope that is a priority
Mr. Pointy
Member
Does anyone think the NX handheld will be physically similar to the DS/3DS or will they go for a different form factor this time?
My logic would have been that you would effectively compile for x86 and then perform a post-compile "translation" to the CPU's microarchitecture, rather than trying to perform an optimised compile for the microarchitecture itself. In any case, it would be a lot of work for a fairly meagre reward.
Puma isn't designed to go past 2GHz in an non-turbo environment, and although you could theoretically get a bit more out of it on a 20nm/14nm node, AMD doesn't seem interested in continuing their "cat" processor line past 28nm.
In theory AMD's new Zen core would provide them with a "fewer cores, higher performance" option, but there's very little we know about it at the moment, either in terms of performance or die size. In fact, the one thing we do know is that it's being manufactured on a 14nm process, and assuming the NX launches late 2016 that would put Nintendo in early adopter territory for the new manufacturing node, which doesn't really fit with their past behaviour. (Although you can always read too much into past behaviour)
I doubt we'll see any GDDR5. If they were sticking with split memory pools then having a high bandwidth secondary pool largely negates the benefit of having split pools in the first place. Even if not, GDDR5 is approaching EoL, and by the end of the NX's lifetime Nintendo could be the only company left buying GDDR5, which isn't a situation you want to be in when manufacturers start dropping it from their line-up.
If they go with a single pool I could actually see them go with HBM. It would still be more expensive than GDDR5 for a late 2016 launch, but would almost certainly end up being cheaper for Nintendo over the life of the console, and obviously gives some benefits in terms of bandwidth, simplified logic board design and power savings.
If they choose split pools again I would see them sticking with DDR3/DDR4, erring on the side of DDR4 again because of the phase out of DDR3 (although DDR3 will be produced for a lot longer than GDDR5 will).
neogaffer1
Banned
540p is not acceptable for anything period anymore. 720p is stretching it at 5", def not 6".
They don't want this thing to be expensive. 540p seems more likely.
Not if you're keeping costs down. Plus it makes things easier to scale if they really are going for the same architecture & OS across both the console & handheld.
I reckon they'll go with 540p, and then in a year or two release an NX handheld XL, with a 720p screen, and beefed up specs to go along with it.
It kind of amazes me how long they've been doing XL handhelds a with displays at the same resolution as the original models. The screens look so ugly to me blown up to that size.
It kind of amazes me how long they've been doing XL handhelds a with displays at the same resolution as the original models. The screens look so ugly to me blown up to that size.
And if they do go with a scalable architecture & a common OS across all their hardware, upping the specs could easily be done without potentially screwing over pre-existing owners of the NX Handheld.
This is a nerd angle for things, but I am incredibly curious to see what the APIs for this thing are gonna look like. Assuming it is anything like we are discussing.
iOS has, until iOS8, been pretty much garbage water when it comes to being resolution independent. They had all kinds of whacky hacks for things to display right.
Android has been pretty far ahead when it comes to doing things in a nice, scaling manner. DP has been a pretty nice measurement for UIs there.
Of course, that is stuff non-game apps find more crucial. I'm sure there will be some basic stuff to detect resolution and capabilities. If they end up with a hit for NX, I can see them needing to make sure things stay sane.
iOS has, until iOS8, been pretty much garbage water when it comes to being resolution independent. They had all kinds of whacky hacks for things to display right.
Android has been pretty far ahead when it comes to doing things in a nice, scaling manner. DP has been a pretty nice measurement for UIs there.
Of course, that is stuff non-game apps find more crucial. I'm sure there will be some basic stuff to detect resolution and capabilities. If they end up with a hit for NX, I can see them needing to make sure things stay sane.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
This is ludicrous. It's not going to be the size of an iPad.
Yeah, I purely meant the higher specs would offset the higher resolution. Playing the same software but with a resolution bump.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
I been wondering this myself. If they keep BC with 3ds, then clamshell would be the best compact design. Maybe it would be like landscape mode for NX game and flip it sideways for BC.
What I question if it will still have 3d. I doubt it.
Can someone tell me if the way the n3ds does it with face detection and software only or does it still have that special screen?
Graphics Horse
Member
Different. If they want BC they can do it like DS games on Wii U which showed they're not afraid of stuffing everything onto one screen.
Yes it obviously still has a special screen, as well as face tracking software, which takes up an entire CPU core.
I think the willingness to spend money and effort on the feature in New 3DS is a sign that they may continue to use 3D for handhelds.
Mr. Pointy
Member
Well, it would all fit onto a 540p screen, but they'd be tiny unless the NX has a 5.5" screen or more.
In that case, I think it's likely that Nintendo would use a two screen arrangement. I remember that they've made comments about not putting touch functionality on the 3D screen because it ruined the effect.
Graphics Horse
Member
I'm not expecting the screen to be tiny. Bigger than Vita I reckon.
Bill Rizer
Member
I would *love* if the NX will be a new iteration of the good old concept of "play your games both on a portable and at home on your tv screen" (with added home console exclusive games, of course).
That's true, you're right. I did not take into account the improved efficiency of current GPUs and APIs compared to 360's GPU (Xenos) which is 2004 tech (360 released in '05, I know).
Another thing, it's not easy to pin down a figure for PS VITA's performance (PowerVR SGX543MP4+) but it's somewhere below iPad 4.(SGX 554MP4). The most frequently noted figure is 51.2 gflops. And aside from architectural, efficiency and API differences, that figure is seemingly 1/10th that of Tegra X1's 512 Gflops
The point is, in 2016 it won't take much of a mobile-class GPU to well-surpass VITA in a Nintendo handheld.
They are more likely to keep than ditch it.And im not even on keep it camp.
If NX is a platform, I expect
NX Handheld
NX Handheld 3D
NX Handheld XL
Play same games, just different form factors.
I'd be perfectly happy with a Vita-resolution (quarter HD) display, but I'd really like any future Nintendo handheld to have the oomph to drive said display at full resolution. One of the most visually disappointing things about most 3D Vita games I've played is that they almost all run at sub-native resolution.
Im pretty sure its more likely if the gimmick proves successful it will improved like now and if not being ditch easily which they wasn´t able to do that right now because it was hardware based.And just because they want nx as a shared development environment doesn´t mean they will release shit ton of hardware with diffirent capabilities.You are already pushing it.
Shared development is first and foremost for nintendo not for consumer choices other than when something proves unsuccessful they ditch it.
lwilliams3
Member
I wouldn't count it out yet. Having two screens would be more expensive to include compared to including 3D. The n3DS also had good sales and was praised for its dramatically improved 3D.
Toadthemushroom
Member
I'd forgotten about this.
Is the specific mention of "SoC" (over "APU") something we should be taking note of? Nintendo merged handheld and console R&D teams in 2013 (in Japan, at least, likely NTD as well)
Is the specific mention of "SoC" (over "APU") something we should be taking note of? Nintendo merged handheld and console R&D teams in 2013 (in Japan, at least, likely NTD as well)
Kanhir
Member
I think you'd still need a special screen to send an image to each eye, though, unless you use something like Google Cardboard.
APU is an AMD-specific term. Also, strictly speaking an SoC should include things like RAM, external interfaces like network controllers, HDMI controllers, etc. all on-chip as well, but in practice it's used more as a catch-all term for a CPU die with any additional logic that wouldn't have traditionally been on-die with the CPU (in this case a GPU).
Thanks to some deduction, I think we can safely assume that both a Console and a Handheld are currently in development. Nintendo has consistently mentioned NX as a console, people like Tenabe saying Prime 4 would have to now be developed for NX if it were made, DQ11 coming to it (I'm assuming this is the PS4 version of the game as the 3DS version would be probably a mess to port over to it.
Miyamoto has said that Wii U had a problem with the gamepad making the console too pricey and unappealing http://nintendonews.com/2015/06/miyamoto-tablet-devices-wii-u-sales/
Iwata has said that they will create one architecture but was careful to point out he didn't mean a single device and even pointed to the possibility of more devices.
Miyamoto again here: http://kotaku.com/miyamoto-can-imagine-nintendo-making-hybrid-console-han-1594989023
And finally "Matt" Mentioning that a Nintendo device has a screen, gives away in my opinion that both devices are being made in parallel and that we will likely see them launch under a single platform.
As for Specs, I doubt it really matters, DQ11 is UE4. Japan is a huge draw for UE4 right now as the western publishers largely use their own engines, but we can gather some insight into what we should be looking for.
Spec talk
Firstly AMD is almost certainly the partner behind Nintendo, there is little reason to assume that Nintendo would go with anyone else as AMD has A57 architecture available and has partnered in some form with Nintendo for 2 decades now (The N64 GPU was created by the team that left and became ArtX, and that company/team was bought out by AMD nearly 15 years ago)
Second, AMD is moving onto 14nm next year which has a huge capacity for production but 10nm is where phones are moving next year, so these large capacity factories will have to be converted or find new products which leaves plenty of budget pricing for Nintendo to pick up 14nm but I think it is important to note that AMD would be the company picking the node and technology (as they are the supplier) the customer in this case would ask for best performance for "x" amount of $.
Nintendo's handheld and console will likely have a 540p (Matt's comments really do point here imo) and 1080p resolution for Nintendo games, this is largely because you'd want your games to scale easily and Performance per Pixel being 1:4 gives you a pretty good idea of the scaling you'd be able to do without having the hardware in front of you, which is important when you are asking for something not yet created.
What I'm thinking for hardware is 128 shaders in the handheld with 512 shaders in the console, this is your 1:4, you don't have to be strict about performance here and it is better if you are not because headroom isn't a bad thing, I think you'll get this out of clocks rather than more powerful hardware however. 400-500mhz for the handheld (102gflops to 128gflops) and 800-1000mhz for the GPU (819gflops to 1tflop) the handheld side would compete fairly well with Wii U, you are looking at 540p vs 720p (for most wii u games) as well as a much newer architecture than Wii U's 2008 GPU, making the handheld very easy to port from Wii U which was also something Iwata talked about in the past when mentioning how hard it was to port Wii games to 3DS, this would seemingly not have that problem. 1tflop would also be perfect for the console as XB1 generally runs it's games in 900p @ 1.3tflops, this is very close to that Performance per Pixel ratio you'd want to hit. Of course another and more important way to look at it is 1080p PS4 games could likely be ran at 720p without sacrifice at 1tflops, and if it is GCN2 (AMD's next graphics cores that come out next year) you could probably get away with that 819gflops while accomplishing this same task.
RAM you'd want to go with 1-2GBs on the handheld with 4x more on the console, even Nintendo in the past when launching Wii spoke about how you'd need ~4x more memory for HD development.
CPU I feel is perfectly fine to use A57 for both as it has a high IPC (instructions per clock) and can compete with the other next gen consoles just fine, I'd even say a big.LITTLE setup with 4 2ghz+ A57 cores and 4 A53 cores would be more than enough to keep up with the other platforms and even give it an edge.
I think they will also go with gamecards like 3DS uses for both devices, a single physical media is honestly key to their message of 1 platform, this would also give them forced support for their console as it would literally play the handheld games at a higher resolution and possibly other settings changed. You'd get your console pokemon, you'd get more resources from nintendo's developers not working on 2 versions of a title, you save on shipping costs which is a huge factor with physical media, store fronts would have much more room, advertise budget would increase drastically and 3rd party support that has always been there for Nintendo's handhelds would be automatically on the console.
If anyone got through that, thanks for indulging me, this is how the NX platform looks to be shaping up from everything I've heard, but one key thing that I know is coming is a new gimmick, and that I really couldn't guess at but my assumption is it is shared between both devices this time.
P.S. I don't think dual screens would be a bad idea to limit to communication between the handheld and the console, meaning you'd need both for certain functions, much like gamecube to GBA but without the cords and hassle.
Miyamoto has said that Wii U had a problem with the gamepad making the console too pricey and unappealing http://nintendonews.com/2015/06/miyamoto-tablet-devices-wii-u-sales/
Iwata has said that they will create one architecture but was careful to point out he didn't mean a single device and even pointed to the possibility of more devices.
Miyamoto again here: http://kotaku.com/miyamoto-can-imagine-nintendo-making-hybrid-console-han-1594989023
And finally "Matt" Mentioning that a Nintendo device has a screen, gives away in my opinion that both devices are being made in parallel and that we will likely see them launch under a single platform.
As for Specs, I doubt it really matters, DQ11 is UE4. Japan is a huge draw for UE4 right now as the western publishers largely use their own engines, but we can gather some insight into what we should be looking for.
Spec talk
Firstly AMD is almost certainly the partner behind Nintendo, there is little reason to assume that Nintendo would go with anyone else as AMD has A57 architecture available and has partnered in some form with Nintendo for 2 decades now (The N64 GPU was created by the team that left and became ArtX, and that company/team was bought out by AMD nearly 15 years ago)
Second, AMD is moving onto 14nm next year which has a huge capacity for production but 10nm is where phones are moving next year, so these large capacity factories will have to be converted or find new products which leaves plenty of budget pricing for Nintendo to pick up 14nm but I think it is important to note that AMD would be the company picking the node and technology (as they are the supplier) the customer in this case would ask for best performance for "x" amount of $.
Nintendo's handheld and console will likely have a 540p (Matt's comments really do point here imo) and 1080p resolution for Nintendo games, this is largely because you'd want your games to scale easily and Performance per Pixel being 1:4 gives you a pretty good idea of the scaling you'd be able to do without having the hardware in front of you, which is important when you are asking for something not yet created.
What I'm thinking for hardware is 128 shaders in the handheld with 512 shaders in the console, this is your 1:4, you don't have to be strict about performance here and it is better if you are not because headroom isn't a bad thing, I think you'll get this out of clocks rather than more powerful hardware however. 400-500mhz for the handheld (102gflops to 128gflops) and 800-1000mhz for the GPU (819gflops to 1tflop) the handheld side would compete fairly well with Wii U, you are looking at 540p vs 720p (for most wii u games) as well as a much newer architecture than Wii U's 2008 GPU, making the handheld very easy to port from Wii U which was also something Iwata talked about in the past when mentioning how hard it was to port Wii games to 3DS, this would seemingly not have that problem. 1tflop would also be perfect for the console as XB1 generally runs it's games in 900p @ 1.3tflops, this is very close to that Performance per Pixel ratio you'd want to hit. Of course another and more important way to look at it is 1080p PS4 games could likely be ran at 720p without sacrifice at 1tflops, and if it is GCN2 (AMD's next graphics cores that come out next year) you could probably get away with that 819gflops while accomplishing this same task.
RAM you'd want to go with 1-2GBs on the handheld with 4x more on the console, even Nintendo in the past when launching Wii spoke about how you'd need ~4x more memory for HD development.
CPU I feel is perfectly fine to use A57 for both as it has a high IPC (instructions per clock) and can compete with the other next gen consoles just fine, I'd even say a big.LITTLE setup with 4 2ghz+ A57 cores and 4 A53 cores would be more than enough to keep up with the other platforms and even give it an edge.
I think they will also go with gamecards like 3DS uses for both devices, a single physical media is honestly key to their message of 1 platform, this would also give them forced support for their console as it would literally play the handheld games at a higher resolution and possibly other settings changed. You'd get your console pokemon, you'd get more resources from nintendo's developers not working on 2 versions of a title, you save on shipping costs which is a huge factor with physical media, store fronts would have much more room, advertise budget would increase drastically and 3rd party support that has always been there for Nintendo's handhelds would be automatically on the console.
If anyone got through that, thanks for indulging me, this is how the NX platform looks to be shaping up from everything I've heard, but one key thing that I know is coming is a new gimmick, and that I really couldn't guess at but my assumption is it is shared between both devices this time.
P.S. I don't think dual screens would be a bad idea to limit to communication between the handheld and the console, meaning you'd need both for certain functions, much like gamecube to GBA but without the cords and hassle.
Schnozberry
Member
I think the new Carrizo based Puma+ cores will climb higher than 2ghz. DDR4 + ESRAM makes a lot of sense. I wasn't considering GDDR5 EOL when I was spitballing. They might be able to squeeze 6GB in that case, since DDR4 prices have been coming down on a nice curve. I'd assume we get a 2GB reserved and 4GB available to games in that scenario, which wouldn't put them that far off from Sony at this point.
Wouldn't HBM have the same issues with EOL, considering it was more of a proof of concept for the Fury X knowing they were going to HBM2? I think AMD would probably push them to go HBM2 if they go down that road, especially if we are thinking they might offer 14nm as an option. At this point, I was assuming Nintendo would stick with 28nm for the home console just because Nintendo. It's a mature technology that would likely meet their cost and performance guidelines.
The GPU is a real wild card. In my mind I had always assumed that Nintendo would stick with their clock multiplier that they are so fond of. So whatever CPU clock they land on, they'd go half clock for the GPU. Puma+ would be the farthest they could go forward in the "Cat" series of processors, but AMD has just released a mobile APU for that core that is 2.2ghz with a 2.5ghz boost in a quad core configuration. Laptops based on this APU are retailing for under $400 and it's rated for 15-25w. Seems like it would be right up Nintendo's alley. I'm not confident they would attempt 1ghz for their GPU, but damn if it doesn't make for a nice round 1TF performance number if they go with the 8CU's that are common for AMD's retail APU's.
Another option is ARM, but at 28nm it strikes me as almost impossible to get decent clocks and performance without running into the kinds of thermal dissipation issues that Nintendo hates. AMD's ARM products at 28nm are a nightmare. If they go 14nm, then I think there are so many possibilities that speculation becomes more of a dartboard.
Weren't cartridges the reason why the N64 was ignored by third parties? And even then, there may be a concern that high-capacity cartridges may be expensive to produce. While granted, SD Cards are on the cheap to make, they're still expensive as hell for market price if you want a cartridge with insane amounts of storage (which is a requirement for HD gaming). Plus it wouldn't guarantee support for every single game across both platforms. While granted, it'd cover most, someone like Game Freak could just as easily put a lock on the cartridge that says "Must be played on the NX Handheld" whenever anyone attempts to put in a mainline Pokémon game into the NX Console.
Solid state media like carts are the only practical solution for a handheld. You could augment the data on those for the console version by downloading additional data onto the HDD.
I was more thinking of a code for a digital copy of the other version of the game.
Captain Chaos
Member
Sounds great but can anyone else chime in - is this really feasible?
I expect different media for the console and the handheld still. Digital purchases will work on both which is just fine from Nintendo's perspective as that's where they'd prefer people buying games.
At most perhaps the console also has a game card slot, but I still expect an optical drive in it.
At most perhaps the console also has a game card slot, but I still expect an optical drive in it.
Agreed.
Yup, mobile tech has definitely gone a long way since the PS Vita was launched on the market. That being said, Tegra X1 performances are currently beyond what you can put in a handheld device considering heat/battery issues. I think something like the iPhone 6 GPU would be incredibly good for the new portable, and it's possible that they'll use it, but i'm being a bit more conservative and considering that to be the best case scenario. So if it happens i'll be super happy, if not i had my expectactions in check and won't be disappointed if the actual GPU is "reasonably" less powerful than that.
Of course if it's 64gflops i'm going to scream haha :'D
Great post. Happy to see your proposed specs are very close to mine too
These were my proposed specs
NX Mobile
AMD 64-bit ARM-based SoC 28nm
CPU: ARMv8 Cortex-A53 4 core 1.2GHZ (1 core OS)
GPU: custom AMD mobile (128 stream processors at 400/500MHZ=102.4/128 GFLOPs)
(Alternatively, A53 4 core 1.2GHZ with one reserved to the OS+PowerVR GX6450)
RAM: 16MB SRAM+3GB LPDDR4 (1GB OS)
Storage: 8/16GB Flash memory+SD card slot
Top screen: 540p IPS/AMOLED
Bottom screen(?): 480p IPS/AMOLED
2600mAh battery
8/16GB Cartridges
OS: Android based NintendOS
NX Home
AMD 64-bit ARM-based SoC 28nm
CPU ARMv8 Cortex-A57 6 core 2-2.5GHZ (OS: Cortex-A53 2 core)
AMD GCN 1.2 28nm (10CU, 640 stream processors, 800MHZ, 1024 GFLOPs)
32-40MB eDRAM+8GB DDR3 (2GB OS)
128GB Flash memory+SD card slot+external drives
32/64GB Cartridges
OS: Android based NintendOS
which like i said are very similar, so i'd personally say yes. Prices would be similar to DS launch price or regular new 3DS current price (so 149-169) for the handheld and around Wii (or a bit more, like 249-269) for the home.
Darkwing Duck.
He's a long time insider with a flawless track record. Generally if he says something, it's true.
Probably, but i still have a bit of hope that they'll think long term and go with cartridges. It's true that despite being quite cheap now they still cost more than discs, but at the same time Nintendo can save some money with the game card slot vs an optical drive, which also generates more heat, noise and draws more power. Cartridges offer better trade offs from the start and are a much better choice for long term, so we'll see.sörine;173678577 said:
EDIT:
Completely different things.
Why 64 bit ? Aren't the Wii U & the other current gen consoles 128 bit?Agreed.
Yup, mobile tech has definitely gone a long way since the PS Vita was launched on the market. That being said, Tegra X1 performances are currently beyond what you can put in a handheld device considering heat/battery issues. I think something like the iPhone 6 GPU would be incredibly good for the new portable, and it's possible that they'll use it, but i'm being a bit more conservative and considering that to be the best case scenario. So if it happens i'm super happy, if not i had my expectactions in check and won't be disappointed if it's "reasonably" less than that.
Of course if it's 64gflops i'm going to scream haha :'D
Great post. Happy to see your proposed specs are very close to mine too
These were my proposed specs
NX Mobile
AMD 64-bit ARM-based SoC 28nm
CPU: ARMv8 Cortex-A53 4 core 1.2GHZ (1 core OS)
GPU: custom AMD mobile (128 stream processors at 400/500MHZ=102.4/128 GFLOPs)
(Alternatively, A53 4 core 1.2GHZ with one reserved to the OS+PowerVR GX6450)
RAM: 16MB SRAM+3GB LPDDR4 (1GB OS)
Storage: 8/16GB Flash memory+SD card slot
Top screen: 540p IPS/AMOLED
Bottom screen(?): 480p IPS/AMOLED
2600mAh battery
8/16GB Cartridges
OS: Android based NintendOS
NX Home
AMD 64-bit ARM-based SoC 28nm
CPU ARMv8 Cortex-A57 6 core 2-2.5GHZ (OS: Cortex-A53 2 core)
AMD GCN 1.2 28nm (10CU, 640 stream processors, 800MHZ, 1024 GFLOPs)
32-40MB eDRAM+8GB DDR3 (2GB OS)
128GB Flash memory+SD card slot+external drives
32/64GB Cartridges
OS: Android based NintendOS
which like i said are very similar, so i'd personally say yes. Prices would be similar to DS launch price or regular new 3DS current price (so 149-169) for the handheld and around Wii (or a bit more, like 249-269) for the home.
Darkwing Duck.
He's a long time insider with a flawless track record. Generally, if he says something, it's definitely true.
Probably, but i still have a bit of hope that they'll think long term and go with cartridges. It's true that despite being quite cheap now they still cost more than discs, but at the same time Nintendo can save some money with the game card slot vs an optical drive, which also generates more heat, noise and draws more power. Cartridges offer better trade offs from the start and are a much better choice for long term, so we'll see.
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