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[M3d10n]

I'm still skeptical. More so when it comes to them being single SKU, which raise some issues:


- Are handheld consumers going to have to pay $60 for the next Smash or will Nintendo get only $40 from console consumers? Or will games be $50 across the board?

- The home sku may or may not have enough power for PS4 ports, but the handheld sku certainly won't. What happens with 3rd party games only the home console can run, like a port of DQ11? They don't boot on the handheld and a handheld only consumer will have to return the game to the store? Will devs be forced to make them compatible, basically making the game scale down all the way to Wii U levels or lower? Or maybe the home sku isn't up to PS4 and 3rd party support is limited to Nintendo's handheld 3rd party support?

 

[manueldelalas]

The whole reason why PS3 games had a ton data duplicated all across the disc, and new consoles force installs on all games, is because discs as a format is shit for gaming.

Seek times are a bitch. Even using faster drives doesn't solve the problem. Heck, the whole reason why SSDs shit all over HDDs is because of this, even with similar read/write speeds. So even if you used a super fast blu ray drive, the problem persist.

Also, there are a ton of costs when making retail games; and making only one SKU multiple systems (think handheld+console+future systems, same cart), vs making two or more, is a much more important cost cutting factor than a card vs Blu Ray, even if Blu rays cost 2 cents and a cart cost 2 dollars.

3DS and VITA have used carts all along, and those games are actually cheaper than disc games on consoles; so it's pretty obvious that the price of carts is not a huge factor.

16GB or 32 GB ROMs today are extremely cheap, and 64 GB and 128 GB are not that much more expensive.

The only thing holding back huge memory sizes is not the cost of media honestly, it's download times for digital users. Since this market is bigger every day, I don't think any developer will pass the 100 GB anytime soon, not on consoles at least (Star Citizen is the only one, I guess), and it will absolutely not be the norm in the next 5 years.

For reference, Uncharted 4 is 48 GB, and there aren't PS4 or XBoNE games that surpasses 64 GB; most current gen games (>90%) are smaller than 32GB in size.

Finally, no installs; a console that works like a console, no moving parts, no noise, etc.

I'm still skeptical. More so when it comes to them being single SKU, which raise some issues:


- Are handheld consumers going to have to pay $60 for the next Smash or will Nintendo get only $40 from console consumers? Or will games be $50 across the board?

- The home sku may or may not have enough power for PS4 ports, but the handheld sku certainly won't. What happens with 3rd party games only the home console can run, like a port of DQ11? They don't boot on the handheld and a handheld only consumer will have to return the game to the store? Will devs be forced to make them compatible, basically making the game scale down all the way to Wii U levels or lower? Or maybe the home sku isn't up to PS4 and 3rd party support is limited to Nintendo's handheld 3rd party support?

What will happen is that some games will be console only $60, with a huge label in the box, and others will be handheld and console.

Instead of getting late or no console port of Monster Hunter 5, you will be able to play it day 1 on console NX.

There are many ways to circumvent this; it's a non issue, really.

Also, remember that most games will be sold digital only; carts aren't a huge factor on NX, but it's great for collectors.

 

[Zombie James]

How do you know costs are going up for consumers?

ROM and flash are more expensive than optical. If consumers aren't going to pay, who will? Do you think Nintendo will absorb $3-5 (or however much it is over optical) for each of the tens of millions of games shipped each year? Will publishers absorb these costs?

 

[Ricky_R]

Space would definitely be an issue because of cost. The more ROM/flash, the more expensive it is.

Ahh good point. Wasn't thinking about price.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Yeah it's puzzling how people are talking about nostalgia when DS/3DS have used carts over 10 years now.

Carts seem like a good idea and we have got some really good arguments why it would be a smart move. Go for it Nintendo!

Because they're not home consoles, and the carts are tiny. When people envision a home console with carts, they're not thinking about the tiny ones used for the DS/3DS.

 

[Übermatik]

Anyone remember this? NINTENDO HOLOGRAPHIC STORAGE IS BACK.

 

[Okami Haundo]

No optical disc drive is the other big news here. Please bring back quiet consoles.

I'm hoping this news is true just for the idea of console size. The Wii-U managed to fit Xbox 360/PS3 level hardware into a box that was half the size. Imagine how small NX could be if they ditch the disc drive?!

 

[Refreshment.01]

you know what would be cool, they could release a cheap add-on for console nx that would allow you to plug dozen carts in and select them from menu like they were digital. not going to happen but hey, it's nice to think about it

you know what would be even cooler, they could relaunch nintendo power cart burning service. heck they could make it so you can download a game and burn a cart at home. not going to happen but hey, it's nice to think about it

you know what would be coolest tho, they could make regional lockout work by putting gps into cart. then we could defeat it with tinfoil arranged like th- *INTERRUPTED BY NINJAS*

i don't know if you got to read the post where i answered your question about gamce cards vs Hardware Security Module?

In that one i mentioned the what if scenario in which Nintendo made the Handheld the core of the NX platform.

Basically if the above happens, you will always have the cardtridge slot of the system in your hands. When you are sitting infront of the TV instead of standing up and approach the console to change games, you just put the card in the handheld. For example, i have a 3DS case that holds 30 games and its the same size as the standard size system.

 

[encephalon]

I have NES games made in the late 80s that still work fine with a bit of cleaning. I own PS1 games made in the year 2000, that have have succumb to disc rot.

Well that's terrifying.

 

[Dark Cloud]

ROM and flash are more expensive than optical. If consumers aren't going to pay, who will? Do you think Nintendo will absorb $3-5 (or however much it is over optical) for each of the tens of millions of games shipped each year? Will publishers absorb these costs?

I'm not in that business to pretend I know all the ins and out of business meetings like some people "think" they know.

Nintendo just had a huge flop in the Wii U. They're not about to raise prices of video games.

 

[M3d10n]

16GB or 32 GB ROMs today are extremely cheap, and 64 GB and 128 GB are not that much more expensive.

Can I see the receipts, please? I'm not even aware of consumer appliances that use such ROMs. Macronix's only other clients I know of are pachinko machine makers, who use 8GB ROMs or lower.

 

[deadlast]

so the NX will play DS, WiiU and NX games?

 

[R00bot]

I'm hoping this news is true just for the idea of console size. The Wii-U managed to fit Xbox 360/PS3 level hardware into a box that was half the size. Imagine how small NX could be if they ditch the disc drive?!

I remember seeing teardowns of the wii u where the drive was literally half the console. It's actually pretty insane they managed to make them so small and have no heating issues when other (much much larger) consoles have issues with heating.

I'd love for the NX to be like Apple TV size lol, but it's probably unlikely.

 

[manueldelalas]

ROM and flash are more expensive than optical. If consumers aren't going to pay, who will? Do you think Nintendo will absorb $3-5 (or however much it is over optical) for each of the tens of millions of games shipped each year? Will publishers absorb these costs?

There are many costs associated with retail games, cost of memory is one of the lowest; and this has been explained in detail many times.

 

[MacTag]

Space would definitely be an issue because of cost. The more ROM/flash, the more expensive it is.

It really comes down to manufacturing cost. Macronix is the testing phase for 32nm Xtra ROM with plans to move to full manufacturing in the latter half of the year. Currently Xtra ROM uses a 75nm node, and this is what 3DS games are so it might give us a rough idea of what to expect for NX in terms of storage increases.

all hail the TurboExpress! it plays the exact games as the TurboGrafx 16!

I loved HuCards. I wish Nintendo had bought Hudson and we got that formfactor back for NX!

You took the post out of context. Someone asked:' "what are the potential downsides for 3rd parties if the NX used a cartridge format?".

The things i listed are issues thid party developers in Japan have faced even in the DS and 3DS eras. Regulars of the Media Create threads have seen this happening at one stage or the other in terms of supplies and shipments of game units.

Believe me, i didn't made that post in a vaccum. im aware of what you wrote, the problems are not as pronounced as when the ROMs operated like the N64 days and it predecesors. i never claimed it was the case. But issues still exits.

However, given that Nintendo would be able to sustain the system by themselves more than ever before and that the 3rd parties that will surely suuport the system will be used to that anyway (most of them will be the ones that support the 3DS now) the problem mitigates.

DS and 3DS games have both definitely faced (and still face) supply shortfalls around the holidays in Japan when publishers have underestimated orders, but then so did PSP games. This is an issue but it's not really due to the nature of the media itself or it's manufacturing process, it's due to a limited supplier pool; basically it's just Macronix for Nintendo Game Cards and Sony for UMD.

 

[ZAMtendo]

It wouldn't be cartridges like the NES, SNES, & N64, but rather game cards like the DS & 3DS (since Macronix is supposedly the manufacturer for the NX cartridges, the same guys who did the DS & 3DS cartridges).

• Having a cartridge-based platform allows for the same physical copy to be used across the NX Console & NX Handheld, thus not forcing the platform as a whole to be digital-only to get the point of a shared library across (if that's the route Nintendo's going, which may end up being the case). This would also benefit Nintendo in the long-run because they only have to print one copy of a game rather than two, thus saving money overall.
• Using cartridges instead of discs also allows for Nintendo to avoid having to install game assets to the device's hard drive, which can help in saving space for the user. Nintendo has bypassed the need for installations for the most part with the Wii U (Xenoblade X aside), so Nintendo may want to continue this trend. Also by virtue of the faster transfer speeds, load times would be cut down by a considerable degree. Not to mention that you can put your save data on the cartridge itself.
• The use of cartridges for the NX Platform also cuts down on the number of moving parts, which would be a bigger benefit for the NX Console. Not only would said NX Console be able to last longer without breaking down, but Nintendo can cut costs down by not needing a disc drive. Said saved costs can be either diverted towards improving the NX Console (Ex: adding a better CPU, GPU, more RAM, etc.) or just lowering the price tag of the NX Console.

Also remember that cartridges were expensive 20 years ago. Now with the price of components they are affordable and no more loading times!

Also how is this rumour if it's from the official trademark system? Cartridges confirmed!

 

[MoogleWizard]

Imagine there's both an NX console and a handheld, with a shared library (mostly, there would probably be games that could not be done on the handheld unless the NX console is really underpowered) and synchronized saves. You play a game on the console, pull out the cartridge, put it in the handheld and keep playing at the same point where you stopped playing on the console. That would be awesome.

 

[mrklaw]

This isn't really true, card games are written post manufacturing just like disc games. It was true back in the 1990s when carts were literally small circuit boards being assembled but it's not the case with modern media. Now it's basically burning a disc vs flashing a rom.

Discs aren't burnt, they're pressed like vinyl - much quicker and cheaper than flashing roms

 

[M3d10n]

There are many costs associated with retail games, cost of memory is one of the lowest; and this has been explained in detail many times.

All I've seen were lots of numbers pulled out from asses organized in a beautiful fashion.

I worked on a DS game back in 2008 and ordering larger cartridges was not a cost you could simply shrug off.

 

[The_Lump]

I think the USP/Family appeal of NX is going to be size and simplicity. NX will be small, near silent and discreet imo, and the cartridge rumour fits with that very well.

I'm #teamreal.

 

[Oersted]

Brainless question:

Buy NX card, play it on NX mobile, go home, download a patch to play it with better graphics on NX home.

Sort of PS4- PS4 Neo. Possible?

 

[stan423321]

So when did ROM cartridge become cards? That I don't know precisely, but I do know the DS carts were already cards, and not ROM cartridges - you had to read their content into the CPU RAM, before you could do anything with that content. The immediate tradeoff from that was that small amounts of directly-mappable memory was substituted for large amounts of memory that had to be loaded chunk by chunk into the CPU address space.

By the definition of using indirect protocol, that was DS, GBA used memory-mapped cartridges (though competing systems mostly used cards already).

It's slightly different with practice of programming though. Jaguar and N64 had memory-mapped cartridges but they were so slow compared to the rest of the system you practically had to treat them mostly as regular media source to achieve acceptable performance with exception of some very specific scenarios. GBA was halfway there IIRC.

 

[Yasumi]

I'm still skeptical. More so when it comes to them being single SKU, which raise some issues:


- Are handheld consumers going to have to pay $60 for the next Smash or will Nintendo get only $40 from console consumers? Or will games be $50 across the board?

They'd probably be labeled as crossplay titles, a 2 for 1 deal. $60 is definitely possible.

 

[mrklaw]

Imagine there's both an NX console and a handheld, with a shared library (mostly, there would probably be games that could not be done on the handheld unless the NX console is really underpowered) and synchronized saves. You play a game on the console, pull out the cartridge, put it in the handheld and keep playing at the same point where you stopped playing on the console. That would be awesome.

I'll go one better. How about you just leave the cart in your handheld and it communicates with the home console via Bluetooth to authenticate that you have the physical cart, so you can play on your home console without having to swap carts

 

[andythinkpad]

My money is on the NX is a nV Sheild 2 with TV out. So obviously you can't use disc.

Just move the games to an app store.

 

[Refreshment.01]

I'm still skeptical. More so when it comes to them being single SKU, which raise some issues:


- Are handheld consumers going to have to pay $60 for the next Smash or will Nintendo get only $40 from console consumers? Or will games be $50 across the board?

- The home sku may or may not have enough power for PS4 ports, but the handheld sku certainly won't. What happens with 3rd party games only the home console can run, like a port of DQ11? They don't boot on the handheld and a handheld only consumer will have to return the game to the store? Will devs be forced to make them compatible, basically making the game scale down all the way to Wii U levels or lower? Or maybe the home sku isn't up to PS4 and 3rd party support is limited to Nintendo's handheld 3rd party support?

Have you read some of my posts?

One could assume that the way 3rd parties would approach the NX would be different than what they do in the Xbox and PS4 platforms. And work closer to how android or IOS development works.

 

[Skittzo0413]

ROM and flash are more expensive than optical. If consumers aren't going to pay, who will? Do you think Nintendo will absorb $3-5 (or however much it is over optical) for each of the tens of millions of games shipped each year? Will publishers absorb these costs?

Explain how 3DS cards are sold for ~40$ while Wii U discs are $60 then...

Clearly the cost of the media format itself doesn't play as big a role as people think. N64 cartridges were sometimes around ~10$ a piece to manufacture (I believe), 3DS carts being about 1$ or less is an enormous difference, coupled with savings in logistics and volume.

 

[shanafan]

I would absolutely love it if the NX used any kind of "cartridge" system. Will bring back the nostalgic days.

 

[Vertti]

Because they're not home consoles, and the carts are tiny. When people envision a home console with carts, they're not thinking about the tiny ones used for the DS/3DS.

Not my fault if people are clueless. Of course the case factor would be very similar/same than those DS/3DS carts. There's no reason why the should be any bigger.

 

[otakukidd]

Brainless question:

Buy NX card, play it on NX mobile, go home, download a patch to play it with better graphics on NX home.

Sort of PS4- PS4 Neo. Possible?

That's pretty much what people are thinking the shared library is going to be. Except the patch the console for better graphics. That should already be on the card and no patch needed, ideally.

 

[E-phonk]

I'm still skeptical. More so when it comes to them being single SKU, which raise some issues:


- Are handheld consumers going to have to pay $60 for the next Smash or will Nintendo get only $40 from console consumers? Or will games be $50 across the board?

Nintendo mentioned they were open to experimenting with game prices depending on their content - actually, they did this a few times in the EU market.
Splatoon and captain toad were a lot cheaper here.

 

[Zombie James]

Explain how 3DS cards are sold for ~40$ while Wii U discs are $60 then...

Clearly the cost of the media format itself doesn't play as big a role as people think. N64 cartridges were sometimes around ~10$ a piece to manufacture (I believe), 3DS carts being about 1$ or less is an enormous difference, coupled with savings in logistics and volume.

Don't 3DS carts top out at 8GB? Or is it 4GB? Console games can be several times larger.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Don't 3DS carts top out at 8GB? Or is it 4GB? Console games can be several times larger.

Sure but that's not the point- 8GB cards are still likely orders of magnitude more expensive than blu-ray discs or Wii U discs to manufacture, yet they are still able to sell for a good amount cheaper. Likely 85 cents - 1 dollar vs 5-10 cents for a BRD.

The point is, a ~1$ to manufacture card still has a MSRP $20 lower than a 10 cent to manufacture disc. Therefore it's fairly easy to conclude that the manufacturing cost of the medium is not a large factor in determining its MSRP.

 

[DNAbro]

I plan to go full digital so it doesn't really effect me.

 

[TreIII]

If it makes the consoles quieter and reduces load times too, while still giving game makers plenty of space?

I'd be joyous. It'd the very kind of thing I wanted to have happen for years.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Well if NX is one SKU playable across console or hand held, then obviously this makes sense.

 

[manueldelalas]

Can I see the receipts, please? I'm not even aware of consumer appliances that use such ROMs. Macronix's only other clients I know of are pachinko machine makers, who use 8GB ROMs or lower.

Obviously, I don't know the numbers, but I'll put this chart, ripped from the internet, this is a study of final consumer prices on computer memory. So, you see that by 2017, flash memory will cost to a final consumer (to you, buying from newegg or a store) about $1/10GB; imagine how much cheaper Nintendo can get flash memory that is read only. A non issue, really.

 

[ElFly]

Because they're not home consoles, and the carts are tiny. When people envision a home console with carts, they're not thinking about the tiny ones used for the DS/3DS.

If Nintendo uses carts for their home console, they are going to be tiny, not the huge mammoths of the 8bit days (which were already super big compared to their japanese brethren).

So, picture around 3DS size, maybe a little more, but maybe even a little less.

If they use carts, I'd put the possibility of the carts being 3x the volume of a 3DS cart to be around 5%, 2x around 10%, with lower chances the bigger the cart.

Someone in one of the previous threads about carts for the NX made a point that the logistics in shipping small carts and boxes would save a ton of money compared to shipping discs. Not enough to make up for the manufacturing cost difference between a bluray and a cart, mind you, but enough to make it reasonable.

Then again, there's nothing to put in a cart nowadays. SNES carts had chips and a bunch of circuits, 3DS carts are just flash memory, and that is just super tiny. There's no savings from using huge (as in physical size) flash carts anyway; the flash memory has always been thumbsized.

 

[Anteo]

If both console and handheld use cartridges, I bet there will be some universal cartridges and some that only fit on one of the two, kind of like the 3ds cartidges that are made so they cant fit on a regular DS

 

[E-phonk]

Someone in one of the previous threads about carts for the NX made a point that the logistics in shipping small carts and boxes would save a ton of money compared to shipping discs. Not enough to make up for the manufacturing cost difference between a bluray and a cart, mind you, but enough to make it reasonable.

I put up a link on the last page, it was here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=192728798#post192728798

 

[Jawbreaker]

If Nintendo uses carts for their home console, they are going to be tiny, not the huge mammoths of the 8bit days (which were already super big compared to their japanese brethren).

So, picture around 3DS size, maybe a little more, but maybe even a little less.

If they use carts, I'd put the possibility of the carts being 2x the volume of a 3DS cart to be around 10%, with lower chances the bigger the cart.

Someone in one of the previous threads about carts for the NX made a point that the logistics in shipping small carts and boxes would save a ton of money compared to shipping discs. Not enough to make up for the manufacturing cost difference between a bluray and a cart, mind you, but enough to make it reasonable.

Then again, there's nothing to put in a cart nowadays. SNES carts had chips and a bunch of circuits, 3DS carts are just flash memory, and that is just super tiny. There's no savings from using huge (as in physical size) flash carts anyway; the flash memory has always been thumbsized.

Indeed. I think people need to adjust their expectations. I can already see the disappointment when it turns out they're really small.

 

[M3d10n]

Oh, I just found out I still have the doc with Nintendo's prices for DS games. Here's some tidbits:

- Prices include game card, case and everything that goes in it (manual, etc).
- Bulk cards without the case cost $0.90 less.
- 64 mbit sku costs $6.00 (smallest one)
- 1 gbit sku costs $8.50 (largest one back then, the 2 gbit Ni No Kuni card wasn't available yet)

I don't know how the pricing situation is with 3DS games, however.

 

[Okami Haundo]

I remember seeing teardowns of the wii u where the drive was literally half the console. It's actually pretty insane they managed to make them so small and have no heating issues when other (much much larger) consoles have issues with heating.

I'd love for the NX to be like Apple TV size lol, but it's probably unlikely.

Right? It's absolute wizardry! I would be happy with another console that was the size of the Wii-U honestly. If they forgo the disc drive and stick to a small amount of flash memory on the console, they could easily do so. Just give me external HDD support again and maybe throw in some cloud saves and I'll be happy.

 

[MacTag]

Discs aren't burnt, they're pressed like vinyl - much quicker and cheaper than flashing roms

I was just using a consumer comparison, not referring to the actual manufacturing processes. I don't believe 3DS games are flashed either during the writing process since they're not EEPROMs.

 

[JayWood2010]

If it means it will have a mobile device, then ill be happy about it.

 

[shark sandwich]

Obviously, I don't know the numbers, but I'll put this chart, ripped from the internet, this is a study of final consumer prices on computer memory. So, you see that by 2017, flash memory will cost to a final consumer (to you, buying from newegg or a store) about $1/10GB; imagine how much cheaper Nintendo can get flash memory that is read only. A non issue, really.

That is amazingly impressive. Cost/GB for flash memory has dropped by a factor of 100 since DS launched.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Come Hybrid deniers! Crash against me and be broken.

 

[stan423321]

Don't 3DS carts top out at 8GB? Or is it 4GB? Console games can be several times larger.

A part of the reason for that is that they're for 3DS. Higher capacity carts are definitely possible (though the price is debatable), it's just that there's not much of a need for them.

Another part of the reason for that is the way software development works. With some minor exceptions (hello WiiWare), it's not like devs make a game, see it's too big, and then don't release it. The reality is that since dual layer Blu-rays are 50 GB they are going to spend time cleaning up the filesystem and inventing compression formats if the game is 51 GiB, but they probably won't give a damn if it's 40 GiB and there's a wall of known bugs. And if a manager allows 3DS game to get 64 GiB at a major publisher they will probably be fired. The situation was slightly skewed in Gen 7 since 360 had DVDs while PS3 had BDs, but the pattern was obvious.

Oh, I just found out I still have the doc with Nintendo's prices for DS games. Here's some tidbits:

- Prices include game card, case and everything that goes in it (manual, etc).
- Bulk cards without the case cost $0.90 less.
- 64 mbit sku costs $6.00 (smallest one)
- 1 gbit sku costs $8.50 (largest one back then, the 2 gbit Ni No Kuni card wasn't available yet)

I don't know how the pricing situation is with 3DS games, however.

Does anyone, by chance, have similar docs for Wii? This sounds like it includes license fee with that small of a difference between 8 and 128 MiB.

 

[IceDoesntHelp]

If it happens itll be 3ds like cartridges, and will probably be cross compatable with the new handheld.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Come Hybrid deniers! Crash against me and be broken.

The problem here is what you call a hybrid?

Nintendo could have 2 form factors the share the same media after all.