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Emily Rogers: NX Not Using x86 Architecture - Won't Blow Away Current Gen Consoles

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D

Diffense

Member
Given Nintendo's history I expect them to try to hit comparable performance targets at lower cost than their competitors. They'll likely try to maximise the performance of the components they do chose (CPU and GPU) by tweaking the memory and bus architecture to complement the main chip. I don't think this as a bad approach; it's engineering within price and other constraints. I always had the thought that NX would be marginally more powerful than what's already out.

The technological arms race is kind of impossible right now with MS and Sony willing to refresh mid-gen. The crown of "most powerful" will be quite elusive. Perhaps Nintendo has a reply in the SCD stuff. It would be quite clever if a relatively powerful handheld could play games on the go and also function and a physically connected (or local wireless) SCD which boosts the console's capabilities.
 
K

KingBroly

Banned
Diffense said:
Given Nintendo's history I expect them to try to hit comparable performance targets at lower cost than their competitors. They'll likely try to maximise the performance of the components they do chose (CPU and GPU) by tweaking the memory and bus architecture to complement the main chip. I don't think this as a bad approach; it's engineering within price and other constraints. I always had the thought that NX would be marginally more powerful than what's already out.

The technological arms race is kind of impossible right now with MS and Sony willing to refresh mid-gen. The crown of "most powerful" will be quite elusive. Perhaps Nintendo has a reply in the SCD stuff. It would be quite clever if a relatively powerful handheld could play games on the go and also function and a physically connected (or local wireless) SCD which boosts the console's capabilities.
Click to expand...

The crown of "most powerful" belongs to PC. And until there's some massive GPU or CPU leap like the 360's GPU was, it will stay with PC.

If I were Nintendo, I'd shoot for $250, because neither MS or Sony can hit that price point this year without taking a loss.
 
D

Doctre81

Member
Plinko said:
Devs were saying this before the Wii U devkits came in with reduced power compared to specs initially given to devs (as confirmed by devs on here). Once devkits came out, Arkam was quite clear it wasn't good.
Click to expand...

I thought there was an increase in clock speed for both the cpu and gpu though?
 
L

Luigiv

Member
MuchoMalo said:
If we believe Emily, we don't believe that part of the report. That description can't match a Tegra at all. And if it's one chip, it would most likely make the console half as powerful ans Xbone in the best case.
Click to expand...

That's not necessarily true. The chip will have to be customised to meet Nintendo's needs and customised can potentially mean scaled up. It really depends on how flexible the Tergra SoC platform actually is.

Take the PS4 and Xbone for example. Both system's have are based on AMD's APU platform yet are packing in way more silicon; with more CPU cores, beefier GPU components and bespoke eSRAM; than any of AMD's other APUs that were available at the time.

If Nvidia's tegra platform is as flexible, we could see a custom design doing the same thing, taking the base SoC architecture but slotting in more powerful components in the middle.

Of course, not saying that they will but it's not impossible.
 
M

MuchoMalo

Banned
Luigiv said:
That's not necessarily true. The chip will have to be customised to meet Nintendo's needs and customised can potentially mean scaled up. It really depends on how flexible the Tergra SoC platform actually is.

Take the PS4 and Xbone for example. Both system's have are based on AMD's APU platform yet are packing in way more silicon; with more CPU cores, beefier GPU components and bespoke eSRAM; than any of AMD's other APUs that were available at the time.

If Nvidia's tegra platform is as flexible, we could see a custom design doing the same thing, taking the base SoC architecture but slotting in more powerful components in the middle.

Of course, not saying that they will but it's not impossible.
Click to expand...

It could, but it techinically wouldn't be Tegra in that case. :p

On another note, if this thing doesn't support Nvidia GameStream, both Nintendo and Nvidia will have dropped the ball since it would increase hardware sales for both companies.
 
D

domlolz

Banned
a nintendo console thats as powerful as a ps4 or xbox one sounds good to me. look at the amazing stuff nintendo was able to pull off on the wii u.
 
S

Soroc

Member
KingBroly said:
The crown of "most powerful" belongs to PC. And until there's some massive GPU or CPU leap like the 360's GPU was, it will stay with PC.

If I were Nintendo, I'd shoot for $250, because neither MS or Sony can hit that price point this year without taking a loss.
Click to expand...

Well Nintendo isn't hitting that price point this year either since the system isn't coming out in 2016...
 
Schnozberry

Schnozberry

Member
Very disappointing to read LCGeek's post a few pages back that the SDK isn't well documented yet. Nintendo must been further behind on NX than we suspected. March 2017 might be a much bolder date than we know.
 
S

Soroc

Member
KingBroly said:
I was clearly talking about the fiscal year...

how dare you take advantage of my sleepiness
Click to expand...

Too easy! :)

But honestly what makes you think the PS4 couldn't hit that number by next spring? PS Neo I would imagine is going to be the new 400 when it launches, if it does in fact get out by holiday this year, you might see aggressive pricing strategies on current PS4's. If not 249 I could see them hitting 279, definitely 299 before then.
 
D

Deleted member 465307

Unconfirmed Member
MuchoMalo said:
No, that one was just an observation. She quickly tries to downplay power and hasn't said a thing about third-party support. It's pretty obvious where she stands.
Click to expand...

Uhh, she does talk about 3rd party support. I'm scrolling through her Twitter right now. Taking a quick look, I can see that she tweeted about EA and Nintendo, the questions she thinks third parties ask themselves when thinking about putting something on Nintendo hardware, and that she thinks Wii U deserved its sales in part because of its "abysmal" 3rd party support. That last statement alone should tell you she cares about 3rd party support and sees it as important. I believe that in the past (this is from memory, so I may be wrong) she emphasized that Nintendo needs to expand its sports lineup and that not having EA was a problem.

I get the feeling—this is a guess—she mostly tweets about Nintendo because that's where her sources are. She once tweeted, when talking about NX software, "And I'm referring to their first party NX software lineup. I don't know too much about their third party plans aside from a few publishers."
 
S

ShadowFox08

Member
If the NX is as powerful as the or marginally more powerful than xbox one, as long as they has an SCD coming out in the near future(like within a year or two of release) that rivals their competitors mid gen console upgrades in power, I'll be happy.

For sure every 1st party nintendo game on the NX is gonna be beautiful as hell. But
Main reason why I want the NX to be as close as the PS4 as possible, is 3rd party multiplatform support, and its vital for a good install base. For the past two generations, it's been pretty laughable with the Wii and Wii U and I do think their hardware (inferior and/or harder to code for) played in part for lack of 3rd party support. The Wii was incredibly outclassed in power over ps3 and 3. While the Wii U does have a stronger GPU and more RAM, it was incredibly embarrassing to hear about its inferior CPU and how hard it was to optimize it, and how many multiplatform ports had the Wii U being inferior to the 360 in framerate stability and less objects and particles on screen because of its cpu. That's embarrassing.
 
K

KingBroly

Banned
Soroc said:
Too easy! :)

But honestly what makes you think the PS4 couldn't hit that number by next spring? PS Neo I would imagine is going to be the new 400 when it launches, if it does in fact get out by holiday this year, you might see aggressive pricing strategies on current PS4's. If not 249 I could see them hitting 279, definitely 299 before then.
Click to expand...

Sony would only try to hit that price if they were discontinuing lower-end PS4 models, which I wouldn't be surprised if they did. However, it really depends on how much PS4K initially costs.
 
L

lwilliams3

Member
Plinko said:
Devs were saying this before the Wii U devkits came in with reduced power compared to specs initially given to devs (as confirmed by devs on here). Once devkits came out, Arkam was quite clear it wasn't good.
Click to expand...

To be precise, the initial documention stated that the CPU would be similar to 360's Xenon, but faster. By the time of the first dev-kit, the CPU was nothing like that. From what I recall, everything else was basically true to the document. When the document stated that the GPU was based on the R700 series, though, people did research and expected a certain power level from the hardware. That ended up disappointing alot of people. It should be noted that Wii U's specs did get buffed by the time it got to the final dev kit came out, though.

From what we are hearing, it seems that we are getting information based off dev-kits instead of just documentation sheets, which is a good thing. The final NX hardware will probably be stronger than what we are hearing.
 
Astral Dog

Astral Dog

Member
ShadowFox08 said:
If the NX is as powerful as the or marginally more powerful than xbox one, as long as they has an SCD coming out in the near future(like within a year or two of release) that rivals their competitors mid gen console upgrades in power, I'll be happy.

For sure every 1st party nintendo game on the NX is gonna be beautiful as hell. But
Main reason why I want the NX to be as close as the PS4 as possible, is 3rd party multiplatform support, and its vital for a good install base. For the past two generations, it's been pretty laughable with the Wii and Wii U and I do think their hardware (inferior and/or harder to code for) played in part for lack of 3rd party support. The Wii was incredibly outclassed in power over ps3 and 3. While the Wii U does have a stronger GPU and more RAM, it was incredibly embarrassing to hear about its inferior CPU and how hard it was to optimize it, and how many multiplatform ports had the Wii U being inferior to the 360 in framerate stability and less objects and particles on screen because of its cpu. That's embarrassing.
Click to expand...
Wii had plenty of third party support, the kind Nintendo would kill for getting nowdays.
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
I mean, to get a better idea on where Emily stands it might be good to make a twitter because she has a lot of opinions, criticisms, speculations and some rumors.

Also any talk of her being a bad writer is ridiculous when this site exists.

https://dromble.wordpress.com/

https://dromble.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/shigeru-miyamotos-appreciation-for-film/

She's done more digging, information finding, discussion, criticisms than any major game media outlet who have sources at Nintendo. And most sites don't offer very good discussion about the company either or offer good criticism without saying something along the lines of being bought by Disney, going 3rd party, or other same old same old rhetoric.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
ShadowFox08 said:
If the NX is as powerful as the or marginally more powerful than xbox one, as long as they has an SCD coming out in the near future(like within a year or two of release) that rivals their competitors mid gen console upgrades in power, I'll be happy.
Click to expand...

Never going to happen. Seriously within a year or two of release? Then what is the point of having the original release?

They dont care about third parties and third parties largely don't care about them, nor have they cared about what they bring to the table for a long time. The issue is not going to be solved by chasing competitors components
 
P

pooh

Member
NateDrake said:
What questions remain? I thought I clarified all the questions most had.
Click to expand...

My biggest question for her would be: What form factor is she talking about in her last post? Handheld rumors are circling around a Tegra SoC, which would match with what she's been saying. However, there are also rumors that the home console is a Polaris-based AMD ARM SoC. However, the way it's been described by her, it's like the home console either doesn't exist at all, or is the same chip set as the handheld.
 
M

Malus

Member
James Scott said:
Being able to run AAA multiplatform games from the PS4/X1 should mean good, yeah.
Click to expand...

If it came out around the same time as those machines, then I'd agree. Releasing said machine in 2017 is just "less bad" than the Wii U situation. Hopefully they can make up for it somewhat with the price point.
 
L

luffeN

Member
When she says closer to x1 than ps4 I understand it like this: x1 << nx <<<< ps4. In the middle would be x1 <<< nx <<< ps4 for example. Thinking about it, you could also try it like this: nx << x1 <<<< ps4. nx is closer to x1 than to ps4, but then you can just say is weaker than x1 or whatever.
 
M

Madao

Member
luffeN said:
When she says closer to x1 than ps4 I understand it like this: x1 << nx <<<< ps4. In the middle would be x1 <<< nx <<< ps4 for example. Thinking about it, you could also try it like this: nx << x1 <<<< ps4. nx is closer to x1 than to ps4, but then you can just say is weaker than x1 or whatever.
Click to expand...

Wii U also fits that last scenario.
 
H

Hermii

Member
luffeN said:
When she says closer to x1 than ps4 I understand it like this: x1 << nx <<<< ps4. In the middle would be x1 <<< nx <<< ps4 for example. Thinking about it, you could also try it like this: nx << x1 <<<< ps4. nx is closer to x1 than to ps4, but then you can just say is weaker than x1 or whatever.
Click to expand...

I interpret it as being a completely different setup so its hard to compare directly. It might have better cpu, faster / slower memory, less flops with better efficiency or something like that. Or less flops but no memory bottleneck.

I read it as not being superior in every area, but being in the same ballpark. That way its stretching it saying saying its an xbox one, but developers might be able to achieve similar, slightly inferior, slightly superior results depending on the game.Kind of like a Wii U to a 360.
 
cireza

cireza

Banned
Honestly the latest statement is likely to be true (from OP).

Nintendo not using the same architecture as Sony/MS, and console being around the same power as X1.

I would personally bet on this, seeing what Nintendo has been doing in the past, rather than something like "X86 architecture + same power as PS4 Neo" lol. You can be sure NIntendo will never do this.

1) They always do their own thing.
2) They want to keep production cost as low as possible (profit from day 1).
3.1) They won't target raw power that is way beyond what they need to do their thing (= their own games).
3.2) Because this would mean that Third Parties could potentially make much more impressive games than Nintendo on their console, and Nintendo does not want this.
3.3) Nintendo has been struggling in house to release big ambitious HD games, Wii U's output is here as a testimony of this situation.
4) They will want to re-use Wii U knowledge and technology as much as possible, to optimize the costs they had to build Wii U.
5) They will have to rely on Third Parties to fill the gaps in exclusive games for the console, just like for Wii U.

In my opinion, their next console will largely be based on the Wii U, simply more powerful. And they will probably find a new idea to replace the gamepad.

After all, they did transform the Gamecube into the Wii, and turned it into a success.
 
D

Deleted member 465307

Unconfirmed Member
cireza said:
Honestly the latest statement is likely to be true (from OP).

Nintendo not using the same architecture as Sony/MS, and console being around the same power as X1.

I would personally bet on this, seeing what Nintendo has been doing in the past, rather than something like "X86 architecture + same power as PS4 Neo" lol. You can be sure NIntendo will never do this.

1) They always do their own thing.
2) They want to keep production cost as low as possible (profit from day 1).
3.1) They won't target raw power that is way beyond what they need to do their thing (= their own games).
3.2) Because this would mean that Third Parties could potentially make much more impressive games than Nintendo on their console, and Nintendo does not want this.
3.3) Nintendo has been struggling in house to release big ambitious HD games, Wii U's output is here as a testimony of this situation.
4) They will want to re-use Wii U knowledge and technology as much as possible, to optimize the costs they had to build Wii U.
5) They will have to rely on Third Parties to fill the gaps in exclusive games for the console, just like for Wii U.

In my opinion, their next console will largely be based on the Wii U, simply more powerful. And they will probably find a new idea to replace the gamepad.

After all, they did transform the Gamecube into the Wii, and turned it into a success.
Click to expand...

Given the architecture of the Wii U and all the rumors coming out about NX's architecture, this likely won't be another GCN -> Wii. However, it was said at some point that a goal with new hardware is to "absorb" Wii U, which then puzzles me and sounds exactly like what you're proposing. I have no idea how they will achieve that while redesigning the internals that rumors (including Emily Rogers's) are pointing to. I believe this quote is from January 2014, so it's entirely possible that their goals have since changed. If the Nvidia rumors are true and apply to the entire NX line, then I think that must have been what happened. It's a long quote, but I think it's one people refer to a lot for the NX's philosophy, so I'll reproduce it in full.

For example, currently it requires a huge amount of effort to port Wii software to Nintendo 3DS because not only their resolutions but also the methods of software development are entirely different. The same thing happens when we try to port Nintendo 3DS software to Wii U. If the transition of software from platform to platform can be made simpler, this will help solve the problem of game shortages in the launch periods of new platforms. Also, as technological advances took place at such a dramatic rate, and we were forced to choose the best technologies for video games under cost restrictions, each time we developed a new platform, we always ended up developing a system that was completely different from its predecessor. The only exception was when we went from Nintendo GameCube to Wii. Though the controller changed completely, the actual computer and graphics chips were developed very smoothly as they were very similar to those of Nintendo GameCube, but all the other systems required ground-up effort. However, I think that we no longer need this kind of effort under the current circumstances. In this perspective, while we are only going to be able to start this with the next system, it will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture. It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately. When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brothers in a family of systems.
Click to expand...

[source]

Interpreting that today, it sounds to me like NX will truly begin this iterative and shared architecture approach, but perhaps the Wii U's lessons will somehow be applicable to the NX? Like I said, assuming the new rumors have some small bit of truth to them, it feels like Wii U part was dropped entirely.
 
cireza

cireza

Banned
kirbyfan407 said:
Given the architecture of the Wii U and all the rumors coming out about NX's architecture, this likely won't be another GCN -> Wii. However, it was said at some point that a goal with new hardware is to "absorb" Wii U, which then puzzles me and sounds exactly like what you're proposing. I have no idea how they will achieve that while redesigning the internals that rumors (including Emily Rogers's) are pointing to. I believe this quote is from January 2014, so it's entirely possible that their goals have since changed. If the Nvidia rumors are true and apply to the entire NX line, then I think that must have been what happened. It's a long quote, but I think it's one people refer to a lot for the NX's philosophy, so I'll reproduce it in full.



[source]
Click to expand...
Yes, this is exactly what I remembered. When we think about Nintendo, we must always keep in mind that they are not "that" big of a company, and they want to make the best choices to have a profitable activity.
 
Iced Arcade

Iced Arcade

Member
If it's on par with the Xbox One/PS4, decent online structure, easy to develope for, priced decently and has somewhat of a traditional controller. I'm all in.
 
N

Ninja Dom

Member
New to the discussion. It makes sense that the NX wouldn't use x86 architecture if Nintendo are trying to scale the hardware into a handheld device. Handheld devices are all about ARM architecture.
 
M

Mr. Pointy

Member
Well let's sort this out then.

Say the NX console has a 1TF Nvidia Maxwell GPU, and I'm just using processing power here because that the easiest metric to grasp. How does that compare to the AMD Southern Islands GPUs in the Bone/PS4?

Where would a 1TF Pascal GPU fit in the scale of things?
 
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