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Speculation based on trademark minutia: Nintendo NX to use cartridges

Hm, really, though? The number of Japanese third parties that supported the DS has shrunk significantly with the 3DS. A lot of that is because there's just fewer Japanese third parties now. Konami's out of the game, Square-Enix mostly moved to mobile (and basically gave all their western publishing responsibilities to Nintendo), Sega fell out of experimental quirky ideas and just kind of coughed up some phlegm on the 3DS, etc.

Really, the third party heroes of the 3DS are Atlus, Capcom, and Namco and, should graphics improve to the point where making games on a new system is any more difficult or expensive than it currently is, that might not keep going.

The 3DS is much more of a Nintendo system than people seem to think.
If the hardware's up to it and sells well enough, at least Koei-Tecmo stuff and Ubisoft's smaller projects seem to be likely candidates.

NX needs to be a smashing success. It's my only hope for portable Souls.
 
Well, because you probably won't see Halo or Dead Rising 3 on NX. DR3 is around 30GB total on Steam with 3GB of dlc, why is a 16GB patch really even necessary?

Nintendo is going to have their own games on the hardware, along with whatever third parties that jump on board. Patching isn't some magic process that replaces exact bits between files. It's a blanket change that, depending on the amount of change, may replace large chunks of game data. A patch is usually little more than the corrected files, waiting to overwrite the old content.
 

YAWN

Ask me which Shakespeare novel is best
If they look like the ones from way back when, I think its a great stylistic approach. It sets them apart from Sony and Microsoft, and banks on the nostalgia factor. Not to mention anything even remotely retro is is viewed as cool these days.
 

MacTag

Banned
Hm, really, though? The number of Japanese third parties that supported the DS has shrunk significantly with the 3DS. A lot of that is because there's just fewer Japanese third parties now. Konami's out of the game, Square-Enix mostly moved to mobile (and basically gave all their western publishing responsibilities to Nintendo), Sega fell out of experimental quirky ideas and just kind of coughed up some phlegm on the 3DS, etc.

Really, the third party heroes of the 3DS are Atlus, Capcom, and Namco and, should graphics improve to the point where making games on a new system is any more difficult or expensive than it currently is, that might not keep going.

The 3DS is much more of a Nintendo system than people seem to think.
I'd throw Square Enix on the heroes side even if they're pretty awful at actually doing anything outside Japan. Sega and Konami are practically dead but then they are in general these days outside mobile, both are pretty pathetic on consoles and Vita too. And both Level 5 and Marvelous have also been pretty strongly behind 3DS.

Koei Tecmo has probably been one of the weakest on 3DS among the large-ish Japanese publishers, but weirdly they're also the only one who's confirmed they're making NX games so far.
 

Haunted

Member
GCCXfeat-750x400.jpg



wait what
 

Instro

Member
Hm, really, though? The number of Japanese third parties that supported the DS has shrunk significantly with the 3DS. A lot of that is because there's just fewer Japanese third parties now. Konami's out of the game, Square-Enix mostly moved to mobile (and basically gave all their western publishing responsibilities to Nintendo), Sega fell out of experimental quirky ideas and just kind of coughed up some phlegm on the 3DS, etc.

Really, the third party heroes of the 3DS are Atlus, Capcom, and Namco and, should graphics improve to the point where making games on a new system is any more difficult or expensive than it currently is, that might not keep going.

The 3DS is much more of a Nintendo system than people seem to think.
Pretty much, although I wonder how Steam success for all of these Japanese devs will impact their interest in making low/mid budget handheld titles.
 

Spladam

Member
Well, I don't want any rinky-dink thin SD card type thing, I want a big fat hard plastic cartridge that I can jam into the machine and slap down on for good measure, just like the old days....

That sounded way more pervy then it did in my head.
 
I'd throw Square Enix on the heroes side even if they're pretty awful at actually doing anything outside Japan. Sega and Konami are practically dead but then they are in general these days outside mobile, both are pretty pathetic on consoles and Vita too. And both Level 5 and Marvelous have also been pretty strongly behind 3DS.

Koei Tecmo has probably been one of the weakest on 3DS among the large-ish Japanese publishers, but weirdly they're also the only one who's confirmed they're making NX games so far.

I forgot about Level 5, which is a big thing to forget, because they do make a lot of money. I just hate their games.

Square-Enix is...weird this generation. They clearly got behind the 3DS in a big way with Dragon Quest, but that's sort of par for the course with the system having the biggest install base in Japan. Bravely Default was something that took off unexpectedly and then they immediately cratered by changing all the important staff and seemingly cutting an already minuscule budget. I am not even going to speculate on FF Explorers because I don't have any idea what they were thinking.
 

10k

Banned
I don't expect cartridges or a shared library. Just the Nintendo equivalents of UWP and Xbox Play Anywhere for Nintendo published games and not having to port from scratch for the handheld and console.

Unified toolset and API, etc.
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
I don't expect cartridges or a shared library. Just the Nintendo equivalents of UWP and Xbox Play Anywhere for Nintendo published games and not having to port from scratch for the handheld and console.

Unified toolset and API, etc.
But you have to admit, this is some pretty major evidence pointing towards cartridges.
 
I don't expect cartridges or a shared library. Just the Nintendo equivalents of UWP and Xbox Play Anywhere for Nintendo published games and not having to port from scratch for the handheld and console.

Unified toolset and API, etc.

I think cartridges could be a very cool and efficient way to implement Nintendo's version of "Xbox Play Anywhere". If NX ends up being both a console and handheld, sharing the same media would allow cross-buy for physical customers.
 
Hm, really, though? The number of Japanese third parties that supported the DS has shrunk significantly with the 3DS. A lot of that is because there's just fewer Japanese third parties now. Konami's out of the game, Square-Enix mostly moved to mobile (and basically gave all their western publishing responsibilities to Nintendo), Sega fell out of experimental quirky ideas and just kind of coughed up some phlegm on the 3DS, etc.

Really, the third party heroes of the 3DS are Atlus, Capcom, and Namco and, should graphics improve to the point where making games on a new system is any more difficult or expensive than it currently is, that might not keep going.

The 3DS is much more of a Nintendo system than people seem to think.
If Nintendo produces a handheld that can easily be added to their current development pipeline, absolutely. Having a more powerful handheld might put a damper on exclusives, but you can bet that every "PS4/PS3/Vita" release that we see, will now include an NX sku. The only reason we don't see the 3DS included in those multi platform releases, is the huge power gap. Not market viability.

As for the low to mid Japanese development studios, I'd suggest looking at the Japanese eShop. The amount of content from publishers like that is absolutely staggering.
 

10k

Banned
But you have to admit, this is some pretty major evidence pointing towards cartridges.
Not really. It would be cool to use cartridges but I just can't imagine Nintendo using them if they aren't doing a 1:1 shared library. If it's just for faster loading times they would be better off using discs and forcing game installs and putting removable SSD's in all their NX SKU's.
 

tronic307

Member
I love the idea but the one thing I'm afraid of is Nintendo having a max cart size of 16 GB instead of 32 GB.

3DS and Vita both use max 4 GB so 16 GB is a good step up but allowing 32 GB allows for larger assets to be used. It would also be helpful for 3rd party games.

The only two Nintendo published titles that I remember crossing 20 GB are Lego City Undercover and Xenoblade Chronicles X. I could definitely see the new Zelda being under 16 GB with the limited voice work and not have the large number on NPC's and different monsters a game like Xenoblade X would have.
32GB ought to cover it, maybe 64GB if need be. Remember when we talk about 3DS cards at 4GB, we're talking 2011 tech, and games like SM3DW would have room to spare on that. Macronix has to have since advanced their tech substantially over their ROM solution for the 3DS. FinFET, etc.
 
The big problem with cartridges is that Nintendo solely controls the production of them and Nintendo is not a great producer to deal with. This is also true of Wii U discs, but...there aren't that many Wii U discs, so

There was a third party about ten years ago that talked openly about this; I want to say it was Nippon Ichi, but I can't recall. They basically outlined the problems with Nintendo controlling cart production and why it was bad for third parties. Essentially the problem is Nintendo has a queue. You apply to get in that queue, you get your game printed, and as far as Nintendo is concerned, both sides of the arrangement have been fulfilled.

But what if you massively undershipped your game? What if your game took off like a rocket and you need to print more copies immediately? Then get back in the queue, fucker! You can try and expedite the process, but even that is slow, and Nintendo is slower to listen.

Digital Distribution is making this easier, but Nintendo is making Digital Distribution harder, so third parties still don't benefit in any way from Nintendo going with carts.
 

MacTag

Banned
The big problem with cartridges is that Nintendo solely controls the production of them and Nintendo is not a great producer to deal with. This is also true of Wii U discs, but...there aren't that many Wii U discs, so

There was a third party about ten years ago that talked openly about this; I want to say it was Nippon Ichi, but I can't recall. They basically outlined the problems with Nintendo controlling cart production and why it was bad for third parties. Essentially the problem is Nintendo has a queue. You apply to get in that queue, you get your game printed, and as far as Nintendo is concerned, both sides of the arrangement have been fulfilled.

But what if you massively undershipped your game? What if your game took off like a rocket and you need to print more copies immediately? Then get back in the queue, fucker! You can try and expedite the process, but even that is slow, and Nintendo is slower to listen.

Digital Distribution is making this easier, but Nintendo is making Digital Distribution harder, so third parties still don't benefit in any way from Nintendo going with carts.
This is a supplier issue but it's not unique to Nintendo. PSP and Vita were the same way due to their custom formats that Sony manufactured inhouse, that's why MHP3rd was continually undersupplied for months because Capcom greatly undershot demand with their initial orders. It also impacts 1st party games like with Animal Crossing 3DS, the problem is really limited resources. With digital it's less of a pitfall now though and even at retail you also sell download cards if supply can't meet demand.
 

TunaLover

Member
If they use the same media for both obviously the manufacturing cost go down.

Still, this is Nintendo what are you talking about, they have never been too worried about media size, most of their in-house games don't even fill the whole disc, but it would be a problem for third parties, they love big sized media. And yeah I know there's a big sized SD cards, but what if Nintendo opts sacrificing a HD intro video in favour of a lower cost cart?
 

Neoxon

Junior Member
The big problem with cartridges is that Nintendo solely controls the production of them and Nintendo is not a great producer to deal with. This is also true of Wii U discs, but...there aren't that many Wii U discs, so

There was a third party about ten years ago that talked openly about this; I want to say it was Nippon Ichi, but I can't recall. They basically outlined the problems with Nintendo controlling cart production and why it was bad for third parties. Essentially the problem is Nintendo has a queue. You apply to get in that queue, you get your game printed, and as far as Nintendo is concerned, both sides of the arrangement have been fulfilled.

But what if you massively undershipped your game? What if your game took off like a rocket and you need to print more copies immediately? Then get back in the queue, fucker! You can try and expedite the process, but even that is slow, and Nintendo is slower to listen.

Digital Distribution is making this easier, but Nintendo is making Digital Distribution harder, so third parties still don't benefit in any way from Nintendo going with carts.
But either way you slice it, Nintendo's media format will likely be proprietary. There's a reason why they typically avoid using industry standard formats, namely to avoid the licensing fees associated with said formats.
 

Pokemaniac

Member
The big problem with cartridges is that Nintendo solely controls the production of them and Nintendo is not a great producer to deal with. This is also true of Wii U discs, but...there aren't that many Wii U discs, so

There was a third party about ten years ago that talked openly about this; I want to say it was Nippon Ichi, but I can't recall. They basically outlined the problems with Nintendo controlling cart production and why it was bad for third parties. Essentially the problem is Nintendo has a queue. You apply to get in that queue, you get your game printed, and as far as Nintendo is concerned, both sides of the arrangement have been fulfilled.

But what if you massively undershipped your game? What if your game took off like a rocket and you need to print more copies immediately? Then get back in the queue, fucker! You can try and expedite the process, but even that is slow, and Nintendo is slower to listen.

Digital Distribution is making this easier, but Nintendo is making Digital Distribution harder, so third parties still don't benefit in any way from Nintendo going with carts.

While you do have a point, as you kind of alluded to, Nintendo's approach to optical media means that there really wouldn't be much of a difference to third parties if they opted for discs.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
Will having games exclusive to either handheld or console while other games made for both systems confuse customers a lot? Even if there is a big sticker that reads "NX console only!"
 

MacTag

Banned
Will having games exclusive to either handheld or console while other games made for both systems confuse customers a lot? Even if there is a big sticker that reads "NX console only!"
If the systems are different enough spec I could see console only games being a thing for some publishers. I'd expect all handheld games to run on the console though, even if not improved at all.
 

EDarkness

Member
Carts? I'm all in. Modern day carts/cards should be more than capable of getting the job done. Hope this turns out to be true.
 
I'm just wondering how Nintendo will price their games if NX were to use cards for both console and handheld. I know we are still guessing about the format but should the games be higher priced if they were to work on both? Or would there be a dlc-type payment to use the game on the other system? It seems like Nintendo would lose too much money if they priced the games around $60 and made it work on both systems. I mean some people might only want to play on the handhelds and those are usually $40 so they wouldn't want to pay higher than that. Any thoughts?
 

Hermii

Member
Not really. It would be cool to use cartridges but I just can't imagine Nintendo using them if they aren't doing a 1:1 shared library. If it's just for faster loading times they would be better off using discs and forcing game installs and putting removable SSD's in all their NX SKU's.

That wouldn't be the only reason.

The console itself would save about 30$ with no disc drive. They could design a smaller, more powerful, more silent, less power consuming box if they went with cartridges. Also the engineering team would be more flexible to use whatever form factor they want.

It would be a differentiator from Sony and MS.

It would save retail space, leaving more space for Amibos etc.

It would maybe be a more future oriented approach if they plan to iterate on the NX for their next console. Not sure about that one.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
He's ignored dozens of people telling him he's confusing read speeds with write speeds. Yet he keeps going.

I didn't keep going.

I said

1) write speeds matter for any kind of patches

2) 80 read speed isn't 120 read speed

3) UHII cards do exist but the whole fucking point is that this has to be "in the ball park" of optical media $$$ wise

You guys are fucking obtuse as fuck with this.

PC gamers have been saying this whole decade that that HDDs are slow as fuck these days compared to SSDs to game on. Now we want to go to something even SLOWER for large multigig games.
 

Neospartan

Neo Member
I didn't keep going.

I said

1) write speeds matter for any kind of patches

2) 80 read speed isn't 120 read speed

3) UHII cards do exist but the whole fucking point is that this has to be "in the ball park" of optical media $$$ wise

You guys are fucking obtuse as fuck with this.

PC gamers have been saying this whole decade that that HDDs are slow as fuck these days compared to SSDs to game on. Now we want to go to something even SLOWER for large multigig games.

Dude, understand already. Patches are not written to the media neither cartridges nor discs. Those are read-only, save for the dedicated save-file space in the case of cartridges.
 

Pokemaniac

Member
I didn't keep going.

I said

1) write speeds matter for any kind of patches

2) 80 read speed isn't 120 read speed

3) UHII cards do exist but the whole fucking point is that this has to be "in the ball park" of optical media $$$ wise

You guys are fucking obtuse as fuck with this.

PC gamers have been saying this whole decade that that HDDs are slow as fuck these days compared to SSDs to game on. Now we want to go to something even SLOWER for large multigig games.

They're not putting patches on the cartridges. There are just so many ways that can go wrong.

Chances are, the carts will use a further evolution of the read-only memory found in 3DS carts.
 
Will having games exclusive to either handheld or console while other games made for both systems confuse customers a lot? Even if there is a big sticker that reads "NX console only!"

I don't think there will be any exclusives, and don't expect simultaneous devices either, but even then there is potential for messy branding like having to list game for 2ds and 3ds.
 

Pokemaniac

Member
I don't think there will be any exclusives, and don't expect simultaneous devices either, but even then there is potential for messy branding like having to list game for 2ds and 3ds.

Unless the devices are similar enough that they become redundant, a lack of exclusives is going to end up hamstringing at least one of them. If not by specs, then definitely by control schemes. Stationary consoles are simply far more flexible than handhelds.
 
But you have to admit, this is some pretty major evidence pointing towards cartridges.

Not when the only other trademark filed in June (Ever Oasis) is also unique among 3DS games in mentioning both forms of media.

It seems more like

1) this is a policy Nintendo has for trademark filings now
or
2) whoever was filing the trademarks in June decided to include all media on all trademark filings, for whatever reason
 

tronic307

Member
I didn't keep going.

I said

1) write speeds matter for any kind of patches

2) 80 read speed isn't 120 read speed

3) UHII cards do exist but the whole fucking point is that this has to be "in the ball park" of optical media $$$ wise

You guys are fucking obtuse as fuck with this.

PC gamers have been saying this whole decade that that HDDs are slow as fuck these days compared to SSDs to game on. Now we want to go to something even SLOWER for large multigig games.
3DS patches are stored on your SD card. Nintendo game cards use mask ROM with maybe a small amount of flash memory for saves on a separate chip. The tech has nothing to do with SD cards or SSDs.
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
I am totally fine with this as long as the NX Console and handheld have 2 or 3 slots. Heck, I would be fine with 2 slots for games if the third slot was a dedicated SD or Micro SD Card.
 
A SD** type cart makes a lot of sense.

Cart storage size is no longer an issue.

A SD** type card reading interface would be far cheaper to manufacture than an optical drive.

A sensible choice from Nintendo it seems.
 

Instro

Member
I didn't keep going.

I said

1) write speeds matter for any kind of patches

2) 80 read speed isn't 120 read speed

3) UHII cards do exist but the whole fucking point is that this has to be "in the ball park" of optical media $$$ wise

You guys are fucking obtuse as fuck with this.

PC gamers have been saying this whole decade that that HDDs are slow as fuck these days compared to SSDs to game on. Now we want to go to something even SLOWER for large multigig games.

The XBO and PS4 use 5400rpm drives so that's a max of 100MB/s iirc.
 

ika

Member
I did a double take the other day watching this Miyamoto interview. Towards the end the translator says:

Now it seems less like a translation error and more like a slip up!

Wow, nice find!

Miyamoto loves to leave hints when interviewed. I remember when he talked about his latests hobbies to hint about new games. One day he joked Iwata prohibited him to talk about his hobbies anymore, lol. Maybe this is the new way to tell us secrets... :p
 

213372bu

Banned
NX definitely seems to be two consoles.

Especially with their comments on it not being a hybrid, and still saying that they want to be in the handheld and console business.

Seems like a no-brainer that their "NX" is just their next generation of consoles.

The integration across multiple devices they are going for definitely makes sense too.
 

10k

Banned
NX definitely seems to be two consoles.

Especially with their comments on it now being a hybrid, and still saying that they want to be in the handheld and console business.

Seems like a no-brainer that their "NX" is just their next generation of consoles.

The integration across multiple devices they are going for definitely makes sense too.
I know I've been away from Neogaf for awhile but when was this confirmed?
 
Even if both systems used cards, I don't think the cards will be cross compatible because that would be potentially be cutting into software revenue.

Why sell one copy of Smash NX that works on both systems to a hardcore player when you can easily sell two.
 

AniHawk

Member
The big problem with cartridges is that Nintendo solely controls the production of them and Nintendo is not a great producer to deal with. This is also true of Wii U discs, but...there aren't that many Wii U discs, so

There was a third party about ten years ago that talked openly about this; I want to say it was Nippon Ichi, but I can't recall. They basically outlined the problems with Nintendo controlling cart production and why it was bad for third parties. Essentially the problem is Nintendo has a queue. You apply to get in that queue, you get your game printed, and as far as Nintendo is concerned, both sides of the arrangement have been fulfilled.

But what if you massively undershipped your game? What if your game took off like a rocket and you need to print more copies immediately? Then get back in the queue, fucker! You can try and expedite the process, but even that is slow, and Nintendo is slower to listen.

Digital Distribution is making this easier, but Nintendo is making Digital Distribution harder, so third parties still don't benefit in any way from Nintendo going with carts.

from what i heard, the queue might not exist, but long lead times still do. the problem is that nintendo actually does their disc/card printing in japan. then you have to ship it to a separate facility for packing (box + cover sheet and/or manual). sony, in comparison, has printing facilities in different regions and packing can be done at those facilities too, so those lead times are much smaller.

2006 nintendo was also the one that had the weird policy about wiiware games needing to sell 6,000 units before any profits were turned over to the creator (what). this stuff has changed ten years later, but it's still not ideal.
 

AniHawk

Member
Even if both systems used cards, I don't think the cards will be cross compatible because that would be potentially be cutting into software revenue.

Why sell one copy of Smash NX that works on both systems to a hardcore player when you can easily sell two.

because not all games would function this way, and it would be a ridiculously difficult time to have to try and manage multiple skus of every single game they do and expect third-parties to follow suit.
 
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