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WiiU "Latte" GPU Die Photo - GPU Feature Set And Power Analysis

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Again, you guys know he mentioned the $99 thing in reference to early planning of the Gamecube, right? I doubt it's a company priority now.

A Vita-TV like thing is a possiblity, but To be $99, it would likely not have a second screen, so no 3DS games, no Wii U games, and I would guess no Next DS games. So this thing would be starting from nothing? Forgive me for being sceptical of them going for that.

You make good points, which is why I think the "third pillar" will be a return to single screen portable gaming. Nintendo probably want to ditch the hassle of paying for two different screens. It is also a natural evolution for the top screen to gain touch input, and if they do see that, they may as well have one screen.

I think they will market it as a third pillar because they will be timid in dropping the highly successful DS moniker. But with all the confusion in naming, and aforementioned production complexities, it might be worth it. Plus, if they design a tablet, that could also be seen as a "replacement" for Wii U.

As with their last third pillar, I expect them to play it safe and keep 3DS compatibility. Not quite sure how they will design the system to do that, but there does seem to be alot of action in hinge technology these days with the recent upsurge in tablet/laptop convertibles.
 
Again, you guys know he mentioned the $99 thing in reference to early planning of the Gamecube, right? I doubt it's a company priority now.

A Vita-TV like thing is a possiblity, but To be $99, it would likely not have a second screen, so no 3DS games, no Wii U games, and I would guess no Next DS games. So this thing would be starting from nothing? Forgive me for being sceptical of them going for that.

They already followed through with the $99 console he was mentioning, though... It WAS the Gamecube. It sold at $99 for a large chunk of the gen while still being profitable. They did that, then moved on when they realized it didn't bring the sales they thought it would. It just made consumers think the product was inferior to the competition.
 
Really people? How do you not see history repeating itself with a PS4 clone in 2016? I can not understand how people think this is anything even remotely like a good idea. By late 2016 early 2017 developers and people are going to be looking to the PS5/Xb2 and what they're going to be about. Come late 2017 and early 2018 that is where most new development will be headed. A PS4 clone in 2016 is EXACTLY what they did with the Wii U. It's an exact fucking repeat of the Wii U.

I am with you but...

Nintendo has two options

Compete with MS and Sony with a similarly spec´d machine but for PS5/XB2. Ride the Wii U and just concentrate on making great software for it. For the next try to make peace with 3rd parties and make it easy to port/develop for.

Leave the high end or some would say middle end and make a cheap console, I mean $150 or $200 the most that shares the same architecture with their new handheld, but invest in creating more dev teams so they can get a lot of software out for their machines. Support gamepad and Wiimotes as accesories not standard. I mean set everything up to support the console by themselves basically because with this approach they can only get indies.
 

wsippel

Banned
Then i hope it tanks to high hell. No powerful/competing hardware = no third party support, and no third party support = The console is dead.
They could easily get tons of 3rd party support. 99% of the games in development these days are for smartphones. This thing would probably be more powerful than any smartphone, and also powerful enough to still run successful Wii franchises like Just Dance or Skylanders. Who cares if it can't run Assassin's Creed V? Just get a PS4 and place it next to your $99 Nintendo box.
 
They could easily get tons of 3rd party support. 99% of the games in development these days are for smartphones. This thing would probably be more powerful than any smartphone, and also powerful enough to still run successful Wii franchises like Just Dance or Skylanders. Who cares if it can't run Assassin's Creed V? Just get a PS4 and place it next to your $99 Nintendo box.

except almost no developer is compelled to develop good smartphone games, and even less to spend time and money to optimize them.
Also I think history taught us that people are NOT inclined to buy a device to play smartphone games at home, the are seen as a little nice extra on top of other useful things a phone can do.
 
Really people? How do you not see history repeating itself with a PS4 clone in 2016? I can not understand how people think this is anything even remotely like a good idea. By late 2016 early 2017 developers and people are going to be looking to the PS5/Xb2 and what they're going to be about. Come late 2017 and early 2018 that is where most new development will be headed. A PS4 clone in 2016 is EXACTLY what they did with the Wii U. It's an exact fucking repeat of the Wii U.

I don't think we will see a new PS or XBOX until late 2019 at the earliest so it would give the new Nintendo console three years on the market and like Fourth said they could release another more powerful console in 2021.

This is more than likely correct, but I foresee the interwebs continuing to make it predominantly an issue of specs regardless of its truth, since that seems to be the only thing common games care about these days.

I think people are reading to far into this though. Its certain that Nintendo is making their next handheld and console, but they will not releases before 2017. Nintendo has never released a hardware earlier than 5 years after its previous one. I don't see that changing.

In the end, this is going to be one more thing that doesn't pan out like people want.

Though on the off chance that Nintendo "does" release a new console sooner, I would much rather they make it vastly stronger than the PS4/Xbox3. We don't need 3 of the same console.

But they have never released a home console that has sold as badly as WiiU though, I don't want them to because I bought WiiU on day one but it really wouldn't surprise me if they cut the life of the console short after all currently in development software has been released.

They already followed through with the $99 console he was mentioning, though... It WAS the Gamecube. It sold at $99 for a large chunk of the gen while still being profitable. They did that, then moved on when they realized it didn't bring the sales they thought it would. It just made consumers think the product was inferior to the competition.

How did they manage to sell Gamecube so cheap and still make a profit, wasn't it much more powerful than PS2 and very close to XBOX in real World performance ?.
 

tipoo

Banned
They already followed through with the $99 console he was mentioning, though... It WAS the Gamecube. It sold at $99 for a large chunk of the gen while still being profitable. They did that, then moved on when they realized it didn't bring the sales they thought it would. It just made consumers think the product was inferior to the competition.

Well, not exactly the same thing, they were thinking of $99 for the launch price but abandoned the idea. It's like saying the Xbox 360 is now down to $200, but that's not what they planned for the launch price, it's just a product of declining costs.


How did they manage to sell Gamecube so cheap and still make a profit, wasn't it much more powerful than PS2 and very close to XBOX in real World performance ?.

Die shrinks can do that. Unfortunately for the U, LCD prices fall far more slowly than chip prices, and unlike the early Gamecube, the U is already sold for a small loss while the gamecube had some headroom.
 
How did they manage to sell Gamecube so cheap and still make a profit, wasn't it much more powerful than PS2 and very close to XBOX in real World performance ?.

They took a small loss at first, but then became profitable again. It had a lot to do with how cheaply they were getting the IBM chips thanks to their multi-year $1billion deal with IBM and the contract they signed with ArtX prior to their purchase by ATI, IIRC...
 

wsippel

Banned
except almost no developer is compelled to develop good smartphone games, and even less to spend time and money to optimize them.
Also I think history taught us that people are NOT inclined to buy a device to play smartphone games at home, the are seen as a little nice extra on top of other useful things a phone can do.
I didn't say developers should port smartphone games, I said that lower performance and 3rd party support are by no means mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, actually.

The thing is: "Get a Nintendo instead of a Playstation or Xbox" doesn't work and probably isn't worth pursuing in the first place. "Get a Nintendo even if you already have a Playstation or Xbox" has to be the message in my opinion, and in that scenario, the price is important whereas ports would be completely redundant.
 

QaaQer

Member
You make good points, which is why I think the "third pillar" will be a return to single screen portable gaming. Nintendo probably want to ditch the hassle of paying for two different screens. It is also a natural evolution for the top screen to gain touch input, and if they do see that, they may as well have one screen.

I think they will market it as a third pillar because they will be timid in dropping the highly successful DS moniker. But with all the confusion in naming, and aforementioned production complexities, it might be worth it. Plus, if they design a tablet, that could also be seen as a "replacement" for Wii U.

As with their last third pillar, I expect them to play it safe and keep 3DS compatibility. Not quite sure how they will design the system to do that, but there does seem to be alot of action in hinge technology these days with the recent upsurge in tablet/laptop convertibles.

The wii u is the platform that is burning right now. A new portable device would most likely eat into 3ds profits. Why would they do that?
 
I didn't say developers should port smartphone games, I said that lower performance and 3rd party support are by no means mutually exclusive. Quite the contrary, actually.

The thing is: "Get a Nintendo instead of a Playstation or Xbox" doesn't work and probably isn't worth pursuing in the first place. "Get a Nintendo even if you already have a Playstation or Xbox" has to be the message in my opinion, and in that scenario, the price is important whereas ports would be completely redundant.

Isn't the quoted what they've been doing already, though? A real change in their business plans would be to start competing...
 
The fears I have for a microconsole are twofold. First, I'm not sure they'd even try it over something like a tablet. Tablets have been shown to sell. VitaTV and Ouya have not been lighting the world on fire. Of course, Nintendo could go and make a successful microconsole, and I'd buy it, but I buy mostly everything the make (still kicking myself on not ever buying a Virtual Boy). My point is that it's an unproven market and they'd be sacrificing alot to get there.

The other concern I have is that we would be getting dangerously close to Vita's predicament, where there is no appreciation for the differences between handhelds and home consoles. People want cinematic experiences on home consoles, and even Nintendo realize that when it comes to games like Zelda, they need to go all out. They are already getting away from what made them successful on the DS with more substantial offerings like Luigi's Mansion (which was hurt by portable-minded mission structure). In short, there is no evidence that people want to play iOS/Android games on their TVs and they would be hamstringing their home platform and flagship software.

I also don't think they'll be going with AMD in a portable. While AMD claims low power consumption, their APU line is aimed at full-featured tablets and notebooks. I believe whatever Nintendo choose will be appropriate for both a small tablet and even smaller portable device. Price is also likely an issue with AMD, as is battery life (which has been a common complaint with the hardware this gen). There is just no way those AMD parts are drawing less then SoCs designed from the ground-up for smartphone-sized devices.
 

z0m3le

Banned
Really people? How do you not see history repeating itself with a PS4 clone in 2016? I can not understand how people think this is anything even remotely like a good idea. By late 2016 early 2017 developers and people are going to be looking to the PS5/Xb2 and what they're going to be about. Come late 2017 and early 2018 that is where most new development will be headed. A PS4 clone in 2016 is EXACTLY what they did with the Wii U. It's an exact fucking repeat of the Wii U.

Those consoles won't launch until at least 2018 if not 2019, developers won't be bothered to fully develop on those consoles until at least late 2017, and they will likely support this new Nintendo console into 2018, that means 3 years of 3rd party support, not 6months like wii u, it's not exactly the same at all, because this console would leave the market after 5 years, giving Nintendo a chance to change its imagine from bad low performance hardware to the high end by being a mid Gen console. The real problem with Wii U was software and being 1 to 2 years late, had a Wii U came out in 2011 with a skyward sword HD port or 2010 with a Mario Galaxy 2 HD port, it would of faired a lot better and been early and powerful enough to compete with 360 and PS3, I'm not trying to say Wii U doesn't belong in this new Gen, but Nintendo has made too many mistakes with its imagine and software for them to waste 5 years trying to figure out how to make things better. We all know that in 2016 e3, Nintendo is likely to show off their next console, hyping it and selling it for the end of the year with a new Mario or Zelda, even if it's a port of a Wii U game, won't hurt it. I'm not saying they have to completely abandon the Wii U in 2017 either, they could release a couple cross Gen titles through the first half of the year to give it a full 5 year life span similar to Wii's, which only saw a handful of first party titles in 2011 and less in 2012
 

Kiote

Member
Really people? How do you not see history repeating itself with a PS4 clone in 2016? I can not understand how people think this is anything even remotely like a good idea. By late 2016 early 2017 developers and people are going to be looking to the PS5/Xb2 and what they're going to be about. Come late 2017 and early 2018 that is where most new development will be headed. A PS4 clone in 2016 is EXACTLY what they did with the Wii U. It's an exact fucking repeat of the Wii U.

Actually, it's not. That's why for the past year and a half, everyone has been saying the Wii U would have been great if they released it a year or two earlier. The Wii U didn't gain any hardware traction because it was only slightly more powerful right than the last generation as the next Gen Started. People wanted a Wii HD two years before the Wii U was released. They were begging for it. That would land the console 3 years ahead of Next Gen, right where you are claiming there would be no demand. There is a huge Market Gap for a Mid Gen Console. People Love having Multiple Consoles. People especially love having Nintendo as their second console. Putting time between having to Purchase a $400-$500 console and purchasing your Nintendo and Price wont even be an issue.
 
How did they manage to sell Gamecube so cheap and still make a profit, wasn't it much more powerful than PS2 and very close to XBOX in real World performance ?.

Well, the semiconductor landscape was certainly different back then. Cube managed to get on a smaller process than PS2 and lacked DVD playback. Plus, it used a semicustom CPU vs Sony's in-house design, which surely cost a fortune in R&D. Despite this, I believe the recent Emily Rogers article pointed out that Nintendo took losses on the Gamecube hardware when it launched and then again when they dropped it to $99.

The wii u is the platform that is burning right now. A new portable device would most likely eat into 3ds profits. Why would they do that?

Because they did it with GBA? 3DS must realistically be seen as a failure behind closed doors, much as PS3 is. It's not going to even reach GBA's numbers and is underperforming in North America (where the tablet reigns). I think Nintendo have tasted that ridiculous popularity with Wii and DS, and won't settle for less, despite the current brave face. Nintendo also supported GBA with a few key titles, such as Minish Cap, as the OG DS was getting started. So they could be seen as two different markets, especially since they will look quite different and differ in features (no 3D in their next gen, I am thinking, at least not at first).
 

pulsemyne

Member
we are also at the point were people will spend more for an item deemed to be worth it. A 400 dollar console with nice specs is flying off the shelves at the moment so it could very well do so in a years time.
One thing we do know is that both next gen consoles aren't really pushing that big a specification. Both companies are likely to be losing very little, if anything, on the machines. A console one year from now could easily feature a much beefier GPU than in the PS4. With APU being pushed to crazy by AMD you are going to see some nice jumps in power.
 

wsippel

Banned
Isn't the quoted what they've been doing already, though? A real change in their business plans would be to start competing...
It's what they've been trying to do - and failed at. It was mostly an excuse, anyway. The system is still way too expensive and too similar to Sony's and Microsoft's offer for that strategy to work.

Competing directly would certainly be a change in strategy, but also a really dumb idea.
 
we are also at the point were people will spend more for an item deemed to be worth it. A 400 dollar console with nice specs is flying off the shelves at the moment so it could very well do so in a years time.
One thing we do know is that both next gen consoles aren't really pushing that big a specification. Both companies are likely to be losing very little, if anything, on the machines. A console one year from now could easily feature a much beefier GPU than in the PS4. With APU being pushed to crazy by AMD you are going to see some nice jumps in power.

The problem with backward compatability with Wii U would be the use of eDRAM on Latte. So if they want BC and a beefier customized APU, then an Espresso and Latte would need to be included. Using Espresso and Latte as co-processors in full mode and as the main processors in backwards compatability mode could work... It would make sense that they wouldn't want to completely scrap tech they spent so much money developing. The more advanced APU would be enough to make great ports from the other systems while the Wii U chips could be used for whatever else...

This would also ease them into developing for it as games in development for the Wii U could easily be moved over. They'd just use the APU as the coprocessor until they started making games ground-up for it.

It's what they've been trying to do - and failed at. It was mostly an excuse, anyway. The system is still way too expensive and too similar to Sony's and Microsoft's offer for that strategy to work.

Competing directly would certainly be a change in strategy, but also a really dumb idea.

I don't know... there was a lot of goodwill for Project Cafe when it was rumoured to be about as powerful as the Xbone is. I think they'd have an audience if Nintendo decided to stop shooting themselves in the collective foot.
 
The problem with backward compatability with Wii U would be the use of eDRAM on Latte. So if they want BC and a beefier customized APU, then an Espresso and Latte would need to be included. Using Espresso and Latte as co-processors in full mode and as the main processors in backwards compatability mode could work... It would make sense that they wouldn't want to completely scrap tech they spent so much money developing. The more advanced APU would be enough to make great ports from the other systems while the Wii U chips could be used for whatever else...



I don't know... there was a lot of goodwill for Project Cafe when it was rumoured to be about as powerful as the Xbone is. I think they'd have an audience if Nintendo decided to stop shooting themselves in the collective foot.

I'm not saying it will be impossible for their next system to have BC with Wii U, but it will be interesting to see how. Last I heard, Renesas were in talks with Sony to potentially sell the factory which that eDRAM is produced in. I think they were talking about moving the actual machinery to a different Renesas factory, but regardless, it's expensive tech to include soley for BC and implementation on a 28nm process or lower is a huge question mark. They could use eSRAM in theory, but then they sacrifice die space and increase semiconductor complexity (and thus, their own R&D/manufacturing costs).
 

Asiriya

Neo Member
Aren't the new gen fairly underpowered compared to current computer specs anyway? Nintendo could take a bet and try to utilise the newest stuff, taking a deep hit but potentially wowing enough people that they will want to convert over. Price is obviously an issue but they've shown with the Wii that if you can make it something that people really want, maybe by being the first people to get something really interesting out there, people will buy. I like the idea of VR (and I do think a collaboration with Valve would be interesting) and if Nintendo could be the first guys with a true mass market solution (a console beefy enough to power the headset and good VR) then they might be on to a winner. At the moment Valve are positioning themselves to be the primary contenders, I think Nintendo needs to invest a lot into being able to challenge them, if they can't join them.

I do think they are always going to have the issue of either being too weak to develop for or too far ahead that it isn't worth diverting resources towards the system because of the unknowns of the install base. Seems like they need to make the system exceptionally easy to program for so that it is a no-brainer to make a port. That and nailing all the online functionality (which is another reason that a Valve collaboration might be so good; people bash the way Steam looks but it is functional!)

People are bemoaning the lack of games on the Wii U so they definitely need to come out of the gate running with a fantastic lineup that people are going to want to play. If that means upscaling and HD-ifying old games then do it. Produce stuff that people are going to be wowed by and want to pick up; that can't be standard Nintendo stuff because the majority of the market isn't interested. Investing in new, small studios to get some shooters etc out is going to be important, or else lots of sucking up to the big guys....
 

Tablo

Member
They just need to dump most of the GC/Wii catalogue on the Wii U as eShop titles, put in a real account system, and make it easy for people to spend their $ on their games. Put all GBA and DS games as eShop titles for the 3DS.
 

TunaLover

Member
Jeez, I've already invest a considerable amount of money on Wii U, games and accesories, furthermore Wii games looks really nice on it, I don't want Nintendo kill it so early, you guys are hearthless :c
 

wsippel

Banned
I don't know... there was a lot of goodwill for Project Cafe when it was rumoured to be about as powerful as the Xbone is. I think they'd have an audience if Nintendo decided to stop shooting themselves in the collective foot.
There was, but I still don't think it would be worthwhile. Nintendo itself isn't the company interested in developing $50 - $100 million "experiences", so they don't need the power. They don't provide additional services, so the whole "living room hub" doesn't interest them, either. They'd only need more power for 3rd party ports of PS4/XB1 games - but there's no guarantee that those ports would actually materialize or sell.

The way I see it, the "power doesn't matter" mantra can work just fine if their system is just different enough. Nobody would have expected a hypothetical $99 Wii U the size of a box of cigarettes (without GamePad, of course) to run The Division in the first place, but they'd still have their Marios and Zeldas and Just Dance and Skylanders. And with a shared architecture, they'd probably also have Monster Hunter 4 HD, Shin Megami Tensei IV HD, Bravely Default HD, as well as Persona Q HD and I guess Dragon Quest XI HD in the future, so much better 3rd party support and more exclusives all around. It would essentially be Ouya done right, and Nintendo is probably the only company capable of pulling that off.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Jeez, I've already invest a considerable amount of money on Wii U, games and accesories, furthermore Wii games looks really nice on it,I don't want Nintendo kill it, you guys are hearthless :c
I've got only one game so far, and that's The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Upcoming announced games I'm interested in include Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda and X. If Nintendo decides to discontinue Wii U I personally won't be too upset (as long as they carry over certain titles to new system(s)), but I can definitely see that some having invested a large amount of money might be a bit disdained.

As for upcoming systems, whether it's some quantum computer with 192 GB HMC or some discreet solution like Ouya, as wsippel mentioned in the post above, I have only one true request:

memcover43us2.gif


mempak1guru.gif


meminserz0u6z.gif


Some way to upgrade the console easily, in a robust and meaningful way. Make it natural and not something used by only a handful of games and as a way to extend product lifetime. Introduce it the same way MotionPlus was introduced.
 

krizzx

Junior Member
Source? Last I heard a couple months ago, they were cutting production, which would make sense given low demand and the high volume in the channels for so long.

I meant software production. They just had a huge hiring listing at Monolith and Retro Studios. They also just aquired another second party developer a week ago.

As for the console I misread a little. He didn't explictily say that but it was inferred. http://alwaysnintendo.com/iwata-clarifies-confusion-smartphone-tablet-development/, and their general attitude, software production increase included point to the Wii U going nowhere anytime soon.

Rösti;97966439 said:
I've got only one game so far, and that's The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Upcoming announced games I'm interested in include Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda and X. If Nintendo decides to discontinue Wii U I personally won't be too upset (as long as they carry over certain titles to new system(s)), but I can definitely see that some having invested a large amount of money might be a bit disdained.

As for upcoming systems, whether it's some quantum computer with 192 GB HMC or some discreet solution like Ouya, as wsippel mentioned in the post above, I have only one true request:

memcover43us2.gif


mempak1guru.gif


meminserz0u6z.gif


Some way to upgrade the console easily, in a robust and meaningful way. Make it natural and not something used by only a handful of games and as a way to extend product lifetime. Introduce it the same way MotionPlus was introduced.

Uncommon proprietary tech like that in this day and age would be extremely expensive. The expansion slot was there in the N64 as more of a foreseen necessity. Nintendo knew the console had a memory deficiency. Honestly, they would have needed an even bigger expansion pack to actually fully utilize the N64's hardware to the fullest.
 

AzaK

Member
There was, but I still don't think it would be worthwhile. Nintendo itself isn't the company interested in developing $50 - $100 million "experiences", so they don't need the power. They don't provide additional services, so the whole "living room hub" doesn't interest them, either. They'd only need more power for 3rd party ports of PS4/XB1 games - but there's no guarantee that those ports would actually materialize or sell.

The way I see it, the "power doesn't matter" mantra can work just fine if their system is just different enough. Nobody would have expected a hypothetical $99 Wii U the size of a box of cigarettes (without GamePad, of course) to run The Division in the first place, but they'd still have their Marios and Zeldas and Just Dance and Skylanders. And with a shared architecture, they'd probably also have Monster Hunter 4 HD, Shin Megami Tensei IV HD, Bravely Default HD, as well as Persona Q HD and I guess Dragon Quest XI HD in the future, so much better 3rd party support and more exclusives all around. It would essentially be Ouya done right, and Nintendo is probably the only company capable of pulling that off.


I agree that a low powered, very cheap Nintendo box could work in it's own niche but I don't agree that a higher end machine would fail. Sure, Nintendo don't need it themselves but even if it costs them more, the idea would be to garner more third party support which brings in more licensing fees. I have not given up on the idea that this could work, even though the road to get there would be very difficult for them. They not only have to get third parties on board, but gamers too who have all but ditched Nintendo as their "core gaming" machine and moved to XB and PS.

But all said and done, I think a low-end Nintendo box is more likely than what I wish for. That's just now Nintendo thinks. The problem being that I won't get to play Zelda or Metroid again unless the thing is something like $50.
 

TunaLover

Member
Rösti;97966439 said:
I've got only one game so far, and that's The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Upcoming announced games I'm interested in include Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda and X. If Nintendo decides to discontinue Wii U I personally won't be too upset (as long as they carry over certain titles to new system(s)), but I can definitely see that some having invested a large amount of money might be a bit disdained.
To carry over these games to the new system they will need a new Gamepad, or at least do a mass patching to every game released to date.
 
The other thing about using a mobile SoC in a console (sorry, just posting as I mull things over on this snowy east coast day) is that it would probably end up actually costing more than its worth. Those components are fine-tuned for low-power consumption. All their R&D go into enabling them to stick those semiconductors into tight spaces. Seems like a waste to me. Especially since we are talking about the difference between a theoretical tiny $99 console and a still-small $199 console (still achievable with an AMD APU) that can attract the best of mobile and console development.

I don't think price is a major issue (value is) and I don't think size is a major issue in the console market. I'm not totally against the idea, but I do think there are better alternatives, which still allow their world class studios, such as EAD Tokyo Group 2, EAD Group 3, and Retro Studios, to shine.
 

wsippel

Banned
I agree that a low powered, very cheap Nintendo box could work in it's own niche but I don't agree that a higher end machine would fail. Sure, Nintendo don't need it themselves but even if it costs them more, the idea would be to garner more third party support which brings in more licensing fees. I have not given up on the idea that this could work, even though the road to get there would be very difficult for them. They not only have to get third parties on board, but gamers too who have all but ditched Nintendo as their "core gaming" machine and moved to XB and PS.

But all said and done, I think a low-end Nintendo box is more likely than what I wish for. That's just now Nintendo thinks. The problem being that I won't get to play Zelda or Metroid again unless the thing is something like $50.
It really depends on what Nintendo plans to do. Let's say they team up with Qualcomm for example and build something based on their upcoming Snapdragon 805. Throw out all unnecessary crap like GPS and LTE, put it on an interposer with 4GB RAM, and you'd get something that could run some damn fine looking games, even if it couldn't run straight ports of many PS4 and XB1 games. And it should still be pretty cheap. Qualcomm's middle of the road quad core Snapdragons are less than $10 as far as I know, and interposers are less than $2. And if they cut the whole thing in half and dial down the clocks, they can put it in their next handheld as well.


The other thing about using a mobile SoC in a console (sorry, just posting as I mull things over on this snowy east coast day) is that it would probably end up actually costing more than its worth. Those components are fine-tuned for low-power consumption. All their R&D go into enabling them to stick those semiconductors into tight spaces. Seems like a waste to me. Especially since we are talking about the difference between a theoretical tiny $99 console and a still-small $199 console (still achievable with an AMD APU) that can attract the best of mobile and console development.

I don't think price is a major issue (value is) and I don't think size is a major issue in the console market. I'm not totally against the idea, but I do think there are better alternatives, which still allow their world class studios, such as EAD Tokyo Group 2, EAD Group 3, and Retro Studios, to shine.
Doesn't have to be a mobile part, most vendors also offer less efficient and cheaper SoCs for set-top boxes and smart TVs. I think a shared architecture is the way to go overall. Maybe an amd64 APU might look more interesting right now, but Nintendo needs an ARM based chip for their handheld anyway, and there are obvious synergy effects.
 

krizzx

Junior Member
I agree that a low powered, very cheap Nintendo box could work in it's own niche but I don't agree that a higher end machine would fail. Sure, Nintendo don't need it themselves but even if it costs them more, the idea would be to garner more third party support which brings in more licensing fees. I have not given up on the idea that this could work, even though the road to get there would be very difficult for them. They not only have to get third parties on board, but gamers too who have all but ditched Nintendo as their "core gaming" machine and moved to XB and PS.

But all said and done, I think a low-end Nintendo box is more likely than what I wish for. That's just now Nintendo thinks. The problem being that I won't get to play Zelda or Metroid again unless the thing is something like $50.

It has never been proven that specs are the reason for them having or not having third party support, though.

This is entire path of action relies on that being true where it has been substantially shown to not be true from what I've seen.

Also, going by that post from a few weeks back, third party software have never been the biggest source of income for Ninendo even in their best days of third party support.

Though, for all this talk about Nintendo next console, shouldn't we just make a thread for that specifically? We would call it neowust.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
I think that, before the specs, Nintendo should focus on creating the audience with the right games, i.e. partnerships with Western third parties like they do in Japan and brand new internal IP targeted to Western gamers. If they sell, then it means the audience is coming, and so (especially if next home / home version of the handheld is not too underpowered) third parties can rely on the console to sell their games.
 

krizzx

Junior Member
I think that, before the specs, Nintendo should focus on creating the audience with the right games, i.e. partnerships with Western third parties like they do in Japan and brand new internal IP targeted to Western gamers. If they sell, then it means the audience is coming, and so (especially if next home / home version of the handheld is not too underpowered) third parties can rely on the console to sell their games.

I still want to know how everyone has come to this conclusions that specs are the reason that Nintendo isn't getting third party support.

Devs have been quite vocal about why they do and don't support Nintendo this gen. Specs are not something I've seen raised is an issue. I've seen plenty of devs state that its not as issue though. Like Slightly Mad Studios.
 

TunaLover

Member
I still want to know how everyone has come to this conclusions that specs are the reason that Nintendo isn't getting third party support.

Devs have been quite vocal about why they do and don't support Nintendo this gen. Specs are not something I've seen raised is an issue. I've seen plenty of devs state that its not as issue though. Like Slightly Mad Studios.
The problem is Nintendo first party offerings doesn't create a market for that audience from the start, on the other side platformers sell well on Nintendo platforms. In other words Nintendo's own Uncharted, Halo, would able to atract more of this kind of software to the platform. Nintendo needs get rid off of this image that they are only a platform for Nintendo familiar characters, and expand its library and IPs
 

Log4Girlz

Member
It's hard to make a case for under-powered expensive hardware. It's easy to make a case for buying hardware that is expensive because it's powerful and warrants the price. By your logic both the PS4 and Xbox One should be flops that aren't selling, that's not the case. These are the current market trends.

These are the trends Iwata says he misread.

I think they'll either go the same route taken by sony and Microsoft, or they''ll go the route taken by Apple. Their "third route" blew up in their face and are making a course correction. It's just too late to change the hardware this gen, but it'll definitely affect their choices while creating their next console. They may choose to go the route taken by Apple for the remainder of this gen in order to offer an appealing price for the Wii U.

By my logic the PS4 and Xbox One should be flops? My logic is that NIntendo cannot charge a premium for their consoles. Neither the PS4 nor Xbox One are Nintendo consoles.
 

krizzx

Junior Member
The problem is Nintendo first party offerings doesn't create a market for that audience from the start, on the other side platformers sell well on Nintendo platforms. In other words Nintendo's own Uncharted, Halo, would able to atract more of this kind of software to the platform. Nintendo needs get rid off of this image that they are only a platform for Nintendo familiar characters, and expand its library and IPs

Have you forgotten Bayonetta 2, Frame 2&4 and Monlith's X?

Nintendo already has franchises like that. They are call Metroid and Starfox, and they are more popular with more mature audiences than younger ones. Also, Halo and Uncharted are also first party titles for their respective platofrms, not third party. Those are bad examples of what third party support could do for them

Nintendo cannot really do the last thing you state. People buy what they like and see what they want in most cases. Their image is what gives them the most success

Another thing is that contrary to popular believe Nintendo has a dozens of I.P.s and release multiple new ones every(like the Wonderful 101), some of which are quite mature like Eternal Darkness and Geist. Those games did not do all that well at all compared to their mainline franchises for the above reason.


Another thing about the Halo and Uncharted thing. Those are long running series for Sony and Microsoft and amongst if not their more successful games. They speaks more in favor of keeping the long running series at the forefront if you ask me.
 

disap.ed

Member
Doesn't have to be a mobile part, most vendors also offer less efficient and cheaper SoCs for set-top boxes and smart TVs. I think a shared architecture is the way to go overall. Maybe an amd64 APU might look more interesting right now, but Nintendo needs an ARM based chip for their handheld anyway, and there are obvious synergy effects.

No they don't, Mullins or it's successor would be a just as good fit. Just saying.
I really hope they will use either these or ARMv8 cores, AMD offers both from this year on.
 

krizzx

Junior Member
I've been wondering. Couldn't Nintendo just use the Wii U CPU in their next handheld since its so small?

Exactly how much does Espresso cost to manufacture?

Though for ARMS, it would probably be wise for them to hold out for ARM9 and go with DDR4 memory. DDR4 has some promising featured performance. High bandwidth, lower latency and lower power consumption. That all sounds right up Nintendo's ally.
 
If Nintendo went download only and without gimmicks (they could be sold extra) i think they could make a good console in 2016 for something like 249$. Would be a good compromiss and they wouldn´t loose money on that thing. Could be in fact more powerfull than xbone if nintendo went away from small consoles. They should have learned that a console doesn´t need to be super small to sell.....

As for the ease of ports between handheld and console they could use very scalable engines, with handheld and console supporting the same shader model. What´s more important, they have to overthink their pricemodel for games. Doesn´t help if the console is cheap and the games still cost 50$ (even after years), even 2D Jump and Runs.

Nintendo doesn´t even need to max this machine out, but they could in some games like Zelda. And i think it would even take away some problems in the development of titels. Hell, make every game locked 60fps and 1080p with AA, they could use that to promote their console, doesn´t matter if their games are really that AAAA in development costs, cause many of the titles are stylized to beginn with. And it would be easy to port from PC/NG consoles.

They should make it compatible with the U Pad, sell it extra, same for Motion+ and whatever gimmicks they want to release.

Still i would buy a 100$ smartphone-Console, but it´s not what i am wishing for.
 

tipoo

Banned
I've been wondering. Couldn't Nintendo just use the Wii U CPU in their next handheld since its so small?

Exactly how much does Espresso cost to manufacture?

That's what I've been theorizing about for a while. The GPU would take more doing to get the power consumption down, but that CPU is probably already ~5W, at max 10 (if the whole system is drawing 33w and clearly more of it is going to the GPU) on 45nm. A handheld SoC should be under 5W for the entire package including the GPU though, but with die shrinks and clock reductions if they need it the CPU cores might be usable.
 

AzaK

Member
It has never been proven that specs are the reason for them having or not having third party support, though.

This is entire path of action relies on that being true where it has been substantially shown to not be true from what I've seen.

Also, going by that post from a few weeks back, third party software have never been the biggest source of income for Ninendo even in their best days of third party support.

Though, for all this talk about Nintendo next console, shouldn't we just make a thread for that specifically? We would call it neowust.

There's a few qualifiers we need of course when talking about all this. Wii had third party support, it's just that it was primarily games like Boom Blocks, Just Dance and more casually oriented games. There were some core games like MadWorld and of course CoD, but when I talk third party I'm talking about all the main developers who put their games on XB or PS platforms.

Now, when we look back over Nintendo's console sales, we see them continually decline, even when their machines were "on par' with the competition. This as we know had a lot to do with both their attitude to third parties (and control) and Sony coming along and offering a greener pasture (With DVD, power, less control etc). Nintendo just didn't make it easy for third parties to get on board whereas Sony (and later MS) did. Then the Wii came and totally snubbed "regular" gaming and very much did its own thing like Nintendo had never done before. That's gotta hurt when third parties are investing in games on PS3 and 360 but can't do them on Nintendo's machine. Then Nintendo embraced the perception of Wii and the user base for it veered more casual with Nintendo gamers as an added bonus. Not a good third party setup.

So, at the point the Wii U came, yes it wasn't just specs that Nintendo had to overcome in order to get third party games. However, I do fully and absolutely believe that if Nintendo had have consulted with third parties, shown them that they were going to make a competing-in-tech machine in the realms of the PS4/XBO and also had shown them that they were serious about core gaming, media, and ecosystems, that we would have seem much more third party support. All this a year before the others (Not sure they could have had Jaguar and/or GCN then, dunno) and it would have set them up pretty well.

So while I do believe a console can be underpowered compared to the competition and still be very popular, I believe going the other direction would have been healthier for Nintendo in the long run so that they don't have to fight third party apathy forever. From that solid base, THEN look at doing things unique.
 
By my logic the PS4 and Xbox One should be flops? My logic is that NIntendo cannot charge a premium for their consoles. Neither the PS4 nor Xbox One are Nintendo consoles.
Ok, so it has nothing to do with power or price, but because people just don't like Nintendo?

I'd like to think that, as a brand, Nintendo hasn't dropped that low. If they had offered a comparable system at a comparable price to what Sony and Microsoft released, they'd have sold more units. The problem with the Wii U is that it underdelivered in terms of power and expectations, so the average non-fanboy gamer (who just wanted something new after such a long generation) chose not to buy it because it seemed to offer nothing more than what they already had. That's assuming they even heard about the launch since Nintendo certainly didn't advertise the thing as though it were something new... or that it existed...

Had they released a system powerful enough to come out of the gate making the PS3 and 360 look dated and actually marketed it, people would've had incentive to buy. Instead they released a weak system that had trouble running last gen games.

I like my Wii U and all, but it fell far short of what they needed to release. They spent too much time and energy on aspects that, in the long run, were just expensive distractions. They could've released a much more powerful system for the same price had they not felt the need to neuter the console to make it fit in the form factor they'd chosen early on.

Nintendo's woe's aren't because they're Nintendo and people don't like them. Their problems are directly related to terrible choices made during development. The Goodwill was there, they had a good hype building a year before release... It's just too bad they had already shit the bed while designing the console...
 

AzaK

Member
Nintendo's woe's aren't because they're Nintendo and people don't like them. Their problems are directly related to terrible choices made during development. The Goodwill was there, they had a good hype building a year before release... It's just too bad they had already shit the bed while designing the console...

The Wii U is the epitome of a perfect storm and I wonder if Nintendo were shitting themselves leading up to its release. Just one thing after another went wrong throughout the whole proces. Some of those things Nintendo probably thought were good things (Gamepad, small form factor, low power consumption) but having to revive the 3DS and see their third party support not come to fruition must have been painful to deal with. I also believe they would have known Pikmin et al were going to be delayed before they released the machine.
 

AlStrong

Member
Exactly how much does Espresso cost to manufacture?

Should be very inexpensive even with eDRAM being a major part of it. 33mm^2 is very tiny when it comes to wafer area ( on the order of a couple thousand chips per 300mm wafer). Even if the yields are 50% (highly unlikely to be that low given the maturity of IBM's 45nm process), it'd still only be a few dollars per chip.

On a side note, the chip is already padded up with a bunch of dead space so it'd actually be better off as part of an SoC design tbh.
 

AppleBlade

Member
They just need to dump most of the GC/Wii catalogue on the Wii U as eShop titles, put in a real account system, and make it easy for people to spend their $ on their games. Put all GBA and DS games as eShop titles for the 3DS.

That would excite me big time.
 
Releasing the Wii U 2 years earlier would have put it in the same damn position it's in now. No more 3rd party support once the PS360 are dead. Being a mid generation console is the worst thing you can do. It's a terrible idea and anyone asking for it is asking for Nintendo to continue to piss away market share.

The Wii was lucky to have been supported mostly on the back of First party software alone, it's not working for the Wii U.

To release mid generation consoles, that are guaranteed to loose support when the new platforms hit, to release a 99 dollar iOS like device, that is guaranteed to not get any 3rd party support to begin with, are all bad ideas. Ideas that will continue to see the reserves drained, 3rd parties just not dealing with them at all, and the mass market ignoring them.

The Wii U is a mid generation console basically. Power of the previous generation, and some feature sets of the next. It's not working out for them now, and duplicating that won't work out for them in the future.

Enough with downplaying the importance of third parties. The mass market wants third parties, the mass market wants a box that can play ACV, GTAVI, and The Next Arkham game.

A box that can get all of the 3rd party releases, a long with being able to run all of that gens engines, AND have Nintendo's stable of 1st party releases is what Nintendo needs to release. It's what would put them back on top.

Imagine if the Wii U had been competitive spec wise, that it could handle UE4 just as well as the PS4 could. Then instead of being people's secondary, it could be MOST people's first.

Yes I agree not all 3 consoles need to be doing the same thing, that said though the hardware parity needs to at least be there for 3rd party titles. Let the 1st party software be fresh, and new and that part that your competition just can't do. The hardware though has to come at least close to the other 2 for the 3rd parties.

I'm sorry but I don't think a console that is 2 - 3 years early to the next gen party, or a 99 cheapo system is going to make anyway stand up and NEED to buy it.


*Edit*

I'm not saying the Wii U needed to match the PS4's specs perfectly, but it needed to be closer. I love my Wii U, and the gamepad brings some interesting ideas to the party. Unfortunately there's not enough of me or those with my tastes to support a console. Right now the market is very much the opposite of that. Releasing a mid generation console, a 99 dollar box is not listening to that market. The success so far of the PS4 and XB1 with their pretty shit poor launch line ups speaks volumes sadly about that. Before anyone makes any claims, I bought a PS4 at launch and I still haven't bought a single fucking game for it.
 

z0m3le

Banned
Releasing the Wii U 2 years earlier would have put it in the same damn position it's in now. No more 3rd party support once the PS360 are dead. Being a mid generation console is the worst thing you can do. It's a terrible idea and anyone asking for it is asking for Nintendo to continue to piss away market share.

The Wii was lucky to have been supported mostly on the back of First party software alone, it's not working for the Wii U.

To release mid generation consoles, that are guaranteed to loose support when the new platforms hit, to release a 99 dollar iOS like device, that is guaranteed to not get any 3rd party support to begin with, are all bad ideas. Ideas that will continue to see the reserves drained, 3rd parties just not dealing with them at all, and the mass market ignoring them.

The Wii U is a mid generation console basically. Power of the previous generation, and some feature sets of the next. It's not working out for them now, and duplicating that won't work out for them in the future.

Enough with downplaying the importance of third parties. The mass market wants third parties, the mass market wants a box that can play ACV, GTAVI, and The Next Arkham game.

A box that can get all of the 3rd party releases, a long with being able to run all of that gens engines, AND have Nintendo's stable of 1st party releases is what Nintendo needs to release. It's what would put them back on top.

Imagine if the Wii U had been competitive spec wise, that it could handle UE4 just as well as the PS4 could. Then instead of being people's secondary, it could be MOST people's first.

Yes I agree not all 3 consoles need to be doing the same thing, that said though the hardware parity needs to at least be there for 3rd party titles. Let the 1st party software be fresh, and new and that part that your competition just can't do. The hardware though has to come at least close to the other 2 for the 3rd parties.

I'm sorry but I don't think a console that is 2 - 3 years early to the next gen party, or a 99 cheapo system is going to make anyway stand up and NEED to buy it.


*Edit*

I'm not saying the Wii U needed to match the PS4's specs perfectly, but it needed to be closer. I love my Wii U, and the gamepad brings some interesting ideas to the party. Unfortunately there's not enough of me or those with my tastes to support a console. Right now the market is very much the opposite of that. Releasing a mid generation console, a 99 dollar box is not listening to that market. The success so far of the PS4 and XB1 with their pretty shit poor launch line ups speaks volumes sadly about that. Before anyone makes any claims, I bought a PS4 at launch and I still haven't bought a single fucking game for it.

The alternative you are talking about is releasing a console in 2018 or so, with 3rd parties already looking at ps5 and xb4, making games for ps4, pc and xb1. Taking a shot in the dark about what Sony and Microsoft are going to do and be a weaker alternative that still has maybe half their power performance, but has no interesting angle to make it price competitive so that third parties are hopefully interested in such a device? They might sell it for a year to third parties, but they would be better off waiting and selling their software on the other consoles again after that as no matter how much Nintendo put into their console, 3rd parties would become better served by using Microsoft or Sony's console as the base spec for their games, edging out whatever Nintendo did for that console.

Coming out 2 years prior to that gives them 3 years to prove that 3rd parties can sell on their platform, 3 years without drought, give them a tech edge for the first time since the n64 but with complete feature parity of their competitors, and when ps5 and xb4 comes out, Nintendo will be talking about their next console to developers and showing it off to excited gamers 6months to a year after those consoles launch. Gamers will see it like they saw the PS4 when Wii U was announced, they will know now that Nintendo will offer their best gaming experience only a year or two after Microsoft and Sony release their consoles.

The benefit with going this route is that Wii U doesn't carry Nintendo's console market for 6+ years without any 3rd party support and that Nintendo can change their imagine from inferior hardware to the premium experience, if they adopt mantle, 3rd parties would develop the games right alongside the pc version too, it would be like making a Linux port that supports mantle. Basically a seamless development cycle with a platform they are already working with.
 
Should be very inexpensive even with eDRAM being a major part of it. 33mm^2 is very tiny when it comes to wafer area ( on the order of a couple thousand chips per 300mm wafer). Even if the yields are 50% (highly unlikely to be that low given the maturity of IBM's 45nm process), it'd still only be a few dollars per chip.

On a side note, the chip is already padded up with a bunch of dead space so it'd actually be better off as part of an SoC design tbh.

Thanks. Considering how cheap and small it is, Nintendo could theoretically put the CPU into their next-gen console at a very low cost and use it for partial BC with the Wii U/Wii/GCN game and other things when playing its original games. They already made similar choices with the DS and 3DS. The biggest issue with Wii U compatibility would be the Gamepad. If they desperately want BC without having a controller with a screen, they could make alot of OS and Game patches to deal with most of them.


Releasing the Wii U 2 years earlier would have put it in the same damn position it's in now. No more 3rd party support once the PS360 are dead. Being a mid generation console is the worst thing you can do. It's a terrible idea and anyone asking for it is asking for Nintendo to continue to piss away market share.

The Wii was lucky to have been supported mostly on the back of First party software alone, it's not working for the Wii U.

To release mid generation consoles, that are guaranteed to loose support when the new platforms hit, to release a 99 dollar iOS like device, that is guaranteed to not get any 3rd party support to begin with, are all bad ideas. Ideas that will continue to see the reserves drained, 3rd parties just not dealing with them at all, and the mass market ignoring them.

The Wii U is a mid generation console basically. Power of the previous generation, and some feature sets of the next. It's not working out for them now, and duplicating that won't work out for them in the future.

Enough with downplaying the importance of third parties. The mass market wants third parties, the mass market wants a box that can play ACV, GTAVI, and The Next Arkham game.

A box that can get all of the 3rd party releases, a long with being able to run all of that gens engines, AND have Nintendo's stable of 1st party releases is what Nintendo needs to release. It's what would put them back on top.

Imagine if the Wii U had been competitive spec wise, that it could handle UE4 just as well as the PS4 could. Then instead of being people's secondary, it could be MOST people's first.

Yes I agree not all 3 consoles need to be doing the same thing, that said though the hardware parity needs to at least be there for 3rd party titles. Let the 1st party software be fresh, and new and that part that your competition just can't do. The hardware though has to come at least close to the other 2 for the 3rd parties.

I'm sorry but I don't think a console that is 2 - 3 years early to the next gen party, or a 99 cheapo system is going to make anyway stand up and NEED to buy it.


*Edit*

I'm not saying the Wii U needed to match the PS4's specs perfectly, but it needed to be closer. I love my Wii U, and the gamepad brings some interesting ideas to the party. Unfortunately there's not enough of me or those with my tastes to support a console. Right now the market is very much the opposite of that. Releasing a mid generation console, a 99 dollar box is not listening to that market. The success so far of the PS4 and XB1 with their pretty shit poor launch line ups speaks volumes sadly about that. Before anyone makes any claims, I bought a PS4 at launch and I still haven't bought a single fucking game for it.

Time will tell what will happen with the PS4/XBO. Anyway, the advantages of a unified architecture can deal with some of your concerns. After a few years, Nintendo could release a 2nd-generation version of that portable/console that can feature a nice powerboost to compete better with Sony and Microsoft's future machines. For this to properly work, though, Nintendo may have to do some future-proofing.

1) The system should have more and faster RAM than Nintendo feel it should need.

2) The architecture needs to very scalable and to not have too many exotic components that will make backwards/forward-compatibility an issue.

3) Hardware and software data are easily transferable from one system to another.

4) Take into consideration on how third-party developers utilize hardware for their games, and try not to punish them for it. One reason developers had issues with Wii U's CPU was that it was designed very differently to what most present-day developers are used do with the 360/PS3.
 

tipoo

Banned
Getting back to Latte

What about the GPU? RV770 snafu aside (that was just a brain fart; I meant R7xx), how do we know that it’s of that family? As it turns out, the Cafe OS firmware is littered with references to the R6xx. However, the R6xx and R7xx are almost identical. ATI even published open documentation of their 3D engines together, as a single document, and the only real differences are a few details of the shaders. The register information that we’ve looked up does mostly match the published open docs. R7xx is clearly a minor evolution of the R6xx. Cafe OS also has references to “GPU7”, which seems to be another name that Nintendo uses for the GX2. With the R7xx available (and as, essentially, a mostly compatible step up), there would be no reason for Nintendo not to go with the R7xx as a base instead of the R6xx. Together, all of these strongly imply that the GPU is indeed an R7xx core and not an R6xx core. To those claiming that it supports newer features (e.g. I’ve heard Tesselation and Stream Out support listed as “evidence” of a newer core): go read the 3D engine doc linked above. Those features were already there on R6xx/7xx.

Now, the Latte is a fully custom SoC that has nothing to do with any particular member of the R7xx family, so there is no easy way to draw a parallel to any particular released AMD GPU. Maybe the specs (shader count, etc.) match an existing AMD chip, or maybe they don’t. We’re not particularly interested in the GPU prowess wars, so we haven’t poked at the GPU to try to figure out its specs.

http://fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/console-hacking-2013-omake.html#idc-cover
 
They're not going to get 3 years of support though. They're not going to have 3 years of amazing sales. They'll get a launch with a bunch of half assed up ports, and then devs going ohhh well our tech is moving to this and the Wii U 2 doesn't support that. They'll get MAYBE a year of half assed ports and then nothing.

At least coming out at the same time with a machine that is CLOSE (not not fucking half their performance) but CLOSE to their performance means it's at least possible and cheap to do the ports. Which means it's less of a risk for 3rd parties, specially less than supporting some middle generation platform. Just like the fucking Wii U is.

How do you figure it'll be 3 years with out a drought, every console has a drought, coming out mid generation won't stop that.

No consomers aren't going to go ohhh Nintendo offers the best console experience a few years later, they'll go Ohh Nintendo late to the generation again with this mid gen console crap.

Seriously, releasing a console in 2016 is going to piss of folks who bought a Wii U in 2012, and cause even more people to take a wait and see approach. Specially developers.

It's a terrible fucking idea, and it's miss-reading the market completely.

The market doesn't want consoles to stand apart by hardware choices, they want it from 1st party software.

Nintendo's best course of action is to make it so that porting a game to their platform costs pennies, then it becomes a no brainer for 3rd parties. Because if it costs pennies to port, then selling even a small amount becomes profit.

No one, not the consumer market, not developers, NO ONE is going to jump on a mid gen console. Specially not coming off of the Wii U. You are literally asking them to go down the Sega route.

Match MS and Sony next gen, and show games that all they need to own is a Nintendo console. Show them it can run all the next gen engines, and that 3rd parties have no problems putting their games on there. Show them that along with all the 3rd party titles they want, running just as well as on the competition, they also get the crowning gem of Nintendo 1st party titles.

This is what the market is asking from them, how many people say they won't buy a Nintendo console because the hardware is some mid gen thing. You may not think those people are important, but obviously there's a lot of them in the market considering the PS4 has already outsold the Wii U. Even with the Wii U's SUPERIOR line up.
 
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