gamingeek said:

SupremeAC said:

So this Tegra chip is a SoC right?  so it has a CPU and whatnot of its own?  And devs will be forbidden from tapping in to that power for anything else than aesthetic improvements and framerate and stuff?  

Who said that?

No one did.  I'm just assuming that Nintendo would follow the same logic as Sony and Ms, demanding parity in everything but resolution and effects when playing at home or on the go.  But by doing so, you're limiting the use of the CPU to a fraction of its potential.  You seem to think that it's a matter of resolution, but things like amount of NPC's and AI would benefit from more CPU.  incremental CPU increases is why this gen has felt so similar to last.

gamingeek said:

SupremeAC said:

Even so, games will need to be optimised for multiple setups, which will impact the quality of a large portion of gamers, just as is the case with PC's.

Yes it happens with PCs, it's going happen with Neo and Scorpio, it happens with PS4/XB1 and Wii U, it happens with phones, it happens with tablets. It's a fact of life. It's not an impossibility.

I simply can not imagine a nintendo console where 1st party games don't run buttery smooth.  But if this NX thing allows for upgrades seemingly à la carte, I don't see Nintendo being able to optimize their games for all possible configurations as they can do now.

gamingeek said:

You could lose them, need to buy new ones custom built for every other game, publishers would need half the back of the box just to explain what controllers and/or modules are required.

Fuck everything.

I think you're imagining a very different situation from what's in my head. From the patent it looks like you can just swap out the position of the main stick, d-pad and buttons. I haven't imagined developers releasing custom buttons for every game. Perhaps you have more forward thinking on this, I can't imagine that happening myself.  

Look at the schematics you posted yourself.  Some of those show multiple D-pads.  Nintendo isn't going to develop such an iffy thing just to allow people to swap out buttons and sticks for right or left handed play.  Unless it's not electronical stuff, but just mechanical, like the Xbone Elite controller.  And seeing the large amount of plastic tat Nintendo themselves created to clip the Wiimotes into, I don't think it's beyond them to release multiple modulat UI's to suit different types of games.  I still don't believe any of this though.

gamingeek said:

SupremeAC said:

People buy Ipads for their kids to play games on.  Those kids can then empty their parents visa through overpriced in-app purchases in crappy games.  Ipad's are expensive.  If Nintendo can manufacture a home console with its own family friendly OS, quality games, tablet like controller for about €300-350, it'd be a perfect substitute. If you then could buy extra tablendo's on the cheap and they could all be used outsde the house, or together at home for multiplayer, it'd be a clear win.

Anyhow, I think it's clear by now that you and I do not see face to face when it comes to what would be an actual good idea for a home console.  But I enjoy debating it over and over in endless loops nontheless.  

Wii U?

What's happening here?

WiiU was limited to one Gamepad.  Think down the lines of having 4 Ipads (but cheaper) in your house that can all work together through the home console to play local multiplayer games on your telly, but can also work individually or on the go.

gamingeek said:

3DS is positively archaic now, both battery and the innards of these devices have moved on considerably. Every new model of Tegra brings about a generational leap in mobile power terms. NX is not going to have an X1. It's going to either have a customised X1, without having the Android overhead and operating system around it and it will have low lever access to the metal.

The other option is the next Tegra chip  -Parker- which uses a more advanced manurfacting method, it has smaller transistors, should theoretically be more powerful (X1 was twice as powerful as K1 for instance) and it will be more power efficient and cooler. That's why it makes sense that NX would use the so-called X2 chip. It lines up with the "cutting edge chips" WSJ quote, the timing lines up almost perfectly with when Nvidia were set to release it next year too (was this the real reason NX was delayed to 2017?). It could have a smaller power draw - it's said to be more power efficient. The X1 is half the power of the XB1 in GFLOPS yet the XB1 is a 100w device while the X1 is 10w.

I also get the impression that this new device is going to be Vita sized and can probably have a larger battery. If it's anything like modern devices it probably comes with a USB power cable/detachable collapsible power adaptor and can probably be recharged via mobile phone USB chargers.

I don't expect it to have a massive battery life, but I think opinions have changed over the years. I don't think people expect batteries to last that long when you are doing intensive tasks with portable technology. My phone drains after 3 hrs of browsing the internet from a full charge. Yes I do agree that it will be downclocked in portable mode, but then the portable screen it has to render on is a lot smaller than a big HDTV display so it wont have to work as hard. The pixel count alone would be (a lot) lower. Plug it on, the chips clock higher and performance increases.

Also don't forget that even if it were to use the X1 that is still 3.5x more powerful than Wii U, so even dialled back and downclocked for portable mode you would still get great looking games that perform well. Even Wii U can do Nintendo games at 720p and 60FPS. In Gflop terms Wii U is below 360 but the more modern features mean it can still put out great looking games and with a lower power draw too.

Maybe it will be a problem for massive AAA games to be ported over, but how many of those games are people imagining on this thing? The X1 CPU set is a lot more powerful than the Jaguars in PS4 and XB1 and the X2 CPUs are better.

I don't care how powerfull the chip is, fact is that if you're downclocking your SoC for mobile play, you're not only downclocking the GPU, but also the CPU.  Think about Pikmin 4.  Say the SoC can have 300 Pikmin running around in home console mode.  On the go it downclocks by 3 quarters.  That means that on the go you can only have 75 Pikmin running around.  What will happen?  The whole game will be limited to having 75 Pikmin, no matter if you're playing on the go or at home.  It's a crude example, and things are much more nuanced than that, but I'm just trying to show you that downclocking impacts more than the resolution of your games.

edit: unless the game significantly changes when on the go, where each game has a limited amount of things you can do while on the go.  That could work, but would require a huge effort from developers.

As for battery life: you accept 3 hours of internet on your phone because you realize that that is not normal use.  If you're just keeping your phone in your pocket and making occasional calls, perhaps your battery will last you 2 days.  But for a portable console, playing games IS the norm, so saying people will accept that the battery only lasts 2 hours is in my opinion just not true.

Feel free to reply whenever you get back to a keyboard.

Sup NKNR (No keyboard, no reply)

Okay, that was no fun. My nephews aren't even co-ordinated enough to play Wii Sports resort. There's something seriously wrong here. Can't even serve in table tennis. Can't do anything other than swordfighting. Can't even point the IR at an icon on the screen and press A. When playing games in Nintendoland they struggle to even keep the remote horizontal, literally try to use the dpad with the remote vertical and fail so hard. One kid is 7 and a half, the other 5.

Is this normal?

Their parents won't let them play games.

That was a fun game

edgecrusher said:

Wii U is getting a major release this November. The original Darksiders. Ain't dead yet.

edgecrusher said:

Wii U is getting a major release this November. The original Darksiders. Ain't dead yet.

1080p on U for a third party game is noteworthy. At least.

Buy Splatoon already.

Archangel3371 said:

Darksiders was a really cool game. I'll be picking up the Xbox One version to play through again. I think the only thing left that I want to buy on the Wii U is Pikmin 3.

Splatoon.

robio said:

If I have read correctly though it is a downgraded version. It will only be at 30fps whereas the other systems will get the same game at 60fps.

Its improved, Darksiders 2 wasn't even 1080p on consoles. Darksiders 1 certainly wasn't.

The Warmastered U version may only be 30fps, but what other AAA game port was 1080p on U?

gamingeek said:

Sup NKNR (No keyboard, no reply)

Okay, that was no fun. My nephews aren't even co-ordinated enough to play Wii Sports resort. There's something seriously wrong here. Can't even serve in table tennis. Can't do anything other than swordfighting. Can't even point the IR at an icon on the screen and press A. When playing games in Nintendoland they struggle to even keep the remote horizontal, literally try to use the dpad with the remote vertical and fail so hard. One kid is 7 and a half, the other 5.

Is this normal?

Their parents won't let them play games.

Of course, if they have zero experience.

Robio, how far in are you in MH4?  We should try and arrange a time to play together some.

SupremeAC said:

Robio, how far in are you in MH4?  We should try and arrange a time to play together some.

gamingeek said:

They've played here, Nintendoland was about the only thing they could sorta do. I don't get how they can't point the remote at the screen to press A. Despite being repeatedly shown how. Or how many times you can tell them to turn the remote on it's side only to have them put the dpad on the wrong side - or worse control using it vertically. I can't have been this bad at their age and I remember playing the first tmnt nes game.

You shouldn't be too harsh on them.  I remember when my wife first played a videogame.  It was Harvest Moon on the GC and she couldn't walk in a straight line, it was like her character was constantly drunk.

Btw, did anyone else do any body steering while playing the NES?  

I used to thrust my hands upwards while trying to make Mario jump.