I've been playing The Witcher 3, close to the end of the main quest, and thinking of playing through Hearts of Stone before Blood and Wine hits, now that I'm hitting a late stride with the game.

Also RL.

Played a smidge of this with Travo!

Been playing lots of Black Ops III online mp and enjoying the 2XP weekend.

I was playing Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. I really don't know why I don't jump and get Shantae games the day they come out. They completely beat expectations every time. Very good game.

So, I don't know if you have been following the NX rumours over the weekend, I've been keeping up on my phone but haven't been able to type anything yet.

Basically you had Emily Rogers saying that the NX power was closer to XB1 than PS4, but even that might be a stretch. There are ongoing arguments over whether she meant its a stretch to say it's as low as XB1 or a stetch to say it's as high as XB1.

A verified dev on GAF checked the SDK and said that any PS4 game could run on NX with "little to no" problem. Also we still know the CPU is about 30% better than PS4s thanks to LCGeek and the group who leaked the Wii and U CPU information.

Emily also said there are "very good reasons" NX wouldn't be using Polaris. Polaris is AMDs architecture going forward, everything they do will be Polaris. So the interference from what she said means AMD wont be the hardware vendor?

So E.Rogers also said that the NX would not be using X86 which is the architecture PS4 and XB1 uses and that it has custom chips that are industry leading in the sense that they are "very modern", not because they would necessarily be very powerful. Anyhow this caused a lot of worrying from people not in the know about NX being some exotic hardware and that Nintendo never learned, shut out from 3rd parties etc.

When more technical savvy gamers entered the thread, they basically say that outside of AMD, ARM is the the only other game in town CPU wise and that they were widely used, easy to program for and part of Vulkan the tech group that works together for compatibility. Their CPUs are also better than the AMD cores in XB1 and PS4 and could easily scale up and down for portables too. So all's good there.

So then we had the SemiAccurate story (also posted in sat updates) which said Nintendo's choice of hardware vendor for NX would make your jaw drop. The article is locked away for subscribers and you have to pay $1000 a year to view it or $100 a year as a student. So what the articles says is that Nvidia were locked out of console negotiations for XB1 and PS4 because of past dealings with MS and Sony which were not favourable. It was a loss of pride and the console team were told to get a console win or not come in for work. So they struck an amazing deal (for Nintendo) in which they were even taking a loss and that the NX handheld will be using Tegra. The reason Nvidia were willing to eat a loss is because they had all their wafer orders they were supposed to be use and if they didn't they would have massive fines from production plants. Selling the designs to Nintendo even a loss means they will be taking less of a loss than they would have done by paying fines for not producing anything.

GAF speculate it would be Tegra X1 which would give you XB1 graphics on a handheld at 500 gflops, it can handle 4k video and 1080p 60fps graphics according to Nvidia and it's based on the Maxwell PC card tech. They also showed it running UE4 Elemental tech demo in video. There are all sort of crazy theories that instead of NX being a powerful home console, it's a monster handheld with a 540p screen that can easily scale up to 1080p which connected to a TV. Or that the home console part was the Supplemental Console Device to boost how games would look when playing on the TV.

So anyway today we have the Kimishima interview saying once again:

"It’s something very new. The hardware. The NX is neither the successor to the Wii U nor to the 3DS. It’s a new way of playing games."

And then this last part:

"I don’t believe it’s as simple as “because this is a new platform, we can make it more expensive.”

So the hope of some super powerful normal console (PS4K level) is basically dead, as Nintendo wants to make a profit and indicate here they wont make it expensive. Also Kimishima saying it will be new and different. Also, some GAffers make a good point that a mid-generation console priced at PS4 launch prices from Nintendo wouldn't do very well as most people have already chosen their third party box.

Other people are still pinning their hopes on the SCDevice.

So, adjust your expections - I'm calling it now, XB1 level hardware with a new hook. Reasonable price.

Personally, I thought the Wii U was close enough to Xbox One level tech....why do we need a new system 4 years later that's yet again probably not quite as strong as the others? Just because the Wii U didn't sell, so now they have to sell a slightly better version in a new box with another new controller and hope this one sticks? Kind of blah.

I'm sure the games in the first year or so will be great and plentiful, but I can definitely imagine myself saying "Ok, I could have just played this on the Wii U".

edgecrusher said:

Personally, I thought the Wii U was close enough to Xbox One level tech

Problem is nobody else did. Developers shat on it. I'm personally fine with Wii U graphics, just wish Nintendo would add AA to some of their games.

edgecrusher said:

Just because the Wii U didn't sell, so now they have to sell a slightly better version in a new box with another new controller and hope this one sticks?

We still don't know what the twist is yet. 3DS didn't really have any big controller innovation, it was the 3D effect that was the twist. For all we know NX could have some crazy twist like merging their handheld and home console business (and platforms) into one - some weird hybrid device, unifying development or the SCDs where you could choose your own power levels.

edgecrusher said:

I can definitely imagine myself saying "Ok, I could have just played this on the Wii U".

I agree, I can see this a lot too. But sadly the market has chosen and decided to kill off Wii U so Nintendo don't have much of a choice. They could ride out the next few years with ever diminishing returns I guess. That wouldn't be very attractive. They seem to be changing their business with theme parks and toys and now anime and CGI movies.

Well, at least when the NX releases next year, there will be enough of a gap thatitllfeel like a new Nintendo generation.  Unfortunately, it'll could still be behind MS and Sony.

When Nintendo has actual news to announce tell me. Till then I have consoles with actual games to play.

I got the email survey for mighty no9 to pick my platform. The link in the email doesn't work. I can't make this shit up.