​

Today via their latest finacial report, Nintendo announced that their new upcoming gaming system, codenamed the Nintendo NX, will be released worldwide in March 2017.

“For our dedicated video game platform business, Nintendo is currently developing a gaming platform codenamed ‘NX’ with a brand-new concept. NX will be launched in March 2017 globally.”

The Nintendo NX will not show at this year's E3, instead the company will focus on the latest Zelda title at the upcoming conference, which will now be a dual release for both WiiU and the NX.

1. No NX at E3. Will focus on new Zelda

— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) April 27, 2016

Latest Nintendo Financial Report

Update. The new open world Zelda is also set to appear on the NX and Wii U at the same time.
Source thanks to DarkenedMatter

 

[FAST6191]

Put it this way, Ninty has no choice put to migrate to the architecture that Sony and Microsoft use.
That is, if they want anyone to release third party games on their hardware. Rewriting software for a niche console with a smaller install base is a pass. Nintendo is doomed if they can't get developers to make games for their hardware.

I would encourage anybody at Nintendo thinking they could massage the powerpc stuff they have now into working form to the put the crack pipe down. However following Sony and MS is not the only way; ARM seems to be doing pretty well lately and Nintendo already have quite a bit in place for that, as do many middleware companies.

 

[osirisjem]

I would encourage anybody at Nintendo thinking they could massage the powerpc stuff they have now into working form to the put the crack pipe down. However following Sony and MS is not the only way; ARM seems to be doing pretty well lately and Nintendo already have quite a bit in place for that, as do many middleware companies.

Do cellphones use ARM ?

Are hits on ps4 and xb1 easily ported to ARM ?

 

[FAST6191]

Most phones do use ARM and have for years, as do most tablets and an awful lot of every market for embedded computing. All Nintendo's handhelds since the GBA have used ARM, the Wii used ARM for their IOS modules.

Could games be ported directly... tough call.
Many around here would see ARM and think GBA or DS. This would be bad as said devices were somewhat behind the times when they were current. Modern stuff does far better

See also what you can emulate on Android these days.

Whether it would make for a relatively simple port from the xbone and PS4 I do not know, it certainly would not be the almost press recompile thing I imagine happens for a lot of PS4 and xbone stuff to go to the PC. At the same time you have to ask if they want xbone and ps4 games or just to have third parties make games for them again like they did on the SNES, GBA and DS. Also if you know you have a game focus you can play to it and include more fancy graphics handling options.

Personally I would happy enough to see Nintendo go software only, maybe making a peripheral or three. I would also like to see the market go like CDs and DVDs where 50 manufacturers make hundreds of players that anybody can use, however that it is probably a bit too optimistic.

 

[Bladexdsl]

this can't be true...

 

[FAST6191]

That would be an interesting development if it was. I have ran the numbers a few times over the years and it is not impossible. It is still reasonably costly and I am not sure what the margins are at with things and that would be the bigger issue.

 

[Bladexdsl]

the problem with carts though is they can't store as much. the ones that actualy can microSDXC are expensive as fuck!

 

[FAST6191]

They said 32 gigs there for a chip in the article, granted you would have to double up to meet/exceed 50 gig dual layer blu ray but 32 gigs is not an unreasonable sum. I am not sure what takes the space in modern games though -- back on the PS1 then cut scenes and audio had to be low compression, low demand codecs but today I can get hours of decent res into a gig or two and more audio than your copyright people would ever clear into far less than that. I have seen devs go there with audio/video a few times still but that seems to be more licensing than anything of great technical merit. That pretty much leaves 3d textures, which with the detail, resolution, depth mapping, animations and such are more than the bitmap what goes on flat surfaces of 3d models us granddad types saw rise with the 32 bit era, and if you have the random access times which are likely faster than straight reads of optical then that opens some doors to things.

The n64 struggling to cheaply break 100 megs at times where every CD was 700 megs without issue represented a problem, I am less sure this would. On the other hand if devs are used to having the extra space then Nintendo is likely not in a position to turn around and say stop being a tart to devs doing them a favour by sticking things on their consoles.

I did have a quick scan to see what game sizes were but I only had wii u via ABGX which I am not sure about and xbox one install sizes rather than downloadable GOD versions or something.

It is certainly not a clear cut thing but I am not about to dismiss it either.

 

[Bladexdsl]

there's one last problem using carts

the lack of standards audio support like DTS, Dolby and even basic HDMI CEC.

 

[FAST6191]

How does carts change what audio codecs can be used? I will probably go further and ask what good such audio formats have ever done for games, and I would probably also ask what they do for films over other multi channel lossy formats but I will leave that one for another day (I think my favourite that I ever saw there was someone railing on a studio because it needed to be in lossless wave/PCM rather than lossless something else). I am not sure what licensing would be either -- http://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/cinema/motion-picture-service-agreement.html (it is for films and such but I can't imagine it is too different for games, or if games are somehow all free and clear now then whether it will be the case in 10 years time is a different matter) and http://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/licensing/apply-license-consumer.aspx would seem to indicate it is not inherent to the device.

Also HDMI CEC is a control method as far as I know (and in my experience a borderline useless one in the real world unless you set out to get stuff that will do it) and nothing to do with carts. Assuming it was a typo/result of tossed acronym salad I am not sure what that would be either though.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

They said 32 gigs there for a chip in the article, granted you would have to double up to meet/exceed 50 gig dual layer blu ray but 32 gigs is not an unreasonable sum. I am not sure what takes the space in modern games though -- back on the PS1 then cut scenes and audio had to be low compression, low demand codecs but today I can get hours of decent res into a gig or two and more audio than your copyright people would ever clear into far less than that. I have seen devs go there with audio/video a few times still but that seems to be more licensing than anything of great technical merit. That pretty much leaves 3d textures, which with the detail, resolution, depth mapping, animations and such are more than the bitmap what goes on flat surfaces of 3d models us granddad types saw rise with the 32 bit era, and if you have the random access times which are likely faster than straight reads of optical then that opens some doors to things.

The n64 struggling to cheaply break 100 megs at times where every CD was 700 megs without issue represented a problem, I am less sure this would. On the other hand if devs are used to having the extra space then Nintendo is likely not in a position to turn around and say stop being a tart to devs doing them a favour by sticking things on their consoles.

I did have a quick scan to see what game sizes were but I only had wii u via ABGX which I am not sure about and xbox one install sizes rather than downloadable GOD versions or something.

It is certainly not a clear cut thing but I am not about to dismiss it either.

Spot on, 3d modeling and animations are the biggest killers

 

[Bladexdsl]

The storage space isn't where the costs are, it's the read/write speeds which are expensive to achieve. You can get a 64gb class 2 sd card for peanuts if you want. Doesn't mean it'll be suitable for gaming. Reading 2 mb/s would mean very long load times.

 

[FAST6191]

http://ps4daily.com/2013/03/playstation-4-blu-ray-drives-spins-3-times-faster-than-ps3/
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_speed
"the PlayStation 4 Blu-ray speed is rated at 6x, for maximum read speed of 27 MBs per second. That’s a big step up from the PS3, which only had a 2x speed that maxed out at 9 MB/s."
If this is ROM memory then that should not be a problem, yeah if you use bottom of the barrel NAND and base it on SD card style IO then you might run into trouble. On the flip side I can buy a 240 gig SSD for under £50 (as in myself, single drive, UK style warranty and 20% sales tax) that does 550 megabytes a second read. A more modest microSD ( http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-microsd-card/ ) apparently clocked 38.7 MB/s read.... except that was actually random read speed.

For the discs those are hypothetical max straight read speeds as well. Random read is significantly lower. Devs have managed these a bit at least since the days of the xbox (it famously came up for the KOTOR games when people ripped them at file level rather than disc level) and probably before but that is managed and not negated.

The ROM vendor might have sacrificed speed for space to get the prices down to competitive with what discs cost to press, at this point I do not know and have not checked out the ROM market (it was odd the last few times I checked and most public stuff was focusing on far smaller stuff for embedded hardware).

 

[Bladexdsl]

well we'll just have to wait and see what they do than

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Carts or discs, I'm in either way, let's just hope they're not going the digital download only route ugh....

 

[FAST6191]

Carts or discs, I'm in either way, let's just hope they're not going the digital download only route ugh....

Hey they could go download only and allow third part sellers to pick an arbitrary price on second hand titles.

 

[Bladexdsl]

i'll never use them again if they do that. it's bad enough god damn steam doing it!

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

i'll never use them again if they do that. it's bad enough god damn steam doing it!

I mean don't get me wrong, as an Indie dev, I only have the right to ever release anything on the Wii U as digital only, which makes sense as the cost of digital distribution is pretty much nothing (distribution, not talking about initial investments, or production costs). That and indie titles tend to be very affordable for consumers, so its a win-win all around. But for triple AAA titles, i still prefer the phsical copy over spendinh thr same amount on a digital version thats only good on that one console (no lending it out to a friend or selling it on ebay when you're done with it).

If the NX uses carts and/or discs with a digital option for those who want it (like wii and Wii U) great, but if they go the digital only route, i will not be buying an NX at all

 

[Deleted User]

I'd honestly prefer carts over discs since discs can get damaged fairly easily anyways.

 

[osirisjem]

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2016/01/21/major-nintendo-nx-details-release-window-ign-daily-fix
NX 2 release dates:
November 2016 - portable unit, $200
March 2017 - console.

 

[chartube12]

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2016/01/21/major-nintendo-nx-details-release-window-ign-daily-fix
NX 2 release dates:
November 2016 - portable unit, $200
March 2017 - console.

I kind of doubt this. Nintendo has been a no show for Xmas season for awhile. The original model Nintendo DS was the last time a handheld generation was released then. If anything console March and Handheld February or April.