If they could at least get the 3rd party sports titles (FIFA, Madden, NBA 2K), then that would probably help sales. Looks to me like they've ditched the touchscreen, so that would theoretically make ports easier.
I used to be out in the field more and something like this would've come in handy. If they release old NES/SNES games it would be awesome as a portable emulator. I actually keep a Android phone just for that purpose when I travel. Like everything about it except for the price point... $150-200 tops, imo.
They have released a huge list of third party partners with all the big players on there. As just a console with a standard controller, no controller gimmick,.that might help. It really depends on how good that nvidia chip is. What doesn't help is that PS4 and X1 are x86 and easy to code for. I assume this is custom and therefore devs will have to actually work to port games to it. Showed my daughter, she seemed impressed, guess I will be buying one.
This is basically a beefed up Shield so it should be able to run Android apps. It will be interesting to see if they allow that. Maybe they'll even surprise us and have some kind of gamed streaming service like the Shield does.
Nintendo is back! Finally! Praising Xbox was leaving a bad taste in my mouth! (Edit) Ha! Ha! Just try saying that with a straight face!
The most important detail about this new system is that its nVidia based. That is the game changer. For the past two decades, Nintendo has been using outdated hardware from IBM and ATI in a very hands off fashion. nVidia is very hands on with developers when it comes to their hardware, and the tools they provide is a huge incentive for software companies to take the system seriously. I'm very curious to find out exactly what hardware is running the system, because this could be an extremely competitive machine. Of course, if Nintendo is simply licensing the hardware and nVidia isn't involved in the developer tools, this system will be another failure, or at best, a second system in some homes used only for Mario kart and Smash bros, but otherwise collects dust. The concept is cool, potential involvement by nVidia on the software side is huge, all Nintendo needs to do to hit a home run is completely scrap their idea of what online integration looks like and catch up with the rest of the world. I'm cautiously optimistic, with an extra emphasis on "cautiously."
I guess the development kits have the Tegra X1 chips but instead of running at 1GHz like it does in the Nvidia Shield it runs at 768MHz in the dock and 307.2MHz off dock. So realistically most developers will probably only plan to develop for the 307.2MHz speed because 768MHz isn't portable. Where does this leave us? Around Xbox 360 performance? I don't think we're going to see the 3rd party support or PS4 ports we'd hope for. At best we'll see old AAA titles from 2012. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/nintendo-switch-nvidia-tegra-x1-specs-speed/
Eh, Playstation and Xbox are effectively split between two different levels of performance now, so I'm not sure that's a big deal. Sounds like the goal is to have decent battery life for the portable, and Ars is saying that either clock speed will still deliver a significant boost in performance vs. Wii U.
I didn't expect the system to use Tegra X2 personally, despite speculation. This thing has to be cost effective, so of course they aren't going to use the latest and the greatest. If it keeps the cost down, and development is cheap and easy, then its possible to see a bunch of original content rather than ports. My biggest concern is how they handle their online system, and their eshop. If they can make their shop friendly to indie devs, this system will be a winner. Affordable indie games are hot right now. The problem is that Nintendo is notorious for not getting with the times, so I have my doubts that they will embrace that business model like Apple, Sony and Microsoft have done. A good example of their failure to adapt enough is the Mario Run game on iOS. Its great that they ventured into the smartphone ecosystem. However, it was presented as freemium, but its essentially just a demo to a $10 mobile game. No thank you, that price point doesn't have mass appeal on phones. You'll make profit, but never capture long term success on the platform.
If this thing comes with just a little more power than the Wii U and still using 720p it's not going to sell well as a new console. The only way it will succeed is if the price is low enough and the battery life is good enough to replace the 3DS as their best mobile platform.
bros. when that nintendo nx trailer came out, people's minds were blown that skyrim was on it. that's a 2011 game. let that sink in for a moment. 2011 game. do not expect a powerhouse system.
It will sell well because it will become the home of the Nintendo Pokemon series. By replacing the DS as well as the Wii U Nintendo will get more sales from the dedicated Pokemon market.
Your own Arstechnica post said that it would be a "sizable jump" vs. the Wii U in terms of performance. 720p would likely be the undocked resolution, and 1080p available when docked.
Of course its a sizable jump over the Wii U. Nintendo has been using the same parts since 2001. The Wii U was just Gamecube 3.0 with an outdated PowerPC chip and an GPU based off of ATI tech.
Home of Pokemon, Zelda and Monster Hunter will make it as popular or better than the 3DS plus whatever AAA games Nintendo will finally get.
I chose to ignore that because "sizable" is arbitrary. Using really bad math we can see the 3DS will get crushed no matter what but actual performance over the Wii U is still up in the air. If developers make two versions of every game we'll have a mobile version as good as a Wii U and a console version twice as fast as a Wii U but still significantly behind an Xbox One. If games are only made for the mobile speed it's Wii U performance all the way. Gflops of systems 2.6 PSP 4.8 3DS 12 Wii 51 PS Vita 240 X360 307 Tegra X1 - Switch mobile mode 352 Wii U 716 Tegra X1 - Switch console mode 1024 Tegra X1 1230 Xbox One 1840 PS4
Looks like you just took the GPU clock speeds and converted them directly to Gflops. I think I'll stick with Arstechnica.
That's exactly what I did and I wont argue that's it's not at all accurate but I'm also not sure how the Tegra X1 will be used. The Tegra X1 gets 1024 Gflops at half-precision floating-point format but the Gflops are cut to 512 when using single-precision floating-point format. If the X1 has to use single-precision like the PS4 and Xbox1 my bad math and science look even worse. 2.6 PSP 4.8 3DS 12 Wii 51 PS Vita 154 Tegra X1 - Switch mobile mode fp32 240 X360 307 Tegra X1 - Switch mobile mode fp16 352 Wii U 359 Tegra X1 - Switch console mode fp32 512 Tegra X1 fp32 716 Tegra X1 - Switch console mode fp16 1024 Tegra X1 fp16 1230 Xbox One 1840 PS4