Sonny Corinthos

Here's two interesting articles about the NX.

Nintendo NX: Everything there is to know about Nintendo's new console.

http://www.gamesradar.com/nintendo-n...gn=buffer_grfb

True Or Not, This Nintendo NX 'Leak' Describes A Pretty Great Console.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthi.../#233ba0eb1010

Sonny Corinthos

Nintendo NX Games Include At Least Four Wii U Ports?

We have had a number of rumors about alleged Nintendo NX games that will make it in the launch line-up, however since Nintendo itself is yet to reveal the console, they are also not talking about the games so far.

Yet, according to some rumors it looks like they are not completely focused on new games – unlike what a vast majority of the fans would want. In fact, an insider says that at least four Wii U games are going to be ported at first.

Nintendo NX Games Include Four Wii U Ports?

Emily Rogers, a known leaker and alleged insider recently tweeted about the the games that will (in her opinion) be among the launch titles of the console, and without giving us any names she said that there will be at least four games that we already know of.

Her Twitter does not have the tweet anymore, but she also added that actually there were more Wii U ports being worked on, out of which Rogers is sure of at least four.

Now if we look at the game line up on Wii U, some names pop up in our minds immediately, like the new Zelda Wii U game which has already been rumored to be one of the NIntendo NX games we will get.

Other speculations suggest that we could get Super Smash Bros, Splatoon and Super Mario Maker since these have been the most popular releases of late.

While the speculations regarding Wii U ports remains open, a number of new games have also been rumored to be released on Nintendo NX. For instance Luigi’s Mansion 3, Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefield, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Mech Super eXtended, and an Ubisoft game.

http://segmentnext.com/2016/04/11/ni...r-wii-u-ports/

cleaver

The NX: it's wanktastic.
Reading through that when I got to "Ubisoft game" I was unconsciously making a wanking motion.

Michael Corvin

Pikmin was the selling point for me on the WiiU. Please make Pikmin 4 a WiiU title so I can hold off on the NX.

I've given up on BG&E2. That shit was rumored for the WiiU launch.

Drexl

Those titles sound plausible, as the reason for doing them would be to take advantage of the allegedly much improved online system.

Adam Tyner

You already know about the March 2017 release date, that it won't be shown at E3, and that the next Legend of Zelda is officially going to be making it to the NX.

Here's a new bit of info, making me hopeful about some sort of handheld/console cross-compatibility:

Sonny Corinthos

New report says Nintendo NX may use 3DS-style cards instead of discs.

Add this one to the pile of evidence for Nintendo NX bridging the gap between home console and handheld: Macronix, the Taiwanese memory company that is the main manufacturer of 3DS game cards for Nintendo, seems to be very excited about the launch of NX in March 2017. It's even reportedly working on a new type of chip that could bump up their memory limit from 8 GB to 32 GB.

Japanese financial analysis site Money-Link (translated by Screen Critics) posted these findings after digging into Macronix's recent financial reports. They indicate that Macronix is expecting unusually good sales around the NX's launch window, a time that otherwise tends to be slow for the manufacturer. Macronix specifically cited Nintendo's new platform as a cause for significant orders throughout their business year.

Macronix also makes ROM chips that could be used to house NX's BIOS, the firmware used to boot up a computer before the operating system takes over. Admittedly, Nintendo would need to order a bunch of BIOS chips to get a new console ready to go, hybrid or no. But that doesn't seem like it would be quite as much cause for celebration for Macronix though, nor would it need expanded storage. Not to mention the game card idea lines up with a patent that surfaced last year, which specifically references using a "memory card".

If Nintendo is trying to make NX the best of both the handheld and home console worlds, using DS-style cards instead of optical discs would make sense. They're more expensive to manufacture than discs, but they would let Nintendo avoid the weight, power drain, and fragility of a disc drive, which would be ideal for a portable system. And though 8 GB of data would be pretty cramped for an Xbox One-quality game, 32 GB sounds quite a bit more feasible, especially if NX does more Xenoblade Chronicles X-style optional data downloads.

http://www.gamesradar.com/new-report...gn=buffer_grfb

fumanstan

32 GB still seems small and limiting.

Michael Corvin

Gotta gimp the system somehow.

Noonan

What would that mean for game devs? Would the higher cost of the medium be ate by them or Nintendo? I do see this helping their lack of cross-platform, 3rd party support at all.

Adam Tyner

This gets into assumptions based on assumptions based on assumptions based on..., but:

If the NX is using cards rather than discs, this would definitely suggest that Nintendo is looking at multiple form factors (like handheld and console) with a shared library.

A shared library would mean there's just one SKU per title. This means the days of developing a game twice (like Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS) or handheld-specific/console-specific games in the same franchise (say, Mario Kart 7 and Mario Kart 8) are over. There'd be some additional effort in making sure the game plays well on multiple form factors (including a weaker CPU/GPU and less RAM), but in terms of development costs, marketing, physical production, logistics, etc., this makes life massively easier for Nintendo and even their retail partners.

I've seen it argued that the savings in logistics alone could bring the high cost of these cards down to within spitting distance of optical media. If Nintendo feels like playing nice, they can eat that cost themselves for third-party titles or compensate with lower NX licensing fees. One upside for Nintendo is that it'd bring hardware costs down massively, and there'd be less in the way of maintenance/support with fewer (possibly zero) moving parts. That'd also make it easier to absorb media costs themselves.

As for working around the capacity constraints, there could always be a way to download higher-res asset packs or something. Like, you'd have the handheld version of a game on the card, which would fit with no issues, and the console version would use those lower-res assets unless you download higher resolution versions. That's basically what Nintendo did with Xenoblade Chronicles X.

Since this is Inception-style speculation-within-speculation-within-speculation, it could turn out that there's just a console, it uses Blu-ray-style discs, and the whole ROM thing is just being blown out of proportion.

Noonan

I was talking about 3rd parties. It would be great for Nintendo internally but how would other devs feel about having to release a SSD based game as well as discs for the other two consoles?

Adam Tyner

I mention third-parties in there. Aside from capacity constraints (and maybe read times if some content is on local storage and other is on-card), devs probably wouldn't care. That'd be more of a concern on the publisher side, and if things are structured so that no additional money is coming out of their pockets, everything still gets delivered when they need it to, and people are willing to buy 'em, they have no reason to care. Nintendo's job would be to make sure those three bullet points are all addressed.

Breakfast with Girls

Most PS4 games easily fit in that size. If they need to bump the size they can.

fumanstan

Do they? I can't find a list of the actual install sizes on disc, only people posting sizes after installation. I would have guessed a lot of titles would be right around that limit.

Michael Corvin

I actually not opposed to this, just the way Nintendo will handle it.

I was hoping for something similar for PS4/X1 long before they launched. Something like this, or SD or jump drives would be great, IMO. People still tied to physical media get their way and they could have multiple ports on a console allowing you to have 4-6 games in the system at once.

Breakfast with Girls

I mean, Sony sells games digitally. You say install as if it's not copying the entire disc.

fumanstan

Huh? I say install because installation files, whether on optical disc or via digital download are typically compressed and much smaller then the game on your hard drive.

Breakfast with Girls

Hmm, I guess I don't really understand what point you're trying to make? My point is uncompressed file sizes on HDD are typically within 32 GB.

fumanstan

I have plenty of XBox One games currently installed that are bigger then that, so my point is the same as the original one I made - 32 GB seems like it would be limiting (without knowing how big the install files are on disc).

But if 32 GB isn't a hard limit, then it doesn't really matter - of course, then I don't see why it's worth mentioning if moving to 64 GB isn't an issue.

Breakfast with Girls

I think they're mentioning it because it would be the initial limit. Nintendo game card sizes have a wide range, and based on history, they will continue to increase over the lifetime of the product. DS cards are between 8 and 512 MB. 3DS cards are between 1 and 8 GB. I would expect the initial max to be 32 GB, but within a few years I would expect that to increase to 64 GB.

Of about 600 PS4 games, 32 are above 32 GB. Games that are within 32 GB are ones like Bloodborne, The Witcher 3, Star Wars Battlefront, etc.

fumanstan

Which doesn't really change my original comment then - if there are already games that you know are bigger then 32 GB, and that there are 64 and 128 GB MicroSD cards on the market, there's no reason to have an initial limit at all. Especially coming in mid-generation and presuming they want some of the same third party titles that the PS4 and XB1 are getting.

I'm aware of different sized cartridges even back to their early consoles and it's not THAT big of a deal, just seems like something easy to avoid to begin with. Either way, just a rumor and I hope it's not true.

Michael Corvin

You realize you're talking about the company that went with a 1.3GB mini-DVD over a standard 4/8GB DVD, and cartridge over CD right?

fumanstan

Yes? And? Pretty much exactly the reason why i'm complaining again now.

Breakfast with Girls

If they are planning game cards, it would likely be because they intended them to be used in both a home console and a portable system. The PSP and common sense tells us that spinning discs don't work great in portables. There are other ways to do it, of course: if you buy the console version of a game, you could download it onto your portable system for free, and cloud saves could let you transfer between the two. But that requires a Wi-Fi connection and is more involved. It is simpler and arguably more compelling to just be able to take the game card and pop it in either console or portable.