Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

The Studio does not have Dev Kit’s themselves yet and have not been informed of the specs, however the graphical performance of the NX is of great interest to them due to their current project.

So basically they don't know what it is and Nintendo is not going to tell them unless they sign an NDA. So they tell the media everything they know about it which is nothing because they haven't signed the NDA. Slow news day much?

Nintendo is officially a member of the Khronos group now: http://gamingbolt.com/will-nintendo-nx-use-vulkan-graphics-api

This might actually give us a clue about the performance of the NX, since not all GPUs support the vulkan API.

On the home front, the AMD GPUs with vulkan support is HD 77xx and upwards, this means that the lowest it could be is roughly Xbox.

On the portable front, it seems to be supported in Snapdragons and PowerVR6 and upwards. So, medium or high end phone graphics.

This also points to a more unified platform for both their lines, since it will be quite easy to port between platforms. It would also be easier to support android (but not apple devices)

@Therad: yeah they're definitely using vulkan, especially if they're indeed going for a shared ecosystem. There'll still be system specific games and cross games won't be completely 1:1 but the development environment will be more or less the same and porting between them will be easy.

@Therad:
It could just as easily be for the home console and not the portable. But I think "medium phone" equivalent specs for a portable should be what we're looking at regardless. And surely the home console will be at least in the ballpark of the XBOne/PS4.

@skywake: yeah as long as there's no super expensive hardware gimmick home console should be able to cost a profitable $300 and match the other home consoles while being more efficient.

Or it could be a Micro Console

@DefHalan: dude it's not going to be one. Nintendo wouldn't be super secretive over a media player. They already have the $99 2DS as an entry mean to the Nintendo market

@WebHead: Well, that is your opinion.

http://m.imgur.com/Dfe4BPu another concept I drew. It's the idea of a home console with a controller that has scroll wheels. It's basically a Wii u pro controller with scroll wheels, NFC(a is for amiibo), rumble, mic, speaker, and headphone jack.

@WebHead:
The scroll wheels would go the other way if they were to implement them. If hold a mouse in your palm and feel where the scroll wheel is sits along your middle finger right? Do the same with a controller and that same finger will sit where ZR/ZL is.

That said they'd probably want to keep ZR/ZL as standard triggers so maybe they'd replace L/R instead? Because how many games use L/R these days compared to how many use ZR/ZL. If they put it where you placed it I suspect that you'd have a lot of issues with the wheel scrolling when you want to click.

Putting scroll wheels below the triggers would be fairly awkward design, triggers work best when they're at the bottom of the controller. If they can't go in L/R, it'd probably be better to replace the Control Pad instead.

And the home name I chose for simplicity and openness. A modern Nintendo home console thats easier to program for. A "welcome home" if you will.

@skywake: I can't find the image, and I don't know if it was official or not, but I've seen one where the wheel was embedded in the actual button. There was a slot in the L and R buttons where the wheel poked out a little. That makes it easy to scroll, but also easy to use as a regular button, since the rest of the button has enoungh traction to prevent your finger sliding left and right whilst pressing it.

@Bolt_Strike:
Yeah, putting it where L/R is does make more sense. I was more making a point about orientation rather than placement. The absolute best spot to place it would be horizontally where the ZR/ZL triggers are. The problem is that that's also the best placement for the ZL/ZR triggers. So replacing L/R with the scroll wheel is probably the best option.

@Octane:
The only "official" image of the scroll-wheel controller is the patent itself. In that image there is a screen, two circle pads, d-pad, A/B buttons and the two scroll wheel triggers. That's it. I think it's fair to say that if we do get a scroll-wheel controller it won't be like that. Anything that shows something other than that is a fan render.

Also I don't see why it being inside a button would be necessary. You can click a scroll wheel and it's not particularly difficult. No harder than clicking in an analogue stick. It's just a bit hard to click it if your finger is at right angles to it and hard enough that I wouldn't want to replace the main triggers with it.

@skywake: Nevermind then, I misread your post; it was still early...

I don't like analogue stick clicks. They're clumsy.

http://dualpixels.com/2016/02/27/rumor-new-information-on-nex... this sounds like it's be pretty expensive. Is xbone power in a portable feasible?

I'm no tech expert, but I'm sure the thing would have to be the size and weight of a brick to accommodate the hardware and the battery needed to run it. I don't put much stock in this rumour either.

@shaneoh: at the same time this Geno guy, if it was indeed him, has been reliable in the past. I'm skeptical for now. This sounds too good.