Speed is the focus in Mario Kart 8

The more things change, the more they seem the same. In the 16-bit era Nintendo and SEGA squabbled over the number of colours their systems supported, featured games that enhanced performance with additional chips in the cartridges, and SEGA even tried to claim that Blast Processing was a real thing. The console space has always had technology at its core, whether companies squabble over 'bits' back in the day or 'gigaflops' now. Nintendo, particularly from the Wii onwards, has ducked out of the arms race to focus on concepts and content over graphical power.

Of course, game consoles are never truly the cutting edge in gaming technology, because they're mainstream products. PC enthusiasts often need to spend hundreds (even a thousand or more) dollars a year to maintain rigs that deliver the latest games at their maximum (or 'ultra') settings. The holy grail for some right now is 4K gaming at a rock-solid 60fps, which is delicious in action but difficult to achieve on a modest budget.

Consoles, however, are fixed units that require extensive design and manufacturing lead times, and then need to have a price point to achieve mainstream success. As a result compromises are made in CPU speeds, while GPUs can be powerful but are rarely the 'latest' technology. It's a balancing act between affordability and functionality, and if Nintendo continues with its current principles it won't be pushing out an NX system that's bleeding edge technology. It may be innovative and have a great concept, but 4K gaming and the power to run all games at full pelt will be unrealistic; after all, not even Microsoft and Sony are achieving that.

We've been thinking about priorities in gaming experiences, as consoles can't successfully deliver everything gamers or even developers want. The PS4 Pro is a case in point - to hit an affordable price it relies on clever bespoke upscaling to deliver 4K gaming, aside from a small number of games that can hit that UHD resolution natively. While a few titles will offer options to switch between increasingly impressive visuals at 30fps or normal 1080p at 60fps, most will be upscaling but sticking with the lower framerate, not including that framerate choice for gamers. This is a result of those aforementioned compromises - the Pro has a beefed up GPU to help push upscaled 4K and/or improved graphical effects, but a modest boost in CPU seems unlikely to be enough for processor intensive 'triple A' games (aside from smaller, more manageable titles) to push 60fps consistently (or at all).

Pikmin 3 earned plaudits for its visuals when released on Wii U

Nintendo, for its part, has opted to deliver 60fps in this generation when it feels a game and genre demand it. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is native 1080p with the action at 60fps, though background elements actually run at half that clip in order to make that performance possible. Mario Kart 8 and Super Mario 3D World also deliver the higher framerate, though are native 720p that upscales to 1080p. If you need a reminder of the difference in framerate between 60 and 30, go from single or two-player races in Mario Kart 8 to three- or four-player splitscreen, where the framerate halves. It's noticeable, yet there are a number of games on Wii U (including examples like Pikmin 3 by Nintendo) happy to run at 30fps.

There are multiple factors at play then, and the choice between pushing the best visuals possible and the higher framerate can depend on factors such as a game's genre, in addition to hardware limitations. Yet there is a sense that a choice can be made in many cases, and though only rumours it was interesting that an apparent retail source was claiming that 1080p and 60fps could be part of the marketing message for NX. Is that a focus to be excited about, if true, or is the graphical intensity that mostly drives the PS4 / Xbox One battle your preferred focus?

We'll be considering the angles soon, but until then we want to know what you think. What are your priorities; if you have to choose between higher fidelity visuals or compromises to ensure the smoothest and fastest performance, which wins out? Hit up the polls and comments to let us know.

Which do you normally prefer, a focus on the best possible visuals or 60fps performance?
Assuming Nintendo opts for a specific focus, which development approach would you prefer?