Pretty much. I mean people tend to forget the New 3DS, which was largely a uneventful revision, doubled the RAM, doubled(ish) the core count, increased the CPU clock by 3X and increased the GPU clock by 50%.
Did it? I didn't think the improvement was anywhere near that big.
What exactly did they plan on using that RAM for? Literally just Xenoblade Chronicles and nothing else?
@Balta666 While that's true, the PS4 Pro was approximately 2-3x of an improvement, the Xbox one x was about 4x,, so there is precedent in the industry. Additionally (and this is key) there was no point to upgrading the GPU in the 3DS much. The screen resolution meant that with the New 3DS GPU, there was basically nothing that it would get GPU limited on (Either due to hitting the resolution frame rate target, or getting CPU / bandwidth / RAM limited first).
The Switch on the other hand? You could throw in a 2-3x GPU upgrade with nothing else and it's still be able to use all that power on many games. Though, quite frankly, a CPU upgrade and faster RAM and hard memory combined with even a 1.5x upgrade would probably be more generally useful than just upgrading the GPU...
Anyways, the main thing to keep in mind is this I think. The New 3DS chip upgrade didn't have a need to be more powerful than it was, so I wouldn't quote it as precedent against a 2x more powerful chip. Especially since... There's a solution already available to Nintendo to do so without custom chip work on their end.
@Dezzy If I remember correctly, the New 3DS would use the extra RAM to speed up the OS significantly. Some games (like Super Smash Bros) actually shut down much of the OS to get more RAM, and required a restart to the console to exit the game on the original system. In general, the OG 3DS OS was way slower than on the New 3DS.
@Dezzy
To be fair it was from 128MB to 256MB. For perspective the iPhone 4S which launched around the time of the original 3DS had 512MB. It may have partly just been a case of it became harder to source lower capacity chips. Or the premium on additional RAM became trivial relative to the total cost of the unit.
As for what it was used for, I think mostly the improvements on the New 3DS were put to better load times. Games like Smash Bros used up enough resources that they'd turn off the main OS on the original 3DS. So every time you booted the game you'd effectively shut down your 3DS and boot up the game. That's also why I said they "doubled(ish)" the core count. There was always a core exclusively for the OS so while there were physically additional cores on the 3DS the games that needed them didn't really use them.
edit: beaten to it a bit also. Graph showing all Nintendo consoles and the amount of memory they had. Yes, I even included the Virtual Boy. I've added a theoretical Switch Pro launching early 2022 with 8GB so you can see how conservative that would actually be. Also kinda stands out how unusual this gap between new hardware is when you look at it like this.
That Nintendo isn't live on stage anymore (though I know there wasn't a stage this year) is always a bit strange. But today I learned that Sony didn't participate for the second year in a row! I find that even stranger.
@Henmii
Yea, that was weird for Sony. Though there's not really much for them to show when it comes to 1st-party until 2022 is what I'm hearing. I'm on the hunt for a PS5, so I'm starting to dabble back into Sony news lately.
@Dezzy The New 3DS extra RAM was so several games didnt need to outright turn off the operating system just to have space to load, Gen 7 Pokemon and Smash are notable.
Plus in Pokemon's case, it reduced load times and the extra grunt also improved performance from slideshow in double battles to only a slideshow in some double battles with weather.
Now Playing: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Crash Bandicoot 4
@ThanosReXXX
Yeah, VR would be a dumb move but I struggle to think of what else upcoming would require dropping the Switch form. I guess that's why I'm a software dev in a small Australian enterprise focused company not some high up in a gaming mega corporation.
Haha, don't sell yourself short, man. From what I've seen and read from you over the years, you definitely know your stuff. We may not always agree, but I've found that at least, discussions with you are always polite and fair.
As for Nintendo: to be honest, I think that it's fair to say that most, if not all of us, would struggle to think of what Nintendo might come up with next. Ever since they moved on from the SNES to the N64, their way of thinking and their subsequent products have gone from weird to weirder, and in my humble opinion, not a single Western company could have predicted, much less could have come up with any of their ideas. And that is basically also why I'm not entirely discounting them coming up with something completely different for the next generation, regardless of the success of their current console.
My take on the Wii U has always been that it would have been a huge success if it had launched 18-24 months earlier (with key titles shifted forwards accordingly) for a few reasons.
The iPad tablet boom was pretty much over and the market saturated with dirt cheap third party models by the time the Wii U launched. If it had come before or on the crest of that wave though it could have been huge.
There were, of course, other major failures of marketing aside from timing.
Going forwards I’d make one observation though - Nintendo never gives up on ideas, they almost always go back. Whether it’s the tablet controller for asymmetric play (Nintendo were experimenting with this as far back as the N64-GBC in various ways) or glasses free 3D (the virtual boy and then the never released GameCube peripheral) or very simplified controls and motion controls. Even the hybrid concept was something they’d clearly toyed with in the past.
If Nintendo does have a new idea post Switch I’ll make one prediction (which is always stupid with Nintendo but I’ll do it anyway…) - they’ll do something they’ve played around with before on a bigger and more fully realised scale.
Maybe those patents for distributed computing will find a use (possibly with something like VR) or maybe they’ll do a lot more with IR scanning to enhance the toys to life experience. Maybe they’ll produce a ROB 2.0 (they absolutely should!). Maybe the vitality sensor will be a big part of it.
Whatever they do I think it’ll have its roots in ideas that a team in Nintendo has already worked on extensively in the past (that might have been completely parked for a decade or more).
I guess they will do their own event again, but still its strange. From what I have heard and seen this years E3 was pretty bad (Nintendo was actually pretty good, definitely better then I expected). Most games are delayed because of Covid. That being said: Do you have a Ps4? If so there isn't much need for a Ps5 just yet, since most titles also have a Ps4 version (unless you are going for the sharpest graphics, of course). As far as I know the only exclusives so far are Demon souls remake, that sci-fi rogue game I forgot the name from and Ratchet and Clank Rift apart (that one looks amazing). Just saying, its up to you.
I don't think the main things everyone is talking about... that being Metroid and Zelda will be out this year.
At the very least I get the impression Metroid 5 is a lot further in development than what most people thought. I know we wont have to wait until 2023 or something.
I feel like they are kind of in a trap where they feel they need to flex the console's technology. (That being joycon HD rumble and all that.)
It's not a bad thing to present the features of the console but if that means pushing generally below-average content for them, like with 1-2 Switch(bad), Mario Tennis(decent but could have been better), or a lot of the party titles on the Wii U etc. Not that all these games are bad or anything more so that feel too much like in-fill titles or just Nintendo saying... "Hey! we got motion controls!"
People still have plenty of wii nostalgia... So bringing back some form of Wii Sports Resort or Mii games would be a good pitch for the joycon features and sell very well too.
Nintendo hasn't shot themselves in the foot though. What was on display certainly didn't look bad. I would go out to buy the Mario Golf game. I think talking too long about the Zelda Game and Watch was kind of awkward. The games were alright. Third party offerings looked cool. Not their best E3 but I can say its far from their worst and did better than their competition this year.
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Topic: E3 2021 Discussion Thread
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