Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@rallydefault The problem is that Nintendo won't be attending this year's TGS.

Whenever they are ready. The problem with revealing it to early is that the hype fizzles out. We are still 7 months away, so it isn't like it is that soon before launch. Information travels fast in todays world, but it also also dies out fast. I think they should reveal it before christmas, but that is just me, I ain't a market analyst.

MS revealed Scorpio this e3, do you feel hyped about it? Did it really give them an edge over the competition by revealing it now?

@Therad Not really, but I wasn't hyped about the XOne either. I think the reveal was a last minute decision at Microsoft to counter a possible NEO reveal that didn't happen. MS's entire messaging this conference was a big mess. And I certainly don't think that revealing a revision a year and a half before its release is a good move, they should've put more emphasis on the Slim edition. Anyway, these are just revisions though, it's just more of the same, but a little better.

@Octane
Sorry, I typed that post while you were typing yours. You obviously hit post while I was googling the specifics.

I personally think it was a mistake though I don't think it impacts the NX much. With Scropio being a known things on the horizon they're basically pulling momentum away from the XBOne and the S. Because Scorpio is something even more exciting that's out of reach. But by the time it comes out I think a lot of people will have moved on.

With the NX I think it's fair to say that the 3DS and Wii U were already losing momentum. The 3DS sales started to slow as far back as 2014 and the Wii U never really got started. So I don't think it matters what they do with the NX announcement either way.

I honestly think Microsoft will properly unveil Scorpio in February or early March. That would also potentially damage the NX release (if Nintendo's marketing strategies and NEO haven't already damaged it).

The jump in power from xone to scorpio is roughly the same as from 360 to xone. The only reason it is called a revision instead of Xbox two, is because it is backwards compatible. I mean it even follows the normal console cycle, maybe a tad bit shorter.

And I think it is a smart decision. Even if we love the console cycles and all speculation about new hardware, it is hurting everybody except the current market leader.

@BiasedSonyFan me too idc what ms said. They've changed their minds before. Nothing legally stopping them.

I think it'll be like it is with PCs, phones and pretty much every other piece of tech that's not a console. At first they'll build the games with the older model still in mind. Then slowly they'll let a few games slip that don't quite run as well on the old hardware. Eventually you'll get one game that's pretty much unplayable on the old hardware. Then a few more. Then everything.

But I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. Because under the old model you went from everything playable to missing out on some games entirely overnight. When the new console launched there were games on it you could not play unless you got the new console. Period. Within a year the old platform was often dead. Now that's going to happen bit-by-bit over a few years? I'd say that's a step forward.

I can play the original GTA on my PC if I wanted. I can't even play GTA 4 on the PS4.

@Therad Not just backwards compatible, the original XOne will still be supported. I think that's why I have to agree with the notion that ''console generations'' don't really mean anything anymore.

@WebHead Let's see how this will play out first, shall we? I don't think you should look at these revisions as upgrades that will render the vanilla console useless. See them as the premium console that will exist next to the vanilla ''budget'' systems. When you buy a PC or mobile phone, there's a whole range of products to choose from, it's not that difficult to imagine that these will both cater to a slightly different group. More options = potentially higher userbase.

I don't know how compatibility is going to work in the future, whether we'll get a completely new console, or whether they'll release another ''premium'' console and drop the Scorpio / NEO in price. As long as the last two versions of a console line support all the game, then I don't think this is a bad thing at all.

@skywake (Just thinking out loud!) I think the Scorpio will focus on 4K gaming...because with any huge leap, development costs ramp up. We already had companies having to merge or look to other sources of profit in the 360 days let alone the PS4 days. If studios create AAA games for Scorpio focused on 1080p, then I shudder to think how much resources would be needed to actually make the upgrade meaningful. I also don't think many companies would be ready for a ramp up and worse still, it could force the cost of gaming to rise So, if the hardware is focussed more on displaying pixels or supporting other projects like VR and AR, then reduces the burden of actual development.

@GrailUK I definitely think the focus of NEO is PSVR.

@Grumblevolcano Me too. I don't see Neo or Scorpio encroaching on the NX space. By the time 4K is standard and in every ones homes, I think these Sony / MS upgrades will still have games of similar scope as today just with less jaggies (if there are any on a HD screen lol!) and the NX may start looking out of date when docked (typical Nintendo lol).

Yea, that's a slight hitch in the plan lol

Sure, but it's still a fairly sharp transition. The PC model is a lot more gradual.

I'll put it this way. If you had brought a fairly middle-of-the-road gaming PC in 2011? You'd still be good for most current releases. As long as you don't expect to run at 4K with the highest settings. You'd be just barely under the recommended specs for games like Doom and No Mans Sky. Games like Overwatch would be a walk in the park for that sort of card. If you really wanted to you could probably squeeze a few more years out of it.

If you had brought a 360/PS3 in 2011? The new consoles launched in 2013. At that very point some games started to skip the 360/PS3. And not just the super high end stuff either. Smaller games like Transistor, Ori and the Blind Forrest and Rocket League were current gen only. So there was a transition year where most stuff was on both. But when support was dropped it was dropped entirely.

Anyways, it's not just the Scorpio. The Neo and the S are doing the same thing just not to that extent. Sony could easily have a Scorpio equivalent if they wanted. Mobile/Tablets do this sort of thing all the time. Hell, Nintendo does it with their portables to some extent and they're not shy to have a couple of exclusive games on day 1. It's not a new thing.

What could they have done to future-proof their consoles according to you?

I wasn't really talking about PC gaming though. I was talking about the different upgrade models. The one where the hardware on the shelf is always within a couple of years old. Where they fairly gracefully transition from one spec to the next year by year. The PC and phone model. Or the one where they sell the same hardware for 5+ years and then abruptly move on to the next spec all at once.

The spec they're talking about for Scorpio it didn't really exist when the XBOne launched. It was close but you'd have to buy a flagship card to get it. It's only in the last 6 months or so where that spec has become somewhat attainable for PCs. There was no way that Microsoft would have been able to realistically put that sort of spec on the shelf in 2013. It's insane enough as it is that they're pushing it next year.

Not really, Scorpio is probably based on either rx470 or rx480 since they have somewhere between 5-5.5 teraflops in processing power andf they cost around 200-250 dollar. Add the processing power of the cpu and you have Scorpio specs. At that price, I would call it midrange and they are out now.

Both AMD and Nvidia has recently changed the transistor size from 28 nm to 16 nm (if my memory serves me correctly), this always gives a big boost.

@Therad
It's more in line with the 480 if you ask me. You're also right in a sense because historically speaking pushing that sort of spec isn't unusual. But if these guys had pushed as hard as scorpio is pushing when they launched? We'd have gotten ~3TFLOPs of GPU performance rather than the ~1.5TFLOPs we actually got. So Scorpio might not be pushing it as hard as the 360 did, but it's still pushing it pretty hard.

Nintendo's SCD patent was granted today.

@WebHead SKYNET is alive!