Shane's NX speculation

[Shane]

So the NX with all the statements that it's going to have a Tegra chip, probably will have one. I don't think performance will be the only concern but also things like cooling and battery life. With that in mind, I think the chip Nintendo will be using in the handheld is a slightly modified Tegra X1. Not modified for performance reasons necessarily, but for things like cooling. Performance should be about the same or slightly faster than a standard Tegra X1 like what is in the NVIDIA Shield console.

The Tegra X1 is probably about twice as fast as the Wii U. It has 256 HIGHLY EFFICIENT shaders, twice as many ROPs, and like twice the clock speed on the graphics processor. It will also probably be paired with 3-4GB RAM. For the whole system.

Now such a device will probably cost $300-$350 considering the price on both the X1 Shield console and other NVIDIA devices. And no, I don't think the NX dock has its own processor, which would increase costs significantly.

So as a recap, I think the NX is going to be a handheld with twice the power of the Wii U, and will probably cost $300-$350.

Edit: Oops, has 256 shaders, NOT 192. 192 was K1.

 

[rz3300]

Well I certainly hope that you are correct. I remember when I first heard the Tegra feature I got all excited, but then I was told it would not really make a big difference for reasons I cannot really remember. I am starting to rethink that a little bit now, though, so thank you for that. It sounds all good and well, and I just hope that it translated into the machine we get to hold in our hands and play. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Segata]

It won't use a X1 in the final build. It will use Pascal. Better battery life and consumes less wattage. DS was a GBA early on in dev kits. Early Wii dev kits were just brown Gamecubes. The other thing is the current NX dev kit is being overclocked like crazy. X1 is a placeholder,Nvidia is announcing a new chip soon. Pascal is next and Nintendo is most definitely going with something more efficient. What Nintendo does. Also Nvidia is in trouble and been given an ultimatum to find something for the Tegra line and also a console maker and Sony and MS went AMD so they need this. From what we hear Nvidia is giving Nintendo an insanely good deal. So again they would not go with something worse when for a bargain go for something better.

NX is maybe more in line to be 150-200 bucks. This is a handheld at heart with a dock for console mode. Handheld esp the casual crowd will NEVER buy a 300 dollar device for this. Wii U was too expensive. Wii was super cheap. So Nvidia is giving Nintendo a hell of a deal and the add on controller going by the recent patent cost almost nothing. Keeping costs down again.

The NX will emit infrared light and these hollow pieces of plastic as the buttons you attach just reflect the light. The buttons have no electronics inside. This means they can sell special versions like Mario or Zelda or even 3rd parties make alt versions like a fishing rod or something. Maybe 10-15 bucks each.

Last note that 256 is less than Wii U. Wii U has 320.

 

[Jack Lovejoy]

Then again, what if NX was also a mobile phone?

 

[grahamf]

Please don't make me yet again dig up that wall of text I posted about why Nintendo won't make a phone.

The NX handheld will most likely be at or under $200 or so. Nintendo doesn't want to shoot themselves in the foot by pricing their device out of the market again. I think the original rumors of there being a NX handheld and separate console may be creditable again, in which case I can see the console being just under $300.