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Nintendo NX Is a Portable Console With Detachable Controllers, Says Report (eurogamer.net) 158

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Eurogamer.net: We now have a good idea as to what the Nintendo NX will consist of thanks to a new report from Eurogamer. According to a number of sources, Nintendo's upcoming NX will be a portable, handheld console with detachable controllers. Eurogamer.net reports: "On the move, NX will function as a high-powered handheld console with its own display. So far so normal -- but here's the twist: we've heard the screen is bookended by two controller sections on either side, which can be attached or detached as required. Then, when you get home, the system can connect to your TV for gaming on the big screen. A base unit, or dock station, is used to connect the brain of the NX -- within the controller -- to display on your TV. NX will use game cartridges as its choice of physical media, multiple sources have also told [Eurogamer]. Another source said the system would run on a new operating system from Nintendo. It won't, contrary to some earlier rumors, simply run on Android. [...] The system will harness Nvidia's powerful mobile processor Tegra. Graphical comparisons with current consoles are difficult due to the vastly different nature of the device -- but once again we've heard Nintendo is not chasing graphical parity. Quite the opposite, it is sacrificing power to ensure it can squeeze all of this technology into a handheld, something which also tallies with earlier reports. Finally, we've heard from one source that NX planning has recently moved up a gear within Nintendo ahead of the console's unveiling, which is currently slated for September. After the confused PR fiasco of the Wii U launch, the company is already settling on a simple marketing message for NX -- of being able to take your games with you on the go."
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Nintendo NX Is a Portable Console With Detachable Controllers, Says Report

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  • Anyone who wants decent mobile gaming has already got a choice of dozens of devices that also do more than just play games. I don't understand the logic behind this. Perhaps it'll work in japan but it'll be a dismal failure everywhere else. Still, its their billions to burn. Meanwhile playstation and xbox just keep on trucking...

    • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @05:26AM (#52588223) Homepage

      Except none of your dozens of systems has the Mario Franchise on it. or the other nintendo only franchises that have a rabid following.

      it's about the games not the hardware. Those that think it's about the hardware, just do not play games.

      • Its about having to pay google 30% or not about having to pay google 30%. With their own hardware, they aren't required to do that, and apparently they believe they make more money if they sell their own hardware instead of going through google (and apple, but apple only owns a minority of the market) first.

        • On an Android system they would be competing against millions of free games. That alone would reduce the acceptable price level for their games to close to zero, even if those games happen to be much better. How many parents will shell out 60 or 65 euro or dollar for a game when they can also say "see what's available on the download store for free", do you think?

          The choice for cartridge confirms this. It not only helps protect against pirates but also adds perceived value - you are getting an actual, physi

          • Square-Enix has had the right idea IMO. They are reselling their old Franchises (ie Final Fantasy 1 - 6) on the Android market for $15 a pop, and people are paying it because these are quality ports. Granted FF 2, 3 and 5 never made it to the US in their original form (the US's FF 2 and FF 3 were Japan's FF 4 and FF 6 respectively) so that increases the value a bit; but S-E has actually gone through to update the UI to work with the touch interfaces natively, along with BT controllers that can connect to

      • If I were them I would be making it an Android smartphone on top of that.
      • Except none of your dozens of systems has the Mario Franchise on it.

        Perhaps not fully legally. But if I go buy the game cart at the flea market, download a dump of the same cart, and play it on an emulator, in practice nobody is going to sue me. And there are good emulators for NES and SNES for basically every platform now, so it's still difficult to see where they are coming from.

        Well, actually, it isn't; they are making a portable console with detachable controllers in order to cash in on Game & Watch nostalgia. Does anyone care? I suspect no.

        • But if I go buy the game cart at the flea market, download a dump of the same cart, and play it on an emulator, in practice nobody is going to sue me.

          And if you buy the Game Pak and a Kazzo or Retrode dumper, you have a defense under 17 USC 117(a)(1) [cornell.edu] (or foreign counterparts) if someone does sue you, so long as you can afford a lawyer and don't distribute the dumps.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            And if you buy the Game Pak and a Kazzo or Retrode dumper, you have a defense under 17 USC 117(a)(1) (or foreign counterparts) if someone does sue you, so long as you can afford a lawyer and don't distribute the dumps.

            Actually, no. That defense doesn't work because you're format-shifting. More specifically, you're going from a format that doesn't have copyright to one that does - you are not allowed to dump ROMs, period, without a legitimate developmental reason.

            It's a funny thing, but a mask programmed ROM

            • by flink ( 18449 )

              And if you buy the Game Pak and a Kazzo or Retrode dumper, you have a defense under 17 USC 117(a)(1) (or foreign counterparts) if someone does sue you, so long as you can afford a lawyer and don't distribute the dumps.

              Actually, no. That defense doesn't work because you're format-shifting. More specifically, you're going from a format that doesn't have copyright to one that does - you are not allowed to dump ROMs, period, without a legitimate developmental reason.

              It's a funny thing, but a mask programmed ROM is actually not copyrighted. It's Mask-protected (it's a M in a circle, similar to how copyright is C in a circle). Mask works have higher protections, and even though you can easily dump it, the conversion from physical to software is actually completely illegal.

              That may have been true at one time, but as far as I can tell, Mask Protection in the US only extends to 10 years [wikipedia.org], so any original NES ROMs have long since fallen out of protection. The underlying software encoded in the ROM is still protected by copyright, and the game franchises that they represent are still trademarked, so anyone reproducing ROMs commercially would still be in hot water. However, at this point I think you would be within your rights to dump to ROMs in order to back up your software.

            • For convenience, I shall quote the relevant part of the statute:

              it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner

              tlhIngan wrote:

              That defense doesn't work because you're format-shifting.

              The format shifting is "an essential step in the utilization of the computer progr

            • by slew ( 2918 )

              The big advantage of cartridges is that they are more rugged, easier to transport and harder to duplicate.

              IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you are incorrect about the IP protection available to "mask-works". The mask-work protection laws protect the mask itself from being copied or being used w/o permission to create computer chips. The theory of mask-work protection is that the actual mask sets used to fabricate integrated circuits weren't sufficiently protected by copyright or patents. As a rule, copyrights

      • Agreed, none of the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone games have anywhere near the depth or fun of a halfway decent DS/3DS cartridge game.

        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          Agreed, none of the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone games have anywhere near the depth or fun of a halfway decent DS/3DS cartridge game.

          I'm pretty sure that's for two technical reasons.

          Limits of blind positional input
          A touch screen is designed for applications where you activate objects that you're looking at. That's fine for point-and-click games or continuous runner games like Rayman Jungle Run where a whole quadrant of the screen is the button. But a lot of other genres don't handle well with a touch screen as the only input method, especially games where you control the speed and direction of movement and attacks of a character in the c
      • Except that there's only room for one device in your pocket, so which is it going to be?

      • Except none of your dozens of systems has the Mario Franchise on it. or the other nintendo only franchises that have a rabid following.

        Actually all of them now have the franchise with the most rabid following.

    • "decent mobile gaming" Those words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean. Nintendo makes the only good handheld gaming right now. Vita is a distant second, and Nvidia shield is a joke. Cellphones are crap for gaming, unless your idea of quality is angry birds and candy crush.
    • by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @06:57AM (#52588527)

      Try playing any oldschool action game on your mobile device and tell us how well you went.
      I'm pretty sure you can't for example reach the ending of megaman 3.

      • Adding physical buttons to smartphone or tablet is not a problem. I constatnly use my iPega controller with 5,5" smartphone and 8" tablet and it works great. I mostly play oldschool titles from SNES, M.A.M.E. and native ports of games as Metal Slug or similar. I think there is lot of money to make if Nintendo released an attachable controler that hosts the device such as smartphone as its screen with built-in battery. AND also released its vast library of oldschool games on it. They have means to do it via

        • Adding physical buttons to smartphone or tablet is not a problem. I constatnly use my iPega controller

          How many other people own that controller or others like it? I haven't seen one third-party controller maker release sales figures, and without them, it becomes hard for a for-profit company to justify developing a game targeted at a particular third-party controller. It's also bulky to carry in a pocket.

          I think there is lot of money to make if Nintendo released an attachable controler that hosts the device such as smartphone as its screen with built-in battery. AND also released its vast library of oldschool games on it. They have means to do it via all this virtual console stuff they have on their current systems.

          Then why hasn't every third-party developer on the NES and Super NES released iPega editions of its games?

          • Well as for your first question I only noted that that is possible to play arcade style games on mobile tablets and smartphones using controllers with physical buttons. With that it is perfectly playable. And I assumed that Nintendo could sell such controller with access to its games library (via Virtual Console system). In my opinion this would make them a lot of additional money without really canibalizing they mobile consoles. Who buys current generation gameboy style device to play oldschool games?

            As fo

            • by tepples ( 727027 )

              As for your second question I guess that developers who developed for Nintendo platforms do not have rights to release these games elsewhere.

              I don't see how that's anywhere near the case. Konami released Castlevania and Contra for PC [amazon.com], for example.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • by Z80a ( 971949 )

                Well, when they succeed, they get a much higher profit by selling the hardware and software than they would on IOS.
                Also they don't have to deal with a fuckton of different hardware configurations, or things interrupting the game flow horribly like crapware bundled by phone operators.

    • Anyone who wants decent mobile gaming has already got a choice of dozens of devices that also do more than just play games.

      Android and iOS games are almost universally terrible. The 3DS is the only current portable console worth owning.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )

      Has Nintendo not heard of smartphones?

      They not only have but they tried one with Nokia right at the very dawn of smartphones. It didn't sell well.
      I think this thing will work since the first question someone asked me about a Nintendo DS around a decade ago was "does it also plug into the TV?"

      Still, its their billions to burn

      It's Nintendo, they don't tend to spend a fortune on development and hardware so if it bombs it's not "billions to burn".

    • You mean one-button controllers instead of something competent?

    • I like playing games with hardware controllers more than smearing and wiping my fingers all over a glass surface. Sure, there are various physical controller kludges for Android, but they are not consistent and it's never a "just use it" experience.

      The other difference is that few mobile game publishers have the confidence in their product to just charge the fucking money for their game that it is supposedly worth. I really wish the Android Play Store had a search option to only show games priced $5 or more

      • I really wish the Android Play Store had a search option to only show games priced $5 or more, because micro transaction and spam-the-player are dismal experiences.

        Would a 1-episode game available without charge on Google Play Store, with additional episodes available for in-app purchase, also be a "dismal experience"?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • > Anyone who wants decent mobile gaming has already got a choice of dozens of devices that also do more than just play games.

      ?????

      You used the word decent, and then went on to allude to a whole bunch of touchscreen only devices. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Touchscreen controls for any action game are torture, and most games designed specifically for phones and tablets are about as deep as a kiddie pool. So no, there are not dozens of choices, there are a handful. And that h

    • decent mobile gaming has already got a choice of dozens of devices that also do more than just play games.

      Like the Vita and 2DS/3DS? They're the only decent mobile gaming around.

      Hell, Sony's PSP is probably a more "decent" game machine than tablets and phones with all the F2P IAP crap.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Another "novelty" from Nintendo, perhaps its last at this point. Don't know if anyone told the people at Nintendo, but I can already take my games with me. In fact I've been able to do so for about a decade now, with a device that nearly a third of the entire world has. You can even catch Pokemon using one! I saw a pair of 11 year old boys in bikes doing so excitedly this weekend, while a pair of 10 year old girls sat near a fountain and did the same. To bad Nintendo doesn't actually make Pokemon Go.

    And yes

    • by Anonymous Coward

      You have a very broad definition of "games". Dark Souls isn't the only thing that the current phone market and platform features completely prevent from being developed or sold on there. Far, FAR from it. :)

      Have fun with your horrific mind-numbing microtransaction FTP apps, I guess. ;)

  • As for the hardware (Score:4, Informative)

    by John Smith ( 4340437 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @05:43AM (#52588277)
    It's a Tegra X1 (possibly successor.) Enough power to emulate an original Wii if Nintendo wants to.
    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )
      Just give me a graphically updated Ocarina of Time and I'll be happy. Never did finish it when I was younger. Going to have to dig through my parents' house and see if we ever sold our old N64 or not...
      • They DID do a somewhat upgraded version on the 3DS that looks good and plays quite well. If you've got access to a 3DS, I highly recommend it!
    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      I'm a bit concerned if it's the X1 due to battery life considerations. If, on the other hand, they managed to snatch the X2 in a premiere, then that would be huge.
  • I can see now why Nintendo has been so far hesitant to allow their franchises (old games specifically) to be ported to iOS or Android. There is a lot of money on the table and I think they know this. So I think we will see this portable NX feature a fair amount of retro gaming. This, in addition to the mini-Nintendo they are about to release. Except I can't imagine anyone carrying one around around in addition to their smartphone.
    • They don't need to port anything. They already have the technology to do it via Virtual Console. They just need to release VC client and allow to purchase and download games to that.

    • If Nintendo adds the ability to make phone calls and send text messages, they're set.

      • Sony did that in 2011 with the Xperia play...it didn't quite take off.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Also one could Skype on a PSP or Vita in the past, though you can't now. The Vita's email client works though.

        The Xperia play even had Minecraft PE as an exclusive for a couple of months. As an aside, the physical controls on the Vita make Minecraft on the Vita a better experience than Minecraft PE on tablets and phones, even with the Vita version's world size limitation.

        IMHO phones should stay phones.

  • Anybody remember the Dreamcast? The memory cards for the games had a screen and went into the controller; they served as a second interface in some respects. But you could also remove the memory card and play some minigames on it like a tiny console.
    • by ledow ( 319597 )

      Anyone remember the WiiU, which also did basically the same?

      This is just an evolution of the same idea as the Dreamcast's, which no doubt had its own primitive predecessor too.

  • Every time Nintendo launches a new system, there's the same chorus: "It will fail miserably!" And every time, it's wrong - sometimes drastically so. For me the most interesting aspect of this is the smooth transition between mobile and traditional-console gaming experiences. Continuing a console game on the go smoothly and vice-versa is something I've always wanted to be able to do without fiddling around copying save files at best, and without a big fat "nope" at worst. I suspect I'm not alone. I think th
  • "but once again we've heard Nintendo is not chasing graphical parity".

    Which means it won't reach library parity, and you'll see games on Xbox One and PS4 but not NX, like the current situation with WiiU.
    Nintendo cannot survive on first party alone.
    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      At least this time their system will be able to run the code from PS4/Xbone, which probably will make possible to downport games to it, like running at 720p rather than having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch and having to redo the whole texturing/models to fit into the tiny memory.

    • "but once again we've heard Nintendo is not chasing graphical parity". Which means it won't reach library parity, and you'll see games on Xbox One and PS4 but not NX, like the current situation with WiiU. Nintendo cannot survive on first party alone.

      Really? That's funny. They seem to be doing pretty well. I bet you think Apple should also sell macOS separately for any x86 computer, right?

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2016 @08:00AM (#52588829)

      Nintendo is in the fortunate position that they needn't rely on third party games. They have a pretty well stocked catalog themselves. Mario, Smash Brothers, now probably Pokemon, too, what more "exclusives" do you need?

      Noticeably, Nintendo has always been the "odd man out" when it came to games libraries. Non-exclusives for XB or PS usually eventually came out for the other system, but Nintendo always had a nearly distinct game library from the other two. That does matter. It means that Nintendo doesn't have to compete with them on their turf. XB and PS have always been busy one-up'ing each other in specs, mostly because, well, if you have the same games on both systems, what matters is simply "where does it look better" and "where does it run more smoothly". If you're dealing with a completely different game base, you can't compare. More over, the games have a vastly different focus. Where PS and XB focus on action oriented games where multiplayer is mostly a thing of online gaming, Nintendo's consoles always had a distinct focus on local multiplayer, complete with a lineup of party games and controllers that were, compared to XB and PS controllers, VERY basic and simplified, so you didn't first have to learn to play, you could simply pick them up and play. Maybe not perfectly, but most games were of the "easy to pick up" kind that lends itself well to party gaming.

      So I do think that Nintendo can (and will) survive as this "niche" player. It has a few strong IPs in their pocket, and since they themselves own that IP, there is exactly zero danger that this IP would ever go to another console, hoping for a bigger market share there. Even the WiiU, which was a train wreck from conception to inception to realization to actually playing with that piece of garbage, couldn't prevent that. I still don't see why anyone thought the WiiU was a good idea, and I don't know anyone who really wanted that console, but, well, there's nowhere else you could play Mario games. And Smash Brothers. And the other consoles simply suck as party consoles. Even more than the WiiU, believe it or not.

      • and controllers that were, compared to XB and PS controllers, VERY basic and simplified, so you didn't first have to learn to play, you could simply pick them up and play.

        Only with the Wii, the N64 and Gamecube controllers were more traditional.

        And the other consoles simply suck as party consoles.

        That depends on how you #define party console.

        One of the issues is that people "think" there are no "party/family-get-together" games for the PS4...since you don't see those games on the shelf. But there ARE some party games....the thing is they're mostly in the Playstation Store.

        So when a "Wii Mom" goes to the game aisle and sees "Game party pack 2016" or "Happy fun time sports-with-mii's" in the Wii/WiiU section, and then goes over

        • Cannot reply. Seems /.'s lameness filter thinks it's lame to explain why Gamecube controllers are less intimidating to non-console players and why this (rather than the game lineup) is the reason the GC is more of a party console than XB or PS.

          But when you look at the controllers and compare them, I'm pretty sure you can figure it out yourself. Just imagine you never saw a PS2 controller and should now figure out

          a) which one is the main controller stick
          b) what buttons might be used for what
          c) what those 4 b

      • The Wii U hasn't done so well clutching on to 1st-party exclusives.

    • Which is funny considering that back in the day the same game could be released for both the Amiga and the Sinclair Spectrum. And in those days the gaming market where much much smaller than it's today. So no I don't think that the slightly less powerful hardware in the Wii U has anything to do with the missing 3d party games, it's all political, i.e they decided to not support Nintendo for whatever reason.

      For example Watch Dogs where ported but never the DLC even though it didn't contain code. Also we had

    • I don't know why you think they should be able to survive on releasing the same games that exist on two other consoles already. Why would anyone buy a Nintendo system at all?

      Nintendo's salvation lies in strong third party support, but they won't be the same games as are on the PS4 and XBox.

      Game budgets for PS4 and XBone are enormous. The pipelines are huge, and hard to fill. When you've got that much horsepower, you need a lot more creative staff to make sure there's actually something worth rendering. If N

      • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

        I don't know why you think they should be able to survive on releasing the same games that exist on two other consoles already. Why would anyone buy a Nintendo system at all?

        Because if you can only afford one, the number of good Nintendo games is far fewer than good non-Nintendo games

        Nintendo's salvation lies in strong third party support, but they won't be the same games as are on the PS4 and XBox.

        Yeah they'll just make different versions and/or entirely new games like they did for WiiU, oh wait.

        Game budgets for PS4 and XBone are enormous. The pipelines are huge, and hard to fill. When you've got that much horsepower, you need a lot more creative staff to make sure there's actually something worth rendering. If Nintendo produces a modestly equipped console that has decent graphics, it will be a much lower barrier to entry.

        Which is why $Publisher, rather than making $Game for all 3, will make it for only 2 and not go through the extra expense of an entirely different game for one system.

  • What people will want to know is what the new Mario title is going to be and what characters are going to be in the Smash Brothers title.

    Nobody really gives a shit about anything else concerning Nintendo consoles. The gimmicks are the smokescreen to get other console makers desperate, thinking that this is the reason for the Nintendo's success and they embarrass themselves by trying to copy the gimmick only to be shown that the gimmicks were pretty much the reason people were wondering whether they really w

  • You can already play games on the go and on the big screen if you have both a Vita and the Playstation TV microconsole (which is basically a screenless Vita) Not even taking into account that the vita can do Remote Play with a PS4.

  • Obviously, I haven't seen the device, but just listening to the part about detachable controllers makes me skeptical.

    A console needs everything built-in, or else it doesn't become standard. Having options is nice, but optional attachments aren't going to have any significant positive impact on usability, as it always the case for consoles. The drawbacks are obvious, though. Extra cost, extra material that makes it bulky, less room for a battery, less durability, and so on. It's not a good idea. This al

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