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Nintendo NX might not be as powerful as the PS4

It is pretty evident that one of the reasons why Nintendo Wii U has failed on the market is its low performance and lack of support of high-definition resolutions. While it is very logical for Nintendo to add support for full-HD graphics to its next-generation video game system to be more competitive than its rivals, it will not do so, according to an industry expert.

Nintendo does not have plans to use high-performance hardware for its Nintendo NX video game system, according to a recent tweet by Liam Robertson of Unseen64, who has in the past been accurate with his insider info, reports Ubergizmo. In particular, Nintendo’s next-generation console will not be as powerful as existing consoles from Sony or Microsoft.

“The NX is definitely not aiming to compete with the likes of PS4 on a power level,” said Mr. Robertson. “Absolutely sure of that now.”

Introduced in late 2013, new-generation game systems from Sony and Microsoft can barely offer performance comparable to that of mainstream gaming personal computers nowadays. Not in all cases the consoles can render video games in 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second.

nintendo_wii_u_black

Various executives from Nintendo have always said that graphics processing performance is not the most important thing about game consoles. Instead of installing high-end hardware into its gaming systems, the company believes that it needs to offer unique user experience and distinctive games.

While unique games helped Nintendo to sell tens of millions of Wii consoles, its GameCube and Wii U have never become popular. Therefore, it is surprising that Nintendo does not want to use high-end hardware inside its Nintendo NX system.

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KitGuru Says: Looks like Nintendo wants to bet on unique games once again and save on hardware. While it is obvious that Nintendo can use cheap hardware for its Nintendo NX, the question is how powerful can an inexpensive system-on-chip developed today be. Even modern mobile SoCs can handle 1080p graphics. Therefore, it will be pretty regrettable if Nintendo’s upcoming console will not support full-HD.

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64 comments

  1. This is bs, the Wii U already support full hd graphics.

  2. I give up.

  3. bad start if true

  4. brian tokarski

    If they sold it for a reasonable price, and the games at least ran at 720, i’d call it a win. The problem with nintendo is they don’t try any new ips or make sequels to the games that people want.

  5. Hang on, the Wii U runs most Nintendo-made games on 1080p at 60fps. Why the hell would the NX fail to match that?

  6. Trust me, it isn’t true. The Wii U already runs most 1st party games on 1080p at 60fps.

  7. The only way I can see this work is if the NX is meant to multipurpose devices to replace both the Wii U console and be a portable system that replaces the 3DS. Give a single platform for developers to deploy on, 1 System to rule them all if you will.

    Doubt Nintendo would be wise enough to try that.

  8. does the wii upscale? i know the ps4 is 900p and the xb1 is 720p native

  9. i just agree with kitguru. < Find Here <

  10. The ignorance in the comments is astounding. There’s more to graphics than resolution and framerate, people. Running a game at 1080p 60fps is easy if said game has a low polygon count, low res textures, simple lighting and shadows, etc.

  11. valgarlienheart .

    It doesn’t actually say that it will be underpowered, just said it’s not going to comepete with power levels, could have more power? Can’t see the sense in being underpowered, the wii u already fills that gap.

  12. Demon Highwayman

    Its great your so happy with your new overpaid job ! but why did you buy Kitguru a Citroen ? Also for security reasons it’s probably not a good idea to brag about how much you get paid on a public forum.

  13. Poorly researched article, Wii U has supported 1080p since the start and it is widely acknowledged that it’s the lack of great 3rd party games and poor marketing that are the Wii U’s downfall. I call click-bait.

  14. no

  15. That’s only because the games are of a very low graphical fidelity. It can run pong at 1080p, 60fps, but not something decent looking like The Witcher 3.

  16. That’s only because the games are of a very low graphical fidelity. It can run pong at 1080p, 60fps, but not something decent looking like The Witcher 3. So many fanboys in this comment section.

  17. No it can’t run good looking games at 1080p.

  18. Lets be honest here, PS4 and especially One barely support 1080p gaming. The framerate has to be locked at 30fps, and any pc gamer knows that 30 is not a decent start, it is the bare minimum. And games one One typically still run at 900p. So I wouldn’t complain about Nintendo not supporting it either.

    Having said that, the NX is a few years younger than its competitors and so it doesn’t need state of the art hardware to run high end games. Nintendo could easily use some cheaper hardware and still get performance that is on par with PS4 and One.

    In the end, a lot depends on what games actually show. You can easily run 1080p games at 60fps on a Wii U, but don’t expect graphics that come close to matching those on One/PS4. I guess the same will be the case for NX then.

  19. I didn’t like the Wii U at first and saw it as a bit pointless. I bought an Xbox One and was incredibly disappointed with it – my PC runs things better. I took the plunge about a month ago and bought a Wii U with Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon. I’ve not had as much fun in games in years. Nintendo are doing things right, but marketing it wrong. The Wii U is also unrivalled as a local multiplayer console, most games support it and it works very, very well.

  20. Regardless of your opinion of what a good looking game looks like, the author of this post strictly said the Wii U has ‘lack of support of high-definition resolutions’. This is incorrect.

  21. Only if you are being pedantic. Clearly the author was referring to the console’s ability to play modern, graphically demanding games at 1080p. It can’t. The Nintendo Defence Force can now leave the room, they aren’t welcome here.

  22. But those games it runs at those resolutions are on par with PS3/360 graphics. The NX clearly wouldn’t be able to play modern 3rd party games at 1080p 60 fps. If Nintendo keeps on relying on 1st party titles, they’ll be in major trouble come 2020.

  23. Only if you are being correct. I’m not defending Nintendo, I clearly stated the weaknesses of the Wii U in my first post, I’m defending fact.

    I wish Nintendo would make a real next gen console.

  24. Stephan Chase Morsanutto

    Pretty much this exactly 🙂 X1 and Ps4 are both just bad pc’s now…Nintendo is the only one that still has a true console and it’s a ton of fun

  25. Diptojyoti Chakravarty

    youre telling me that you’ve had fun with another mario kart game, and a kiddy shooter with barely any game modes? i guess thats your opinion, but its kinda sad. not to mention that it takes months for the wii u to get a game

  26. Diptojyoti Chakravarty

    thats not true

  27. Yep! That’s exactly what I’m telling you. 🙂

  28. Surely that means Microsoft and Sony are just pushing their machines so hard they are unable to cope with the games.

  29. Or you can skip PS4 and XB1 and get a Pc that plays almost everything on both of those systems just ten times better in resolutions and framerates that are likely 2-3 console generations away from being possible..
    plus all the additional stuff

  30. They are not even good PC’s.. overpriced budget PC’s with low performance lol

  31. No it means the games are too optimistic and the systems are to weak to run them

    for the first time in a long time the games are advancing faster than the consoles
    that unfortuantely means games are being capped and deliberately gimpped because the consoles are holding them back..
    frankly it would be better if devs ditched the consoles entirely and made the games PC exclusive and to their original design

  32. Can you give me an url where I can buy a PC capable of running the same games at the same resolution/details/framerate for a price under 400€ ? (not counting the OS)

  33. The problems with the WiiU didn’t lies in the quality of Nintendo games (I also love MK8 and Splatoon btw).
    The problem was mostly that without a powerful enough hardware, third party games cannot run on it. So choosing the Wii U as your “main” gaming platform cut you from almost everything that is not a Nintendo game.
    And there isn’t a Nintendo game every month either.

  34. That would be a BUDGET PC, which aren’t any good for gaming! We KNOW the consoles are cheap, that’s why they’re not very good!

    Honestly, console kiddies are SO precious.

  35. You’re an absolute idiot if you don’t play Nintendo games because you think they’re “kiddy”.

    How adult do you think you look pressing a colourful button on an Xbox controller to make a big space marine shoot a cartoon alien?

    Because you don’t look like a mature adult. You look like you’re playing a game.

    And Nintendo make the best games.

  36. It’s an article ON Nintendo, you muppet.

  37. Nintendo made a $230,000,000 profit last year. And have cash reserves of $14,000,000,000.

    By all means try and make yourself sound mature and a big boy by blindly hating on Nintendo (it doesn’t work, you sound like a try hard 13 year old) but lets at least be accurate.

    Nintendo will still be making consoles long after Sony and Microsoft.

  38. Yep agreed with that, going into game shops there’s so little choice for Wii U. They took a gamble and outside of their own games, it hasn’t paid off. But the games it does have are very good indeed. 🙂

    Luckily my main gaming platform is the PC, so plenty of choice there which makes up for lack of Nintendo choice.

  39. Agreed, this is the “perfect” (such a strong word) auxiliary gaming platform. Don’t have one right now (playing at my friend’s) but definitively planing to buy one at the end of this year (when Xernoblade chronicles X will be released in europe).

  40. Honestly, i’m ashamed to be considered a PC gamer when I see how pedantic some people can be ^^

  41. I don’t think pedantic means what you think it means.

    Still, since you asked.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-next-gen-digital-foundry-pc

  42. Your “fact” is pointless in context to the news about the NX.

  43. On Nintendo, ABOUT modern games you retard.

  44. How stupid are you?

    Hint: Very.

  45. You can be a patronising dick all you like, but the last few years have seen Nintendo make a loss, and those cash reserves only prove that they have no idea what to spend the money on.

    The Wii U has been a complete failure – it sold slower than the Dreamcast to put it into perspective. It sounds like they are on track for another disaster. You can only mess up so many times until investors lose faith in you – go look at AMDs share prices.

  46. Says some unemployed sperglord.

  47. Morons like you who like to sit, uninformed and smugly stupid and spunk ignorance all over the place really annoy the hell out of me.

    Nintendo is a PLC for gods sake. Their financials are freely available. If you’re too lazy and stupid to actually look at them to find out what’s actually happening, then fine. It’s your choice to be uneducated and foolish, the world needs people like you to be rubbish-collectors and Starbucks staff.

    Just don’t pontificate about things you have absolutely zero understanding about, because you sound like an absolute twat.

  48. your (DF’s) answer is a £450 (€620) budget-gaming-pc while I asked for something around the price of a next-gen console, and which cannot even let you play as good as on consoles for most of AAA games.

    Technically, the console are almost already outdated, but thanks to low level api and fixed hardware (and better game sales), the games are way more optimized than PC. That’s a sad truth (sad because I would have loved not to buy a GTX 970 to play with good settings).

    I play multi-platfortm games on PC because I can afford to, but I perfectly understand why consoles sell that much when they deliver such a acceptable level of performance (not every game need to run at 60fps to be enjoyed) at that price.

  49. That article is almost a year and a half old, those components will now be much cheaper, I didn’t go through them as its just not relevant.

    The point is, if you’re happy to play at console settings then fine. You can do that on a console, or you can do it for the same sort of money on a cheap PC.

  50. Power is NOT a talking point in 2015, get it together.

  51. Sure
    http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

    There’s a significantly better system than either “next gen console”. Note that it’s a garbage PC that I would never build, but then again so are the consoles. So to complain that the PSU or case are garbage would be blatantly ignoring that the consoles use trash bin level power supplies and plastic cases themselves.

    That system will easily handle 1080/30 in every game at better settings than a console. In fact in 95% of the games out their it could handle 1080/60 at high/ultra especially if you overclocked the CPU/GPU (which of course is another thing consoles can’t do). Though you won’t be able to get much out of the CPU with the stock cooler.

  52. Diptojyoti Chakravarty

    thats not what i said. splatoon is kiddy.

    youre a moron if you think thats all what halo is about.

    nintendo hasnt made a worthwhile game since smash bros.

  53. Diptojyoti Chakravarty

    yeah… or that

  54. The consoles were outdated on release and a games optimization is easier to pull off on a console then a pc as there are thousands of different setups. I myself am a pc man as I use my pc not only on games but also being able to use 3ds max zbrush or anything else I wish to do. That is what makes a pc worth the extra price and size to me.

  55. wii ~ ps2 perf
    wii u ~ ps3 perf
    nnx ~ ps4 perf

  56. Nintendo made an operating loss of ¥9.47 billion ($92.7 million) in its first quarter of 2014 and a ¥9.9 billion ($97 million) loss the next quarter. Looks like I’m looking at their financials and you’re not. Only this year did they manage to avoid a 4th year of losses. And their net income was only $41 million dollars. So actually they still haven’t recuperated their losses for the past few years.

    Who has zero understanding again?

  57. consoles are not holding anything back. Even the most expensive graphic cards on the market, Ie: Titan X, 980ti, fury X etc…… Cannot run current gen games 4k @ 60 FPS

    The only real difference between PC and console is resolution. All that extra horse power in gaming pc are being tide up in trying to push 4K resolutions. If console were bottle-necking pc games, then 4k would be no problem!

  58. Bernadet Gnuyen

    this gen was WiiU/PC and next gen will be NX/PC for the best gaming experience and with gaming PCs now days being a lot cheaper than the POS4 and with better specs its a no brainer. Cant wait for the NX

  59. NX is not going to be less powerful the ps4 ? Nintendo is hiring a Graphics Engineer from the west to handle the NX graphics so that alone means there taking graphics serious like they did with Gamecube,but in the experience needed on the job listed it said experience working with low power components would be good but it’s not a must and this is where NX not aiming for ps4 power came from I’ll post the article….

  60. Well said here is where i think the NX rumour not being as powerful as ps4 came from basically Nintendo hiring for a Graphics Engineer from the west but in the job description it said experience working on low power components basically low wattage high performance tech…

    http://www.gamespot.com/forums/nintendo-fan-club-1000001/nintendo-hiring-new-graphics-engineer-for-next-con-31643908/

    Also let me say Hiring for a Graphics Engineer means Nintendo are being serious about graphics,Sony hired that Mark Ceeny for graphics on ps4 and Nintendo are doing this on NX can only mean big things.

  61. There is literally no reason why Nintendo can’t improve the power of their next console.

  62. Hence why Modders do most of the work when it comes to getting a lot of games up to 4k..
    and thats not always easy if you have to work with a game engine that isnt designed to handle 4k in the first place

    the difference with PC and consoles is that there are few developers that really optimise for PC
    thats why Pc mostly ends up with the worst ports

  63. Buy? no
    Build.. possibly
    but thats honestly more effort than im prepared to do right now since personally I don’t care for money so I get all my parts from wherever regardless of price

    but its possible.. absolutely I know plenty of people who do buy parts from multiple different sources to put together a cheap high powered gaming PC
    its not something I do though simply because im too lazy to do the work and I don’t care enough about money to want to do the work either..

    I just find what I want and buy it when I can afford it

  64. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2015/02/07/build-a-compact-1080p-gaming-pc-for-400-benchmarks-included/