Nintendo Switch

[NEG]

Aye, March release always sounded silly in the first place.

[barkbat]

Nintendo Homeboy.

 

For the Homies. And the boys. Who are not at home.

[Cyhwuhx]

1 hour ago, NEG said:

Aye, March release always sounded silly in the first place.

 

Why? It's second christmas/end of financial year. Sounds good to me. 

[NEG]

8 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

 

Why? It's second christmas/end of financial year. Sounds good to me. 

 

Who would buy a console in March? Wouldn't you rather ramp yourself up for next years holiday season like nearly every console launch in existence?

 

You wouldn't gain much in the short term by rushing for March.

[Cyhwuhx]

11 minutes ago, NEG said:

 

Who would buy a console in March? Wouldn't you rather ramp yourself up for next years holiday season like nearly every console launch in existence?

 

You wouldn't gain much in the short term by rushing for March.

 

You seem to be a bit confused as to when console launches happen. 

[SeanR]

14 minutes ago, NEG said:

 

Who would buy a console in March? Wouldn't you rather ramp yourself up for next years holiday season like nearly every console launch in existence?

 

can someone (NEG) check nintendos uk release dates for their previous machines?

[MikeBeaver]

I'd hardly say that missing holiday Christmas ffs!! is rushing it, if anything, it's a delay from when they would have ideally liked to release it, holding it back for an entire year is batshit.

[NEG]

It will certainly make 2017 sparse as hell if they delay to the latter half of the year, but Spring seems wrong timing as well to me.

[Paulando]

Whichever month they release it in, stock will be short and it's bound to sell out. It doesn't need Christmas for that. Releasing it in March and then getting another sales spike 7-8 months later in time for Christmas when they have more free stock seems like a smart move.

 

That is of course, if people actually want the damn thing.

[Guest]

They should have got it out in time for this Christmas, along with Zelda. Wasn't that the original plan?

[NEG]

25 minutes ago, Paulando said:

Whichever month they release it in, stock will be short and it's bound to sell out. It doesn't need Christmas for that. Releasing it in March and then getting another sales spike 7-8 months later in time for Christmas when they have more free stock seems like a smart move.

 

That is of course, if people actually want the damn thing.

 

Perhaps it doesn't matter long term, but it's hard to build up hype for something that releases in March, right? It's after Christmas, pockets are still tight, and so on.

 

It will also mean a ton more gamers have chosen Bones and Greystation Thor's for another Christmas just gone. Not that Nintendo are going after them, of course.

[mushashi]

Considering the usage of X in Japanese game naming schemes, NX sounds a perfectly appropriate codename of the device, X is usually meant to mean Cross(over) in most game titles that use it, e.g. Tekken X Street Fighter, so The Nintendo Cross device, does what it says on the tin.

[mushashi]

19 hours ago, Stanley said:

I don't buy that at all. If you can connect it to a TV then it needs to be able to present in 1080p. Even it just means underclocking it in portable mode.

 

He's talking about different performance profiles, i.e the idea that it is underclocked when running off battery and fullfat when powered by mains electricity, his sources have never said this is the case to him.

 

The Tegra X1 is capable of native 4K output, it doesn't mean anybody attempts to make games which render at that resolution internally for it. The Xbox One is a native 1080p output device but that is a meaningless thing in terms of game rendering resolution for a lot of big budget games. The Wii U is also native 1080p output.

 

Thinking about it, it makes more sense than the dual performance profile approach. To do that, the NX would need active cooling to enable it to not be thermally throttled when docked. So unless Nintendo plan to put a fan in it, that seems unlikely as a fan just adds cost and more things to break down in a portable device. Most mobile devices rely on using the outer casing as a crappy heatsink to transfer the heat from the SoC, this limits their peak performance, even if battery life was not a concern too.

 

Nvidia's own Tegra portable devices have demonstrated the problems with cooling of their power hungry chips, with the only passively cooled one they have made so far needing a product recall due to overheating problems and some reviewers of the Google Pixel C have also remarked on how warm it gets when gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo choose to reduce the clocks a tad to combat this problem and extend runtime:

 

Quote

 

Overall, apps ran fluently without any hiccups — with one exception. When running the graphics-intensive zombie shooter game Dead Trigger 2, I noticed the tablet began to heat up fairly quickly. The tablet grew warm after playing the game for just a few minutes, and the issue became more noticeable over time.

 

Quote

 

The only thing worth noting here is that you can easily tell where the processor is—it gets pretty warm when running games or other processor-heavy applications. It’s not “omg this is going to burn me” hot, and it probably won’t set your house on fire, but I’m sure there are some people out there who might find this bit of extra heat more uncomfortable than they’d like. I personally don’t mind it, but I’d be remiss not to mention it at least.

 

Quote

 

Certainly, there's no complaints with the performance, only that it can get a little hot. We found a long session on Real Racing 3 saw the tablet warming up on the left-hand side, just where your fingers might sit when playing a racing game

 

 

[Stanley]

I don't see why they couldn't incorporate some sort of heatsink fan combo into the base unit. 

[Uncle Mike]

Is that because you don't understand how heat sinks work?

[NEG]

How do heat sinks work?

[Halo]

4 hours ago, mushashi said:

Nvidia's own Tegra portable devices have demonstrated the problems with cooling of their power hungry chips, with the only passively cooled one they have made so far needing a product recall due to overheating problems and some reviewers of the Google Pixel C have also remarked on how warm it gets when gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo choose to reduce the clocks a tad to combat this problem and extend runtime

I imagine the NX will be significantly thicker than the typical modern tablet/phone, which should help with cooling - the Pixel C is about 7mm, the bottom half of the 3DS is at least double that.

[Camel]

38 minutes ago, NEG said:

Fucking heat sinks, how do they work?

 

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Uncle Mike said:

Is that because you don't understand how heat sinks work?

Great answer, thanks for explaining.

[Alex W.]

You need really good conduction of heat from the CPU to the sink. It's hard to do that with anything that can be broken in half at will.

[Stanley]

I understand. Would it be necessary anyway though when the machine is docked? I can understand wanting to limit power consumption and heat whilst in portable mode, but plugged in? 

 

[squirtle]

On 04/08/2016 at 19:36, gizmo1990 said:

 

I'm not quoting you, Gizmo, but this mobile skin is crap and for some reason holds on to previous posts.

 

Anyway, is the Tegra a full SoC? If so, what's the impact of having an extra GPU in the base unit to help out the visuals for the TV? Let's face it, there's no way this is going to do less than 1080p native on the TV. Whether games render at that is probably unlikely, but it'd be suicide to not be at least on par with their previous console.

[Alex W.]

7 minutes ago, Stanley said:

I understand. Would it be necessary anyway though when the machine is docked? I can understand wanting to limit power consumption and heat whilst in portable mode, but plugged in? 

 

 

You need to dissipate heat somehow but you could put a fan in there that only operates when it's on the mains.

[the_debaser]

There might be a small refrigeration unit and fan in the base that blows cold air over the innards of the machine. 

[NEG]

Will this refrigeration heat sink unit require 6 AA batteries like the Game Gear?

[Halo]

55 minutes ago, the_debaser said:

There might be a small refrigeration unit and fan in the base that blows cold air over the innards of the machine. 

They could easily have a large extended dock connector, say the size of an original Game Boy cartridge, that physically fits inside the handheld and is connected to a solid state refrigerator (Peltier cooler) to cool the internals when docked.

 

If cooling the device when docked needs to be done then I have no doubt Nintendo will be able to find a good solution.

 

 

[TehStu]

How thick are we expecting this thing to be? Look how thin a Surface is with a full mobile iCore processor being cooled by the world's thinnest* fan.

 

 

 

*probably, it's very thin.

[RubberJohnny]

I think it'll be chunky and plasticky, if you're expecting a nice bit of sexy industrial design like from top-end electronics you'll be disappointed.

 

You're not going to get form factor and computing power and a great screen and great battery life and a low low price, like people are angling for. We need to be reasonable with expectations.

[gizmo1990]

Nowt wrong with non sexy industrial design! Chunky and plasticky is what's needed imo, as long as it's the 'right' chunky and plasticky..

[Alex W.]

Sleek isn't the only "right" approach to industrial design. Look at the iPhone 5c, that was great and it's a complete knock off of Nintendo's chunky, rounded plastics.