Its not running x86 like the PS4 and XBone that's for sure.
Its apparently running a Tegra chip[1]. Exact specs... well we can only guess at this point. So its more similar to an Android tablet than the other consoles.
So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
>> So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes.
That could be a double edged sword. I think Nintendo doing a "me-too" console that is like the PS4/XBone/Steam would hurt them more than it helps them. And as it is, Steam already offers a portability element if you've got a decent laptop with a discrete GPU.
>> That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
At this point, I think Nintendo is going to struggle no matter what they do. They're in third place and unless Nintendo can make it worthwhile for 3rd parties with huge hardware sales, it's not going to be pretty.
I actually totally disagree. Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone - and they sell well because they have great software and excellent (for games) interfaces/controls.
This seems like an attempt to take that concept into something higher-end/something that is designed to connect to a TV (at least sometimes). I've got to think that will go quite well for them.
The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
>Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone
What? If anything, Smartphones are the "me-too" products. The Gameboy came out in 1989, and the DS came out in the early 2000s, when nobody outside Japan could envision something like a smartphone, and even they didn't have something really usable for the kind of complex games that both platforms offered.
I do agree that they succeed because they have an interface well-tuned to their task. Another reason for success, though, is battery life: When the GameBoy came out, it was really the only portable game console that could last more than four hours. And my GBA (not an SP, notably), a console that has a lower battery life than the GB or GBC that came before it, can last through me playing on it for an entire day, nonstop. Can your phone do the same?
Mind, this is less of a selling point nowadays: it seems even Nintendo's forgotten how to make products with a good battery life.
Don't get me wrong, I actually -like- the system and it might very well be the first console I buy since the PS3. But practically speaking, I don't think the rest of the market will view this console as favorably as I do.
Clarifications of my original response:
By "me too" I was referring to the original post's point of going x86 in a traditional TV box in the way that XB1/PS4 did.
By "struggle", I was specifically talking about third party software support in the post I replied to. On the TV console front, Nintendo's primary strength going back to the Wii (and maybe further) has always been first party games. Most of the third party games on the Wii and Wii U were not very good. In other words, if you're buying a Nintendo TV console for the third party games, I think that would be a big mistake, regardless of how long the list of committed 3rd party developers is.
Addressing some of your points:
>> Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone
By "mobile products", I assume that you're referring to the DS/DSi/3DS - how are those "me-too"? What other successful portable consoles have that clam shell form factor? If anything, Nintendo's mobile form factors (starting with the original Game Boy) were the ones that were historically copied by others.
>> The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
Yes, but the market for gaming is completely different now. Games are no longer the exclusive territory of proprietary tv consoles or portable gaming devices (i.e., psp, 3ds).
On the TV console side, Steam is a legitimate substitute for a TV console. I myself switched to Steam since most of the AAA titles I played (2D/3D fighting games) are now all available on PC and I can bring them with me in the form of a laptop with a discrete GPU. And with Steam, I can regularly upgrade my hardware with full backwards compatibility for my purchased games.
On the portable gaming side, phones and tablets have basically taken over the market. The only reason why I bought a 3DS is so that I can have my fill of 2D/3D fighting games (with a real controller and buttons) in my pocket, but I'm in a very small niche.
>On the portable gaming side, phones and tablets have basically taken over the market.
You say that, but phone games have an exceptionally limited capability without extra hardware (like a controller), and few phone games are designed to take advantage of a controller in any case. If you want to actually play good mobile games, you need a mobile console, and Nintendo's are some of the best. The Gameboy line defined portable gaming for over a decade, and there are still holdouts using them to this day (I count myself as one of them: >20 hours of gameplay, countless classic games, one of the best tools for chiptune music creation on the market, and all in a tiny form factor? sold!), and the DS is the console of choice if you want Real games on the go.
If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA? It has a lot of good games in its own right, you can play all the GB/GBC games, and with the aid of PocketNES + mkrom (they're around, but you might have to do some digging to find them) you can emulate NES games pretty well, provided you pony up for a flashcart and flasher (I got mine from http://bennvenn.myshopify.com: $57 for a flasher and card reader, plus one GBA flash cart. And he's offering a decent SD-based card for the original GB for half the price of an Everdrive (although it has some limitations that the Everdrive does not, it will run most GB games). So it's a good place to look for that sort of stuff). Yes, a hacked PSP is better, but it's a lot harder to find one, much harder to get it working, significantly more expensive, and a heck of a lot easier to brick (which is what I did to mine).
What you're saying is technically true, but for the vast majority of people it's about the convenience of not having to carry a second device.
In the same way that a real camera is better than a smartphone, convenience trumps quality.
>> If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA?
I have a 3DS because I wanted to play Street Fighter, Tekken and Dead Or Alive on the go. But I don't always bring it with me. In fact, I only bring it with me on vacations. And when I'm out on the go with just my phone, well, I don't play anything at all - it's not a huge loss. FWIW, you can already do everything you mention and more on a 2DS/3DS with the right "accessories" and a little bit of time.
Price aside, it's actually easy. Just buy a micro-SD card and the right "accessory" (there are maybe only two worth buying) and it takes a few minutes. With the most popular accessory, you can also run any home brew .3ds files very easily.
It only gets hard if you want to play online, which means you need to do .CIA files, which becomes difficult (it also requires a new SD card). But if playing online isn't a priority, it's not even an issue.
>So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
If Nintendo is smart, they will find a way to let console devs leverage the power of Nvidia's libraries like GameWorks which may actually be a huge boon to 3rd party adoption. But that all depends on what kind of OS and stack they choose to go with, and whether they consider developer effort an issue. If it's going to fit a different use-case with mobile and docked performance profiles, it may be difficult to port games to it with AMD hardware anyways.
It did look like they had NBA2k as well, which has an iphone/android port. Maybe the game developers are planning on porting their mobile version of the games onto the Wii instead of the platform versions?
They state in the Kickstarter that the Core runs Android. So basically it runs the Spotify android app. Chances are that support could be added easily for other apps.
And here I just bought a Pebble Time. Guess I know why it seemed so cheap.
Hopefully this won't fragment the app marketplace and it will maintain universal app coverage across all the Pebble watches.
I wonder if it would be possible for an Android Wear watch to do something similar to the Pebble: Long battery life, no touch screen, e-paper display and run alright. I imagine the colour space differences between e-paper and LCD would cause issues though.
Android is a much beefier OS than Pebble, which is an RTOS and doesn't scale down nearly as well. Pebble can produce products at such low prices and high-battery costs because they squeeze every drop out of their low cost hardware.
Most Android apps require more system resources than the entirety of a Pebble watch.
Aside, I'm continually impressed with Pebble, and disappointed with Android Wear products. Taking a phone OS and cramming it on a watch seems lazy, not innovative, and the experience has never felt great. What Pebble has done feels really innovative and polished -- they've come a long way.
It's also much bulkier than the watch and has no screen. It has a lot less to deal with and they can carefully control what apps it's running since the user has no input.
Yeah, their lighter platform seems to be a win for battery. But their cheapest product is going to be an Android widget, presumably because that is an easy path to a broader range of features.
I agree, every Android Wear watch I've seen has the same issues of lag, screen time-out time and battery life. They feel like they're trying to be something that can't exist yet because of power limitations, whereas the Pebble watches embrace their limits and don't try to be more.
I also don't understand why Google and Apple don't pursue the Pebble market. I think they made the perfect choices given all constraints. Screen always on, at least 10 days bat life (pts), not to big, water resistant. It's a nice watch as it is and then you get the smart part as extra.
There is an option when you turn on Google photo to backup "High Quality" (Unlimited) or "Original" (with limited capacity, I think it uses Google Drive capacity but am not sure)
The companies get to sell the distribution rights more than once. Its more chances to get a good deal for the producers of the content.
Then they need to maintain this barrier so that the deal is good for both the Producer and Distributor involved. If they don't force Netflix to do this then the deals don't look as good to the distributors.
Because there's a conflict of interest there - making money can, and often leads to business ending up harming the public to maintain/increase its profits.
Personally, I'm fine with businesses doing work for the good of the public. They should be transparent about it though.
In this case though the statement about "privacy" is seriously marred by the marketing of the product as "Hey, find out if your partner is cheating" rather than going "Hey, see how much we could find out from some vague details?"
I seem to remember seeing a lot of commenters in the iPhoneSE announcement thread saying that they'd completely forgotten that 3DTouch even existed. It may be "smoothly" integrated but so much so that nothing has visibly changed, nothing to indicate that there is a new feature or where it's usable.
It's like the first iteration 3DS, nintendo mandated that every game must also be able to run in 2d for compatibility and usability, so noone could really push the feature into new territory
Adding another standard to the mix just seems to be compounding the problem to me.