Eurogamer Claims NX is a Portable Console with Detachable Controllers, TV Out Base, & Tegra X1 Tech
Posted on July 26 2016 by Nathanial Rumphol-Janc
This morning Eurogamer, one of the most reputable news outlets for video games in the world, has a breaking report about the NX from several unnamed sources, though the exact detailed nature of this report suggest it’s definitely sources who have gone hands on with the NX. According to Eurogamer and their sources, the NX is a portable console with detachable controllers. Having a hard time picturing it? Here is a mockup Eurogamer presented of the idea:
The unit would apparently plug into a TV base unit that enables you to play games on your big screen. That’s not all, as there are several other finer details about the NX. Here’s a rundown:
Game cartridges will be the physical game medium - Nintendo apparently suggested a 32gb cart – which is notable small for most modern games
- Digital download only system was considered, but scrapped
- No backwards compatibility
- Runs on a new OS, not android or Wii/Wii U
- Unveiling slated for September
- Simple marketing message – take your games on the go
- Dev units currently using Nvidia Tegra X1 chip
- One source claims there is an audible fan cooling the chip, which is not needed for Tegra X1 chips, suggesting it is a placeholder for the newer and yet unmeasured Tegra X2 chips, which can, in theory, make the NX almost as powerful as a PlayStation 4/Xbox One. However, if they do stick with the Tegra X1 chips, the power is beefier than a Wii U, but significantly less than the other current gen competitors.
Game cartridges will be the physical game medium I know for many, the power point in all of this matters greatly. Here is what you can expect based upon the current Tegra X1 capabibilities:
“But just how powerful is the NX relatively? In terms of the capabilities of Tegra X1, consider this: Doom BFG Edition on Xbox 360 and PS3 runs at 720p60 with frame-rate drops. The same game running on the Shield Android TV micro-console, based on X1, hands in a near-flawless 1080p60 presentation. Trine 2 – another 720p30 game on Sony and Microsoft’s last-gen consoles – operates at 1080p30 on Tegra X1. Typically speaking, OpenGL games port really well to Tegra X1, while DirectX ports, like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and the recently released Resident Evil 5, aren’t so impressive.
But the real question is this – what if the Tegra X1 hardware is completely divorced from its current Android underpinnings and paired up with direct, low-level access? If you’re looking for an example of the revelatory upgrade to perceived performance this can have, consider the glory days of PlayStation Vita – Uncharted: Golden Abyss, WipEout 2048, Gravity Rush, and yes, a range of impressive PS3 ports. These were all powered by a downclocked version of the same GPU found in the iPad 3 and judged by today’s standards, it’s positively ancient technology. However, even to this day, it’s hard to find a mobile shooter with anything like the technical sophistication of Guerrilla Cambridge‘s impressive Killzone: Mercenary.”
This is naturally pretty beefy for a handheld device, but not unheard of as current devices exist using this technology. If instead it is a placeholder for the Tegra X2, we could be looking at something on par with today’s current gen consoles:
“There’s an additional wrinkle to the story too, albeit one we should treat with caution as it is single-source in nature with a lot of additional speculation on our part. This relates to the idea that the Tegra X1 in the NX development hardware is apparently actively cooled, with audible fan noise. With that in mind, we can’t help but wonder whether X1 is the final hardware we’ll see in the NX. Could it actually be a placeholder for Tegra X2? It’s a new mobile processor Nvidia has in its arsenal and what’s surprising about it is how little we actually know about it.
Information on X2 is very limited, to the point where all the technical info we have on it is condensed into one presentation you can read here – ‘Embedded Supercomputing at Nvidia’ by Alex Ramirez of Nvidia Research. What we do know is that it is a core component ofNvidia’s new Drive PX2 system for the automotive industry, where two Tegra X2s are paired with a brace of the firm’s discrete GPUs based on the cutting-edge Pascal architecture.
We also know it has an unusual CPU set-up – two next-gen versions of Nvidia’s own Denver CPU cores, paired with an ARM quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 CPU cluster. But what we don’t know is the form its GPU component will take because unusually, Nvidia has released no specs on this element whatsoever. Assuming that X2 offers a generational leap over X1 and uses the same Pascal architecture found in its new GPU line, we are potentially looking at power more in line with the current-gen consoles. And if Pascal is in play, it will also use 16nm FinFET production technology compared to X1’s 20nm process, meaning it is much more power-efficient. Nintendo could also downclock the chip for further efficiency savings and longer battery life while retaining the lion’s share of its processing power.”
Also, you’ll notice in the list above that I didn’t bring up the resolution of the screen. That is because the actual resolution isn’t known, though Digital Foundry noted this:
“And one final note – we’re still chasing down details on the NX’s screen resolution. While Tegra X1 has shown some potential at full 1080p, clearly a lower pixel count would free up GPU resources for more detailed imagery. On a mobile device, even a 720p screen could work beautifully – and few can complain about the quality of Vita’s 540p panel. However, on the flip-side, NX is indeed a console/mobile hybrid. The games still have to look good on a conventional HDTV in a world where 1080p is effectively the standard.”
This is a lot to digest assuming that the entirety of the report is true. It should also be noted that Nintendo has a patent out there for a Supplemental Computing Device, which in this case could mean the base the device connects to could potentially add additional beef to the hardware, though none of this was talked about in today’s report. Assuming all of this is true, Nintendo has definitely followed through on combining their handheld and home console game development teams.
If your curious what Nintendo had to say in response, it was pretty standard:
“Nintendo has not made any new official announcements regarding NX which is due to launch in March 2017,” a Nintendo spokesperson told Eurogamer when contacted about this story. “As such [we’re] unable to comment on the various rumours and speculations circulating.”
Source: Eurogamer, Digital Foundry
