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[Lupin the Third]

congradulations! you discovered the problems with these rumors!

Yeah, it's a shame more developers haven't seconded that rumored quote. GI never reported the 6-inch touchscreen from their own sources, did they?

EDIT: Wsippel: Holy cow, 16 cores? That's a lot of cores....

 

[Graphics Horse]

Anyone know how cheap you could make a 6" single touch tablet with enough power for basic browser functionality and not much more?
I see that you can get android based tablets for ~$60-$70 like this lovely apad http://www.ankaka.com/apad-android-tablet-pcmidwifi-7-tft-touch-screencamera_p46977.html

For just basic browser functionality and without mark-up you should be able to get down below $50. So maybe it could be a standalone tablet, and you could still buy extra controllers for $50-60.

Now remove the 256mb ram and replace with 16mb ram, remove the 500mhz processor and replace with a GBA level processor, replace the 1.3megapixel camera with a 0.3 megapixel one, remove SD slot and 2GB hard drive, etc. etc.

It depends on how Nintendo expects users to hold the controller. Unless it's expected that you'll have a free hand gestures won't make a lot of sense. Even with that the DS has never had multi-touch and it hasn't seemed to impact its gameplay options.

The inclusion of buttons, especially analog triggers, makes multi-touch a lot less important. It's still more intuitive and nice to have, but as a sub-screen it might be enough without it.

 

[Fourth Storm]

I don't get it. Did everyone forget the developer quote where Nintendo was "doing this one right" and that there "wasn't a gimmick"? What's with all the Kinect-camera-finger-tracking tech talk? You'd think this is an old "Revolution" speculation thread or something.

EDIT: Effect: Well, that's a coincidence! That's actually kinda what I was thinking, too. Maybe I'll snag one if it ever hits below $100. Or pick one up secondhand.

Listen to this man!

However, at this point, I don't think a touch screen qualifies as a gimmick. It's become a standard method of control like it or not. As long as there are real buttons to go along with it.

 

[DECK'ARD]

I really would like to be a fly on the wall at Nintendo right now.

They are probably enjoying it too much though, and at the Investor's Meeting will say "Yes, we are planning to release a new console in the next financial year" with no extra information just for the resulting meltdowns.

 

[Fourth Storm]

It seems there have been rumors in December 2009 that Nintendo's next generation system might be based on IBM's 476FP core. Judging by the little information we have regarding IBM's involvement, that would make some sense: it seems Nintendo contracted them between late 2009 and early 2010, and the 470 series was the most efficient core they had at the time.

The 476FP, presumably used in a 16 core configuration, is actually quite impressive. It's not exactly very fast, but incredibly efficient. It's a 32bit PowerPC core, out of order and highly modular, with a really short pipeline, supporting SIMD and DSP instructions. It draws about 2W while achieving around 4GFLOPS (double precision) at 2GHz - per core. It's currently IBM's latest and greatest, at least until the A2 ships.

Great info! You're always on point, wsippel (except for when you had me believing 3DS was gonna be a slide-out design haha).

 

[Lupin the Third]

Now remove the 256mb ram and replace with 16mb ram, remove the 500mhz processor and replace with a GBA level processor, replace the 1.3megapixel camera with a 0.3 megapixel one, remove SD slot and 2GB hard drive, etc. etc.

The inclusion of buttons, especially analog triggers, makes multi-touch a lot less important. It's still more intuitive and nice to have, but as a sub-screen it might be enough without it.

Listen to this man!

Spoiler

 

[megashock5]

How much would an upscaler cost to push out existing Wii games at 720p? Anyone know?

No clue, but ever since I saw the screenshots in the Dolphin thread I've been seriously hoping the next system could do that. Talk about breathing new life into your old games.

 

[Graphics Horse]

I really would like to be a fly on the wall at Nintendo right now.

They are probably enjoying it too much though, and at the Investor's Meeting will say "Yes, we are planning to release a new console in the next financial year" with no extra information just for the resulting meltdowns.

Heh, I'm not expecting anything else to be honest.

 

[Skiesofwonder]

Looks like I won't be recieving Portal 2 until tomorrow. So here I am.....

*Sigh*

Anything of note happen since last night around 8PM EST?

 

[Lupin the Third]

I really would like to be a fly on the wall at Nintendo right now.

They are probably enjoying it too much though, and at the Investor's Meeting will say "Yes, we are planning to release a new console in the next financial year" with no extra information just for the resulting meltdowns.

To be fair, Nintendo did mention the 3DS's main gimmick and DS/DSi backward compatibility in the press release announcement. I don't expect much more than a confirmation of its existence, a codename, and perhaps one or two very general bullet points about the system.

 

[From The Dust]

I really would like to be a fly on the wall at Nintendo right now.

They are probably enjoying it too much though, and at the Investor's Meeting will say "Yes, we are planning to release a new console in the next financial year" with no extra information just for the resulting meltdowns.

this is the investors meeting. they won't take that as an answer.

 

[Plinko]

We need some new rumors. "Above 360" isn't doing it for me any more.

 

[Vinci]

this is the investors meeting. they won't take that as an answer.

They'll mention something, but they won't give them the best parts of the console at the meeting. No way. And yes, the investors will understand that.

 

[DECK'ARD]

I think that the IR Port of the 3DS is going to be a very important part with this new console.

It was an odd thing to put in there, purely because it's so out-dated, hard to think of what use they'd put it to though.

Maybe it's just so they can offer a Universal Remote app on the Estore when it goes live

 

[Graphics Horse]

(except for when you had me believing 3DS was gonna be a slide-out design haha).

Yeah I was in on that too, I wasn't expecting Nintendo to be so conservative with the design, but at least I was open to the possibility of the screens being different widths.
And again I'm not expecting them to be conservative with the Cafe, so maybe I should have learned my lesson.

 

[RPGCrazied]

There is going to be a screen on the controller? Like the Dreamcast one? That is cool, but if the controller has no buttons, and has a touchpad for them, I don't think I'd like that too much.

 

[poppabk]

I don't get it. Did everyone forget the developer quote where Nintendo was "doing this one right" and that there "wasn't a gimmick"? What's with all the Kinect-camera-finger-tracking tech talk? You'd think this is an old "Revolution" speculation thread or something.

Those comments seemed a little too steeped in fanboy type speak to indicate much.
"Nintendo is doing this one right," said an anonymous source. "[It's] not a gimmick like the Wii."
Note he is referring to the entire Wii as a gimmick, not the control system. He didn't say that there wasn't some kind of alternate control system just that the system itself isn't a gimmick, which is often used interchangeably with 'worthless' for people who dislike something. I took it to mean that it is on par at least with current systems in terms of power and not much more than that.

 

[From The Dust]

There is going to be a screen on the controller? Like the Dreamcast one? That is cool, but if the controller has no buttons, and has a touchpad for them, I don't think I'd like that too much.

none of the rumors indicat that his will be touchscreen only. I'm sure that's in the OP

 

[Graphics Horse]

Yeah I took it to mean they're not just throwing in a new controller as an alternative to up-to-date hardware, that comment didn't suggest anything more than that really.

 

[RPGCrazied]

Oh. I just skimmed over it. It says its going to have L/R buttons and a D-pad. It really doesn't say what other buttons it'll have.

 

[poppabk]

Now remove the 256mb ram and replace with 16mb ram, remove the 500mhz processor and replace with a GBA level processor, replace the 1.3megapixel camera with a 0.3 megapixel one, remove SD slot and 2GB hard drive, etc. etc.

For some reason I was thinking that a simple tablet would immediately price them out of the market for it to be a per controller solution, but if they are willing to take a hit on their controller profit margins, they could probably bring the essential part of the controller including touchscreen in for under $50 and still make profit.

 

[Lupin the Third]

Those comments seemed a little too steeped in fanboy type speak to indicate much.
"Nintendo is doing this one right," said an anonymous source. "[It's] not a gimmick like the Wii."
Note he is referring to the entire Wii as a gimmick, not the control system. He didn't say that there wasn't some kind of alternate control system just that the system itself isn't a gimmick, which is often used interchangeably with 'worthless' for people who dislike something. I took it to mean that it is on par at least with current systems in terms of power and not much more than that.

Granted, it's a bit of hyperbole (it's the Wii's interface, not the system, that's gimmicky at worst). But, anyone inclined to call the Wii a "gimmick" would probably not be impressed by the system so as to say that Nintendo was "doing this one right" if it were only a marginal improvement over the existing 2005/2006 platforms, would they?

 

[Refreshment.01]

The data for wireless control is absolutely minuscule compared to the data for a realtime video feed. You will be murdering all available bandwidth and as such wireless performance which varies will be critical, and also far more susceptible to interference, errors and having to resend stuff. Due to the sheer volume of data involved. With realtime video for games which has to be interactive, this would be disastrous. Video also isn't downsampled, compressed and decompressed, magically without additional lag to what is already there by using wireless. You keep ignoring this, and the fact it would add to the costs of the devices on the receiving end even more.

You have all the right in the world to dissaprove my sugestions, but you shouldn't do it by ignoring the facts.

A low resolution video feed, sub SD even, due to the touch screen size wont murder any bandwith using a modern wireless standar, like Wifi N. That's just not true. And the examples are right there for anyone to see, with transmitters moving uncompressed HD 1080P video with almost impreceptible lag. The inputs the user could be making to the touch screen would work exactly like any normal wireless controller. The GPU would downsample the rendered frame to such low resolutions instantly with not much performance overhead.

So you can look down, touch something and then look up to see it happen on the television screen? Just use the remote's pointer to do that with the television itself, that's what it was invented for. This line of thinking makes no sense at all.

For a personal screen to have any benefit to a player what it is displaying must be unique to that player, otherwise there is no point for it to be there at all.

Looking for less conventional applications is all well and good, but at least try to consider 1) if they are feasible and 2) if there is any actual point to it being done in the first place.

No it's really nothing like that is it.

It's rendering your expensive 100" TV, and the lovely HD picture, pointless. Just so you can look down at a 6" screen and do something you can already do with the Wii's pointer.

The thing is you keep ignoring some of the things im saying. I proposed 2 ways for the touch control to work. One of them doesnt involve the need to look at the touch screen at all, with finger tracking. The other one would envolve the player to focus attention on BOTH screens for some possible control gains.

Again Nintendo won't or doesnt need to abandon the Wii poinitng method, there are ways for both types of pointing controls to work.

 

[DECK'ARD]

No clue, but ever since I saw the screenshots in the Dolphin thread I've been seriously hoping the next system could do that. Talk about breathing new life into your old games.

Realistically I wouldn't expect anymore than upscaled video signal.

We aren't going to get emulation because of Nintendo's love of 100% compatibility, but there is a tiny chance that they've rejigged the Wii's chipset to rerender in HD. If the chipset has to be in there, you might as well adapt it if it could be done. Not likely, but with their ridiculous R&D spend it's not impossible and that would explain the mysterious higher-res assets in some Wii games.

Would be a killer feature for sure, but safer to be pleasantly surprised if it's in there rather than expect it.

 

[RPGCrazied]

I hope they show off Zelda(but with Skyward sword, I doubt it) and Metroid running on this thing. I want to be blown away so I can start saving my monies! I just bought a Wii, so it will be cool if it can play Wii games too, so I can trade this in or sell it. Maybe they will have a promotion like the 3DS had. Trade it in towards the system.

 

[Skiesofwonder]

Glancing over the last few pages, I'm assuming nothing of note has happened since last night besides the 01net IR correction.

Nintendo needs to come out and address this before all the hype gets even MORE out of hand.

 

[RPGCrazied]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

 

[Plinko]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

Rumor is E3 will have something and they will definitely be telling investors next week.

 

[poppabk]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

I don't think a single thing has been confirmed yet, not even the existence of the console.

 

[Lupin the Third]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

Nowhere more official than anything else we've heard about it. I'm fairly sure there was an E3 rumor in there, somewhere.

 

[Effect]

Those comments seemed a little too steeped in fanboy type speak to indicate much.
"Nintendo is doing this one right," said an anonymous source. "[It's] not a gimmick like the Wii."
Note he is referring to the entire Wii as a gimmick, not the control system. He didn't say that there wasn't some kind of alternate control system just that the system itself isn't a gimmick, which is often used interchangeably with 'worthless' for people who dislike something. I took it to mean that it is on par at least with current systems in terms of power and not much more than that.

When I saw "gimmick" is sort of just dismissed that comment on reflex to be honest.

 

[Skiesofwonder]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

We will hear something by April 26th. Nintendo should confirm that it will be at E3 and will unveil Wii 2's main feature(s) in a PR release like they did with the 3DS.

 

[ZAK]

We need some new rumors. "Above 360" isn't doing it for me any more.

I heard all first-party GC and Wii games will be available via DD.

 

[StickSoldier]

We will not hear anything specific from Nintendo until E3. Is there a chance they won't even show it? Has it been confirmed somewhere where its going to be shown?

Don't think there's a chance for a press release between now and E3, sort of like the 3DS? That's what I'm hoping for, but probably unlikely..

We will hear something by April 26th. Nintendo should confirm that it will be at E3 and will unveil Wii 2's main feature(s) in a PR release like they did with the 3DS.

Yeah, I thought they might do something like this. It would really help clear up all this shit that's going arond.

 

[JCRedeems]

Some poster on here said Nintendo has spent 1.5 billion in R&D in the last few years. Can anyone confirm if it is true?

 

[Virtua Ben]

Long thread, so sorry if my question seems ignorant.

I read the OP and one of the sources sites dual analog sticks. Has this been mentioned more than once? Or more simply, does it seem likely?

 

[Graphics Horse]

Long thread, so sorry if my question seems ignorant.

I read the OP and one of the sources sites dual analog sticks. Has this been mentioned more than once? Or more simply, does it seem likely?

Only mentioned by IGN I think, which I wouldn't trust too much, it depends on the controller design. Gamecube and Classic Controller have them, so I wouldn't rule it out.

 

[EVH]

We will hear something by April 26th. Nintendo should confirm that it will be at E3 and will unveil Wii 2's main feature(s) in a PR release like they did with the 3DS.

The PR release for 3DS was just because Nikkei talked about the handheld before Nintendo. That's why they released that info afterwards the leak from Nikkei.

 

[DECK'ARD]

You have all the right in the world to dissaprove my sugestions, but you shouldn't do it by ignoring the facts.

A low resolution video feed, sub SD even, due to the touch screen size wont murder any bandwith using a modern wireless standar, like Wifi N. That's just not true. And the examples are right there for anyone to see, with transmitters moving uncompressed HD 1080P video with almost impreceptible lag. The inputs the user could be making to the touch screen would work exactly like any normal wireless controller. The GPU would downsample the rendered frame to such low resolutions instantly with not much performance overhead.

The thing is you keep ignoring some of the things im saying. I proposed 2 ways for the touch control to work. One of them doesnt involve the need to look at the touch screen at all, with finger tracking. The other one would envolve the player to focus attention on BOTH screens for some possible control gains.

Again Nintendo won't or doesnt need to abandon the Wii poinitng method, there are ways for both types of pointing controls to work.

To make a personal screen display the same picture as a TV would be a completely nonsensical thing for any company to do. The whole point of a personal screen is to display something specific to the player. That is why you'd have a personal screen and not just look at the television. To display the same thing just so you can put your finger on it, would be an incredible and expensive level of redundancy. Even if it worked perfectly in the real world which it won't.

And because you certainly won't be rendering and firing out 4 different views wirelessly to each player, we have to conclude there is really no point to these screens being there for this purpose.

Already covered finger-tracking, it would be imprecise at best and you don't try and track one moving thing with something else that may move because you are holding it. Again, it's just a completely redundant idea, that is duplicating functionality that can be done far better and more naturally.

And now can we just leave it, because you are like a dog with a bone about an idea that I can not for the life of me see why Nintendo would implement let alone base a system round the idea.

 

[A.KU.MU]

Nvm. I totally misread the question. :/

 

[Skiesofwonder]

The PR release for 3DS was just because Nikkei talked about the handheld before Nintendo. That's why they released that info afterwards the leak from Nikkei.

True, similar to how sources have been leaking specs/information on the Wii 2 in the last week. In fact, I would say we potentially know more about the Wii 2 then we ever did before the 3DS PR revealing. No one was really rumoring or saying Glass-less 3D was the major feature of the 3DS. It pretty much came a surprise to everyone.

So I don't see how this situation is any different then the 3DS's. And with Nintendo's Investor Meeting taking place on the 26th, and several sources saying an information reveal will take place before the end of the month, I think a PR statement on Wii 2 is very likely.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Sure, but correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not a DS owner) but doesn't the DS primarily use a stylus?

Sorry I dipped out for a moment but yes and no, the DS comes with a stylus but many games use the touch screen without it. SSFIV on the 3DS for example uses it for virtual buttons and I'm not sure what kind of trickery is at work behind the scenes but I've been shocked so far by how responsive it is.

 

[plex]

A quick mockup of how I believe the tablet as a standalone device could work:

Still makes a lot more sense to me than a controller with touchscreen.

 

[Refreshment.01]

To make a personal screen display the same picture as a TV would be a completely nonsensical thing for any company to do. The whole point of a personal screen is to display something specific to the player. That is why you'd have a personal screen and not just look at the television. To display the same thing just so you can put your finger on it, would be an incredible and expensive level of redundancy. Even if it worked perfectly in the real world which it won't.

Finally you saw the light You don't aprove the function and thats ok. But its doable and lag is not an issue.

Already covered finger-tracking, it would be imprecise at best and you don't try and track one moving thing with something else that may move because you are holding it. Again, it's just a completely redundant idea, that is duplicating functionality that can be done far better and more naturally.

As a matter of fact theres tech already doing something similar. Even for small devices like smart phones. So imprecision is not a problem.

Like i said you dissaprove the ideas and thats fine, but theres no need to get pissed because some of the arguments you provide are not valid.

But get this you are right in thinking that is something thats not woth it to implement

And now can we just leave it, because you are like a dog with a bone about an idea that I can not for the life of me see why Nintendo would implement let alone base a system round the idea.

Never offended you in any of my posts, so that analogy was uncalled for. At least in my opinion.

 

[Vinci]

Nicely done, plex. Now I'm going to be annoyed when that isn't what Nintendo does with the screen.

 

[Zeal]

that's bullshit. the system would be around $599.

 

[Daante]

It seems there have been rumors in December 2009 that Nintendo's next generation system might be based on IBM's 476FP core. Judging by the little information we have regarding IBM's involvement, that would make some sense: it seems Nintendo contracted them between late 2009 and early 2010, and the 470 series was the most efficient core they had at the time.

The 476FP, presumably used in a 16 core configuration, is actually quite impressive. It's not exactly very fast, but incredibly efficient. It's a 32bit PowerPC core, out of order and highly modular, with a really short pipeline, supporting SIMD and DSP instructions. It draws about 2W while achieving around 4GFLOPS (double precision) at 2GHz - per core. It's currently IBM's latest and greatest, at least until the A2 ships.

Interesting info, thank you!

How many cores would this CPU have?, 2, 16? (didnt understand that part)

 

[JaseMath]

A quick mockup of how I believe the tablet as a standalone device could work:

Still makes a lot more sense to me than a controller with touchscreen.

This would be my guess. A controller with a touch screen doesn't really make any sense at all.

 

[Starchasing]

This would be my guess. A controller with a touch screen doesn't really make any sense at all.

and nintendo releasing and iPad clones makes sense???

 

[Lupin the Third]

These standalone tablets don't make sense either: IF there is a screen on the controller, and IF it is 6" diagonal, then it's too small for a standalone tablet. Heck, the popular mini-tablets hitting the market lately are all 7". If it's part of the controller, it's literally part of the controller, and I'm of the camp that thinks it'll be a DS-style touch screen and used for maps, submenus and "secondary screen" titles like Pac-Man Vs. and Four Swords Adventures, much like how the DS has been.

By the way, why the HECK isn't there a multiplayer Zelda DS game cut from the same cloth as Four Swords? (I know Pac-Man Vs. made it to DS, and LoZH has an online MP mode)....