Hacker News Reader

Comment by speeder | Hacker News Reader

You are wrong there. Nintendo instead been always pushing the tech.

The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were part of the "bits race" and kept pushing forward in hardware power. Mario 64 is credited along with Wing Commander for creating the AAA graphics race at all costs behavior in the industry.

The Wii wasn't entirely a direction change, Nintendo felt competing on CPU power now was not interesting and went for motion controls, that later all other consoles imitated.

Then we had the Wii U that tried to mix TV with handheld. Wii U kinda sucked so they just tried it again with the Switch and made it portable. This again is spawning clones (steam deck for example).

I am not a Nintendo fan (I was on Sega camp during console wars and currently I prefer the Playstation) but Nintendo hardware always is impressive.

PS4 and 5 for example are boring, just mostly normal x86 computers with custom OS.

View on HN

Neither the Wii, Wii U or Switch have anything powerful from a hardware perspective - the last time Nintendo released a product equally powered to the competition was the Game Cube but that was over 22 years ago now.

This is the 'withered technologies' playbook in action - use underpowered/mature technology in new and fun ways rather than relying on cutting-edge graphics technologies. As an example when the switch was launched in 2017 the CPU on the SoC was from 2012.

Nothing in the Wii was cutting edge in terms of the technology - it was just well implemented. The motion controls were 2 IR dots and a cheap camera, and that wasn't a new concept.

Similarly nothing in the switch was actually cutting edge technologically, just assembled into a great product.

Tegra line started then but the Tegra x1 was a 2015 chip

It was launched in 2017 with a SoC from 2015, and the SoC contained a CPU that launched in 2012.

Contrast this with the PS5, which launched in 2020 with an AMD Zen 2 CPU which launched in 2019.

And the original DS launched with a pitiful 67 mhz ARM9 CPU and 2mb of RAM. It sold 150 million consoles. Because the games were good.

If you care about tech specs, consoles are a losing battle. Even if they are a good price-performance when they release, the length of console cycles will inevitably cause them to be underpowered and outdated by the second half of their existence, and yet many great and generation defining games come out closer to the end of a console's life cycle.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the X1 CPU seems remarkably different from the 2012 Tegras like we saw in the Nexus 7 tablet. Here's a comparison I found https://gadgetversus.com/processor/nvidia-tegra-3-t30l-vs-nv...

In what sense did the X1 cpu launch in 2012?

Despite what that site says, the Tegra X1 isn't a CPU or Processor - it is a SoC.

i.e. The X1 is a chip which contains lots of stuff including some processors from 2012.

This is the the best take. When the switch was new, this was a refreshing take—and using "older" technology means proven SDKs and lower costs for volume.

It's just sad that the switch has become long in the tooth. Great for many, but now limiting. The problem is that Nintendo has tried and failed to succeed with spec bump consoles (see, the new Nintendo DS and the new Nintendo 3DS), so the fact that they haven't followed up the Switch with a spec bump makes gobs of sense.

My first Nintendo device since the original NES was in 2015 when I bought a 'New' Nintendo 3DS XL. It was getting long in the tooth by then, but I had a lot of fun with it and still mess with it from time to time (the eShop closing made me grab a bunch of stuff before it was shut down). Just a few weeks ago I bought an OLED switch. Figured I would see if Breath of the Wild was all it was cracked up to be. I'm having a ton of fun, even if the console is getting up there. If I want bleeding edge graphics I have my PC for that.

What is sad about having a 6 year old console that just had a title sell 10 million copies in 3 days?

I think the point was you are looking at technology purely through the lens of processor speed. But technology incorporates a lot of elements of the design, not just raw speed.

While processor speed may have withered, there were other innovative and cutting edge aspects of the design.

What was cutting edge about the Switch?

It was innovative and a great product, but I'm not sure anything in it was cutting-edge from a technology perspective.

Something doesn't have to be cutting-edge though to be innovative, fun, well designed and a great product.

The classic example of this from Nintendo's toymaker days is a remote controlled toy car that only turns left. It was cheaper for them to make it that way and you can still race cars around a track.

You are proving their point. Nintendo switched to the "don't care about tech" strategy because they had been pushing tech for 2 generations and only doing worse as a business. People preferred the Playstation 2 over the Gamecube because it had more and better games, and Nintendo spent the n64 and Gamecube console generations losing their third party support. That's also why the doubled down on their first party games.

They did care about tech, just not the tech everyone else cared about. They built pretty much the only successful docking computer, something I've been dying for phone manufacturers to try for a decade. That was revolutionary and a huge part of their success.

This is how I feel. Nintendo carries about tech, but in a different way. For them, its not about ultra graphics, but about changing the way you interact with a console and game. Like the Wii, sure, it wasn't bleeding edge hardware or even good hardware compute wise. But it challenged the way we normally thought about how a player could play a game. The switch another example of a console that is both portable, but easily dockable. The only thing I wish they did different was make it so it was a little more performant when docked.

The Gamecube and N64 were both nerfed by Nintendo's insistence on using proprietary storage formats. The N64 cartridge size ranged from 4mb to 64mb (64mb being the maximum at the end of the console's lifespan).

The GameCube used minidvds that had only 30% of the storage space of standard dvds.

The result was a generational game like FF7 was only possible on the PlayStation.

FF7 was a PS1 game and didn't use DVDs.

Yes and it used CDs that competed alongside the N64's low storage capacity.

The main selling point of Nintendo was always their ip. They're better at making games then making consoles.

The only reason I have a switch is Nintendo ip otherwise everything else beats it hands down.

With aging Nintendo hardware now all of it can be emulated in a pc. I barely use it anymore.

> The main selling point of Nintendo was always their ip. They're better at making games then making consoles.

I'd have to think about it, but I might defend the NES, SNES, and Gamecube as the best consoles of their generations, if we're just looking at the consoles themselves. The first two do even better if we consider the games, too (though the GC is plainly not its generation's frontrunner, if you add that—the lack of 3rd party interest really hurt it, its library is tiny, and consists mostly of few great Nintendo games and a bunch of terrible shovelware).

I'd put the N64 at a tie with the Playstation. The N64 looked better and had four-player support out of the box, which made a big difference in how many games supported four players. The analog stick on the controllers was a real problem, though, as was the storage size. Then again, the Playstation launched without any analog sticks. Call it a draw.

It's only really with the Wii that they stopped credibly trying to keep up (and IMO the Wii's various gimmicks don't make up for its deficiencies, among which I count some of those same gimmicks)

>I'd have to think about it, but I might defend the NES, SNES, and Gamecube as the best consoles of their generations

NES yes, it's competitor was atari and atari had games that weren't that great. The NES launched games as mainstream, there was no competition at the time... it was the best.

SNES was also the best but it was only a slight edge over sega. The genesis was comparable.

Gamecube was not the winner. PS2 ruled this era. Starting with the gamecube and maybe you could say the N64... nintendo became more and more reliant on it's IP rather then a platform all developers wanted to work on.

>I'd put the N64 at a tie with the Playstation. The N64 looked better and had four-player support out of the box, which made a big difference in how many games supported four players.

No playstation wins this one hands down. N64 graphics had blurry textures and lack of digital media. Squaresoft switched their entire nintendo led RPG line (Final Fantasy 7) to the playstation because nintendo hardware couldn't handle it. Nintendo came out with some heavy hitters but overall in terms of game selection Sony won.

>It's only really with the Wii that they stopped credibly trying to keep up (and IMO the Wii's various gimmicks don't make up for its deficiencies, among which I count some of those same gimmicks)

I wouldn't say they stopped trying to keep up. Nintendo took a risk, and in the end for games that are less casual they sort of lost the market. But in the end it was the right choice in terms of sales.

The graphics and power competition existed ever since Sega entered the ring. To be honest, the console wars are more nuanced than that. The N64 had superior graphics to PS1, but the lack of discs meant publishers had to spend $10-15 in wholesale costs on cartridges (vs <$1 for CDs), and due to the ROM tech at the time, they couldn't ship games much larger than 64MB (and even that size required additional expensive chips). Squaresoft famously bailed on Nintendo platforms as a result of the game size issue.

GameCube's proprietary "micro-DVDs" also meant limited game sizes compared to PS2. And PS2 could play DVDs, which was a strategic advantage at the time. With both Sony and Microsoft now competing for hardware dominance, however, it became a tougher position for Nintendo to hold, plus the company was not willing to sell consoles at a loss (as I believe both Sony and Microsoft did at first, to gain adoption).

So both N64 and GameCube were limited in significant ways, and it cost Nintendo its market dominance. The Wii was an example of Nintendo taking the console tech in a totally different direction than its peers, explicitly focusing on motion controllers and casual gamers. It was a smash hit, but eventually the novelty of the Wii wore off. The Wii U was a flop. The Switch successfully blended their portable and console offerings.

> People preferred the Playstation 2 over the Gamecube because it had more and better games

PS2 was barely more expensive than a decent DVD player, at the time, and came out before most folks had a DVD player. And it played DVDs. Gamecube didn't. This made the Gamecube a second console for most people... which meant they didn't get it at all, if they only had one console. PS2 also played PS1 games, which meant some gamers had a large library that could be played on it on day 1. GC didn't play N64 games.

Nothing else is really needed to explain the GC's weak sales relative to the PS2.

I do not believe calling Steam Deck a clone of the switch is a truly charitable argument or characterization of the product. The Steam Deck is an infinitely moddable PC that play your steam library on the go. It's been long needed, but exists with a different consumer persona than steam deck.

The Switch actually came out as an advanced handheld. The appeal was that it was a handheld advanced enough to play on a TV. It's just that (especially handheld) technology have advanced in the last 8 years. On the Switch, Nintendo is simply extending it's console's life.

I think a Switch 2 is likely from Nintendo, but they are also likely to release some other idea. Nintendo console releases are highly variable. They have had a lot of major hits. They've had some flops. They are just making hay while the sun shines, and delaying a console release that might change the weather. I do wonder how many bad console releases Nintendo can get away with. I also am beginning to worry they don't have a great console concept prepared for the next generation.

We just need a much more powerful switch that is 100% backwards compatible

This'd be a day-one purchase for us.

Emphasis on the backwards compatibility. I'll wait 2-3 years if that's not there.

I'm expecting Virtual Boy 2.

Nintendo is not willing to lead the charge this time around (leave that to fools like Zuck) so they'll just wait to see which parts work and expand that.

The next console will be a follow up to the Switch. It probably has some kind of added gimmick, but I think the form factor will largely stay the same.

When Nintendo has a hit console they try to extend and expand on the idea for their next console and even the naming is typically very similar:

NES -> SNES

GB -> GBC

DS -> 3DS

Wii -> WiiU

When they have a flop they usually pivot hard, which is how we got the Wii. Hopefully they can avoid the terrible naming of the WiiU. I remember at the time a lot of confusion regarding if it was just an a tablet accessory for the Wii.

> The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were part of the "bits race" and kept pushing forward in hardware power.

The NES wasn't—it was an 8-bit machine in a time where 16-bit processors were available. I don't really know if the SNES pushed the envelope at all, but you're right that the N64 did.

The impressive part of the NES was its picture processing unit, which among other things finally delivered on an arcade-like experience at home and gained mass appeal in the process. For the time it was considered quite an advanced chip in its price range. The other extremely clever thing Nintendo did with the NES was to put the video bus on the cartridge, and this enabled them to expand the console's apparent capabilities by adding new features to game paks. This helped to keep the NES competitive in the market for many years.

> The other extremely clever thing Nintendo did with the NES was to put the video bus on the cartridge, and this enabled them to expand the console's apparent capabilities by adding new features to game paks.

Can you imagine putting the video card in every copy of a game now? What a time that was.

| Can you imagine putting the video card in every copy of a game now?

I remember Star Fox (which included the SuperFX graphics chip on the cartridge) going for $90 on release in 1993.

That's $188.95 in today's dollars.

Well the Famicom came out several years before the NES, so it was a bit more competitive at that time.

No console had a 16-bit processor when the NES was released.

I don't think we have to reduce it down to a boolean choice. Nintendo has altered their strategy over time, as all 100 year old companies have. It's definitely true that for quite a while now they have not attempted to complete on raw specs.

There's pushing and pushing. Nintendo vs Sega in the early 90s showed this. The Genesis had way more CPU power and MHz but it wasn't balanced (less colors, worse sound compared to SNES chipsets).

The N64 was a bit like that too, they waited quite a long time to release it to get special SGI capabilities.

I remember Genesis games being way more vibrant than SNES games. Were they just oversaturated?

Too me they were always darker and limited in shades. You could see that on SF2 ports.

>they just tried it again with the Switch and made it portable. This again is spawning clones (steam deck for example)

Calling the steamdeck a switch clone feels really weird to me.

I had a sega game gear as a kid, and it was effectively the same form factor...

The 4 is boring, yes.

The 5 though? Now that's interesting hardware, the thing is so fast, smooth and silent, I am always impressed everytime I turn it on. Feels like an Apple product, if only it wasn't so damn big...

Nintendo's credo of "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" was originally framed by Gunpei Yokoi in regards to the Game Boy. The N64 is the only real stand-out exception.

> PS4 and 5 for example are boring, just mostly normal x86 computers with custom OS. Well, PS3 wasn't boring and where did it get them? Boring is good.

Eh. They don't push in the classic ways. I don't think Nintendo has ever put out a console that was on the cutting edge of technology.

What they like doing is taking common components and milking them for all they're worth. Or optimizing for what's really important in a system. Like for the Game Boy line, they focused on energy consumption rather than raw horsepower.

The NES used a modified 6502, which was used in the Atari 2600, Apple II, Commodore 64, and others.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com