NVIDIA Inside of Nintendo's Next-Gen Handheld?

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

There have been a lot of doubters around NVIDIA's Tegra architecture, and some of it might be for good reason. Last summer when the technology was first exposed, we were promised some huge things, and no current or upcoming Tegra device looks to live up to that initial hype. Things started to look up for the company when Microsoft jumped on board and decided to implement Tegra into its Zune HD device. Any way you look at it, that's a nice win.

According to tech rumor site Bright Side of News*, NVIDIA has another design win that's arguably far more impressive than the Zune HD. The site's confidential source states that Tegra will be found inside of Nintendo's next-generation handheld console, the follow-up to the Nintendo DS. If this proves true, then its just the boost NVIDIA needs to start proving to the industry that it's supposed death is highly exaggerated.

When the Nintendo DS was first launched in the fall of 2004, I'm not sure who could have predicted just how well it would sell five years later. Since its launch, it has sold close to 110 million units. If Nintendo's follow-up proves just as successful, that's huge success for NVIDIA as well, and it might very well help bolster sales with other leading mobile vendors who might opt for Tegra.

What might be most interesting about the next-gen DS is that with Tegra, Nintendo might begin to take graphics a little more seriously. Though, it's hard to predict such a thing when the release date is truly unknown. The original DS had a fun library, but compared to Sony's PSP, its graphics were lackluster in all regards. Is Nintendo finally planning to compete with Sony where graphics are concerned? Hopefully. I'm all for fun gameplay over fancy graphics, but having both is rarely a bad thing.

The question of power consumption and performance is quite an interesting one. With Gen2 Tegra offering quite a graphics punch;GeForce 9 based hardware [CUDA-enabled design] should offer immense experience on small screens - we see no reason why you could not have 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic filtering on a dual-screen system. If Nintendo picked the current gen hardware, i.e. Tegra 600 or APX 2600- it will be getting 65nm chips.

Source: Bright Side of News*

[gibbersome]

I reaally hope this partnership goes through. Nintendo has some great ideas (motion sensing, dual screen DS), but its graphics have always been lackluster. Not only does this hurt its bottom line, but also limits the types and number of games the console can support.

It's about time Nintendo did more than be the cute, cuddly console. The Wii fervor has worn off and they need a new direction to entice consumers to spend more money.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by gibbersome

Not only does this hurt its bottom line

It's hard to state that when the Nintendo DS and Wii both share the same problem of lackluster graphics, yet both outsold the competition by a rather large margin. I tend to agree at the same time, though, because the fact is, a lot of people didn't purchase the DS or Wii because of the graphics, so with good graphics, it would have only sold even better. I've never heard of someone turning down a game before because the graphics were too good.

[gibbersome]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

It's hard to state that when the Nintendo DS and Wii both share the same problem of lackluster graphics, yet both outsold the competition by a rather large margin. I tend to agree at the same time, though, because the fact is, a lot of people didn't purchase the DS or Wii because of the graphics, so with good graphics, it would have only sold even better. I've never heard of someone turning down a game before because the graphics were too good.

Agreed. Both the DS and the Wii have been huge successes, and perhaps Nintendo believed that the extra investment in better graphics would not be prudent. If the Wii shipped out with PS3 level graphics, the console price would have been much higher and Nintendo would have incurred a loss on every console sold, like Sony initially did.

They also perhaps had the foresight, considering the meager library of games available for the Wii, to see that they would not be able to recoup the losses through game publications. Whatever their thinking was, it worked, lol!

At the same time I know many households that bought the Wii hardly ever use it now. While most Xbox and PS3 users utilize those consoles on a much more frequent basis. Once bitten twice shy. Yet another cutesy Nintendo console would not attract fans the same way a graphics heavy one would.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by gibbersome

Both the DS and the Wii have been huge successes, and perhaps Nintendo believed that the extra investment in better graphics would not be prudent. If the Wii shipped out with PS3 level graphics, the console price would have been much higher and Nintendo would have incurred a loss on every console sold, like Sony initially did.

You make a good point, and I guess I didn't consider that the reason both the DS and Wii are so successful boils down to the overall cost of ownership (although the Wii controllers are expensive as heck with both pieces).

Originally Posted by gibbersome

At the same time I know many households that bought the Wii hardly ever use it now.

Same. I bought a Wii a few weeks after it came out, played it for a bit and then left it alone for an entire year. Then I picked it up again two winters ago to go through Mario Galaxy, and then got bored before the game was over and haven't touched the console again since. In total, I'd say I probably used the console for about 60 hours since I owned it. I'm clearly not the appropriate market for it, though.

You know what I find hilarious? Most people I know who own a Wii don't even own a game for it, and if they do it's usually Wii Sports or something like that. Most often when I ask people what they are playing on their new Wii, it's the bowling or tennis, or other games that are bundled with it.