The Week in Nintendo NX Rumours – Week 15 2016
We try to avoid posting rumours as much as possible on Vooks, it’s part of our news policy and has been for years. You all seem to love it. Now we’re reaching a critical stage with the Nintendo NX where rumours, speculation and leaks are at a fever pitch. So instead of ignoring it, we’re going to collect them and analyse them.
The words of the immortal Brian Taylor* – oh boy wow wee what a week of rumours.
We have a lot to get through and not a lot of time, well there’s plenty of time – the sun isn’t going to explode for several billion years so we’re safe on the other hand I got food in the microwave so lets go.
Rumours 1-4 – NX is more Powerful than the PlayStation 4, Splatoon, Smash Bros, Super Mario Maker and more ports are in development for the NX, Everything is NDA’d and there’s no focus on any NX portable – if it exists.
Normally I would split these rumours up and analyse them one by one – but since they’re the same rumours from multiple sources we’ll quickly just work through them and then move onto the next stage.
Sources say that the NX will be more powerful than the Playstation 4 ‘by a noticeable amount’. This power extends to the CPU, the GPU and the RAM. No specific clock speeds are mentioned, but 15-30% increase for the CPU over the PlayStation 4 is cited.
The second part of the rumour is that Wii U remasters / ports are coming to the NX, The Legend of Zelda has of course been rumoured from day one and that’s on the list but allegedly also Super Smash Bros, Super Mario Maker and even Splatoon is said to be making the switch. Splatoon should have all the DLC included from the get go and work with the Wii U version of the game, Super Mario Maker is said to be in development but Nintendo are having trouble getting the same cross-platform compatibility from it.
Super Smash Bros on NX would be the Wii U version with all the DLC included. Both Zelda and Smash would be for launch – Splatoon and Super Mario Maker they don’t know.
Despite these rumours ‘NDA’s are tight’ and that NX SDK’s are ‘out there right now’ in the hands of developers. The NX architecture is said to also be under NDA (no shit really), but is said to be x86 architecture – this is the same as the PS4 and Xbox One (and PC). However 10k seems to disagree with this and the system could use ARM architecture.
NeoGAF user 10k also claims that ‘Based off my high school programming skills and some research’ it seems that x86 to ARM porting requires more work… Moving on and finally – what about the NX handheld? Well no one knows anything about that.
Where does Emily Rogers come in to this? She backed up the port rumours, but has said in tweets that ‘just because something is in development doesn’t mean it’ll be released’.
The Verdict
I felt a lot of emotions writing the stuff above, from anger, to my brain slowly crawling out of my ear hole onto the floor. First things first, the port rumours make sense. The Wii U has underperformed, not a real ton of people have one in the grand scheme or things and by now if they haven’t they won’t get one. So if you have some great games that you’re running as a service – why not port them over to your new hardware?
Having Super Mario Maker (how it’ll work that’s another problem), Super Smash Bros, and Splatoon on the NX day is a great move. There’s so many people I know who won’t touch a Wii U but would love to play these game, but aren’t touching the Wii U with a ten foot pole.
The Legend of Zelda being on the NX isn’t news, it’s a down right certainty at this point.
As for the rest of these rumours, I’d like to just write who cares – but there’s some good points here. The NX needs to be powerful, it needs to be powerful enough to get ports from the current generation systems or better – don’t care what you say about power vs efficiency vs cost it’s just a given at this point. Does is matter what architecture the NX is on? Sure it does but there’s nothing here concrete enough to make a judgement – it’ll be on what it’s on and we just hope Nintendo make the right choice – whatever that is.
The rest of the rumours are just noise, the big things we need to focus on aren’t here.
*If you don’t follow Aussie Rules, or hell aren’t even Australian – watch.
BT is a tool.
Tim Gossage a close second.
The important part about the architecture being x86 means that it’s less difficult (read: expensive) to put multi console titles on the NX that are already being developed for PlayStation 4/5 and Xbox One/Two in future.
The rumours that worry me the most are the ones which suggest that the portable component of NX will be limited to playing spin off apps rather than full games.
I could handle it if the portable can double as a controller but one which isn’t needed for all games particularly games that don’t need a second screen like a Mario maker port. But if NX turns out to be just a very traditional home console without being a platform that can also play the same games on the go via portable form factors then I will be really disappointed as now seems the best time for portable console/home console convergence.