Nintendo hiring new graphics engineer for next console

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So yeah, we know as soon as a new console is released work begins on a new one, but Nintendo is a bit of a hurry compared to where they were with the wii. Not the biggest news but there it is, share your thoughts.

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The thing that jumps out to me from this is they're looking for expertise in "low power" design, which makes me think even more they're not going to come out with some ps4 crushing 5 teraflop monster. BUT, it is listed as a plus, so who knows.

What i think is very likely to happen - they're, as always, going to focus on first party, and hope that a unified architecture between the handheld and console will let them pump out the games they need fast enough, instead of rallying 3rd parties with hardware muscle.

Frankly i've almost just given up on a nintendo console being my multiplat box, and I just want more first party games and faster.

I mean if we could get twice as many games out of a nintendo generation, that would be more than make up for the lack of multiplats. But I would also love a Nintendo console that has everything...

Anyway, Nintendo is aware something has to change..

I took "low power" as meaning: "uses less electricity" or "doesn't require a lot of electricity to work". I didn't think it meant low technical specs in terms of graphics output...

That's just me though, I know little about this technical jargon.

I've had my WiiU for almost 2 years... I expect that in 3 years we'll have a new console.

I'm predicting a monster. A wild rabid monster. Unified architecture between handheld and console. The biggest feature of the console will be that the handheld will be a controller option for all games. No gamepad needed. 16 GB of DDR4 RAM for the console and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM for the handheld. An APU style setup for the handheld and something along the lines of a GTX 980 or a 970 for the console. Scalable graphics and cross buy for both systems on all games sold. One game can run on both systems means that Nintendo's first party gems work on both systems. It also means that the 3rd party games will be easy to run on both systems. It'll be a simple matter of adjusting settings and tweaking them accordingly for the handheld, vs going full power with the console.

This will be the way to go for Nintendo next generation. It'll bring the 3rd party devs rushing to the system. Nintendo will finally have other launches to pad their lineup of stellar first party games. Fantastic 3DS games that you wish would happen on the Wii U will finally be possible. Then all they gotta do is what the HD twins did which is the sub plan with a more robust eshop and tons of deals.

Exactly my thoughts. Nintendo is looking for someone who knows a thing or two about getting more performance per watt.

I doubt it. I figure the system will be powerful, yes, but not exactly a monster. Nintendo has to keep the price reasonable.

I love your thinking, but I doubt we'll ever see a beastly powerful console from Nintendo. But I do think you're right about the 'Fuse' concept.

As long as the next Nintendo console is attractive to 3rd party developers. Nintendo hopefully will hire a good console architect to help them. Since Nintendo cannot prop up a console all by themselves. The Wii U thus far has only sold just over 7 million in 2 years. So back to the drawing board and hopefully the new console architect can help Nintendo get back on track for their 9th gen entry

@Chozofication I've never seen my Nintendo consoles as multiplatform consoles. What they should focus on, IMHO, is bringing their handheld strategy over to home consoles: i.e. low cost, low development overhead, and attractive exclusives. I'd rather they work on a Wii U Slim at a lower price point, focus their middleware tools and publishing arm on attracting smaller studios into making exclusive games on it, and begin a strong effort in convincing Wii U owners to buy 3rd party exclusives.

If the Wii U is $200-250 when the other consoles are $400, I think Nintendo has a very substantial market out there. Their first party games and low price point sell the hardware for third party exclusives to sell to. Small studios now are better than they were in the days of the Wii, and if Nintendo can get the gumption that 3DS developers do for the Wii U, it can be very attractive.

But doesn't require a lot of electricity to work and today's high powered high heat components just don't mix. Hopefully they just mean they want to get a power efficient console and not a Ps4.5, not if they want the multiplat support. They'll need a 100 watt console to really blow ps4 out of the water. Wii U is about 35 watts for reference.

The gamecube was a very high end console, right? Well, back then components weren't anywhere near as big or power hungry as they are now. This is exactly why the Ps4 isn't a high end console, not that consoles are getting weaker, just that the technology ceiling just keeps getting taller. There is only so much good console engineering can do these days to keep up with the high end PC gpu's. It's why the ps3 and xbox 360 broke down at launch, because they put the highest of high end stuff in small boxes.

They'll need more ram than that if they're putting a 980 ish gpu in there. 24gb at least, but 32 would be safer. Not just because of the components but because of bloated operating systems.

But yeah, a 980 is about as much as we can expect from the next console. By then it could be done in a 100 watt console.

The problem with them doing this though.. I don't know how they could scale back those graphics to a handheld console. If they want these consoles to actually share games than that much power is going to present some problems. Unless the games on console are 4k (Nintendo games in 4k yes please) and the games on the handheld are like 540p or something.

Not that I even want them to share games, i'd rather have.. i'd call them companion games. Like, if a console mario comes out and it's this huge galaxy like adventure, the handheld gets something that uses the same engine but is a completely different game.

That wouldn't be wise. You'll be splitting up your game development team again, when they finally got to the point where they can finally unite them. The goal of this setup will be to pool your game development teams (your biggest strength) to make as many first party games as humanly possible. We won't have to worry about handheld versions being bad ports of console games or console versions not even happening because they will be the same, but at different resolutions/textures/fps. Instead there will be hardware teams who's job it will be to maximize the game for the hardware they are responsible for.

The only major drawback for this will be that 3rd party devs will have to set 2 packs of textures. One for the console and one for the handheld. Otherwise the rest should be simple scaling for the hardware.

You guys are scaring me with those specs. What king of a development environment will that take?

I don't mean for them to split current teams up, I want Nintendo to hire more talent. Nintendo needs to expand, expand expand. Expand and make contracts with outside developers they trust and work with.

The new talent could work on the companion games while the main team can work on the big games. That could work in reverse as well, for example gamefreak could work on the main pokemon games for the handheld while the new talent would make a stadium 3 or something. They'd all be using the same tools and be in direct contact with each other, I don't see how that would be bad in any way. Or Intelligent systems could be making a true paper mario while the new talent makes some new eccentric side game. Make everyone happy :)

I don't want EAD to be working on Galaxy 3 and the new talent to work on Mario FPS or something, it would be a somewhat similar game.

Cross play would be great but Nintendo needs more than that.

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As for the porting between the handheld and the console... there is a MASSIVE (like 15 years) difference between mobile and console technology, i'm just not sure how something made for the ground up on a gtx 980 could work on what's probably going to be xbox 360 level hardware at best. If they're doing crazy stuff that we haven't seen yet in games it's just not going to work on the handheld, and/or the amount of cutbacks that would have to be made visually would be staggering. Granted the small screen would help a lot with that.

If you want every game that's on the home console to run on the handheld, you are just asking for huge limitations to be put on the home console games.

3rd parties will be pushing current technology to the absolute limit, forget about big mulitplats running on a handheld xbox 360. This cross play thing will be a mostly Nintendo endeavor and for smaller/indie developers, which for them there wouldn't be any issues.

Anyways, there's lots of assumptions here, I don't even halfway expect the next console to be that powerful, it's just a possibility. :p

Well, for one thing if the home console runs games at 4K that will take a lot power, and there would be less room to be working on texturing, modeling etc. which would keep costs down.

That's one very valid interpretation IMO. Keep in mind that when the PS4 was designed keeping it low power was one of the design requirements (and the reason it uses a generic plug you'd see on many low power devices like radios). The PS4 and X1 are closer to laptop style hardware than the stuff you are seeing in desktops so it isn't much of a jump to think the next Nintendo will be around or slightly more powerful than them (especially as the new consoles are built for price scalability over the course of a generation).

From the mouth of Miyamoto.

“As we move forward, we’re going to look at what we can do to unify [our console and portable] development environments.”

What I can say is, certainly, within Nintendo the fact that our development environment for our home console is different from the development environment for our portable system is certainly an area of stress or challenge for the development teams. So as we move forward, we’re going to look at what we can do to unify the two development environments.

So, particularly with digital downloads now and the idea that you’re downloading the right to play a game, that opens up the ability to have multiple platform digital downloads where you can download on one and download on another. Certainly from a development standpoint there is some challenge to it, because if you have two devices that have different specs and you’re being told to design in a way that the game runs on both devices, then that can be challenging for the developer—but if you have a more unified development environment and you’re able to make one game that runs on both systems instead of having to make a game for each system, that’s an area of opportunity for us."

@bunchanumbers: I've read that before but he says nothing about making every game cross play. Like I said I really don't think that's possible given the hardware we were just talking about.

I fully expect cross play games, just not EVERY game. Why would they want to limit themselves so much?

I mean, even most games as cross play would be good. But every game?

Keep in mind i'm not talking about from a visual standpoint, as much as a game might have to be downgraded visually for the handheld they could do it, but I mean from a gameplay perspective there will be things that won't be possible on the handheld.

I'm sure there will be exceptions. I think that some 3rd party devs won't make the console version fly on the handheld version because they will have to cut too much. Or some might get a ant up their bum and say they are going handheld only and the console version will be identical to the handheld version.

But it seems more and more likely that they will do this with their first party stuff and that is what is the most important. It means that both platforms get the same love and platforms that were ignored (no full pokemon on consoles) will finally get a real game. It also means that there will never be a first party game drought again. I mean yes I'm grateful for the deals they made for games like Hyrule Warriors and Bayo 2 but with their dev teams united there will never be a shortage of Nintendo games again. And I think that is their ultimate goal with this setup.

Well that wouldn't even be possible with all that extra power :p

Yeah what they want to do is great, I just don't want them to limit game development for the home console in the least. We'll see what happens!

We can only hope, but I have my doubts.

Yea my thoughts are similar..its will be like RE: Revelations, where console version is just up tweak ...where limit is still 3DS limit. :P