Is AMD designing Nintendo’s next-generation NX console? CEO Lisa Su announced that the company had recently added a new embedded design
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, 07-26-2015 at 07:28 AM (2000 Views)
CEO Lisa Su announced that the company had recently added a new embedded design win to its portfolio, though without a firm date on when the company might recognize revenue from the win. One potential candidate for a hypothetical new device is Nintendo, which announced earlier this year that it would launch a new hybrid mobile device in 2016, codenamed the NX.
Dean Takahashi has laid out the reasons why he thinks Nintendo has contracted with AMD to build its next-gen console chip. There are multiple reasons to think this is a plausible match. AMD provides designs for every current-generation console on the market, including the existing Wii U’s GPU. The difference between Nintendo and Sony/Microsoft, however, is that Nintendo appears to have licensed an AMD GPU design that’s built by a third-party, Renesas, and the GPU they licensed — by all accounts, a derivative of AMD’s HD 4000 family — was already quite dated even when the Wii U was new.
According to Nintendo, the NX will be a “hybrid” between mobile and traditional living room gaming. This is broad enough to mean almost anything — a tablet like Nvidia’s Shield could conceivably be classified as a “hybrid” if connected to a television, since the machine supports video-out and wireless controllers, while an ultra-portable living room system could conceivably be declared “mobile” as far as picking it up and walking away with it.
One thing we can predict, however, is that Nintendo’s next-generation console will probably focus more on affordability and unique features as opposed to raw performance. Satoru Iwata’s recent passing could change that, if the company’s new president and CEO has a different vision for the future, but Nintendo has a decade-long history of preferring alternative control schemes and innovative technology over raw horsepower. Sony and Microsoft have historically leapt for new process nodes and die shrinks as quickly as they were available, while Nintendo followed updates its consoles at a far more leisurely pace.
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