Another report on the upcoming Nintendo NX has emerged, and this one is probably going to end up worrying a lot of Nintendo fans who are hoping for Nintendo to make a play for the larger console market with this new machine. According to this new insider report, the Nintendo NX will not be the powerful, PS4 beating console that a lot of earlier reports and rumors have made it out to be- instead, while the console will be modern, it will be closer to the Xbox One in power than anything. This means that it will not even begin to approach the PlayStation 4 in terms of raw power, let alone the upgraded PS4K.
“After speaking to seven different people this week, I can say with confidence that this is false,” Nintendo insider Emily Rogers stated her blog. “NX is not using x86 architecture like PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The NX has special, custom-made chips and the overall design of the hardware is very modern. The chips are industry leading because they are very modern chips, but having modern chips doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo is aiming to create the most powerful hardware on the market. Furthermore, any NX rumors on “Polaris chips” and “Polaris architecture” are all wacky. There’s a good reason why those rumors are wacky.”
She went on to draw a direct comparison of the NX with the other machines on the market.
“In terms of raw power, numerous sources tell me that NX is much closer to Xbox One than PlayStation 4. Even that might be stretching it a tiny bit. Anyone who is claiming that NX is “two times the power of PS4 GPU” is being misled by their sources. Based on what I’ve heard, I don’t believe the NX will compete directly with PS4 (Neo) / PS4K in raw power.”
This… sounds problematic. It honestly sounds like the Wii U all over again, except with the Wii U, Nintendo at least managed to get the console out before the more powerful PS4 and Xbox One were on the market. Here, it seems as though the PS4K will end up beating the Nintendo NX- meaning Nintendo will be launching, in 2017, hardware that will effectively be two generations behind.
Emily Rogers has a track record for accuracy with Nintendo rumors, in general- there is no reason to not trust her. Nintendo fans, however, will doubtless be hoping that she got it wrong this time.