Speculation:

Note:

(Take this one as a T0.5).

Like last time, I'm using the tiered rumors where a T1 means one source told me, T2 means two, Tier 3 means 3, and Tier 4 means four or more (there are no T4 this time). I will reiterate this, I am not the source of any of this information. I am simply passing along what I heard. It should all be taken with a grain of salt and not be taken as gospel. Don't cry and flame me if by June none of this is true.Nirolak told me to contextualize the rumors and was a fan of the tiered system, so I did it. Please read it through and enjoy. Feel free to debate it, get mad at it, get hyped by it or whatever, just know things like these can change at any time and may never come to fruition exactly how it's worded.. I uh....was told not to post this part by some people. As usual, take it with a grain of salt (although I don't know why I would be warned if it was false) I'm not under any NDA though, and well, it could end up being false. But I was told a variation of this by three different sources. I don't believe they have a reason to lie to me. Here goes....The NX is going to have a screen controller (whether it's optional or standard I don't know) and can be used anywhere to play your home console games. The controller itself will not have any processing capabilities, it'll essentially be a dummy vita. It'll likely have basic OS functions to access the NX console from anywhere, like a tiny cpu. Nintendo will use enhanced Wii U gamepad streaming tech, and allow the controller to be taken anywhere, connect to the NX console at home (likely through Wi-fi or personal hotspots and the NX console will likely have to be in stand-by mode). Basically, it's remote play built into the box and won't require a $200 add-on to experience it. This is likely what Kimishima meant in his interview with Sankei ( http://www.sankei.com/west/news/160103/wst1601030012-n1.html ) "different way to play with a dedicated machine" and the whole "new way to experience games" mantra that's been going around Nintendo PR.Nintendo could also sell personal hotspot usb adapters to get internet anywhere and plug either directly into the controller or a wall outlet to not drain the controller battery. The Supplementary Computing Devices may actually be portable hotspot devices with chips in it to boost the quality of the stream. (Maybe the NX will be called the Stream, a speculated final name during the WUST's).This does not mean there will not be a handheld. This isn't meant to be a replacement for the handheld as there will still be limitations and the controller won't have a full OS or the capability for physical game media (discs or cartridges). The needs of a handheld won't be fully met with this feature. It's just a nice add-on.. This rumor gained popularity awhile ago from Geno but this isn't my source. This was a T1 to start but today I got another source to give some info on it. Two different sources have told me that it is in development for NX, and one source said it's being developed by Next Level Games, who is big enough to do this and Federation Force at the same time. One source said it started as a Wii U game but ever the disappointing performance of the Wii U and the scheduled release date for the game being late in the console's cycle, Nintendo decided to switch development over to NX. (basically the same situation as Zelda for Wii U, but no word on if this game will also get a Wii U version). The other source said it's a pretty big deal (he didn't elaborate if he meant Nintendo is making it a big deal or his workplace is). To support this, http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/03/next_level_games_employee_suggests_hes_working_on_a_wii_u_title_then_stealth_edits_the_post an employee stealth edited his post last year.. Likely will be on a FinFET 14nm fabrication node. The source told me it's on the same architecture with heavy customizations of course . It will contain the feature set of Polaris. It is "marginally better than the PS4" and theoretically could be "2x the power of PS4 GPU". I asked about PS4K being rumored to have a gpu 2x as powerful as the OG PS4 and how the theoretical performance of the NX would be and was told "Theoretically it could be close to the PS4K rumored specs". Of course, we know nothing of Polaris or the PS4K specs, but he gave that metric.I'm going to paraphrase here, but one comment from a source about the power of NX was that "Dev's could port over a PS4 game easily and have power to spare. Even the most demanding ones". My own theory is any game that dips below 30fps on PS4 will likely stay at 30fps on NX and maybe have some enhanced effects.One feature he highly touted, which improves performance greatly in games, especially graphically demanding ones such as AAA open world games is Primitive Discard Accelerator. A TechGAF member described it as .So 14nm is still likely in 2016 and Nintendo could still sell it at a reasonable price and not lose too much money or even break even.tl;dr The NX GPU is using features that are debuting on the Polaris chip, and is therefore heavily speculated to be a Polaris chip, as that would work well in a handheld too and help AMD prove they can make low wattage chips with good performance for small devices. (GCN 1.3, Vulkan, Primitive Discard Accelerator, etc). This goes hand in hand with using a Polaris-based GPU, and goes with the announcement of Nintendo joining Kronos. But the dev I spoke to about the GPU, who is porting a PS4 game to NX said Vulkan is ready yet (as of the 2015 December SDK, should be an update in May) and they are using a variation of the PS4 API, GMNX, until Vulkan is ready. Nintendo providing some nice tools like GMNX to help devs port from PC, XBox and PS4 to NX.. As my previous post indicated, Nintendo is none too happy with the leaks and is keeping things on lockdown. Outside of close partners and internal teams, most devs are using SDK's until the NX reveal. Not a big deal, but I was told specs are pretty much final as of now, and the May update will likely be for the final spec sheet and not target specs.The only announced game they have is Raiders of the Broken Planet, currently under development for PS4, XB1 and PC. This is likely it.My single source on this said he's heard more of his sources mention it's coming to NX. No idea when. I pressed for FFVIIR but nobody has heard about it. Gaf's very own mod Kagari hinted that Sony may have co-funded it and it may never get released outside of PS4 and PC (like Street Fighter V).Only heard this from one source but it does make sense if the NX does use 14nm chips, as there's a risk of not having enough of those chips ready on shelves for holiday 2016.No regions were specified, but one would assume with the slow adoption of consoles in Japan, and the popularity of handhelds over there, the NX will launch in the west first like some past Nintendo consoles (consoles are more popular outside of Japan). Likely North America and Europe.Once source told me to post this so I won't edit it at allI asked this because I noticed some complaints about how there were no leaks about new IP and NX was looking like another Mario/Zelda factory with a bunch of remasters and ports. The source said "I'm not allowed to give specifics, but that's a sure bet."Now if you'll excuse me, two well dressed Japanese men are at my door.