Performance is expensive. Building and validating a system around high end custom chips is expensive. They also will not make you units if you don't make serious volume commitments.

Building a very basic system with cheap, bad, off the shelf components is not expensive.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Building a very basic system with cheap, bad, off the shelf components is not expensive.

Sorry, you have no idea about hardware development. Just because Hardware is cheap doesn't mean that R&D is cheap.

Do you think that development hardware drives R&D costs? No, paying engineers does. Do you think that Sony or Microsoft develop their own chips? Again: nope: They use AMD Microarchitectures (Sony won't make the mistake of the PS3 again).

You know what costs R&D? Developing controllers does. And guess who reinvents their controllers every generation! Not just hd rumble, like the dual sense: Video streaming, HD rumble, IR technology, etc.

And Nintendo tripled their R&D budget from 2003 to 2007 twice:

In 2003, Nintendo declared that $34 million was spent on R&D. This figure steadily climbed to $103 million in 2006 and the following year bumped dramatically to $370 million.

Source

Any more bullshit for me to debunk?

[–] Sgagvefey@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Yes, designing the chips is obscenely expensive. Microsoft and Sony aren't using off the shelf $5 SoCs. They're partnering with AMD, using AMD's IP, to make custom designs specifically tailored to their design goals. The fact that you think you can talk about R&D costs without understanding this basic reality is hilarious. Validating high performance custom SoC designs takes a tremendous amount of very limited capacity of small batch test manufacturing ability to get to an end product.

I promise you Sony spent more developing their triggers than Nintendo did on the joycon. That actually is new tech. Putting IR and nfc sensors that already exist onto a controller isn't that expensive. Developing new tech is where costs come from. Sony isn't spending a couple hundred million. They're spending billions, every year.

Even after kicking their investment up for a switch 2 that can't use an off the shelf chip because there isn't one, they're still spending less than half of what Sony does.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Surely. You won't fail to supply any data to back up your ludicrous claims this time, will you?

[–] Sgagvefey@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Do the search yourself with whatever source you trust. They all have the same information.

Sony spent over 2 billion on R&D in gaming last year, which doesn't count the guaranteed volume that's also required to get leading edge chips. Nintendo still spent less than a billion (which is a big increase from the complete joke of investment leading into the switch, because the switch didn't take any research).

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah, yes. The good ol' "do your research sheeple" bit. Gotta love it. You've already claimed so much BS, why shouldsI take anything you say at face value?

Also: lol. Do you think that the technology in the Dual Sense's triggers is new? o.O

Do you actually even own a switch, if you're so desperate to dunk on Nintendo?

[–] Sgagvefey@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/92231/nintendo-boosts-spending-as-next-gen-switch-2-looms/index.html#:~:text=According%20to%20Nintendo's%202023%20annual,R%26D%20throughout%20Fiscal%20Year%202023.

With a nice chart showing how much of a joke their investment developing the Switch was.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/sony-boost-gaming-unit-with-217-bln-rd-war-chest-2024-nikkei-2023-07-12/

There are literally dozens, minimum, of sources with the same numbers. They're in annual reports and not secret or debatable at all.

Everything I've said is accurate. You're the one pretending putting one of the worst controllers ever made together with off the shelf parts is somehow comparable to designing custom SoCs on cutting edge nodes.

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

Ah, yes... "accurate" claims like

the third best selling console of all time behind the ps2 and the ds is dependant on "collectors"
that Breath of the wild was an old game when the switch released
that Nintendo didn't "do risks"
"All of the Switch's popularity is because of third party games", when the 24 best selling switch games are all published by Nintendo.

Give me a break

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