The new Nintendo console is reportedly less powerful than the Xbox One and PlayStation 4
There's one major question on everyone's mind whenever a new gaming console is announced: How powerful is it?
For PlayStation and Xbox, there's an expectation that each new console rides the bleeding edge of technology, even if it doesn't always work out that way. For Nintendo, expectations are different; the Wii and Wii U were both significantly less powerful than their contemporaries.
It sounds like that trend will continue with Nintendo's NX console, which is still yet to be officially announced or unveiled ("NX" is an internal codename). According to reports, Nintendo's next machine can either play games on a television or on a handheld unit, and its horsepower should sit somewhere between the Wii U and PS4 and Xbox One.
This comes from Eurogamer's Digital Foundry feature, which is a respected source of technological know-how for video games. There's also a helpful breakdown on Polygon that explains a couple of aspects of the console's rumored innards a little further.
Sources told Eurogamer that the console will be powered by an Nvidia Tegra chip. In normal person terms, that means it's using internal hardware that you're more likely to see in a tablet than a conventional game console.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean NX games will look like your average iPad game. Without diving too deep into technical jargon, the chip inside the NX might be able to do more than it can in other devices because it isn't tied to Android and, when played on a TV, it wouldn't need to underperform in order to save battery.
There's also the possibility, however slight, that the NX could use the next-generation version of that chip, which is set to be unveiled in August. Little is known about it, but common sense would dictate it would be a good deal more powerful than the current model. The NX is launching in March instead of this holiday season, leading to some to believe Nintendo could be waiting until the newer chip is widely available.
If all of that sounds ominous, consider that the NX is at least powerful enough to play the beautiful "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" and the upcoming "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, the latter of which is also coming out on PS4 and Xbox One. An optimistic view is that the NX may not be a technical powerhouse, but it will be good enough for some games to cross over from those other consoles, and Nintendo's games will continue to look amazing on it.