Is Nintendo Fusion the Wii U Successor?

Rumors are flying around the internet that Nintendo is already hard at work on their next console and it is called the Nintendo Fusion. Two products are specifically mentioned: Fusion DS and Fusion Terminal.

Nintendo News received an anonymous tip from a reputable source involving the next generation hardware from Nintendo which will encompass both the hand held devices and home consoles. Nintendo’s Wii U console, the first of the 8th Generation has not been doing well. It is an unmitigated disaster. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have sold more consoles in their first 2 months than the Wii U has sold during its year long lead on the competition. The biggest third-party studios have all but abandoned it and if Eurogamer’s inside source is correct, Nintendo either doesn’t seem to care or is so traditional in its management that the market may have finally outpaced the house that Mario built.

As we reported earlier, the Wii U is estimated to sell 2.8 million units by the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year which is in March 2014. The original estimate was a low, but respectable 9 million making the new forecast dire indeed. As a comparison, the Wii U sold 3.45 million units in its first year before the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released making this news all but a death knell for the embattled console. A total loss of well over $250 million is expected when a profit was expected on modest sales of the Wii U and the strong sales of the handheld 3DS.

During the last financial call, Nintendo stated that they are funneling money into R&D with “new research and development activities.” From there the rumor mill has been flying to see if Nintendo would take a drastic cut on the Wii U’s price or if they would rush a new console out to market that could compete with the PS4 and Xbox in both power and development ease.

The first bit of information that Nintendo News pointed out was a domain purchase by Nintendo of nintendofusion.com back in May of 2003. The domain was purchased through the same registrar Nintendo has always used, Melbourne IT Ltd. While this is not exactly conclusive evidence as there was a promotional tour called Nintendo Fusion which ended back in 2006 and the site is currently not active.

The information that is very specific is a set of tech specs which you can view below. While these are very specific details that come from a reliable source according to Nintendo News they also caution against any quick judgements of legitimacy. The site has a very high record of vetting sources and providing reliable early news breaks so the information can be given more than a passing glance. And the specs are very promising. However Gamesbeat has a reaction pointing out some of the technical discrepancies in the specifications which would appeal to some of the more technically minded readers.

This would not be the first time we have seen this idea. Sony has made great strides with fusing the PS Vita with the PlayStation 4. Being able to play your PS4 while on the road with your PS Vita, or use it as a second screen have given new life to Sony’s handheld. With the Nintendo Fusion we may see something similar as comparisons between the Wii U dual screen environment and the 3DS are not without merit.

As with all anonymous sources, everything should be taken with a grain of salt if not a whole shaker. Console rumors and fake specifications are nothing new, but with Nintendo’s recent financial statements it is a good talking point.

Fusion DS

• CPU: ARMv8-A Cortex-A53 GPU: Custom Adreno 420-based AMD GPU
• COM MEMORY: 3 GB LPDDR3 (2 GB Games, 1 GB OS)
• 2 130 mm DVGA (960 x 640) Capacitive Touchscreen
• Slide Out Design with Custom Swivel Tilt Hinge
• Upper Screen made of Gorilla Glass, Comes with Magnetic Cover
• Low End Vibration for Gameplay and App Alerts
• 2 Motorized Circle Pads for Haptic Feedback
• Thumbprint Security Scanner with Pulse Sensing Feedback
• 2 1mp Stereoptic Cameras
• Multi-Array Microphone
• A, B, X, Y, D-Pad, L, R, 1, 2 Buttons
• 3 Axis Tuning Fork Gyroscope, 3 Axis Accelerometer, Magnetometer
• NFC Reader
• 3G Chip with GPS Location
• Bluetooth v4.0 BLE Command Node used to Interface with Bluetooth Devices such as Cell Phones, Tablets
• 16 Gigabytes of Internal Flash Storage (Possible Future Unit With 32 Gigabytes)
• Nintendo 3DS Cart Slot
• SDHC “Holographic Enhanced” Card Slot up to 128 Gigabyte Limit
• Mini USB I/O
• 3300 mAh Li-Ion battery

Fusion Terminal

• GPGPU: Custom Radeon HD RX 200 GPU CODENAME LADY (2816 shaders @ 960 MHz, 4.60 TFLOP/s, Fillrates: 60.6 Gpixel/s, 170 Gtexel/s)
• CPU: IBM 64-Bit Custom POWER 8-Based IBM 8-Core Processor CODENAME JUMPMAN (2.2 GHz, Shared 6 MB L4 cache)
• Co-CPU: IBM PowerPC 750-based 1.24 GHz Tri-Core Co-Processor CODENAME HAMMER
• MEMORY: 4 Gigabytes of Unified DDR4 SDRAM CODENAMED KONG, 2 GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600 MHz (12.8 GB/s) On Die CODENAMED BARREL
• 802.11 b/g/n Wireless
• Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
• 2 USB 3.0
• 1 Coaxial Cable Input
• 1 CableCARD Slot
• 4 Custom Stream-Interface Nodes up to 4 Wii U GamePads
• Versions with Disk Drive play Wii U Optical Disk (4 Layers Maximum), FUSION Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) and Nintendo 3DS Card Slot
• 1 HDMI 2.0 1080p/4K Port
• Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound
• Inductive Charging Surface for up to 4 FUSION DS or IC-Wii Remote Plus Controllers
• Two versions: Disk Slot Version with 60 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage and Diskless Version with 300 Gigs of Internal Flash Storage