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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

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Raccoon said:
fuck I missed this
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Welcome back goat
the-return-of-the-king-lord-of-the-rings.gif
 
So I feel as though I didn't convey the intention behind my ban request properly, so I'd like to do so briefly. This post:

Raccoon said:
and on that note, I'm out

have fun out there gamers
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Was meant as a direct followup to this one:

Raccoon said:
I'm shocked, though in an altruistic way happy, that opinions are as overwhelmingly positive in this thread as they are

we're staring down the barrel at:
  • worse battery life than any switch made since 2019
  • a worse screen than the OLED model (oh but raccoon LCD is good something something OLED grain okay whatever but it's worse imo and anecdotally to a lot of people)
  • dramatically worse portability for anyone who doesn't plan their bag organization around a single video game device
  • compute power that is, while impressive, still substantially below the series s, a system already maligned by devs
  • and perhaps worst of all, not a peep about anything actually new! unless you count a new way for the controllers to stick onto the sides which I uh ehhhh don't really sorry

not saying that you all are wrong and that I'm right, far from it in fact. I'm just bewildered at how out of phase I am with the community regarding a device that really just seems like the thing I already have made substantially worse.

it all comes down to taste I guess
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I had meant to convey that I felt I had said my piece, wrapped up in one uncharacteristically clear and concise post, and that I accordingly was gracefully, albeit belatedly, recusing myself from the conversation. Some responses, such as the one from @TLZ, made it clear to me that it had come off as anything but! Rather than the quiet exit I had thought I was performing, I had given the impression of throwing a temper tantrum and saying "screw you guys, I'm going home." Worse even than that, "on that note" could alternatively imply some sort of final nail in the coffin, as it were, that I would have seemingly imagined.

I've said it before, but I am going to make an earnest effort not to post in this thread. I'll stick to reading, maybe reacting, but there is no point in me continuing to whine about a product not targeting me that I do not want. It just ruins the fun for people. That, after all, is why I thought it so important to leave.

I have some thoughts about a few other indirect responses to my actions, but I was unable to think of any respectful or productive ways to articulate them. All I ask is that the people who dislike me either leave me alone or address their feelings about me with me.

edit: one missing comma that was seriously bugging me
 
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Dakhil said:
The Cortex-A78AE only supports up to 4 CPU cores per cluster.

Going by the Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin Nano block diagrams, Jetson Orin has 2-3 active CPU clusters depending on the configuration.
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What's the advantage of 1 8core cluster 78C offers over having 2 4Core clusters if they were to go with one of the other A78 variants?

I've read before A78C was designed for gaming, but because it's applicaiton is so sparse i haven't seen much in terms of why and how it would stack up to the x86 cores in the other home consoles.
 
RennanNT said:
As far as I can tell, this slide says that:

But I don't see anything about 2.5GHz. Am I missing something?.
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So we don't know how much consumption is 2.3GHz for A77 is (or 2.1GHz for each A78 core) exactly..
Maybe 0.4watts? Let's say we get 7 running at 2.1GHz, and the 8th at 1-1.5GHz. Maybe a tad over watts total..
Dakhil said:
The Cortex-A78AE only supports up to 4 CPU cores per cluster.

Going by the Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin Nano block diagrams, Jetson Orin has 2-3 active CPU clusters depending on the configuration.
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Ah okay. But those are at least all A78s and not A55s. Having 8 in one cluster is what imagine is what gives better multi thread performance.

Dekuman said:
What's the advantage of 1 8core cluster 78C offers over having 2 4Core clusters if they were to go with one of the other A78 variants?

I've read before A78C was designed for gaming, but because it's applicaiton is so sparse i haven't seen much in terms of why and how it would stack up to the x86 cores in the other home consoles.
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Has up to 8mb for L3 cache. ARM says that helps with multi thread performance, but I imagine having one 8 core cluster vs two four core clusters give better multi core or multi thread performance,.since they are all connected together and closer. Dakhil can clarify/correct me.
 
Koti said:
When people talk about difference in culture and stuff, I feel like they overestimate how much of a difference there is especially after like 2010. For example, recently there's been some controversy with Apple's iPad ad. There was quite a bit of backlash all over the world. Some people were replying in the comments that Japan has a belief that objects have soul called Tsukumogami, and that's why it's especially disheartening to Japanese people. It generated a lot of engagement and likes. However, I guarantee you Japanese people weren't thinking about tsukumogami. It wasn't that deep, most people probably saw the ad and cringed a bit just like others. When people try to explain different cultures to people, they tend to overcomplicate and overexaggerate things. So looking at your comment, I feel the same way. "They were betrayed by the 3ds" what betrayal? "Honor is a big deal" what? "in context of Japanese culture it would have been better... to justify 3d" nobody in Japan thought this way. The 3ds launch wasn't that big of a deal unless we look at specific groups of people like ones posting on 2ch. You can say the Switch went through the exact same thing. Too expensive, nobody cares about hybrid, poor software lineup, ps3 specs. There's going to be people feeling "betrayed" regardless.
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I mean this respectfully but your post comes across as someone who hasn't been Japan much less Kyoto (Its very different than Tokyo) nor talked with many native Japanese people. I understand the concept of Tsukumogami (You only had it partially right btw) and its no different than how some people have fun with astrology here but very few take it as religious. I also understand and agree that the culture gap is closing between Japan and the rest of the world but traditions remain if you talk with people there that trust you enough to open up rather than "just be respectful".
 
Raccoon said:
tbh I have no idea what you're talking about but I appreciate it

unless you just mean the fact that it's coming out in 2025, that's fine
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A few months ago I was convinced there was no way it could have came out anytime after this year and when you brought up the possibility of it coming out in 2025 I dismissed it in a disrespectful manner.
 
Individualised said:
A few months ago I was convinced there was no way it could have came out anytime after this year and when you brought up the possibility of it coming out in 2025 I dismissed it in a disrespectful manner.
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oh yeah

well these days I tend to look at these disputes through the lens of me having just gotten """lucky.""" I wasn't right because I was smart, I was right because we're in the bad timeline

I genuinely appreciate the apology though. I can't have been too mad though because I don't remember it at all... I'm abrasive, but for most people it's just a flash in the pan
 
Shareholder Chad said:
I mean this respectfully but your post comes across as someone who hasn't been Japan much less Kyoto (Its very different than Tokyo) nor talked with many native Japanese people. I understand the concept of Tsukumogami (You only had it partially right btw) and its no different than how some people have fun with astrology here but very few take it as religious. I also understand and agree that the culture gap is closing between Japan and the rest of the world but traditions remain if you talk with people there that trust you enough to open up rather than "just be respectful".
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I'm well aware that Kyoto is different to Tokyo just like Texas is different to New York. However, that doesn't matter much in this context. I feel like your opinion makes sense looking at it from a shareholder perspective, but not so much from a consumer perspective. Judging by ur name, it's no surprise.
 
Maybe I'm not asking the right question, but, maybe @darthdiablo might know. From what we've seen in the shipping data, the device appears to be in DVT, right? It also seems to have been there for a LONG time.

I'm kind of shocked we haven't had a factory leak with actual images of any sort at this point. Surely once they're on PVT they'll want to actually officially reveal it to get ahead of any leaks, since that's the final design's first run. But unless further revisions happen, isn't that pretty soon? Given the data is behind, couldn't that be... Theoretically, now?

I wonder where that places reveal. If there's a chance they're already making final adjustments to the production line, or even testing the production design, mass production isn't too far in the future. Still, the June Direct is mere weeks away, so I'd expect that to happen first, no doubt, but we could be in for a reveal well before Fall, if they want to get ahead of possible production leaks and if (big if) it's currently barrelling towards the PVT stage of preproduction, nevermind in it.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I mean, won’t this just blow up wattage and make phones not really… phone shaped anymore?

I don’t know how you do passive cooling with stacked chips, each chip using a good bit of electricity…

Like, in a node shrink, the distance between transistors becomes smaller and thus the electricity cost goes down.

But if you just stack another chip on top… Like I don’t see where the electricity savings are coming from?
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From my understanding it works much the same as a 2D set up, having chips stacked has power savings because the distance between them is small, but it uses space more efficiently. Chiplet designs also apparently allow for power savings beyond this because different chiplets can be optimized for specific things.
 
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Koti said:
I'm well aware that Kyoto is different to Tokyo just like Texas is different to New York. However, that doesn't matter much in this context. I feel like your opinion makes sense looking at it from a shareholder perspective, but not so much from a consumer perspective. Judging by ur name, it's no surprise.
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It matters the most in this context but that is only apparent to people who have visited both areas. Kyoto is much much more traditional as opposed to Tokyo which is much less so. Either way, I'm done engaging with this due to your last sentence. Don't quote me.
 
Concernt said:
Maybe I'm not asking the right question, but, maybe @darthdiablo might know. From what we've seen in the shipping data, the device appears to be in DVT, right? It also seems to have been there for a LONG time.

I'm kind of shocked we haven't had a factory leak with actual images of any sort at this point. Surely once they're on PVT they'll want to actually officially reveal it to get ahead of any leaks, since that's the final design's first run. But unless further revisions happen, isn't that pretty soon? Given the data is behind, couldn't that be... Theoretically, now?

I wonder where that places reveal. If there's a chance they're already making final adjustments to the production line, or even testing the production design, mass production isn't too far in the future. Still, the June Direct is mere weeks away, so I'd expect that to happen first, no doubt, but we could be in for a reveal well before Fall, if they want to get ahead of possible production leaks and if (big if) it's currently barrelling towards the PVT stage of preproduction, nevermind in it.
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Looked up DVT, PVT - never heard of those terms till now.

Yes, it looks like things shifted into DVT August (or September?) 2023, the numbers were in the hundreds, which seems to line up nicely with typical number of units seen for DVT in the link I shared (50-200). Here's an example from the "yellow" site (which you can see # of units without needing subscription):

qNgaBHp.png


And as of March 2024, the numbers still are similar (just hundreds, not tens of thousands). Yes, seems to be considerably longer compared to Switch timeline - at least what we're able to find in customs data anyway.

When things shift into mass production (which I assume is what PVT is), it'll be like tens of thousands of units - a huge step up logistics-wise, so leaks would be harder to contain here, yeah, this is where we would probably see Nintendo do the reveal (similar to October 2016, which was when they began mass production for Switch).

I am assuming Nintendo will start mass production earlier than October 2024, because they want plenty of units in launch day (avoid the scalper issue as much as possible). So, probably reveal in July, August, September?

Individualised said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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darthdiablo said:
Looked up DVT, PVT - never heard of those terms till now.

Yes, it looks like things shifted into DVT August (or September?) 2023, the numbers were in the hundreds, which seems to line up nicely with typical number of units seen for DVT in the link I shared (50-200). Here's an example from the "yellow" site (which you can see # of units without needing subscription):

qNgaBHp.png


And as of March 2024, the numbers still are similar (just hundreds, not tens of thousands). Yes, seems to be considerably longer compared to Switch timeline - at least what we're able to find in customs data anyway.

When things shift into mass production (which I assume is what PVT is), it'll be like tens of thousands of units - a huge step up logistics-wise, so leaks would be harder to contain here, yeah, this is where we would probably see Nintendo do the reveal (similar to October 2016, which was when they began mass production for Switch).

I am assuming Nintendo will start mass production earlier than October 2024, because they want plenty of units in launch day (avoid the scalper issue as much as possible). So, probably reveal in July, August, September?
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Ah, I'm familiar with EVT/DVT/PVT from following Apple rumours and leaks over the years. They obviously have very different timelines to Nintendo but the terms are still relevant.

PVT, production validation testing, isn't necessarily mass production, but the test run OF mass production. It's usually the first part of the first production run, it's still a test phase but for the production setup and not the device. If everything goes well, PVT marks the start of mass production. At PVT, only the production (machinery) can change, not the device. Doing a PVT run means assembling hundreds to thousands of finished production units though, finalised internals and external. They present the leak risk - it's still a testing phase long before launch, but of totally finalised units. Moving to this phase is still 'internal testing' but it's essentially entering mass production to double check you can actually mass produce it.

I was going to discuss the DVT/PVT transition for Nintendo Switch, but I don't really know the timeline as intimately as we do that of the successor. If I remember correctly it was late in the game though, the start of PVT was more or less butting up against the reveal. So if we're in "late DVT", that implies, but certainly doesn't confirm, that PVT and the reveal are probably relatively soon (I.E., weeks to months rather than months to seasons away).
 
darthdiablo said:
Looked up DVT, PVT - never heard of those terms till now.

Yes, it looks like things shifted into DVT August (or September?) 2023, the numbers were in the hundreds, which seems to line up nicely with typical number of units seen for DVT in the link I shared (50-200). Here's an example from the "yellow" site (which you can see # of units without needing subscription):

qNgaBHp.png


And as of March 2024, the numbers still are similar (just hundreds, not tens of thousands). Yes, seems to be considerably longer compared to Switch timeline - at least what we're able to find in customs data anyway.

When things shift into mass production (which I assume is what PVT is), it'll be like tens of thousands of units - a huge step up logistics-wise, so leaks would be harder to contain here, yeah, this is where we would probably see Nintendo do the reveal (similar to October 2016, which was when they began mass production for Switch).

I am assuming Nintendo will start mass production earlier than October 2024, because they want plenty of units in launch day (avoid the scalper issue as much as possible). So, probably reveal in July, August, September?


* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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I realise this is off to the side of what I started talking about but a single injection moulding machine for both L and R? I wonder if "Grip" in this sense refers to the controllers (being how you hold the console in handheld mode) or if "Grip button" here is more literal, and this is the mould for the rumoured rear button. Or the new SL and SR button brackets. Hmm.
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Shareholder Chad said:
It matters the most in this context but that is only apparent to people who have visited both areas. Kyoto is much much more traditional as opposed to Tokyo which is much less so. Either way, I'm done engaging with this due to your last sentence. Don't quote me.
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Well sorry to quote but I'm just wondering why you keep assuming I've never visited Japan or lived there? What does region have anything to do with how you thought the 3DS was more of a "betrayal" than the Wii U. Btw, I was following this forum and was intrigued by ur posts, but decided to reply to the one I did because I had to disagree. I agreed with most things you said before like the 3ds being more of a gut-punch, but disagree that it lost customer faith and all of that stuff. People were just focused on the new hot thing which was mobile gaming in 2013, with games like Puzzle & Dragons, Monster Strike and Youtubers on the rise. 3ds was still popular amongst kids, and it was even the second best selling gaming device in Japan (nvm gameboy was including color and other versions) until the Switch came. Don't understand what was wrong with my last sentence either. You said it was subjective and I gave my own personal opinion. I guess it came off as aggressive.
 
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Dekuman said:
What's the advantage of 1 8core cluster 78C offers over having 2 4Core clusters if they were to go with one of the other A78 variants?

I've read before A78C was designed for gaming, but because it's applicaiton is so sparse i haven't seen much in terms of why and how it would stack up to the x86 cores in the other home consoles.
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I imagine there's lower latency with using 1 CPU cluster (Cortex-A78C) vs using 2 CPU clusters (Cortex-A78AE) for 8 CPU cores since there are less hardware components that need to be communicated with.

I also imagine that same principal is why T239 has 1 GPC with 12 SMs for the GPU, which is similar to GA102, vs 2 GPCs with 16 SMs with T234 for the GPU, which is similar to GA104.
 
Concernt said:
I realise this is off to the side of what I started talking about but a single injection moulding machine for both L and R? I wonder if "Grip" in this sense refers to the controllers (being how you hold the console in handheld mode) or if "Grip button" here is more literal, and this is the mould for the rumoured rear button. Or the new SL and SR button brackets. Hmm.
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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Great observation and question!

When I checked just now, there are only 4 entries that mentions "grip button", all around the period of April/May 2023. All were 1 unit each. No mention of "grip" found in customs data with HGU1* as partial wildcard since then. Would make sense if it's a steel molding piece that's going to last through phases (EVT, DVT, PVT, mass production, etc). Or they'd maybe order more of such "steel molding" pieces for the grip button shortly before actual mass production begins (so they can have more assembly lines running).

However I cannot seem to find any other entries with both "button steel" and "HGU1*" (partial wildcard), with grip removed (-grip in search field). So I'm not sure I want to read too much into the "grip button" meaning back button. I'll dig around some more though to make sure I was thorough.
 
If I had to defend lcd, I would say that lcd screens in the 7.9-inch or more in tablat market are still quite common and large oled screens are very expensive
The og switch lcd screen is not good, but if you look at the old ipad pro lcd screen, it is quite good.
edit:So in the end, it is up to Nintendo to choose a good screen or not, which is more important than lcd or oled
 
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Hermii said:
All he said was AMD bid hard against Nvidia. Nothing about when this bidding happened.
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I think me mentioning 11th hour was in reference to him saying a source said "AMD bid hard against us for Switch 2, and almost won it, (but allegedly barely lost the bid due to their lower GPU performance around 5w)."

Again i don't think that MLID isn't connected to someone at Nvidia, but his talking points on Nintendo almost going back to AMD doesn't seem supported by the leaks and hacked information.

 
NineTailSage said:
I think me mentioning 11th hour was in reference to him saying a source said "AMD bid hard against us for Switch 2, and almost won it, (but allegedly barely lost the bid due to their lower GPU performance around 5w)."

Again i don't think that MLID isn't connected to someone at Nvidia, but his talking points on Nintendo almost going back to AMD doesn't seem supported by the leaks and hacked information.

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That still doesn't say anything about the period of the bid. Bidding must have taken place before T239's design began, or at least in collaboration with Nintendo bar any prior work Nvidia had done on it.

I think the "almost won" part meant that AMD had a relatively competent design, and/or offered a new set of features (NPU) that Nvidia didn't, and since they have been making APUs for consoles for over a decade they do have a lot of expertise on the subject matter. But unlike Nvidia's long history with the Tegra series they had yet to prove themselves with an actual physical product, and that is besides the fact that Nvidia's feature offerings (DLSS, RT, etc) were possibly superior to AMD's. RDNA4 may or may not have good RT performance, but it definitely does not have any kind of dedicated Tensor cores to do ML.

And based on what Dakhil said, Nvidia's NVN api was likely just as important - while AMD could have offered something similar, the BC potential of sticking to NVN was likely too attractive to give up on.

Finally, iirc Nvidia mentioned something about a 2 decade long partnership with Nintendo. Assuming they began talks in 2015, it's only been 9 years. I doubt AMD would've stood a chance in the first place. Everything I said above is based on the suggestion by MLID that this bid happened at all, which may possibly be completely made up anyways.
 
Raccoon said:
I'm shocked, though in an altruistic way happy, that opinions are as overwhelmingly positive in this thread as they are

we're staring down the barrel at:
  • worse battery life than any switch made since 2019
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Might be true.
Raccoon said:
  • a worse screen than the OLED model (oh but raccoon LCD is good something something OLED grain okay whatever but it's worse imo and anecdotally to a lot of people)
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also true.
Raccoon said:
  • dramatically worse portability for anyone who doesn't plan their bag organization around a single video game device
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I wouldn't say dramatically worse. It's just a slightly larger screen than Oled, which already has pretty terrible portability.
Raccoon said:
  • compute power that is, while impressive, still substantially below the series s, a system already maligned by devs
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Differently balanced yes, but there's definitely some advantages over Series S. Substantially more memory for games, which is the biggest dev complaint. Also part of it is that MS mandates day and date release for Series X/S and won't let them target one or the other.
Raccoon said:
  • and perhaps worst of all, not a peep about anything actually new! unless you count a new way for the controllers to stick onto the sides which I uh ehhhh don't really sorry
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We'll see, but so far you are right.
Raccoon said:
not saying that you all are wrong and that I'm right, far from it in fact. I'm just bewildered at how out of phase I am with the community regarding a device that really just seems like the thing I already have made substantially worse.

it all comes down to taste I guess
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To many of us, all of this is easily outweighed by the anticipation of how Nintendo games will look and play on such a powerful system.
 
Beansy said:
Hey Fami! Time for a vibe check. How are the vibes? Are we back, or is it Nintendover?
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Very good, especially in this month, in which not only Nintendo confirms that there will be a direct in June but
in this fiscal year there will be announcement of Switch 2, also now we know what kind of memory Switch 2 will use, and the specifications are very good, even higher than those of PlayStation 4.
I just hope people don't complain about the fact that games are coming out for Switch 2 but not for ps4/xone, unfortunately knowing the internet it will happen.
 
justanotherperson said:
I don't know a single thing about Apple products, so, how much does that cost? It's a total of 10.000 mAh, is that one of the reasons why it's so freaking expensive? I wish the Switch 2 had that much watt-hour, so that it could allow for better CPU clocks and, in general, more parity with current gen consoles.
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I mean, there could be multiple reasons to why it's highly priced (although imo the iPad Pro isn't that expensive for the product you're getting), but one way to get some ballpark estimate of the cost would be to look at the repair costs; $179 USD for the 11-inch and $199 for the 13-inch.

Labour + shipping + inspection + margin can take ~60% of the cost, which would mean $71,6 or $79,6 for the battery.
 
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Personally, I do not resonate with people's complaints about portability. Sure, Switch is larger and therefore more difficult to carry around. It is a portable to put in your bag, not in your pocket. However, the flip side in my view is that the Switch is significantly more comfortable to play games on than any other portable system I've used so far (for me, that is GBA SP, DS, and PSP). Playing for longer sessions while away from a big screen therefore works better, and as a result, it is my view that Switch is better as a portable than those other systems. Switch 2 being a notch bigger does not hinder this in any way for me. But this is a subjective perspective, of course, and you're free to have a different perspective on it.

The big draw of Switch 2 so far is that, after a generation that was a bit of a half-step in terms of performance improvements (by necessity due to the change of form factor), we now have a full generational leap with additionally a technological stack that has massively improved compared to 2017 (DLSS, ray tracing, ray reconstruction, FSR, TSR) that are aimed at brining the low end of performance closer to that of higher tiers. As for the XSS comparison: while Switch 2 might not approach the raw performance specs of that system, it will have more RAM, better ray tracing hardware capability and ray reconstruction to boot, and access to the best image reconstruction technology with DLSS. These are important advantages that could on a case by case basis lead to scenarios where the Switch 2 version is more technically accomplished than the XSS version in my opinion. And this is nothing to sneer at for a system that simultaneously combines the console experience with a portable one.
 
Does anyone know the approximate ratio of Switch units manufactured in China versus Vietnam? Maybe we can use this to estimate how much stock there is for the Switch 2.
 
gonanzir said:
Does anyone know the approximate ratio of Switch units manufactured in China versus Vietnam? Maybe we can use this to estimate how much stock there is for the Switch 2.
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I know Nintendo started moving Switch production for the US to Vietnam to bypass Trump's tariffs and continued to use China for domestic production, but I haven't payed attention since.
 
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