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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)

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Rogue Agent said:
I can't wait to see what that will look like. If the next 3D Mario game is the launch title, I hope it has ray tracing. I'm not expecting it to, just hoping.
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If it is developed as an NG exclusive, I expect it to showcase every feature of NVN2 (which is every feature of Ampere). If its cross gen, it may just be an upscale. Hard to predict how Nintendo will handle cross gen, as they never did it on hardware far more capable.
 
ziggyrivers said:
Next Xeno is gonna feel epic
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Out of all the companies that work under Nintendo, I expect Monolith to impress the most tbh. What they managed to achieve with Xenoblade 3 and Xenoblade X is already insane, both looking like Early PS4 titles. Xenoblade 4 legit going to be one of the most impressive open worlds of all time tbh.

In the meantime, their next game, that new IP, probably going to be very cool. I'm curious as to if they're going to be using their own engine or UE5 for it, but I don't mind what they do. Let them make peak fiction.
 
Hermii said:
If it is developed as an NG exclusive, I expect it to showcase every feature of NVN2 (which is every feature of Ampere). If its cross gen, it may just be an upscale. Hard to predict how Nintendo will handle cross gen, as they never did it on hardware far more capable.
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I would be extremely surprised if the next 3D Mario is also released on switch 1.

It would be like imagining that Super Mario World was also released on the Nes
 
boodream said:
I would be extremely surprised if the next 3D Mario is also released on switch 1.

It would be like imagining that Super Mario World was also released on the Nes
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That was in a differeny era. FH5, Horizon Forbidden West, latest Gran Turismo among others have done cross gen extremely well.

Btw I agree it likely won't be, but I'm not ruling it out
 
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Bonejack said:
I'd guess "big" new games will be ReDraketed only. Smaller games might be cross-gen, at least for a while.
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It can probably be assume this includes the majority of 2d titles that Nintendo chooses to release. Y'know stuff like Warioware or the 99 titles. I imagine ports would also be like this, like Pikmin 1+2. Past that, I don't expect it to be every title. Nintendo doesn't do crossgen releases all that often unless there's an express reason, like Twilight Princess suiting the Wii or BotW not being stuck on a dead console.
 
SoldierDelta said:
It can probably be assume this includes the majority of 2d titles that Nintendo chooses to release. Y'know stuff like Warioware or the 99 titles. I imagine ports would also be like this, like Pikmin 1+2. Past that, I don't expect it to be every title. Nintendo doesn't do crossgen releases all that often unless there's an express reason, like Twilight Princess suiting the Wii or BotW not being stuck on a dead console.
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I don't think history can be much of a guide in this instant. Everyone does cross gen now.
 
Hermii said:
That was in a differeny era. FH5, Horizon Forbidden West, latest Gran Turismo among others have done cross gen extremely well.

Btw I agree it likely won't be, but I'm not ruling it out
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I’m not sure it’s a question of era. Sega has already released new games in crossgen on both Master system and Megadrive for example.

The difference with the examples you give is that it is the games that sell the new Nintendo consoles, in my opinion.

People buy a playstation 5 and then take games on it, regardless of whether they’re also available on Playstation 4. People want to play Nintendo games and that’s why they buy a Nintendo console.
 
Hermii said:
If it is developed as an NG exclusive, I expect it to showcase every feature of NVN2 (which is every feature of Ampere). If its cross gen, it may just be an upscale. Hard to predict how Nintendo will handle cross gen, as they never did it on hardware far more capable.
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Yeah, it's unpredictable right now. I hope that it's only on Switch 2 but I'm not sure whether to expect it to be cross-gen or not. I hope it's exclusive because I really want to see it take advantage of the features.

ILikeFeet said:
My guess is that if it has RT, it won't be obvious
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That seems like it would be a shame even though it'd still be nice to have RT. I don't really know much about it but what are some of the games that have RT where it's not obvious? Do you mean games like Persona 3 Reload?
 
Hermii said:
If it is developed as an NG exclusive, I expect it to showcase every feature of NVN2 (which is every feature of Ampere). If its cross gen, it may just be an upscale. Hard to predict how Nintendo will handle cross gen, as they never did it on hardware far more capable.
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Back when I expected SNG to be released alongside Zelda TotK, I completely expected there to be numerous cross gen titles from Nintendo. Now that we are looking at a 2025 release, I no longer expect that to be the case. Sure, there will be a few. If a new 2D Metroid is in development for example, I could see that being cross gen. For something like the next 3D Mario, I fully expect it to be exclusive to SNG. Nintendo will be looking to get a large number of Switch gamers to transition to SNG as fast as possible, and a few high profile first party titles is the best way to get that done. Nintendo's most popular first party titles sell well over the course of a generation, and that means its not necessary to release as cross gen in order to maximize sales. This doesn't work for Sony and Microsoft because sales for their games tend to be very front loaded with steep price cuts a few months later.
 
I want to see something new out the the ARMS team.

I honestly hope that Nintendo EPD...uh...I forget their number...but the ones with the new talent keep making brand new Nintendo IPs that will make audiences go "Huh, I never expected something like this from Nintendo." Nintnedo re-inventing itself has always been a tradition, so I'd expect the newer blood to keep breaking traditionally Nintendo-associated stereotypes.
 
Dakhil said:
~I want to warn everyone that this is a very long post.~

The Tegra X1 on the Nvidia Shield TV (2015) actually thermal throttles when doing high workloads. In fact, the GPU thermal throttles to 614 MHz when the CPU's running at 2 GHz. And even when the CPU's running at 1 GHz, the GPU can thermal throttle down to 768 MHz depending on the CPU's workload.

And the Nvidia Shield TV (2015) can consume up to 19.4 W for gaming whereas the Nintendo Switch (2017) can consume up to 16.5 W when on TV mode.

So considering that the Tegra X1's GPU on the Nvidia Shield TV (2015) can actually thermal throttle to a much lower frequency when running the CPU frequency very high, and considering the Nvidia Shield TV (2015) can actually consume more power vs the Nintendo Switch (2017) when connected to the TV, I think Nvidia's actually using Tegra X1s that are lower binned than the Tegra X1s Nintendo's using for the Nintendo Switch (2017), especially since Nintendo requires the CPU frequency to be the same on handheld mode and TV mode for the Nintendo Switch (2017), but are much higher binned than the Jetson Nano.

The Nvidia Shield TV (2019) and the Nvidia Shield TV Pro also use the same SoC (p. 3) that the Nintendo Switch (2019) (here (p. 1) and here), the Nintendo Switch Lite, and the OLED model are using, which is the Tegra X1+, which is codenamed Mariko.

The only way to hack the Tegra X1+ currently is through hardware modding, which requires advanced hardware skills. I think hardware modding's generally impossible to prevent for any electronics, especially since there are always someone who's willing to spend free time hacking through hardware modding. However, I do think hardware modding being the only option for hacking makes hacking significantly less desirable for most people who probably don't have advance hardware skills (e.g. soldering, etc.).

So if the Nintendo Switch (2019), the Nintendo Switch Lite, and the OLED model are any indication, even if other products were using lower binned T239s, there probably won't be any easy access point(s) for hacking, at least without doing hardware modding.

One reason why I don't think Nintendo and Nvidia overdesigned T239 is because NVN2 mentions there are 12 SMs in GA10F, T239's GPU. And there's an implication that all 12 SMs are active since NVN2 is an API. And NVN2 also mentions that GA10F has 1 GPC, which means GA10F has 12 SMs per GPC, which means GA10F's design aligns with GA102's design (84 SMs/7 GPCs).

So overdesigning T239 in this case probably requires 2 GPCs in GA10F (24 SMs total), which does make the SoC larger, and increases the amount of dark silicon since I imagine 1 GPC has to be disabled to have 12 SMs active, which is what I don't think is ideal from Nintendo's and Nvidia's point of view, especially since bigger SoCs generally have lower yields.

I think if Nintendo and Nvidia wanted to overdesign T239, and assuming Nintendo and Nvidia still want 12 SMs to be active, then Nintendo and Nvidia could have GA10F's design align with GA104's design (48 SMs/6 GPCs) or GA10B's design (16 SMs/2 GPCs), where there are 8 SMs per GPC, or with GA103's design (60 SMs/6 GPCs), GA106's design (30 SMs/3 GPCs), or GA107's (20 SMs/2 GPCs) design, where there are 10 SMs per GPC.

A SoC with a GPU with 2 GPCs (16 SMs or 20 SMs total) is still be larger than a SoC with a GPU with 1 GPC (12 SMs total). But there should be less dark silicon than having a SoC with a GPU that has 2 GPCs (24 SMs total), but with 1 GPC disabled (12 SMs active).
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Not caught up yet so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but the original Switch's SoC is labeled ODNX02-A2, and Nvidia's -A suffix has historically been used to distinguish higher quality dies.

Interestingly, from what I've seen the -A2 suffix has never appeared on a desktop part (only -A1) so it may represent a higher grade of quality or something else entirely.
 
Rogue Agent said:
That seems like it would be a shame even though it'd still be nice to have RT. I don't really know much about it but what are some of the games that have RT where it's not obvious? Do you mean games like Persona 3 Reload?
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yea. RT being the main solution with screenspace being a fall back, like in Persona 3. when you're not balancing raster and RT in equal measure, you get a better usage out of RT, and this includes performance. it would lead to people going "where's the RT" or "you could have done this in raster" but that misses the point of even using RT to simplify things
 
SiG said:
I want to see something new out the the ARMS team.

I honestly hope that Nintendo EPD...uh...I forget their number...but the ones with the new talent keep making brand new Nintendo IPs that will make audiences go "Huh, I never expected something like this from Nintendo." Nintnedo re-inventing itself has always been a tradition, so I'd expect the newer blood to keep breaking traditionally Nintendo-associated stereotypes.
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The ARMS team is the Mario Kart team, Nintendo EPD Group 9. They're almost certainly working on Mario Kart 10 right now.
 
Does anyone else think what I think, that I wish the Legend of Zelda would stop for a while and expand the number of Nintendo first party ip's with more fresh blood and quality new ip's.The biggest in-house Nintendo productions like Legend of Zelda could have taken longer to make and could have avoided the empty feeling of totk underground and the homogenization of empty island puzzles (Moving Stones .......)
 
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Goodtwin said:
Back when I expected SNG to be released alongside Zelda TotK, I completely expected there to be numerous cross gen titles from Nintendo. Now that we are looking at a 2025 release, I no longer expect that to be the case. Sure, there will be a few. If a new 2D Metroid is in development for example, I could see that being cross gen. For something like the next 3D Mario, I fully expect it to be exclusive to SNG. Nintendo will be looking to get a large number of Switch gamers to transition to SNG as fast as possible, and a few high profile first party titles is the best way to get that done. Nintendo's most popular first party titles sell well over the course of a generation, and that means its not necessary to release as cross gen in order to maximize sales. This doesn't work for Sony and Microsoft because sales for their games tend to be very front loaded with steep price cuts a few months later.
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Tend to agree with this take. They will do some cross gen for smaller games, or for games that doesn't push hardware (like your Metroid example, or stuff like warioware, 2D Mario, 2D Zelda). Their big 3D system sellers will be exclusive to NG.

But Im very open to being wrong.
 
ILikeFeet said:
yea. RT being the main solution with screenspace being a fall back, like in Persona 3. when you're not balancing raster and RT in equal measure, you get a better usage out of RT, and this includes performance. it would lead to people going "where's the RT" or "you could have done this in raster" but that misses the point of even using RT to simplify things
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There is a difference between RT games on Sony/Xbox consoles and Nintendo games. The games who have RT on the other consoles are games released also on PC, which must run in several GPUs, so the dev team must consider the game will be run on pure raster or on RT capable GPUs. Look at Spider Man 2 where the RT implementation is much better because it was developed thinking only in running in PS5 Hardware (for now at least) and they can lower the raster implementation because they know the hardware it will be running. I believe Nintendo games that use RT will be this case where the RT implementation will be much better, since it’s only for the NGS and the first console with DLSS and Nvidia RT acceleration which is miles better than AMD RT.
boodream said:
I’m not sure it’s a question of era. Sega has already released new games in crossgen on both Master system and Megadrive for example.

The difference with the examples you give is that it is the games that sell the new Nintendo consoles, in my opinion.

People buy a playstation 5 and then take games on it, regardless of whether they’re also available on Playstation 4. People want to play Nintendo games and that’s why they buy a Nintendo console.
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IMHO this was a shot in their own foot, because while they sold a few more games due it being available in a bigger install base, now it’s becoming more and more unjustifiable to get a PS5, since it has so few exclusives to justify the new gen. So much so that now they are wanting to release a PS5 Pro to get more people “excited” for next gen with a hardware piece, since they don’t have any games to justify it releasing it this year. I don’t see Nintendo doing the same. They will want people to get in the next gen as fast as possible.
 
Hermii said:
It's not uncommon for companies to skip 9, and go straight to 10 with naming.

They can easily say World Tour was 9 if asked by journalists.
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I don't see how this is logically relevant, 8DX has always been released as an upgrade to Mario Kart 8 within Nintendo, there's no reason to skip number 9
 
gonanzir said:
I wonder if dlaa will be adopted by any game on switch2,It should be technically possible
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Can't imagine that being TOO common, but maybe some things like remasters or "N64 style platformer" indie games that leave a large amount of overhead? More likely on portable since it would be much easier to hit its resolution cap. Though even then if I were in charge of the game I might think it's a better idea to just choose one of the slower profiles for better battery life rather than a small IQ gain.
 
Hermii said:
It's not uncommon for companies to skip 9, and go straight to 10 with naming.

They can easily say World Tour was 9 if asked by journalists.
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Never actually considered it before, but yeah it's amusing to think how often it happens. Windows jumped from 8.2 to 10, iPhone went from 8+ to X (in hardly two months, even), but the only time I can find an iteration that didn't skip 9 was the Samsung Galaxy S9 (but then they also jumped from S10 in 2019 to S20 in 2020 (maybe to make the phone model coincide with the year)).

Fake edit: and then after googling it, humans are so funny with superstition:

The main and major reason why the 9 is skipped is due to the marketing and perception of a particular culture where goods and products are being marketed. Meaning, to sell products across multiple cultures, the rule of the game is to understand those cultures and their superstitions.

In the West, the number "13" means bad luck and you are not likely to see Windows 13 or iPhone 13 in the future. Also, in countries like Korean, Japan and China, the number "4" is synonym of "death" and who will be happy to buy death? That's why Nokia avoid the phone they ship to that region.

So, back to the topic. The number "9" is a curse word in Chinese and a synonym for suffering, agony or torture in Japanese. That's why Apple and other products skipped the 9 version (cursed word).

Without doing this, nobody will buy their product from that region because nobody will like to buy a cursed word. So, with the consumer public, perception is a strong factor.
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So @Aufhebung RPG, that might be your answer right there why there's no Mario Kart Torture 9 lol
 
Hermii said:
Nintendo isn't immune to industry trends.
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They didn’t exactly ever follow much trends, and even less so since the Wii. Also the jump from Switch to Switch 2 is bigger than PS4 to PS5, and due to the delay many (of the small amount of) crossgen games‘ll release on Switch (and maybe get a Switch 2 version later). Nintendo never was big with crossgen and Sony and Microsoft aren’t enough to convince me that Nintendo‘ll release half of their games both on Switch and 2.

I guess we‘ll see, but what the other 2 consolemakers do was never a good indication what Nintendo does.
 
I see, I didn't realize that 9 represented unlucky in the west 😌I thought it was another case of the Western version numbering being different from the Japanese version numbering
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
But Mario Kart 9 wasn't released either
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Aufhebung RPG said:
I see, I didn't realize that 9 represented unlucky in the west 😌I thought it was another case of the Western version numbering being different from the Japanese version numbering
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Mario Kart Tour was made by EPD 9 & is referenced with "retro" tracks in MK8D, unlike spin-offs like the Arcade GP games & Live Home Circuit. Nintendo very likely considers Tour to be MK9, hence me referring to the Switch 2 entry as 10.
 
Darknut85 said:
They didn’t exactly ever follow much trends, and even less since the Wii. Also the jump from Switch to Switch 2 is bigger than PS4 to PS5, and due to the delay many (of the small amount of) crossgen games‘ll release on Switch (and maybe get a Switch 2 version later). Nintendo never was big with crossgen and Sony and Microsoft aren’t enough to convince me that Nintendo‘ll release half of their games both on Switch and 2.

I guess we‘ll see, but what the other 2 consolemakers do was never a good indication what Nintendo does.
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Nintendo even went through the trouble of porting captain toad to 3ds, considered by many as a miracle port. If you're liberal, you can count the Wii U ports as late cross gen. Then there was Mario Maker, also on 3DS. So yea, there's precedent.
 
NZZN said:
Not caught up yet so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but the original Switch's SoC is labeled ODNX02-A2, and Nvidia's -A suffix has historically been used to distinguish higher quality dies.

Interestingly, from what I've seen the -A2 suffix has never appeared on a desktop part (only -A1) so it may represent a higher grade of quality or something else entirely.
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Maybe it relates to the custom clock gating that isn't present on the Shield TV, Jetson, or DRIVE chips?
 
Hermii said:
Nintendo even went through the trouble of porting captain toad to 3ds, considered by many as a miracle port. If you're liberal, you can count the Wii U ports as late cross gen. Then there was Mario Maker, also on 3DS. So yea, there's precedent.
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Completely different situation. Nintendo wanted to decrease the impact of the Wii U flop by porting games to the 3DS (and later Switch, which also hadn’t enough new games at the beginning due to the acceleration from the flop). I‘m not saying we‘ll get no crossgen games (Prime 4 is practically safe and also some smaller games. Not to forget some new NSO games), but I don’t see them taking away the appeal of Switch 2 by launching half of the games on Switch.
 
Darknut85 said:
Completely different situation. Nintendo wanted to decrease the impact of the Wii U flop by porting games to the 3DS (and later Switch, which also hadn’t enough new games at the beginning due to the acceleration from the flop). I‘m not saying we‘ll get no crossgen games (Prime 4 is practically safe and also some smaller games. Not to forget some new NSO games), but I don’t see them taking away the appeal of Switch 2 by launching half of the games on Switch.
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If they're only launching half of their games on Switch, there's still plenty of 2 exclusives.

Well see what happens, could go both ways as far as I'm concerned.
 
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Hermii said:
Tend to agree with this take. They will do some cross gen for smaller games, or for games that doesn't push hardware (like your Metroid example, or stuff like warioware, 2D Mario, 2D Zelda). Their big 3D system sellers will be exclusive to NG.

But Im very open to being wrong.
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MP4 will not be a Cross gen game?
 
Neoxon said:
Mario Kart Tour was made by EPD 9 & is referenced with "retro" tracks in MK8D, unlike spin-offs like the Arcade GP games & Live Home Circuit. Nintendo very likely considers Tour to be MK9, hence me referring to the Switch 2 entry as 10.
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Yep! I already expect for Mario Kart 10 or X, or cross alluding a expansion for the franchise.
 
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Hermii said:
I didn't count that, because that one they promised for Switch. They have no choice.
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Some games and rumors for Cross gen(?):

MP4
F-Zero GX Remastered
Some games with patches long road for a sequel (Breath of the Wild and/or Totk, Bayo3 or trilogy remaster, Xeno3)
New Hyrule Warriors to "finish" this timeline history
First Pokemon Game (can be a remake?)
Kyrby and Metroid 2D
 
IamPeacock said:
I wonder if there would be a big backlash if Prime 4 is NG exclusive. It's not in the same league of Zelda and Mario.
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I would argue that if Nintendo depends upon Prime 4 to sell their console, they're in big trouble :p.

There really isn't many upsides to releasing a nieche game to a restricted audience.
 
IamPeacock said:
I wonder if there would be a big backlash if Prime 4 is NG exclusive. It's not in the same league of Zelda and Mario.
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I would presume most people would be happier to get a Metroid game that include, 60fps, ray tracing, DLSS and 4K support. That also doesn’t include that having it be 1080 in portable mode.

I think most people would be upset if prime 2 and 3 remastered (hopefully it’ll happen ) were NG exclusives.
 
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Hermii said:
If it is developed as an NG exclusive, I expect it to showcase every feature of NVN2 (which is every feature of Ampere). If its cross gen, it may just be an upscale. Hard to predict how Nintendo will handle cross gen, as they never did it on hardware far more capable.
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the only cross-gen i could imagine coming for both Switch and it sucessor is Metroid Prime 4
 
IamPeacock said:
I wonder if there would be a big backlash if Prime 4 is NG exclusive. It's not in the same league of Zelda and Mario.
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Any backlash would be tempered by the fact that Prime's target audience would likely be more amenable towards playing a game developed for more powerful hardware, especially if it was advertised as something that could only be delivered on better hardware.
 
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