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

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snoota said:
Glad to have you back.
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Thank you and everyone for the warm welcomes back!.

TheSentry said:
I for one trust the leak/rumor that Nate shared about ultra fast loading and streaming in that GamesCom BotW demo.
So, I’m sure if Nintendo is working with Samsung for V-NAND game storage, I would believe it’s going to be fast to accomplish Nintendo’s fast/minimal load times.

If anyone is worry about it, I wouldn’t be.
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I think this and other Nintendo online communities needs to understand our situation regarding leaks/insiders a bit more. We simply cannot hang our hat on any one report so much. Having tried (and fumbled) these leak/insider reports, It brought me to a unique perspective and quandary.

What if something Nate hears is true at one point then changes over the course of development? It makes leaks only worth reporting on when an action is near and at the point.....who cares, It was days away anyway. Judging a leaker on hit record at that point is basically useless but how else do we separate the legitimate with the fakers?

I think we need to understand what is being told to us more. The idea that the Switch 2 did all those things at Gamescom needs to be taken with a high possibility that it changes (even dramatically) since it will be over a year between that and March 2025. As such, The insider/leaker needs some grace from their community on far out info on releases. Maybe be more strict if they say "Nintendo direct this week" then nothing happens. We just simply cannot treat every piece of info the same.
 
Isn't it possible for Nintendo to get through the May 7 report and forecast without mentioning Switch 2, even if its coming out in March, by simply changing the words they use?

When forecasting hardware sales, cant they forecast it in a way that can include both Switch 1 and Switch 2?
e.g. forecast "console unit sales" instead of "Nintendo Switch Unit" sales. That way they can factor in Switch 2 without revealing it.

Or could they even say "Nintendo Switch family sales" and later argue that Switch 2 is in the same family, if anyone called them out on it. Even if the game libraries are entirely separate, there's no legal requirement for the word "family" to mean shared library. And I'm not saying market the Switch 2 as "same family" to consumers, I mean just implicitly label it as such once in that investor report.

Or alternatively, if their plans aren't finalised yet, even if theyre hoping for March 2025, so long as they haven't totally finalised that plan, couldn't they say something like "no plans to release new hardware this fiscal year" and argue that "no plans" is short for "no completed plans"?

That's 3 possible things they could do maybe? Unless all 3 are not possible? I'm not expecting this, just throwing out the ideas.

Someone asked why they would intentionally not confirm it now if its happening this fiscal year. For the same reason they haven't unveiled it until now. They may believe in a strategic advantage to a short notice announcement -> release.
 
redmutineer75 said:
So I guess it's yet another situation where the speed of the removable storage (microSD Express) is the limiting factor in read speed.
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All the more reason to get the largest storage size possible, if available. I would pay an extra $100-150 for high tiered SKU. I just hope they don't do the bare minimum and give us 256GB, or worse... I'm a broken record for saying this, but Switch 2 should not be treated like a mobile phone in storage.

Somehow I managed to scrap by with a 200GB SD card and OG Switch's 32GB internal storage, but we all know storage sizes will balloon up on switch 2. Especially 3rd party.

But Nintendo will do whatever it can to make it affordable and profitable on their end first of course. I'm hoping for 512GB and 1TB models at within its lifetime. Doesn't Sony and MS offer removable SSD's? Wish Nintendo did the same.
 
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Hermii said:
He did though.

Edit: No he didn't mention streaming explicitly.
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Jenn. E Tails said:
But he did
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I should clarify and say that NateDrake didn't explicitly mention anything about streaming.

NateDrake did mention faster loading times for the Breath of the Wild demo at Gamescom 2023. Although he didn't explicitly mention anything about streaming, I think saying that faster loading times can imply that streaming assets, etc., becomes faster is a fair assumption to make.
 
Discostew said:
I'd like to request some clarification of what is meant by "from menu to game". Is this about from in-game main menu where folks load a save to when folks gain control of Link? Or is this from the system Home Menu to "the game"? I ask because for the former, a game like BotW is likely to have a bunch of common assets which with having a lot more RAM could be front-loaded during the launch sequence of the game, so when going from main menu to in-game control would have a lot less loading to deal with.
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If I recall it was stated to be from the game's main menu to in-game with playable Link.

If someone wanted to be particularly misleading, it seems like it would be easy to make a demo of a game like BOTW for a system with at least twice as much RAM and have it instantaneously switch between any two sections that would require loading on Switch, since both states could be completely in different parts of RAM at the same time, and the demonstrator could have the next part cached and ready with time to spare. But I imagine most developers viewing it aren't fools and they made better demonstrations of it in action.
 
The Competition said:
When forecasting hardware sales, cant they forecast it in a way that can include both Switch 1 and Switch 2?
e.g. forecast "console unit sales" instead of "Nintendo Switch Unit" sales. That way they can factor in Switch 2 without revealing it.
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They've done something similar with past systems ("forecasted DS/Wii/Wii U hardware and software sales units include the quantity of the 3DS/Wii U/NX hardware and software"), but those were after said pieces of hardware were announced/revealed.

I'm not sure they could get away with saying "we expect to sell 15 million consoles this fiscal year" with zero elaboration regarding why they think that's possible.
 
OctoSplattack said:
I'm not sure they could get away with saying "we expect to sell 15 million consoles this fiscal year" with zero elaboration regarding why they think that's possible.
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Don't they do that with software almost every year? They forecast software sales even without the specific software announced (yet) to explain where those sales will come from?

They could make a hardware forecast and say they will give details on how they plan to achieve those sales at a later date.

For the record, i think this is a terrible idea because investors will possibly be concerned because the company is unable to prove it has any concrete plans for its future. But then again, I thought releasing a Switch successor any later than 2023 was a terrible idea so clearly they don't see things the way i do haha
 
The Competition said:
Don't they do that with software almost every year? They forecast software sales even without the specific software announced (yet) to explain where those sales will come from?
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They release software every year. They don't release new hardware every year. "This year's software will move X units" is totally normal. "Last year we released a Zelda game, we will not be able to match that this year, expect sales to go down" is a totally reasonable statement. "We will continue to release strong titles like Zelda, that is how we will maintain sales numbers" also reasonable, if frustratingly vague.

"We plan to sell 20 million hardware units, after struggling to sell 15, in the 8th year of a console's life" is an insane statement without context. Double insane when last year had mainline Zelda and Mario. It would be tantamount to announcing, while making the financial response very chaotic.

Not saying they won't be very chaotic - Nintendo has an exceptionally stable, long term investment base. If anyone can afford to say something like this, it's them. But it is qualitatively different from the software predictions
 
7hatDeadCat said:
the xbox series x|s internally uses an m.2 2230 ssd, which is (with pretty complicated steps) possible to user replace and expand
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These quotes are from the IGN article that I've linked.
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The Coder also tried to clone the original Xbox SSD to a new NVMe SSD, but it did not work as the console refused to boot up with any other SSD installed since the motherboard is paired to the console’s original SSD storage.
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He [Louis Rossmann] also mentioned in his video that even if a user manages to clone their SSD and the console boots up, it will not be successful in the long run as the encrypted key will allegedly change whenever a new update is rolled out.
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I'm talking about practically speaking, not theoretically speaking.
 
oldpuck said:
They release software every year. They don't release new hardware every year. "This year's software will move X units" is totally normal. "Last year we released a Zelda game, we will not be able to match that this year, expect sales to go down" is a totally reasonable statement. "We will continue to release strong titles like Zelda, that is how we will maintain sales numbers" also reasonable, if frustratingly vague.

"We plan to sell 20 million hardware units, after struggling to sell 15, in the 8th year of a console's life" is an insane statement without context. Double insane when last year had mainline Zelda and Mario. It would be tantamount to announcing, while making the financial response very chaotic.

Not saying they won't be very chaotic - Nintendo has an exceptionally stable, long term investment base. If anyone can afford to say something like this, it's them. But it is qualitatively different from the software predictions
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In theory yes, but in practice if NG is only on the market for a month in this fiscal year, or even half a month, the forecast would be more like 13 or 14 million down from 15 million the previous year.

That's nothing like going up to 20 million, which yes, would basically be confirmation.

So couple that with "we'll announce specific plans on how we hope to achieve these sales at a later date" - and its no longer clear whether they're going to announce big system selling software for Switch 1 later, or a new console later.

I'm still not predicting this, but saying it's possible, and as a result, a no show on May 7th doesn't make March impossible.
 
Hermii said:
I misread.

But can you have fast load times (presumably enabled by fast storage and FDE), without also being capable of fast streaming? Doesn't one imply the other?
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On SSDs, pretty much?

When you teleport across the map, or load a game for the first time, you can pretty much guarantee all your assets are located together on storage, and take advantage of sequential read speed. When you're running around in an open world, it's much harder to guarantee that when you need now, and what you need next are going to be close to each other.

Practically speaking, that means that HDDs and optical drives can have much faster loading (where they can max out their sequential read speed) than streaming (where they're seeking all over the place to grab random bits of data). In SDDs there is still a gap between sequential and random reads, but it's smaller and the reads are very fast, so yeah, I would assume both would be "very fast."

In the case of the demo, I think it's probably closer to "just loading" than "streaming" simply because Breath of the Wild's streaming is so good, you don't really hit loading problems crossing the map. This was a demo loading from a menu.

Discostew said:
I'd like to request some clarification of what is meant by "from menu to game". Is this about from in-game main menu where folks load a save to when folks gain control of Link? Or is this from the system Home Menu to "the game"? I ask because for the former, a game like BotW is likely to have a bunch of common assets which with having a lot more RAM could be front-loaded during the launch sequence of the game, so when going from main menu to in-game control would have a lot less loading to deal with.
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I assume it's in game menu, simply because we know it was running on "target spec hardware" not the physical device, so probably running Linux or Windows. On Breath of the Wild the "new game" menu item takes about 30 seconds from cartridge. Tears takes about 25?

While I supposed Nintendo could have front loaded more assets for this demo, it seems unlikely. We can be - and should be! - wary of "target spec hardware" and demos designed to make the platform holder look good. But this was clearly private communication to development partners, not intended to leak, and Breath of the Wild's engine tech was heavily revamped for Tears of the Kingdom.

My bet would be that if there is any fudging it's in the "target spec hardware", not in the software architecture. I suppose it's not impossible that Nintendo would be demoing something like "yeah, we've got 16GB of RAM, which you can use to cache assets to reduce loading times on legacy games" but it seems more likely that the demo was "we have this new storage solution" which we know exists.
 
NateDrake said:
Of course. I didn't see it myself, so I'm at the mercy of their testimony. Also important to note: it was a tech demo. Doesn't mean what was shown will be replicated in a released product.
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Since prior info is being discussed: this post should also be taken into account. Tech demo are just that... a technical demonstration. Not everything will be a 1:1 match when the product releases.
 
NateDrake said:
Since prior info is being discussed: this post should also be taken into account. Tech demo are just that... a technical demonstration. Not everything will be a 1:1 match when the product releases.
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If it ever releases, which it may not.

Referring to a BOTW patch, not Switch 2.
 
I don't know if someone has clarified this but if a game is small enough it can be loaded completely into memory on boot and practically eliminate loading times. This is what Shin'en does with their games on Switch and one of the reasons why they make small file sizes a priority. As games have gotten bigger over the years, that approach is not really feasible for games with large file sizes and streaming is more practical, but there are technically other ways to get rid of loading during gameplay besides streaming. Definitely not practical for something like BOTW though.
 
The Competition said:
When forecasting hardware sales, cant they forecast it in a way that can include both Switch 1 and Switch 2?
e.g. forecast "console unit sales" instead of "Nintendo Switch Unit" sales. That way they can factor in Switch 2 without revealing it.
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Not in a way that would make sense to shareholders, no.

Nintendo is secretive in general, yes. But I think this would be kind of ridiculous levels of being overly secretive just for the sake of being secretive.

Just say forecasts is for the NG system, nothing more. That's all they should need to do.
 
darthdiablo said:
Not in a way that would make sense to shareholders, no.

Nintendo is secretive in general, yes. But I think this would be kind of ridiculous levels of being overly secretive just for the sake of being secretive.

Just say forecasts is for the NG system, nothing more. That's all they should need to do.
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Shareholders do not enjoy surprises. Sometimes, Even positive ones. Shareholders like a clear laid out future
 
You know what, the more information we get about this console, the more I actually don't think Nintendo are going to use DLSS to upscale to 4K.

Most likely they will just use DLAA at 1080p/DLSS 720p to 1080p, and then use a spatial upscaler like NIS or FSR 1.0 to make it look nicer. It saves a lot on the GPU side and the image quality wouldn't be all that bad.
 
The Competition said:
Isn't it possible for Nintendo to get through the May 7 report and forecast without mentioning Switch 2, even if its coming out in March, by simply changing the words they use?

When forecasting hardware sales, cant they forecast it in a way that can include both Switch 1 and Switch 2?
e.g. forecast "console unit sales" instead of "Nintendo Switch Unit" sales. That way they can factor in Switch 2 without revealing it.

Or could they even say "Nintendo Switch family sales" and later argue that Switch 2 is in the same family, if anyone called them out on it. Even if the game libraries are entirely separate, there's no legal requirement for the word "family" to mean shared library. And I'm not saying market the Switch 2 as "same family" to consumers, I mean just implicitly label it as such once in that investor report.

Or alternatively, if their plans aren't finalised yet, even if theyre hoping for March 2025, so long as they haven't totally finalised that plan, couldn't they say something like "no plans to release new hardware this fiscal year" and argue that "no plans" is short for "no completed plans"?

That's 3 possible things they could do maybe? Unless all 3 are not possible? I'm not expecting this, just throwing out the ideas.

Someone asked why they would intentionally not confirm it now if its happening this fiscal year. For the same reason they haven't unveiled it until now. They may believe in a strategic advantage to a short notice announcement -> release.
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Depending on how high the forecasted numbers would be, it would be very easy to figure out if Switch 2 was factored in or not. For example a forecast of 8-10 million would be a reasonable goal for Switch 1 sales this year but if they forecast a goal of 15 plus than it would be very easy to guess that Switch 2 is factored into that prediction.
 
Soralink91 said:
Depending on how high the forecasted numbers would be, it would be very easy to figure out if Switch 2 was factored in or not. For example a forecast of 8-10 million would be a reasonable goal for Switch 1 sales this year but if they forecast a goal of 15 plus than it would be very easy to guess that Switch 2 is factored into that prediction.
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Considering that the Switch sold around 2.7 mil WW in March 2017, even a 12 mil projection could be factoring Switch 2 sales in.
 
redmutineer75 said:
Considering that the Switch sold around 2.7 mil WW in March 2017, even a 12 mil projection could be factoring Switch 2 sales in.
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Agreed, anything from 8-12 million is in the realm of possibility for switch 1 sales this fiscal year. Depending on how aggressive Nintendo wants to be with pricing and what the second half of the year looks like for game releases.
 
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SwitchEmUp said:
You know what, the more information we get about this console, the more I actually don't think Nintendo are going to use DLSS to upscale to 4K.

Most likely they will just use DLAA at 1080p/DLSS 720p to 1080p, and then use a spatial upscaler like NIS or FSR 1.0 to make it look nicer. It saves a lot on the GPU side and the image quality wouldn't be all that bad.
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that's not an incorrect use of FSR1 even. AMD recommends that you use FSR1 after an AA'd image anyway
 
Soralink91 said:
Depending on how high the forecasted numbers would be, it would be very easy to figure out if Switch 2 was factored in or not. For example a forecast of 8-10 million would be a reasonable goal for Switch 1 sales this year but if they forecast a goal of 15 plus than it would be very easy to guess that Switch 2 is factored into that prediction.
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It doesn't really matter whether it's obvious or not. It was very obvious Nintendo demoed Switch 2 in some shape or form at Gamescom, but they still denied it. The point isn't how strong the denial is, it can be very weak but they still do it because that's how they operate.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
that's not an incorrect use of FSR1 even. AMD recommends that you use FSR1 after an AA'd image anyway
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I'm reminded of an idea someone brought up in that thread, that 1440p could be a "dynamic element" for switch2, it could actually be 1300p or any other resolution above the 1080p below 1440p range.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
I'm reminded of an idea someone brought up in that thread, that 1440p could be a "dynamic element" for switch2, it could actually be 1300p or any other resolution above the 1080p below 1440p range.
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output is fixed. the input is what scales. and output resolution determines the cost, so if they want to go lower, they'll probably choose something more substantial, like 1080p
 
The Competition said:
Isn't it possible for Nintendo to get through the May 7 report and forecast without mentioning Switch 2, even if its coming out in March, by simply changing the words they use?

When forecasting hardware sales, cant they forecast it in a way that can include both Switch 1 and Switch 2?
e.g. forecast "console unit sales" instead of "Nintendo Switch Unit" sales. That way they can factor in Switch 2 without revealing it.

Or could they even say "Nintendo Switch family sales" and later argue that Switch 2 is in the same family, if anyone called them out on it. Even if the game libraries are entirely separate, there's no legal requirement for the word "family" to mean shared library. And I'm not saying market the Switch 2 as "same family" to consumers, I mean just implicitly label it as such once in that investor report.

Or alternatively, if their plans aren't finalised yet, even if theyre hoping for March 2025, so long as they haven't totally finalised that plan, couldn't they say something like "no plans to release new hardware this fiscal year" and argue that "no plans" is short for "no completed plans"?

That's 3 possible things they could do maybe? Unless all 3 are not possible? I'm not expecting this, just throwing out the ideas.

Someone asked why they would intentionally not confirm it now if its happening this fiscal year. For the same reason they haven't unveiled it until now. They may believe in a strategic advantage to a short notice announcement -> release.
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They don't even need to change their wording. If the hardware is not yet announced, they will simply not forecast any unit sales for it at all, and will in fact not mention it whatsoever.

The only place where unannounced hardware would have an impact on May's FY25 financial forecast would be the projected full-year totals for sales and profit. They don't provide any kind of breakdown for what goes into those numbers, so the impact from new hardware would be obfuscated. If the hardware is launching in the last quarter, especially if it's in March, how big is that impact going to be, anyway?

And finally, even if the impact were big enough that it created a suspicious difference compared to the previous year's results, Nintendo is under no obligation to explain why that is. If someone asked, they would just say something like "we are planning a variety of initiatives in both of our integrated hardware-software business as well as other areas."
 
LiC said:
They don't even need to change their wording. If the hardware is not yet announced, they will simply not forecast any unit sales for it at all, and will in fact not mention it whatsoever.

The only place where unannounced hardware would have an impact on May's FY25 financial forecast would be the projected full-year totals for sales and profit. They don't provide any kind of breakdown for what goes into those numbers, so the impact from new hardware would be obfuscated. If the hardware is launching in the last quarter, especially if it's in March, how big is that impact going to be, anyway?

And finally, even if the impact were big enough that it created a suspicious difference compared to the previous year's results, Nintendo is under no obligation to explain why that is. If someone asked, they would just say something like "we are planning a variety of initiatives in both of our integrated hardware-software business as well as other areas."
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I mean, they can do this.

But this is their most dire release schedule in more than a half decade and they'll be projecting one of their lowest years ever in terms of hardware sales. Saying nothing about their hardware that will hopefully turn around their entire fiscal year would have almost no advantages.

(Unless it's not coming before April 2025 or they aren't very confident in it releasing before April 2025)
 
NateDrake said:
Correct. No one has reported or implied the BotW tech demo was indicative of a full release.
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Wouldn't be the first time Nintendo made a Zelda tech demo that excited people and then didn't release.

Wouldn't even be the second time, hell. 😅
 
SwitchEmUp said:
Most likely they will just use DLAA at 1080p/DLSS 720p to 1080p.
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I really don't think they'll do this. DLSS is built for a 4x upscale, and the cost is the same no matter the upscale factor. DLAA seems like it would be reserved for legacy games that can already push their resolution extremely high natively.

You can tell the difference between a 2x upscale and a 4x upscale in DLSS, but it's hardly huge. In fact, I think some of the demonstrations out there kinda suck, and I've got temporary access to a machine with an A4500 (the workstation version of the RTX 3070 Ti) lemme do up some tests real quick.
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This is Control running at 1080p. What I've done is perform some small action at native res, enable DLSS, do it again, change the internal resolution, rinse and repeat. It's the developer version of DLSS, so you see some debug information, including the name of the mode (Quality, Balanced, Performance, Ultra Performance)

I highly encourage you to NOT watch full screen. Or better yet, download and watch on your phone. Seriously, this is going to give you a much more accurate impression to how these effects are going to play on a handheld. Or, if you've got the setup, blow it up on your TV.

While on my phone, it's not until Ultra Performance mode that I notice an appreciable quality drop. Honestly, Ultra Performance continues to impress the hell out of me. It doesn't look native, but it looks... remarkably good. I could pick the differences apart on a 15 inch screen up in my face, and did when I made it. But in the fire fight, with all those effects throwing around? Great stuff, all the way down to 4x upscale.

But here is another test to explain something that I find is hard to explain. Apologies for the mouse gesturing to a frame rate overlay that didn't get captured :rolleyes:

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What I've done here is go to a section of the game with some reflections, and turn the res up to 1440p, for a roughly 60fps update. Fire the gun a couple times. Then I turn on DLSS, plus turn RT effects up to high. I think it looks great, with the reflections off the bullet, the debris, and of course the improved reflection of the tree on the floor.

What you can't see because I screwed the capture up - the frame rates between these two sections are the same. On a medium sized screen, up close, it's a definite "some better, some worse" situation, with a small drop in visual quality (really only noticeable for me around Jesse's hair) but a spike in effects. But on my phone? Okay, honestly, I still notice the artifacting around her hair BUT, I think the second section is a marked improvement.

None of this is to say that I think this matches anything like what the Switch 2 will do - for one thing, the Nvidia frame limiter was being a bastard at me, and so the 1080p tests are running at very high frame rates (which tends to be kind to DLSS). But I do hope it helps people recognize how far these things can be pushed, and how the balancing act is more than just resolution versus frame rates.

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bloopland33 said:
Do you have contacts at Samsung or is your Google fu just on another level?

I know you don’t want to share your whole process, but I’m just curious, in general…how?!
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I mean, a lot of it is likely "diagnosable hyperfixation" as much as it is anything like skill. But it's basically Google + Contacts + an unusual background. I have had a winding tech career, and art career, that gives me surface knowledge of a lot of things. Which feeds back into the first two.

As an example, I think it was @darthdiablo some months who very smartly suggested you could look at casting calls, and see if someone was developing an ad for the next hardware. Google turned up a couple of tantalizing possibilities, and they were being discussed here.

I work as an actor, so I know that there are only so many casting-call databases and I already have paid memberships at the biggest ones. I checked all of them, but I also reached out to some production company friends who might have access to calls for camera/makeup/lighting crew. The Switch October ad was produced with non-union talent and shot in Canada, which is not uncommon when you want a wide variety of non-actors, with a wide-variety of looks. But the crews are almost always union folks flown in from LA or NYC.

So I pinged all my game nerd buddies and asked for anything that might match on any boards they might check. I got maybe 20 ads, filtered out the obvious ones. Then, for the ones that were left, I asked some game industry friends "hey, this is how a project is being described. Do you know anything unannounced-but-common-knowledge that might match?" Like, the one ad that looked like it might match turned out to be a print spread (non-video) for the most recent Atari Flashback.

With Samsung, I don't know anyone who works there. I know several people who work with them, so I can ask questions like "what does this internal four letter acronym mean" and "would this project come out of Samsung Korea, or not." That's how I determined it was two separate projects. They looked like the same project from google, but two people claimed to be managers, in two different countries. Asked around, ah, separate branches. One usually does work around automotive (unsurprising, considering the origin of Orin/Drake), the other is strictly storage related.
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
I mean the native rendering resolution 1080p scaled to 1440p
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That'll depend on the game. The upscaling cost is fixed, but the cost to render the native res isn't. So if the game is light enough, sure. If the game is heavier, devs will go native 720p.

Or preferably, have a dynamic input resolution
 
oldpuck said:
I mean, a lot of it is likely "diagnosable hyperfixation" as much as it is anything like skill. But it's basically Google + Contacts + an unusual background. I have had a winding tech career, and art career, that gives me surface knowledge of a lot of things. Which feeds back into the first two.

As an example, I think it was @darthdiablo some months who very smartly suggested you could look at casting calls, and see if someone was developing an ad for the next hardware. Google turned up a couple of tantalizing possibilities, and they were being discussed here.

I work as an actor, so I know that there are only so many casting-call databases and I already have paid memberships at the biggest ones. I checked all of them, but I also reached out to some production company friends who might have access to calls for camera/makeup/lighting crew. The Switch October ad was produced with non-union talent and shot in Canada, which is not uncommon when you want a wide variety of non-actors, with a wide-variety of looks. But the crews are almost always union folks flown in from LA or NYC.

So I pinged all my game nerd buddies and asked for anything that might match on any boards they might check. I got maybe 20 ads, filtered out the obvious ones. Then, for the ones that were left, I asked some game industry friends "hey, this is how a project is being described. Do you know anything unannounced-but-common-knowledge that might match?" Like, the one ad that looked like it might match turned out to be a print spread (non-video) for the most recent Atari Flashback.

With Samsung, I don't know anyone who works there. I know several people who work with them, so I can ask questions like "what does this internal four letter acronym mean" and "would this project come out of Samsung Korea, or not." That's how I determined it was two separate projects. They looked like the same project from google, but two people claimed to be managers, in two different countries. Asked around, ah, separate branches. One usually does work around automotive (unsurprising, considering the origin of Orin/Drake), the other is strictly storage related.
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You should probably put this behind hidden tags.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
But this is their most dire release schedule in more than a half decade
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1) Yes, this is the natural outcome of the end of a console generation while next-gen development ramps up, and it's been more than a half decade since the last one. That's neither unusual nor forms the basis for putting out a statement about new hardware, given:
2) Much like every other annual "dire release schedule" discussion, this one is in the absence of an announced schedule for the rest of the year, ignoring the prior years of evidence of Spring Nintendo Directs which round out the schedule for the rest of the year, and ignoring Nintendo's repeatedly stated goal of trying to reduce the time between announcement and release. Every reasonable person knows the schedule will be lighter, given that all informed speculation pointed to new hardware between Winter 2024/Spring 2025 - whether or not it's "dire" will come down to whether they can still reach Christmas 2024 without major software gaps on Switch 1 (again, assuming they were always aiming for Winter 2024 and were going to leave Switch 1 behind), which we won't know until the next Direct

I don't think shareholder concerns are a factor at all when it comes to the hardware announcement. They have so many forms of weasel words they can use that acknowledge the hardware but say nothing about it if they think it suits their timing to announce later, without lying/misleading investors. Or they could acknowledge it there and then if they're happy with the current trajectory of Switch 1 sales with or without a Switch 2 announcement. Unlike last generation, in Nintendo's current market position there is little shareholders can realistically demand from them because by any objective metric, the strategy taken by Nintendo's management has proved incredibly successful.
 
KarlRemarx said:
1) Yes, this is the natural outcome of the end of a console generation while next-gen development ramps up, and it's been more than a half decade since the last one. That's neither unusual nor forms the basis for putting out a statement about new hardware, given:
2) Much like every other annual "dire release schedule" discussion, this one is in the absence of an announced schedule for the rest of the year, ignoring the prior years of evidence of Spring Nintendo Directs which round out the schedule for the rest of the year, and ignoring Nintendo's repeatedly stated goal of trying to reduce the time between announcement and release. Every reasonable person knows the schedule will be lighter, given that all informed speculation pointed to new hardware between Winter 2024/Spring 2025 - whether or not it's "dire" will come down to whether they can still reach Christmas 2024 without major software gaps on Switch 1 (again, assuming they were always aiming for Winter 2024 and were going to leave Switch 1 behind), which we won't know until the next Direct

I don't think shareholder concerns are a factor at all when it comes to the hardware announcement. They have so many forms of weasel words they can use that acknowledge the hardware but say nothing about it if they think it suits their timing to announce later, without lying/misleading investors. Or they could acknowledge it there and then if they're happy with the current trajectory of Switch 1 sales with or without a Switch 2 announcement. Unlike last generation, in Nintendo's current market position there is little shareholders can realistically demand from them because by any objective metric, the strategy taken by Nintendo's management has proved incredibly successful.
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It just seems weird to mislead investors by not even mentioning plans to release new hardware in the next fiscal year.

What sales are there to protect? They have nothing this year anyway because everything is being made for the Switch 2. If anything they lose out by not revealing hardware because that means no third party will announce anything for the future Nintendo system, while announcing coming hardware now lets third party developers mention that they are planning releasing their coming games also for Nintendo's next system. By not announcing coming hardware, only PS and Xbox gets positive news about coming releases while Nintendo's future just seems totally void of any excitement due to having nothing to announce at all.

I'm fairly certain that if they don't mention coming hardware to investors soon it just means that Nintendo is planning to release new hardware late 2025, early 2026. Rather than them trying to protect a holiday season where their sales will collapse anyway because of nothing exciting coming out anyway except ports of old games.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I mean, they can do this.

But this is their most dire release schedule in more than a half decade and they'll be projecting one of their lowest years ever in terms of hardware sales. Saying nothing about their hardware that will hopefully turn around their entire fiscal year would have almost no advantages.

(Unless it's not coming before April 2025 or they aren't very confident in it releasing before April 2025)
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i would not be worried by Switch having a very light line up, Nintendo is sitting in a lot of finished games, they can easily release to fill out the second half of the year
 
Danny said:
It just seems weird to mislead investors by not even mentioning plans to release new hardware in the next fiscal year.

What sales are there to protect? They have nothing this year anyway because everything is being made for the Switch 2. If anything they lose out by not revealing hardware because that means no third party will announce anything for the future Nintendo system, while announcing coming hardware now lets third party developers mention that they are planning releasing their coming games also for Nintendo's next system. By not announcing coming hardware, only PS and Xbox gets positive news about coming releases while Nintendo's future just seems totally void of any excitement due to having nothing to announce at all.

I'm fairly certain that if they don't mention coming hardware to investors soon it just means that Nintendo is planning to release new hardware late 2025, early 2026. Rather than them trying to protect a holiday season where their sales will collapse anyway because of nothing exciting coming out anyway except ports of old games.
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I do believe it would be best for them to announce and start getting that industry hype building. I know there are multiple 3rd party games that could come to Switch 2 but if they are not announced I'm not waiting and I'm definitely not double dipping.

Why Nintendo is waiting could come down to them not being confident on release timing just yet or they truly believe the Switch 1 has enough sales left in the tank and do not want to disrupt that.
 
Danny said:
It just seems weird to mislead investors by not even mentioning plans to release new hardware in the next fiscal year.

What sales are there to protect? They have nothing this year anyway because everything is being made for the Switch 2. If anything they lose out by not revealing hardware because that means no third party will announce anything for the future Nintendo system, while announcing coming hardware now lets third party developers mention that they are planning releasing their coming games also for Nintendo's next system. By not announcing coming hardware, only PS and Xbox gets positive news about coming releases while Nintendo's future just seems totally void of any excitement due to having nothing to announce at all.

I'm fairly certain that if they don't mention coming hardware to investors soon it just means that Nintendo is planning to release new hardware late 2025, early 2026. Rather than them trying to protect a holiday season where their sales will collapse anyway because of nothing exciting coming out anyway except ports of old games.
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Yep, I'm thinking the same way as you. If they don't even acknowledge the system in some form less than two weeks from now, an early 2025 launch may no longer be the safest bet out there. In such an scenario, the takeaway might be that Nintendo legitimately got attached to the Switch success and simply refuse to let it go... Whether it is because of a lack of confidence on the next launch or not is up to interpretation.
 
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