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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
- Thread starter Dakhil
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SiG
Chain Chomp
I think with Next Level Games on board, and most likely Retro Studios, we might see select games that will become "Switch successor" exlcusives being used to incentivise an upgrade to the console, while a majority of of games will still support base Switch. Heck, I can see Monolithsoft's next title after Xenoblade Chronicles 3 might actually require the upgrade considering the increasing scope of their games.
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
Sales died off from previous handheld revisions because the successor was announced…not because the revision was launched.
The OLED sold very very well this holiday…despite being market as a model that basically just makes Switch games look slightly better when portable.
This Switch Pro model will sell very well even by just marketing Switch games look and run better both portable and docked!
Toad King
Moblin
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This isn't even than new of a thing to do.Sales died off from previous handheld revisions because the successor was announced…not because the revision was launched.
The OLED sold very very well this holiday…despite being market as a model that basically just makes Switch games look slightly better when portable.
This Switch Pro model will sell very well even by just marketing Switch games look and run better both portable and docked!
Alovon11
Like Like
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Main reason for me I feel they should change the colorway of the logo, maybe invert the white and red in the logo or make it Blue.etc
Ghostsonplanets
Ghost in the Sales
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If the next machine is iterative, I'd expect Nintendo to do that. Change the console packaging, adopt new colors for the marketing (Black would be good), change the retail games packaging too.[...........................]
Blue is the color of defeat, failure. Which is also known as WiiU
Jest aside, yeah. I think black instead of red would be great.
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Or grey and purple
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If I’m not mistaken, but the OG, 360 and One games were written in a hypervisor I think and simply communicated with their respective hardware whilst actually being a virtual machine.
Nintendo can technically do this especially now with the Switch Drake, basically virtualize the switch 2 for future compatibility reasons. But the work for that is pretty big.
With the Wii, it was written more to the bare metal whilst the Wii U was not really to the bare metal. Wii U can play GCN games technically by going through the Wii virtual machine set up as it has the GCN (well, Wii) hardware in it minus the disc drive, but it has to be via other means….
But anyway, I assume that whilst they did want BC they wanted it done via the most efficient path. The device draws very little, is very small, and has full Wii backwards compatibility. Plus being an HD system.
The 360 was probably what they looked at for a comparison of a relative performance for getting that HD experience they were aiming for.
In fact, Nintendo has actually looked at Microsoft’s hardware more at what to target perf wise in the past, with one of the original GCN successors was aiming to be a portable with the same capabilities as the 360 and do HD.
Ghostsonplanets
Ghost in the Sales
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I think you're mixing up things no? They looked at doing a portable with GC performance and also one of the GC successors candidate was a HD machine with X360 like performance.
A portable with X360 performance as GC successor would be impossible at the time.
Sol
Moblin
That means we're probably looking at a $499 price for Drake.
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
There is still a chip shortage and the Switch is still selling great (Nintendo expects growth in sales this year!).
The question was just to understand why you think Nintendo will sell this new revision at a loss ($399) and price cut the previous revision this year when they didn’t opt to do that last year?
This new model is going to be priced more than you think, I feel.
I don’t see how they can possibly mass produce this new model out of the gate with it being only $50 costlier than the OLED model. I just can’t. From what I understand there was very little profit from the OLED price point. I’m willing to be shocked though!
I also don’t see how Nintendo cannot have low end price point options for the remainder of Switch’s lifetime. So some versions of Mariko switches have to stick around, no?
Right, I don’t expect support for the Mariko Switches to significantly go down after this 4K Switch releases.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the pervasive idea here is that we expect portable power mode to be pretty similar to Steam Deck power, no?
Whatever Nintendo is going to be able to accomplish in portable mode on this DLSS Switch for their games is pretty much what you are going to get from them.
If they were launching this as a stationary home only console thing, I’d be more inclined to believe you.
Yea I’m saying this new model won’t have the same effect to Switch as the ps5 to the ps4.
They won’t stop production of the OLED immediately, or even two years from now. They won’t ramp down software development on the current models immediately and stop almost all support 2 years from now.
Can’t wait to see how Nintendo advertises what this new model does outside of graphics and performance! (I bet they don’t)
Anyways, Nintendo doesn’t make money on hardware sales.
These revisions and model variations simply are done to keep engagement high for those currently in the ecosystem already, or to maybe appeal to someone who hasn’t entered yet by offering something that might appeal to them in a way the other models haven’t.
This will be just another one of those.
What I meant was Nintendo isn’t expecting this to sell like a next gen system might (ie ps5/Series SX)…it doesn’t have to sell gangbusters out of the gate to be considered a success. Same with Lite and OLED, they all help round out the ecosystem.
And the R&D put into this new chip will no doubt be the basis of future revision models as well. I doubt this will be a one and done thing with Drake.
I don’t expect 30+ million Switch Pro models to be sold over its first two years.
Without that expectation, no console maker should alter their 1st party development process to be done with the other models after 2 years.
I also don’t see Nintendo trying to push its userbase to move over to the Switch Pro model as soon as possible (Sony and Microsoft actually want gamers to move to the new gen as quickly as possible)
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I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be a portable that rivaled the 360 (and PS3) in graphical performance: https://www.thegamer.com/nintendo-leak-portable-gamecube-successor/amp/
And the other was Revolution.
I’m pretty sure this is why they chose against it in the end lol. They apparently had two options and went with the Wii.
Ghostsonplanets
Ghost in the Sales
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The portable device that could connect to TV with a Dock was a portable GC. The Next-Gen machine(They call NNGC) was to rival with the X360. They're two different projects.
Thraktor
"[✄]. [✄]. [✄]. [✄]." -Microsoft
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But the Xbox 360 wasn't backwards compatible in the same sense as the Wii U. It was an emulation-based approach that required support to be added on a per-game basis, and even for supported games it wasn't perfect. Like every prior Nintendo device with BC, the Wii U had hardware-level implementation which was near-perfect in terms of library support and performance, and there's no reason to believe Nintendo would have been attempting anything else at the time (or even had the expertise or resources to devote to it, for that matter).
I don't know how you're reading the "ideas we never would have thought of" as being about CPU BC. They hardly needed IBM to tell them that the Wii U's PowerPC 750 CPU would be compatible with code compiled for the Wii's PowerPC 750 CPU. It makes far more sense as being about the GPU, where Nintendo had to combine the functionality of Wii's 2001-era custom GPU with the Radeon 4000 series GPU logic. The easy choice there would have been to just include the Wii's GPU as a separate component, but they integrated it within the Wii U GPU instead. In fact if you look at the die shot of the Wii U's GPU, you'll notice there's no clear "Wii GPU" replica on there, but there are certain shader and texture units which are larger than the others, which would indicate they integrated the Wii's GPU functionality quite deeply within the Wii U GPU.
There wasn't really any obvious alternative to the PPC 750 if they stuck with IBM, anyway, as IBM had stopped developing new CPU architectures for consumer devices for some time by that point. The only real option would have been the PowerPC A2, which was an interesting quasi-successor to the Cell CPU. Rather than the high-clocked asymmetric PPE/SPE setup of the Cell, it was a homogenous many-core design, with much lower-clocked cores with shorter pipelines and 4-way SMT. It was basically IBM's attempt to optimise for size and efficiency of a CPU core, rather than the maximum performance per core they push with the POWER CPUs.
I do wonder how the PowerPC A2 would have fared as a console CPU, as it's designed to achieve many of the same goals as Cell (ie lots of floating point performance), but in a much more efficient manner, and with modern features like, you know, caches and branch predictors. It probably wouldn't have been trivial to optimise for, with the out-of-order execution and lots of threads to manage, but it would have been a damn bit easier than the "I have no branch predictor and an 18 cycle mispredict penalty" Cell SPE. Nintendo probably could have squeezed a quad-core design into the Wii U without pushing the cost or thermal envelope, and the raw floating point performance would have been 5-10x of the Espresso processor we got, although it's hard to say what the real-world performance would have been.
Anyway, I don't think this would have made a huge difference to the Wii U's success (or lack thereof). People forget the Wii U was actually (briefly) the most capable console available, and it didn't do it much good. Best case scenario they could have had a year of clearly improved graphics prior to being outshone by the PS4 and XBO, but the console still would have been confusing and poorly positioned. As much as I think Nintendoland is an underrated classic, the concepts of dual-screen gameplay and asymmetric multiplayer were simply too complex and unintuitive compared to the Wii, where anyone could understand the appeal within seconds of seeing Wii Sports. The Wii U was a console where basically everything was a mistake, from the name to the control scheme to the physical design. The CPU was only one of those things, and wouldn't have saved the rest of them.
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Pooroomoo
Triangulum Strategem
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Could be I am misreading what you wrote, but are you saying that current rumours and leaks talk about "some big exclusive games right away on launch"? If so, I am quite certain you are misremembering, they don't, none that I read from any of the few reputable people were about big exclusives.
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Hm I see, I misremembered it then. Thanks for clarifying!
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Depends what is meant by exclusives. Generally when we talk about Drake/Dane exclusives we're referring to third party games that will come to Drake/Dane but not the base Switch. Not games that are literally only playable on the new one.
Nate specifically has indicated that some Drake/Dane exclusives are planned, not sure if he said for launch.
BlueManifest
Bob-omb
Is this the rumored name or people just hoping again
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
Sorry for my post barrage, I can’t read this thread every day and I’m responding as I read the past few pages…
Just got to the page about Drake possibly being a home console only model…lol
Nintendo is never going to make a traditional home console-only ever again. Never ever ever. No point in this day and age.
A docked only Switch isn’t the same as the Lite. The Lite has the same exact portable power as the hybrid. Nintendo software development isn’t fragmented by it, the userbase isn’t fragmented.
All a Switch docked-only console (what the people in the biz call a “traditional home console”) would do is put Nintendo back in the spot they were at ~2015 before they decided to consolidate all their development into one roof and eventually one system.
They ain’t going back to that.
The software sales of the Switch has proven the success of streamlined Nintendo software development under one system.
Just got to the page about Drake possibly being a home console only model…lol
Nintendo is never going to make a traditional home console-only ever again. Never ever ever. No point in this day and age.
A docked only Switch isn’t the same as the Lite. The Lite has the same exact portable power as the hybrid. Nintendo software development isn’t fragmented by it, the userbase isn’t fragmented.
All a Switch docked-only console (what the people in the biz call a “traditional home console”) would do is put Nintendo back in the spot they were at ~2015 before they decided to consolidate all their development into one roof and eventually one system.
They ain’t going back to that.
The software sales of the Switch has proven the success of streamlined Nintendo software development under one system.
Crusters
Koopa
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I'm not refuting that, it's another bc solution, I used the heck out of my 360's bc library. Another solution along with what the launch ps3 and DS and 3DS did. There were options.
This distinction doesn't really matter in the big picture of where I'm coming from. They were provided an avenue for bc they admitted they never would have thought of, and there were other options. They were determined to find a way to make the system have bc, but it didn't matter how they got there enough to really design the entire system around it. They worked with what they had. And would have done what was needed as cost effectively as possible if they had something else.
And this is the crux of it for me right here. Why were they in the situation to begin with? Why on earth were they still with Ibm?
18 cycles seems like a pretty 'light' miss penalty from some of the horror stories I remember from the hdtwins. Maybe they got exaggerated each time they were told to someone lol.
That would have been pretty interesting.
It sure was, for a very brief unrecognized period of time. I'm pretty sure by the time third parties got their hands on it, they were already seeing or at least hearing what was coming down the pipeline from the competing platform holders, and hedging their bets.
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To my knowledge there’s no rumored names. I’m just posting nonsense
…but yes I still do hope they use that name
9-Volt
Adept
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My guess is the PS4 era Resident Evils. All of them on the launch day. 7, 8, 2R and 3R. 2R and 3R were supposed to be cloud games for base Switch but apparently Capcom gave up on this idea for some reason.
Simba1
Bob-omb
You cant know if Nintendo will expects growth in sales this year, because they will talk about (2022. sales) at full years results (at end of april).
I dont think that. real question is why you think that this new Switch hardware would be sell at loss with price point of $399?
My bet is $399 price point, maybe at worst case will be $449, but there is no way that will be $499.
Switch is selling at profit from day one, point that Switch is still $299 and Switch OLED is $349 doesnt mean that they have small profit on them, I am pretty sure that they could easily make price cut of $50 for both and still selling them at profit.
Going from $199 to $149 is big price cut we talking about 25% price cut, so I dont see that big price cut in a year, especially because Switch Lite is still selling without game,
1st thing they will do is make bundle with one game for $199.
I dont see how what you wrote has with my points?
Like I wrote, this will not be simple revision or ugprade, its full next gen Switch (based on current rumors) in any way, not to mention that at launch will you have some exclusive games (Nate said some 3rd party games), and by time more and more games will be exclusive until games will stop be developed for current models.
I wrote that biggest difference compared to PS4/PS5 will be that Nintendo will continue making OLED model for around 2 years after new Switch launch.
I don't see why they couldn't stop OLED production around 2 years after this new model launch, or Nintendo stop releasing (or at least most of its games) games for current Switch models also around 2 years after this new model launch.
Well, one thing is sure, if this leaks and rumors are true, no why they will market it like simple revision, because its obvious will be much more than PS4 Pro or New 3DS.
Actually Nintendo always making money on hardware.
Again, you keep ignoring point that this is not simple revision (at least based on leaks and rumors), this is not 3DS XL, 2DS, New 3DS...Switch Lite, Switch OLED...type of revision, this is much more than, its full next gen hardware with some next gen features.
So no its not only one of them, this hardware will carry Switch platform forward, that will have some exclusive games right away from launch and one point games will be relased just for this next gen Switch model and next gen Switch revisions.
Having on mind that some of current models will keep selling and that there will limited supply, Nintendo cant have like 20m units ready for 1st year, but 10-15m is maybe possible.
Point is that you don't make that type of investment just to make another simple revision, we talking about full next gen hardware in every sense.
IMO sales numbers will mostly depend from supplies, but 15m per year for 1st two years is definitely possible.
Why not,? Switch was launched in 2017. so around 2 years after this next gen Switch model would mean around 8 years of support for Tegra X1 based Switch models.
Around 2 years after next gen hardware is not soon as possible, it's very reasonable time frame, I could see 2-3 years, but no way they will support it 4-5 years after this new Switch launch.
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RDR2 is my personal most wanted. It’s a weird one that I bought for my PS4 Pro and never actually put the disc in. The discourse about it being a tedious game put me off before I could start. I wasn’t in the mood for something that big as a TV only thing when it dropped anyway - was suckered in by the hype.
I could see myself giving it a lot more time with hybrid flexibility.
Instro
Like Like
Odds are they'll probably a first party exclusive at or near launch too.
Simba1
Bob-omb
Didn't Nate said that he heard some 3rd party games are made exclusive for new Switch hardware?
Also point that they are made just for new Switch hardware itself points that are big or at least more demanding,
because if thats not case I dont see point being made only for this new Switch and not for current Switch models also.
But its possible that I misreading that some of them will be ready for Switch launch.
LoneRanger
Chain Chomp
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Metro Exodus
MP!
Like Like
Backwards.
Compatibility.
Just because there were other options doesn't mean that BC wasn't the reason they stuck with IBM.
That's the answer... it's backwards compatibility. They wouldn't have stuck with IBM and PPC if they didn't just have one of the most successful consoles ever based on that architecture. It's really the only reason cause as you stated WHY else would they stay with IBM? there's no other answers.
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Mochizuki’s articles only mentioned supporting the new system, not that they wouldn’t support the current system.
Nate mentioned some exclusives, but I don’t recall him mentioning them being ready for a launch, and he couldn’t say whether any of them overlapped with what Bloomberg was reporting.
With Nate’s we can probably assume they are too complex to support the current Switch (or it’s more time than they want to put into them to get it working.) Hard to say if that means they’re ‘big’ or not
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
Any new news?
Future Boy Nemo
Daydream Believer
Dark Souls 2 and 3 were skipped, but I could see Elden Ring coming over as the 'big' third party launch-window game. It would be enough of a time gap to entice double dippers without being so long the game loses mindshare. Yakuza or Kingdom Hearts having their full PS4-compatible series ported would be personally exciting for me, but Elden Ring would generate more headlines and clicks than those 10+ games put together.
Ghostsonplanets
Ghost in the Sales
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Nope. We're waiting for Nate podcast to come out still.
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Unless it's something AI/AR related that simply couldn't be done on base Switch I seriously doubt this.
I'd love a new Face Raiders though.
As someone who’s completely dumb when it comes to technology.
How them switch 2 or pro whatever info looking?
neat device or underwhelming?
How them switch 2 or pro whatever info looking?
neat device or underwhelming?
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The Switch 2/Pro exclusive game that can’t run on the base switch will clearly be Soul Hackers 2
Atlus needs all that horsepower to finally render at the Early Switch tier visuals after all.
it should go without saying, but this is sarcasm
Atlus needs all that horsepower to finally render at the Early Switch tier visuals after all.
it should go without saying, but this is sarcasm
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Far more impressive than even the most wildly optimistic expectations.
And I'm not actually kidding.
Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
I'm near Miami. This is what Switch OLED availability looks like right now at all nearby Best Buys -
In stock everywhere.
And like I said, it's also been in stock on Amazon for the past 3 days. And it's still currently in stock.
Anectodotally, you probably checked right around when Miami got a restock! (The link you provided even shows the neon OLED out of stock currently)
The thing still sells out a lot all over. Yes, it’s also consistently re-supplied too!
I dunno anything about how hard/easy it was to make BC work well enough, I’m pretty sure they figured it out though.
I was talking about native power. The consensus was around ps4 pro power docked? Well, that system hardly does 4K/60fps either (for the bigger scale games at least). It has to use its own upscaling techniques to get near that. (I get Drake has a much better CPU, but still.)
I was responding to the “overkill” statement. The architecture, to me, seems perfectly good to promise 4K/60fps gaming across the board (if that is indeed the main selling point of this new model)
Is it “overkill” to run 1-2 Switch with this? Sure. Is it “overkill” to get BOTW2 and Xenoblade 3 with 4K textures and steady 60fps? With a ~25w power draw? I don’t think so. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a rumored Switch title…what about a game like that? Is this overkill?
What could have Nvidia offered Nintendo that wasn’t Orin/ampere based that would have offered 4K/60fps switch gaming? Nvidia start ramping up older gpu+cpu architecture production again?
I dunno, I could be way wrong but I’m pretty sure going with Orin/ampere was the best option cause that’s where Nvidia is now. And I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason why going with 12SM at lower clock potentional being better than 6SM with higher clocks.
I am certainly not going to let the spec sheet differentials convince me Nintendo plans on treating this as a next gen successor type device lol
I’ll eat my hat if the big 2024/2025 Nintendo games aren’t playable on the OLED Switch.
I guess this is what I’m not knowledgeable enough about, to be sure.
What would you say is the “cheapest” option Nintendo could have gone with to promise 4K/60fps for their big games and some of the big 3rd party ports? Do DLSS and tensor cores have a minimum power they need to function adequately? Would 6SM with half the tensor cores render a 4K image exactly the same as 12SM with twice the tensor cores?
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Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
What’s everyone’s bets on the first game showcasing this new Switch? Kind of cool to think about.
Ghostsonplanets
Ghost in the Sales
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Way more powerful than even our upper level of predictions. While we only have partial info on the GPU, Nintendo literally blew the expectations out of the park. Basically a PS4 when portable and a PS4 Pro when docked. And that without taking into account DLSS. The machine is so performant that it should be capable of receiving Xbox Series S ports.
Ah. I see so a machine worthy of KH collection non-cloud. That’s cool.
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BotW2 or Metroid Prime 4k.
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Dark Cloud
Warpstar Knight
You took the words right out of my
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