9 months in advance I'm looking for something a little stronger than an easily fakeable factory leak from some sketchy forum in China. We had so many leaks coming out at this point before the switch released. Same with the PS5 and Xbox. You cant hide something like a new console launch
Did we have a lot of leaks? I just rewatched Nintendolife's "rumors and leaks" summary for the NX from January of 2016 (10 months out) and it's basically... nothing? There are 5 patents, 4 of which are
not the Switch - including the cartridge patent! The community guessed that the Switch used cartridges based on this patent, except this patent specifically refers to a system of syncing cartridge input with a much slower magnetic HDD, which isn't in the Switch
There was also a leak of a deal to purchase Samsung displays, which most people thought made it clear that it was a hybrid except... Samsung didn't manufacture the OG Switch LCD at all, so this appears to be either a fake leak or a different Nintendo deal that was unrelated to the switch.
Basically, the rumors about a hybrid model came from the same sort of media sources that have talked about a 4k Switch, and a number of other pieces of data seemed to confirm, but that was mostly just coincidence. A lot of
very incorrect speculation came out as well built around the same sets of patents and technology "rumors" - like "matching the PS4 in performance". Fake name leaks, and fake leaks about Mario games that didn't exist, and not a lot else.
None of this is surprising, because Nintendo announced the codename of the NX in
2015 and started chatter about a Wii U replacement very early. The media was grasping at everything and the community was eating it up. As of 9 months out, the only data about the Switch that was genuine we seemed to have was a single patent that confirmed a media rumor. There was a lot of noise though, but that noise was about the media environment at the time, not about the actual state of the hardware or the software.
We're not in that media environment. The clickbait media is burnt out on Pro chatter, and Nintendo has been mum. Perhaps that's because you're right, and nothing is coming... or because it's a revision and they don't want to undermine the existing market by having people expect a successor, stop buying Switches, and then get disappointed by a revision announcement.
We didn't start getting truly solid Switch info till July 2016, and even in that case we were talking about Tegra X2 instead of the X1
. We should be hearing about games coming to it, hearing about part orders, hearing rumors about the name and so many other things. But we're hearing nothing. We're getting far fewer leaks for this than for the switch pro which didn't even happen.
If you're launching a new console you want a massive marketing campaign. You want people talking about it, getting the name out there. Just dumping it out there a month after reveal risks a Wii U situation where a lot of people don't even realize you have a new product. The idea of a one month reveal of a new console is ludicrous.
I think fundamentally we disagree on what is coming. You seem to believe that Nintendo's next device is a successor designed to supercede the switch, and that device isn't coming soon.
I agree it's a successor isn't coming soon, but I think Nintendo's next device is going to be marketed as a Switch revision, ala the New 3DS - or even the Lite/OLED. Which saw some rumors, but only one proper "leak" apiece - namely the backplate for the lite and the existence of the OLED at all, which was mixed up with pro chatter.
These short reveal to release cycles work for revisions like an OLED or lite because you're selling these mostly as rebuys to existing customers who are deeply hooked into the ecosystem already. To reel in the broader market you gotta go big time.
Yes, exactly. I think this is going to target folks who already own Switches, or hardcore gamers who haven't bought a Switch yet, which is Nintendo's stated plan.
For the record I'm
not 100% convinced that Drake = New Switch. I'm 90% convinced, but it isn't outside the realm of possibility that the hardware defined in the NVN2 leak represents a different device, or an in progress state. Nor am I convinced that the new device is on schedule - it could be delayed.
I
am convinced that the release of a DLSS capable Switch revision was planned for this fiscal year as recently as last September, and that it was sufficiently far along for Nintendo to contract devs for enhanced editions/exclusives. That matches reporting last year, which matches the NVN2 hack, which matches @kopite7kimi Nvidia leaks. And again, if it is a revision
It's stupid to dismiss those potential factory leaks and then claim that we've had no leaks. They might be obscure and possibly fake, but they're still leaks.
Didn't we also get a "leak" that Nintendo took devkits away from devs, with projects incomplete? If we're going to treat all rumors as possibilities, let's give credence to the ones that don't fit our narrative too
Bob is right that we haven't
recently seen a series of leaks that are mutually consistent. We haven't seen a whole lot at all, but again, I'm not
expecting anything. It's boring, sure, but that's what Mario Strikers is for. I don't blame anyone for disbelieving in the launch of a new device in the next 9 months, but the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence - not when we have evidence of
existence.