already has been. the prerendered videos in Mario Sunshine were upscaled using NERD's methods
-
Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)
- Thread starter Dakhil
- Start date
- Pronouns
- he/him
This was from an early misunderstanding that the Wii U used POWER7 or POWER8. It does not use these; it uses the same PowerPC architecture that was used in the GameCube. It was outdated in 2012 and it's outdated now.
This is a dream founded in who IBM was 10-20 years ago. They're not that IBM anymore; their processors haven't been that interesting for a long time.
Crusters
Koopa
- Pronouns
- He/him
I have been aware of this Article, and many more based off the same pr, for a very, very, very, very long time.
Blue Monty
Inkling
- Pronouns
- he/him
I’d imagine it will be used for similar ports/remasters when they don’t want to remake cutscenes?
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
I think for gamers…who have no interest in playing Witcher 3 on a big screen with the best possible graphics/performance they can afford…found Witcher 3 Switch to be a reasonable port. These people did in fact throw around the term “magic” lol
Dunno how you define “AAA”, but much more than in number the OG has? (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Dooms, FiFAs, MLB Show, Assassins Creeds, Crysis, Resident Evils, Wolfenstein, Control, Diablo, Civ 6, XCom 2, Dark Souls, Persona, Mortal Kombat, Metro Redux, Kingdom Hearts, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc)
I dunno, I haven’t seen a compelling argument why it would be drastically different in type nor amount
Cause they don’t want it to be. They like making the unique types of games they make, and they want their software to be the best selling on their devices, not other publisher’s.
Like Sony and Microsoft did decades ago, Nintendo would have to change the majority of their 1st party offering to mimic the popular AA-AAA pc gaming of the day. Halo and Uncharted are actually complimentary to COD and Assassins Creed…interest in buying the console to play one most likely means you will try/buy the other.
Nintendo would also have to make hardware/services decisions that popular 3rd party multiplat gamers demand. And they will never do that cause they make decisions on what they feel is the best for their games. And they know their success isn’t tied to needing to be a 3rd party gaming platform. Like, not tied at all.
I still don’t think a small dev team spending a year porting a “demanding” game for the Switch is that egregious. I don’t think Drake hardware is going to cut that kind of time/costs for “demanding” ports.
Now, if you are talking about Drake being able to port games with much less concessions…sure. But I don’t feel like CDPR (publishers of big games in general) feel like their game would get better sales along with better graphics on the Switch.
Certainly not enough more to overcome focusing just on the low userbase model version.
It’s like suggesting Rockstar would entertain porting RDR2 to just the ps4pro and Xbox One X in 2018. Forget the trouble and concessions for porting the Xbox One and ps4 versions.
If RDR2 Switch is a real thing, it won’t be only on the Drake.
Last edited:
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
This just says everything, doesn’t it?
Nintendo 1st party drives what type of multiplat engagement there is on their platform. The demand of Nintendo 1st party gaming on their machines is relatively inhospitable to much of the big multiplat games of the day.
Publishers have said as much, that they can’t compete with Nintendo games on their platform
COD can fully compete and get air on the Xbox, despite Halo’s demand. Often even outselling it.
If true, RDR2 on the Lite/OLED just further proves it that lack of multiplat ports on the Switch has had nothing to do with hardware power
Last edited:
Aether
Kremling
Different times. Hardware changed and developed so fast, and so radical, that economy of scale and being dedicated to a concrete platform made all the difference to off the shelf.
But with how streamlined the software side is, and how much they managed to reduce problems between components, and with the modern chiplet design, developing custom solutions is just getting overly complex and expensive without to much benefit.
With how fast the iteration/production has become, you have less tested solutions then with of the shelf components.
Future proofing, having their own tech for maybe other products, and mostly: they already used it, and if they already have it and use it (Mario Sunshine), they might as well just patent it if a situation comes up where it is advantagious, or somebody else wants to use that method. For a technology company as big as nintendo, patents are less a "what are we using it for" and more a "mist ast well patent it just to be shure", the fees are not that high, and they already employ lawyers for their other patents.
supercomputer processor architecture -> every time i see people talk about spezialised hardware for specific tasks as if its universally good, i SMH.
It is usually great at that, because it was designed with a specific purpose in mind, and not with general computing.
Some high end expensive GPUs from a decade or so ago where that, where people talked how great it would be for gaming, for it to be optimized for other tasks and barely being better then the high end Gaming GPUs.
Is it a CPU optimized for a lot of cach read/writes? Generall IO handling for a lot of connections? floating point operations?
And i asume the dream of a GC chip on a handheld was coupled with a) -> handhelds getting that strong to be able to play GC games (like prior, GB -> nes, GBA -> snes,...)
and b) with the wish to just port GC games with minimal effort and QoL improvements, since the architecture would be the same.
Heck, the CELL was a beast in specific tasks... but it was hell to develop for it, and that made it worse in the end. Outsourcing the increase in development cost to the developers makes the platform unatractive to them.
Aether
Kremling
Not quite. If we are talking graphics, i can see it. But there are limits to how much you can reduce the load on the CPU, and where the gameplay starts to break down.
If there are games, that can work confortably on the switch CPU, then shure. If not, but it works easily on Drake, then the work to reduce the graphics to a level where it works could be in the realm of feasable. They dont need a userbase of 100k consoles, and with how good the switch sold, i could see some of them having a high confidence that the Switch 2 will sell enough so that those ports are feasable financially, even if they only publish those to Switch 2.
With the rest, especially the "complementary first party output" im with you.
Switch wont be a main third party goal for big western develeoped AAA games, simply because it will always sell less of those games then on the other platforms.
On the flipside, japanese developers and more "nintendo style" games sell great on switch, and those will get ported. im talking querky, indie, colorful games, etc.
a pro wont change that dynamic. But it could lower the barrier for throwing a team together for a port if they feel like it can sell enough for the costs.
- Pronouns
- He/him
Do you have any idea how many copies Minecraft has sold
Magic-Man
Perseus Jackson
- Pronouns
- He/Him
My brother in Christ Minecraft is the highest selling video game in history.
Last edited:
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
- Pronouns
- He/Him
funny you mention that tbh, cell was good at things cell can do.
But only cell was the cell, everything else was not the CELL processor.
It was a very unique architecture.
When you had things that were for Power, ARM or x86 run on the CELL, the CELL struggled. When you had things from the CELL run on Power, ARM or x86, the latter struggled.
Does anyone remember that article about how the CELL was better than the latest INTEL processor? Yeah… reading between the lines, what I got was “the CELL is better at running CELL code than the Intel processor is at running CELL code.” Like no shit.
but anyway that’s in the past.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I would say that is true with the current switch. The development cost is often to high to justify a port that often isn’t even a new game. RDR2 is 5 years old and can‘t fit on a cartridge, would take quite some time for sure to develop for switch and probably look really bad in the end if you aren‘t doing a major rework of everything visually.
But third party games on switch seem to sell well enough, otherwise you wouldn‘t see constantly new ports for what the switch is powerful enough. Often we don’t even know the sales numbers but I could imagine that there quite a few third party low million sellers. I think that if for example new games like Street Fighter 6 or Final Fantasy 16 would come to the switch and run well enough, I‘m sure they would sell at least as much as on other consoles in the split, as it is already true with many indie games.
COD I don‘t know though, I wonder how well other shooters do on switch.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think it not irrelevant to Nintendo's future hardware that this year of all years has such a glut of unexpected, shocking, or thought impossible ports. Persona 5R, Nier Automata, Fall Guys, Overwatch 2 and Skyrim Anniversary (not announced but leaked) are all games that are targeting current gen, that is to say Xbox Series X|S and PS5, and yet, to Switch they come still. The sheer volume of seemingly high quality, apparently difficult ports is proof positive that third parties do sell on Switch, but their timing may be no coincidence: October could be, perhaps, "Pro time indeed".
I think the reason why you're having a hard time understanding this is that, absolutely no offense, you don't have enough understanding of how game development works.
The Switch Pro absolutely will have many, many more Gen 8 and 9 AAA 3rd party ports than OG Switch. There is no doubt.
Right now, porting a game like The Witcher 3 to the Switch means basically reworking all of your assets, reduce poly-counts, which will probably force you to rework textures and animations. You have to rework all scenes, all the environment, it's a LOT of work.
On Drake, none of this will be needed, you just take the game the way it is on other platforms with all the assets the way they are, render it at a lower resolution, DLSS on, that's it. (Switch specific features like controls aside). It will be even easier to implement fe ray tracing than on the other consoles.
I'm not exaggerating, it's like 100 times less work if not more. Ports on Drake might have at least one zero less in their budgets.
"Nintendo never cared about 3rd parties" not true, Nintendo always did, the N64, Wii U and Switch to a lesser extent are "the odd ones out".
Secondly, "this has always been this way" is a simplistic way of thinking in general.
The Switch fanbase is completely different than what Nintendo had in the Wii era, research show that many if not most Switch owners have either a Xbox or PS or both, the Switch has many more hardcore gamers than Nintendo ever had before, those people are interested in third parties, and don't kid yourself, Nintendo makes a lot of money by selling third parties on their platform, in fact, having a welcoming platform for the dozens of third parties has much more profit potential than having a console where only your own games sell well, that's easy math, it's a much safer business, which is why the PlayStation still exists despite Sony having very little capital, they can always count on those third parties.
Aether
Kremling
I think its more that minecraft is an anomaly. Its not representative of big games the big western publishers have. It is for shure a beast, if not an elder god in gaming now. I would argue it eclipsed mario in aspects. Oldschool nintendo nerds will see it different...
but from data i could find, Minecraft sold over 200m in a decade over all platforms,
while the sum of all Mainline Mario games on all platforms is 396 with 43 releases over 35 years.
1 2 3 and world with all their rereleases are just 113M units .
Blue Monty
Inkling
- Pronouns
- he/him
I think is important to check this interview before Switch launched:
nintendoeverything.com
Switch was already the start of a change in Nintendo to give a platform that makes porting easy for 3rd parties instead of just being focused in 1st party teams, Drake will just continue this trend.
Miyamoto:
Regarding our software development environment, we have taken the software development teams for home console systems and for handheld systems, which used to be two different departments, and integrated them into one, and this has been very beneficial as they are now developing software as a team in the same environment. In addition, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform. In the current development environment, I'd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch.
Takahashi has also commented in the importance of 3rd party deals and 3rd parties in generals in the platform, we should forget the image of Nintendo in the old days of ignoring everything that isn't Nintendo.
Miyamoto, Takahashi and Takeda on Switch's third-party support, ease of porting, more
Nintendo has just published a translated transcript of the Q&A session at their latest Corporate Management Policy Briefing. The following question is about Nintendo’s third party relations regarding the Switch, how Nintendo’s own internal development teams are handling it and Nintendo...
nintendoeverything.com
Miyamoto:
Regarding our software development environment, we have taken the software development teams for home console systems and for handheld systems, which used to be two different departments, and integrated them into one, and this has been very beneficial as they are now developing software as a team in the same environment. In addition, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform. In the current development environment, I'd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch.
Takahashi has also commented in the importance of 3rd party deals and 3rd parties in generals in the platform, we should forget the image of Nintendo in the old days of ignoring everything that isn't Nintendo.
Aether
Kremling
Oh, yeah... kind of a long way to say "emulation is inefficient".
if a processor emphasizes different different aspects during the design stage,
it will be good at tasks and problems that relly on that. Cell was a capable machine, but it was so different, that you needed to code differently. Not just using a different instruction set, you had to thing about the architecture and tackle problems in a completly different way to use the potential it had. And in a time, where pc, 360 and wii where closer to some form of "standard", it became apperent that for nobody except sony it was worth to focus on that. So third parties ignored the pottential in most cases.
Intel was also just starting to move to multicore cpus... and man, the first generation was not yet there. Wii was single core, 360 was 3. Cell was fing 7 (with 6 for developers, 1 for os).
Having developers learn multi threading was a changing in how things where done, but then not only spliting to 3 stronger cores, but 6 even harder to develop ones...what where they thinking, no wonder production costs did explode.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I do not want to see RDR2 on base Switch :x
Or maybe I do just to see DF pick it apart.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Tools/Workflow Nintendo has for third parties on the switch are all really good. It is super easy to "export" games to the platform. The real challange is that it runs well enough.I think is important to check this interview before Switch launched:
Switch was already the start of a change in Nintendo to give a platform that makes porting easy for 3rd parties instead of just being focused in 1st party teams, Drake will just continue this trend.Miyamoto, Takahashi and Takeda on Switch's third-party support, ease of porting, more
Nintendo has just published a translated transcript of the Q&A session at their latest Corporate Management Policy Briefing. The following question is about Nintendo’s third party relations regarding the Switch, how Nintendo’s own internal development teams are handling it and Nintendo...
Miyamoto:
Regarding our software development environment, we have taken the software development teams for home console systems and for handheld systems, which used to be two different departments, and integrated them into one, and this has been very beneficial as they are now developing software as a team in the same environment. In addition, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform. In the current development environment, I'd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch.
Takahashi has also commented in the importance of 3rd party deals and 3rd parties in generals in the platform, we should forget the image of Nintendo in the old days of ignoring everything that isn't Nintendo.
KMStwo
Luma
- Pronouns
- He/his/him
It has been more than a year since Kopite7kimi talked about T239/Dane(Drake). But since then nothing about it
. If only he could give us an update on the process node or release because back then he was saying 8nm as Orin(maybe he deduced it from Orin being on 8nm but who knows). Since then what has happened to his info??
. If only he could give us an update on the process node or release because back then he was saying 8nm as Orin(maybe he deduced it from Orin being on 8nm but who knows). Since then what has happened to his info??
Last edited:
Blue Monty
Inkling
- Pronouns
- he/him
My point was more about Nintendo mentality when it comes to 3rd party support and effort they are putting in helping them than how easy is to port games to Switch . Of course more power should and will help and that is why I mentioned Drake following this mentality of helping devs make things easier, and I think a lot of things Nintendo has done and will do going forward is to increase 3rd party support, when it comes to 1st party software sales is hard for them to go even higher most increase in software sales on Nintendo hardware in the future will come from 3rd parties and Nintendo knows it and they want to promote it.
My Tulpa
Bob-omb
I’ve read every post in this thread, I have really nothing to add in terms of the hardware tech spec that has been given over and over here.
Many, many posters are absolutely speculating on what software might launch/be tied to this new model. I’m responding to those, I’m not leasing such discussion lol
And sales and perceived sales potential are integral in every gaming speculation thread. I don’t think you are ever going to be “sales discussion free” in any of them.
And sales absolutely is what determines mostly what multiplats are ported to what machine. Not hardware.
Note taken.
Although, I really do want to know what the actual top 3-5 best selling 3rd party multiplats are on the Switch…was hoping someone had some hard numbers, which I can’t seem to find using your Google method.
But you are right, I did already know what types of multiplats generally sell the best on Switch and which ones don’t
Cell actually is a PowerPC CPU and can be used like a standard PowerPC CPU if you want. The problem is that if you did try to use it like a normal chip, the deficiencies compared to Xbox 360 (both in CPU and GPU) would make themselves known.
Fun fact, the Xbox 360 CPU is actually mostly just a beefier version of the normal parts of Cell.
depends on the quality of the port. given the SoC, DF praises a lot of ports like Doom, Wolf, and The Witcher
CoD absolutely would do over a milli on Switch. it did so on the Wii and had a stable player base on the wii u. even the DS games did well enough to greenlight more sequels, though those where comparatively cheap games
- Pronouns
- He/him
Do you think Power10 is less interesting than Power8, and why? I don't think either would be suitable for a console, but I find them more interesting than x86 server processors.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I see. Was more thinking about if they would port an old CoD game. I feel like the games are more short living like FIFA. If they port one it probably has to be newest one or an recurring IP on switch.
Crusters
Koopa
- Pronouns
- He/him
I think the comparison was more comparing them to like, the ppc 601 revolution.
- Pronouns
- He/him
Ok, that was a bit longer ago.
thoughthaver
Chain Chomp
didn't one of the low effort fifa games sell surprisingly well on switch? i remember it was in the UK or something and people were shocked. so like there is an appetite for third party games, even relatively lesser versions on nintendo. pretty sure the "i only use my switch for nintendo games" folks are a dwindling minority at the very least.
Blue Monty
Inkling
- Pronouns
- he/him
It's not just one week is a regular trend, in retail FIFA Switch is the best selling version in mainline europe a lot of weeks and it charted really high on these month eShop
Crusters
Koopa
- Pronouns
- He/him
I find Time becomes wobbly after a certain point.
the modern warfare remake would be plenty popular as it's still popular now. it might have to sit on its own server, but I think a studio can pare the game down to be quite fun on Switch.
I'm surprised they haven't tried porting CoD mobile
kookycake
Bob-omb
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
With Nate on vacation, THERE'S NO TELLING WHAT COULD HAPPEN!!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A Direct Mini? Not confident at all.
An announcement? Perhaps even THE announcement? I think it's very possible. But AN announcement is almost certain, in my opinion.
Blue Monty
Inkling
- Pronouns
- he/him
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nope, but a Pokémon trailer or a Pokémon presents? Yeah.
insert Field of Dreams quote
Absolutely agreed. People need to understand that, increasing third party sales is a business opportunity.
A lot of people like euphemisms, but third parties do not sell well on the Switch, a lot of games are profitable and everything, but compared to Xbox and PS, it's laughable, it's like 5-10 times less on average for the big games.
If Nintendo can change that, this would obviously mean billions of dollars for Nintendo, but for some reason some people have a hard time understanding that.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well tell us, will the "Future take shape" or not?
If a Direct happens this week, I don't expect it to be a mini.
I am fairly confident that there will be multiple announcements from Nintendo this week, just because of how much smoke there is, but the full extent of them is unknown. The hardware being announced is definitely a realistic possibility.
Cuzizkool
Shriekbat
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What features from Switch do you guys want improved or implemented in Drake the most? Because I’ve given this way too much thought, I’ve listed what I value most in graphics, from first to last:
Resolution>frame rate>pop in>draw distance>textures>polygons>ray tracing.
I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t care about ray tracing.
I’ve been so focused on what Drake can do in terms of 4K or 60fps, that I’ve kind of forgot about the other features. I think about the image of Link on the cliff looking at the castle in BOTW, and while 4K would be great, seeing Hyrule castle with less “fog” in draw distance would be cool too.
Resolution>frame rate>pop in>draw distance>textures>polygons>ray tracing.
I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t care about ray tracing.
I’ve been so focused on what Drake can do in terms of 4K or 60fps, that I’ve kind of forgot about the other features. I think about the image of Link on the cliff looking at the castle in BOTW, and while 4K would be great, seeing Hyrule castle with less “fog” in draw distance would be cool too.
What Miyamoto means is that basically they greatly improved the dev tools for Switch, I'm not a Switch dev, but from what I've heard that seems to be true.I think is important to check this interview before Switch launched:
Switch was already the start of a change in Nintendo to give a platform that makes porting easy for 3rd parties instead of just being focused in 1st party teams, Drake will just continue this trend.Miyamoto, Takahashi and Takeda on Switch's third-party support, ease of porting, more
Nintendo has just published a translated transcript of the Q&A session at their latest Corporate Management Policy Briefing. The following question is about Nintendo’s third party relations regarding the Switch, how Nintendo’s own internal development teams are handling it and Nintendo...
Miyamoto:
Regarding our software development environment, we have taken the software development teams for home console systems and for handheld systems, which used to be two different departments, and integrated them into one, and this has been very beneficial as they are now developing software as a team in the same environment. In addition, third-party developers who are making software for PC can now easily adapt that software to work on our platform. In the current development environment, I'd say that it would take less than a year for them to port a PC game to Nintendo Switch.
Takahashi has also commented in the importance of 3rd party deals and 3rd parties in generals in the platform, we should forget the image of Nintendo in the old days of ignoring everything that isn't Nintendo.
However, this is only one side of the porting process. The huge gap in power is what makes it so difficult to port big games, doesn't matter how good your dev tools are, if it can't reach the same poly count as the other platforms at an acceptable performance, that means a lot of work for the dev.
For me, it's overall poly count and sharp textures.What features from Switch do you guys want improved or implemented in Drake the most? Because I’ve given this way too much thought, I’ve listed what I value most in graphics, from first to last:
Resolution>frame rate>pop in>draw distance>textures>polygons>ray tracing.
I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t care about ray tracing.
My favourite franchise is Pokémon, for me it was painful to see how much a game with such great Gameplay like Arceus suffered with the worst implementation of draw distance and level of detail I've ever seen in my life.
Using PLA as an example, I would want max level of detail for the terrain for like 500 meters, overall higher polycount terrain, smooth LOD transitions, sharp textures even when close, draw distance for terrain details like grass of like at least 200 meters, big rocks and trees should always be visible, Pokémon rendered at full framerate for 1 km.
That's more important to me than rendering resolution or even 60 fps, pop-in is just so distracting and one of the worst things a game can have visually. BOTW would also hugely benefit form the same improvements.
I do want ray tracing in realistic games, Metroid Prime 4 should look stunning with it.
Other than many people, I hope they keep the 720p screen, more resolution on a handheld makes no sense, it's just a waste of battery and useless increase of cost. However, I do want a truly beautiful OLED, because I'm sorry, most people seem to be fine with it, but myself as a designer, I find the Switch OLED's screen ugly, it's a low quality screen that for a fact uses a saturation filter to compensate for it's lack of colour vibrance, which makes the games ugly and artificially over-saturated, you can turn off the filter but than you have basically a brighter LCD screen, but like always Nintendo gets away with selling an OLED screen that barely does the job it's supposed to do.
Spork4000
Tektite
- Pronouns
- He/Him
SiG
Chain Chomp
To me, I'm the opposite.
I, for one, would be happy that they still kept experimenting with the way they delivered console experiences. If there's one thing I'd have to admie, it's their insistence of challenging the perception of a standardized console experience.
I would prefer for Nintendo to never do gimmicks again.
As far as I'm concerned, keep the Switch forever, go with the phone model, keep iterating on it.
Having gimmicks just shifts their creative focus and in the end of the day it's always the fans that suffer by being forced to control a game in a way they don't want to, I absolutely hate the motion controls in fe the Switch versions of Mario Galaxy and especially Skyward Sword.
Last edited by a moderator:
