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

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The scenario: Nintendo is stockpiling chips to overcome shortages just in case.

Also: Nintendo’s provider can’t supply enough for Nintendo and predict that they will be experiencing lower forecast (from their end) to Nintendo despite Nintendo stockpiling



The duality.🤭


Anyway: we do not know what they provide exactly, we can get an idea but we don’t know if Nintendo has another provider for components that this company provides too. Like how they had multiple providers for the internal storage for the switch throughout its life cycle.
 
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Yeah stockpiling things so much that you can't produce anything is some loopy logic.
Anyone know what that company does? Like is it just assembling for the Japanese market or more than that?
 
Stinky Horse said:
Yeah stockpiling things so much that you can't produce anything is some loopy logic.
Anyone know what that company does? Like is it just assembling for the Japanese market or more than that?
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To be honest, it's more likely the large stockpile (which has a high value even if it's months worth of materials) is of a chip other than the one in the OLED Model et al.

I mean, how could they have both a stockpile of Mariko and be unable to source Mariko?

Probably because they're not stockpiling Mariko.

They have the money to invest in the parts they need, or else the raw materials section wouldn't be so bloated, but it is, but production on currently known models is still slowing. Which sort of implies a new more expensive model sooner than later. I'm thinking by the holiday season.
 
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Stinky Horse said:
Yeah stockpiling things so much that you can't produce anything is some loopy logic.
Anyone know what that company does? Like is it just assembling for the Japanese market or more than that?
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They can be stockpiling tons of one type of component while having a shortage of another. That's extremely common, and is referred to as a bottleneck.
 
Skittzo said:
They can be stockpiling tons of one type of component while having a shortage of another. That's extremely common, and is referred to as a bottleneck.
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True, that CAN happen. But a bottleneck to the tune of 9 months worth of supply of one part taking up space in a warehouse? I just don't see it. I think it's more likely that it's a smaller volume.of higher value assets...

Such as Drake SOCs.
 
Concernt said:
True, that CAN happen. But a bottleneck to the tune of 9 months worth of supply of one part taking up space in a warehouse? I just don't see it. I think it's more likely that it's a smaller volume.of higher value assets...

Such as Drake SOCs.
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They also changed how they did accounting, didn’t they say that 1/3 of the value was due to this?
 
Blue Monty said:
They also changed how they did accounting, didn’t they say that 1/3 of the value was due to this?
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I mean by my count that's still many more months worth of stockpile than was happening before the Lite or OLED launched. And for what? It's not like prices are more unstable now than in 2020.

I just don't see that NOT being Drake...
 
Blue Monty said:
They also changed how they did accounting, didn’t they say that 1/3 of the value was due to this?
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No, they didn't give a number about how much they affected the raw materials value but IIRC some fami members did some digging and found that the total change in overall asset value from the change in accounting was overall something like 10% of the value of their raw materials value alone, so it most definitely didn't affect the latter too much.
 
Skittzo said:
They can be stockpiling tons of one type of component while having a shortage of another. That's extremely common, and is referred to as a bottleneck.
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But that would be a supply shortage, rather than hording parts for an imminent product which their assembling partners are somehow clueless about.
 
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Concernt said:
I mean by my count that's still many more months worth of stockpile than was happening before the Lite or OLED launched. And for what? It's not like prices are more unstable now than in 2020.

I just don't see that NOT being Drake...
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The SoC isn't the only chip in a console. Furukawa has previously implied that the chip shortage affected chips other than the SoC. The Switch is unusual in that it needs to ship 2 controllers in order to be functional - that's roughly 3 times the amount of accelerometers (one set in each Joy-Con plus a set in the tablet portion), and 2 times as many BT chips.

The chip shortage doesn't affect Nintendo's ability to acquire Drake - they are the only customer, and every indication is that Nvidia has secured sufficient foundry capacity, with no delay in related devices. It does affect their ability to acquire other hardware. While Nintendo may indeed be stockpiling Drake as they come off the line, assuming the Switch.Next shares it's basic design with the current model, then it's entirely possible that Nintendo's current inventory is mostly chips shared across both devices, and not SoCs at all.

Hosiden doesn't just assemble the Switch, of course. They have a large presence in the automotive industry. Mochizuki is looking at this as a bleeding indicator of Nintendo issues, but it's possible that the "uncertainty" entirely reflects lines of business not related to Nintendo at all. Or it could be that Switch.Next is delayed from Hosiden's expectations and the money from assembly there isn't coming in. Or, or, or...
 
www.bloomberg.com

Nintendo Supplier Withdraws Outlook Citing Chips Uncertainty

Hosiden Corp., a major assembler of Nintendo Co.’s Switch console, withdrew its fiscal year sales forecast citing difficulties procuring electronic components.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com

Hosiden Corp., a major assembler of Nintendo Co.’s Switch console, withdrew its fiscal year sales forecast citing difficulties procuring electronic components.

The Osaka-based company said uncertainty about its own and its clients’ ability to secure sufficient chips pushed it to retract its previous outlook in a filing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday. More than half of Hosiden’s revenue comes from its Nintendo business, according to company documents, suggesting Switch console production may be falling behind schedule.


Nintendo reports earnings on Wednesday. The company has said it plans to sell 21 million Switch units in the fiscal year ending March. A company representative declined to comment.


Hosiden shares surged as much as 14% in Tokyo on Friday after the assembler reported better-than-forecast earnings for the April-June period and consequently upgraded its forecast for the half-year term ending September. The weakened yen boosted those results, however currency volatility and semiconductor procurement uncertainty made it unfeasible to offer a reasonable projection for the full year, the company said.

“The newest outlook by Hosiden shows production is likely to decline in the July-September quarter from April-June, which should be the other way around for the entertainment business, which tends to ramp up output in the buildup to the year-end holiday season,” Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda said. “This suggests its client’s fiscal year plan is becoming harder to achieve.”
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So I'm not sure if this means the Switch in general is going to sell less than 21 million FY, or if another supplier is building the Drake.
 
Josh5890 said:
www.bloomberg.com

Nintendo Supplier Withdraws Outlook Citing Chips Uncertainty

Hosiden Corp., a major assembler of Nintendo Co.’s Switch console, withdrew its fiscal year sales forecast citing difficulties procuring electronic components.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com



So I'm not sure if this means the Switch in general is going to sell less than 21 million FY, or if another supplier is building the Drake.
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It likely means neither of those things. All it means is that one parts supplier is facing uncertainty about having enough components for their entire business (not just Nintendo) and is withdrawing their previous financial forecast due to said uncertainty.
 
oldpuck said:
The SoC isn't the only chip in a console. Furukawa has previously implied that the chip shortage affected chips other than the SoC. The Switch is unusual in that it needs to ship 2 controllers in order to be functional - that's roughly 3 times the amount of accelerometers (one set in each Joy-Con plus a set in the tablet portion), and 2 times as many BT chips.

The chip shortage doesn't affect Nintendo's ability to acquire Drake - they are the only customer, and every indication is that Nvidia has secured sufficient foundry capacity, with no delay in related devices. It does affect their ability to acquire other hardware. While Nintendo may indeed be stockpiling Drake as they come off the line, assuming the Switch.Next shares it's basic design with the current model, then it's entirely possible that Nintendo's current inventory is mostly chips shared across both devices, and not SoCs at all.

Hosiden doesn't just assemble the Switch, of course. They have a large presence in the automotive industry. Mochizuki is looking at this as a bleeding indicator of Nintendo issues, but it's possible that the "uncertainty" entirely reflects lines of business not related to Nintendo at all. Or it could be that Switch.Next is delayed from Hosiden's expectations and the money from assembly there isn't coming in. Or, or, or...
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FYI, Hosiden isn’t one that assembles. That’s Foxconn.



For anyone curious on the Steam deck with Genshin Impact:


As you can see, it’s GPU utilization is very high and almost 100% at all times but the CPU utilization never really got that high.

Hovered more in the 60-70% range.

I wonder if the memory bandwidth is the issue here…

Keep in mind, this is different from the other comparisons. GI isn’t native to Steam deck afaik.
 
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ReddDreadtheLead said:
FYI, Hosiden isn’t one that assembles. That’s Foxconn.



For anyone curious on the Steam deck with Genshin Impact:


As you can see, it’s GPU utilization is very high and almost 100% at all times but the CPU utilization never really got that high.

Hovered more in the 60-70% range.

I wonder if the memory bandwidth is the issue here…

Keep in mind, this is different from the other comparisons. GI isn’t native to Steam deck afaik.
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Genshin Impact is still a mobile game at heart with extra effects for console/pc. 100% gpu utilization doesn't strike me as weird when you see the power consumption. the framerate is weird though. I would have expected higher
 
On the subject of the Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port, as I've discussed before;

With the removal of the USB 3.0 port and a LAN port that only supports USB 2.0 speeds, it seems clear that the USB 3.0 bandwidth has been set aside for something. Furthermore we are aware of datamines of the Nintendo Switch System Software what refer bluntly to "4K" over "USB3", and that the Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port indeed has a HDMI 2.0 port.

From my own testing, the HEG-005 which comes with the Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port and OLED Model is capable of a 4K60 HDR signal (tested with an Xbox Series X.). Also, that the connection speed of the LAN port cannot exceed the speeds approached via a USB 2.0 connection (OLED Model and the Nintendo Switch Dock with LAN Port allow you to use the built in LAN Port or a USB LAN adapter, and speeds are identical.)

All this continues to imply, at least to me, that this dock is overbuilt, overengineered, and has little reason to exist unless it is indeed intended to be future proof. Why reserve USB 3.0 lane by routing the LAN port through 2.0 lanes unless they were to be used for the only port that remains; HDMI.
 
My Switch improved after I cleaned it inside, but it can still whine a bit under stress. If I was more skilled, I would’ve changed the fan.

So I hope the next Switch comes early enough 😅
 
Tailzo said:
My Switch improved after I cleaned it inside, but it can still whine a bit under stress. If I was more skilled, I would’ve changed the fan.

So I hope the next Switch comes early enough 😅
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I remember my V1 would scream with Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion, but my OLED Model barely even runs its fan at all! It's pretty impressive.
 
oldpuck said:
Both do - Foxconn does the majority, but Nintendo pushed more production Hosiden’s way when the child labor accusations came out
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Do you have a source on that? This is the first I’ve heard of this, and the only thing I can find of Hosiden is that they manufacture specific parts, but have no assembly facility for something like a switch of any kind.

I am aware that they’ve moved part of their production outside of China, but that was to like Vietnam. And due to COVID. I’ve never heard of it being due to the child labor accusations.

I do remember them getting asked about it by investors about the child labor at factories, but again I’ve never heard of the bolded.

ILikeFeet said:
Genshin Impact is still a mobile game at heart with extra effects for console/pc. 100% gpu utilization doesn't strike me as weird when you see the power consumption. the framerate is weird though. I would have expected higher
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I brought it up as it would be an interesting port to observe, admittedly an unoptimized game vs an optimized switch(?)/Switch 2 port would be interesting to see.

I’d imagine they’d just use the mobile version for it and tweak higher (or lower) as needed, rather than the PC/console version as the mobile version would already reduce a lot of the work needed to be done to this.

Not that they are that different mind you.
 
Dekuman said:
Won't be the first time a game with a mobile version gets a reworked console version instead. Fortnite is a big example of this. Switch got the console port.
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The big difference is that in this case the base is a mobile game, in reality the PC/Console versions are still based on the mobile version. It makes more sense to do the same with the Switch SKU build from the mobile version a console port, trying to make the PC/PS4 version into Switch seems a bad idea
 
Blue Monty said:
The big difference is that in this case the base is a mobile game, in reality the PC/Console versions are still based on the mobile version. It makes more sense to do the same with the Switch SKU build from the mobile version a console port, trying to make the PC/PS4 version into Switch seems a bad idea
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Yeah things get a bit muddy when the base game is a mobile game.
I think ultimately, it will just a a Switch fork of whatever they've got running. That said, I don't think Nintendo will want it to be missing console features.
I don't play the game and not really clued in to what the consoles have vs. mobile but look at the Civ6 port, granted Switch was the lead platform there.

Aspyr took the mobile iOS version and improved it for consoles.
 
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When I said mobile version, I meant because they share their CPU architecture :p

Not because of their GPU.

There’s a PC version and a mobile version, I’d assume it makes sense they take the mobile version and work from there rather than take the pc version, compile it for the switch, then work on it.

Dekuman said:
Won't be the first time a game with a mobile version gets a reworked console version instead. Fortnite is a big example of this. Switch got the console port.
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ILikeFeet said:
The line between mobile, console, and PC gas been so blurred, I don't really consider them segments anymore
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Blue Monty said:
The big difference is that in this case the base is a mobile game, in reality the PC/Console versions are still based on the mobile version. It makes more sense to do the same with the Switch SKU build from the mobile version a console port, trying to make the PC/PS4 version into Switch seems a bad idea
Click to expand...
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
When I said mobile version, I meant because they share their CPU architecture :p

Not because of their GPU.

There’s a PC version and a mobile version, I’d assume it makes sense they take the mobile version and work from there rather than take the pc version, compile it for the switch, then work on it.
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what is mobile but PC at low settings? 🤔
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
Do you have a source on that? This is the first I’ve heard of this, and the only thing I can find of Hosiden is that they manufacture specific parts, but have no assembly facility for something like a switch of any kind.
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Sorry, I was stating correlation, not causation. Foxconn has been accused of child labor (and Uighur slave labor) multiple times, all the way back to the WiiU, every time Nintendo puts out a statement, shifts responsibility to Foxconn, and then a few years later it pops back up. Wasn't there a dedicated thread to this or am I misremembering?

...okay, so I looked it up and while the first reports of moving to Hosiden Vietnam I saw were in 2020 after he Australian report on Foxconn's Uighur labor camps, but it looks like the actual move was in 2019 - that's when Digitimes first reports it, speculating it was to dodge the China/US tariff war. So it wasn't even correlation, my mistake
 
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I think there is one thing that has been missed when talking about switch ports, mobile vs pc versions.

The focus has been on Cpu architecture mostly but people are forgetting the often vastly different control schemes and infrastructure that surrounds mobile.

Things such as the MTX implementation, controls, UI etc also take a while to rebuild for a new platform so I don't think the decision on which version is easier to port is simply a case of "The CPU is similar so let's port the mobile version."
 
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I was taking a look at the state of handheld PCs and found kinda funny that when emulation benchmarks pop-up it's usually games that already run well on the Switch. Try Age of Calamity you cowards

I saw this 6800U APU chip that will show up in upcoming devices and it seems to outperform the Steam Deck already. The Steam Deck chip seems to outperform it in under 11w consumption though, so it will be interesting to see how the manufacturers will handle it (I don't have much idea about the state of cooling and battery tech). These devices are definitely interesting and I'll be following some news but I'm holding out buying one due to cost-benefit and lack of familiarity with the brands. GPD Win Max 2 looks interesting as it's basically a mini-laptop that can also be a handheld
 
If I was Nintendo, when would be the best time to announce and release while striking a balance of maximizing the amount of consoles and software for Switch and Drake, without drastically lowering Switch sales (which is still selling well).

There's a lot of factors and scenarios to take into account, including if Drake will be backwards compatible with switch games right out of the gate--like literally buying a switch physical or digital copy and putting it in the Drake.

Does it make sense to announce it before the new Pokemon games come out?

if 2022 release, what are the pros and cons of announcing it in August/September and releasing it in November/December?

if 2023 Spring release with botw, what are the pros and cons of anouncing it in October (before the holidays) vs January?
 
Kevin said:
You guys are so ambitious. I'm trying not to lose hope for a 2023 launch and you guys are trying not to lose hope for THIS YEAR! I love you guys! :LOL:
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There has been no indication or suggestion of any kind that it will be delayed so if you ever bought the late 22/early 23 window to begin with I'm not sure I understand why you're losing faith in 2023.
 
Skittzo said:
There has been no indication or suggestion of any kind that it will be delayed so if you ever bought the late 22/early 23 window to begin with I'm not sure I understand why you're losing faith in 2023.
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Just the lack of anything happening or any good leaks or rumors as of late. I mean I obviously don't know anything reagarding Nintendo's plans. I'm just a guy on the internet who wants new hardware so I couldn't even begin to really predict when Nintendo will release new hardware. I don't know. Hope we are all playing Nintendo games on better hardware next year. God I want me some 4K BOTW 2 next year with improved visual fidelity. That's the dream!
 
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Skittzo said:
There has been no indication or suggestion of any kind that it will be delayed so if you ever bought the late 22/early 23 window to begin with I'm not sure I understand why you're losing faith in 2023.
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Yeah, and anyway the difference between this year or H1 2023 is not that crazy. I have been waiting for a long time for something new anyway.
 
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