• 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.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

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

I think it is more likely in the future that we see Nintendo's own version of Xcloud, that works on PC and Smart TV's, then that we see Nintendo games running natively on Windows/Linux PC's.
 
Of course that’s true to a tiny extent when you realise “PC gamers” are estimated to be in the high hundreds of millions. It’s potentially as big of a market as mobile to Nintendo.

I don’t really care one way or another but if I was Nintendo as a business I’d put a selection of games on PC. That Smash clone has just hit 10 million players so I’d hate to imagine the kind of revenue they’d generate out of Smash and Kart alone on PC even ignoring the DLC.

The porting costs would also be minimal considering Switch’s power and architecture. Their games would run at 720p/60fps on laptops from five years ago.
You better warn the head of Xbox and PlayStation then although they’d tell you all it’s done is increase their R.O.I on older software without hurting their core business model.
Nintendo works off of selling consoles with compelling exclusive games. MS is about getting as many eyes on their property as well. Nintendo would need to be legally obligated to release their games on PC. A body like the EU could force Nintendo to have to release games on Steam using anti-trust laws. Sony and MS are releasing some of their games to PC, granted MS is releasing every first party game on PC, so if the EU was convinced they could at least sue Nintendo for anti-competitive practices.
 
Nintendo works off of selling consoles with compelling exclusive games. MS is about getting as many eyes on their property as well. Nintendo would need to be legally obligated to release their games on PC. A body like the EU could force Nintendo to have to release games on Steam using anti-trust laws. Sony and MS are releasing some of their games to PC, granted MS is releasing every first party game on PC, so if the EU was convinced they could at least sue Nintendo for anti-competitive practices.
There is no legal ground to force Nintendo to release their software anywhere at least in the EU. Only thing they could force is Nintendo losing the store monopoly of it’s own hardware/ecosystem.
There isn’t anything ‘anti-competitive’ about Nintendo not releasing games on PC or any platform/store.
 
Last edited:
Tabletop mode is probably one of the more underrated switch features.

How can that be improved if at all?🤔
I still like the idea of a dual-view display like Sharp used to make, it's similar to the 3DS concept but arranged to show a different screen to two viewers instead of 3D to two eyes.
There's arguably not enough split screen games to be worth it though, but Splatoon could be made to work. In theory you may be able to run two different OG Switch games simultaneously!
 
Last edited:
There is no legal ground to force Nintendo to release their software anywhere at least in the EU. Only thing they could force is Nintendo losing the store monopoly of it’s own hardware/ecosystem.
There isn’t anything ‘anti-competitive’ about Nintendo not releasing games on PC
I don't think it would happen either. Though the EU is the only government body that could force Nintendo unless the shareholders revolted against Nintendo.
 
I don't think it would happen either. Though the EU is the only government body that could force Nintendo unless the shareholders revolted against Nintendo.
Even right now the EU can’t because they would just get sued and would lose the case, they would need to change the laws and jurisdiction of what is considered anti-competitive to force companies to release software in other platforms and I don’t see that ever happening because it would affect a lot more than just Nintendo and videogames and as I said there isn’t really anything anti-competitive about not releasing games on PC.

If we mean about having the power to do it (if we consider it would be following the law) then any country + EU can do it but in almost all cases Nintendo would just stop doing business in the region if they lost the case, only if Japan/USA/EU force it maybe they would just accept .
 
Here's what's effectively a poster-child of a Mario Kart game that could be on PC since well -- I doubt Switch could handle this one as is.

They have this at Namco Funscape in Manchester, around £5 a go - and it's fucking awesome. It's over so quickly, but it's hilarious hitting fellow racers with a giant VR hammer. When Nintendo go VR, something like this will be a genuine killer app.
 
0
is MK VR looking better than MK8? kinda looks better than the other Arcade games and maybe a bit of a step up from MK8. I expect a Drake MK to look even better though.
 
0
Here's what's effectively a poster-child of a Mario Kart game that could be on PC since well -- I doubt Switch could handle this one as is.

Wow, I want to play this so badly. Hope to see Nintendo into VR and the kind of good ideas they would come up.
 
0
I still like the idea of a dual-view display like Sharp used to make, it's similar to the 3DS concept but arranged to show a different screen to two viewers instead of 3D to two eyes.
There's arguably not enough split screen games to be worth it though, but Splatoon could be made to work. In theory you may be able to run two different OG Switch games simultaneously!
Actually? Considering the jump it might just be able to play 2 switch games at once now that I think about it 🤔🤔🤔

By that I mean two independent versions of the same game at once in split screen.

And at 60FPS!
 
Depends on if Nvidia can be convinced to use one of Samsung's more recent process nodes (Samsung's 5LPE process node or newer) for the fabrication of more than one product. Nvidia usually secures capacity for a process node to fabricate more than one product. (Of course, the Tegra X1 is an exception.)

Orin and Drake alone would probably eat up whatever allocations Samsung can realistically deliver to Nvidia to supply both Nintendo and automotive manufacturers. Not to mention there's a good possibility that maybe Nvidia's entry level gpu's might stay over on a more cost effective node, especially since AMD hasn't really challenged them in that segment yet...
 
So were Sony until the past couple of years.
Most of PlayStation revenue comes from third parties, in Nintendo case over 70% of revenue comes from 1st parties. It really isn’t the same case, plus Nintendo only releasing games on their platforms gives them a safe pillow in the future, they would have been able to revive their hardware business with the Switch if they released the games also on PC having this games locked to Nintendo hardware means that in the future they can always depend on them in case things go wrong

I also don’t think Nintendo business model would work well on PC, first they wouldn’t put their games on Steam/Epic due to them wanting the full cut and they also wouldn’t discount games and release them at full price which is a disaster recipe in the PC market.
 
8nm node from Samsung and nothing moar. You'll learn to love it too...

I probably should have been clearer in my perfect storm scenario, but in this situation I could see Samsung get extremely aggressive to land manufacturing of the Drake SoC by giving a great package deal to Nintendo on OLED displays, RAM and UFS storage.
Samsung would greatly want to be in the Nintendo Switch business because it's a guaranteed high volume seller for the next 4-5yrs and not necessarily on their cutting-edge process.
 
playstation kind of has other things going for them though
One of PlayStation’s main selling points for the past decade is their first party line up like Gran Turismo, God of War, Horizon, TLOU, Spider-Man etc. Them putting those games on PC is a huge deal for the industry and shows us how fast it and companies strategies can change.

I don’t think releasing the big four exclusive Switch games from 2017 and Smash on PC would hurt Nintendo’s business to any noticeable degree intact I think it would grow their business significantly especially as those games are now reaching saturation point with the current install base. Of course we would only know for sure if they did it.

Sorry for the off topic.
 
Considering that Nintendo‘s properties are one of the most coveted IPs in this industry that they get pirated to no end much quicker than other games, I can not see a logical reason for why they release it on a platform such as PC and expect it all to be daisies and ponies and rainbows. it’s not really the same for them as Sony or Microsoft.

Microsoft releases their games, of what they have that is, on their first party platforms.

Sony does it because the draw for their platform isn’t even their first party IPs, it’s the third party games. They’re not coveted to the same extent as Nintendo‘s intellectual properties, they are a stratosphere below in terms of that. I am not saying their IPs are not good (I love them), I’m saying that the consumer yearn for those intellectual properties is significantly lower for those games than it is for Nintendo games. Horizons zero dawn only did 1-2 million on PC but only 20 million on PlayStation and it was with numerous discounts over the course of its lifetime, it didn’t come out swinging doing 20 million.

Sony had to build that.


These three are not comparable whatsoever. If Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo put their games on the Apple laptops that are based on Apple Silicon, that would be a much more comparable position of basically putting their games as third-party publishers onto a platform. But I know no one here likes playing on Mac so….. you’re SoL.
 
Considering that Nintendo‘s properties are one of the most coveted IPs in this industry that they get pirated to no end much quicker than other games, I can not see a logical reason for why they release it on a platform such as PC and expect it all to be daisies and ponies and rainbows. it’s not really the same for them as Sony or Microsoft.

Microsoft releases their games, of what they have that is, on their first party platforms.

Sony does it because the draw for their platform isn’t even their first party IPs, it’s the third party games. They’re not coveted to the same extent as Nintendo‘s intellectual properties, they are a stratosphere below in terms of that. I am not saying their IPs are not good (I love them), I’m saying that the consumer yearn for those intellectual properties is significantly lower for those games than it is for Nintendo games. Horizons zero dawn only did 1-2 million on PC but only 20 million on PlayStation and it was with numerous discounts over the course of its lifetime, it didn’t come out swinging doing 20 million.

Sony had to build that.


These three are not comparable whatsoever. If Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo put their games on the Apple laptops that are based on Apple Silicon, that would be a much more comparable position of basically putting their games as third-party publishers onto a platform. But I know no one here likes playing on Mac so….. you’re SoL.
To add to this, Sony is now all about chasing the super high-end AAAA market. This means their games' budgets are going to be ballooning, which means recouping the costs will be harder and harder to do. The problem for them is that they (and the AAA industry overall) have trained their audience to expect steep discounts on games shortly after they launch. So how do you recoup development costs for your newest AAAA game when it won't sell more than a few million at full price?

You put it on other platforms.


Nintendo does not have this issue, their games are selling 20, 30, 40M+ at full price or nearly full price for like half a decade or more. And these games have miniscule budgets compared to that of Sony's AAAA games. So they have absolutely no reason to put these games on other platforms, they have more than recouped the dev costs and the games are more than fulfilling the purpose of drawing people to the platform.

There is zero business reason for them to offer these games on other platforms with things as they are now.
 
I don’t think releasing the big four exclusive Switch games from 2017 and Smash on PC would hurt Nintendo’s business to any noticeable degree intact I think it would grow their business significantly especially as those games are now reaching saturation point with the current install base. Of course we would only know for sure if they did it.

Sure Nintendo would get some decent coin for those 2017 games but I wouldn't call that "growth". I assume that when the next round of those games are released, the expectation of them coming to PC eventually would put a damper on their Nintendo-platform sales, and the sales of the platform itself. Not worth the risk.
 
To add to this, Sony is now all about chasing the super high-end AAAA market. This means their games' budgets are going to be ballooning, which means recouping the costs will be harder and harder to do. The problem for them is that they (and the AAA industry overall) have trained their audience to expect steep discounts on games shortly after they launch. So how do you recoup development costs for your newest AAAA game when it won't sell more than a few million at full price? You put it on other platforms. Nintendo does not have this issue, their games are selling 20, 30, 40M+ at full price or nearly full price for like half a decade or more. And these games have miniscule budgets compared to that of Sony's AAAA games. So they have absolutely no reason to put these games on other platforms, they have more than recouped the dev costs and the games are more than fulfilling the purpose of drawing people to the platform. There is zero business reason for them to offer these games on other platforms with things as they are now.
AAAA games? I only heard that when Ubisoft tried to use that word for their games. (lol)
 
To add to this, Sony is now all about chasing the super high-end AAAA market. This means their games' budgets are going to be ballooning, which means recouping the costs will be harder and harder to do. The problem for them is that they (and the AAA industry overall) have trained their audience to expect steep discounts on games shortly after they launch. So how do you recoup development costs for your newest AAAA game when it won't sell more than a few million at full price?

You put it on other platforms.


Nintendo does not have this issue, their games are selling 20, 30, 40M+ at full price or nearly full price for like half a decade or more. And these games have miniscule budgets compared to that of Sony's AAAA games. So they have absolutely no reason to put these games on other platforms, they have more than recouped the dev costs and the games are more than fulfilling the purpose of drawing people to the platform.

There is zero business reason for them to offer these games on other platforms with things as they are now.

To add to this point I'm still amazed that Nintendo only needed to sell 2 million copies of BoTW to break even, considering how many people worked on this game and it's time in development...
 
To add to this point I'm still amazed that Nintendo only needed to sell 2 million copies of BoTW to break even, considering how many people worked on this game and it's time in development...
That was a misconception, or mistranslation. Miyamoto basically said they operate as if their games need to sell 2M to break even on average, so they aim for at least 2M for every game, or at least on average.

Not that BOTW specifically only needed to sell 2M to break even, it was likely much more than that.
 
Even right now the EU can’t because they would just get sued and would lose the case, they would need to change the laws and jurisdiction of what is considered anti-competitive to force companies to release software in other platforms and I don’t see that ever happening because it would affect a lot more than just Nintendo and videogames and as I said there isn’t really anything anti-competitive about not releasing games on PC.

If we mean about having the power to do it (if we consider it would be following the law) then any country + EU can do it but in almost all cases Nintendo would just stop doing business in the region if they lost the case, only if Japan/USA/EU force it maybe they would just accept .
Yeah, I really doubt that would actually happen. The quickest way to get Nintendo games on PCs is for the Investors to "revolt".
 
0
That was a misconception, or mistranslation. Miyamoto basically said they operate as if their games need to sell 2M to break even on average, so they aim for at least 2M for every game, or at least on average.

Not that BOTW specifically only needed to sell 2M to break even, it was likely much more than that.
Wait what

Nintendo spends hundreds of millions per game??

Or close to it?

May check out in the R&D department though.

But that’s close to Ubisoft AAA title budgets🤔
 
I'd disagree hugely! Nintendo Switch is the most popular console among PC gamers because one thing PC is really bad at is portability and handhelds. Nintendo Switch slips neatly into a PC gaming setup. I mean I speak from experience, I was a PC gamer, moved to Switch, and ended up abandoning PC altogether.

Switch, unlike other consoles, does a lot of things gaming PCs either can't, or can't do without extremely high cost and added complexity.
Steam Deck: Am a joke to you?
 
Wait what

Nintendo spends hundreds of millions per game??

Or close to it?

May check out in the R&D department though.

But that’s close to Ubisoft AAA title budgets🤔
Zelda was probably $70-$100 million including marketing. The sequel will probably cost more.

Zelda is an outlier for Nintendo though in terms of development costs.
 
I don’t think releasing the big four exclusive Switch games from 2017 and Smash on PC would hurt Nintendo’s business to any noticeable degree intact I think it would grow their business significantly especially as those games are now reaching saturation point with the current install base. Of course we would only know for sure if they did it.
It's an interesting question. Would Nintendo cannibalize their Switch sales by releasing on PC more or less than they could make in PC sales. They probably have some numbers coming from the Nvidia deal. But given that they sell almost everything at a profit, discouraging someone from buying a Switch console, even minimally seems to cut against Nintendo's interest.

Still I believe Nintendo when they say they care about creating an experience, of which they would lose some control by releasing on PC even if some of that is NIH syndrome.

Maybe this would change if they had their own storefront on PC, but thats basically a non-starter.

All of this of course ignores that Nintendo would have to spend effort in porting their tools to X86 instead of ARM, which alone may or may not be a big deal.
 
Zelda was probably $70-$100 million including marketing. The sequel will probably cost more.

Zelda is an outlier for Nintendo though in terms of development costs.
Smash Ultimate is probably the only Nintendo game that really fits the "100 million or more budget" definition of AAA because of licensing and 3 years development after launch.
I think more of their games can come close to it with marketing tho(namely Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild and ACNH). I wonder how much Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4 will have spent on development when they release...
 
I smell an Nvidia rebranding some Ampere GPUs as lower tier 40's series cards in the near future...
that doesn't seem likely since Lovelace is already running the gamut. Nvidia will keep doing what they ahve been doing and use Ampere cards as stand-ins for lower tiers until the lovelace versions release
 
0
Zelda was probably $70-$100 million including marketing. The sequel will probably cost more.

Zelda is an outlier for Nintendo though in terms of development costs.
I'd guess the dev budget alone was on the upper end of that range. Then add marketing, localization, etc. Yeah Nintendo is cost conscious, and they limit things like VA and mocap, but a lot of people worked on BotW, and it was in dev for 5 years.
 
I can see MK 8 DX 4K being a launch title for the Switch 2 which is why a PC port is unlikely.

I am not opposed to Nintendo being on PC though but agree their SP or prestige games may not make sense. The few million In sales could hurt them from reduced hardware sales. What they could put on PC is a service game with cross play, and leverage a larger combined userbase for matchmaking
 
Oreos used to be made with lard. I know this because we were only allowed to have hydrox cookies since Oreos were unkosher.

TIL :) Another fun fact: the Norwegian equivalent to donuts is literally called "lard rings" (smultringer), so you can imagine the wariness from store-bought "donuts" 😅
But thankfully, most store-bought smultringer don't use lard as far as I'm aware, only homemade recipes include it. There was even a guy with a smultring stand during Christmas that mentioned that using lard for "lard rings" was no longer the case and hadn't been for a long time :)
 
I can see MK 8 DX 4K being a launch title for the Switch 2 which is why a PC port is unlikely.

I am not opposed to Nintendo being on PC though but agree their SP or prestige games may not make sense. The few million In sales could hurt them from reduced hardware sales. What they could put on PC is a service game with cross play, and leverage a larger combined userbase for matchmaking

while a 4k patch is inevitable if they have a physical re-release with this & all the DLC calling it MK8 Super Ultra DX i won't know what to say. at that point the MK8 horse will have been well & truly beaten to death.
 
Does this hint at Drake's node?
Not really?

It’s not impossible for nVidia to have one architecture on a newer node when the successor of said architecture is on said newer node.

Like the Tegra X1 is Maxwell 2.0 based, but the Mariko chip is on 16nm(12nm) same as the Pascal desktop GPUs. Maxwell was on the 28nm, but the TX1 was different and on 20nm, only one too.

That said, assume the worst at 8nm and be pleasantly surprised if it’s better, even if it’s like impossible to be 8nm.


Just assume it for your own sanity.
 
0
I smell an Nvidia rebranding some Ampere GPUs as lower tier 40's series cards in the near future...
They probably don't do that nowadays? They did shove out that 1630 and kept it labeled as a 16 series.
3050 will probably remain as the $250 MSRP tier option, I guess? And below that the market's effectively dead in the water for Nvidia. Stupid gradual price increases across all components eating away at margins until the entry price tiers are impractical :mad:
 
They probably don't do that nowadays? They did shove out that 1630 and kept it labeled as a 16 series.
3050 will probably remain as the $250 MSRP tier option, I guess? And below that the market's effectively dead in the water for Nvidia. Stupid gradual price increases across all components eating away at margins until the entry price tiers are impractical :mad:
I thought they were lowering prices of the ampere cards because they weren't meeting their sakes forecasting ? Or at least 3090..
 
0
I heard that headline, but I'm not sure if it applied down through the entire stack. That seems to be happening for the top end where demand has fallen sufficiently; there are 3090's available in the US below MSRP on Newegg. 3080's around MSRP, but some models are still above. 3070's are all above MSRP by at least 10%, but typically more. 3060's start at 12% above MSRP and go up from there. 3050's start at 27% above MSRP.
So the appetite for paying extreme prices has fallen off, but cards within more 'feasible' prices are still contested to the point of being above MSRP nearly 2 years after Ampere's launch.
 
0
while a 4k patch is inevitable if they have a physical re-release with this & all the DLC calling it MK8 Super Ultra DX i won't know what to say. at that point the MK8 horse will have been well & truly beaten to death.
I don't see why they need to. by the time Drake releases, it'll probably be soon to the next Mario Kart (which I still believe will be Smash Kart). MK8D will just be available digitally and with a patch to allow for 4K. maybe a combo pack with the game and DLC for a slight discount for those who want classic Mario Kart but not Smash Kart
 
0
Oh man, I woke up to 7 notifications from this thread alone today.

What on earth did I say... I suppose I'll have to go and see. 😂

Hope I didn't upset anyone too much.

Edit: I am now the sole user on page 425, send help. And a marmite sandwich.
 
Last edited:
0
Please read this staff post before posting.

Furthermore, according to this follow-up post, all off-topic chat will be moderated.
Last edited:


Back
Top Bottom