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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

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An update that I would do in the joycons and that I've never seen anyone comment, is to update the ZL and ZR, but not in the sense of making them "triggers".
The Dualshock 2 had an interesting technology in the buttons that the industry simply abandoned, they could detect the strength of your click, at the time it already had satisfactory results, with the evolution of technology I imagine that Nintendo would be able to make good use of it, making the triggers sensitive to pressure , but not needing to increase the size of the part itself.
 
ShaunSwitch said:
Also, in b4:

"Just stop you guys, clearly Nintendo are not releasing new hardware, why would they redesign their current box if new hardware was coming soon? Clearly 2025 is the earliest we get a new switch."
Click to expand...
Counterpoint: They're in fact releasing new hardware and they need so much cardboard that they HAD to make the regular Switch box smaller because there just wasn't enough cardboard for both hardware models.
 
ShaunSwitch said:
Also, in b4:

"Just stop you guys, clearly Nintendo are not releasing new hardware, why would they redesign their current box if new hardware was coming soon? Clearly 2025 is the earliest we get a new switch."
Click to expand...
My serious answer - maybe Switch Ultra gets a bigger, attention grabbing box. 😏
 
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LinkURL said:
An update that I would do in the joycons and that I've never seen anyone comment, is to update the ZL and ZR, but not in the sense of making them "triggers".
The Dualshock 2 had an interesting technology in the buttons that the industry simply abandoned, they could detect the strength of your click, at the time it already had satisfactory results, with the evolution of technology I imagine that Nintendo would be able to make good use of it, making the triggers sensitive to pressure , but not needing to increase the size of the part itself.
Click to expand...
Analog triggers is often requested in this thread. I never played an N64, so I don't have any experience with them, but I can see how Mario Sunshine is likely hamstrung without them
 
Angel Whispers said:
I would say that one thing I really didn't like about more recent Nintendo controllers is the absence of colour-coded action buttons. In earlier controllers such as the NES, GameBoy and GBA, you could get away with it, as there were fewer buttons to remember, but not so much now, as using the modern controller is pretty much learning an alphabet and phonetics.

CI7_New3DS_CStick_enGB_CMM_big.png



Something like this would make a difference, especially in tutorials because the colour can make learning game controls easier for some people to process. PS did this well, with the shapes, but regressed on the PS5 when they removed the colours from the shapes.




nintendo_3ds_xl_fire_emblem_fates_edition_1485840282_e838790d.jpg


Even this, from the Fire Emblem: Fates Edition of the New 3DS XL, can work. Some can process the colour instead of the letters. One of the above needs to come back in future controllers.
Click to expand...
While I absolutely love the aesthetics of colour-coded buttons, I think Nintendo’s modern UI design in-game of showing the button diamond and highlighting which of the four buttons to press solves this without the need for good colour vision ability.
 
oldpuck said:
Analog triggers is often requested in this thread. I never played an N64, so I don't have any experience with them, but I can see how Mario Sunshine is likely hamstrung without them
Click to expand...
GameCube and Wii are the only Nintendo consoles that ever had analog triggers on their controllers, not N64. And the Wii analog triggers are so obscure and unused that I bet most don't even remember they were there.
 
Pokemaniac said:
GameCube and Wii are the only Nintendo consoles that ever had analog triggers on their controllers, not N64. And the Wii analog triggers are so obscure and unused that I bet most don't even remember they were there.
Click to expand...
Those analog triggers were horribly underutilized (I can't think of any Wii games that used the classic controller before July 2009), and by the time the revision came around with proper ergonomic handles thanks to Capcom's collaboration, the analog triggers were nixed at the time Monster Hunter 3 Tri launched, and those pro controllers only exploded in sales because of the compelling software despite the lack of analog triggers.

So as thankful as I am for finally getting to experience Monster Hunter thanks to Capcom...c'mon, you couldn't have kept the analog triggers that wouldn't have screwed up Nintendo's controller hardware in the decade+ since?
 
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jnWake said:
Counterpoint: They're in fact releasing new hardware and they need so much cardboard that they HAD to make the regular Switch box smaller because there just wasn't enough cardboard for both hardware models.
Click to expand...
Don’t you know Nintendo use special cardboard with DLSS cores in it which means you only have to use an inch of material to get 4 inches?!?
 
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Do you guys think they'll play it safe and do a "Switch 2" kind of thing. I don't see them adopting a whole different type of functionality for the next console.

On a side note, I do miss dedicated Nintendo handhelds, but I understand they are a thing of the past now.
 
Hosermess said:
I think they had the extra click when they were fully pushed...but fully analog? can't recall. May have been, and I just never utilized it.
Click to expand...
It's not that you didn't utilize it, but that software didn't because it wasn't a standard option, which is why they had no problem removing it from the revision. But yeah, now that you mention it I think it was designed to have the same functionality as GameCube's shoulders.
 
Zedlars said:
Do you guys think they'll play it safe and do a "Switch 2" kind of thing. I don't see them adopting a whole different type of functionality for the next console.
Click to expand...
It will not be named Switch 2 but yes, it will be Nintendo most safe new console since the SNES.

Zedlars said:
On a side note, I do miss dedicated Nintendo handhelds, but I understand they are a thing of the past now.
Click to expand...
Other than the lack of double screen, I don’t think the lack of dedicated handhelds matters that much really. If what you want is smaller games like handhelds used to get that could be done anyway on the Switch without releasing new hardware, is just that Nintendo doesn’t seem to care at the moment about that type of games and it leaves it to indies to fulfill that void.
 
Hosermess said:
I think they had the extra click when they were fully pushed...but fully analog? can't recall. May have been, and I just never utilized it.
Click to expand...
I did just dig up my old classic controller to confirm: it does have an extra click like the GC analog triggers. It's softer and squishier, but definitely a tangible difference in pressure. But yeah, I can't think of any games that actually utilized it before the revision of the Classic Controller Pro

Zedlars said:
Do you guys think they'll play it safe and do a "Switch 2" kind of thing. I don't see them adopting a whole different type of functionality for the next console.

On a side note, I do miss dedicated Nintendo handhelds, but I understand they are a thing of the past now.
Click to expand...
Statistics don't mean jack, but it's about a 110% change that they won't change up the form factor for three reasons in my eyes:

1) It's a successful, known quantity, but I'm sure that goes without saying

2) Nintendo's already merged their home and handheld console development staff; for them to go back to their original plan would be to untangle the dev teams and that's an even bigger headache, or they completely leave behind the handheld gaming sector to let Steam Deck rake up all the cash

3) This one I feel is a lot more flimsy but a lot of people seem to ignore it; there was a quote from a Nintendo executive (if pressed I'll do my best to seek the source but I have earnestly no idea where to look), where following the reveal of the Switch and in reflecting on the dismal failure of the Wii U, someone on the hardware development team admitted to feeling stumped on where to go next after the Wii U. Thankfully they arrived on the final design of the Switch, but given the hurdles they had previously faced with Wii U and the big risk they were banking on for the Switch, what would have been their fallback plan if the Switch also failed? This was Iwata's brainchild, and while his vision would be executed to the very best of their ability to the end, they're only human. Iwata was also quoted as seeing Nintendo completely close down before they exit the hardware market, but with Iwata no longer at the helm and no comments from Furukawa(/Kimishima to a lesser extent) to suggest the same mindset, we have no idea if they have a contingency plan to simply exit out of the hardware market and go third party like Sega did in order to save the company.

Who knows if Nintendo has since come up with another console form factor gimmick if the Switch lustre finally dulls, but if they don't plan to iterate from the existing Switch form factor, part of me would be unsurprised if they announce they're exiting hardware to focus exclusively on software, even if it's from a position of strength and not of desperation

All that above though brings me to circle back to statistics not meaning shit, and in the foreseeable future I give that a -2% chance of actually happening in the current industry environment.
 
oldpuck said:
www.timeextension.com

Review: AYANEO Air And Air Pro - A Steam Deck Rival And Emulation Powerhouse

A true pocket rocket
www.timeextension.com www.timeextension.com

Reviews of the Aya Neo Air are starting to bubble up (DF also mentions it in their most recent Spider Man video). Some relevant comparisons here to a potential Switch, as it seems to be targeting a more console handheld like experience - with regard to heat, battery life, and noise
Click to expand...
the biggest mark against the Aya Neo Air is the Vega gpu. it's old and bust and won't have much more life left in it once devs fully transition to current gen
 
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oldpuck said:
www.timeextension.com

Review: AYANEO Air And Air Pro - A Steam Deck Rival And Emulation Powerhouse

A true pocket rocket
www.timeextension.com www.timeextension.com

Reviews of the Aya Neo Air are starting to bubble up (DF also mentions it in their most recent Spider Man video). Some relevant comparisons here to a potential Switch, as it seems to be targeting a more console handheld like experience - with regard to heat, battery life, and noise
Click to expand...

Less than 1 hour battery life if playing at max settings.

3 in an absolute best case scenario.
 
Blue Monty said:
It will not be named Switch 2 but yes, it will be Nintendo most safe new console since the SNES.
Click to expand...
SNES lacked backward compatibility and had some pretty radical controller changes, so more than that I think.
Other than the lack of double screen, I don’t think the lack of dedicated handhelds matters that much really. If what you want is smaller games like handhelds used to get that could be done anyway on the Switch without releasing new hardware, is just that Nintendo doesn’t seem to care at the moment about that type of games and it leaves it to indies to fulfill that void.
Click to expand...
I hope at some point they release an actually small Switch. I don't miss a handheld-only library, but I do miss there being something that's actually pocketable. Right now if you want such a thing you get to choose between an expensive FPGA machine or a cheap Chinese emulation machine, both mostly built for games 20+ years old.
 
oldpuck said:
Honest truth - I grew up on one button atari and 2 button NES. I had a lot of trouble with 4 buttons when I got to college and had access to more game systems.

The thing that really got me was Breath of the Wild's UI. Indicating the direction every time it mentions the button is what wired my brain up
Click to expand...
That reminds me, SNES was early enough in my life that acclimating to it was no problem. But it took a really long time for me to develop muscle memory for the PSX style controllers. I'm not sure why, but something about shapes made them so much more difficult than letters for me. Maybe because internally, I'm not visualizing the shapes, but verbalizing them such that they're potentially multiple syllables (at the very least, whole words), making them much 'bigger' than just letters?
YolkFolk said:
Less than 1 hour battery life if playing at max settings.

3 in an absolute best case scenario.
Click to expand...
Hmm, given that the battery for the base model is mentioned to be 28 WattHours, a sub-1 hour life at max settings means 28 or more watts at max? And a best case scenario of 3 means a minimum total power draw of just under 9 watts?

Also, hmm, it's a 5560U inside there. Guess that's Zen 2 cause I remember Lucienne being the odd numbered hundreds in the 5000 series for laptop chips, but let's double check with wikipedia... oh, it's actually Cezanne/Zen 3, the hell? (the 5500U is Lucienne/Zen 2)
This is one of those times where I hate AMD's numbering scheme for their mobile lineups.
 
YolkFolk said:
Less than 1 hour battery life if playing at max settings.

3 in an absolute best case scenario.
Click to expand...
Depends on the game. There is a 5watt option for 2D games and emulation that, in theory, gives something closer to 5-6
 
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User Threadbanned: Antagonizing a thread just because you're annoyed with the subject will not be tolerated. -Harina, hologram, paranoodle
guys any new leaks on this stupid unicorn that doesn't exist yet?
 
liam19 said:
guys any new leaks on this stupid unicorn that doesn't exist yet?
Click to expand...
Typically any relevant rumours are posted in the OP that you can check for updates, but nothing otherwise. Even if there were a leak of substantial information, it would have its own dedicated thread to discuss rather than be kept exclusively within this thread.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
SNES lacked backward compatibility and had some pretty radical controller changes, so more than that I think.

I hope at some point they release an actually small Switch. I don't miss a handheld-only library, but I do miss there being something that's actually pocketable. Right now if you want such a thing you get to choose between an expensive FPGA machine or a cheap Chinese emulation machine, both mostly built for games 20+ years old.
Click to expand...
From Nintendo’s perspective I don’t think they see the benefits of going smaller then the Lite either in terms of R&D or sales.
 
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liam19 said:
guys any new leaks on this stupid unicorn that doesn't exist yet?
Click to expand...
Well the odd thing is It does exist, the NVIDIA hack back in March more or less confirms that.
They've been working on the SoC and API for the thing since 2019,

It's just there isn't too much to talk about as with that very hack, we kinda had most major hardware-level questions answered.

  • CPU? We don't know the core count, but we know it's most likely going to be A78 or better for the cores and A78C most likely (So 6 cores is the probable minimum core count)
  • GPU? We more or less know the majority of stuff about this now, 1536 CUDA Cores, 12 RT cores, 48 Tensor cores, and extra cache versus an RTX 3050 Laptop because it's a Tegra SoC and therefore has access to the CPU cache.
  • RAM? LPDDR5 or better for the type, amount is a question, but considering they are putting a GPU that is literally 6x the core count versus OG Switch in it and supposedly targeting 4K Via DLSS, 8GB is a good minimum guess (as even with DLSS the framebuffer size is still 4K)
The only major question about the SoC itself we don't know is clock speeds which depends on the node and how big they want the gap between docked and portable to be GPU-wise.
 
blogs.nvidia.com

NVIDIA to Share New Details on Grace CPU, Hopper GPU, NVLink Switch, Jetson Orin Module at Hot Chips

Latest chip designs reflect the breadth and depth of NVIDIA’s platform innovation in AI, edge and high performance computing.
blogs.nvidia.com
⋮
Choquette, one of the lead chip designers on the Nintendo 64 console early in his career, will also describe parallel computing techniques underlying some of Hopper's advances.

Michael Ditty, chief architect for Orin and a 17-year tenure at the company, will provide new performance specs for NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, an engine for edge AI, robotics and advanced autonomous machines.
⋮
Click to expand...
 
LinkURL said:
An update that I would do in the joycons and that I've never seen anyone comment, is to update the ZL and ZR, but not in the sense of making them "triggers".
The Dualshock 2 had an interesting technology in the buttons that the industry simply abandoned, they could detect the strength of your click, at the time it already had satisfactory results, with the evolution of technology I imagine that Nintendo would be able to make good use of it, making the triggers sensitive to pressure , but not needing to increase the size of the part itself.
Click to expand...
The PS2 analog buttons died for a reason, they were awful to use in practice, especially when some devs did bizarre things like require you to pressure but not press the buttons in order to use basic game mechanics coughKojimacough
 
LinkURL said:
An update that I would do in the joycons and that I've never seen anyone comment, is to update the ZL and ZR, but not in the sense of making them "triggers".
The Dualshock 2 had an interesting technology in the buttons that the industry simply abandoned, they could detect the strength of your click, at the time it already had satisfactory results, with the evolution of technology I imagine that Nintendo would be able to make good use of it, making the triggers sensitive to pressure , but not needing to increase the size of the part itself.
Click to expand...
I would much prefer the GameCube’s implementation of analogue triggers over anything the DualShocks have to offer.
 
Alovon11 said:
Well the odd thing is It does exist, the NVIDIA hack back in March more or less confirms that.
They've been working on the SoC and API for the thing since 2019,

It's just there isn't too much to talk about as with that very hack, we kinda had most major hardware-level questions answered.

  • CPU? We don't know the core count, but we know it's most likely going to be A78 or better for the cores and A78C most likely (So 6 cores is the probable minimum core count)
  • GPU? We more or less know the majority of stuff about this now, 1536 CUDA Cores, 12 RT cores, 48 Tensor cores, and extra cache versus an RTX 3050 Laptop because it's a Tegra SoC and therefore has access to the CPU cache.
  • RAM? LPDDR5 or better for the type, amount is a question, but considering they are putting a GPU that is literally 6x the core count versus OG Switch in it and supposedly targeting 4K Via DLSS, 8GB is a good minimum guess (as even with DLSS the framebuffer size is still 4K)
The only major question about the SoC itself we don't know is clock speeds which depends on the node and how big they want the gap between docked and portable to be GPU-wise.
Click to expand...
We don't know for sure that the product will be this, plans change all the time. I think we shouldn't be 100% sure that the next Switch will be Drake (as much as I want it to be).
 
The next Switch will be Drake, unless Nintendo decides to just shelve it because something has gone disastrously wrong. I'm sure that you don't just shelve a product that you've been working on for a long time unless there's a major reason to do so. Right now, there seems to be more reasons that the Drake SoC is still happening than not.
 
Branduil said:
The PS2 analog buttons died for a reason, they were awful to use in practice, especially when some devs did bizarre things like require you to pressure but not press the buttons in order to use basic game mechanics coughKojimacough
Click to expand...
Yes, I think that exaggerated when said that was a good implementation, but with 20 years of technological evolution, maybe is sufficient to make a good use.
 
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Armoured_Bear said:
We don't know for sure that the product will be this, plans change all the time. I think we shouldn't be 100% sure that the next Switch will be Drake (as much as I want it to be).
Click to expand...
Unless Drake was cancelled (and it seems really, really late for that, considering dev kits have been out for awhile and rumors say it will release in the next nine months), I don't see a future scenario where it isn't the next Switch SoC.

Hypothetically, if the next one is a second shrinking of TX1 with higher clocks or some other half-step up, Drake wouldn't release until 2025 at the earliest I imagine, so why use Ampere? It'll be two generations behind at that point, and a SoC built from non-exotic parts (existing GPU uach, existing CPU core) being in development for six years would be incomprehensible.

So unless Drake was cancelled, or the next Switch is another Mariko model followed shortly by Drake, I think we can say beyond a reasonable doubt the next Switch will have Drake inside of it.
 
Zaimokuza said:
The hori split pad fit are slightly wider, for example. I'm not talking about making them like the wiimotes

www.nintendolife.com

Hori Reveals The Split Pad Fit For Nintendo Switch, Pre-Orders Now Live

An updated version of the Split Pad Pro
www.nintendolife.com www.nintendolife.com
Click to expand...
Don't bother arguing with Raccoon about size. He believes the holy dimensions of the Switch shall not be adulterated, amen.

Personally I would whole heartedly prefer bigger Joy-cons, current ones are not ergonomic in the slightest imo.
 
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