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

[Zaimokuza]

As someone whose formal education was research on visual acuity and recognition I can assure you that while Retina is a marketing term, it isn't silly. Pixel density smaller than foveal acuity at viewing distance is a Real Thing, and if you think "people can't notice the upscaling artifacts from 720p to 1080p" you are agreeing. Rendering density on a phone where peripheral viewing doesn't matter and you're primarily reading text is very different from playing a video game.

Again, I'm saying I agree with you. But there are multiple downsides to a bigger screen, and there are limits to the upsides. It's not a slam dunk, especially when you consider the drop in battery life.

I obviously can't argue on the science of it, since that's not my field. Apple has been making denser and denser screens despite that though.

Is 1080p on a screen the size of a phablet too much? It sounds... weird. Subtitles on my Switch Lite definitely don't look particularly crisp.

Edit: if the "Yeah" under the comments had been a "Thank You" like on Install Base I would've used it a lot today, but reacting a "Yeah" to someone who is arguing with me sounds like I'm making fun of them

 

[Deleted member 887]

I obviously can't argue on the science of it, since that's not my field. Apple has been making denser and denser screens despite that though.

Is 1080p on a screen the size of a phablet too much? It sounds... weird.

It's about how close you hold the thing to your face. The Switch screen is borderline, and if you hold it closer than 12 inches, it starts to break down.

Subtitles on my Switch Lite definitely don't look particularly crisp.

If you're running games through back compat, they're going to look worse on a 1080p screen. Obviously, if you render them at native 1080p, then they're going to look more crisp, but the games you're playing now, on Drake with a 1080p screen, are going to have fuzzier text. You say most people won't notice the upscaling artifacts, but if you're seeing fuzzy text now, you're absolutely going to notice the upscaling fuzz.

I think a 1080p screen makes sense. But I get why pixel art fans are especially upset by the idea, and I think the battery life loss might kill it.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Also I am sick and bedridden, which is why I'm writing so damn much today. I should shut up and stop flooding the thread with my brain addled responses to stuff.

 

[Zaimokuza]

It's about how close you hold the thing to your face. The Switch screen is borderline, and if you hold it closer than 12 inches, it starts to break down.


If you're running games through back compat, they're going to look worse on a 1080p screen. Obviously, if you render them at native 1080p, then they're going to look more crisp, but the games you're playing now, on Drake with a 1080p screen, are going to have fuzzier text. You say most people won't notice the upscaling artifacts, but if you're seeing fuzzy text now, you're absolutely going to notice the upscaling fuzz.

I think a 1080p screen makes sense. But I get why pixel art fans are especially upset by the idea, and I think the battery life loss might kill it.

Wow, 30 cm is a lot. I tried just now trying to see how distant I play from a handheld and it's just around 20cm.

I don't think BC games should be considered for the comparison. The Xbox BC initiative proved that while there's a minority of people that care deeply, it's not a system seller. Its importance should also wane as the years pass.

 

[Brofield]

"Retina" is a silly term coined by Apple for marketing purposes. The same Apple that uses 1080p+ screens on their 6.1 smartphones, while the Switch will have at least a 7 inch screen.

Aren't most (if not all) intensive phone games on iPhone rendered at 720p regardless? I know Fortnite certainly wasn't hitting 1080p before it was removed from the App Store. Having a 1080p screen for a mobile gaming device just seems like overkill when it will have to account for battery life and also more heat emanating from the CPU trying to push that many more pixels otherwise. 720p is more than fine for Switch/Drake.

It's arguably more important to maintain an OLED screen on the new device (preferably without playing panel lottery) than having a 1080p screen for handheld play. That will be a huge jump in IQ for a lot of early launch adopters who didn't see much value in upgrading to the OLED model like myself.

 

[Serif]

The amount of sub native handheld Switch games gives a poorer impression of the 720p screen than it should. I don't see many complaints about native 720p games, or how games look on the Steam Deck's 800p screen (the 16:10 variant). Drake hitting native res will be an immediate improvement. I'm not against a 1080p screen and the handheld res has to go up some point in the future, I'm just not sure it will be in the next two years.

 

[Look over there]

Funny enough, I'm not exactly sold on 8 GB for ram just yet for... a reason that I've only seen myself brought up so far? It's been a while, so I'll re-iterate:

• what is observable right now is that the TX1 has outlasted regular LPDDR4. 4X is what's in production and is what's used in Switches sold now. Also, that change from regular 4 to 4X was 'silent'. We know that the clocks remained the same for battery life going from original to v2. We also know that the amount remained the same.
• I think that Drake-based Switches will outlast regular LPDDR5. It could be Drake itself, or some future Drake revision, but I think that 5X usage is inevitable.
• I think that if Drake were to start with regular 5 and then a revision switches over to 5X, then I think that change will also be 'silent'. Same clocks, same quantity.
• Ergo, my bar for the amount of ram is the lowest possible configuration for 5X

As of today, for 128-bit, the smallest total for 5X is 12 GB. But I did say 'just yet' at the start; if/when 8 GB for 128-bit 5X becomes possible, I'll adjust.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Funny enough, I'm not exactly sold on 8 GB for ram just yet for... a reason that I've only seen myself brought up so far? It's been a while, so I'll re-iterate:

• what is observable right now is that the TX1 has outlasted regular LPDDR4. 4X is what's in production and is what's used in Switches sold now. Also, that change from regular 4 to 4X was 'silent'. We know that the clocks remained the same for battery life going from original to v2. We also know that the amount remained the same.
• I think that Drake-based Switches will outlast regular LPDDR5. It could be Drake itself, or some future Drake revision, but I think that 5X usage is inevitable.
• I think that if Drake were to start with regular 5 and then a revision switches over to 5X, then I think that change will also be 'silent'. Same clocks, same quantity.
• Ergo, my bar for the amount of ram is the lowest possible configuration for 5X

As of today, for 128-bit, the smallest total for 5X is 12 GB. But I did say 'just yet' at the start; if/when 8 GB for 128-bit 5X becomes possible, I'll adjust.

8GB on 128-bit started coming out recently, so there's no reason to think it wouldn't happen for 5X as well. especially in the time frame of a potential revision

 

[Concernt]

How can it be a commercial failure when it was barely commercialized to begin with?

It was barely commercialised because attempts at commercialisation failed. That's what a commercial failure is.

 

[Look over there]

8GB on 128-bit started coming out recently, so there's no reason to think it wouldn't happen for 5X as well. especially in the time frame of a potential revision

While I agree to the extent that it's very possible and not unlikely, the scenario that gives me pause on that is the demand for specifically that amount of ram to go with that bandwidth.
Basically, I'm assuming that phones are the main driver of LPDDR offerings. And I'm guessing that phones iterate at enough of a pace such that by the time that base LPDDR5 production dies off, 6 GB 64-bit LPDDR5X seems like a reasonable floor for new models.
Or in other words, I'm just having trouble seeing 4 GB 64-bit LPDDR5X phones in a post-plain 5 time. Not saying that'd be impossible, but I'm iffy on it.

 

[Concernt]

This is irrelevant. Your statement was "Nintendo notoriously cheaps out on RAM." Not "Nintendo's machines are generally specced lower than their counterparts."



The logic is that Nintendo releases low power devices, as you say. So to compare a Nintendo device to it's competitors, then weirdly single out the RAM, say it's less than the competitors, and totally ignore the rest of the hardware design isn't a valid way to decide if the amount of RAM is low. If Nintendo cheaps out on RAM specifically then we would expect to see less RAM in their machines relative to the rest of the speccs. We do not.

When Switch came out it was a mobile device with more RAM than the high end iPhone and comparable RAM to the high end Samsung device.
The Wii U had a GPU that was roughly the same class as a low end Radeon that shipped with half a gig of RAM, and the Wii U had 4 times that.
The Wii used an overclocked GameCube GPU, but gave it 8x the amount of dedicated graphics RAM.

These are not hardware designs that are RAM limited. Their limitations are elsewhere, so much so that a generous increase in RAM would not see significantly increased performance. The thing that Nintendo is actually notorious for is using excess RAM to overcome to limitations of their underpowered GPUs.

We know that Drake's performance profile puts it in the neighborhood of the PS4. Nintendo's pattern has been to land in last gen's power area, then add RAM to that to cover the gap. Which would be 12GB.

Do I expect 12GB? No. 8GB is perfectly fine.
Does Nintendo cheap out on RAM specifically? No.

For the record, I absolutely expect 12GB.

With economies of scale in the dozens of millions, 6GB LPDDR5 and 5X chips being more available than their 4GB counterparts matters. Cheaper per unit, perhaps not, but easier to source and more common across devices makes supply lines simpler, and that's where Nintendo makes savings.

So the benefits of 12GB aren't just "it's a lot more RAM" and "it's more than Series S", it's using the most commonly available parts that fit the spec which may also decrease prices.

I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm misinformed on that, but, that sounds like a perfect storm to make 12 the logical choice, to me anyway.

 

[Deleted member 887]

For the record, I absolutely expect 12GB.

I don't think you're wrong, at all.

There is, however, this weird thing where "better specs than we expected 6 months ago" turns into "the default, and anything less than this is a disaster". In February we were expecting the chip that became Orin Nano, and trolls were storming into the thread to say that was a level of power that Nintendo would never pursue, and we were idiots. Now there are folks saying that anything less than 6nm and PS4 Pro power will be a travesty.

I just want to set folks up to understand that if Nintendo somehow does figure out how to make 8GB cost effective, it's not the end of the world.

 

[Concernt]

I don't think you're wrong, at all.

There is, however, this weird thing where "better specs than we expected 6 months ago" turns into "the default, and anything less than this is a disaster". In February we were expecting the chip that became Orin Nano, and trolls were storming into the thread to say that was a level of power that Nintendo would never pursue, and we were idiots. Now there are folks saying that anything less than 6nm and PS4 Pro power will be a travesty.

I just want to set folks up to understand that if Nintendo somehow does figure out how to make 8GB cost effective, it's not the end of the world.

Oh I absolutely agree. My HOPES are quite high but I think my baseline expectations are reasonable. 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM is still probably in the realm of 7GB available to developers on a device where textures will likely be less than a quarter the size they would be on Xbox Series X. It's perfectly reasonable. Good, even.

My baseline expectations (as in, if it's below this I would be disappointed) are 8GB of RAM, 128GB eMMC, 8nm Samsung, original Switch battery life (2.5-12 hours depending on game), with visuals in the realm of Xbox One + DLSS. Around the 1TF mark - basically, the minimum viable clocks of Drake.

That's STILL basically a portable PS4 Pro in terms of capabilities. It would STILL be impressive to me. But less than that would be a cut down Drake, which is extremely unlikely, nigh impossible, and would genuinely disappoint.

However, while those are what my baseline expectations are, my actual predictions are a little higher. I expect at least 8GB. But given the evidence we have I would predict 12GB. Hope that makes sense.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I just want a Switch that can run Fall Guys at 60 FPS.

Is that too much to ask for???

 

[Concernt]

I just want a Switch that can run Fall Guys at 60 FPS.

Is that too much to ask for???

No, that actually seems extremely likely.

 

[Serif]

I just want a Switch that can run Fall Guys at 60 FPS.

Is that too much to ask for???

 

[Terrell]

It was barely commercialised because attempts at commercialisation failed. That's what a commercial failure is.

I mean… you’ve made this argument before and were wrong the first and second time you tried to make it, but for those not following along: eUFS is the guts of a UFS Card soldered onto a logic board, and that’s used in more than half of smartphones today, so one form factor being “barely commercialized” isn’t entirely relevant, because the transition to UFS Card product would be relatively easy due to the heavy commercialization of the same product in a different package. I’d say, given eUFS’ broad utilization, commercialization of the over-arching technology has been a resounding success, just one method of packaging that technology hasn’t been adopted by tech makers yet (but I/O in current devices easily paves the way for), so calling it a “commercial failure” is about as accurate as saying the same of SD Express, the format you were championing earlier. What’s good for the goose, etc.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Edit: if the "Yeah" under the comments had been a "Thank You" like on Install Base I would've used it a lot today, but reacting a "Yeah" to someone who is arguing with me sounds like I'm making fun of them

That was my first thought, but I like to use it to say "I appreciate where you're coming from even if we disagree"

 

[Dekuman]

I don't think you're wrong, at all.

There is, however, this weird thing where "better specs than we expected 6 months ago" turns into "the default, and anything less than this is a disaster". In February we were expecting the chip that became Orin Nano, and trolls were storming into the thread to say that was a level of power that Nintendo would never pursue, and we were idiots. Now there are folks saying that anything less than 6nm and PS4 Pro power will be a travesty.

I just want to set folks up to understand that if Nintendo somehow does figure out how to make 8GB cost effective, it's not the end of the world.

8 was a thought on Pro, but given this looks like a true generaitonal leap, it is far too low given this thing will be a portable PS4 and much more.

I don't think 12 is high, it's right in range of the what Nintendo has been doing accounting for the slowing pace memory growth. Instead of 2X what a PS4 had , it will be 1.5x and it's not even that out there given XBONEX was already a 12GB device.

 

[Deleted member 887]

However, while those are what my baseline expectations are, my actual predictions are a little higher. I expect at least 8GB. But given the evidence we have I would predict 12GB. Hope that makes sense.

It does! In fact, let's do my 6

1) New Hardware launches next year, which makes it possible to validate all these assumptions
2) It's got 12 GB of RAM... at 2133 Mhz.
3) It has a 1080p... LCD screen.
4) GPU runs at 800+Ghz in both docked and handheld mode... handheld disables half the SMs however
5) CPUs run at 1.5 Ghz... but only 6 are available for games, and the cores DVFS is enabled
6) There is a gimmick - JoyCons now have internal speakers and touch sensitive button surfaces. With HD Rumble this opens up dozens of control possibilities, including taptic shoulder buttons that feel like analog triggers, but only in games that want them... and the damn sticks still drift

 

[Concernt]

I mean… you’ve made this argument before and were wrong the first and second time you tried to make it, but for those not following along: eUFS is the guts of a UFS Card soldered onto a logic board, and that’s used in more than half of smartphones today, so one form factor being “barely commercialized” isn’t entirely relevant, because the transition to UFS Card product would be relatively easy due to the heavy commercialization of the same product in a different package. I’d say, given eUFS’ broad utilization, commercialization of the over-arching technology has been a resounding success, just one method of packaging that technology hasn’t been adopted by tech makers yet (but I/O in current devices easily paves the way for), so calling it a “commercial failure” is about as accurate as saying the same of SD Express, the format you were championing earlier. What’s good for the goose, etc.

Except I wasn't wrong. UFS card has launched. And hasn't succeeded. It doesn't have economies of scale, or many manufacturing partners.

SDexpress doesn't have any of these issues, of course. It also uses PCIe, so, I/O for it isn't an issue. In applications where it has been adopted, it actually has been a success. Because it's basically the only viable option for such applications. eUFS has been a resounding success. UFS Card has not. It's not helpful to conflate the two. No more helpful than conflating the success of NVME, eMMC or SD (UHS-I) to SDe, which I think we both agree would be unfair. Those aren't SDe. eUFS is not UFS Card.

 

[Concernt]

It does! In fact, let's do my 6

1) New Hardware launches next year, which makes it possible to validate all these assumptions
2) It's got 12 GB of RAM... at 2133 Mhz.
3) It has a 1080p... LCD screen.
4) GPU runs at 800+Ghz in both docked and handheld mode... handheld disables half the SMs however
5) CPUs run at 1.5 Ghz... but only 6 are available for games, and the cores DVFS is enabled
6) There is a gimmick - JoyCons now have internal speakers and touch sensitive button surfaces. With HD Rumble this opens up dozens of control possibilities, including taptic shoulder buttons that feel like analog triggers, but only in games that want them... and the damn sticks still drift

The most Nintendo outcome Nintendo could ever Nintendo. You'd have to respect the absolute gumption at that point. The sheer nerve.

 

[Deleted member 887]

With justifications...

It does! In fact, let's do my 6

1) New Hardware launches next year, which makes it possible to validate all these assumptions

Giving me a wide window to be right in

2) It's got 12 GB of RAM... at 2133 Mhz.

Orin Nano actually uses this clock speed to keep power consumption down, and it's one of those cuts that matters, but hides deep in the spec sheet.

3) It has a 1080p... LCD screen.

Galaxy A phones still use these, Samsung has a glut of them, they're cheap to acquire, and it's still an upgrade over the base model, and leaves a path for an OLED model in the future.

4) GPU runs at 800+Ghz in both docked and handheld mode... handheld disables half the SMs however

LiC has pointed out that this would be memory inefficient, with NVN2's implementation, but should work transparently. Technically it means the same amount of RAM is allocated in Handheld and TV modes for work queues, and it's more power efficient than clocking the same number of SMs by half

5) CPUs run at 1.5 Ghz... but only 6 are available for games, and the cores DVFS is enabled

A78 supports per core clocks with DVFS. Clocking 2 cores way down to run the os instead of one medium clocked core, and everything else to games is another power saving move

6) There is a gimmick - JoyCons now have internal speakers and touch sensitive button surfaces. With HD Rumble this opens up dozens of control possibilities, including taptic shoulder buttons that feel like analog triggers, but only in games that want them... and the damn sticks still drift

This sort of haptic feedback has been used elsewhere, like the Steam Deck and the iPhone 8, it feels like the sort of thing that fits within Nintendo's baliwick while not changing what the Switch is. And with graphite sticks making drift pretty common I don't expect expensive hall effect sticks to come to Nintendo until the industry moves over and the price comes down

 

[mariodk18]

When will we have our oficial prediction 2023 thread?

Everyone can make 6 predicitons.

6 why? Because it’s my lucky number. And we can check it out in December next year.

1. Launches with ToTK
2. Teased between Feb 7 and Mar 30
3. Full presentation (not direct) shortly after focused on Switch 2: launch date, games, updates, exclusives, price, basic specs (storage, battery life, etc.)
4. New 3D Mario and DK teased, both run 30 fps on Switch, 60 on Drake
5. $449, one SKU at launch
6. Will have exclusive features: voice chat, themes, groups, analog triggers

 

[LinkURL]

My guess on possible Joy-cons 2:

Same size and shape.
Same battery life.
Better connectivity, with even less delay.
Analogs with magnetic sensors practically ending the drift.
All buttons now have pressure sensors like on the PS2, but with much better technology.
Joycons 2 L and R now have infrared cameras, but worse than those currently used in the joycon R, however the cameras are on the opposite side of the control, behind the R and L buttons which are now made of a semi transparent dark plastic.
For that reason L and R buttons have been redesigned to be thicker, ZL and ZR are also a little lower to avoid obstructing the view of cameras in games that use them.
A USB sensor-bar also comes with the console in the box, and the main unit has small infrared LEDs activated in Tabletop mode.
UHD Rumble, with quality as good as Dualsense's Rumble, and even better motion controls.

 

[Raccoon]

My guess on possible Joy-cons 2:

Same size and shape.
Same battery life.
Better connectivity, with even less delay.
Analogs with magnetic sensors practically ending the drift.
All buttons now have pressure sensors like on the PS2, but with much better technology.
Joycons 2 L and R now have infrared cameras, but worse than those currently used in the joycon R, however the cameras are on the opposite side of the control, behind the R and L buttons which are now made of a semi transparent dark plastic.
For that reason L and R buttons have been redesigned to be thicker, ZL and ZR are also a little lower to avoid obstructing the view of cameras in games that use them.
A USB sensor-bar also comes with the console in the box, and the main unit has small infrared LEDs activated in Tabletop mode.
UHD Rumble, with quality as good as Dualsense's Rumble, and even better motion controls.

While I've come to really appreciate the elegance of not having a sensor bar, having recently set my Wii U back up has made me realize it's really not that bad, either. I'd be very excited for IR pointing to come back, especially with an implementation similar to what you've described.

 

[Bakuboy]

This is irrelevant. Your statement was "Nintendo notoriously cheaps out on RAM." Not "Nintendo's machines are generally specced lower than their counterparts."


The logic is that Nintendo releases low power devices, as you say. So to compare a Nintendo device to it's competitors, then weirdly single out the RAM, say it's less than the competitors, and totally ignore the rest of the hardware design isn't a valid way to decide if the amount of RAM is low. If Nintendo cheaps out on RAM specifically then we would expect to see less RAM in their machines relative to the rest of the speccs. We do not.

When Switch came out it was a mobile device with more RAM than the high end iPhone and comparable RAM to the high end Samsung device.
The Wii U had a GPU that was roughly the same class as a low end Radeon that shipped with half a gig of RAM, and the Wii U had 4 times that.
The Wii used an overclocked GameCube GPU, but gave it 8x the amount of dedicated graphics RAM.

These are not hardware designs that are RAM limited. Their limitations are elsewhere, so much so that a generous increase in RAM would not see significantly increased performance. The thing that Nintendo is actually notorious for is using excess RAM to overcome to limitations of their underpowered GPUs.

We know that Drake's performance profile puts it in the neighborhood of the PS4. Nintendo's pattern has been to land in last gen's power area, then add RAM to that to cover the gap. Which would be 12GB.

Do I expect 12GB? No. 8GB is perfectly fine.
Does Nintendo cheap out on RAM specifically? No.

You cannot give every single aspect of hardware specs the same level of importance, you can't say hardware A is 4x times more powerful than B in Y, so it should be exactly 4x more powerful in Z.

Having half the RAM is a bigger deal-breaker for ports than having half the GPU power. I expect anyone who has played games on a PC to know that, or anyone who has played third party games on Nintendo consoles, and have an understanding to why they are so much worse than elsewhere, or why they don't come at all.

A mid range PC can have the same amount of RAM as a higher end PC, but cheaping out on other aspects, because RAM is a much more determining force.

Nintendo could've easily put 8 GB on Switch, Nintendo is not Sony, they don't need to count every penny, they could afford to have a smaller profit margin to provide a much better experience, for relative cheap cost for such a rich company. They were most probably told do so by third parties. The fact that the hardware is weaker overall, should only encourage them to at least match or even overdeliver on the RAM side, like the SteamDeck does. The fact that the SteamDeck overdelivers on RAM, will give the hardware a longer life-cycle when it comes to Gen 9 ports, to compensate for the hardware's lack of GPU power compared to Gen 9 machines. Nintendo didn't and it severely hurt hundreds of games on Switch. Same thing can be said about the Wii U and 3DS, with the 3DS, Nintendo was hugely hurt for being too greedy on the hardware profitability, Reggie warned Iwata. At the end they had to correct themselves by doing a big price cut, and releasing a new model, that had oh look at that, much more RAM.

Comparison to smartphones obviously don't make any sense. Is an iPhone aiming to run The Witcher 3? No. Is it aiming to have a top camera? Yes. They don't need lots of RAM, they need other things, and it's also a completely different business with completely different profit strategies that cannot at all be compared.

So did Nintendo cheap out on RAM on their past systems? They absolutely did, that's a fact, the New 3DS is an example where they themselves basiclaly admitted it with their actions. Having more RAM would have hugely helped their systems, and Nintendo could absolutely afford it.

They didn't because they are pragmatic and don't necessarily want to provide the absolute best experience for their fans, Nintendo is all about "good enough". And like I said before, the results show that to most of their audience, they are right about cheaping out, but they are doing it.

 

[Bakuboy]

While I've come to really appreciate the elegance of not having a sensor bar, having recently set my Wii U back up has made me realize it's really not that bad, either. I'd be very excited for IR pointing to come back, especially with an implementation similar to what you've described.

I would prefer at least the option to have a sensor bar instead of just having to accept the Switch's horribly imprecise pointer controls. Imagine how much better Pikmin 3 or Mario Maker would he on Switch with a sensor bar.

 

[Bakuboy]

My guess on possible Joy-cons 2:

Same size and shape.
Same battery life.
Better connectivity, with even less delay.
Analogs with magnetic sensors practically ending the drift.
All buttons now have pressure sensors like on the PS2, but with much better technology.
Joycons 2 L and R now have infrared cameras, but worse than those currently used in the joycon R, however the cameras are on the opposite side of the control, behind the R and L buttons which are now made of a semi transparent dark plastic.
For that reason L and R buttons have been redesigned to be thicker, ZL and ZR are also a little lower to avoid obstructing the view of cameras in games that use them.
A USB sensor-bar also comes with the console in the box, and the main unit has small infrared LEDs activated in Tabletop mode.
UHD Rumble, with quality as good as Dualsense's Rumble, and even better motion controls.

I would really like all of that. Also, please give us real triggers.

 

[Bakuboy]

My instinct tells me that the new system needs Tears of the Kingdom far more than the inverse, and it needs to look notably better on the new system, otherwise many won’t even bother upgrading.

You should be right, but the sales of PS5 show that hardcore console gamers aren't that demanding and are just really desperate for new hardware. Let's see how it goes for Nintendo fans.

That's why I said TotK is not the ideal launch title, the art style is not good for showing hardware improvements in the best way, but it's probably the best possible title Nintendo has right now.

 

[ILikeFeet]

You cannot give every single aspect of hardware specs the same level of importance, you can't say hardware A is 4x times more powerful than B in Y, so it should be exactly 4x more powerful in Z.

Having half the RAM is a bigger deal-breaker for ports than having half the GPU power. I expect anyone who has played games on a PC to know that, or anyone who has played third party games on Nintendo consoles, and have an understanding to why they are so much worse than elsewhere, or why they don't come at all.

A mid range PC can have the same amount of RAM as a higher end PC, but cheaping out on other aspects, because RAM is a much more determining force.

Nintendo could've easily put 8 GB on Switch, Nintendo is not Sony, they don't need to count every penny, they could afford to have a smaller profit margin to provide a much better experience, for relative cheap cost for such a rich company. They were most probably told do so by third parties. The fact that the hardware is weaker overall, should only encourage them to at least match or even overdeliver on the RAM side, like the SteamDeck does. The fact that the SteamDeck overdelivers on RAM, will give the hardware a longer life-cycle when it comes to Gen 9 ports, to compensate for the hardware's lack of GPU power compared to Gen 9 machines. Nintendo didn't and it severely hurt hundreds of games on Switch. Same thing can be said about the Wii U and 3DS, with the 3DS, Nintendo was hugely hurt for being too greedy on the hardware profitability, Reggie warned Iwata. At the end they had to correct themselves by doing a big price cut, and releasing a new model, that had oh look at that, much more RAM.

Comparison to smartphones obviously don't make any sense. Is an iPhone aiming to run The Witcher 3? No. Is it aiming to have a top camera? Yes. They don't need lots of RAM, they need other things, and it's also a completely different business with completely different profit strategies that cannot at all be compared.

So did Nintendo cheap out on RAM on their past systems? They absolutely did, that's a fact, the New 3DS is an example where they themselves basiclaly admitted it with their actions. Having more RAM would have hugely helped their systems, and Nintendo could absolutely afford it.

They didn't because they are pragmatic and don't necessarily want to provide the absolute best experience for their fans, Nintendo is all about "good enough". And like I said before, the results show that to most of their audience, they are right about cheaping out, but they are doing it.

this reads like you already came to the conclusion that Nintendo is bad and made up evidence for it

 

[Bakuboy]

this reads like you already came to the conclusion that Nintendo is bad and made up evidence for it

If you think me saying that Nintendo cheaps out on RAM is saying Nintendo is bad, I'm not sure you're getting the point of the discussion, especially when I say in multiple comments that Nintendo is right to do so. Maybe you're possibly biased towards disbelieving anything that sounds negative, even if it isn't, when it comes to Nintendo? Even it someone provides a lot of arguments?

Providing a lot of arguments is the exact contrary of just being biased, I look up a lot of information on Nintendo, as you can read in my comments, I'm not a Nintendo hater just saying Nintendo is bad.

 

[Serif]

The fact that the hardware is weaker overall, should only encourage them to at least match or even overdeliver on the RAM side, like the SteamDeck does. The fact that the SteamDeck overdelivers on RAM, will give the hardware a longer life-cycle when it comes to Gen 9 ports, to compensate for the hardware's lack of GPU power compared to Gen 9 machines.

The Steam Deck 'overdelivers' on RAM because it's a PC that has to run an entire Linux OS (with an optional KDE desktop mode), the Steam client + overlay, any additional desktop apps a user wants like Discord, and the Proton compatibility layer along with mostly Windows PC ports which aren't optimized specifically for the hardware.

Not saying Nintendo should give the bare minimum, but Drake will not need to deal with the extra overhead and can get by with less.

 

[Bakuboy]

The Steam Deck 'overdelivers' on RAM because it's a PC that has to run an entire Linux OS (with an optional KDE desktop mode), the Steam client + overlay, any additional desktop apps a user wants like Discord, and the Proton compatibility layer along with mostly Windows PC ports which aren't optimized specifically for the hardware.

Not saying Nintendo should give the bare minimum, but Drake will not need to deal with the extra overhead and can get by with less.

That is also true, but the amount of extra RAM the SteamDeck can't just be for OS, especially when you can disable many of the features you mentioned.

I'm not saying Drake should do the same at all, I'm expecting 8, wishing 12, I was just explaining that RAM is a more determining force than GPU power, and how a hardware can benefit from having a lot of RAM despite being underpowered compared to the competition, to explain my overall point of Nintendo's conservatism when it comes to RAM.

 

[Bakuboy]

The better way to look at it is to look at my post upthread responding to your original comment. The Wii was basically a X360 pro, Switch was a refinement of that idea in a different form factor, so it doesn't fit neatly. If this new device is targeting the 2-4TF power range but improving on it with years of improvements to tech, then they will very likely go with more RAM. 12 makes sense (the XBONEX has 12), but 16 also since 8GB RAM modules are widely used in phones and the price difference may not be huge.

Looking at the current generation of consoles and halving the RAM doesn't make as much sense since it's just a number, look at the target spec and build up because there's actually a history of that happening. You are looking at a specific number and halving it because reasons.

I'm looking at that specific number because I don't know that much about the specifics of hardware as you lol

I'm just saying that, knowing Nintendo's history, if 8 is enough to run 70% of Nintendo's game with a stable frame rate, that's what they'll do. That's all I can judge with my knowledge, I don't know anything about how much easier 12 would be than 8 or anything like that.

 

[mariodk18]

I find it interesting Nintendo explicitly mentioned that 3DS would have BC with DS and DSi in a letter to investors a year before release and before it's full unveiling later that year at E3.

Source

...and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for DSi can also be enjoyed.

 

[Bakuboy]

Most of the likely port candidates (eighth generation home console games and current cross-gen games) already run on hardware with 8GB of RAM, though. And significantly less than 8 of that is usable by games, in the case of the Xbox One.

I don't think they're likely to be designing this with the goal of enabling ports of native PS5/XSX games that push those consoles to the limit as a priority.

9th gen ports is definitely not their priority. Historically it would be:

1. What Nintendo needs
2. Cost
3. What Nintendo fans would like (considering that a large part of them don't care about third parties)
4. Third parties

But as I said, even if it's not the highest priority, I do think it's one of their goals to have most Gen 9 multiplats, but they'll definitely live with it if they don't, and I don't think Drake would be a failure for that.

Obviously, if you would think aggressively, having full third party support could mean massive growth potential for Nintendo in NA and Europe. Nintendo has by far the most beloved exclusives, if they had them Call of shooties and EA Football Club at full glance, millions of Jimmys and Jonnys that don't care about The Last of Us or Halo might buy Drake instead of XS or PS5, even if they had their predecessors. You could even say Nintendo could come close to dominate the global console market as they did with NES, but I'm not sure if Nintendo is that ambitious, they might be to comfortable in their current position.

 

[Serif]

That is also true, but the amount of extra RAM the SteamDeck can't just be for OS, especially when you can disable many of the features you mentioned.

Proton uses additional RAM, no getting around that unless a dev provides a native Linux build. I'm not sure how it scales with a game's inherent RAM usage though. I agree 16 GB is a future proofing measure and the 'do as you wish' nature of the Steam Deck means you could just install Windows to bypass the translation layer (though now you have to deal with the overhead of Windows lol)

12 would be nice for Switch 2. I'm still foolishly hoping for a Discord thin client.

 

[Thorakai]

Nintendo games are dope everyone

Edit: meant to post this in main OT thread, but applies here as well.

 

[Deleted member 887]

I'm looking at that specific number because I don't know that much about the specifics of hardware as you lol

It's fine that you don't know that much about hardware! We're trying to explain it to you.

The RAM number doesn't matter by itself. What matters is the balance of GPU/CPU/RAM and a whole bunch of other things. Yes, Nintendo has less RAM than it's competitors most of the time. But it also had less CPU and GPU. It had less everything.

But it had more RAM than you'd think, compared to everything else. Because Nintendo doesn't cheap out on RAM. Nintendo gets last gen hardware because it is cheap and allows them to experiment, then puts extra RAM in it.

These systems are designed in such a way that they aren't RAM limited. More RAM might help, but it would help a lot less than more CPU and GPU. Look at overclockers, They get smooth frame rates on Switch games, but they don't do it by adding aftermarket RAM. They do it by speeding up the CPU and the GPU.

 

[ShadowFox08]

Living in Australia now and don’t always get the US numbers straight :X

Yeah, perhaps $149 or even $179.

Ah okay

I don't think you're wrong, at all.

There is, however, this weird thing where "better specs than we expected 6 months ago" turns into "the default, and anything less than this is a disaster". In February we were expecting the chip that became Orin Nano, and trolls were storming into the thread to say that was a level of power that Nintendo would never pursue, and we were idiots. Now there are folks saying that anything less than 6nm and PS4 Pro power will be a travesty.

I just want to set folks up to understand that if Nintendo somehow does figure out how to make 8GB cost effective, it's not the end of the world.

8GB of RAM means RIP to video recording and other features needed.. as well as an OS that can match Sony and MS's.. We are getting a console that could potentionally rival the PS4 Pro. It will be a bottleneck for sure.

It's fine that you don't know that much about hardware! We're trying to explain it to you.

The RAM number doesn't matter by itself. What matters is the balance of GPU/CPU/RAM and a whole bunch of other things. Yes, Nintendo has less RAM than it's competitors most of the time. But it also had less CPU and GPU. It had less everything.

But it had more RAM than you'd think, compared to everything else. Because Nintendo doesn't cheap out on RAM. Nintendo gets last gen hardware because it is cheap and allows them to experiment, then puts extra RAM in it.

These systems are designed in such a way that they aren't RAM limited. More RAM might help, but it would help a lot less than more CPU and GPU. Look at overclockers, They get smooth frame rates on Switch games, but they don't do it by adding aftermarket RAM. They do it by speeding up the CPU and the GPU.

Yep and I'd go as far to say that Switch's bottleneck (besides CPU) wasn't so much RAM, but lack of bandwidth from the RAM. Hell if lpddr4x came out sooner and Nintendo implemented the 33% bandwidth, that would have made a noticable difference. Or even 128 but buswidth.
if Nintendo went with TX 2 and had that 50% boost in everything (GPU, CPU) with twice the bandwidth with a 128 bit buswidth on a 16nm node, we'de get a lot more decent ports

 

[LiC]

LiC has pointed out that this would be memory inefficient, with NVN2's implementation, but should work transparently. Technically it means the same amount of RAM is allocated in Handheld and TV modes for work queues, and it's more power efficient than clocking the same number of SMs by half

The memory issue is just an effect from part of the NVN2 driver that I can see and understand. I imagine there are potentially lots of other issues that halving the SM count mid-execution would cause throughout the hardware/firmware/driver stack. From what I can tell, when you switch power profiles on AGX Orin to one requiring a different numbers of TPCs, that requires a reboot. Even if it is possible to do, what about shaders that were compiled for GA10F with an assumed constant number of 12 SMs that would have optimizations, if not functionality, dependent on that number? I'm only guessing as to these effects, but it just seems like an implausible idea.

 

[Discostew]

8GB of RAM means RIP to video recording and other features needed.. as well as an OS that can match Sony and MS's.. We are getting a console that could potentionally rival the PS4 Pro. It will be a bottleneck for sure.

Because of a difference of 1GB? PS4 Pro only has 9GB of RAM, split between 8GB GDDR5 and 1GB of DDR3. I'd imagine that Drake's newer architecture, efficiencies and features would close that gap quite nicely.

Speaking of video recording, what format does PS4 Pro provide for encoding? I'm sure PS4 is limited to AVC, and HEVC provides up to 50% compression efficiency over AVC for equal quality. What Drake has is hardware encoding of AV1, which provides up to 30% compression efficiency over HEVC for equal quality. Not just that, but it's royalty-free. I see no reason why Nintendo would not opt to utilize that feature that is already supported in hardware.

 

[Terrell]

Except I wasn't wrong. UFS card has launched. And hasn't succeeded. It doesn't have economies of scale, or many manufacturing partners.

SDexpress doesn't have any of these issues, of course.

Except it does have economies of scale. eUFS is literally the guts of a UFS Card in an integrated circuit form soldered to a logic board, which makes sense, since the card tech spun off from the previously-created embedded solution. The economies of scale already exist because UFS exists, anyone manufacturing eUFS can make a UFS card. This is reflected by the difference in the price of a UFS Card currently compared to the exorbitant price you'd pay for a comparable SD Express card. UFS cards are not mass-produced by anyone but Samsung primarily because devices that accept them do not widely exist and the market is small enough currently to be filled by a single supplier.

You mention that SD Express has been a "success" in some aspects. Which are those, precisely, when I've only found 2 SD Express cards at retail for $150 or more (none of which are the promised microSD Express config) and, as of June 2021, literally zero devices were known to support the format and I have yet to find one despite being told it's a success? Meanwhile, LG introduced a notebook back in 2020 that had a UFS card slot and several more models of the LG Gram since feature the UFS/microSD card slot in them all the way into 2022.

SDExpress 7.0 came into the world in June 2018, only 2 years and 3 months after the UFS Card standard, but despite being this alleged heir apparent you make it out to be and only being a few years behind, it seems to be even worse off than UFS Cards are and the 2-year advantage really doesn't account for that. More pricey, zero device support, no advantageous production leverage from an embedded option.

I mean, if we're going to apply your reasoning here, SD Express is as much of a dead fish as UFS Cards are, maybe even moreso, so any claim that it's some resounding success demands some evidentiary support beyond idealized use cases and suggestions that more products will appear that never materialize.

 

[lucapfstr]

When will we have our oficial prediction 2023 thread?

Everyone can make 6 predicitons.

6 why? Because it’s my lucky number. And we can check it out in December next year.

I'll give it a shot.

1. In late January or early February, COMPLETELY NEW hardware is revealed, similarly to the Switch Lite. It's not called a 'switch' directly, but it's still marketed as a part of the switch family of systems.
2. As for the name... uh... let's go with "Nintendo Switch: Omega" (because an omega looks like the switch logo, made up with 2 mirrored 2s)
3. Reveal touches on the benefits from better graphics, but emphasizes software benefits that bring new gameplay (smart software, smart battery saving, upscaling, faster loading, and ray tracing)
4. The Omega has some control gimmicks, but it's just cool stuff that doesn't impede existing switch playability
5. February Nintendo Direct happens, where we see Splatoon 3 DLC and Tears of the Kingdom Reveal.
6. The SwOmega releases May 12 with TotK as a launch title. Nuff said.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Except I wasn't wrong. UFS card has launched. And hasn't succeeded. It doesn't have economies of scale, or many manufacturing partners.

SDexpress doesn't have any of these issues, of course. It also uses PCIe, so, I/O for it isn't an issue. In applications where it has been adopted, it actually has been a success. Because it's basically the only viable option for such applications. eUFS has been a resounding success. UFS Card has not. It's not helpful to conflate the two. No more helpful than conflating the success of NVME, eMMC or SD (UHS-I) to SDe, which I think we both agree would be unfair. Those aren't SDe. eUFS is not UFS Card.

What exactly are the applications where SD Express is succeeding? I've yet to find any evidence that the format has been meaningfully adopted. Even the types of devices that actually used UHS-II and UHS-III seem to mostly be moving to CFexpress instead.

The way I see things, if Nintendo wants anything faster than UHS-I, they're going to have to create the market for it themselves. None of the alternatives are really seem to be ready as is, and I'm not particularly convinced that SD Express is even the closest one to being ready, especially after the failures of UHS-II and particularly UHS-III to displace UHS-I in anything but professional gear.

 

[NintenDuvo]

Hey guys just popping in to see have we learned anything new at all?

 

[Hermii]

Hey guys just popping in to see have we learned anything new at all?

Come back in a month. For either glory, or despair.

 

[Herb Alpert]

Hey guys just popping in to see have we learned anything new at all?

If nothing is announced by early february, wait for e3 time.
If nothing is announced by E3 time, wait for mid october.
If nothing is announced by mid october, wait for early february.
Rinse and repeat until despair gets you.

 

[Zaimokuza]

Hey guys just popping in to see have we learned anything new at all?

Half the thread will have to eat crow by December 2023, me included