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

[Cackletta5]

People are really waiting for unconfirmed patches for games on an unconfirmed console. We are off the deep end LOL. Praying it’s real just for the health of people in this thread.

true

 

[RaymondBryce]

I have a question for this thread:
How does Nintendo plans to secure adoption of this device from the mass market(not enthusiasts) in its early years(I assume they would want as many people as possible buying it since they will release exclusives for it and third parties too) considering the following thoughts some have mentioned here:

• It will not receive exclusive first party games for at least a year and half
• It will be at least 400$, some say 450$(I actually think either one of those will be the price)
• It will not be called Switch 2(suggesting it is a clear successor) but another name which is ambiguous enough to sound like a more powerful hardware that can be counted as in the same family
• It will still be marketed as part of the Switch family of systems
• Some say it will reuse the OLED body

I'm sorry but I feel there is something off. I am fairly confident such a device as above wouldn't be enough to convince many random people in buying it over the Switch. Imagine: It cost 100-150$ more, has no first party exclusives, is not marketed as the next big thing, looks just like the Switch OLED... Infact it looks more like a revision than something Nintendo would want to last for at least six years. And if it is treated as a revision I'm afraid it will be perceived by the random mass market as such and do revision sales.
If they are perceived too close together despite the gap in performance or 4K patches/versions, the Switch will be its first competitor, stealing its sales which would have been much more beneficial to the new device long term. Some people(not the enthusiasts) who already have a Switch may not even feel the incentive to upgrade. I feel trying to be too ambiguous will just create a very weird situation for this device especially long term.

If this device succeeds to the Switch even if eventually, i'm guessing Nintendo would want to sell it as much as possible even from the get go. Will this device be able to sell 17million units(or close) like its predecessor in its first year? I guess time will tell but if it is goes by the ambiguous route I feel it will certainly not.

OLED did not receive exclusive first party games, was $350, is not the called the Switch 2 and is marketed as part of the Switch family of system. Yet it has secured adoption from the mass market.

Those should therefore not be barriers to the Switch 4K securing adoption of the mass market

 

[Nintendojitsu]

The almost ever-present cynicism creeping into every page is a mascot at this point.

 

[Deleted member 1324]

I have a question for this thread:
How does Nintendo plans to secure adoption of this device from the mass market(not enthusiasts) in its early years(I assume they would want as many people as possible buying it since they will release exclusives for it and third parties too) considering the following thoughts some have mentioned here:

• It will not receive exclusive first party games for at least a year and half
• It will be at least 400$, some say 450$(I actually think either one of those will be the price)
• It will not be called Switch 2(suggesting it is a clear successor) but another name which is ambiguous enough to sound like a more powerful hardware that can be counted as in the same family
• It will still be marketed as part of the Switch family of systems
• Some say it will reuse the OLED body

I'm sorry but I feel there is something off. I am fairly confident such a device as above wouldn't be enough to convince many random people in buying it over the Switch. Imagine: It cost 100-150$ more, has no first party exclusives, is not marketed as the next big thing, looks just like the Switch OLED... Infact it looks more like a revision than something Nintendo would want to last for at least six years. And if it is treated as a revision I'm afraid it will be perceived by the random mass market as such and do revision sales.
If they are perceived too close together despite the gap in performance or 4K patches/versions, the Switch will be its first competitor, stealing its sales which would have been much more beneficial to the new device long term. Some people(not the enthusiasts) who already have a Switch may not even feel the incentive to upgrade. I feel trying to be too ambiguous will just create a very weird situation for this device especially long term.

If this device succeeds to the Switch even if eventually, i'm guessing Nintendo would want to sell it as much as possible even from the get go. Will this device be able to sell 17million units(or close) like its predecessor in its first year? I guess time will tell but if it is goes by the ambiguous route I feel it will certainly not.

Hey.

1) This device is not aimed at the casual market (much like the OLED model) due to its initial selling point of playing Switch games at 4k / better framerates and it’s likely $400+ price point. It will initially be aimed at enthusiasts much like PS4 Pro and XBOX ONE X.

2) From what I know it uses the OLED form factor and dock.

3) I don’t think their manufacturing chain will allow for 17 million units of Drake in it’s first 12 months due to (apart from anything else) Nintendo having four different versions of Switch by that time to manufacture. I’m guessing closer to 8 million units for Drake in year one. It won’t be the largest selling Switch console until year two imo.

4) I think it will have exclusive first party games quicker than most people expect. I predict MK9 to be the first big name Drake exclusive from Nintendo in Summer 2024. This will seem like madness to some but after the first year of Zelda it will need an exclusive title to push it on and make it the new baseline main Nintendo console going forward.

There’s no better title than a new Mario Kart especially one that blows MK8D away in terms of visual fidelity as those assets will be by that time a decade old. It’s also a proven mass market hit aswell as being a core hit.

Also like Mr says developers don’t know the chip dimensions. I don’t have a reason why other than two people told me they just “don’t know”.

 

[Deleted member 1324]

Not to nitpick but isn't a quantum leap the smallest possible jump?

Okay. Replace quantum with ginormous

 

[Vash]

I don't think it'll be there, but it's not impossible. and the post in question was about a teaser. it'd be a fancier "mario behind the curtain" twitter post essentially

yeah except that teaser would cost them millions (some even 7 mil) for a 30 second ad time during the superbowl

 

[Concernt]

if there's no smoke by February it'll be obvious it's not coming anytime soon, no need for any further 'confirmation'. best not to be attached to any particular outcomes, methinks. there's clearly a lot going on behind the scenes and plans can change. having said that the swell of Uncles looms and all it takes is a couple to break free in coming weeks to get things fired up again. there was someone who said March is still possible but that has to be totally out of the question by now. money is still on May and if that doesn't happen it's dissapointing on quite a few levels.

There's already smoke NOW, so I wouldn't say there's necessarily a cutoff point.

 

[Concernt]

yeah except that teaser would cost them millions (some even 7 mil) for a 30 second ad time during the superbowl

They did it in 2017, don't put it past them.

It's for this reason I unironically expect a reveal before the Super Bowl, so they can get ads out during or at least around it when TV viewership and internet advertising views go up.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

3) I don’t think their manufacturing chain will allow for 17 million units of Drake in it’s first 12 months due to (apart from anything else) Nintendo having four different versions of Switch by that time to manufacture. I’m guessing closer to 8 million units for Drake in year one. It won’t be the largest selling Switch console until year two imo.

8 in a year would be pretty pathetic. For comparison Wii U after a year was about 5, Switch OLED 9.5, PS5 15, Wii/PS4/Switch about 17.

 

[Eclissi]

Leaks on new hardware usually increase as the months go by. With Drake the opposite happens: we went from the end of 2020 / mid 2021 in which the announcement was considered imminent, to the current partial silence (and if there hadn't been the theft from Nvidia, the silence would be total)...

 

[Skittzo]

There's already smoke NOW, so I wouldn't say there's necessarily a cutoff point.

I agree that we don't really need a "smoke" cutoff point but I'd argue February is probably the cutoff month for when it would be announced, assuming a May release. Any later would really be pushing it for May and I don't see them releasing it after May unless it's coming in the holiday season, in which case they wouldn't announce it until the summer.

 

[AxkilAvenger]

Leaks on new hardware usually increase as the months go by. With Drake the opposite happens: we went from the end of 2020 / mid 2021 in which the announcement was considered imminent, to the current partial silence (and if there hadn't been the theft from Nvidia, the silence would be total)...

Or Nintendo assassins went on a purge and killed off all suspected leakers after the Nvidia leak. You leak can’t leak if you ain’t breathing.

 

[Concernt]

I agree that we don't really need a "smoke" cutoff point but I'd argue February is probably the cutoff month for when it would be announced, assuming a May release. Any later would really be pushing it for May and I don't see them releasing it after May unless it's coming in the holiday season, in which case they wouldn't announce it until the summer.

I could see a March reveal and May release, but I think January reveal and April release is more likely.

 

[Skittzo]

Leaks on new hardware usually increase as the months go by. With Drake the opposite happens: we went from the end of 2020 / mid 2021 in which the announcement was considered imminent, to the current partial silence (and if there hadn't been the theft from Nvidia, the silence would be total)...

This is kinda misrepresenting the facts though. Mid 2021 is when it was imminent because Bloomberg confused the OLED model for the Drake model. Late 2020 on the other hand had Nate saying it would come late 2022/early 2023 which is what he has stood by for two years.

Actual leaks around mid-2021 never happened. All we got were people saying dumb stuff like "wow this looks too good for switch, good thing the pro is coming soon". We had no actual leaks outside of Nate and Bloomberg until this year, when we got leaks from Nvidia, from several Chinese factories, and a public non-leak from Nvidia confirming the previous actual leak.

Leaks have accelerated, not slowed down.

 

[Bonejack]

Don't make me post Tommy again.

I might even bad-edit him to give him a Santa cap.

You don't want to see this.

:]

 

[Truno]

1) This device is not aimed at the casual market (much like the OLED model) due to its initial selling point of playing Switch games at 4k / better framerates and it’s likely $400+ price point. It will initially be aimed at enthusiasts much like PS4 Pro and XBOX ONE X.

I can't wrap my head around this point. Nintendo is investing so much into R&D to tap into a market that they rarely ever target, a market that usually leads them into failure? Nintendo is the casual market

Also, launching a model with that selling point during the 6th-7th year of the console? This sounds like an enthusiast's pipe dream

 

[robertman2]

The Switch 2 doesn't exist

The Switch never existed, we were all playing the Vita 2 the whole time

 

[Serif]

The Switch never existed, we were all playing the Vita 2 the whole time

NES 7

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I can't wrap my head around this point. Nintendo is investing so much into R&D to tap into a market that they rarely ever target, a market that usually leads them into failure? Nintendo is the casual market

It's not so different than Switch itself, which eschewed the weirdness of 3DS and Wii U to be a very straightforward gaming system with one screen and controls primarily from the late 1990s, and advertising it with NBA2K and Skyrim. That was Nintendo aiming at the core video game market. The difference between now and 2017 is they also already have successful machinery servicing the lower end for the time being.

 

[Eclissi]

This is kinda misrepresenting the facts though. Mid 2021 is when it was imminent because Bloomberg confused the OLED model for the Drake model. Late 2020 on the other hand had Nate saying it would come late 2022/early 2023 which is what he has stood by for two years.

Actual leaks around mid-2021 never happened. All we got were people saying dumb stuff like "wow this looks too good for switch, good thing the pro is coming soon". We had no actual leaks outside of Nate and Bloomberg until this year, when we got leaks from Nvidia, from several Chinese factories, and a public non-leak from Nvidia confirming the previous actual leak.

Leaks have accelerated, not slowed down.

In mid-2020 there was talk of late 2021 / early 2022, then chaos ensued with the confusion created by Switch Oled. Then months passed and silence fell. Even Nate has stopped giving updates, and it would seem he has difficulty getting confirmations on alleged news ... And the latest hypotheses of him (now dating back to a year ago) spoke of the end of 2022 / beginning of 2023. The end of 2022 has arrived and we are still at the same points.
Leaks didn't accelerated. They stopped.

 

[Aether]

Hey.

1) This device is not aimed at the casual market (much like the OLED model) due to its initial selling point of playing Switch games at 4k / better framerates and it’s likely $400+ price point. It will initially be aimed at enthusiasts much like PS4 Pro and XBOX ONE X.

2) From what I know it uses the OLED form factor and dock.

3) I don’t think their manufacturing chain will allow for 17 million units of Drake in it’s first 12 months due to (apart from anything else) Nintendo having four different versions of Switch by that time to manufacture. I’m guessing closer to 8 million units for Drake in year one. It won’t be the largest selling Switch console until year two imo.

4) I think it will have exclusive first party games quicker than most people expect. I predict MK9 to be the first big name Drake exclusive from Nintendo in Summer 2024. This will seem like madness to some but after the first year of Zelda it will need an exclusive title to push it on and make it the new baseline main Nintendo console going forward.

There’s no better title than a new Mario Kart especially one that blows MK8D away in terms of visual fidelity as those assets will be by that time a decade old. It’s also a proven mass market hit aswell as being a core hit.

Also like Mr says developers don’t know the chip dimensions. I don’t have a reason why other than two people told me they just “don’t know”.

1) i disagree that it will be positioned only as a switch pro. Re orientating the marketing after 1-2 years is pretty hard when you established what a console is, so it would be destructive in the long run, when people just assume its "just" an 4k switch. They will position it as the next step in the line (seen without outright calling it switch2), but will communicate that most games for the future will also be playable on switch, similar to Microsofts "generations are over" take.

3) 8M would be weak, and while having 4 switches to produce, i assume that the OLED and Switch2 are kinda overlapping? the ones that want the best (and those that double dipped) are gona tend to the top of the end. The regular one is clearly weaker then the OLED, and i feel like it will be slowly phased out and then replaced by an oled with (presumably) an price drop, since ....

2) ... going by this, it would be cheaper to manufacture 2 switches with comparable form factor to keeping the base switch in rotation, even for a price reduction of the OLED.
Also, is this based on your old info or recent? (maybe i missed something new)

4) oh yeah, for sure. but i really don't think it will be Mario Kart 9 since the DLC is rather fresh by then.
Im honestly curious how the next step for smash will be. I think they will have a big showcase game after a year, but i honestly don't know what it will be...

 

[kvetcha]

I mean, if the leaks have stopped it's clearly because there's nothing to leak and not the result of a concerted effort to stop leaks.

 

[Vash]

Tbf that game was bumped a lot due to COVID and game development trouble I don't think they originally plan a 2023 release.

They didnt. They initially said 2022 before they delayed it. It was actually supposed to come earlier if you believed captain. Capt. hinted at it coming out in 2020 or 2021 not sure what year. Whether that's true or not im not sure but they announced the release date as 2022 initially.

 

[ILikeFeet]

yeah except that teaser would cost them millions (some even 7 mil) for a 30 second ad time during the superbowl

yea, it's it's worth it

The Switch 2 doesn't exist

The Switch never existed, we were all playing the Vita 2 the whole time

that explains all the hentai games

I mean, if the leaks have stopped it's clearly because there's nothing to leak and not the result of a concerted effort to stop leaks.

more realistically, it's because of the holidays and everyone is being ran ragged to leak shit

 

[LiC]

It's silly to say Nintendo is targeting a certain market with a console that hasn't been announced yet. One has no idea what the console's price will be, how it will be marketed/positioned, or even really how it will perform (not that the latter actually implies a target market). Those are all assumptions.

But I don't even think it makes sense to frame it like "targeting casual gamers," or not, at all. I think they're going to do the same thing they've been doing since 2019: targeting "Nintendo Switch owners" and "potential Nintendo Switch owners."

There's also the fact that the timeline from GPU architecture, to Tegra, to Switch model is not actually going to end up all that different from the original Switch, contrary to the apparent belief that the new model is going to be so cutting edge that it must be positioned for enthusiasts only.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Isn't this what oldpuck found (I assume) in the linux commit? What else would "AMPERE_B" mean?

Correct. Though I'm going off CUDA version which I believe is 0.1 version higher in T239(Drake) Vs T234(Orin).

AMPERE_B is an internal name for all the consumer Ampere GPUs. AMPERE_A is the datacenter version, which was on TSMC 7nm, and didn't have ray tracing.

@Concernt is right about the CUDA version there. Open speculation to what that means. It could be something as simple as "hardware changed but no change in compatibility", or "updated instructions for BC"

 

[Eclissi]

yea, it's it's worth it


that explains all the hentai games


more realistically, it's because of the holidays and everyone is being ran ragged to leak shit

Holidays? Leaks have been closed for several months. And if it weren't for the theft suffered by Nvidia, we would still be stuck with the leaks of a year and a half ago..

 

[Vash]

yea, it's it's worth it

idk 7 mil for a teaser of the logo doesn't seem worth it to me. But i dont work in marketing so what do i know

 

[Anatole]

Responding to the last sentence: That contradicts the link you provided. It has a table showing "PPI to match avg. foveal cone density" at different distances from the eye. It doesn't show a distance of 12", but from the values there we can calculate that it would work out to 546 PPI. For a 7" screen, that would be about 3330x1872.

Trying to measure how I regularly hold my Switch portable (while being overly conscious of it), it's probably more like 16". For that distance, 410 PPI on a 7" screen would match the average cone density at about 2500x1406.

I believe the numbers in the table are reported for 20/10.5 vision. For 20/20 vision, you divide by the (20/10.5) factor, which does get you a lot closer to 720p.

It is worth noting that individuals with 20/20 (6/6 m) vision, defined as the ability to discern a 5x5 pixel letter that has an angular size of 5 arc minutes, cannot see pixels smaller than 60 arc seconds. In order to resolve a pixel the size of 31.5 and 21.2 arc seconds, an individual would need 20/10.5 (6/3.1 m) and 20/7.1 (6/2.1 m) vision, respectively. To find the PPI values discernible at 20/20, simply divide the values in the above table by the visual acuity ratio (e.g. 96 PPI / (20/10.5 vision) = 50.4 PPI for 20/20 vision).

 

[LiC]

AMPERE_B is an internal name for all the consumer Ampere GPUs. AMPERE_A is the datacenter version, which was on TSMC 7nm, and didn't have ray tracing.

@Concernt is right about the CUDA version there. Open speculation to what that means. It could be something as simple as "hardware changed but no change in compatibility", or "updated instructions for BC"

Driver files say that GA10X, GA10B, and GA10F have the same ISA version. The difference between SM versions 8.7 and 8.8 is supposedly the "hardware revision of the SM block."

As it happens, we do potentially know one revision in the SM, which is the return to the tensor cores of GA10X instead of using the new ones of GA10B. And it's possible that that change, even though it's a reversion, is enough to make Drake 8.8 instead of 8.7.

 

[Hermii]

Okay. Replace quantum with ginormous

Sounds like you heard some more stuff lately. You got clock speed? Process node? Memory speed?

 

[ILikeFeet]

honestly, I'm expecting Hogwarts on Drake to just be the Switch version at 4K/60fps. whatever cuts for switch will still be there on drake

 

[KMStwo]

there's not really any way to tell the node. that's not relevant information to developers


the same plan as MS and Sony are doing: stop advertising old systems, reduce production of old systems, tout the virtues of new systems. Nintendo also has the benefit of third party games likely being drake only rather than coming to Switch, simply through ease of portability.

this isn't an unknown situation and MS and Sony have just gone through it without any sort of problem

I agree I hope they will do that. But there are still differences, MS and Sony did not use the same body of their last console and are not claiming their new consoles are of the same family as the previous.

OLED did not receive exclusive first party games, was $350, is not the called the Switch 2 and is marketed as part of the Switch family of system. Yet it has secured adoption from the mess market.

Those should therefore not be barriers to the Switch 4K securing adoption of the mass market

I don't think the next Switch goals in terms of sales are even close to that of the OLED. I assume with such an investment Nintendo would want much better sales than any kind of Switch revision. What I am saying is that I don't think Nintendo would be content with revision sales numbers for this device...I'm not saying it won't secure adoption but adoption of this device has to be much greater than any Switch revision (being even if eventually the successor to the Switch) for Nintendo and Nvidia R&D investments and for the exclusives that will come on it

Hey.

1) This device is not aimed at the casual market (much like the OLED model) due to its initial selling point of playing Switch games at 4k / better framerates and it’s likely $400+ price point. It will initially be aimed at enthusiasts much like PS4 Pro and XBOX ONE X.

Time shall tell us...

2) From what I know it uses the OLED form factor and dock.

If true, I'm dissappointed. Looking the exact same as your predecessor or an inferior model is a red flag in my book.

3) I don’t think their manufacturing chain will allow for 17 million units of Drake in it’s first 12 months due to (apart from anything else) Nintendo having four different versions of Switch by that time to manufacture. I’m guessing closer to 8 million units for Drake in year one. It won’t be the largest selling Switch console until year two imo.

That is why I agree with what ILikeFeet said. Reducing the production of the other models to put Drake in front. And I personally assume they will discountinue the Red box Switch.

4) I think it will have exclusive first party games quicker than most people expect. I predict MK9 to be the first big name Drake exclusive from Nintendo in Summer 2024. This will seem like madness to some but after the first year of Zelda it will need an exclusive title to push it on and make it the new baseline main Nintendo console going forward.

There’s no better title than a new Mario Kart especially one that blows MK8D away in terms of visual fidelity as those assets will be by that time a decade old. It’s also a proven mass market hit aswell as being a core hit.

Also like Mr says developers don’t know the chip dimensions. I don’t have a reason why other than two people told me they just “don’t know”.

I agree and I hope so.

This device has to sell like new hardware not like a revision. I don't think Nintendo would be satisfied if Drake "only" does Switch OLED numbers especially if they are planning exclusives for it and Drake has to carry them for another six years.

 

[TonyBaduy]

Holidays? Leaks have been closed for several months. And if it weren't for the theft suffered by Nvidia, we would still be stuck with the leaks of a year and a half ago..

At least the data breach shows there is progress and that the leaks described a real product, so it's not that there is nothing to leak, it's just that Nintendo probably strangled everyone after Mochizuki published their article and threatened to launch them into the sun according to the stipulations, new and old, of their NDAs.

 

[Brofield]

If the Switch Lite can be discounted from $200 USD to even $150, is there a remote chance that Drake could be less than $450 at launch? For the record I do agree that V2 will have production stopped shortly before the new hardware announcement and be sold at retailers until it's all gone, but I'm still unsure how likely it is that the OLED Switch could be discounted less than $350 if it has a lower profit margin than the red box Switch

 

[Bosintang]

1) i disagree that it will be positioned only as a switch pro. Re orientating the marketing after 1-2 years is pretty hard when you established what a console is, so it would be destructive in the long run, when people just assume its "just" an 4k switch. They will position it as the next step in the line (seen without outright calling it switch2), but will communicate that most games for the future will also be playable on switch, similar to Microsofts "generations are over" take.

I strongly agree with this. If Nintendo tries to chase the pro and the new at the same time, I believe they'll end up getting nothing. We've already seen with the WiiU how detrimental it can be for a console to have an unclear positionning from the beginning. Considering the specs which are expected for this machine, and the release timeframe, I'm convinced that the next Switch will be a Switch 2 and will be directly presented as such.
What they can do however, is making it clear that the OG model will receive some level of support for a couple of years. Say until 2026, it the next switch releases in 2024.

 

[kimbo99]

Either way you slice it, it goes one of two ways:

Drop it with Zelda to guarantee good software support during launch or after Zelda to try and squeeze out more sales from the Switch 1

 

[KMStwo]

I would say that most of the points you raised apply to the GBC and GBA. Backward compat shored up the library at launch, there were mostly "DX" versions of games in the initial launch window, while there was eventually more and more exclusive software over time. I would say Switch 2 will be closer to GBC, just because games are more expensive and take longer to develop. That doesn't mean there won't be third party exclusives, perhaps even Nintendo published, that make their way to the system.

As for the name...You could say the same of Super, Color, Advance, i, 360, ONE, Series, etc. At the end of the day, the name doesn't sell the hardware- the software does. Enthusiasts and newcomers will prefer the hot, best, new thing and slowly build up enough of an audience over time to where releasing an exclusive MK10 in say late 2024 or 2025 makes sense. I mean, hasn't OLED been the top selling model and selling like hotcakes? How do you think an actually internally upgraded Switch 2 with exclusive games would sell?

It is the combination of the name and the other thoughts I mentioned which makes problem.
They could call it Switch Series and market it as the next big thing with a new body and it would work. But calling it that, reusing the OLED body, starving it from first party exclusives, claiming it is a Switch revision but at the same time wanting this to properly replace the Switch even eventually does not sound good to me.

Plus it just makes sense when you look at dev schedules. Pokemon gen 10 in 2025/2026? MK10 2024/2025? AC 2026? Splatoon 4 2026/2027? Botw 3 2028/2029?

What system do you think the above titles will release on? Dev times are several years long minimum these days, but you don't want to start from scratch with a new generation every time, as Iwata has said. And if you launch with killer software, like TotK, with exclusive benefits or upgrades...seems like it would sell just fine to me. PS5 and XBS have been selling great the past two years without much in the way of exclusive software after all.

Yeah PS5/XBS have been selling great while also not claiming to be last gen. There is no ambiguity of their function apart from the games.

 

[Deleted member 1324]

Sounds like you heard some more stuff lately. You got clock speed? Process node? Memory speed?

Not at all. I just expect Drake to run Hogwarts at 4k DLSS/60fps versus the Switch version being 720p/20-30fps when docked. XBO will probably be 900p/30fps and PS4 1080p/30fps.

Eventually I expect Digital Foundry to compare Drake versions of multi-platform games to XBOX ONE X versions in head to head comparisons (due to the X having the highest image quality of all 4 last gen consoles) which is just ridiculous when you look at the power draw each device will be using.

 

[yohoopzcrazy]

If the Switch Lite can be discounted from $200 USD to even $150, is there a remote chance that Drake could be less than $450 at launch? For the record I do agree that V2 will have production stopped shortly before the new hardware announcement and be sold at retailers until it's all gone, but I'm still unsure how likely it is that the OLED Switch could be discounted less than $350 if it has a lower profit margin than the red box Switch

I, of course, am in no way an expert in the matter, but I just would like point out that before the price reveal of the OG Switch, a lot of people were expecting $250, mostly due to how "weak" it was perceived as back then. And then they tagged it as $299, everyone screamed of impending doom for Nintendo, fast-foward 6 years, and here we are.

Now, of course times have changed a lot since, especially for mobile technology and how much it has evolved, but I can't help but feel that they will push for $499 for similar reasons: it's a Switch that can play the latest games not available on the current Switch model; people will buy it. Here's hoping for "only" $450

Actually, a question for ya'll: with what we currently know and expect of Drake, can all that be crammed up in the Switch form factor and not be sold at a loss, if we assume a $450 price tag?

 

[KMStwo]

1) i disagree that it will be positioned only as a switch pro. Re orientating the marketing after 1-2 years is pretty hard when you established what a console is, so it would be destructive in the long run, when people just assume its "just" an 4k switch. They will position it as the next step in the line (seen without outright calling it switch2), but will communicate that most games for the future will also be playable on switch, similar to Microsofts "generations are over" take.

3) 8M would be weak, and while having 4 switches to produce, i assume that the OLED and Switch2 are kinda overlapping? the ones that want the best (and those that double dipped) are gona tend to the top of the end. The regular one is clearly weaker then the OLED, and i feel like it will be slowly phased out and then replaced by an oled with (presumably) an price drop, since ....

2) ... going by this, it would be cheaper to manufacture 2 switches with comparable form factor to keeping the base switch in rotation, even for a price reduction of the OLED.
Also, is this based on your old info or recent? (maybe i missed something new)

4) oh yeah, for sure. but i really don't think it will be Mario Kart 9 since the DLC is rather fresh by then.
Im honestly curious how the next step for smash will be. I think they will have a big showcase game after a year, but i honestly don't know what it will be...

Indeed. The perception of this device especially in it's early years where like everything is built on is extremely important.

I strongly agree with this. If Nintendo tries to chase the pro and the new at the same time, I believe they'll end up getting nothing. We've already seen with the WiiU how detrimental it can be for a console to have an unclear positionning from the beginning. Considering the specs which are expected for this machine, and the release timeframe, I'm convinced that the next Switch will be a Switch 2 and will be directly presented as such.
What they can do however, is making it clear that the OG model will receive some level of support for a couple of years. Say until 2026, it the next switch releases in 2024.

Exactly. The ambiguity may just unnecessarily hinder this next system.

 

[Stinky Horse]

This is kinda misrepresenting the facts though. Mid 2021 is when it was imminent because Bloomberg confused the OLED model for the Drake model. Late 2020 on the other hand had Nate saying it would come late 2022/early 2023 which is what he has stood by for two years.

This is kind of skipping over the period where Nate was saying he had info of a more powerful 'not Game Boy [advance] SP revision', a 4k 'Switch Pro' that would beannounced in 2021 and aiming to release in late 2021/early 2022, which would get some exclusives.
It was his speculation then that this would be more of a stop gap and there would be a Switch 2 following this around 2024.

This was 1 hour into the Jan 6, 2021 podcast fyi

 

[Brofield]

I, of course, am in no way an expert in the matter, but I just would like point out that before the price reveal of the OG Switch, a lot of people were expecting $250, mostly due to how "weak" it was perceived as back then. And then they tagged it as $299, everyone screamed of impending doom for Nintendo, fast-foward 6 years, and here we are.

Now, of course times have changed a lot since, especially for mobile technology and how much it has evolved, but I can't help but feel that they will push for $499 for similar reasons: it's a Switch that can play the latest games not available on the current Switch model; people will buy it. Here's hoping for "only" $450

Actually, a question for ya'll: with what we currently know and expect of Drake, can all that be crammed up in the Switch form factor and not be sold at a loss, if we assume a $450 price tag?

I really hope $450 is the ceiling. That's $615 CAD with today's conversion rate, and with tax that boosts the price to $695.

Nearly $700, and I am at my absolute limit for what I'm willing to spend on new hardware (not to mention the $80+tax (~$100) for the accompanying Zelda title). If it's coming in at $500 USD, I'm out. I won't doubt for a second it'll be sold out forever and fly through cash registers before they even touch store shelves, but I am absolutely holding out on long term reviews (minimum six months) to ensure that we're not about to go through more joycon drift or other common hardware faults again. Not with that much coin being dropped.

Not to mention how livid I'll be if this is just the "pro" type of upgrade, and the real Switch 2 is coming out just two short years later.

 

[Thraktor]

I just want to say that I own a Playstation Vita. As long as 100 MB/s micro sd cards will be supported I don't think there are problems.

As you also said, the cpu was the bottleneck on Switch so maybe they can still support them.

As a fellow Vita owner, I know your pain. I should say that I still don't really know what to expect with external storage. For internal storage, UFS is pretty cheap and they can guarantee parts availability for the duration of the device, so they could have ended up with decent speeds even without trying. External storage is different, as there's no alternative to UHS-I SD cards that's already widely available and cheap. There are existing standards they could choose from, but Nintendo would have to pretty much single-handedly create a consumer market for whatever format they use. I'd argue they're big enough to do so (Switch outsold the entire digital camera market by about 3 to 1 last year), but there's a big leap from "we might as well use UFS 2.1 if it's this cheap" to "let's single-handedly spearhead a new removable storage format".

The existence of the FDE on Drake has me re-thinking things a bit, though. If they stuck with a baseline of every game having to run off 100MB/s microSD cards, the upgraded CPU would be more than capable of handling that without dedicated decompression hardware. The FDE would reduce the CPU load, but it would seem a waste to design custom hardware like that unless you're expecting to use significantly faster storage. Perhaps they could just be intending it for internal storage, but then Drake-exclusive games would require installing on the internal storage, and unless they've got 500GB+ built in (which I'd consider very unlikely) this would become a pain for users. So faster removable storage seems more likely to me now.

Either way, I'd expect they'll still support old UHS-I SD cards of some kind (combo slots exist for all the alternatives), presumably with cross-gen games running fine off 100MB/s SD cards, and some Drake exclusives requiring faster storage.

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.

For SD Express, I/O actually is the issue, or more specifically the requirements for a controller to support both new and old I/O types.

Any flash storage has two important parts to it; the NAND and the controller. NAND is the same regardless of the interface, and you could use the same NAND on a UHS-II microSD card as a PCIe 4.0 SSD. Obviously you'd be more likely to use more expensive, higher-quality NAND on the latter (and use more chips for higher parallelism), but NAND is something you can safely rely on global economies of scale for. The controller is what sits between the NAND and whatever interface you've chosen, and provides wear-levelling, cacheing, etc. This is what matters for economies of scale, because this has to be specific to whatever interface you're using.

In order to implement a functional SD Express card (or reader), you have to support not only the new NVMe protocol, but also all SD protocols up to UHS-I. This means that, despite using PCIe/NVMe, SD Express cards can't use existing NVMe controllers, as they don't support the necessary SD protocols. You therefore need custom controllers specifically for SD Express cards (like this one), and this inherently limits economy of scale to whatever market the SD Express card itself has.

Comparatively, CFexpress directly uses the NVMe protocol over PCIe, which means CFexpress cards can just use "off the shelf" NVMe controllers. They're functionally just M.2 NVMe drives in plastic cases, and you can literally just wire up a M.2 NVMe drive directly to a CFexpress port, and it will work just fine.

Similarly, UFS cards use the UFS protocol directly, so can use existing UFS controllers, and therefore leverage their economy of scale.

I suspect this is also why existing SD Express cards are so hot and power hungry. The Silicon Motion controller used is manufactured on a 28nm process, whereas I'd be surprised if standard NVMe controllers are manufactured on anything worse than 14nm/12nm these days. If the market for SD Express is small, then it's not worth the expense to manufacture SD Express controllers on modern manufacturing processes, which will have a significant effect on power and thermals if you're trying to push up speeds so much.

Professional gear is still very much a commercial success.

Do you have any examples of professional gear using SD Express? Genuine question, as I've been looking for anything that uses it and haven't found anything. The camera industry would be where I'd expect it in professional gear, but camera manufacturers have universally moved to CFexpress support in their higher-end models, and I don't see any of them changing to SD Express at this stage.

The last sentence should have "<2" in it, i.e. "I don't think it's going to be less than 2 lanes."

And yeah, looks like we're doing the thing again where we take other forums'/websites' speculation posts as leaks.

A few lanes of PCIe 4.0 is pretty much the safest thing you could bet on for Drake. TX1 has 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 (I believe Nintendo uses one of them for Switch's WiFi/Bluetooth module), and Nvidia switched to PCIe 4.0 since Xavier. Four lanes of PCIe 4.0 seems very likely to me on Drake, even if Nintendo only uses one or two of them. If Nvidia wants to use this chip anywhere else (which the Linux kernel says they do), then having a few lanes of PCIe is a must.

 

[RaymondBryce]

I don't think the next Switch goals in terms of sales are even close to that of the OLED. I assume with such an investment Nintendo would want much better sales than any kind of Switch revision. What I am saying is that I don't think Nintendo would be content with revision sales numbers for this device...I'm not saying it won't secure adoption but adoption of this device has to be much greater than any Switch revision (being even if eventually the successor to the Switch) for Nintendo and Nvidia R&D investments and for the exclusives that will come on it

Its fair point that they will want good sales to get a return on their investment. I'm expecting this to have a long shelf life and be on the market for years and years so I think it will do that. When eventually the other 3 models of Switch get phased out (not that I'm expecting that any time soon) Drake can be kept around as the final Switch model.

I basically see Drake as a Gameboy Colour scenario, but with a cross gen period between GBC and GBA.

 

[Skittzo]

In mid-2020 there was talk of late 2021 / early 2022, then chaos ensued with the confusion created by Switch Oled. Then months passed and silence fell. Even Nate has stopped giving updates, and it would seem he has difficulty getting confirmations on alleged news ... And the latest hypotheses of him (now dating back to a year ago) spoke of the end of 2022 / beginning of 2023. The end of 2022 has arrived and we are still at the same points.
Leaks didn't accelerated. They stopped.

The leaks did not stop. There were few actual leaks in 2021. All I can think of as sources for leaks in 2021 are Nate, Bloomberg, and Kopite. Everyone else was working from those leaks and commenting on factors assuming those leaks (mainly Bloomberg's) were accurate. Which of course they turned out not to be.

In 2022 we have two different leaks from Nvidia (one in February, one in August), we have at least 2 leaks from Chinese forums that should be taken somewhat seriously, and we have Nate saying he stands by what he's previously reported. They haven't stopped, they just are no longer coming from big mainstream publications, with good reason- Bloomberg's credibility took a massive hit last year and anybody who wants to report on this better be much more confident now. Even if they are, it's probably not even worth it due to the hostility and toxicity this subject is met with online.

This is kind of skipping over the period where Nate was saying he had info of a more powerful 'not Game Boy [advance] SP revision', a 4k 'Switch Pro' that would beannounced in 2021 and aiming to release in late 2021/early 2022, which would get some exclusives.
It was his speculation then that this would be more of a stop gap and there would be a Switch 2 following this around 2024.

This was 1 hour into the Jan 6, 2021 podcast fyi

I don't remember Nate ever giving 2021 a possibility. I thought that was purely from a few other unverified sources by that point, and Bloomberg a month or two later.

Was that info from Nate or just a prediction? He usually makes it clear when he's purely speculating/predicting about something versus when he has solid info.

 

[MP!]

I don't know...
I think the great thing about the switch is that it's what you need it to be...
Is it a portable handheld?
Is it a console you hook up to the TV?
Well it's both... you get to pick...

So for drake... all they have to do is show it's capabilities and you get to decide what you use it for.
Is it a pro device that plays your old switch games a bit better?
Is it a new console that plays new awesome games in 4k?

yes.

 

[Deleted member 887]

By inflation, the $300 launch Switch would be ~$370 now. Ignoring the SOCs for a second, the Switch was built off of industry standard parts that were mostly already at stable prices, and likely have been affected by inflation same as everything else.

I have no sense of what Drake will cost Nintendo, because TX1 was an existing chip and Drake is customized. But I think the best case scenario is that by reusing some of Orin's arch, and letting Nvidia sell the product elsewhere, Nintendo has managed to get the cost of their custom chip back down to approximately the same price.

The only real places for cost savings over the launch Switch would be by reusing the manufacturing processes Nintendo has in place, and even there I expect retooling

Adjusted for inflation, the Wii was slightly more expensive than the Switch, and the Wii U only slightly cheaper. I think a $400 SKU, which puts them on par with the emerging "PC Handheld market" and on par with their previous console launch prices is the most likely landing space. Either by cutting the OLED or price cutting it and dropping the classic model, they'll comfortably have three distinct price ranges.

This is one of the reasons that I think we should be careful about assuming Nintendo will make technologically "reasonable" moves at every level. A little extra RAM, that new storage solution, the larger screen, the bigger battery, the second BT receiver for headphones, Hall effect sticks, a new control scheme, cameras - Nintendo is likely to do some of these things, but if they do them all, they'll price themselves out of their own niche. They'll also not leave headroom for a "premium" model in 2-4 years, which is as close to a reliable bet as you can get in the world of Nintendo hardware.

 

[Stinky Horse]

I don't remember Nate ever giving 2021 a possibility. I thought that was purely from a few other unverified sources by that point, and Bloomberg a month or two later.

Was that info from Nate or just a prediction? He usually makes it clear when he's purely speculating/predicting about something versus when he has solid info.

I guess it's down to interpretation but he seemed to strongly believe it to be the case, which was a marked difference to further back in mid-2020 where he acknowledged that the firmware datamine was pointing to a simple revision in 2021 and that there would not be a Switch Pro in 2021.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I believe the numbers in the table are reported for 20/10.5 vision. For 20/20 vision, you divide by the (20/10.5) factor, which does get you a lot closer to 720p.

You are correct. So if aiming specifically at 20/20 I guess for a 7" screen seen from a foot away they'd want about 1748x983. Among common screen resolutions one does come pretty close to that...