• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!
  • General system instability
    🚧 We apologise for the recent server issues. The site may be unavaliable while we investigate the problem. 🚧

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

… and then the PS5 Pro will be launched, promising 4K for all games that struggle to get there. Wait, I thought that’s why I upgraded my PS4 to a Pro last time and still the Pro didn’t deliver. Anyway the motivation to display 4K is nill for me. I don’t care for movies and even less for games. But it’s my fault, I just don’t want to move closer to my TV.
Well it got most of your PS4 games far closer to 2160p (even if they used their internal and one of the first checkerboard solutions).

I loved my Pro personally it made games look faaaaar better image quality wise on my 4k tv post it’s release, improved framerate stability in a lot of games and even gave some developers the room to offer some of the first performance modes we ever saw on console games. I also sold my base console the month before so it only cost me like £150 😝

A potential 20TFLOP PS5 Pro in late 2024 would appeal to a lot of enthusiasts just like PS4 Pro did in late 2016 and it’s also a great selling point alongside their new VR headset which would greatly benefit from a doubling of GPU compute for higher resolutions and framerates when your eyes are so close to that VR screen.
 
Well it got most of your PS4 games far closer to 2160p (even if they used their internal and one of the first checkerboard solutions).

I loved my Pro personally it made games look faaaaar better image quality wise on my 4k tv post it’s release, improved framerate stability in a lot of games and even gave some developers the room to offer some of the first performance modes we ever saw on console games. I also sold my base console the month before so it only cost me like £150 😝

A potential 20TFLOP PS5 Pro in late 2024 would appeal to a lot of enthusiasts just like PS4 Pro did in late 2016 and it’s also a great selling point alongside their new VR headset which would greatly benefit from a doubling of GPU compute for higher resolutions and framerates when your eyes are so close to that VR screen.

I always opted for better quality than 4K and even sold my PS4 stuff when I realized I just get to play Switch games or versions. But I understand I’m not in the target group here.
 
I recall reading a couple months ago on here that if switch pro/switch 2 was launching in March/May we could possible see leaks from manufacturing as early as November/December.. has that ship sailed?
 
Im getting weird flashbacks of the Foxconn leak for the OG Switch.

An undoubtedly real leak that was missing a lot of context, and gave people unrealistic expectations about final clocks.
 
Im getting weird flashbacks of the Foxconn leak for the OG Switch.

An undoubtedly real leak that was missing a lot of context, and gave people unrealistic expectations about final clocks.
I don't think anyone here expects anything to come of those leaked profiles

at least, I hope not...
 
No one knows the exact sales, because they blend the sales numbers with the base consoles. They probably did pretty well, and continue to do so. PS 5 Pro and Xbox Series XXX probably aren't coming though.

Microsoft has been explicit that the reason they made the Series S was that they didn't expect the die shrinks that would make a slim console viable - and an upclocked more powerful version - to be there. And they've mostly been proven right. They've already got two, wildly different SKUs that they require developers to support with simultaneous launches, they're not going to add a third. And how would they justify it to customers without the 4k push that got the pro consoles out there in the first place?

Sony can't get developers to really use the hardware as it stands, and they've got more generational exclusives than Microsoft. Shoving more hardware in there isn't going to help matters, and it would cost a butt. Sony is going to keep finding ways to make them cheaper to build and to ship, but I doubt they're going to shove more power in there. There isn't a technical driver, there isn't a market driver.
You make a valid point, it isn't as easy to say well they can just double the performance of the pro model. Sony and Microsoft didn't skimp on performance, they're using a still very modern 3rd gen 8 core ryzen cpu with a modern RDNA 2 based GPU (ps5 gpu is using Frankenstein version). If had to guess the equivalent gpu for the current 4k twins it would be around a 6700 so how much more power can you squeeze into the 4k twins to see double the gpu performance without creating a whole new console generation?
 
0
PS4 Pro and Xbox One X didn't really put up big numbers, did they? And there's no worthwhile number of screens beyond 4K to get people to upgrade for. If they do mid-gen revisions, their target will need to be people incredibly dissatisfied with the most strenuous games being 4K30.
I've always thought that the PS4 Pro and X1X were defensive measures. If only ONE of the two companies had made a mid-gen 4k box, it certainly would have done bigger numbers, it would have offered a premium "halo effect" to that brand, and would have gotten many enthusiasts (like me!) to switch - and getting customers to switch into your ecosystem is the big business. So once one of them was doing it, both had to. So the bulk of sales not being the more expensive boxes ends up being a little beside the point. The point was not losing customers to your rival - or PC.

As for this gen, I personally agree with you - there isn't the draw that the previous generation refreshes had "your games, now in 4k". That was immensely appealing for anyone with a 4k TV.

Even with mid-gen refreshes, I don't see ray-tracing ever being a major thing this generation. I do think that graphics technology will one day flip over to it en masse as a wholesale lighting solution. But it won't be this gen, imo.

But once again, if one company decides to do it the other may feel like they have to.
 
I realize I am replying to old messages here, but this damn thing is gonna get announced soon, and I want to make sure I get it right before the game ends :ROFLMAO:

Warps = Compute Shaders = Pixel Shaders. Drake's SMs have the same number of partitions, registers, register memory, and CUDA cores as desktop SM, but for some reason limits the number of warps available to 3/4 of the capacity of desktop. This is not VTG - vertex/tessellation/geometry - shaders. Usually this is half the number of warps, but it's not for Drake.

My understanding is that pixel shaders have become far less common than vertex shaders in modern games. Because everything else is the same, this is either a software limitation, or they've pulled scheduling hardware for compute out of the SM. I can't imagine this saves power, but it might save die size. RT runs at the compute stage of the pipeline, but I don't know if those shaders are scheduled the same way.

Does anyone have strong knowledge of how the lack of compute shaders relative to VTG shaders might impact perf?
Not sure about your overall questions, but the max warps per SM is 48 for desktop Ampere and Drake. I believe only GA100 and GA10B have a max of 64.
 
Not sure about your overall questions, but the max warps per SM is 48 for desktop Ampere and Drake. I believe only GA100 and GA10B have a max of 64.
Really? The GA100 number explains it, Nvidia docs occasionally like about Ampere by including A100 numbers instead of desktop numbers in their compute oriented documentation
 
Im getting weird flashbacks of the Foxconn leak for the OG Switch.

An undoubtedly real leak that was missing a lot of context, and gave people unrealistic expectations about final clocks.
I agree, many seem to expect a PS4 OG/Pro level machine, but that doesn't sound right to me. We have that already, it's called the Steam Deck and while a good machine, it's upmarket compared to what Nintendo would do. The idea that Nintendo would go head to head with them in terms of specs seems unlikely, and I especially don't see them pricing a Switch model in that $400+ mark. Frankly I'd expect something more comparable to OG Xbox One, and at a price point more on the level of the existing Switch OLED, perhaps with all existing Switch models being knocked down $50 to make way for it.
 
Frankly I'd expect something more comparable to OG Xbox One, and at a price point more on the level of the existing Switch OLED, perhaps with all existing Switch models being knocked down $50 to make way for it.
The leaked specs suggest a device more capable than this, without taking the clockspeed testing scenarios into account.
 
I recall reading a couple months ago on here that if switch pro/switch 2 was launching in March/May we could possible see leaks from manufacturing as early as November/December.. has that ship sailed?
Mochizuki of WSJ/Bloomberg got the manufacturing timing for the OLED model and the v2 about 4.5 months before it's release, which would place us around end of December to mid January. Which makes sense because Nintendo likely planned this thing to start production just at the tail end of the holiday season (New Year's in Japan), so they don't have to answer questions to investors about a new Switch until they got their end of year sales in. So I would give about a week, maybe even more (because of the holidays) before we start hearing leaks on that front.
 
and I especially don't see them pricing a Switch model in that $400+ mark. Frankly I'd expect something more comparable to OG Xbox One, and at a price point more on the level of the existing Switch OLED, perhaps with all existing Switch models being knocked down $50 to make way for it.
When did Nintendo start becoming so charitable? After inflation $400 isn't much more than what Switch launched for in 2017, and I'm sure in retrospect they wish they had been charging more for it back then. OLED let them rectify that a little bit. Hard to imagine them making something drastically improved and just dropping it at the same price the OLED has been.
 
With regards to pricing, the Switch launched at $300, which was the same price as the PS4/XB1 at the time. PS5 average price is $450 and Xbox Series is $400 (with the caveat that SS is a much more different product). But hey let's average them all and say $425. If Drake was $450, it would be right around the current pricing of current gen consoles, same as what the Switch was relative to the competition. And considering PS5 got price increases this year and Xbox will next year, $449 would be even more in line really.

edit: Also Drake would have more value compared to Series S because it would be capable of 4K.
 
I agree, many seem to expect a PS4 OG/Pro level machine, but that doesn't sound right to me. We have that already, it's called the Steam Deck and while a good machine, it's upmarket compared to what Nintendo would do. The idea that Nintendo would go head to head with them in terms of specs seems unlikely, and I especially don't see them pricing a Switch model in that $400+ mark. Frankly I'd expect something more comparable to OG Xbox One, and at a price point more on the level of the existing Switch OLED, perhaps with all existing Switch models being knocked down $50 to make way for it.
Can I ask what you're expecting, a little more concretely? Like, genuinely. I ask because the gap between the Xbox One and the PS4 is pretty tiny, but the gap between the PS4 and the Pro is huge, and the SteamDeck is a wildly different animal, that really isn't comparable to any of them.

The hardware leaked in February, with additional confirmation in August. We can't know Nintendo's full plan, or what has happened since, but there isn't really a question of what Nintendo would do. There is only a question of how successful they are.
 
With regards to pricing, the Switch launched at $300, which was the same price as the PS4/XB1 at the time. PS5 average price is $450 and Xbox Series is $400 (with the caveat that SS is a much more different product). But hey let's average them all and say $425. If Drake was $450, it would be right around the current pricing of current gen consoles, same as what the Switch was relative to the competition. And considering PS5 got price increases this year and Xbox will next year, $449 would be even more in line really.

edit: Also Drake would have more value compared to Series S because it would be capable of 4K.
I don't know if averaging together the prices of the low-end and high-end SKUs from the competition really makes sense in a comparison like this. Like, if the new Switch is $450, that's going to be more expensive than a PlayStation 5. That there's also another PlayStation 5 that is more expensive still doesn't change the fact that you would be able to get a PS5 for less than the cost of this new Switch.

$450 would mean that Nintendo had the highest starting price for their new platform compared to everyone else. That's not something that's really happened before.

Has there ever really been a platform that's launched with a starting price that high that was successful? Sony was very careful to have the PS5 at least nominally start at $399, they did a lot of work to hit that price point because they felt it was important to hit that. I get that inflation is a thing but I also don't think Nintendo's going to be the one to try to push it. At $399 the new Switch would already be $100 more than the previous Switch, which is already outpacing inflation.
 
I recall reading a couple months ago on here that if switch pro/switch 2 was launching in March/May we could possible see leaks from manufacturing as early as November/December.. has that ship sailed?
We saw "possible" leaks in August, don't worry. We haven't exactly passed some point where leaks are inevitable, they never are. And December is a slow month for manufacturing anyway.
 
I don't know if averaging together the prices of the low-end and high-end SKUs from the competition really makes sense in a comparison like this. Like, if the new Switch is $450, that's going to be more expensive than a PlayStation 5. That there's also another PlayStation 5 that is more expensive still doesn't change the fact that you would be able to get a PS5 for less than the cost of this new Switch.

$450 would mean that Nintendo had the highest starting price for their new platform compared to everyone else. That's not something that's really happened before.

Has there ever really been a platform that's launched with a starting price that high that was successful? Sony was very careful to have the PS5 at least nominally start at $399, they did a lot of work to hit that price point because they felt it was important to hit that. I get that inflation is a thing but I also don't think Nintendo's going to be the one to try to push it. At $399 the new Switch would already be $100 more than the previous Switch, which is already outpacing inflation.
I'm just saying that $449 would be in line with the current gen prices and actually even cheaper outside of the US. The NES launches at $179 in 1985 which is equivalent to about $470 today and $425 in 2019 (when they started developing Drake). SNES is about $375 in 2019, $414 today. N64 was intended to launch at $249- $450 today, $407 in 2019. But Nintendo reduced it to $199 to compete with Sony/Sega, so $360 today, $325 in 2019.

Gamecube is where Nintendo went for cheaper launch prices from the start, being $100 lower than the PS2 and Xbox- though that didn't end up making muc a difference. Software is what ultimately sells hardware and I don't think a $50 difference from $399 to $449 will change much. Especially when SWOLED is the best selling model at the moment at $350 with the biggest feature being a better screen. I think when Nintendo phases out the OG Switch, OLED will become the base model.

And again with regards to price, it will be much easier for Nintendo to lower the price than to increase it later (which they've never done). So I think when Nintendo looks back to the Wii, DS, and Switch and realizes that they probably could have priced them $50 more and sold the same or a bit less, I think they'll go for $449 for Drake in May. We all know it will sell out for months if not the first few years. By the time Drake lite releases with gen 10 in 2025 along with MK 10 and other Nintendo exclusives, maybe the drop the price $50 or introduce a mid point, $349 model?

*Continuing the inflation adjusted launch pricing of Nintendo consoles:

Wii - $249 2006, $349 today
Wii U - $299/$349 2012, $369/$431 today ($299 SKU discontinued shortly after launch)
Switch - $299 2017, $345 today

So at least half of Nintendo's consoles, when they were doing well, had an (intended) launch price of around $450 in today's dollars. Especially with the recent inflation, I think $449 will do perfectly well.
 
What do you think it'll be? Genuinely.

My expectations are still extremely low. ~1TF portable(tabletop and handheld mode), 1.5-1.8 in TV Mode.
IF LiC's find was them testing operating clocks, we have clocks of 660MHz for handheld for 2.027TFLOPs and 1.125GHz for docked, or 3.456TFLOPs. I believe the 1.38GHz clock for the GPU would just be stress testing, but who knows. This is a lot higher than 8nm node should allow for, but we don't have complete context for this, so it's just something to keep in mind for now, hopefully we start getting more info over the next month.
You still predicting around 2TFLOP portable and 4TFLOP Docked for Drake?
I think the above clocks are very realistic, but who knows. I'm pretty happy with all the information we've gotten, it's all exceeded our expectations at every turn, and we are still waiting for the monkey paw, but I don't think it will be in raw performance.
 
IF LiC's find was them testing operating clocks, we have clocks of 660MHz for handheld for 2.027TFLOPs and 1.125GHz for docked, or 3.456TFLOPs. I believe the 1.38GHz clock for the GPU would just be stress testing, but who knows. This is a lot higher than 8nm node should allow for, but we don't have complete context for this, so it's just something to keep in mind for now, hopefully we start getting more info over the next month.

I think the above clocks are very realistic, but who knows. I'm pretty happy with all the information we've gotten, it's all exceeded our expectations at every turn, and we are still waiting for the monkey paw, but I don't think it will be in raw performance.
Can we infer a general range of CPU clocks based on these GPU clock tests?
 
Can we infer a general range of CPU clocks based on these GPU clock tests?
If they are pushing the GPU this high, then it's not 8nm, and 8 A78C cores would work pretty well at 2GHz if it's not 8nm, so I think as a soft estimation, 2GHz is fine for now, could be 300-400MHz faster or slower depending on battery life target and the actual node they are using, but 2GHz is a solid configuration for the specs we are seeing.
 
Inflation has gone up, but gaming's more popular than it ever has been before. More games and DLC are selling, and at higher prices, we've also got Switch Online subscriptions also helping to bring in more revenue. Technically prices might've been cheaper adjusting for inflation, but other revenue streams have became more prominent to offset that to a degree. And regardless I think the other current systems are gonna be a bigger factor for setting the price than what Wii or Wii U launched at. You or me might not bat a eye at a $400+ Nintendo system, but people considering the other systems probably will. I think it's far more likely Switch 2 enhanced title and exclusives get more expensive than the system itself being priced at $400+
Can I ask what you're expecting, a little more concretely? Like, genuinely. I ask because the gap between the Xbox One and the PS4 is pretty tiny, but the gap between the PS4 and the Pro is huge, and the SteamDeck is a wildly different animal, that really isn't comparable to any of them.

The hardware leaked in February, with additional confirmation in August. We can't know Nintendo's full plan, or what has happened since, but there isn't really a question of what Nintendo would do. There is only a question of how successful they are.
I typed PS4 OG/PS4 Pro generally meaning power somewhere between the two, sorry that wasn't clear, that was a odd way to put it I'll admit.
 
Last edited:
Twice the GPU compute for what they paid for their launch consoles in 2020.

Their consoles are already struggling to get anywhere near 4k even with reconstruction. Some games are also struggling to hit 30fps with ray tracing due to being GPU bound at 1440p/1080p.

If you double the GPU compute lots of games would be far nearer native 4k and the games that use RT would be a locked 30/60fps depending on the game instead of dropping into the 20/50’s like they do now.

I don’t expect the upgraded PS5 and Series X until late 2024 though not late 2023 like some people do.
As I mentioned in the post, there’s limitations to what they can actually do. They cannot be RDNA3 base which has a dual issue FP32 pipeline, because that removes the legacy stuff that is in RDNA1/RDNA2 which is what the current consoles have. PS5 uses a gel engine that isnt available on RDNA3, as that removed it outright. If they’re going to have a double the throughput, they’re going to at least have to have double the shader count/compute unit count. And I already got into the meat and potatoes that they are already gargantuan chips for dedicated silicon. Unless people expect these two to be over $500, people should temper expectations on these pro consoles especially by 2024.


If they exist by 2024, they will be more of what the current consoles are, and they will be very big and more power hungry. How exactly do you feed all that? You need more memory, you need more memory bandwidth, you need a lot of things.


And at the size of those chips for say 5nm, the price would be incredibly high for that.

There’s like so much wrong for a 2024 pro console with meaningful enough performance uplift to make sense in the current economic state of the world.

But if they stretch the generation and so one by say… 2025/26 or so, it should be fine enough i think
 
Last edited:
0
Inflation has gone up, but gaming's more popular than it ever has been before. More games and DLC are selling, and at higher prices, we've also got Switch Online subscriptions also helping to bring in more revenue. Technically prices might've been cheaper adjusting for inflation, but other revenue streams have became more prominent to offset that to a degree. And regardless I think the other current systems are gonna be a bigger factor for setting the price than what Wii or Wii U launched at. You or me might not bat a eye at a $400+ Nintendo system, but people considering the other systems probably will. I think it's far more likely Switch 2 enhanced title and exclusives get more expensive than the system itself being priced at $400+
I imagine it'll likely be both. More expensive console and more expensive games. I could see them launching with a more expensive $449 256 GB model in May and then introducing a 128 GB model at $399 in the holidays, but we'll see.
 
0
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
I’m pretty sure this is actually related to this:

1E1A68D2-936C-467D-8307-ABC492E67ADB.jpg



It was meant to be a point of comparison between the two to convince them to go for the TX1 over the TK1.
 
I typed PS4 OG/PS4 Pro generally meaning power somewhere between the two, sorry that wasn't clear, that was a odd way to put it I'll admit.
So, ultimately, what Nintendo is able to do will be dictated by the physics of "how much heat and electricity can we shove through this thing before it melts and/or has zero battery life." But if you're thinking about what Nintendo would do, I'd like you to consider how DLSS works.

The PS4 was a 1080p machine. 4K is 4x as many pixels. The Pro is a 4k machine, but it used a technique called "checkerboarding" to make a 4x as big an image with only 2x as much power.

DLSS only needs 10% extra power to make a 4K image. So if Nintendo lands at just ever so slightly more power than the PS4, they can give you a PS4 Pro experience.

The Xbox One was not a 1080p console. It tried, but it almost never delivered. That One X also used checkerboarding, but the One X had to be way way more powerful than the OG Xbox One, because it not only needed the extra power to get to 4k from 1080p, it needed more power just to get to 1080p in the first place.

So, if a 4k Switch hits the Xbox One level of power, then last gen games will still need to get some cuts in order to get up to 1080p, plus a little extra if you actually want the "4k" part of your 4k Switch. At the PS4's level of power, you need just need enough cuts to find that 10% of power. And if you manage 110%, you can still be well, well, well behind the PS4 Pro, but offer every last gen game in 4K.

Like I said, physics will determine if Nintendo can cross that gap. But if they can, then the benefit is unusually high
 
Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.
Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.


I’m pretty sure this is actually related to this:

It was meant to be a point of comparison between the two to convince them to go for the TX1 over the TK1.
Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.
 
Last edited:
When did Nintendo start becoming so charitable? After inflation $400 isn't much more than what Switch launched for in 2017, and I'm sure in retrospect they wish they had been charging more for it back then. OLED let them rectify that a little bit. Hard to imagine them making something drastically improved and just dropping it at the same price the OLED has been.
IMO there are a few new factors when it comes to pricing that haven't been factors for previous gens: revenue streams. Nintendo never had the multiple sources of $$$ that Sony or MS did in the past. They were exclusively a game company. Now, they’re branching out into movies, mobile markets, and theme parks. Perhaps they may use this new income to offset the price of Drake?
 
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *



* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
We don’t know when these tests were done exactly, but based on the other former Nintendo employee it was prior to December 2014. Perhaps around the summer is when they were sold on it, based on the other NoA employee information.


A405CA08-F09C-4BA1-A7DF-94ADABF573B7.jpg
 
IMO there are a few new factors when it comes to pricing that haven't been factors for previous gens: revenue streams. Nintendo never had the multiple sources of $$$ that Sony or MS did in the past. They were exclusively a game company. Now, they’re branching out into movies, mobile markets, and theme parks. Perhaps they may use this new income to offset the price of Drake?
I think that's a good consideration and potentially Nintendo might be willing to make a slightly smaller profit margin or even break even on Drake at launch. The demographic buying this thing at launch or even the first year will likely primarily be composed of enthusiasts, so they'll definitely be buying multiple games and subbing to NSO among other things.

Still, I am of the opinion that when Nintendo budgeted this device in late 2019 to early 2020, they probably intended to launch the device at $399 (multiple SKUs not withstanding ala Wii U). $399 at that time would come out to about $440 today. Maybe with 2017 Nintendo's mindset, something closer to $500 would give them their OG Switch profit margin, but I think their diversified revenue streams would allow them to launch at a maximum of $449.

edit:
So will things start picking back up in January if the new Switch is launching in H1 23?
Mochizuki of WSJ/Bloomberg got the manufacturing timing for the OLED model and the v2 about 4.5 months before it's release, which would place us around end of December to mid January. Which makes sense because Nintendo likely planned this thing to start production just at the tail end of the holiday season (New Year's in Japan), so they don't have to answer questions to investors about a new Switch until they got their end of year sales in. So I would give about a week, maybe even more (because of the holidays) before we start hearing leaks on that front.
 
0
Panic as I patiently wait for Amazon uk to put the thing up for pre order 😂
I imagine this thing will be even harder to get than the SWOLED
Relief and excitement, as if an extremely long journey is finally over.
Big same
Excitement, followed by immediately heading over to the shops to put in my preorder, then relaxation for the foreseeable future.
How long do you think that relaxation will last?
You could think about all the exclusive games you'll definitely be playing and not adding to your backlog!
"when's drake pro?"

When Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation |ST| 2

 
Let’s start speculating about the switch 2 pro 4 U, I hear that there’s a patent for blast processing for it.


Thoughts?
 
Please read this staff post before posting.

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


Back
Top Bottom