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

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Phantom Thief said:
I want to believe you, but this is the first post on page 666, and now I just don't know
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Mwahahaha

But really DF said a revision was cancelled, and they don't think anything new is coming in 2023 but they don't know either way.

Nate is the one who kinda threw a live grenade into here but what he's said is extremely confusing.
 
YolkFolk said:
Capcom releasing cloud versions of RE2, 3, 7 and Village may have implied no next gen hardware is imminent. Would they really have released these at full price if a console which can handle them natively was due to be released?
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Even if new hardware were to drop tomorrow, it would be years before the userbase could match even half of base Switch's. So, yeah, I think they would.
Paxie said:
I can't buy the idea that they would put out a Pro model less than 2 years before Drake, even the New 3DS -> Switch transition was longer. The only way that would make sense is if the next gen is another hard cut off, which is similarly unbelievable because Nintendo is being very cautious about generational transitions this time and cutting BC is the equivalent of slamming a big red self-destruct button
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Outside of Japan, DSi -> 3DS was less than 2 years.
 
DF discovered something between now and last summer podcast which triggered Nate's new "heavy" information that he had been holding back for a few weeks.
 
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JoshuaJSlone said:
Even if new hardware were to drop tomorrow, it would be years before the userbase could match even half of base Switch's. So, yeah, I think they would.

Outside of Japan, DSi -> 3DS was less than 2 years.
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Didn't know about that, huh. Given the much higher spec and cost of the Switch (consumer-side and production-side) + how much has changed with Nintendo in general, I still think launching a Pro and new gen so close to each other would be unreasonable to expect though
 
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pelusilla6 said:
But a Pro Mariko wouldnt be capable of DLSS as Mochi reported and there isnt a mention of a chip capable of such things but Drake (t239).

Something is odd here, getting news in the end of 2022 about a cancelled Pro in 2020 or 2021?
Mochi recognizing DF and corroborating his 2020-21 reports with it... It just doesn't make any sense or they are mixing systems and it's not ""possible"" looking at the Nvidia leak.

Edit: A single mention of t236 but nothing else.

Edit2: All ports from 3d parties in Limbo since 2021-22? No sense... or big tear of trust in their relationship.
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So this T236. Where is it mentioned? In the same list of scrubbed words that Dane was mentioned?
 
Hermii said:
This is the problem I have with Nate here. On the one hand he is saying the NVN 2 leak validated his reporting about the revision whatever you want to call it. On the other hand, he is saying the revision that got cancelled is not necessarily the Drake hardware. They both can't be true.
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He clarified a few pages back that the NVN2 leak validated the features he heard were coming, those being DLSS and 4K. There've been theories floated by several users here as to how there could have been two separate chips, a refresh and now a full successor, that both featured 4K and DLSS, and the weaker of the two was shelved. That would make the NVN2 leak appear at first to corroborate what Nate heard initially about a "Pro," even if it was actually for the "Succ."

Nate himself even said on a podcast months back that he was no longer confident in calling this simply a "Switch Pro," which sounds to me like his information has been evolving along with the chip itself.
 
LinkURL said:
My crazy theory in this whole story:

  • At some point Nintendo and Nvidia came to work with the overclocked Mariko, but gave up turning it into the Red Box Switch.
  • They took the ideas they had and tried to work with the Orin line, the first attempt being the T236 (Dane), 8SM, DLSS, 8nm Samsung and A78C CPU. (Here happens the first leak of Nate)
  • The work with T236 even advanced but they found problems, with the battery life and the chips shortage, the SoC was always being delayed and with each delay it became more powerful.
  • However, Nintendo had already warned partner developers that there were plans for a 4K Switch, and had even produced some devkits. (Here happens the famous Bloomberg article)
  • 2021, Dane is once again delayed and they launch only the shell, calling Nintendo Switch OLED.
  • Dane has evolved so much to this point that they change the project nomenclature, now calling it T239 (Drake), the plans are 12SMs, more RAM and possibly another manufacturing node. (It is in this moment of transition that the Kopite7kimi leak happens, mixing information from Drake and Dane)
  • Nintendo warns developers now of a possible H2 2022 / H1 2023 release, not yet fully decided whether to sell just as an overhaul or as a new system. (This is where Nate gets the release date info we know)
  • Mid 2022, Nintendo decides, it will no longer be a hardware revision but a new generation, using the full potential of the Tegra T239 (Drake), which does impact third parties as some still use the first devkits designed for Dane. (Here comes the information from the DF and new information from Nate)
  • Possibly along with this repositioning there was also another release delay, but this is information that is still cloudy, what we know is that the 2022/2023 mid-gen was cancelled, but we don't know much about the release of the new gen , however due to the maturity of the data we have on Drake, in my opinion the best bet is still a release with TotK.
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Nice theory!
 
Charamiwa said:
The main thing that changed after all this (on top of more general confusion) is that we have now no one reliable to vouch for H1 2023. We used to have Nate and Mochizuki's report and they both seem to think that DF's discussion is invalidating what they previously reported on. And DF themselves seem to be sure that 2023 isn't happening for some reason.

So really our reasons to believe a H1 2023 release (which was already moved from a Q4 2022/Q1 2023 window if you'll recall) have really thinned out. All we have now is our feelings that it makes sense to release with Zelda and the Nvidia leak stuff which doesn't tell us much about release windows. It is a bit shaky.
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i would say that

  • nividia leaks/hardware info
  • 1st party software release schedule (zelda)
  • uncles

is less shaky than anything any 'insider' may have alluded to. putting together a timeline from this info is as good as it's going to get. some of this stuff might not mean anything, Zelda is pushed to next FY because that year is going to be devoid of software so they need it's sales to pump up the numbers, who knows. but at least we have some facts to deal in. it might come or may be delayed onto a smaller node and/or for cost saving reasons. with zelda is honestly the best time but you never know with nintendo. one thing is for sure it will be part of the Switch family with backward compatibility, all this talk of next-gen or a refresh is semantics as the OG Switch will be supported for years.

*i'm aware uncles aren't factual like other data but i like uncles.
 
Vash_the_Stampede said:
How is a mobile/hybrids device launching in an inferior node 3-year after its competition “not bad news”?

This one is self-evident.
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There is no actual 'news'. No specific process node has been confirmed. We have lines of code that specify a manufacturer but we don't even know how up to date they are compared to the NVN2 files, and DLSS testcases that some say contradict 8nm.

We've known since the leak this device would be weaker than the Series S, much less the PS5 and Series X. So I don't understand why we're doing this node-to-node comparison. Regardless of the node, 3 years after the competition, we are getting a weaker device.

Samsung 8nm, again, has been our default 'safe' assumption and folks here have crunched the numbers and observed it would still result in a capable device.
If you personally find 8nm disappointing then I get it. I don't because of the reasons I just gave. Suddenly finding out this device is 10nm, somehow, would be bad news, alternatively finding out it's 5nm would be good news.

I'd be happy to revisit this discussion if it's 100% confirmed 8nm and if it ends up falling way below our current expectation. Otherwise we can agree to disagree on what 'bad news' means and leave it at that.
 
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Hermii said:
So this T236. Where is it mentioned? In the same list of scrubbed words that Dane was mentioned?
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It's not in the same file as where Dane is mentioned. Dane is only mentioned once, near Drake. But 'tegra-236'/'t236' is mentioned in some other places near 't239'.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
nah. they said a mid-gen revision was canned, but by their definitions, that's definitely not Drake
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Gotcha thanks!

Skittzo said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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Yeah this sounds like there were maybe some crossed wires at some point or the other? I think the big takeaway here is that at some point a mid-gen Pro style revision was planned for 2023? In which case games such as Bayo3/TOTK may all have been designed around that spec, before it got repurposed for a successor that may now... no longer hit 2023? On that one point, we have the exact same evidence as before (except for DF being unsure about it hitting next year, which to be fair and based on their developer contacts, is fairly compelling as far as supporting evidence goes).

I don't know, I honestly thought a Switch 2 in 2023 with Zelda was a slam dunk obvious gimme, but it looks like Nintendo thought differently, it looks like Zelda was indeed meant for the current Switch (maybe with the "Pro" version being the "lead" version), and the Switch 2, whenever it launches (but presumably after TOTK and post-2023) will be launching with something else instead. 3D Mario? Prime 4?
 
Hermii said:
So this T236. Where is it mentioned? In the same list of scrubbed words that Dane was mentioned?
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It's just a text string that shows up a couple times in some blacklists, with no connection to Drake or Nintendo. It's not in the same list that has "Dane." Its name indicates that it would have been a version of an Ampere Tegra, but beyond that, there is no additional information about it, because it never existed to such an extent that any development could have been based around it.

The most likely explanation for it is that it was a transient revision to some circuit design or something, either for a version of Orin or Drake, that never made it past "run this in the simulator, see how it works, make some changes, and move on to T237." Consider another example: TX1 is T210/Erista and TX1+ is T214/Mariko. What happened to T211, T212, and T213? Most likely nothing, they never really existed. They weren't meant for separate products. Neither was T236.
 
LinkURL said:
I think it's a mistake to think that Drake needs to launch with Mario Kart or some exclusive at that level, a device like that would sell out for months even with only third parties and Switch games in 4K. Better save the MK for when the wave of early adopters has passed.
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I think it's a mistake to expect a new Mario Kart anytime soon. They'll be releasing DLC for 8 until the end of 2023, while also still making new stuff for Tour. There's absolutely no way there's a new Mario Kart game ready in 2024.
 
Marce-chan said:
I think it's a mistake to expect a new Mario Kart anytime soon. They'll be releasing DLC for 8 until the end of 2023, while also still making new stuff for Tour. There's absolutely no way there's a new Mario Kart game ready in 2024.
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It's wild to me that we might not get Mario Kart 9 until 2025 at the earliest...12 years after MK8.
 
"If it's not Drake, what was the SoC?"

Could it have been some sort of mysterious T237.8 chip that they've been successful in keeping hidden from leakers? That's one of the only reasonable suggestions I could come up with, and then if that's false because of the Nvidia leak that revealed everything and no other chips were in development, then it must have been an overclocked Mariko chip hiding in plain sight.

...with tensor cores built in lol okay yeah I don't know what I'm trying to rationalize here when I started typing. Maybe I should just check out of this thread early for what little sanity remains.
 
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JoshuaJSlone said:
Even if new hardware were to drop tomorrow, it would be years before the userbase could match even half of base Switch's. So, yeah, I think they would.
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That’s not really the point.

The point is that you wouldn’t want to piss off your audience by making them pay 50 for a cloud game and then announce a real version of the same game 6 months later for the same price on an ‘iteration’ console.

I don’t think Capcom would have released these versions right now if a console that can handle them natively was due. They’d have waited until the new console was out or not bothered at all since the sales of these cloud games must be pretty damn low regardless of the ‘userbase’.
 
bloopland33 said:
How have Nate’s initial comments from yesterday not affected the expectations you held before yesterday? Genuinely asking.
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his comments yesterday contradicts his comments he made in the past (like 2023 was intended for non-drake upgrades, but he said in the past that drake was intended for 2022/2023). and there's no actual evidence of any recent "pro" hardware that would sit in between Erista/Mariko and Drake. we can make theories, but the evidence is lacking. and if it's canned and Drake is still alive, it doesn't even matter. Drake has been in the works since 2019, and no company sits on R&D'd products for so long
 
Phantom Thief said:
Gotcha thanks!


Yeah this sounds like there were maybe some crossed wires at some point or the other? I think the big takeaway here is that at some point a mid-gen Pro style revision was planned for 2023? In which case games such as Bayo3/TOTK may all have been designed around that spec, before it got repurposed for a successor that may now... no longer hit 2023? On that one point, we have the exact same evidence as before (except for DF being unsure about it hitting next year, which to be fair and based on their developer contacts, is fairly compelling as far as supporting evidence goes).

I don't know, I honestly thought a Switch 2 in 2023 with Zelda was a slam dunk obvious gimme, but it looks like Nintendo thought differently, it looks like Zelda was indeed meant for the current Switch (maybe with the "Pro" version being the "lead" version), and the Switch 2, whenever it launches (but presumably after TOTK and post-2023) will be launching with something else instead. 3D Mario? Prime 4?
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Again, nothing DF said suggested that a mid-gen pro style revision was ever planned for or cancelled for 2022 or 2023. That comes solely from Nate.
 
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Hosermess said:
"Finally, Nate has notably not commented on whether a successor using Drake could launch in 2023. So we have no idea what the actual shift in plans, if there is any, is."

That is not notable.
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They didn't cancel the DLSS revision, just to release the DLSS successor at the exact same timing window.

This takes the revision/ successor discussion to a new level :p
 
Hermii said:
They didn't cancel the DLSS revision, just to release the DLSS successor at the exact same timing window.

This takes the revision/ successor discussion to a new level :p
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Oh I only meant the first sentence in the quote. He didn't comment on if it could launch, he didn't comment on if it couldn't launch.
 
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I believe that the plan until the beginning of this year was a revision, with Drake + dock and OLED shell + maybe the original joycons. But 6 years after the release of Switch OG and more and more competitors entering the market, such as SteamDeck and AyaNeo (who knows even something from Sony behind the scenes), Nintendo decided to take advantage of Drake and give it the treatment it deserves, new joycons, a different OS (so we don't have firmware leaks) and a 1080p display (which we have evidence of from the DLSS tests LiC found).
If this will delay plans even beyond TotK, only time will tell, I believe that due to Drake's fully developed state, we will see Switch 2 no later than the holidays of 2023.
 
If the Drake Switch was cancelled, then the succ will be on 2026 the earliest. I guess the Switch will enjoy a few more years of uncontested supremacy.
 
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YolkFolk said:
That’s not really the point.

The point is that you wouldn’t want to piss off your audience by making them pay 50 for a cloud game and then announce a real version of the same game 6 months later for the same price on an ‘iteration’ console.

I don’t think Capcom would have released these versions right now if a console that can handle them natively was due. They’d have waited until the new console was out or not bothered at all since the sales of these cloud games must be pretty damn low regardless of the ‘userbase’.
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Why assume they'd be that fast about it? Regardless of whether the next Nintendo hardware is 2023, 2024, or 2025, I think it makes enough Capcom sense to try to take advantage of the Switch userbase with some kind of release in 2022 and then come back with a native version several years later. Switch didn't get RE5&6 until 2.5 years after launch.
 
Seboss said:
Maybe this was already discussed and/or might come across as a really stupid question but, please bear with me. Could the next Nintendo device be streaming-only?

Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion about industry insiders tidbits, leaks and ultimately how Drake - or rather T239 - could fit the bill for a new power-efficient Nintendo handheld. But what if we were wrong all along and that T239 was never supposed to be the foundation of a end-user device but rather the heart of a server appliance for a new streaming platform that would be able to run both old and new Switch games natively?

Is there any credibility to that?

It doesn't contradict the need for devkits as developers would still have to build games for the platform. It also means that the chip wouldn't have to be produced in the tens of millions as it would only be required to power a few thousand servers across the world. That does seem a bit non-sensical considering cost-efficiency but maybe Nvidia has other plans for the chip. On the other hand it could explain the lack of evidence on the actual production of the chip, since it's would be much lower scale and much more confidential than an end-user device. It also opens the door to a much larger and power-hungry chip than expected. It doesn't refute rumors about a 1080p screen for the actual streaming client device.

As for Nintendo, that would come with all the usual streaming incentives. Subscription model, complete ownership of the software, skipping retail channels, high-margins on a dumb streaming console.

Obviously, that would be the real monkey paw. The worst-case scenario as far as I'm concerned. So does that sound completely out of the question?
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I generally don't like using "It's Nintendo", but in this case you really have to remember that it is Nintendo we're dealing with. Their online services have notoriously been and, in many ways, remain hilariously outdated. They're also the only console manufacturer with a major part of their business coming from Japan, which is still a primarily physical market for dedicated games. There's pretty much no reason to even entertain the possibility of Nintendo jumping so deep into cloud gaming, so soon.

With that out of the way, Nintendo wouldn't need to distribute anything to third parties in your scenario unless they were also looking to become a cloud service provider. Third parties would simply use an existing platform, like some already do with Switch cloud games. Shit, Nintendo themselves would probably just lease some cloud infrastructure if they went streaming-only.
 
Everyone with launch switch : "hey my Switch is dying, fuck it, I'm buying an OLED"
Nintendo : " see ? Why would we launch a new model with those sales ?"
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Why assume they'd be that fast about it? Regardless of whether the next Nintendo hardware is 2023, 2024, or 2025, I think it makes enough Capcom sense to try to take advantage of the Switch userbase with some kind of release in 2022 and then come back with a native version several years later. Switch didn't get RE5&6 until 2.5 years after launch.
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Yeah
Most likely, the ports will distribute them over the years. So, those RE games wouldn't have to make it to the release year.
 
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BlueManifest said:
if it was coming 2023 I feel like we would have more concrete rumors by now
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Prior to the proper reveal of the Switch, it was still conflicting rumors if it would be a hybrid portable console or a standard high performance console. With Switch still selling well, Nintendo would absolutely not want info getting out about the successor as they entered the Christmas holiday. They likely sold 3-5 million units in December alone. There was a interview with Reggie Filsaime denying new hardware was coming, and then a few days later the 3DS was announced.

Nintendo is worried about the transition to the next generation and that is likely why they were flirting with the idea of a mid generation refresh. They likely came to the conclusion that it doesn't really sold the problem of aging hardware. As long as the Pro model was still tethered to the OG Switch, developers would still be limited by the specs of the OG Switch since they couldn't strictly target the Pro model. If the Pro model was targeting a 2020 or 2021 release, it certainly wouldn't have been Orin, but I believe there were rumors of Xavier being used.
 
Hermii said:
He explicitly said the revision planned for late 2022/ early 2023 is shelved. Doesn't leave any room for doubt imo.
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Which means the particular thing he has heard about. He's not able to say if something else using the chip is still happening in that same time frame because it's not information he has.

But we have more to go on than just what Nate has said, specifically the timeline involved in the now public T239 chip. If there's no product planned for 2023 with that chip then what exactly is its purpose? Why has it existed physically since April?

Hosermess said:
I don't think he has any idea. He's previously thrown out years when talking about a true Switch successor but they were just offhand comments and not informed speculation.
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Yeah, that's what I mean.
 
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