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

[Deleted member 887]

I'm not sure how literally we're meant to take this whole thing so I'll defer making every comment I could make. But:

I'm taking extensive liberties here, sure.

• Plans for T239 have existed since 2020 at the latest, and T239 is Drake, not Dane.
• If some other chip had existed for a year or more and been included as a target for NVN2, we would see some evidence of it in the leak.

You're smarter than me, but I don't buy that offhand.

• The idea of any shorter-lived intermediate revision just doesn't make sense with an Ampere Tegra.

Who said it was going to be short? Nintendo has done 3 generations at this point with 2x jumps in power. I'm suggesting that the planned a 2x power jump and to call it something like New Switch, which explains the speculation from folks who heard about it that it was a short lived revision, but it is clear that those people were, in fact, speculating about the intended lifespan.

Seems to be a few inconsistencies here.

First, didn't kopite say Dane was 8SMs instead of 4?

I don't recall any leak from kopite about GPU size. In this thread, @Alovon11 was the only significant pusher of 8SMs pre leak. Most of us, myself included, thought it was too far to go on Samsung 8nm, Alovon's argument was that it would be exactly half Orin, and be the simplest design move, consistent with the rest of the hardware.

Second, NVN2 code referencing Drake far predates December 2021 I believe. Also doesn't it explicitly say Drake is made at a Samsung foundry in the code?

We don't have the revision history of the files, just copyright dates which are not always updated. But again, the meat of my idea here is just that in 2021 Nintendo and Nvidia saw an opportunity to die shrink their existing product because of other forces in the market and took it.

As for the Samsung reference, LiC has pointed out that the code seems to be copied straight from Orin with no changes, and that there is reason to believe these sorts of references can lag behind, as they don't affect major functionality.

Third, the Wii U was announced at E3 2011 if I'm not mistaken, and released November 2012. A 17 month marketing cycle, not short at all.

Jiminy, this is a thing I completely misremembered! The Wii U era, truly a haze.

I'm not sure if the evidence supports the idea that Dane really was a separate thing but I do admit it would help explain some of the stuff we've heard from rumors.

There is a reason I captioned the theory with "expect to be proved wrong." I generally respect @LiC's analysis more than my own when it comes to anything hardware related, and back in Spring when the "maybe it's a 5nm Dane" had prominence I was one of the folks shooting it down.

But I've long entertained the idea that one of the things that was going on was confusion between a successor and a pro revision, the same way reporting mixed up T239 and OLED. it would neatly explain some things, but all the plausible pro revision chatter has been around DLSS. DLSS can't run on Maxwell.

To vastly shorten my narrative here, I'm not suggesting that one product was scrapped and another built. Just that if Nintendo/Nvidia decided to increase the amount of power in T239 after shipping devkits, that (generally bizzare) move would neatly explain Drake's unusual technical composition and the strange statements of usually competent sources, and that the last three years created an opportunity for said generally bizarre move.

 

[LinkURL]

Timelines and leaks don't support the existence of Dane

Man, Kopite who is a very reliable NVidia leaker was the first to talk about Dane, when the subject was a new SoC for a new Nintendo Switch, today we know that it is a banned word in the files that leaked from NVN2, which is supposedly a API for a new SoC from a New Nintendo Switch. I think there's every reason to believe that at some point, Dane was the name used for a Nintendo-related product.
Anyway, myself and other "conspiracy theorists", just use the name for convenience to refer to a pre-Drake SoC, which quite possibly existed, being named after Dane or not really doesn't matter.

 

[LiC]

You're smarter than me, but I don't buy that offhand.

I generally respect @LiC's analysis more than my own when it comes to anything hardware related

I wouldn't go that far! I went into all this in March knowing next to nothing about GPU hardware. I do consider myself pretty good at working backwards to get an understanding of foreign source code (having experience with reverse engineering projects), so I'd like to think I learned enough to discuss it, but I'm no authority on anything. And of course, regardless of understanding hardware, interpretations may differ on the same information since nothing in there spells out the content or timing of Nintendo and Nvidia's actual plans.

Man, Kopite who is a very reliable NVidia leaker was the first to talk about Dane, when the subject was a new SoC for a new Nintendo Switch, today we know that it is a banned word in the files that leaked from NVN2, which is supposedly a API for a new SoC from a New Nintendo Switch. I think there's every reason to believe that at some point, Dane was the name used for a Nintendo-related product.

• Kopite used the name T239 before he ever used the name Dane, and T239 is Drake; they're synonymous.
• Kopite later said he was wrong about the codename.
• The one single reference to "Dane" in the entire 77 GB of leaked files has nothing to do with NVN2.

Edit: Like I said in my previous post, I find the idea believable that Nvidia prototyped more than one thing before settling on T239/Drake with Nintendo. One of those things could have even been called Dane. We just don't have any evidence of that in the place where we would expect to find it. But more than that, the issue is with bringing it up to explain the confusing reports we've heard, because that work could never have crossed the threshold toward becoming an actual product, a devkit, an SDK, or anything else exposed to the outside world in order to become part of that reporting -- that's the timeline that doesn't make sense.

 

[Machrider]

We knew pretty much nothing in regards to Switch 11 months before release.

I'm pretty sure I remember there being a lot hybrid rumors/talk and then 9 months pre launch Eurogamer basically revealed the system full stop which caused some people to melt down.

 

[Dark Cloud]

Any new news or anything pointing in a specific direction from the past few days?

 

[Terrell]

There's not much really from actual developer sources, if there is a supposed launch happening in 10-11 months, then this is very, very quiet relative to other hardware platforms at 10-11 months pre-launch which I don't think is unfair to say.

Dev kits should be widely available at this point if that's the time line and if that was the case, I'd expect a few more concrete leaks than what we've been getting.

If we're t-minus 10-11 months from launch, that isn't a lot of time at all.

I get the impression people really misremember how much we actually knew about Switch’s internal hardware design until it was close 6 months out from release. We have substantially more data on this front far earlier than we did in prior cycles.

While I would love to be playing a next-gen Switch this year, ultimately it is a business and I can't say if I were Nintendo I would be in any kind of rush to end or even slow the current Switch's product cycle.

It's like if you own a hamburger restaurant how much of a rush are you in to phase out the best selling item your menu has ever had.

The current Switch still has a lot of market momentum and they could easily hold out until 2024, unlike the Wii, the Switch's success has never been rooted in casual game trends (Switch Sports are a nice additive to what the Switch has had, but in no way is it a core driver of the machine's success which was established well before Switch Sports was ever announced). As such it's not really seeing the type of collapse the Wii was at this point in its product cycle, to the contrary Nintendo is probably making incredible bank from the software in particular.

Which is exactly what Nintendo themselves has said, one of their aims with the Switch was to have a stronger year 5/6/7 etc. than other Nintendo platforms (that they have actually said themselves).

Like I hope there is a new Switch this year, but I'm not going to fall over in shock if there isn't. A system as successful as the Switch (going to sell north of 130-140 million units, which really only two systems in the history of the business have done) should have at minimum a 6 year product cycle on the low end to begin with, but on top of that it's entirely reasonable that COVID probably pushed that out longer by a year too (so 7 years minimum, not that 7 years even is long product cycle for something as successful as the Switch, the XBox One got 7 years before a successor and it sold a fraction of the Switch).

So a 2024 launch wouldn't be that surprising at all, it would also explain a lot about why there isn't much buzz in development circles about this system ... probably because dev kits are not widely out.

Game consoles don’t happen at the snap of the finger, nor do games for them. You kinda have to firm up plans well enough in advance, before you know how things will play out. It’s been that way from the very beginning. Not to mention a huge number of externalities that one must account for. New hardware releases do not utterly hinge on the sales of the current released hardware.

I get how they'd be able to do it, there's just not really a reason to besides to satisfy those who don't want a switching model and think they'll put out a docked only model that is stronger(and somehow that much cheaper?) than the hybrid. A relatively niche reason.

Correction: it satisfies those who don’t need a switching model.

It would absolutely not have any different spec to the standard hybrid, on this we can agree, because the only way to make it cheaper is to share an SoC with an existing model (and Nintendo agrees, which is why all Switches in production all share the same Mariko chip with no difference in AV and I/O capability from the launch Erista model). But that said, I’ll let you in on a secret: people like things that are cheaper if they don’t need what a premium version offers.

Additionally, in 2017, Nintendo recorded usage statistics and the amount of people who use their Switches in handheld mode less than 20% of the time is not that much less than the number people who use it as a handheld more than 80% of the time, and those numbers were enough to motivate Nintendo to make a handheld-only version. And unfortunately, those usage stats have never been released outside of the first year, so who knows what they look like now?

The truth is that, when you remove 2 out of the 4 most expensive parts of the device, it's going to be cheaper. So much so that you're either running the risk of it devaluing the product you're selling for $300 or you're pricing it so much higher than its part cost that you'd be accused of grossly over-pricing it; either way, bad press ahoy. That, if for no other reason, is why a TV-only Switch does not exist. It's also why, if it's going to exist, the greatest likelihood is that it would exist as a near-EoL hardware product, not unlike something like a 2DS or Wii mini.

I am ready to plop 600 CAD minimum down for it lol

So USD$300 MSRP confirmed, then.

 

[Hermii]

Only if Nintendo's new hardware equipped with Drake is going to be released in holiday 2024. Otherwise, not enough time to secure enough process node capacity.

Securing node capacity would be Nvidias job though. Which is the whole reason we think it being on the same node as other Nvidia products is likely.

 

[Sin Drive]

Correction: it satisfies those who don’t need a switching model.

It would absolutely not have any different spec to the standard hybrid, on this we can agree, because the only way to make it cheaper is to share an SoC with an existing model (and Nintendo agrees, which is why all Switches in production all share the same Mariko chip with no difference in AV and I/O capability from the launch Erista model). But that said, I’ll let you in on a secret: people like things that are cheaper if they don’t need what a premium version offers.

Additionally, in 2017, Nintendo recorded usage statistics and the amount of people who use their Switches in handheld mode less than 20% of the time is not that much less than the number people who use it as a handheld more than 80% of the time, and those numbers were enough to motivate Nintendo to make a handheld-only version. And unfortunately, those usage stats have never been released outside of the first year, so who knows what they look like now?

The truth is that, when you remove 2 out of the 4 most expensive parts of the device, it's going to be cheaper. So much so that you're either running the risk of it devaluing the product you're selling for $300 or you're pricing it so much higher than its part cost that you'd be accused of grossly over-pricing it; either way, bad press ahoy. That, if for no other reason, is why a TV-only Switch does not exist. It's also why, if it's going to exist, the greatest likelihood is that it would exist as a near-EoL hardware product, not unlike something like a 2DS or Wii mini.

I believe need and want is pretty much the same in this context but there's no disagreeing with the notion of a cheaper, EOL home variant as I'm aware of people enjoying cheaper items(pretty obvious). I was specifically referring to having an home variant that is both cheaper and more powerful.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I am fairly convinced that the "delay" actually is caused by a node shrink. It's just a node shrink that decided 14+ months ago, along with all the decisions that come with.

The wild "Drake is node shrunk Dane" theory neatly explains almost every weird bit of info we've heard.

Nintendo wants a more powerful Switch, they go to Nvidia, take a look at the Orin plans and see a DLSS demo. A 2x power increase is inline with the last three Nintendo generations, and 2-3x more power plus 4K hardware was the exact strategy for the midgen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

Dane is exactly the device you would have expected if you had asked @Thraktor for predictions at the time. Its 4SMs, decent clock speed, it's got tensor cores for DLSS, it even has RT cores.

Devkits are out in 2021 with devs told to "make their games 4k ready". According to Nate, the upgrade is a 4k focused pro model, based on what he's heard from developers, and he expects a "real" next gen a few years later. 2022-2023 window seems consistent from multiple sources.

The problem is Dane sucks. 4 tensor cores at mobile clock speeds is barely enough power for DLSS 2. 4 Ampere SM is a solid 2.5x power upgrade over Switch, but you can't do anything with that extra power, because you spend it all trying to get frame time down to let DLSS 2 run. The RT is vestigial at that point. But pushing clock speeds or SMs any higher, and the battery life and heat get out of control.

Nvidia has its own challenges. The GPU market tanks, and it's clear that Lovelace is gonna be pricey. Ampere is going to stay around for a while. Meanwhile, the Tegra team that staffed up in 2019 has nothing to do - Atlan has been cancelled, and its replacement, Thor, has to wait until Blackwell's design is finalized before they can really get to work.

New Plan: Drake. The Tegra team will take Dane, triple it, and die shrink it. It'll be Nintendo's true next gen upgrade, and it will give Nvidia a second 5nm product they can use to buffer demand. Nvidia makes TSMC 5nm purchases in December of 2021, and the in-dev NVN2 is updated to use Drake's SOC information. Only a vestigial reference to Dane remains.

Which leaks in Spring of this year. Insiders and observant outsiders are all agog. How do they fit 12 SMs on Samsung 8nm? Where is the modest 4k Switch update? Surely something is up. Half the SMs in handheld mode? No CPU upgrade?

These ideas keep getting shot down as more and more info comes out. Meanwhile, some devs are talking. Reports of "PS4 plus DLSS" are coming out, matching Drake. Insiders are starting to hear about changes, but after the OLED debacle, no one is willing to talk about it until every possible avenue is covered.

In October partners are briefed and it is ... mixed. The device is now Switch 2, the next generation and will receive a huge marketing push. And a longer one. Nintendo doesn't want to repeat the short marketing cycle of the Wii U, they want to thoroughly sell the device, and prepare users to upgrade. They need 6-8 months to do that, plus they need to get their software library into shape.

DK, Mario, and any other unannounced game that wasn't finished are now all Drake exclusives. Everything else needs a gorgeous cross-gen upgrade. Every second party studio without anything else to do has been handed a 4k remake or remaster. This will all take time. Nintendo is planning to announce in early 2023, and launch by the holiday.

Nintendo will be fine, the Switch is still selling okay, and software sales are solid. But third parties are burned, and after a major rethink and delay, they're not trusting Nintendo's late 2023 timeline. Some start to talk, and those leaks hit us...

I feel like there are much simpler resolutions to a lot of these things, especially the Dane/Drake thing, which seems like a relatively easy mistake to make given Nvidia's naming scheme.

Ultimately, I think some of the more rumor-ish information floating around about Drake is probably just wrong, or at least not actually related to Drake.

 

[Terrell]

I believe need and want is pretty much the same in this context

I'm glad we agree that anyone hoping for a TV-only Switch with more horsepower are dreaming.

But as to this point I quoted? Ehhh, not exactly, but I think the words being used confuse the matter. Calling something a "need" when discussing an entertainment product is definitely the wrong word (and only used it for contrast), but all entertainment goods and their associated features are "wants" to begin with, so it's not a great word to distinguish variable interest in product features, so "want" and "need" can be replaced with "nice-to-have" and "must-have" as it pertains to product features, with "nice-to-have" features falling into a marginal utility scenario.

I like the hybrid I bought, even though I've used it as a handheld only enough times to count on my hands, and enjoy the idea of the flexibility that offers, but I was only in the market for a device that I could play the newest Nintendo software on, that was my "must-have" feature. So if I were to have been given the option between a hybrid and a TV-only model that performed the same when I bought it back in 2017 or 2018 (can't remember which), even if the TV-only model was only $50-100 cheaper, I would have taken the TV-only model happily. Because handheld mode, as much of a "nice-to-have" feature as it is, offers very little marginal utility to me specifically and thus place very little value in it, whereas the extra $50-100 in my pocket means I can increase my marginal utility in my purchase by having enough extra money to buy a game with it. In the absence of option, I still bought the hybrid, because the "must-have" feature was there and I felt it was priced at the right value.

Anyways, TL;DR, bad choice of words on my part, the correct response to your post would probably be that a TV-only Switch satisfies those who don't really care about handheld mode and would pay less for the same Nintendo hardware without it. But would it happen at any point before EoL? Probably not, unfortunate as that would be for folks like me, while handheld-only folks get everything they want.

 

[Hermii]

I am fairly convinced that the "delay" actually is caused by a node shrink. It's just a node shrink that decided 14+ months ago, along with all the decisions that come with.

The wild "Drake is node shrunk Dane" theory neatly explains almost every weird bit of info we've heard.

Nintendo wants a more powerful Switch, they go to Nvidia, take a look at the Orin plans and see a DLSS demo. A 2x power increase is inline with the last three Nintendo generations, and 2-3x more power plus 4K hardware was the exact strategy for the midgen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

Dane is exactly the device you would have expected if you had asked @Thraktor for predictions at the time. Its 4SMs, decent clock speed, it's got tensor cores for DLSS, it even has RT cores.

Devkits are out in 2021 with devs told to "make their games 4k ready". According to Nate, the upgrade is a 4k focused pro model, based on what he's heard from developers, and he expects a "real" next gen a few years later. 2022-2023 window seems consistent from multiple sources.

The problem is Dane sucks. 4 tensor cores at mobile clock speeds is barely enough power for DLSS 2. 4 Ampere SM is a solid 2.5x power upgrade over Switch, but you can't do anything with that extra power, because you spend it all trying to get frame time down to let DLSS 2 run. The RT is vestigial at that point. But pushing clock speeds or SMs any higher, and the battery life and heat get out of control.

Nvidia has its own challenges. The GPU market tanks, and it's clear that Lovelace is gonna be pricey. Ampere is going to stay around for a while. Meanwhile, the Tegra team that staffed up in 2019 has nothing to do - Atlan has been cancelled, and its replacement, Thor, has to wait until Blackwell's design is finalized before they can really get to work.

New Plan: Drake. The Tegra team will take Dane, triple it, and die shrink it. It'll be Nintendo's true next gen upgrade, and it will give Nvidia a second 5nm product they can use to buffer demand. Nvidia makes TSMC 5nm purchases in December of 2021, and the in-dev NVN2 is updated to use Drake's SOC information. Only a vestigial reference to Dane remains.

Which leaks in Spring of this year. Insiders and observant outsiders are all agog. How do they fit 12 SMs on Samsung 8nm? Where is the modest 4k Switch update? Surely something is up. Half the SMs in handheld mode? No CPU upgrade?

These ideas keep getting shot down as more and more info comes out. Meanwhile, some devs are talking. Reports of "PS4 plus DLSS" are coming out, matching Drake. Insiders are starting to hear about changes, but after the OLED debacle, no one is willing to talk about it until every possible avenue is covered.

In October partners are briefed and it is ... mixed. The device is now Switch 2, the next generation and will receive a huge marketing push. And a longer one. Nintendo doesn't want to repeat the short marketing cycle of the Wii U, they want to thoroughly sell the device, and prepare users to upgrade. They need 6-8 months to do that, plus they need to get their software library into shape.

DK, Mario, and any other unannounced game that wasn't finished are now all Drake exclusives. Everything else needs a gorgeous cross-gen upgrade. Every second party studio without anything else to do has been handed a 4k remake or remaster. This will all take time. Nintendo is planning to announce in early 2023, and launch by the holiday.

Nintendo will be fine, the Switch is still selling okay, and software sales are solid. But third parties are burned, and after a major rethink and delay, they're not trusting Nintendo's late 2023 timeline. Some start to talk, and those leaks hit us...

I disagree with several of the details, but think some version similiar enough to this could plausibly have happened.

1. If Thraktors chip ever was in the cards, they would be sure to use Orins double rate tensor cores to up DLSS performance, as Thraktor said they would.
2. I believe the first version of the chip would have had 8sm, as was Kopites original rumour.
3. Nvidias power/ performance ratio calculations prior to greenlighting of the project, would have been pretty damn accurate. All of paragraph 6 would have been easy to see coming years in advance.
4. I think MS and Sonys next gen launch in November 2020 might have played into the decision for a delay. Nintendo would want this thing to be able to run as many ports as possible. Discussions with third parties and engine makers like Epic about what it would take to make that possible, would have influenced such a decision.

 

[CypressFX]

What? Why are you acting so weird? Just tell us if its not happening anymore (IF you had contacts in the first place ofc)…

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

 

[Pokemaniac]

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

The Era verification system is a GAF holdover that I don't think ever worked particularly well in that context, and probably wouldn't here either. You'd need to have very connected staff to even consider attempting it, and even then, I think it has the tendency to lend some amount of undue credibility.

 

[Eclissi]

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

In my opinion it is easy to understand when a user really has information. If anything, the problem may arise the first time an insider reveals himself. Believe him or not? I personally wouldn't believe it.
Furthermore, a ban could be foreseen for those who make a leak which does not come true.

 

[Hermii]

The Era verification system is a GAF holdover that I don't think ever worked particularly well in that context, and probably wouldn't here either. You'd need to have very connected staff to even consider attempting it, and even then, I think it has the tendency to lend some amount of undue credibility.

Rule of thumb: take unproven insiders with a teaspoon of salt. Take proven insiders with a pinch of salt (plans change all the time, and the information could be innaccurate for various reasons).

 

[CocaFormula]

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

IMO a verification system would be ideal if coupled with a system to "anonymize" insider info. Have vetted users relay information they want to share through a single account made only for this purpose.
Advantages: you would report only depersonalized, bare facts/info and users (even the insiders themselves) can freely add their own speculation on top of it, plus there would be no more personal drama, attention seeking, etc...
Cons: not sure how many "insiders" would be willing to undergo this process, and we lose the capability to gauge the information based on previous track records (the burden would be on the mod team)
I would stil prefer it to the current situation TBH.

 

[Hermii]

IMO a verification system would be ideal if coupled with a system to "anonymize" insider info. Have vetted users relay information they want to share through a single account made only for this purpose.
Advantages: you would report only depersonalized, bare facts/info and users (even the insiders themselves) can freely add their own speculation on top of it, plus there would be no more personal drama, attention seeking, etc...
Cons: not sure how many "insiders" would be willing to undergo this process, and we lose the capability to gauge the information based on previous track records (the burden would be on the mod team)
I would stil prefer it to the current situation TBH.

Sounds like a great idea imo.

Some insiders woudnt be willing to undergo the process. But on the other hand other insiders who currently dont want to deal with the attention and drama of being an insider, migh come forward if they were anonymous.

 

[Skittzo]

I don't recall any leak from kopite about GPU size. In this thread, @Alovon11 was the only significant pusher of 8SMs pre leak. Most of us, myself included, thought it was too far to go on Samsung 8nm, Alovon's argument was that it would be exactly half Orin, and be the simplest design move, consistent with the rest of the hardware.

After the NVN2 leak he had tweeted which details he got right and which wrong, and one of the wrong ones was "half of Orin/1024 cores" which would equate to 8SM.

We don't have the revision history of the files, just copyright dates which are not always updated. But again, the meat of my idea here is just that in 2021 Nintendo and Nvidia saw an opportunity to die shrink their existing product because of other forces in the market and took it.

As for the Samsung reference, LiC has pointed out that the code seems to be copied straight from Orin with no changes, and that there is reason to believe these sorts of references can lag behind, as they don't affect major functionality.

That's fair, yeah. I guess the dates could be misleading, but I feel like we'd surely have some vestigial references to another chip, right? They couldn't have so meticulously gone through code that was never going to be made public to scrub references to a chip they had been using for years, right?

Jiminy, this is a thing I completely misremembered! The Wii U era, truly a haze.



There is a reason I captioned the theory with "expect to be proved wrong." I generally respect @LiC's analysis more than my own when it comes to anything hardware related, and back in Spring when the "maybe it's a 5nm Dane" had prominence I was one of the folks shooting it down.

But I've long entertained the idea that one of the things that was going on was confusion between a successor and a pro revision, the same way reporting mixed up T239 and OLED. it would neatly explain some things, but all the plausible pro revision chatter has been around DLSS. DLSS can't run on Maxwell.

To vastly shorten my narrative here, I'm not suggesting that one product was scrapped and another built. Just that if Nintendo/Nvidia decided to increase the amount of power in T239 after shipping devkits, that (generally bizzare) move would neatly explain Drake's unusual technical composition and the strange statements of usually competent sources, and that the last three years created an opportunity for said generally bizarre move.

I agree it would explain things, I'm just kinda having trouble reconciling it with the complete and utter lack of evidence of another chip in the files. But maybe I'm too hung up on that.

 

[CypressFX]

So it seems @NateDrake podcast isnt coming this week…another hard week to wait for confirmation on many of these things

 

[boodream]

Unless I'm wrong, but hasn't DF been off the mark regarding the Drake for a bit? Plus if they're still mentioning the mid-generation refresh, this is obviously not what the Drake is (regardless if Nintendo markets it as such). There's also the fact Nintendo has had huge bursts of Raw Materials between Summer and Winter this year in their inventory that still hasn't been explained (on top of the hiring for new hardware, accessory testing and distribution). Not sure what that would be unless it was the Drake.

That said, take what I say with a grain of salt, but I feel DF's been pretty negative about the idea for a bit.

"After 6 years of the Nintendo Switch's life cycle, the extraordinary oracles at Digital Foundry are able to reveal an incredible and extraordinary scoop to you: Nintendo's next console will not be a mid-gen revision but a hardware of new generation. Everyone has been expecting this for months, but it's still an extraordinary scoop. And don't forget the most important: anti-aliasing, anti aliasing, anti-aliasing, anti aliasing."

What fascinates me is that the whole world literally convulses over a video that says absolutely nothing.

 

[ILikeFeet]

What fascinates me is that the whole world literally convulses over a video that says absolutely nothing.

It's a lot of confirmation bias. People want to be vindicated in picking an answer and sticking with it

 

[Skittzo]

It's a lot of confirmation bias. People want to be vindicated in picking an answer and sticking with it

Us included if I'm being honest.

 

[Dakhil]

Securing node capacity would be Nvidias job though. Which is the whole reason we think it being on the same node as other Nvidia products is likely.

Although that's true, the point I was trying to make is that switching from one process node to another is not a decision that can be made relatively quickly.

 

[CocaFormula]

What fascinates me is that the whole world literally convulses over a video that says absolutely nothing.

Yeah I know nobody owes us anything and it's our fault for being basically always starved for anything to discuss, but I wish "inside" info were presented with just a bit more care.

If you do have information, try to lay it down with all the relevant context (if possible without putting at risk your sources): what, when, who, why.
Saying "we heard that a mid-gen refresh was shelved" is such a useless statement without context. Nate jumping to "confirm" the same information without even knowing if they were referring to the same thing, again providing little to no context for his sudden change of tune, is what created a week of drama and I can't help to think it could have been avoided easily.

At the same time, if you are NOT providing inside info but only you own speculation/opinion, please state it clearly. We had pages trying to guess if "no new switch in 2023" was one or the other, and it would have taken literally a few words to clarify it. They can definitely do better than this.

 

[Nintendojitsu]

It's incredibly rare for developers to leak, there is a very strong culture and process around this already. Game leaks can only hurt sales, and, if caught, your career is over. Given this, it was very impressive that Bloomberg was able to get 11 developers to confirm the existence dev kits. I wonder if some of this leaking was strategic - making sure that Nintendo does release the hardware on time to align with the software investment from third parties.

This leaves us with people who have less skin in the game; hackers and casual workers.

The Lapsus hack has sustained this thread but professional media are not going to work with hacked (stolen) information. A journalist can't start asking Nvidia or Nintendo questions about NVN2 if it only appears in the files released by the hacker as this could be classed as IP infringement.

We have seen a few good leaks from factory and translation teams. As I recall, ARMS and MK8D were leaked the day before they were announced by a worker setting up the demo booths. It will be interesting to see what Nintendo does to clamp down on this but reducing the number of people in the know seems like the most obvious step.

I honestly believe this is what the true purpose of Nintendo of Europe's consolidation was last year. Also with less in the know it will be far easier to figure out where a leak originated from.

 

[barrend]

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

If you ve read the past posts of Polygon, you could see that the info he obtained were from a source that is not an actual contact or friend. In my understanding it was a developer he happened to hang out with. So it's quite logical for Polygon not to be able to acquire new info regularly or easily. He said that if he learns something he ll share it.
I am currently waiting for Nate's input on the current backstage events. But I have to point out that I agree with the general consensus of the recent posts.

P.S. Even though I don't write regularly, I read most of the posts and I feel the need to thank most of the regulars here like oldpuck, Terrell, LiC, dakhil, zombie and the rest of the crew for the thread contribution

 

[Raccoon]

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

ironically I used to think Polygon was obviously lying (nothing personal!) but every weird statement/mistake (e.g. thinking the OLEDs come with game codes) makes me believe him a little more lol

the noj principle

 

[Hermii]

Although that's true, the point I was trying to make is that switching from one process node to another is not a decision that can be made relatively quickly.

Being tied to Nvidia does inchrease their flexibility somewhat.

Say Nvidia originally reserved so and so capacity for 8nm to be used for Nintendo. Plans change , and that capacity will now be used for Ampere cards.

And likewise, Nvidia has secured a ton of 4nm capacity years ago. Plans change and now some of that will be used for Nintendo.

 

[LinkURL]

I wouldn't go that far! I went into all this in March knowing next to nothing about GPU hardware. I do consider myself pretty good at working backwards to get an understanding of foreign source code (having experience with reverse engineering projects), so I'd like to think I learned enough to discuss it, but I'm no authority on anything. And of course, regardless of understanding hardware, interpretations may differ on the same information since nothing in there spells out the content or timing of Nintendo and Nvidia's actual plans.

• Kopite used the name T239 before he ever used the name Dane, and T239 is Drake; they're synonymous.
• Kopite later said he was wrong about the codename.
• The one single reference to "Dane" in the entire 77 GB of leaked files has nothing to do with NVN2.

Edit: Like I said in my previous post, I find the idea believable that Nvidia prototyped more than one thing before settling on T239/Drake with Nintendo. One of those things could have even been called Dane. We just don't have any evidence of that in the place where we would expect to find it. But more than that, the issue is with bringing it up to explain the confusing reports we've heard, because that work could never have crossed the threshold toward becoming an actual product, a devkit, an SDK, or anything else exposed to the outside world in order to become part of that reporting -- that's the timeline that doesn't make sense.

Ah got it, forgive me then, from mentioning this banlist so much, I simply assumed it was related to NVN2.
Anyway like I said, the name is not important, it's the idea of a SoC that had a few versions before.
Kopite didn't just get Drake's name wrong, in fact the only one he got right was that there was a Tegra T239 based on Orin being made by Nintendo, besides the number of SMs was wrong, and he himself put in check other information like the used node.
I think it's a great way to explain Nate's statement that the next console would be a PS4+DLSS, which seems like a direct quote of what a dev would say to him. But as far as we know, even if Drake runs on Switch OG's lower TV mode clocks, he'd be considerably above the PS4.
However, I also admit that strong evidence is lacking to affirm this kind of thing, but that's the fun of speculation, when me, oldpuck, and any other user put together a timeline theorizing what happened, it's obvious that it shouldn't be taken seriously , but rather a way of organizing our thoughts on what would be possible or not in this whole story, since there are clearly still many pieces of the puzzle missing.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Nintendo wants a more powerful Switch, they go to Nvidia, take a look at the Orin plans and see a DLSS demo. A 2x power increase is inline with the last three Nintendo generations, and 2-3x more power plus 4K hardware was the exact strategy for the midgen consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

Minor nitpick, but the consistency of their perf uplifts hasn’t been 2-3x. 3DS to DS was a gen leap, and Switch to 3DS was another generational leap.

While Wii U to Wii was a gen leap, Wii to GCN wasn’t and switch to Wii U wasn’t, so Drake would follow the Wii U stance this time and be the gen leap, the thing after might not be though.

As in, the Wii U to Wii was a significant upgrade, especially on the memory and GPU front. It would be dishonest, imo, to consider that only a 2-3x uplift

The problem is Dane sucks. 4 tensor cores at mobile clock speeds is barely enough power for DLSS 2. 4 Ampere SM is a solid 2.5x power upgrade over Switch, but you can't do anything with that extra power, because you spend it all trying to get frame time down to let DLSS 2 run. The RT is vestigial at that point. But pushing clock speeds or SMs any higher, and the battery life and heat get out of control.

Another minor nitpick, but 4SMs=16 Tensor Cores, not 4 . It would be 4 Ray Tracing Cores though….

Which leaks in Spring of this year. Insiders and observant outsiders are all agog. How do they fit 12 SMs on Samsung 8nm? Where is the modest 4k Switch update? Surely something is up. Half the SMs in handheld mode? No CPU upgrade?

And another minor nitpick, it’s not that 12SMs can’t fit on 8nm, as 8nm is just a process here. It’s how can a chip that is already pointing to be larger than going to fit inside this system? This assumes that this is in fact the same form factor. I can see it if they really tightly pack it in (expensive) or remove things (like the fan or something else). And this is just the chip itself, not including the substrate the chip sits on top of.

Either A) they remove something, or B) they make the switch-like device bigger, C) they really pack this in tightly, or D) they change the form factor, this one isn’t impossible considering Nintendo’s history.

Maybe something like this:

If it’s the 8nm, it’ll follow the same or similar density to the other ampere based products which is around 43-45MTr/mm iirc. Thraktor gave a rough estimation of 7-8B transistors for this to figure out an approximate die size before, or around 170-180mm^2.

The OG TX1 was 118mm^2, and the refresh was using a chip that is around 100mm^2 in size.

It's huge for handheld, but it's a very specific number (1536) which is oddly for TV console

I don’t think it’s that weird, as with their Ampere architecture the GPU in Drake is a single GPC and follows the same principles scaled up to other cards. GA102 has (besides cache) exactly 7 times what Drake has, as in, each GPC is the equivalent in specs to what Drake has when you divide it iirc. And it’s the same for the others.

ORIN has 2 GPCs on the other hand but they follow a different design principle than the others in the Ampere line up.

 

[hologram]

IMO, we should introduce the system like on Era, where users pretending to have information should be verified in some way, otherwise they should be banned or stop posting „insider“ infos. I think everything else is just not good for any community…


What do you guys think?

I started to believe Polygon, but these last comments sound a lot like a slow backpedaling. Nothing against Polygon per se of course ;-)

For the sake of argument, let's consider what "insider verification" would actually involve. Basically, it would involve the insiders outing their sources. That in itself can be pretty difficult - if I remember correctly, Polygon claims his sources are people he talks to IRL over drinks, which is not something staff could easily verify. Even if it's possible, it would either need consent of the source, or betrayal of the source.

And who would be reviewing this information? Mods? They rotate out. If we had "verified" an insider four months ago, I would have been involved, and I would still know who their sources are despite now being a regular user. Even if I hadn't rotated out, who the fuck am I? I don't work in the industry. I'm not well-known. The insiders (and their sources) have no reason to trust me with such sensitive information. Hell, I don't even think I'd necessarily be able to spot fake verification evidence.

Okay, not mods. Admins? They don't rotate out, but they can leave. Also, the same problem above applies; no one on the admin team is remotely qualified to "verify" an insider. Moreover, it would be mods who actually enforce any potential action on unverified insiders, so that means the mods would be acting (or not acting) without knowing full context.

If the "verification" was public, as you and others have seemed to advocate for, that brings a whole other problem: implied credibility. To be honest, we already have that problem to some extent with Nate - he is well-known enough that people know he is credible, so some take every word he says as gospel, or constantly beg him for reassurance, or tag him in conversations he's not involved in. It's very annoying to other people. On the flip side, people get really mad at him when what he says doesn't pan out, which is also obviously not ideal. A verification tag would likely exacerbate this problem with Nate and introduce it with others. Moreover, what do staff do when someone with a "verified" tag breaks the rules? It's not a good look for the site when someone with an official-looking tag says something shitty, and puts them in an awkward position of whether or not to let them keep the tag.

All in all, it's just a really bad idea. If you don't like people sharing supposed inside info when they're unverified, then this is something you should bring up when the mods open their thread about it, whenever that is. But like... it's just so easy to ignore. We just talked about this yesterday.

 

[Hosermess]

agreed

 

[Skittzo]

Regarding insiders, they don't owe us anything and we are under no obligation to buy what they're saying either. Use your own brain to come to your own conclusion. Verification is not the answer, hostility is never the answer, if you don't buy it just ignore it.

Usually when I read something someone claims to know I file it away in my brain as a rumor, maybe real maybe fake, with a likelihood of being true (note: true does not mean accurate) based on that person's track record.

 

[Hosermess]

Sorry for the necro, this is probably dumb and definitely a longshot, but I finally scratched that itch and was able to track down that random blog that was posted a few months ago:

Nice to meet you.
I was surfing the net and found the following information. What do you think?

Apuntes sobre Switch 2 – Disruptive Ludens and Tech

All of the 'bullshit' claims and 'grains of salt' replies are likely accurate, but some of the responses are interesting in light of the recent confusion. Like this one:

I will say this. This whole document implies a slightly different design than the device we often talk about here. It can't be a "PS4 in handheld mode + DLSS" because this design has no DLSS in handheld mode. Instead, it's a design that looks a little bit more like a steamdeck, a 1080p targeting device that "happens" to dock, and DLSS despite it's deeper software integration, to the user acts like one of those magic upscaling dongles (just with decent quality output).

In other words, and I hate to say this, because again, this post gives me Bad Smells BUT - if you had a 2.0 level SOC but wanted to build a 1.5 level device out of it - make a Pro in other words - this would be the approach you could take. Use your new SOC to just drag everything in your old library up to 1080p, use some software tricks to force old games to run their highest quality mode no matter what, and then 4k is just a "magic feature"

The dynamic clocks sets the stage for you to come along later and do an actual Switch 2 on the same (possibly die shrunk) architecture, with few back compat hurdles in your way

The blog was posted in September but, if you hypothetically were to take it all at face value, who knows how recent the info was at the time.

I think it does kind of jive with the current puzzle though. But then again, there are more than a few missing pieces of info, so you can make almost any story fit into if you tried hard enough lol The post does use roughly the same pieces (most likely because they just copied the rumours of the day) but if Nintendo rejiggered and buffed it a bit, it could have ended up as the Drake we (think) we know.

Anyway, there's some speculation for you.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Sorry for the necro, this is probably dumb and definitely a longshot, but I finally scratched that itch and was able to track down that random blog that was posted a few months ago:



All of the 'bullshit' claims and 'grains of salt' replies are likely accurate, but some of the responses are interesting in light of the recent confusion. Like this one:



The blog was posted in September but, if you hypothetically were to take it all at face value, who knows how recent the info was at the time.

I think it does kind of jive with the current puzzle though. But then again, there are more than a few missing pieces of info, so you can make almost any story fit into if you tried hard enough lol The post does use roughly the same pieces (most likely because they just copied the rumours of the day) but if Nintendo rejiggered and buffed it a bit, it could have ended up as the Drake we (think) we know.

Anyway, there's some speculation for you.

some things in that post just don't jive

• remove video encode via nvdec
  • why? that just means the gpu has to expend more resources to do basic video recording
• I can't find any reference to an audio processor engine for Tegra other than a post and possibly some documentation from 2017. Orin documentation doesn't mention such a thing
• VIC (video integrated controller)
  • no, the VIC is the video imaging compositor, which does some post processing on the frame, not what the posts claims it does
• this post is completely wrong about the cpu
• is also completely wrong about cache
• the gpu doesn't have any relation to the 3050 other than both being Ampere
• wrong on the number of gpcs
• is incorrect on how dlss works, it's up to the developer's discretion, not the hardware

there's probably other stuff that's wrong. taking it at face value, it's junk and doesn't jive with anything, not even hypotheticals of changing designs because all of that has to have happened before 2019/2020

 

[ArchedThunder]

I'm pretty sure I remember there being a lot hybrid rumors/talk and then 9 months pre launch Eurogamer basically revealed the system full stop which caused some people to melt down.

There was only speculation and fake rumors before the form factor got leaked. Then after the form factor was leaked there was nothing until the official reveal, then we started getting leaks after it was revealed. Hell, at 10 months before launch there was still debate if NX would even be a hybrid.

 

[NintenDuvo]

Are expecting the game cartridges to be any different , like had their been any advancements on that form of media ?

 

[Hermii]

Are expecting the game cartridges to be any different , like had their been any advancements on that form of media ?

Hopefully faster read speeds. I expect the same form
Factor.

 

[ArchedThunder]

Are expecting the game cartridges to be any different , like had their been any advancements on that form of media ?

It’ll undoubtedly be like an other generational jump. Larger storage sizes, faster speeds.

 

[jaycie]

I think backwards compatibility is a given so maybe the carts will be the same but with a little tab on the top or something like that so it doesn't fit into an OG Switch, like 3DS carts

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I think everybody in this thread can agree that the next system is relatively soon, and by relative I mean, it’s a year or so out. Give or take a couple months forward or back, it’s not that far away if it’s going to be released by the latest of March of next year, it has to be announced this year. If it’s not announced this year, it’s not releasing in March at all lol.

 

[ArchedThunder]

I think backwards compatibility is a given so maybe the carts will be the same but with a little tab on the top or something like that so it doesn't fit into an OG Switch, like 3DS carts

3DS carts were still a more advanced technology inside than DSif I’m not mistaken. As long as the connectors match and the card fits they don’t have to be the exact same. We should still expect the Drake cards to be better than Switch’s, and likely more capacity per dollar.

 

[Selarmor]

For the sake of argument, let's consider what "insider verification" would actually involve. Basically, it would involve the insiders outing their sources. That in itself can be pretty difficult - if I remember correctly, Polygon claims his sources are people he talks to IRL over drinks, which is not something staff could easily verify. Even if it's possible, it would either need consent of the source, or betrayal of the source.

And who would be reviewing this information? Mods? They rotate out. If we had "verified" an insider four months ago, I would have been involved, and I would still know who their sources are despite now being a regular user. Even if I hadn't rotated out, who the fuck am I? I don't work in the industry. I'm not well-known. The insiders (and their sources) have no reason to trust me with such sensitive information. Hell, I don't even think I'd necessarily be able to spot fake verification evidence.

Okay, not mods. Admins? They don't rotate out, but they can leave. Also, the same problem above applies; no one on the admin team is remotely qualified to "verify" an insider. Moreover, it would be mods who actually enforce any potential action on unverified insiders, so that means the mods would be acting (or not acting) without knowing full context.

If the "verification" was public, as you and others have seemed to advocate for, that brings a whole other problem: implied credibility. To be honest, we already have that problem to some extent with Nate - he is well-known enough that people know he is credible, so some take every word he says as gospel, or constantly beg him for reassurance, or tag him in conversations he's not involved in. It's very annoying to other people. On the flip side, people get really mad at him when what he says doesn't pan out, which is also obviously not ideal. A verification tag would likely exacerbate this problem with Nate and introduce it with others. Moreover, what do staff do when someone with a "verified" tag breaks the rules? It's not a good look for the site when someone with an official-looking tag says something shitty, and puts them in an awkward position of whether or not to let them keep the tag.

All in all, it's just a really bad idea. If you don't like people sharing supposed inside info when they're unverified, then this is something you should bring up when the mods open their thread about it, whenever that is. But like... it's just so easy to ignore. We just talked about this yesterday.

I have no problem with insiders, real or otherwise, hinting at or alluding to things. People can claim what they want, and I'll believe them based on what they're saying, their track record, etc. I don't think some kind of "verification" is a good idea either.

The thing with which I take issue, and that I think needs to be addressed, is when an insider hints at or claims something that is demonstrably false. In this example, among other things, Nate originally claimed that the 2023 DLSS-capable device was not Drake. While not impossible, this flies in the face of hard data we have from actual leaked source code from Nvidia. The notion that there existed some device slated for 2023 that supported DLSS that wasn't Drake is not realistic, as several knowledgable posters have thoroughly demonstrated since that claim was made.

This caused a lot of confusion and debate, and when asked, Nate refused to clarify, deleted his posts, and bounced, leaving the discussion to spiral out of control. I don't think that's acceptable. If someone makes a claim that can be reasonably refuted with actual data, that person should be compelled to either clarify, or admit error.

 

[hologram]

I have no problem with insiders, real or otherwise, hinting at or alluding to things. People can claim what they want, and I'll believe them based on what they're saying, their track record, etc. I don't think some kind of "verification" is a good idea either.

The thing with which I take issue, and that I think needs to be addressed, is when an insider hints at or claims something that is demonstrably false. In this example, among other things, Nate originally claimed that the 2023 DLSS-capable device was not Drake. While not impossible, this flies in the face of hard data we have from actual leaked source code from Nvidia. The notion that there existed some device slated for 2023 that supported DLSS that wasn't Drake is not realistic, as several knowledgable posters have thoroughly demonstrated since that claim was made.

This caused a lot of confusion and debate, and when asked, Nate refused to clarify, deleted his posts, and bounced, leaving the discussion to spiral out of control. I don't think that's acceptable. If someone makes a claim that can be reasonably refuted with actual data, that person should be compelled to either clarify, or admit error.

I completely agree that Nate's statements were contradictory and didn't make much sense, so I basically ignored them. This isn't a dig at Nate - he obviously has real sources, and has got many things right in the past - but I'm not going to pay too much attention to what he's been saying until he clarifies and gives more detail, either here or on his podcast.

However, I don't think we can pick and choose when we allow insider hints/rumors without verification. Either we allow them, and encourage users to exercise good judgment, or we don't. The reason goes back to the same reasons I'm against verification: having some sort of caveat for "demonstrably false" claims requires the mods themselves to be able to demonstrate something is false. I think the most active mod in this thread is likely Derachi, and I think he would be perfectly willing to admit he would not be the best person to authoritatively state "this is false" about a rumor. There are plenty of super knowledgeable people in this thread, but unless one of them had some sort of official or unofficial community liaison position, I don't think it's appropriate for them to be able to dictate what the mods declare to be false.

Honestly, I think the issue of this thread spiraling at that news is related to this part of my post:

... we already have that problem to some extent with Nate - he is well-known enough that people know he is credible, so some take every word he says as gospel, or constantly beg him for reassurance, or tag him in conversations he's not involved in. It's very annoying to other people. On the flip side, people get really mad at him when what he says doesn't pan out, which is also obviously not ideal.

I think this is more of a culture issue than a rules issue. I like Nate and I'm super grateful he shares hints with us. But I don't think him posting (or not posting) should be derailing this thread or others the way it does, and I think that's largely on us.

 

[Raccoon]

In this example, among other things, Nate originally claimed that the 2023 DLSS-capable device was not Drake.

he actually never said this, only implying it by saying "no one said the device was Drake"

of course, months earlier he had himself said the device was Drake but that's besides the point

 

[Selarmor]

he actually never said this, only implying it by saying "no one said the device was Drake"

of course, months earlier he had himself said the device was Drake but that's besides the point

He was directly asked, "As in Drake, or some other, earlier revision?"

He responded with:

"The mid-gen refresh planned for 2023. Drake/NVN2 can still be the SoC for the next-gen hardware."

When pressed on this, he said, "No one ever said Drake was the SoC for the revision."

So yes, he never said the literal phrase, "the revision is not Drake", but there's no other way to interpret these answers.

And again, all he had to do to clarify/correct himself was say Drake has been delayed and something has changed about the device using it. Instead he deleted his posts and stopped responding.

 

[Raccoon]

He was directly asked, "As in Drake, or some other, earlier revision?"

He responded with:

"The mid-gen refresh planned for 2023. Drake/NVN2 can still be the SoC for the next-gen hardware."

When pressed on this, he said, "No one ever said Drake was the SoC for the revision."

So yes, he never said the literal phrase, "the revision is not Drake", but there's no other way to interpret these answers.

And again, all he had to do to clarify/correct himself was say Drake has been delayed and something has changed about it. Instead he deleted his posts and stopped responding.

I mean, I think the most obvious interpretation of those answers is "I have no idea how the hack fits into this either"

whatever 2023 device he heard about, he has now heard that it's dead. he probably has no clue how drake fits into it

 

[Heron]

I have no problem with insiders, real or otherwise, hinting at or alluding to things. People can claim what they want, and I'll believe them based on what they're saying, their track record, etc. I don't think some kind of "verification" is a good idea either.

The thing with which I take issue, and that I think needs to be addressed, is when an insider hints at or claims something that is demonstrably false. In this example, among other things, Nate originally claimed that the 2023 DLSS-capable device was not Drake. While not impossible, this flies in the face of hard data we have from actual leaked source code from Nvidia. The notion that there existed some device slated for 2023 that supported DLSS that wasn't Drake is not realistic, as several knowledgable posters have thoroughly demonstrated since that claim was made.

This caused a lot of confusion and debate, and when asked, Nate refused to clarify, deleted his posts, and bounced, leaving the discussion to spiral out of control. I don't think that's acceptable. If someone makes a claim that can be reasonably refuted with actual data, that person should be compelled to either clarify, or admit error.

I try to stay out of the "insider wars" drama but just want to add my voice saying I don't think it's acceptable either. But okay, it's a fluid situation. But when you come back and then try to drive views to your podcast, promising clarity there but refusing to offer it here... that's when I really have a problem.

 

[Dekuman]

The Nate podcast can't come soon enough. I suspect we will be left with new quesitons, but it's frustrating not knowing what the heck is happening with Nintendo hardware.

 

[Skittzo]

I have no problem with insiders, real or otherwise, hinting at or alluding to things. People can claim what they want, and I'll believe them based on what they're saying, their track record, etc. I don't think some kind of "verification" is a good idea either.

The thing with which I take issue, and that I think needs to be addressed, is when an insider hints at or claims something that is demonstrably false. In this example, among other things, Nate originally claimed that the 2023 DLSS-capable device was not Drake. While not impossible, this flies in the face of hard data we have from actual leaked source code from Nvidia. The notion that there existed some device slated for 2023 that supported DLSS that wasn't Drake is not realistic, as several knowledgable posters have thoroughly demonstrated since that claim was made.

This caused a lot of confusion and debate, and when asked, Nate refused to clarify, deleted his posts, and bounced, leaving the discussion to spiral out of control. I don't think that's acceptable. If someone makes a claim that can be reasonably refuted with actual data, that person should be compelled to either clarify, or admit error.

I try to stay out of the "insider wars" drama but just want to add my voice saying I don't think it's acceptable either. But okay, it's a fluid situation. But when you come back and then try to drive views to your podcast, promising clarity there but refusing to offer it here... that's when I really have a problem.

... then just ignore it. It doesn't really come up that often in here. I've seen much more talk about Nate from people complaining about him not being moderated than I've seen from people who "take his posts as gospel" or anything.

Two very simple rules to follow regarding insiders:

1) If you don't buy it, ignore it.
2) Don't pester people for information.

Secret third rule that's applicable to life in general:

3) Don't harass anyone.