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

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JoshuaJSlone said:
I think by now they've well burned that numbering scheme. For most places in the world, people would go "Huh? There was a Super Mario Bros. 4?" And then there was that point when they were almost giving the SMB5 name to Yoshi's Island.

Pulling a naming trick like that after decades is also the kind of trick we usually see a Sonic the Hedgehog or Double Dragon pull without the goods to back it up. Exception for a case like A Link Between Worlds which was a 2 in Japan because there was a direct connection to a previous game.
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You forget Mario Kart 7 and 8.
 
NateDrake said:
We recorded an episode but I'm not totally happy with it. Listening back to it again & it'll either go live tomorrow morning or we'll rerecord and I'll post it on Sunday.


Treat the post from the other thread as speculation. It's repeating the same point I said last month when we had John on to talk hardware.
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Is this also speculation? And would post-June be considered “a long while” from now?

 
Can we all get together and put together like a $5k bounty for information on what happened with those supposed dev kits that were sent out to 10 different devs?

That one thing is driving me absolutely crazy. It makes no sense.

One day that info surely has to come out.
 
NateDrake said:
It would fall under speculation & I'd consider anything post-June to be a ways off. We are in early February. I don't consider any potential announcement in summer 2023 to be soon.
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Glad to know my dream of a late 2023 announcement and early 2024 launch is still possible :p
 
fall under speculation...

post-June...

I hear you loud and clear Nate

giphy.gif


/s

PS we are finally nailing down some of these terms

PSS /s
 
Heron said:
Can we all get together and put together like a $5k bounty for information on what happened with those supposed dev kits that were sent out to 10 different devs?

That one thing is driving me absolutely crazy. It makes no sense.

One day that info surely has to come out.
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Thing is, a new console launch in year 7 is not going to be a short-lived refresh for the Switch with an unassuming launch slate; It's going to be supported for years to come, and it almost certainly isn't going to come out the gate without a bit of fanfare. The last Direct was good fun, but it really lacked any show of support from major third parties from May.

If I were to guess, we haven't seen some or most of those hypothetical titles, and their launch timeframe of early/mid 2023 could have been speculative, or correct at the time (2021) and outdated now.

NateDrake said:
It would fall under speculation & I'd consider anything post-June to be a ways off. We are in early February. I don't consider any potential announcement in summer 2023 to be soon.
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Thanks for the clarification.
 
NateDrake said:
It would fall under speculation & I'd consider anything post-June to be a ways off. We are in early February. I don't consider any potential announcement in summer 2023 to be soon.
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How confident are you that you will be privy to info well before Nintendo announces it? For example, if Nintendo were to reveal Switch 2 in August this year for release in November and you hadnt really heard anything about it, would that shock you?
 
Mekanos said:
You forget Mario Kart 7 and 8.
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That's a weird case of introducing a numbering system to a series that didn't previously use one. What I'm talking about is more like if N64 had Super Mario Kart 2, then following multiple games without numbers they decided the 3DS game would be Super Mario Kart 3.
 
The shareholder Q&A is interesting, I get the sense that Furukawa kind of has the attitude of "we're going to give it the good ol' college try" in terms of trying sell as many Switch systems in the next year but he repeated many times that trying to maintain or grow sales in the 7th year is going to be very hard and is unprecedented territory for Nintendo. It's like they know they probably are going to see declines hit hard this year but they're going to do their best to hold it off.

It also seems like they are banking hard on the Mario movie and Universal Studios theme park opening to be things that drive sales interest. This is why I think a Mario game is going to be their 2nd half 2023 big title. Trying to cash in on the momentum of the movie.

The general sense I get though is that the Switch successor is 2024. Nintendo knows the Switch is old and its going to be hard from here on out for them to have the same level of sales, definitely got that sense from Furukawa's answers. In QA all mention of things like "we're only half way through the product cycle!" are gone now and it's more of a "well the 7th year in uncharted territory, we'll try our best to prevent decline".
 
Goodtwin said:
How confident are you that you will be privy to info well before Nintendo announces it? For example, if Nintendo were to reveal Switch 2 in August this year for release in November and you hadnt really heard anything about it, would that shock you?
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I'd surprised. Not an impossibility, of course; but it would catch me by surprise.
 
Wouldn't say it's a bad idea to bank on Zelda the rest of the year to gauge Switch's current viability, give or take how much mileage Pikmin 4 may have this time around and what the plan is for remastering the rest of Metroid Prime and possible DLC and updates Pokemon Scarlet/Violet may have throughout the year. Otherwise, get used to Remaster soup until the next Winter.
 
NateDrake said:
I'd surprised. Not an impossibility, of course; but it would catch me by surprise.
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I assume the revised their NDAs after the last batch of dev leaks.

Even if the launch is a ways off there has to be many devs with kits as we speak?

I was never clear on if the recall of dev kits meant were back to zero. Or If new kits on the new target hardware are now out there as well
 
NateDrake said:
Who said they are scared?
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funcle

not a good source I know, but I'm sooner inclined to believe all this comes down to business than technology

now, if we see drake on a good node in 2025 I guess that'll paint a different picture
 
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honestly, with it clearly being a sequel and not a pro, devkits are out.
no chance that they wait ti'll 2025 when they expect a fall of this year,
and if its out by next year, many studios HAVE to have devkits by now, even if they are not final.
 
Anatole said:
The GitHub repo for DLSS got pushed to SDK version 3.1 today, including an updated programming guide. Haven’t looked through it yet though.

github.com

DLSS/doc/DLSS_Programming_Guide_Release.pdf at 7150beb500e52888317aad54b093cfa8b6d24d5c · NVIDIA/DLSS

NVIDIA DLSS is a new and improved deep learning neural network that boosts frame rates and generates beautiful, sharp images for your games - NVIDIA/DLSS
github.com github.com
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Nothing interesting for Nintendo hardware. The document also doesn't even mention frame generation, so I guess this is still only for the actual DLSS portion of DLSS 3.1.
  • Memory usage and execution times are unchanged from 2.4
  • Ultra Quality mode still doesn't exist
  • "Presets" have been added, which are opaque collections of settings (named simply A-F) that use a model/process tuned for certain IQ goals
    • Presets can be hot-updated over the Internet by calling an API within the application
 
Bonejack said:
If Drake really ends up being an actual Switch 2, a hard successor, i could see Nintendo wanting to keep announcement and release within a 6 months timeframe.
Similar to the current Switch. (Counting from when it was first shown in Oct 2016 and not when it PR said that they work on a new system codenamed NX)

So if it's 2023, they would have to announce it sometime in May / June. Dunno if May might be tricky or not, but i feel they wouldn't risk putting a damper on TotK's launch sales because enthusiats would be "gonna wait for Drake then".
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Threading that needle is simple: “games released on Switch will not receive a new retail SKU on Switch 2”.
Dekuman said:
i wonder if it's a tacit admission they didn't plan for it to be out without a successor this long. But more likely, on the strength of Switch HW sales, they have decided to entend its life
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Yeah, any of the suggestions I’ve seen that Nintendo was planning for a long cycle without new hardware kinda fall apart when they’re openly admitting that they’ve got no clue whether or not they’ll be able to continue to drive sales without new hardware.
 
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Terrell said:
Threading that needle is simple: “games released on Switch will not receive a new retail SKU on Switch 2”.

Yeah, any of the suggestions I’ve seen that Nintendo was planning for a long cycle kinda fall apart when they’re opening admitting that they’ve got no clue whether or not they’ll be able to continue to drive sales without new hardware.
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On the other hand, they were publicly contradicting Sony just a little while ago in regards to a post COVID slowdown. Between that, and the missed forecasts, the decline in software and hardware sales is for sure happening faster than expected from their point of view. Critical point would be what decisions they were making 6-12 months in regards to successor, that may now blow up in their face a bit if they delayed it at all.
 
Quoted by: LiC
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Instro said:
On the other hand, they were publicly contradicting Sony just a little while ago in regards to a post COVID slowdown. Between that, and the missed forecasts, the decline in software and hardware sales is for sure happening faster than expected from their point of view. Critical point would be what decisions they were making 6-12 months in regards to successor, that may now blow up in their face a bit if they delayed it at all.
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Hardware plans were made years ago. But even if anyone really believes the fantasy that Nintendo could decide within a year of launch to change their entire approach to a revision vs successor and its launch timing, and is worried that that imaginary decision could now hurt them, luckily you already believe in a level of flexibility that would permit them to just pivot again and fix their mistake!
 
Terrell said:
Yeah, any of the suggestions I’ve seen that Nintendo was planning for a long cycle without new hardware kinda fall apart when they’re openly admitting that they’ve got no clue whether or not they’ll be able to continue to drive sales without new hardware.
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it's honestly a based answer

"well we're gonna give it a shot and do our best, we'll let you know how it goes"
 
LiC said:
Hardware plans were made years ago. But even if anyone really believes the fantasy that Nintendo could decide within a year of launch to change their entire approach to a revision vs successor and its launch timing, and is worried that that imaginary decision could now hurt them, luckily you already believe in a level of flexibility that would permit them to just pivot again and fix their mistake!
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I don't disagree, I would generally believe that whatever timing is for the launch of this thing, it was largely always the planned timing. That said we obviously know from the Switch that Nintendo can and would delay hardware a bit if thought it necessary. Could reasonably explain a move 6 months out from an intended time frame, that will probably hurt more than they thought it would. I'd assume once that kind of decision is set in motion there's not really a way to pull it back with partners.

Like I could see a situation where Nintendo were trying to wait out the chip shortage situation a bit, pushed back their launch window X amount of time thinking that the Switch would coast, but now hardware and software are declining more rapidly then expected.

For example, it might explain the "light" 2nd half of 2023 if they moved the launch window, and related software back to early 2024.
 
Instro said:
I don't disagree, I would generally believe that whatever timing is for the launch of this thing, it was largely always the planned timing. That said we obviously know from the Switch that Nintendo can and would delay hardware a bit if thought it necessary. Could reasonably explain a move 6 months out from an intended time frame, that will probably hurt more than they thought it would. I'd assume once that kind of decision is set in motion there's not really a way to pull it back with partners.

Like I could see a situation where Nintendo were trying to wait out the chip shortage situation a bit, pushed back their launch window X amount of time thinking that the Switch would coast, but now hardware and software are declining more rapidly then expected.

For example, it might explain the "light" 2nd half of 2023 if they moved the launch window, and related software back to early 2024.
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Oh, I see, that's not quite what I thought you were saying. I don't buy the idea that Nintendo would decide it's okay to have a 7+ month span where they abruptly end the semi-monthly cadence of notable releases they've maintained since March 2017 and "coast," even if Switch and software sales remained strong. The risks are obvious, and the potential upside is negligible. Competing consoles were already launched into the chip shortage and did fine, and Nintendo well knows from the Switch's launch and initial years that not being able to meet demand doesn't have to hurt them. Avoiding droughts was a key lesson learned from the Wii U, and sticking to the plan there has yielded enormous success on Switch, so given the choice of maintaining that momentum into the launch of the next system vs. letting it die off to avoid being supply-constrained at launch, I don't see the calculus for the latter.

Moreover, we got evidence just this week that works against the idea that Nintendo was unprepared for a decline in sales and are stuck with a poor release schedule as a result -- Metroid Prime being released this month and Pikmin 4 being dated for July are not decisions that would have been made if the worse than expected holiday sales had revealed a flaw in their "light" scheduling. They've had that data this whole time. Pikmin 4 doesn't need to release within 2 months of TotK, and Metroid Prime didn't need to release at any time in particular, since it was previously unannounced and allegedly sat on for a while already. Even NSO didn't need both Game Boy and GBA dropped at the same time.

I believe in only two broad possibilities:
  • Hardware was always planned for 2024 and Nintendo has a typical H2 2023 release schedule planned, but are keeping it unusually close to the chest
  • Hardware was always planned for late 2023 and Nintendo has a release schedule frontloaded in H1 2023 because of that fact
 
LiC said:
Hardware plans were made years ago. But even if anyone really believes the fantasy that Nintendo could decide within a year of launch to change their entire approach to a revision vs successor and its launch timing, and is worried that that imaginary decision could now hurt them, luckily you already believe in a level of flexibility that would permit them to just pivot again and fix their mistake!
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this is the strangest thing about the timeline

even if developers only heard about it last summer, the plan would have had to have changed non-negligibly sooner than that, yes?
 
I just want us to at least get a codename for the next system at the Fiscal Earnings in May and hope Nintendo doesnt feel like it will affect TOTK sales
 
Thraktor said:
As an after-the-fact patch for a Switch game, that would be good enough. If ToTK released alongside Switch 2, and acted as the major launch title to showcase the new hardware, I don't think it would be good enough. As good at ToTK looks for a Switch game, Drake is a generational leap over TX1 in both performance and architecture, and using a Switch game with a resolution patch as your flagship launch title would seriously undersell the new hardware.

To me, the time has clearly passed for a May launch, but there was a time last year where I thought a Switch 2 launch alongside ToTK in May 2023 was a possibility, and in that case I was definitely expecting a much more significant update than resolution for the Switch 2 build. My post was in reaction to discussion about whether Nintendo should announce the new hardware before or after ToTK, but I was more describing the change in my thought process than anything else. Basically, it doesn't matter whether Nintendo announce Switch 2 before or after ToTK launches, because ToTK isn't a Switch 2 game.
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I'm gonna kinda disagree with you in there about underselling switch 2 hardware. Willing to bet this game will be no more than 900p docked again on switch. And a 4k 30-60fps (or down sampled ) alone with better draw distance and other upgraded features (lighting, shadows, potential upgraded textures etc) is gonna be a huge jump that the core base will appreciate. Then you add potentially a 60fps mode as well as a RT mode.. it's gonna be big.
 
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Skittzo said:
OLED is meant to be the premium version, Lite is the damaged value version. They're not gonna give you a cheaper OLED model, that ruins the market position of both the OLED model and the standard Lite.
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I don't care. As a fan of the lite form factor, I want Nintendo to give me an oled lite.
¨
 
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ShadowFox08 said:
I'm gonna kinda disagree with you in there about underselling switch 2 hardware. Willing to bet this game will be no more than 900p docked again on switch. And a 4k 30-60fps (or down sampled ) alone with better draw distance and other upgraded features (lighting, shadows, potential upgraded textures etc) is gonna be a huge jump that the core base will appreciate. Then you add potentially a 60fps mode as well as a RT mode.. it's gonna be big.
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Like i dont expect nintendo to start pumping bazillions in better assets, those cost tons. But improvements in effects, rendering, draw distance,…etc? Those scale over the whole game!
 
Aether said:
Like i dont expect nintendo to start pumping bazillions in better assets, those cost tons. But improvements in effects, rendering, draw distance,…etc? Those scale over the whole game!
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There is an ironic curve in asset quality : cost ratio. Epic is really hanging onto this to sell nanite. When you want the highest quality assets for the lowest fidelity, that would be when you do the most work, because you have to create a high poly, multiple low polys, and bake out more, high quality textures. But at the extreme ends of the scales, you either just need to make low polys and low quality textures or high polys and fewer textures.

Nvidia even has an sdk for devs to leverage compute geometry if they're not making their own solution or using ue5

developer.nvidia.com

NVIDIA Micromesh

A graphics primitive for micro triangles that can encode opacity or displacement.
developer.nvidia.com developer.nvidia.com
 
ILikeFeet said:
There is an ironic curve in asset quality : cost ratio. Epic is really hanging onto this to sell nanite. When you want the highest quality assets for the lowest fidelity, that would be when you do the most work, because you have to create a high poly, multiple low polys, and bake out more, high quality textures. But at the extreme ends of the scales, you either just need to make low polys and low quality textures or high polys and fewer textures.

Nvidia even has an sdk for devs to leverage compute geometry if they're not making their own solution or using ue5

developer.nvidia.com

NVIDIA Micromesh

A graphics primitive for micro triangles that can encode opacity or displacement.
developer.nvidia.com developer.nvidia.com
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oh for sure, thats an industry wide problem and many companies (especially epic) are trying to get a hold of it.
but looking at the raw assets of maaany nintendo games... great looking in action, strong art direction, and all, but the individual assets rarely (not never!) impress. just look at the textures and models for BotW.
Theres a reason why Odyssey is barely more then a PS2 disc could hold, and BotW 2 is semingly only 18GB.
the increase of production value for those assets would be a huge cost increase, even with all of those tools, but with them already hanging more on the computational side in regards to artstyle and presentation improvement, having the hardware increase bumps the graphics up way "easier". Jut look at what the WW port did to that game, and its not as if they invested a ton of development in remastering that game, it was a warm up to BotW. Heck, TP was probably waaaay more work with all that texture work, but the improvements didn't seem that much more then WW. (just in a dfferent sense, and im talking about the perceived visuals, that it technically was way more of an improvement is a different topic)
 
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Kingpin722 said:
Saw something on Twitter about the latest DLSS update enables updates over the air? Is there any truth to this?
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....wat? OTA updates have nothing with dlss to do? thats an OS thing?
Its so that mobile hardware can update the softer over wireless connections, thats all that OTA means, how it is impelemented, for what purpose, depends on the usecase, but i dont see a single usecase where the DLSS driver would have a higher priority then the OS, and at least from my knowledge the OS would be capable to do such updates regardless of what nvidia is doing with DLSS?

Am i wrong here? am i missing something?
 
Aether said:
....wat? OTA updates have nothing with dlss to do? thats an OS thing?
Its so that mobile hardware can update the softer over wireless connections, thats all that OTA means, how it is impelemented, for what purpose, depends on the usecase, but i dont see a single usecase where the DLSS driver would have a higher priority then the OS, and at least from my knowledge the OS would be capable to do such updates regardless of what nvidia is doing with DLSS?

Am i wrong here? am i missing something?
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Might be talking about a mechanism to update the DLSS DLLs included with games? Individual titles are generally locked to whatever version of DLSS they shipped with, unless it is explicitly updated by the user or the developer. OTA updates might allow DLSS to be externally managed and updated independent of the application.
 
kvetcha said:
Might be talking about a mechanism to update the DLSS DLLs included with games? Individual titles are generally locked to whatever version of DLSS they shipped with, unless it is explicitly updated by the user or the developer. OTA updates might allow DLSS to be externally managed and updated independent of the application.
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... that to me sounds like hell for console games.
PC, with so many different Constantions? sure.
On a console, where developer have total controll? a mess.
An update could wreck your game in a weird way, and you would only know as a developer when the update is out.
 
Aether said:
... that to me sounds like hell for console games.
PC, with so many different Constantions? sure.
On a console, where developer have total controll? a mess.
An update could wreck your game in a weird way, and you would only know as a developer when the update is out.
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Well, right now DLSS is only on PC, so I’m not sure the concern is warranted. Nintendo will have their own solution for it, I’m sure.
 
If TotK looks as clean as the 1080p press kit screenshots suggest I'm good until July at least :p .

Also: Metroid Prime Remastered gave me that Metroid Dread/Splatoon 3 feeling again - Switch is awesome if devs know how to stay in spec.

EDIT: added screenshot. Chose a pedestrian one. Not an expert, but the picture's resolution is 1080p. Looks like they have a nice anti-aliasing solution (whereas BotW only had something rudimentary to clean up edges IIRC). Looking at Link's pants for instance, it's much less noisy than BotW.

FoeudxqWcAI_omh
 
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manfromthedam said:
If TotK looks as clean as the 1080p press kit screenshots suggest I'm good until July at least :p .

Also: Metroid Prime Remastered gave me that Metroid Dread/Splatoon 3 feeling again - Switch is awesome if devs know how to stay in spec.
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Ya Prime 1 looks pretty fantastic, even on a 60 inch screen... would look better in 4k but tbh it would be a very diminishing return indeed. Still want it tho lol.
 
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