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

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Concernt said:
Source?
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bb5
 
Concernt said:
Even at only having Nintendo published titles dated up until July, only Pikmin 4 and TOTK are actually from EPD, and TOTK is only where it is due to multiple delays. That sounds extremely light for a year or EPD releases.

I don't see many reasons why they'd be quiet if there are indeed more, outside of a new console that they'll be coming out on.
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In my opinion, there would be no real logic in releasing a new 3D Zelda in May if a new hardware is really planned 6 months later. For me this is the best possible argument to say that the launch of a new Nintendo system at the end of 2023 is quite unlikely. Because a Zelda is the perfect title to launch a hardware, which is not really the case for a Pikmin or a 2D Mario, as the Wii U showed very well.
LukasManak22 said:
The fact that number of Splatoon 2 designers were missing from 3 just leads me to believe that its coming. 3D as a launch title, 2D for this Switch, easy title to sell especially after Mario Movie.
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They have certainly been working on something, but it could just be simply Pikmin 4. Even though I obviously share your opinion on the logic of releasing a 2D Mario for Christmas. Not only because of the hype generated by the movie, but also because whatever will be the technical specifications of the future hardware, it won't have that much influence on the production of this kind of game.
 
Dakhil said:
I could be wrong, but I assume the reason behind Nintendo's decision to configure Drake's GPU with 12 SMs is similar to the reason behind Microsoft's decision to configure the GPU on the Xbox Series X's APU with 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz (vs 36 CUs at 2.23 GHz for the GPU on the Playstation 5's APU).
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Making use of parallelism rather than raw speed? That would require Nintendo to better tune their tools to be less linear. Though hitting closer to theoretically performance would be quite noticeable if they can do it
 
Thraktor said:
Actually, this is probably best illustrated by ignoring all the formulae and just looking at the data itself. Here's the raw data:

Code: 
Clock      W per TPC
0.42075    0.96
0.52275    1.14
0.62475    1.45
0.72675    1.82
0.82875    2.21
0.93075    2.73
1.03275    3.32
1.23675    4.89
1.30050    5.58

From these numbers, we can easily calculate the power efficiency for each point, measured in Gflops per W:

Code: 
Clock    W per TPC    Gflops/W
0.42075    0.96       223.8
0.52275    1.14       233.9
0.62475    1.45       220.4
0.72675    1.82       205.0
0.82875    2.21       192.1
0.93075    2.73       174.3
1.03275    3.32       159.2
1.23675    4.89       129.4
1.30050    5.58       119.4

The efficiency is higher at 522MHz than it is at 420MHz, and then drops off again at 624MHz and above. Therefore, the peak efficiency clock should be somewhere between 420MHz and 522MHz.
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Hm, then what say you about CPU speeds and their max possible on 8nm?
 
ILikeFeet said:
Making use of parallelism rather than raw speed? That would require Nintendo to better tune their tools to be less linear. Though hitting closer to theoretically performance would be quite noticeable if they can do it
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I don't see why not since I think Nvidia probably did most of the work on the toolkit.
 
Dakhil said:
I could be wrong, but I assume the reason behind Nintendo's decision to configure Drake's GPU with 12 SMs is similar to the reason behind Microsoft's decision to configure the GPU on the Xbox Series X's APU with 52 CUs at 1.825 GHz (vs 36 CUs at 2.23 GHz for the GPU on the Playstation 5's APU).
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I mean, I believe that’s the point Thraktor is actually getting at. When you look at it, the series X is the more efficient Console compared to the PlayStation5. It doesn’t really grab that much compared to the PS5 which seems to hover closer to its higher pull.

Nintendo could have went with a smaller GPU and just clocked it higher, but instead between them and NVidia, it seems as though they opted for a larger GPU that can have an easier(?) efficiency to work with and thus less heat produced.
 
boodream said:
In my opinion, there would be no real logic in releasing a new 3D Zelda in May if a new hardware is really planned 6 months later. For me this is the best possible argument to say that the launch of a new Nintendo system at the end of 2023 is quite unlikely. Because a Zelda is the perfect title to launch a hardware, which is not really the case for a Pikmin or a 2D Mario, as the Wii U showed very well.
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It could be as simple as they don't want the Big Launch Title for their incredible new hardware to be a cross-gen game.
 
boodream said:
In my opinion, there would be no real logic in releasing a new 3D Zelda in May if a new hardware is really planned 6 months later. For me this is the best possible argument to say that the launch of a new Nintendo system at the end of 2023 is quite unlikely. Because a Zelda is the perfect title to launch a hardware, which is not really the case for a Pikmin or a 2D Mario, as the Wii U showed very well.

They have certainly been working on something, but it could just be simply Pikmin 4. Even though I obviously share your opinion on the logic of releasing a 2D Mario for Christmas. Not only because of the hype generated by the movie, but also because whatever will be the technical specifications of the future hardware, it won't have that much influence on the production of this kind of game.
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Sony released TLOU2 in the same year as the PS5. There's nothing illogical about supporting an existing console no matter how close the successor is- especially if it's backwards compatible and will therefore bolster the value proposition of that successor.
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
I mean, I believe that’s the point Thraktor is actually getting at. When you look at it, the series X is the more efficient Console compared to the PlayStation5. It doesn’t really grab that much compared to the PS5 which seems to hover closer to its higher pull.

Nintendo could have went with a smaller GPU and just clocked it higher, but instead between them and NVidia, it seems as though they opted for a larger GPU that can have an easier(?) efficiency to work with and thus less heat produced.
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The Series X is more energy efficient, but it's also way less $$$ efficient if/once yields are good (in both the 'the silicon works!' and 'it can clock high enough!' senses).

Aside from calculating maximal energy efficiency, the other thing I take away from Thraktor's posts is the reminder of silicon/area/$$$ efficiency. And it's a question of juggling the two facets and deciding on how they're weighed against each other.

If I were to balance the two, I'd probably end up with a handheld clock in the mid to high 400's mhz and docked clock in the... high 900's to low 1000's mhz. Targeting a compute in the ~3000-3200 gflops range for docked. Which also forces my hand to spend on LPDDR5X instead of regular 5 for what I'd consider suitable bandwidth.
Which is another thing; I think that regular LPDDR5 is a little too tight if we're trying to shoot for $$$ efficiency with the given GPU size.
 
boodream said:
In my opinion, there would be no real logic in releasing a new 3D Zelda in May if a new hardware is really planned 6 months later.
Click to expand...

Hardware takes years. Whatever the (planned) release date for New Hardware, it was set before Zelda was delayed. And it has a launch title that's not Zelda, whatever it is. So you are Mister Nintendo. What do you do when Zelda is delayed?

  • Delay new hardware to get it away from Zelda.
  • Delay Zelda even longer so it can be a launch title. If you do this, you are launching with a title that is designed for the last system, and you are going to have to delay the actual launch game, which is probably Mario, and is designed to look good on new hardware.
  • Swap some titles around to give Zelda a good 6 months to itself, launch next gen after.
I'd probably do that last one. Not saying that next gen launches this year, but Zelda is going to Zelda. It was clearly delayed at least once. If it's date has anything to do with new hardware, it was delayed to not interfere.
 
Thraktor said:
It's probably PC/PS5/Series X footage, and they're just using the same footage for all announcement videos.



I definitely don't expect full memory clocks in portable mode (even if we're just talking LPDDR5), but if they are using 5X I'd be surprised if they didn't support full clocks in docked mode. In terms of overall performance, they're probably better off pushing a little bit extra power to RAM to improve bandwidth than they are using the same power to increase GPU clocks.
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Oh definitely. Up to 88 GB/s is what a lot of are expecting for handheld mode.

I agree about maxing the RAM clocks over GPU too.
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
Devs beg to differ: Ideal would be 16GB :p.


For us? 12GB is just a nice middle ground
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Based on part availability alone, 12GB of LPDDR5 seems by far the most likely.

If it's LPDDR5X, the most widely available 128bit two channel solution is 16GB. On that, I'd say never say never.
 
ShadowFox08 said:
Oh definitely. Up to 88 GB/s is what a lot of are expecting for handheld mode.

I agree about maxing the RAM clocks over GPU too.
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I’m weirdly not really expecting or think it’s the perfect bandwidth, if they had 5X or even 5T memory instead of just 5, the. Yeah higher bandwidth in portable mode the better as docked has a higher ceiling and it is directly proportional in a linear sense.
 
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Concernt said:
Sony released TLOU2 in the same year as the PS5. There's nothing illogical about supporting an existing console no matter how close the successor is- especially if it's backwards compatible and will therefore bolster the value proposition of that successor.
Click to expand...
TLOU2 is indeed a relevant example. But a launch title could very well be cross-gen .Being a launch title does not necessarily mean being an exclusive title. We saw people wanting to buy a Playstation 5 no matter what, in spite of prohibitive prices during the shortage, so I don't know if they needed TLOU2 to make up their minds. And similarly, when the Switch came out, people who had left Nintendo came back partly because they specifically wanted to play Breath Of The Wild. The weight of first party games is incomparable at Nintendo compared to the competition, it is a fact that must be integrated into this kind of comparison, in my opinion.

JoshuaJSlone said:
It could be as simple as they don't want the Big Launch Title for their incredible new hardware to be a cross-gen game.
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You might be right, we'll see how they handle the situation, but personally I don't think so, mainly for two reasons:

1) Regardless of the launch date of the successor to the Switch, I expect several games to be cross-gen for some time, especially given the number of users of the current model. I imagine a new Mario Kart as the first title exclusive to the new hardware, for example.

2), given the 1), TotK, just like MP4, seems to me the best possible titles to be a technological showcase of the new model, precisely because people will be able to see very well the difference in rendering between the two versions.
 
boodream said:
TLOU2 is indeed a relevant example. But a launch title could very well be cross-gen .Being a launch title does not necessarily mean being an exclusive title. We saw people wanting to buy a Playstation 5 no matter what, in spite of prohibitive prices during the shortage, so I don't know if they needed TLOU2 to make up their minds. And similarly, when the Switch came out, people who had left Nintendo came back partly because they specifically wanted to play Breath Of The Wild. The weight of first party games is incomparable at Nintendo compared to the competition, it is a fact that must be integrated into this kind of comparison, in my opinion.


You might be right, we'll see how they handle the situation, but personally I don't think so, mainly for two reasons:

1) Regardless of the launch date of the successor to the Switch, I expect several games to be cross-gen for some time, especially given the number of users of the current model. I imagine a new Mario Kart as the first title exclusive to the new hardware, for example.

2), given the 1), TotK, just like MP4, seems to me the best possible titles to be a technological showcase of the new model, precisely because people will be able to see very well the difference in rendering between the two versions.
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You're arguing points I never even presented...

Nevermind that, usually, Mario sells better than Zelda, so if they had a choice to make internally, wouldn't Mario be a better launch option? A safer one, at least? What will Switch [REDACTED] be, except for a safe generation born of safe decisions to try and ensure safe profits?
 
LuckyLuke said:
You are right. But 16GB is too much for Nintendo :LOL:
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It’s not too expensive for them, it’s more that it’s too expensive for what they want to sell to us.

They’re a billion dollar multinational entertainment corporation after all, spending a bit more isn’t an object for them, but that’s for a different market segment already.
 
oldpuck said:
Hardware takes years. Whatever the (planned) release date for New Hardware, it was set before Zelda was delayed. And it has a launch title that's not Zelda, whatever it is. So you are Mister Nintendo. What do you do when Zelda is delayed?

  • Delay new hardware to get it away from Zelda.
  • Delay Zelda even longer so it can be a launch title. If you do this, you are launching with a title that is designed for the last system, and you are going to have to delay the actual launch game, which is probably Mario, and is designed to look good on new hardware.
  • Swap some titles around to give Zelda a good 6 months to itself, launch next gen after.
I'd probably do that last one. Not saying that next gen launches this year, but Zelda is going to Zelda. It was clearly delayed at least once. If it's date has anything to do with new hardware, it was delayed to not interfere.
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I understand your arguments, and I know that history doesn't have to repeat itself, but not even talking about Twilight Princess, if we think back to what happened in 2017, releasing a new Mario and a new Zelda in a short time span doesn't seem to have done the Switch any harm. Neither does having a launch title developed for the previous hardware.

Again, I understand that the contexts are very different, but I also believe that no matter when the successor to the Switch comes out, there will be cross-gen games.

For example, if the planned launch title is a 3D Mario, an assumption I share with you, I have a hard time imagining it not being cross-gen. Given the technological gap that we all hope for in future hardware, it will also be interesting to see how they will handle the situation. I agree with the idea that the next hardware needs games that showcase it, but I have a hard time picturing a completely abrupt departure from the current hardware.

Concernt said:
You're arguing points I never even presented...
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Concernt said:
Sony released TLOU2 in the same year as the PS5. There's nothing illogical about supporting an existing console no matter how close the successor is- especially if it's backwards compatible and will therefore bolster the value proposition of that successor.
Click to expand...
Unless I misunderstood, you're specifically talking about "supporting an existing console". I just don't see how releasing TotK on future hardware would necessarily mean not releasing it on existing hardware as well. And so continue to support it. That's why I don't see your point.

Comparing Zelda with TLOU as you did is interesting but doesn't seem to take into account the specifics of each other's positioning in the market: Sony's consoles are what sell games. Nintendo games are what sell consoles.
 
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boodream said:
For example, if the planned launch title is a 3D Mario, an assumption I share with you, I have a hard time imagining it not being cross-gen.
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Sure, I'm just saying - why does that mean that you wouldn't launch Zelda 6 months before? If the game is cross gen, it's not an exclusive that's going to push sales of the hardware, right? Like, if Tears of the Kingdom was planned for a 2021 release, it was never going to release with new hardware. Maybe they throw some new bells and whistles for the next console. but I don't think they're going to make it so you have to play on the next gen system. So why use it as a launch title?
 
oldpuck said:
Sure, I'm just saying - why does that mean that you wouldn't launch Zelda 6 months before? If the game is cross gen, it's not an exclusive that's going to push sales of the hardware, right? Like, if Tears of the Kingdom was planned for a 2021 release, it was never going to release with new hardware. Maybe they throw some new bells and whistles for the next console. but I don't think they're going to make it so you have to play on the next gen system. So why use it as a launch title?
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Indeed, it must be assumed that there is a significant improvement between the different versions of the game that it is worth it. But I think that even if the upgrade was limited to DLSS 4K/60 fps, it could have a strong favorable impact on the perception of future hardware. That's the great hope we all have with DLSS in general: doesn't require huge efforts to achieve meaningful improvements.
 
GDC is nearly over and I am surprised there hasn't been at least a single grumbling coming out of there regarding anything Switch related. I didn't expect much but I did expect a murmur at a minimum.
 
Erathix said:
GDC is nearly over and I am surprised there hasn't been at least a single grumbling coming out of there regarding anything Switch related. I didn't expect much but I did expect a murmur at a minimum.
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I mean, nothing happened near GDC for the switch either and devs surely had lots by then especially for a system that was originally slated for Holiday 2016.

So I don’t find it at all surprising.
 
boodream said:
TLOU2 is indeed a relevant example. But a launch title could very well be cross-gen .Being a launch title does not necessarily mean being an exclusive title. We saw people wanting to buy a Playstation 5 no matter what, in spite of prohibitive prices during the shortage, so I don't know if they needed TLOU2 to make up their minds. And similarly, when the Switch came out, people who had left Nintendo came back partly because they specifically wanted to play Breath Of The Wild. The weight of first party games is incomparable at Nintendo compared to the competition, it is a fact that must be integrated into this kind of comparison, in my opinion.


You might be right, we'll see how they handle the situation, but personally I don't think so, mainly for two reasons:

1) Regardless of the launch date of the successor to the Switch, I expect several games to be cross-gen for some time, especially given the number of users of the current model. I imagine a new Mario Kart as the first title exclusive to the new hardware, for example.

2), given the 1), TotK, just like MP4, seems to me the best possible titles to be a technological showcase of the new model, precisely because people will be able to see very well the difference in rendering between the two versions.
Click to expand...
The best technological showcase would be an exclusive title that showcases feats not possible on a Switch. A cross-gen game will necessarily be limited in what it can do.
 
If the lack of news about games in the latter half of this year is indeed a sign that all marketing is being held up for the announcement of the new console, then it implies that Nintendo's strategy for the release will involve a number of games being released either at the console's launch or soon after. I don't think there will be a strict reliance on a single game, although there's a pretty good chance that a Mario game of some sort will be in that list of launch games.

Nintendo also likely didn't care too much about the historical sales of franchises when they were putting together this list of games. Games on the Switch have broken sales precedents from previous generations multiple times. Sales in the Switch era carry significantly more weight than anything that happened before, and that will continue to be the case moving forward. That rumored F-Zero game could be in the list of launch games despite the poor sales of the franchise's more recent games (all of which were released almost 20 years or more ago).

In terms of games that would be a pure graphical showcase for the console at release, the best first party game would be Metroid Prime 4 because of the Prime series' more realistic artstyle. Despite historical sales of the Metroid franchise, Nintendo would be fairly confident in having that game break all previous franchise records by a wide margin simply because it would now be a new Switch era game.
 
Erathix said:
GDC is nearly over and I am surprised there hasn't been at least a single grumbling coming out of there regarding anything Switch related. I didn't expect much but I did expect a murmur at a minimum.
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If anything is passed around at GDC it'll take weeks or months before someone leaks it. Leaking it while the event is ongoing would be very dumb.
 
no reason why there can't be two new Mario titles this year. one is 2d & cross-gen, no graphical enhancements aside from a resolution bump. the other is obviously the 3D Switch Drake 5nm launch title. it also seems likely they will try and sell everyone BOTW/TOTK twice when the inevitable remasters arrive. will be interesting to see how they handle patches/upgrades for existing games. if the engine gets a big enough overhaul I can imagine selling you the game twice would be their #1 option.
 
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