• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.

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

Reader mode
I'm not speculating, i'm here for making dad-joke-level jokes and push my lobbying for Scrollwheel-Shoulderbuttons.
 
I wrote the post before this one to answer in advance questions like the one asked by Gerald, and any more that could arise because of the rumblings of the last days.

We did the mistake to give credit to a Twitter user who was confirmed to be legit by a poster on ResetEra. Turned out it was a mistake. So, nothing noteworthy has happened.

As usual, if you want to be informed about the current state, refer to the OP and the threadmarks. Dakhil and Thraktor's posts are great materials too.
 
0
Z0m3le said:
Pokemon DLC specifically said Winter, so probably not far into March if so, likely Feb or even Jan (Pokemon Legends launched in Jan for instance).
Click to expand...
Winter 2023 at that, which points more go this side of the new year than next. Xenoblade Chronicals 2, for instance, was announced for winter and launched early December.
 
Z0m3le said:
14_cab481b8-c95f-41c3-8581-7966ac91a96f_600x600.png

This is the Retroid Pocket 3, it is around as powerful as the Switch (better CPU) it's $149, comes with 128GB EMMC storage and SD expansion, and as you can see is much smaller than the Switch Lite, making it more pocketable, while still able to fit a ~5 inch screen (it is 4.7, but vita's is 5 with bezels). This is what Nintendo needs to release IMO.
Click to expand...
I would prefer a clamshell so the buttons and screen aren't at the mercy of pocket lint.
 
ILikeFeet said:



Spider-man used ML muscle/cloth deformation, so tensor cores definitely aren't needed. still unknown how much speed up tensor cores would even provide here
Click to expand...


The benefit of tensor cores isn't so much that they can do things other hardware can't, but they can do so with far less silicon and (importantly for Nintendo) power consumption than using traditional GPU shader cores. The PS5 in the example above is presumably running the ML at FP16 precision, and at maximum clocks the PS5 GPU manages 20.6 Tflops of FP16 compute for ML tasks like this.

Assuming docked clocks of 1GHz for the GPU, T239's tensor cores could manage 12.3Tflops of FP16 performance in a small fraction of the power consumption of the PS5. If the task is appropriate for sparsity acceleration, then it would hit an equivalent of 24.6Tflops, putting it ahead of PS5. If the task can be quantised to INT8, which PS5 doesn't support (although XBSX/S do), then T239 has an even bigger advantage. Without leveraging sparsity it could hit 24.6 TOPS, and with sparsity acceleration it would achieve 49.1 TOPS at INT8. It's entirely possible that, for some ML tasks (ie quantised to INT8 and leveraging sparsity acceleration), T239 could outperform the PS5 in portable mode.

I'm expecting heavier use of ML on [redacted] not so much because of the overall performance on ML tasks, but rather the performance relative to more traditional approaches. On the PS5 devs have access to up to 10.3 Tflops of traditional GPU compute performance or 20.6 Tflops of ML performance. On T239, devs will have (let's say) 3 Tflops of traditional GPU compute performance or anywhere from 12 to 49 TOPS of ML performance. There should be lots of cases where the performance trade-off of moving to an ML approach doesn't make sense on PS5, but does make sense on [redacted]. And in the cases where it does make sense on PS5, then that simply allows Nintendo's hardware to close the gap without sacrificing power consumption.

Kenka said:
I hope we can refine Thraktor's method to get these results for a wider range of GPU clocks and SM counts. That way, we could maybe have the full range of GPU options Nintendo had for this gen.
Click to expand...

The method only really works if we have a power curve for Nvidia's Ampere architecture on a particular manufacturing process. Nvidia has these (or can make reasonable estimates of them) for whatever manufacturing process they're considering, but unfortunately we don't. It just happens that they provide a power estimation tool for Orin that lets us extract the power curve for Orin's specific GPU implementation on Samsung 8nm, which gives us a reasonably good estimate of where T239 would lie (although T239 has a different implementation of Ampere than Orin, so it's not exact).

Z0m3le said:
I finally was able to find where Thraktor got the number from.


First thing to note is that the tests were efficiency per cuda core, so the fact that the SM structure between A100 and GA10X is vastly different, isn't an issue. However A100 Cuda cores themselves are different, for one thing they do double precision VASTLY differently. A100 is 2:1, GA102 is 30:1, that means you need 2TFLOPs of fp32 on A100 to process 1TFLOPs fp64, however you need 30TFLOPs fp32 to process 1TFLOPs fp64 on RTX 3080. These cores are different, they are all clocked much higher than Drake, which is important for later, lets continue.

The comparison between TSMC 7nm and Samsung 5LPE exists, it was done by Anandtech here (oldpuck and dakhil helped me source this stuff btw, thanks oldpuck, dakhil):


We also have the Exynos 9820 vs the Exynos 9825, 8LPP vs 7LPP, even if you just pretend that these devices pull the same wattage from all other components and it was just the 9820 with 4100mah vs 9825 3500mah, the 9825 last 8% longer, while the 9820 has a battery 17% bigger. Ultimately this means that Samsung 7LPP is greater than 22% reduction of power (it is even better than this when taking into account the slightly higher clocks and larger screen).

Then going back to the Anandtech link:

We see that the move from 7LPP to 5LPP results in a reduction of power consumption by ~24%.

There is a reduction of 5% from 5LPE to 5LPP.

The reduction from 8LPP to 7LPP is ~25%, then the reduction from 7LPP to 5LPE is ~24%, meaning Orin on 5LPP would consume around ~54% at the same frequencies.

We can check to see how roughly correct this all is by checking 8 Gen 1 (Samsung 5LPP/4LPX) vs 8 Gen 1+ (TSMC 4nm)
SD8PG1_Deck_13_575px.png



What the picture above shows is that the 30% reduction in power consumption from Samsung 5LPP/4LPX to TSMC 4nm is at the higher frequencies, pushing upwards of twice the frequency of Drake's SoC, where it would be in the neighborhood of ~10% to ~15%.

But TSMC 4nm isn't TSMC 4N, TSMC 4N is TSMC 5nm (thank Nvidia for that), so what is the power reduction from TSMC 5nm to TSMC 4nm? 22%.
This number is likely also the high end frequency, and likely is smaller than Samsung 5LPP to TSMC 4nm, but obviously not by very much.

All the above info leads to this. An Orin chart with these realistic clocks for "Switch 2"s handheld mode:
Orin (High load) CPU: 1881MHz, (High load) GPU: 624.75MHz

Samsung
8LPP - ~13.1w
7LPP - ~9.8w
5LPP - ~7w

TSMC
7nm - ~7.4w
5nm - ~6.3w
4nm - ~5w

Drake would offer lower power consumptions than this chart, possibly by as much as 10%, because it uses some power saving features from Ada, and because it has less cache and other differences to Orin.

Here is some final things to note, when Qualcomm moved from Samsung 5LPP to TSMC 4nm on the 8 gen 1(+), they increased the GPU from 618MHz to 680MHz, a 10% increase, but maybe much more interesting, the GPU is a little over 2TFLOPs, and unless it is vastly different in efficiency, that means it's passively cooled and finds it's power curve around 600MHz on 5LPP, Drake's architecture is obviously different, so it will be different in power draw per flop, however this likely means Drake's clock IF 5LPP is going to be around 600MHz, but one thing interesting to note about the current Switch, is that it runs it's portable clock as high as 460MHz, which was done in botw, seemingly since launch because battery tests never changed when newer models came out, this is higher than TX1's known power curve, which could mean they are looking at the 660MHz clock (if it is the target) in much the same way as the 460MHz clock.

The difference between 460MHz in portable and 768MHz in docked (67%) is very similar to these found clocks, 660MHz in portable and 1125MHz docked (70%). In fact, it's even slightly more aggressive than these new clocks would be.

As much work as Thraktor put into his post, I do think that he was working with inaccurate data, it's a lot of great data, and through, but just it's square shaped, and the hole is round.
Click to expand...

I see you've already read my response to your PM, but for the sake of anyone else reading this, the source for the 27% reduction was the slide in my post here. It's the only case where I've seen Samsung provide a like-for-like comparison across their manufacturing processes. Strictly speaking it comes out to 27.75%, so I made a slight rounding error, but close enough for the comparison.

I hadn't seen the Qualcomm slide, and although it corresponds to my expectations on the difference between Samsung and TSMC's 5nm/4nm processes, it also highlights the difficulty of taking numbers like these and applying them directly to T239. The slide quotes "up to" 30% power efficiency improvement, with arrows indicating this is measured at or close to maximum clocks. T239 won't be clocked close to maximum clocks, though, and for the GPU in portable mode it's closer to minimum clocks. It's possible that they'd also get a 30% improvement at these lower clocks, but there's no way to tell that from the information given.

This is true for the slide I linked to as well, by the way. We don't know what clocks were used or where in the power curve they made their measurements. There's also no guarantee that the A57 sub-block they're using corresponds at all to how a chip like T239 would behave on each node.

In any case, my point wasn't specifically about the suitability of 5LPP for T239, but more generally how we shouldn't make the assumption that, because T239 features a large GPU, Nintendo will likely clock it very low in portable mode, and therefore only a moderate efficiency improvement over 8nm is needed to justify it. There's a minimum viable clock speed for 12 SMs that increases as the manufacturing process becomes more efficient, so the GPU would need to run at least at that frequency on a given node to make it viable. This increases the efficiency improvements needed to justify 12 SMs. It also, counterintuitively, means that the larger GPU implies higher portable GPU clock speeds, as it needs a more efficient process to be viable, and that process will have a higher clock floor.

I'm also not ruling out 5LPP, and the flat 27% reduction in power consumption is almost certainly off one way or the other when it comes to the lower clock speeds we're discussing. It's not impossible that 5LPP is more efficient at the lower end of the power curve, I just don't personally think it's likely that it achieves the approximately 50% reduction in power over 8nm that I'd expect it to need for 12 SMs to be a sensible GPU design for Nintendo's power constraints on the process.

Z0m3le said:
14_cab481b8-c95f-41c3-8581-7966ac91a96f_600x600.png

This is the Retroid Pocket 3, it is around as powerful as the Switch (better CPU) it's $149, comes with 128GB EMMC storage and SD expansion, and as you can see is much smaller than the Switch Lite, making it more pocketable, while still able to fit a ~5 inch screen (it is 4.7, but vita's is 5 with bezels). This is what Nintendo needs to release IMO.
Click to expand...

I'd like something around this size as a secondary Switch (the Switch Lite is too close in size to the original model for me to own both), and I'd say it would be achievable if they shrunk TX1/Mariko again to 7nm/6nm, as at that point they could almost certainly get rid of the active cooling, along with a smaller battery. Unfortunately I don't think it would sell enough to justify the cost of a further die shrink, particularly at this stage in the Switch's life.
 
AMD shown off a bit of Frame Interpolation at GDC. the youtube video isn't up yet, but the slides are

fsr2-3-diagram-1024x450.png

FSR 2 increases framerate and improves latency. Adding frame interpolation further increases framerate, but increases latency and reduces reactivity. Therefore we will be adding latency reduction techniques to FSR 3.

FSR 3 combines resolution upscaling with frame interpolation, and if you already have FSR 2 in your game, it is expected to be easier to integrate FSR 3.

As always with our FidelityFX technologies, FSR 3 is expected to be available under the open-source MIT license to allow optimal flexibility of integration.
Click to expand...
gpuopen.com

GDC 2023: Introducing the FidelityFX SDK with new technologies, an early look at FSR 3 + more!

Get the highlights from our GDC 2023 sessions and FidelityFX-related reveals, and find links to videos and slide decks.
gpuopen.com gpuopen.com

they also shown off a ray traced GI solution

 
If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, Nintendo will talk about it at their investor's meeting in May.

That meeting happens basically the same day as TotK's release date so they would obviously announce the system before the investor's meeting to not overshadow TotK.

Basically, the Switch 2 is getting announced in the next few weeks if it's coming out before April 2024.

Is there any potential argument against this.
 
Z0m3le said:
retroidpocketflipheader.jpg

They announced it just a few days ago, Retroid Pocket Flip, same specs as RP3+.
Click to expand...
Honestly, even without a die shrink, I think this size/format of Switch would be possible.

That said, I definitely think the Lite is probably as cost optimised as Switch can get in a handheld format, so I don't think it could be any cheaper.

If they want to make a Switch even cheaper, Switch TV, 99.99$. No card slot, no headphone jack, no screen, no battery. Pro Controller is cheaper to manufacture than a Joy-Con Pair. Maybe even subsidise a slight loss because it's digital only. Penetrate emerging and low income markets with a device that's still supported, and importantly, can play Mario.

A clamshell Switch that can dock would be my ideal handheld, but if it happens I think it'll take the place of the Lite in the Drake family.
 
Last edited:
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, Nintendo will talk about it at their investor's meeting in May.

That meeting happens basically the same day as TotK's release date so they would obviously announce the system before the investor's meeting to not overshadow TotK.

Basically, the Switch 2 is getting announced in the next few weeks if it's coming out before April 2024.

Is there any potential argument against this.
Click to expand...
Yes, many! 😅
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, Nintendo will talk about it at their investor's meeting in May.

That meeting happens basically the same day as TotK's release date so they would obviously announce the system before the investor's meeting to not overshadow TotK.

Basically, the Switch 2 is getting announced in the next few weeks if it's coming out before April 2024.

Is there any potential argument against this.
Click to expand...
Doesn’t necessarily have to be in May, just has to be enough months beforehand of the release.
 
Thraktor said:
I'm expecting heavier use of ML on [redacted] not so much because of the overall performance on ML tasks, but rather the performance relative to more traditional approaches.
Click to expand...
I've argued that even if slower it still has value, simply because it's free silicon otherwise sitting idle during the CPU bound sections of the pipeline. During Project Quantum at Mozilla, one of the major efforts was to hire video game engineers to rebuild the browser's rendering pipeline. The rationale being that 3D perf was growing faster than compute, and it didn't matter if algorithmically it was faster, that the sheet quantity of performance growth in that sector would pay off long term.

What they found was 1) that was true, and 2) even that didn't matter, because even when 3D rendering of a webpage was slower on paper than 2D rendering, it just freed up CPU for lots of other operations. In the case of the browser, CSS layout and Javascript were heavily CPU bound operations, and anything you took off the CPU was free performance for them. In the case of a video game, where the divisions between CPU and GPU bound operations are stark, moving something like physics to the tensor cores (where neural networks provide a much easier abstraction than trying to somehow accelerate it with GPGPU) is and even more dramatic win.

The Switch was an incredible device, CPU wise, relative to the rest of the console landscape at the time. In the case of REDACTED, much less so. It feels like a bigger potential win.

The downside, of course, is that unlike the CPU, tensor core perf will change in handheld vs docked mode, and unlike rasterization, the applications don't clearly scale with resolution. On the other hand, potentially, neither does need for DLSS, so there is no telling exactly what the gaps between the two modes are in terms of available tensor performance. Regardless, if it is used - and I trust it will be - it will probably be for features that can be downgraded in handheld. That's why I'm dubious about it performing core gameplay tasks.
 
0
Truno said:
Speculation in the, "Future Nintendo Hardware Technology Speculation" thread? Unbelievable
Click to expand...
It's safe to say this thread is around 1% news and maths about said news, 9% is rumours, and 90% is speculation about that 10%, and that's being kind.
 
0
I'm doing the Genesis "I can't dance"-dance.

But i'm also lucky to have a wife who doesn't like dancing just as much.
 
0
ReddDreadtheLead said:
I love how the Switch OLED and Switch Lite were announced at investor meetings!🥰
Click to expand...

Do you think those were comparable to an entire new system that has to be the successor and replacement to one of the three most successful gaming systems ever made.

Investors also REALLY want the Switch 2 to be announced and released soon as Switch sales are declining. Switch sales were extremely strong as of May 2021.

So why would they... not announce it.

And instead just project a HW sales spike with no explanation.

The HW sales spike with no explanation would basically be a pseudo announcement without Nintendo being able to control the narrative very well, why would they do that.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Do you think those were comparable to an entire new system that has to be the successor and replacement to one of the three most successful gaming systems ever made.

Investors also REALLY want the Switch 2 to be announced and released soon as Switch sales are declining. Switch sales were extremely strong as of May 2021.
Click to expand...
Can you list how often nintendo has actually announced a new console at an investor meeting? Because to my knowledge, the Nintendo 3DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo Wii U wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo switch, project NX was the only time of recent memory where it was announced at an investor meeting, and it was a very specific case.

Every other time has not been done at an investor meeting, so I’m not sure why you believe it’ll suddenly be announced at an investor meeting or that it has a significant chance
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
Can you list how often nintendo has actually announced a new console at an investor meeting? Because to my knowledge, the Nintendo 3DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo Wii U wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo switch, project NX was the only time of recent memory where it was announced at an investor meeting, and it was a very specific case.

Every other time has not been done at an investor meeting, so I’m not sure why you believe it’ll suddenly be announced at an investor meeting or that it has a significant chance
Click to expand...

The 3DS was announced before their end of fiscal year meeting.

The WiiU was announced well before release so well before the fiscal year it was releasing.

The Wii was announced well before release so well before the fiscal year it was releasing.

The DS was announced before their end of fiscal year meeting.


I literally said in the first post of this argument that "it has to be announced before the investor meeting because that's the same day as TotK basically"

What would be the strategy here

1. Switch 2 is releasing Q4 2024
2. Don't announce it for some reason
3. Day that TotK is going to release, project a large HW sales spike for next fiscal year with no reason given
4. Literally everyone assumes it's for the Switch 2, so the hype for TotK is sabotaged slightly.

Why do this, what is the upside.

If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, it's getting announced April 2023 in my view. Why would they not announce it in April 2023 if it's releasing next fiscal year.
 
TonyBaduy said:
I think they only told investors when the NX was coming because the Wii U was in such a dire state, there is no need for that now, they can keep everyone hanging as long as the money keeps coming.
Click to expand...
This is the common line of thought, but Nintendo mentioned NX when they did because it was around the time they began their move into mobile markets. NX was announced to show investors that they remained committed to dedicated hardware and software & that mobile exploration was a secondary market and not priority.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I literally said in the first post of this argument that "it has to be announced before the investor meeting because that's the same day as TotK basically"
Click to expand...
Not only are you moving the goalpost but you somehow managed to stretch the meaning of “announced before the fiscal year end”

If that’s what we are going to use, they already announced it, years ago.


And for the record, the DS was announced well before the FY even ended.


If you really wanna know what the strategy is that they’re going to do, it’s simple. They will announce it several months before the product is intended to release. That is all.
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
Not only are you moving the goalpost but you somehow managed to stretch the meaning of “announced before the fiscal year end”

If that’s what we are going to use, they already announced it, years ago.


And for the record, the DS was announced well before the FY even ended.
Click to expand...

I am not moving the goal post, you were arguing against something I never argued in the first place.

Why would they not announce it in the next four weeks if it's coming out FY ending March 31st 2024.

What is the upside.

Why cause IGN etc to be flooded with "analysts expect Switch 2 to release before April 2024" the week TotK releases with no details given on BC etc.
 
NateDrake said:
This is the common line of thought, but Nintendo mentioned NX when they did because it was around the time they began their move into mobile markets. NX was announced to show investors that they remained committed to dedicated hardware and software & that mobile exploration was a secondary market and not priority.
Click to expand...
Yep NX was announced at the same time as DeNA partnership.
 
Like, they could literally just not tell investors why they're expecting much higher HW sales than anyone would expect

They could not announce the Switch 2 for... reasons.

But I'm badly struggling to see a theory for why they would do these things.
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
Can you list how often nintendo has actually announced a new console at an investor meeting? Because to my knowledge, the Nintendo 3DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo DS wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo Wii U wasn’t announced at an investor meeting. The Nintendo switch, project NX was the only time of recent memory where it was announced at an investor meeting, and it was a very specific case.

Every other time has not been done at an investor meeting, so I’m not sure why you believe it’ll suddenly be announced at an investor meeting or that it has a significant chance
Click to expand...
I don't think @ItWasMeantToBe19 is saying they will announce it literally at the investor meeting. The point he raises is legitimate imo, and I guess we can formulate it as: has Nintendo ever gone into the forecast of a new fiscal year during which a new hardware platform will launch without that platform having been announced in some capacity? The 3DS was already announced, as was the WiiU, and the Switch was announced as codename NX.

I agree that it would be difficult to explain to investors why, in the face of falling hardware sales (by Nintendo's own admission), they would forecast anything that resembles a positive hardware outlook if they didn't have a successor planned for the fiscal year. Looking like you are overestimating your own ability to sell isn't a good thing for investors, I would imagine.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Like, they could literally just not tell investors why they're expecting much higher HW sales than anyone would expect

They could not announce the Switch 2 for... reasons.

But I'm badly struggling to see a theory for why they would do these things.
Click to expand...
I don't think they can lie like that as investors invest based on expectations. If new hardware is slated next FY we will find out around the time of the AGM in June and their financial forecasts for next FY once this FY ends. That is incidentally around Zelda launching, so May-July will be a crucial period.
 
Anyway, I feel pretty confident saying I expect either

1. An announcement of the Switch 2 before the week TotK releases.

OR

2. The Switch 2 is not releasing until after March 31st, 2024.
 
I am sorry but the "Nintendo has no confirmed games after July" is the least argument of the new hardware coming this Holiday. Yeah, the tech stuff around chip/Nvidia leak is here and can't deny that but the argument about nothing after Pikmin is not very strong especially after speculations that "They revealed Pikmin just with a short teaser, without gameplay they are saving it for Drake blowout" or "Zelda was rated, why is it releasing in May and not sooner in the spring? They are doing release alongside with Drake" are just a few examples.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, Nintendo will talk about it at their investor's meeting in May.
Click to expand...
Zedark said:
I agree that it would be difficult to explain to investors why, in the face of falling hardware sales (by Nintendo's own admission), they would forecast anything that resembles a positive hardware outlook if they didn't have a successor planned for the fiscal year.
Click to expand...
Nintendo will talk about a successor at an investor meeting after an announcement, because of course investors need to be updated about details. But it is highly unlikely that Nintendo would announce a successor at an investor meeting or that a specific investor meeting represents any kind of hard deadline.

The majority of Nintendo's shareholders are long term investment portfolios - think "Japanese pension accounts" who have been with Nintendo since the 90s. They don't care about year-to-year stock fluctuations, they care about year-over-year growth and reliable returns. They've been through console release cycles. Nintendo will not have their most important marketing cycles driven by individual shareholders who like to get loud on investor calls.

Nintendo can call special investor's meetings outside of the annual meeting, or distribute unscheduled materials. They have multiple ways to talk to investors off cycle. There is no need to let the investor call dictate the announce strategy. At best, the investor call lines up with their announce strategy and they take advantage of it, but again, not any sort of deadline.
 
If Nintendo announces 2D Mario in June for a November release, they will have a very decent year for a console as old as the switch. Fire emblem, Metroid remake, Bayonetta spin off, Zelda TikTok, Pikmin 4, and 2D Mario. Sprinkle 1 or 2 remasters and you have a year in my opinion much better than 2018, and better than 2020 for sure.

March-April 2024 remains my guess for the new console.


Thugstas said:
Not weirder than another famiboarder … seeking attention for what ?
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I don't think you're weird nor seeking attention, and you're never toxic towards people who don't believe your hardware claims (which includes me).
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
If the Switch 2 is coming before April 2024, Nintendo will talk about it at their investor's meeting in May.

That meeting happens basically the same day as TotK's release date so they would obviously announce the system before the investor's meeting to not overshadow TotK.

Basically, the Switch 2 is getting announced in the next few weeks if it's coming out before April 2024.

Is there any potential argument against this.
Click to expand...
I think suffice to say, if nothing about new hardware is said at the investor meeting, I would take a launch in the FY off the table. It's very unlikely it will be surprise announced months later after having given no forecast or indication for it in their briefing. Not formal announcement, more of a "we will be launching new hardware this FY, we have included units with Switch forecast at this time" or something along those lines. This is how they've previously discussed new hardware with investors and informed them, regardless of whether it's been officially revealed or not.
 
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. 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.
Click to expand...
I feel like you're only considering extremes here. If every game suddenly was only for the new hardware, that would be completely abrupt. But wanting to have at least one impressive exclusive isn't that. And if you have such a game, you're probably not going to want to launch your major cross-gen Zelda the same day.
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I am extremely certain that two Mario platformers are not releasing this year as they would have to release within 3 months of each other.
Click to expand...
Still, I think a 2D and 3D Mario releasing relatively close makes more sense than NSMB2 and NSMBU hitting four months apart.
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
The Switch 2 will badly suffer with regards to multiplatform ports when the PS6 comes out and games are built around raytracing with few baked shadows. I would expect custom hardware for generating rays, for denoising, and for generating BVH structures and a massive push to have everything built around raytracing.
Click to expand...
Considering how long cross-gen periods are getting to be, when does that native PS6 era really even start, though? 2032?
Mr Swine said:
Does anyone know if Drake will be using DLSS 2.5.1 or is it stuck on older version?
Click to expand...
Shouldn't make a difference. As far as I know every card that ever supported DLSS has supported every version of DLSS 1 and 2. It's only with the frame generation in 3 where a break occurs.
Codename_Steam said:
Could Switch still outsell the DS/PS2 if Switch 2 comes out Late 2023/Early 2024?
Click to expand...
I hope not, as having that kind of tail for Switch probably means Switch 2 is failing to become the default like happened with PS3. Either that or they dropped older models down to crazy cheap and squeezed out a few ten more million.
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
But why project a large HW sales spike without explaining why when everyone will assume the one thing.
Click to expand...
The spike wouldn't necessarily be huge. If it was an early 2024 launch like 3DS or Switch, it might be ~3 million.
 
oldpuck said:
Nintendo will talk about a successor at an investor meeting after an announcement, because of course investors need to be updated about details. But it is highly unlikely that Nintendo would announce a successor at an investor meeting or that a specific investor meeting represents any kind of hard deadline.

The majority of Nintendo's shareholders are long term investment portfolios - think "Japanese pension accounts" who have been with Nintendo since the 90s. They don't care about year-to-year stock fluctuations, they care about year-over-year growth and reliable returns. They've been through console release cycles. Nintendo will not have their most important marketing cycles driven by individual shareholders who like to get loud on investor calls.

Nintendo can call special investor's meetings outside of the annual meeting, or distribute unscheduled materials. They have multiple ways to talk to investors off cycle. There is no need to let the investor call dictate the announce strategy. At best, the investor call lines up with their announce strategy and they take advantage of it, but again, not any sort of deadline.
Click to expand...

Okay so

Why would they do this

If Nintendo gives a HW sales estimate way above trend, every analyst will say "Switch 2 to release before April 2024" and this will be all over the news... The same week TotK comes out.

If Nintendo refuses to give a HW sales estimate, this would probably cause the same articles while causing some investors to panic.

Why do this.

Why distract away from TotK to have the advantage of... Having an extremely short announcement to release window? Why would that be good?
 
Reader mode
You must log in or register to reply here.
Please read this staff post before posting.

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


Back
Top Bottom