StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

[LiC]

That 4chan thread is very blatantly a repackaging of our own rumors and speculation in the format of a (fake) leak post. There are multiple one-to-one mappings between things discussed here and statements in the post (hopefully I don't have to explain why this makes it considerably less credible, despite being more believable). Meanwhile, the only new or different thing in it is the totally out there "CCD" concept. I think someone clearly combined existing speculation with a wild guess at a StreetPass-like gimmick.

Oh yeah, another thing I wanted to mention about this: the HWK and HTW product codes are an obvious attempt to mimick the HAC and HAT product codes of the original Switch and its devkits. To me this is a big red flag because this is something that certain Internet speculators (like us!) know or care about, but the vast majority of people, including developers, do not. Developers would probably refer to them by the names like SDEV and EDEV, if they even bothered with information like that in the first place, which they often wouldn't. So that makes it look even more like a post by someone who is highly engaged with online discussion and rumors, trying their hand at a "good" fake leak.

And it might not even be accurate on its own terms, since Nintendo dropped the HAC/HAT pattern when they made devkits for the Lite and OLED, since those just use the same HDH and HEG product prefixes, respectively (though I guess it could be argued that those devkits didn't warrant unique product codes since they're basically just retail units with different firmware/fuses, as opposed to the SDEV which is very different).

Also, I didn't notice until now that they also included an MD5 in their post title, a rather desperate attempt to get the legitimacy which some have attached to the Pokémon leaker.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

It's not a matter of "pushing beyond" 1080p. The games have built-in maximum output resolutions, and they cannot be exceeded without modifying the games themselves.

Software emulation is being discussed, where this kind of thing is done with regularity, like N64 NSO or Yuzu on PC.

 

[Goodtwin]

In the doomsday scenario of Drake being canceled or severely delayed, or the global supply chain going to s*** yet again: Although Nintendo certainly don’t want this to happen, IMHO they made plans for this during the height of the pandemic. The OLED model would be hard-pressed to expand its product scope, by enabling all its reserved capabilities, to ride out the storm.

To me, that sounds exactly like a "New" Nintendo Switch OLED, or a Mariko based Pro model if you want to call it that. In the year 2020 and even 2021, it probably did look very uncertain on when Nintendo would be in a good position to release a successor that wouldn't be plagued with high priced components and limited availability. The semiconductor shortage went from bad to not a problem in the past 8 months. Nintendo would not have been able to know for certain when things would get back to normal. What I don't believe is that Nintendo had settled on a simple OLED upgrade from the very start. Nintendo has a history of offering a modest performance bump with later revisions in their handhelds with the DSi and New 3DS. If Nintendo was going to open up new higher performance profiles because a successor is far off, I believe that would have been done by now.

 

[alfiehicks]

It's not a matter of "pushing beyond" 1080p. The games have built-in maximum output resolutions, and they cannot be exceeded without modifying the games themselves.

Okay, one: yes they can be exceeded without modifying the games. Software emulation already proves that, and hardware emulation would be no different.

Two: games are open to being modified/updated. It would be trivial to just up the target resolution to a higher value in the case that a system-wide resolution increase is not a thing.

Three: no game is rendered at above 1080p. Internally, perhaps some are, but every game must scale to native resolution prior to being output, so even those few would still need to be updated in the aforementioned case.

 

[alfiehicks]

The Drake Switch is released timely but at a higher price point; the OLED and Lite remain in the market: Some major Nintendo franchises are family friendly/oriented. I’m not sure if the Mario, Pokemon, AC, Kirby, and Yoshi series would ever release a Drake exclusive until Nintendo is able to create a Drake-based Lite. To maintain the marketability of SWOLED (maybe even Lite) and prolong its service life, the higher performance profiles for Mariko could be unleashed. For product segmentation reasons, the 4K output probably won’t be turned on. The HDR capability might go either way.

That would be a death sentence for Drake.

"It just plays all the same games but looks better? Is it even a new console? I'll pass: my Switch works fine enough and it's still getting new games."

People need a reason to spend loads of money on a brand-new console, and there is no more direct of a reason than wanting to play a cool new game that isn't on the old console.

 

[Concernt]

That would be a death sentence for Drake.

"It just plays all the same games but looks better? Is it even a new console? I'll pass: my Switch works fine enough and it's still getting new games."

People need a reason to spend loads of money on a brand-new console, and there is no more direct of a reason than wanting to play a cool new game that isn't on the old console.

That didn't stop Xbox Series X launching and selling with no next gen exclusives for months on end. The biggest Xbox "thing" so far this year is Rally Adventure, an expansion pack for a 2021 game that still supports the base Xbox One.

 

[robertman2]

That didn't stop Xbox Series X launching and selling with no next gen exclusives for months on end. The biggest Xbox "thing" so far this year is Rally Adventure, an expansion pack for a 2021 game that still supports the base Xbox One.

Hi-Fi Rush

 

[kalosmani]

That would be a death sentence for Drake.

"It just plays all the same games but looks better? Is it even a new console? I'll pass: my Switch works fine enough and it's still getting new games."

People need a reason to spend loads of money on a brand-new console, and there is no more direct of a reason than wanting to play a cool new game that isn't on the old console.

Times have changed. Lots of games are GaaS so cross gen just keeps going. And a ton of types of games Nintendo make can easily run on a Switch like a 2D Mario game. I can see exclusives happening but a ton of cross gen games. If it can easily run on a Switch 1 I expect that game to continue to release on Switch 1. I think we will see more 3rd party Switch 2 exclusives than first party Switch 2 exclusives. E.g Street Fighter 6, Diablo 4 not available for Switch 1 but 2D Mario being cross gen etc.

 

[Hush]

When should we expect to hear GDC rumblings from devs who are working on the hardware? It was last week I believe right?

 

[ILikeFeet]

When should we expect to hear GDC rumblings from devs who are working on the hardware? It was last week I believe right?

realistically, we shouldn't expect anything. if we get anything, we're lucky

 

[Deleted member 887]

Okay, one: yes they can be exceeded without modifying the games. Software emulation already proves that, and hardware emulation would be no different.

No, they cannot. There is no software emulator that can increase the render resolution of a game without modifying the game. Emulators may ship with monkey patches for lots of games, or may increase output resolution by applying a scaling solution to the rendered frames, but there is no emulation solution that increases render resolution without altering the game's internal logic.

Two: games are open to being modified/updated. It would be trivial to just up the target resolution to a higher value in the case that a system-wide resolution increase is not a thing.

This is a patch, unless you're describing Nintendo modifying the games themselves in the emulation layer, which has legal issues, and why Microsoft had to attach a legal team to their backwards compatibility efforts

Three: no game is rendered at above 1080p. Internally, perhaps some are,

"Rendered" refers to the "internal" resolution. This is how SSAA (and to a lesser extent, MSAA) works.

but every game must scale to native resolution prior to being output, so even those few would still need to be updated in the aforementioned case.

No, frames have to be scaled to a resolution supported by HDMI, but games don't need to handle it, because the operating system on the Switch handles it. Games can output 1080p in handheld mode if they want, HorizonOS doesn't care. In the case of an emulated game, Nintendo can do whatever it wants with the raw frames.

Nintendo owns and controls the entire driver layer as well, down to the source. Unlike 3rd party emulators who are stuck emulating the underlying hardware and then capturing the raw output, or reverse engineering engine code to create an HLE map, Nintendo can just override the driver behavior directly, trapping the API calls, with all the performance advantages and flexibility of HLE, the accuracy of LLE, and without doing the reverse engineering work.

You can't extrapolate from the PC emulation scene to figure out what can and cannot be done by Nintendo/Nvidia.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Software emulation is being discussed, where this kind of thing is done with regularity, like N64 NSO or Yuzu on PC.

Okay, one: yes they can be exceeded without modifying the games. Software emulation already proves that, and hardware emulation would be no different.

Two: games are open to being modified/updated. It would be trivial to just up the target resolution to a higher value in the case that a system-wide resolution increase is not a thing.

On more modern platforms like the Switch, this basically requires modding the game. If I understand how Yuzu works correctly, it's basically analyzing how the game renders frames to try to figure out how to do this automatically. Even on older hardware where it can be done more simply, it's liable to cause bugs if not tested carefully. It's not a feature you should expect in an official context except where all games are receiving individual attention, like VC or the NSO apps.

Three: no game is rendered at above 1080p. Internally, perhaps some are, but every game is automatically scaled to native resolution prior to being output, so even those few would still need to be updated in the aforementioned case.

As far as I'm aware, the scaling is done by the system, not the game. All the additional information should be just there if it's being provided to the compositor.

 

[theguy]

I have a bit of an offtopic question, if theoretically PlayStation or Xbox would switch to ARM, would backward compatibility still be?

they should just switch, if u catch my drift, and it should be the only console in existence

 

[kalosmani]

I would be satisfied just Nintendo patching their own games, not that fussed about 3rd party games as they are available on other systems. But that's even if Nintendo to even bother patching their own games. Seeing videos of Switch games running on PC emulators in 4K, these games hold up so well. It would be a shame if Nintendo don't bother to patch these games which lets be honest is just a few lines of code modifying to use the extra horse power of a Switch 2.

I'd expect late gen Nintendo Switch games like Zelda TotK, Pokémon SV getting full ports but older games like Mario Odyssey just get patches. If these older games don't get patches then you will see people running Switch 1 games on the Steam Deck 2 running better than on a Switch 2.

 

[Kazuyamishima]

they should just switch, if u catch my drift, and it should be the only console in existence

Wat

 

[Hush]

realistically, we shouldn't expect anything. if we get anything, we're lucky

Didnt Nate say he was going to ask around there for info?

 

[ILikeFeet]

Didnt Nate say he was going to ask around there for info?

him and other journalists are definitely asking around. but given the nature of how the info is obtained, we have to hope we get info and that it can be corroborated. a good journalist can't work off of one source after all

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

When should we expect to hear GDC rumblings from devs who are working on the hardware? It was last week I believe right?

I mean, if the Switch 2 is launching before April 2024, it's probably getting officially announced within the next six weeks.

If it's releasing April 2024 or later, there may not be much to leak.

 

[kalosmani]

I mean, if the Switch 2 is launching before April 2024, it's probably getting officially announced within the next six weeks.

If it's releasing April 2024 or later, there may not be much to leak.

I disagree. The Switch 1 reveal was October and then it released in March. Why could they not do that again and reveal the Switch 2 in October and release in March 2024

 

[NateDrake]

Didnt Nate say he was going to ask around there for info?

Just because we get information, doesn't mean the info obtained is allowed to be reported. The source ultimately dictates what can or is allowed to be reported. As I said, most of the conversations will be under frie-nda or was just off the record chatter amongst friends and colleagues. Not for a scoop.

 

[kasparov77]

You know, some kind of functionality on the switch online app that constantly looks for nearby devices that also have the app installed -acting kind of like a streetpass would be awesome.

 

[Hush]

him and other journalists are definitely asking around. but given the nature of how the info is obtained, we have to hope we get info and that it can be corroborated. a good journalist can't work off of one source after all

Given that it is GDC, I would assume a lot of chatter would be going around there especially at this point.

I mean, if the Switch 2 is launching before April 2024, it's probably getting officially announced within the next six weeks.

If it's releasing April 2024 or later, there may not be much to leak.

Tears of the Kingdom is 6 weeks away so I´d say June or July is the realistic window.

Just because we get information, doesn't mean the info obtained is allowed to be reported. The source ultimately dictates what can or is allowed to be reported. As I said, most of the conversations will be under frie-nda or was just off the record chatter amongst friends and colleagues. Not for a scoop.

I get that, but given that past sources have given you the green light I would not think it would be a problem. Also, I dont see any harm in saying something like ¨from what I was hearing it sounds like we should be getting a reveal soon/next year/not anytime soon/not a lot of chatter surprisingly¨. Just to paint a clearer picture of what was floated around and not compromising any specific source

 

[theguy]

Wat

it was a play on playstation and xbox switching to ARM, and i said they should just switch, meaning everything should just be on the switch and it should be the only console going forward forever. playstation xbox and the word switch were all used in the same sentence, so i saw an opportunity and took it and well…in hindsight if it needs to be explained this much, it was probably a really bad pun

 

[syrozz]

[..]

I'd expect late gen Nintendo Switch games like Zelda TotK, Pokémon SV getting full ports but older games like Mario Odyssey just get patches. If these older games don't get patches then you will see people running Switch 1 games on the Steam Deck 2 running better than on a Switch 2.

Yes, Their is a thing that Nintendo hates more than leaks and that's emulation. The SteamDeck may not be a direct competitor on a large scale, but the mere fact that it can run some Switch games flawlessly must keep Nintendo's top brass up at night.
Gabe did us a big favor with that thing. Now Nintendo need to make a powerful enough hardware to prevent switch game ports, or even his own next gen games to run better on the SteamDeck 2.
And the fact that Dolphin is coming soon on steam, Emudeck that is getting better and better I don't know... emulation may not be a niche for long.

 

[Raccoon]

I get that, but given that past sources have given you the green light I would not think it would be a problem. Also, I dont see any harm in saying something like ¨from what I was hearing it sounds like we should be getting a reveal soon/next year/not anytime soon/not a lot of chatter surprisingly¨. Just to paint a clearer picture of what was floated around and not compromising any specific source

This is a bit silly, isn't it? He knows what he's allowed to talk about better than you do lol

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Games can output 1080p in handheld mode if they want, HorizonOS doesn't care

Case in point, Fire Emblem Warriors (the first one) can do 1080p in portable mode…. Despite not being on a 1080p screen.

 

[Dekuman]

Yes, Their is a thing that Nintendo hates more than leaks and that's emulation. The SteamDeck may not be a direct competitor on a large scale, but the mere fact that it can run some Switch games flawlessly must keep Nintendo's top brass up at night.
Gabe did us a big favor with that thing. Now Nintendo need to make a powerful enough hardware to prevent switch game ports, or even his own next gen games to run better on the SteamDeck 2.
And the fact that Dolphin is coming soon on steam, Emudeck that is getting better and better I don't know... emulation may not be a niche for long.

I don't think Nintendo hates emulation, they use it and make some good ones. They are just very protective of their IP , even if the person emulating the games have the full rights to do it.

As for Steam Deck being an existential threat, that seems to be an internet bubble thing, because we've seen how Nintendo react when their market is directly threatened, we got the GBA SP and the Nintendo DS. With Deck, they released the OLED instead.

 

[Nintendojitsu]

I, for one, can't wait until the next leak or something other than emulation. And no, Nintendo is no more worried about the Steam Deck than Amazon is about ebay.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

emulation may not be a niche for long.

Emulation isn’t niche, piracy is.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Yes, Their is a thing that Nintendo hates more than leaks and that's emulation. The SteamDeck may not be a direct competitor on a large scale, but the mere fact that it can run some Switch games flawlessly must keep Nintendo's top brass up at night.
Gabe did us a big favor with that thing. Now Nintendo need to make a powerful enough hardware to prevent switch game ports, or even his own next gen games to run better on the SteamDeck 2.
And the fact that Dolphin is coming soon on steam, Emudeck that is getting better and better I don't know... emulation may not be a niche for long.

They don’t hate emulation but some of the things surrounding emulation when they wanna protect their IP.

---

Also lol at the notion piracy is niche.

 

[Concernt]

Emulation isn’t niche, piracy is.

Yes, because people are DEFINITELY ripping their legally owned Wii and GCN disks in their PC and copying them to their Steam Deck to use Dolphin.

Nah, piracy is mainstream, at least in most of Europe. There are places in Europe where it isn't even ILLEGAL.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Now Nintendo need to make a powerful enough hardware to prevent switch game ports

the power of drake isn't dictated by a product that came after Drake's conception

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Yes, because people are DEFINITELY ripping their legally owned Wii and GCN disks in their PC and copying them to their Steam Deck to use Dolphin.

Nah, piracy is mainstream, at least in most of Europe. There are places in Europe where it isn't even ILLEGAL.

I said Emulation isn’t niche, and piracy is. Not that it’s legal or illegal to pirate

Nintendo uses Emulation on their system right now. Sony does it right now. Microsoft is doing it right now for games too.


Pirating it is something they aren’t ok with.

But emulation itself is not niche and ignored, it’s just used in the legal grey area.

 

[Concernt]

I said Emulation isn’t niche, and piracy is. Not that it’s legal or illegal to pirate

Nintendo uses Emulation on their system right now. Sony does it right now. Microsoft is doing it right now for games too.


Pirating it is something they aren’t ok with.

But emulation itself is not niche and ignored, it’s just used in the legal grey area.

Neither is niche. Piracy is not niche. Though emulation is definitely more mainstream by way of its presence on console.

I'm not saying it's good or bad either, just that it's common.

 

[Concernt]

Drake will be extremely difficult to emulate, I would think. At least decently, considering you need to either have a superset of its features (near impossible) or be a LOT faster, like, orders of magnitude (difficult and expensive).

I have no doubt Yuzu will march on and attempt to do what it can to get Drake games in a working state as fast as possible. But I wouldn't bet on it being "good" emulation for a long, long time.

 

[Look over there]

It’ll likely be 2x6GB of RAM of LPDDR5 as it would be “cheaper” in the long run considering that in the mobile space, 6GB of RAM as a simple Module isn’t uncommon and will be long lived especially by Apple product standards.


4GB will likely be short lived.

Also, people focus more on LPDDr5X and not LPDDR5T

I still think it’s 5, not 5X. But the most ideal scenario is of course 5T for I think >150GB/s memory bandwidth. I think, I could be mistaken of course and read it wrong.

Can't speak for others, but I personally don't bring up 5T much because it has yet to be standardized; still SK Hynix specific at this time. But yes, it's supposed to be 9600 MT/s, so 153.6 GB/s for a 128-bit memory bus.
Although now that I'm reading the press release again, huh, little factoid that I didn't notice last time. At least from SK Hynix's perspective, 4X and 5X are their own 'generations'. Such that, 5X is the '7th generation' with 6 being '8th generation'. 5T is considered by them to be an upgrade to 5X/'7th generation'.

-

The... frequency of piracy vs standard 'buying official/licensed stuff normally' seems to vary a lot on a region by region basis, no? I'm fairly sure it runs the gamut from 'niche' to 'it's the norm'.

Steam Deck is not on the radar as a competitor as it flat out won't have the volume to be one. 1-2 million a year ain't shit when you're expecting to move an order of magnitude more.

 

[MP!]

If Nintendo could provide a modern feature rich experience I doubt the emulation scene would even care to move that fast…

For instance if drake already provides 4K with bits of ray tracing and such
Then the subset of people who want more than that is very little…

Also if there’s some sort of gimmick that can’t be emulated easily would also stifle that development

 

[Look over there]

Demand, and the difficulty to satisfy that demand, are two separate things. As long as the (exclusive) games are good, the demand will exist.

 

[Concernt]

If Nintendo could provide a modern feature rich experience I doubt the emulation scene would even care to move that fast…

For instance if drake already provides 4K with bits of ray tracing and such
Then the subset of people who want more than that is very little…

Also if there’s some sort of gimmick that can’t be emulated easily would also stifle that development

Emulating tensor cores and FDE would be difficult, methinks

 

[Boxle]

Yes, because people are DEFINITELY ripping their legally owned Wii and GCN disks in their PC and copying them to their Steam Deck to use Dolphin.

Nah, piracy is mainstream, at least in most of Europe. There are places in Europe where it isn't even ILLEGAL.

I mean... I am. Not that dolphin even performs particularly well on Deck anyway.

My big project recent has been making sure all of my games from every source are ripped, backed up and easily accessible by me on any compatible device.

Even if people think that's a bit ridiculous, I honestly can't stand piracy.

 

[ILikeFeet]

It’ll likely be 2x6GB of RAM of LPDDR5 as it would be “cheaper” in the long run considering that in the mobile space, 6GB of RAM as a simple Module isn’t uncommon and will be long lived especially by Apple product standards.


4GB will likely be short lived.

Also, people focus more on LPDDr5X and not LPDDR5T

I still think it’s 5, not 5X. But the most ideal scenario is of course 5T for I think >150GB/s memory bandwidth. I think, I could be mistaken of course and read it wrong.

honestly, these LPDDR5 chips are more for laptops now that mobile has largely moved to a stacked SoC/memory combo. for that reason, there's more incentive to use 6GB chips than 4GB chips

 

[Hush]

This is a bit silly, isn't it? He knows what he's allowed to talk about better than you do lol

You dont understand really, there is a difference between giving a full report with specifics and just letting people know where the wind is headed. I hope at least someone can say if there was Switch 2 talk among devs at GDC or if there was just low buzz in that area given that it is still far off.

 

[Dekuman]

On the RAM side, the 4chan spec of 10 GB for games 2 GB for OS with 16 for Dev kits seems very reasonable. Though I wish they'd go for 16 GB. (assuming its true of course)

2GB for OS seems almost necessary as the very bare bones Switch OS is greater than half a GB. Throw in expanded video recording and other functions, 2GB may be 'light' by Android and windows stands. But that's the advantage of a console and a fixed spec is they can probably do a lot more with those 10GB for games and 2GB for OS than the Aya Neos of this world.

 

[mariodk18]

In other news, today marks a year and a half of silence since the 11 devs and spices article (Sep 29, 2021). Time sure does fly...

 

[NineTailSage]

So I know that many here believe that lpddr5x is just to new for Nvidia and Nintendo to use, but lpddr4 in the Switch was probably about the same age of tech as lpddr5x is now in current phones...

 

[ILikeFeet]

So I know that many here believe that lpddr5x is just to new for Nvidia and Nintendo to use, but lpddr4 in the Switch was probably about the same age of tech as lpddr5x is now in current phones...

LPDDR4 was already in products for a couple years when the switch came out (like the Shield TV). LPDDR5X will be very recently in products.

 

[Look over there]

It would be funny if while Nvidia ordered the dense LPDDR5X modules for Grace, they also ordered more regular sized modules on the side for the Redacted at the same time. Full speed 5X no less, delivered in the 2nd half of the year. Flexing their memory controller quality all over the two x86 boys and their piddling about in the 7500 MT/s range.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Emulating tensor cores and FDE would be difficult, methinks

Tensor cores are challenging, but HLE should make DLSS emulatable (if not pixel accurate) via FSR.

 

[Dakhil]

So I know that many here believe that lpddr5x is just to new for Nvidia and Nintendo to use, but lpddr4 in the Switch was probably about the same age of tech as lpddr5x is now in current phones...

LPDDR4 was already been used in smartphones for almost 2 years (here and here) by the time the Nintendo Switch launched.

As of now, LPDDR5X-8400 has only been used on smartphones for only a little more than three months. (The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2's the first SoC from Qualcomm that supports LPDDR5X.)

And as of now, LPDDR5X-7500 has only been used in smartphones for a little over a year.

 

[Raccoon]

You dont understand really, there is a difference between giving a full report with specifics and just letting people know where the wind is headed. I hope at least someone can say if there was Switch 2 talk among devs at GDC or if there was just low buzz in that area given that it is still far off.

If what he's heard is confidential having heard it is confidential. I don't think there's any room for argument about what the people he's spoken to would want.

Personally, I think the silence speaks volumes. If new hardware were coming FY 2024 I imagine something would've slipped through the cracks after GDC.