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

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TomNookYankees said:
I could see the following happen:
  • August 2023 leak due to Nintendo privately showing new dev kits at Gamescom
  • Nintendo reiterates nothing new is coming out this fiscal year, but in September/October announce a price drop for the Switch, which boosts holiday sales for switch but also further feeds speculation of new hardware coming
  • February/March 2024 Reveal trailer for REDACTED
  • June Direct mainly focuses on REDACTED titles/features
  • Release in November 2024

Nintendo has not historically done cross gen and while they have a history of continuing to release a few first party titles on successful previous hardware for a year or so they very quickly move on after that. Any first party "crossgen" would at most just be Switch games getting a boost mode in their next hardware.
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10 months is unnecessary. a year long hype cycle isn't needed in modern times. a reveal in June or so would be better
 
Pokemaniac said:
NES, SNES, GB, GBA, and 3DS all received significant support after their successors were out, occasionally actually cross gen. Not coincidentally, this is the set of Nintendo systems that continued to sell reasonably well after their successors were out. Logically, a much higher portion of the games (likely effectively 100%) released for the older system in this scenario would be cross gen on a modern system where the technical barrier to do so is relatively minimal.

It's fairly mystifying how much meaning people read into pretty nothing statements Nintendo makes to investors at times. All they're saying is they'll make exclusive games for new hardware. They're not making any particularly strong statements about what their overall output will look like.
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They even ported Wii U games to 3ds (Mario Maker/ captain toad). Most would probably classify the latter as an impossible port.
 
BDGAME said:
Nintendo never did crossgen because, in the past, when they release a new console, the previos one is already dead. But, rigth now, they are on "uncharted territory" with a new machine come and the previos still active.

So, they will need to do crossgen this time. Not the entire library, but some games will need to be released on Switch and Switch 2.

And what do you think they will sell in 2024 to wait a entire year before release the new console? They are a game company and if they stop to announce games is because the next bunch are most of crossgen and next gen exclusives. Then, they need to release the Switch 2, if not this year, on Q1 of 2024 to not loose the momentum and the incoming.
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Like I said, I think any “crossgen” from Nintendo will mainly be that they continue to release a few more sub60-FPS Switch games that run 60FPS/1440p on REDACTED.

My guess is that they will have to drop the price of the Switch by $50 and that the price drop plus one more major first party switch game and a bunch of DLC will be enough to reach their hardware and software projections. So long as they have a good enough 2023 holiday season and are releasing their next console before 2025 then that will likely be enough.
 
Still team 2023.
Holiday 2024, even summer 2024 is too far off.
I don’t care if it’s too optimistic for some reason, I just feel better this way.
Can’t wait for the reveal.
 
after all the great hours with the OLED, I’m still in no rush for a new system. Especially if they still don’t have a proper upgrade path. I’d rather wait more time if this means the next system is just using the same OS and they’ve found a fix for the shader topic.
Iwata was talking about iPhone style system upgrades, not some software works with patches…
 
Intoxicate said:
after all the great hours with the OLED, I’m still in no rush for a new system. Especially if they still don’t have a proper upgrade path. I’d rather wait more time if this means the next system is just using the same OS and they’ve found a fix for the shader topic.
Iwata was talking about iPhone style system upgrades, not some software works with patches…
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If Nintendo is gonna take the iOS route with the Switch’s OS, then it probably means that the Switch is gonna be their staple system. Several versions, one OS.
 
Intoxicate said:
after all the great hours with the OLED, I’m still in no rush for a new system. Especially if they still don’t have a proper upgrade path. I’d rather wait more time if this means the next system is just using the same OS and they’ve found a fix for the shader topic.
Iwata was talking about iPhone style system upgrades, not some software works with patches…
Click to expand...
I will just say again the BC issue is vastly overblown.
 
TomNookYankees said:
I could see the following happen:
  • August 2023 leak due to Nintendo privately showing new dev kits at Gamescom
  • Nintendo reiterates nothing new is coming out this fiscal year, but in September/October announce a price drop for the Switch, which boosts holiday sales for switch but also further feeds speculation of new hardware coming
  • February/March 2024 Reveal trailer for REDACTED
  • June Direct mainly focuses on REDACTED titles/features
  • Release in November 2024

Nintendo has not historically done cross gen and while they have a history of continuing to release a few first party titles on successful previous hardware for a year or so they very quickly move on after that. Any first party "crossgen" would at most just be Switch games getting a boost mode in their next hardware.
Click to expand...
i believe a few Switch games and Switch sucessor(drake) will release on both console, Nintendo will not abandon a console with a 100 milion+ install base,it would be foolish of Nintendo to do this, i believe for 2/3 years Nintendo will do cross-gen games,lust like Sony did with PS4 to PS5, and 3 years later, games fully exclusive for Switch sucessor will be released.
 
L_esson said:
Still team 2023.
Holiday 2024, even summer 2024 is too far off.
I don’t care if it’s too optimistic for some reason, I just feel better this way.
Can’t wait for the reveal.
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I've given up on this year. It'll be 2024, probably second half. I don't really mind, I have Zelda + loads of stuff still to play. Octopath 2, Xenoblade 3, other games in my backlog.
 
ILikeFeet said:
10 months is unnecessary. a year long hype cycle isn't needed in modern times. a reveal in June or so would be better
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To play devils advocate, an argument for a slightly longer window is at some point dev kits are in folks hands and things will leak more so Nintendo should control the narrative*.

Though given that folks in the gaming journalism industry know what this tread knows, reports that [Redacted] will use a chipset based on Nvidia's Orin line isn't exactly newsworthy. . .

*I'm curious if NVN2 running on Windows means physical dev kits can ship later.
 
bixente said:
I've given up on this year. It'll be 2024, probably second half. I don't really mind, I have Zelda + loads of stuff still to play. Octopath 2, Xenoblade 3, other games in my backlog.
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We would have had confirmation on it not coming this year through the investors meeting, as Furukawa would usually say that there isn't any new hardware planned for that fiscal year. He did not make such claims this time and we're left with vague, carefully worded statements. 1H 2024 is still on the table, but I doubt that they can make that timeframe work, as it would require an announcement somewhere between Fall and January. That could compromise the Switch's potential Holiday sales, especially with Nintendo's 15 million unit forecast (they'll definitely scale it down later, but reaching that goal would still be tricky). These two factors, as well as the lack of any first-party software news for 2H leads me to believe that Drake will release on 2H 2023.
 
Foltzie said:
To play devils advocate, an argument for a slightly longer window is at some point dev kits are in folks hands and things will leak more so Nintendo should control the narrative*.

Though given that folks in the gaming journalism industry know what this tread knows, reports that [Redacted] will use a chipset based on Nvidia's Orin line isn't exactly newsworthy. . .

*I'm curious if NVN2 running on Windows means physical dev kits can ship later.
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within a year of launch, I don't think there's much they can really do. by then, many people will have had their hands on the system. maybe they can do a PDF reveal like the 3DS? no matter what, it'll always be "too late" to completely control the narrative, I think
 
For everyone that is Team 2024, what is it exactly that you expect Nintendo to show up with at Gamescom? Nintendo hasn't gone to this show in years and it would have been easy for them to pass on it again this year, but they are going this year. Nintendo doesn't not currently have a game dated that wont already be out by the time Gamescom takes place. Are we really to believe Nintendo is going to make the investment to attend this show with a lineup of GameCube remasters and some new DLC? That sounds more like Twitter drop material to me. Even if your confident in no new hardware this year, can we at least agree that it is very odd for Nintendo to decide to return to Gamescom in Switch's seventh year on the market with (currently) no announced and dated games. Until this all changes, I will leave the door open for a late 2023 release

Hermii said:
I will just say again the BC issue is vastly overblown.
Click to expand...

Yep, and its obvious that Nintendo is committed to a smooth transition to their next hardware, and ditching BC would be very foolish. Phil Spencer has gone on record saying that Microsoft is no longer in a position to overtake Sony or Microsoft because gamers became invested in their digital libraries on their preferred consoles during the PS4/Xone generation. He's right too, its harder to migrate to a different platform when you have a large library of games on a different platform. Prior to digital consumers were more accepting of a hard reset with console generations, but in the modern digital world its basically unacceptable. Imagine if Apple locked all your software purchases to the phone that you downloaded them on originally, but Android allowed you to redownload your purchased apps on any device you purchase in the future. This favor Android in a monumental way. Nintendo has a strong history of offering BC on all of its portable devices throughout history and a few of their home consoles supported it as well. Its not just that its important to consumers, its expected.

I feel confident that if a solution for BC wasn't possible with the move to Ampere, Drake would have stuck with Maxwell. A custom SOC using 1024-1536 Maxwell cores matches with 8 A78 CPU cores would still be very capable. Since they have moved to Ampere, it only makes logical sense that Nvidia has solved this problem.
 
Nobody in here knows. Furukawa's words can be read as confirming it's coming this FY or not confirming it's this FY.

Signs pointing to it being this FY (by March 31, 2024):

  1. No software is announced past July except Metroid Prime 4. Very unusual. Historically we already know what's coming in Q2 FY (Jul-Sep) from a late winter or early spring direct.
  2. Furukawa said no new hardware or revisions were factored in the forecasted 15m in Switch sales (an ambitious number to reach in year 7, does he really think TOTK and DLC to Pokemon/Mario Kart 8 DX are enough?)
  3. Furukawa did not outright deny no new hardware this FY.
  4. 2nd half of the FY being empty could be to make room for new hardware and new exclusives that are built to work on Switch 2 only (or are cross gen)
  5. Furukawa answered an investor's question saying that the NX was announced super early because of the worry investors would take the DeNA announcement as Nintendo not working on video game hardware anymore. The Switch 2 will likely have a shorter announce to release window.
  6. No plans to attend Summer Games Fest and no rumours of a June direct from the established Nintendo insiders (unofficial)
  7. Factory Uncle#2 said he's seen the shell of Switch 2 and they did a trial run of production this month (this is the weakest rumour)
Signs pointing it to being next FY (April 1, 2024- March 31, 2025)

  1. NateDrake and DF said dev kits were recalled
  2. DF and NateDrake mentioned a cancelled chip from Nintendo (T239 Drake?)
  3. For something that's supposed to be out in 6-9 months, there have been zero leaks from the manufacturing side and from the dev side. By July 2016 (three months before Switch announcement), Eurogamer basically confirmed the NX form factor to be a hybrid and corroborated the May 2016 SemiAccurate leak that Nvidia was the chipmaker. We have nothing except an Nvidia hack from April 2022 with data from November 2021 for a device that hardware enthusiasts confirmed can only be for Switch 2 because of the API being named nvn2 (Switch 1 API is nvn).
  4. NateDrake has said that production of Switch 2 likely won't even start until Spring 2024 (Q2 2024).

We even got people interpreting Sharp LCD screens as confirmations Switch 2 uses LCD next meanwhile everybody and their mother are releasing PC handhelds right now and it could be for any game console right now.

tl;dr Information about the next Switch is vague and everyone is interpreting the data to fit the narrative they want to be correct. Nobody knows anything. Not even the "insiders".
 
Goodtwin said:
For everyone that is Team 2024, what is it exactly that you expect Nintendo to show up with at Gamescom? Nintendo hasn't gone to this show in years and it would have been easy for them to pass on it again this year, but they are going this year. Nintendo doesn't not currently have a game dated that wont already be out by the time Gamescom takes place. Are we really to believe Nintendo is going to make the investment to attend this show with a lineup of GameCube remasters and some new DLC? That sounds more like Twitter drop material to me. Even if your confident in no new hardware this year, can we at least agree that it is very odd for Nintendo to decide to return to Gamescom in Switch's seventh year on the market with (currently) no announced and dated games. Until this all changes, I will leave the door open for a late 2023 release
Click to expand...

At Gamescom I assume they would publicly show up with just some demo stations of Prime 4 and their new 2D mario but privately would be showing developers their new dev kits for REDACTED because the dev kit demonstration would be their main reason for going after all these years.
 
Goodtwin said:
For everyone that is Team 2024, what is it exactly that you expect Nintendo to show up with at Gamescom? Nintendo hasn't gone to this show in years and it would have been easy for them to pass on it again this year, but they are going this year. Nintendo doesn't not currently have a game dated that wont already be out by the time Gamescom takes place. Are we really to believe Nintendo is going to make the investment to attend this show with a lineup of GameCube remasters and some new DLC? That sounds more like Twitter drop material to me. Even if your confident in no new hardware this year, can we at least agree that it is very odd for Nintendo to decide to return to Gamescom in Switch's seventh year on the market with (currently) no announced and dated games. Until this all changes, I will leave the door open for a late 2023 release



Yep, and its obvious that Nintendo is committed to a smooth transition to their next hardware, and ditching BC would be very foolish. Phil Spencer has gone on record saying that Microsoft is no longer in a position to overtake Sony or Microsoft because gamers became invested in their digital libraries on their preferred consoles during the PS4/Xone generation. He's right too, its harder to migrate to a different platform when you have a large library of games on a different platform. Prior to digital consumers were more accepting of a hard reset with console generations, but in the modern digital world its basically unacceptable. Imagine if Apple locked all your software purchases to the phone that you downloaded them on originally, but Android allowed you to redownload your purchased apps on any device you purchase in the future. This favor Android in a monumental way. Nintendo has a strong history of offering BC on all of its portable devices throughout history and a few of their home consoles supported it as well. Its not just that its important to consumers, its expected.

I feel confident that if a solution for BC wasn't possible with the move to Ampere, Drake would have stuck with Maxwell. A custom SOC using 1024-1536 Maxwell cores matches with 8 A78 CPU cores would still be very capable. Since they have moved to Ampere, it only makes logical sense that Nvidia has solved this problem.
Click to expand...
Tbf Nintendo showed up to Pax East with a bunch of already released games, despite Zelda being two months out. Them showing to Gamescom with a bunch of GameCube remasters is entirely plausible
 
Goodtwin said:
Your latest comments seem to indicate that you have warmed up to the idea of a hardware delay/repositioning rather than than canceled hardware that results in restarting from scratch?
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I never said anything about Drake being cancelled or them having to start from scratch.

What was planned (a Pro/revision release) was shelved. Whether that was using Drake or not, I don't know. If it was Drake and Nintendo/Nvidia opted to enhance/refine/rework the features of Drake or Nvidia presented tech that came in above expected performance, or the chip shortage or other components led to problems and a pivot was made to use Drake for successor hardware, that's fine & could be the case -- this is, of course, speculation.

I know devs had devkits that were later recalled. I don't know if they were specifically Drake.

As of today, I haven't heard any whispers suggest 2023 release is in play. Most chatter suggests late 2024 as the intended window.
 
D36 said:
Nintendo is not going to move 15 million Switches with just DLC, third-parties, and announcing their successor immediately after their most crucial sales period. I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.
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15 million is a big goal, but February-March are going to play a pretty small role in meeting or missing it. By that point there could have been three adjustments to the forecast anyway.
Superstarxalien said:
did we ever get an explanation for drake having raytracing and dlss tensor cores by the way
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How much explanation is needed beyond that it's a fairly modern NVIDIA GPU design? Those are the things NVIDIA sees as useful for a GPU to have, and apparently Nintendo doesn't disagree enough to start making them saw things off.
boodream said:
On the subject of digital foundry, I’m a little worried that they have tackled completely secondary topics such as the release date of the console or the power of it instead of insisting heavily on the most important point: Nintendo should really use anti-aliasing.
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DLSS is really good at that.
 
EdFiftyNine said:


Isn’t this the guy that started the “Nintendo has nothing after TOTK” discourse?
Click to expand...

I'm tired of the "hardcore gamer" argument, I don't want hyper realistic graphics, I want good performance and I don't want the hardware to be the limiting thing when developing an idea, right now you can see that there are things that, sadly, need to be cut.
 
NateDrake said:
I never said anything about Drake being cancelled or them having to start from scratch.

What was planned (a Pro/revision release) was shelved. Whether that was using Drake or not, I don't know. If it was Drake and Nintendo/Nvidia opted to enhance/refine/rework the features of Drake or Nvidia presented tech that came in above expected performance, or the chip shortage or other components led to problems and a pivot was made to use Drake for successor hardware, that's fine & could be the case -- this is, of course, speculation.

I know devs had devkits that were later recalled. I don't know if they were specifically Drake.

As of today, I haven't heard any whispers suggest 2023 release is in play. Most chatter suggests late 2024 as the intended window.
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I think the Pro/revision was the Dane chip.

Drake was the full fat Switch 2. That might be where the confusion lies.
 
Mobius said:
If Nintendo want to go bankrupt for whatever reason they need to hire this guy as a CEO (Wii-tier era mistake)
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Yeah don’t quite get it either - thought maybe he was suggesting he’d heard differently regarding games this year.

It’s incredible they’ve managed to get TOTK performing as well as it does but man, we need an upgrade.
 
10k said:
Nobody in here knows. Furukawa's words can be read as confirming it's coming this FY or not confirming it's this FY.

Signs pointing to it being this FY (by March 31, 2024):

  1. No software is announced past July except Metroid Prime 4. Very unusual. Historically we already know what's coming in Q2 FY (Jul-Sep) from a late winter or early spring direct.
  2. Furukawa said no new hardware or revisions were factored in the forecasted 15m in Switch sales (an ambitious number to reach in year 7, does he really think TOTK and DLC to Pokemon/Mario Kart 8 DX are enough?)
  3. Furukawa did not outright deny no new hardware this FY.
  4. 2nd half of the FY being empty could be to make room for new hardware and new exclusives that are built to work on Switch 2 only (or are cross gen)
  5. Furukawa answered an investor's question saying that the NX was announced super early because of the worry investors would take the DeNA announcement as Nintendo not working on video game hardware anymore. The Switch 2 will likely have a shorter announce to release window.
  6. No plans to attend Summer Games Fest and no rumours of a June direct from the established Nintendo insiders (unofficial)
  7. Factory Uncle#2 said he's seen the shell of Switch 2 and they did a trial run of production this month (this is the weakest rumour)
Signs pointing it to being next FY (April 1, 2024- March 31, 2025)

  1. NateDrake and DF said dev kits were recalled
  2. DF and NateDrake mentioned a cancelled chip from Nintendo (T239 Drake?)
  3. For something that's supposed to be out in 6-9 months, there have been zero leaks from the manufacturing side and from the dev side. By July 2016 (three months before Switch announcement), Eurogamer basically confirmed the NX form factor to be a hybrid and corroborated the May 2016 SemiAccurate leak that Nvidia was the chipmaker. We have nothing except an Nvidia hack from April 2022 with data from November 2021 for a device that hardware enthusiasts confirmed can only be for Switch 2 because of the API being named nvn2 (Switch 1 API is nvn).
  4. NateDrake has said that production of Switch 2 likely won't even start until Spring 2024 (Q2 2024).

We even got people interpreting Sharp LCD screens as confirmations Switch 2 uses LCD next meanwhile everybody and their mother are releasing PC handhelds right now and it could be for any game console right now.

tl;dr Information about the next Switch is vague and everyone is interpreting the data to fit the narrative they want to be correct. Nobody knows anything. Not even the "insiders".
Click to expand...
Regarding #2 on the 2023 side, that line was from reporters and is not what Furukawa actually said.
 
robertman2 said:
Tbf Nintendo showed up to Pax East with a bunch of already released games, despite Zelda being two months out. Them showing to Gamescom with a bunch of GameCube remasters is entirely plausible
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Exactly. It's not really crazy to think Nintendo could be showing up to push already released games and a couple of "remasters" lol. It's reminding me how when they announced that Nintendo Live event people thought it must be for some special reason.

It's fair to think there may be a special reason for showing up to gamescom but the reaction to thinking otherwise is confusing at best.
 
Question: if the shelved console was with Drake, a "delay" until holiday 2024 would mean that they changed something important hardware-side? Because a year (or more) of delay seems a lot to me if everything was almost ready and dev kits were out
 
TomNookYankees said:
At Gamescom I assume they would publicly show up with just some demo stations of Prime 4 and their new 2D mario but privately would be showing developers their new dev kits for REDACTED because the dev kit demonstration would be their main reason for going after all these years.
Click to expand...

I agree with Prime 4 likely being the big dog at the show. With or without new hardware later this year, Prime 4 is positioned to get more press attention than a 2D Mario game would, even though a 2D Mario game would sell better. It could be both though. A new 2D Mario and Prime 4 for later this year would have make a lot of various Nintendo gamers very happy.

robertman2 said:
Tbf Nintendo showed up to Pax East with a bunch of already released games, despite Zelda being two months out. Them showing to Gamescom with a bunch of GameCube remasters is entirely plausible
Click to expand...

Maybe, but Nintendo has not been attending Gamescom for quite a few years now. Do you really make your return with a mediocre lineup of games to show off?

ziggyrivers said:
Excuse the ignorance, but what exactly is Gamescom and why is everyone talking dev kits being present in that event?
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It is similar to E3 but held over in Europe, I believe Germany.

Hosermess said:
Don't think he ever said or insinuated "start from scratch" anyway.
Click to expand...

When someone says a product was canceled, to me this means canceled and no longer exist. Making changes to a product, no matter how significant is very different from a canceled project. Especially for hardware that hasn't even been officially announced. I'm sure hardware goes through countless revisions during its design process, but we do not consider those cancelations. So we know that developers were in possession of 4K development kits from Nintendo and they were recalled, but when were they recalled? @NateDrake were you given any indication of when in 2022 Nintendo called back these kits?
 
Goodtwin said:
Maybe, but Nintendo has not been attending Gamescom for quite a few years now. Do you really make your return with a mediocre lineup of games to show off?
Click to expand...
Marketing budgets are approved months in advance. The budget they allocated for E3 likely got rearranged for Gamescom and Nintendo Live. You always use your budget dollars so you can ask for the same or more next year otherwise management will scale it back next fiscal year.
 
10k said:
Nobody in here knows. Furukawa's words can be read as confirming it's coming this FY or not confirming it's this FY.

Signs pointing to it being this FY (by March 31, 2024):

2.Furukawa said no new hardware or revisions were factored in the forecasted 15m in Switch sales (an ambitious number to reach in year 7, does he really think TOTK and DLC to Pokemon/Mario Kart 8 DX are enough?)
Click to expand...
That to me is against it, how would it sell 15m with a new console? He's saying the original switch will sell 15m ideally, yes its ideal but if there's a new system it will be like 10m max, where as by "it's a stretch" they're saying prob 13m or so
 
LitKai said:
People on the 2023 team don't understand that there is at least 1 year gap between the last Zelda and the release of a new Nintendo console.
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This just isn't true without enough qualifiers to invalidate it. They've released Zelda games less than a month before a successor console before (Minish Cap).
 
Yes Nintendo is sitting here about to release the new switch and someone is like "wait we can't release it until it's May 2024! It'd break the pattern that totally is intentional!"

(that being said it's sep 24 at the earliest 15m even as a "stretch" is impossible in the FY if there's a new thing)
 
Layers of Fear UE5 runs on Steam Deck at about 30fps at 720p with software lumen on. can't find any with hardware lumen (on windows because proton doesn't support rt yet). givens an idea on how scalable Lumen is

 
10k said:
Marketing budgets are approved months in advance. The budget they allocated for E3 likely got rearranged for Gamescom and Nintendo Live. You always use your budget dollars so you can ask for the same or more next year otherwise management will scale it back next fiscal year.
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Gamescom maybe, but Nintendo Live is a family event, there's little reason to use an E3 tier marketing budget for it.
 
Johna X said:
Yeah but someone said Wii-era mistake, wouldn't it be Wii U then like the Wii was clearly not a mistake
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Kinda, the Wii was loosing steam fast and by the time the Wii U came, it was already too late. I would consider that a Wii era mistake.
 
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