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

[SpaceGodzilla]

Well, if the Switch 2 is coming in autumn 2024, the September Direct is probably going to be the last normal Direct of the Switch era. The next presentation after that will feature Switch 2 games.

unless the feb one is just a mini

 

[SpaceGodzilla]

will the next console have games like the current Switch?

 

[PedroNavajas]

Is there any solid information for Lovelace or is just wishful speculation at this point?

 

[SmolSam]

I think Switch 2 BC will play all Switch games only in it's lock original target power. No free patches here. Future time Nintendo will be selling Switch games Deluxe version to use full of Switch 2 power.

I can see Nintendo charging $10 for next-gen patches

 

[Hermii]

Is there any solid information for Lovelace or is just wishful speculation at this point?

There's a couple of Lovelace features (focused on power consumption) and possibly the most significant Lovelace feature of them all ( the 5nm node). Otherwise it seems to be ampere. Some uncertainty about the OFA, but frame generation likely wouldn't be feasible anyway.

 

[Aether]

So dumb question. How was this sort of thing ever developed?

Its a really simple device. Its a multiplexer that switches between the different inputs (probably by button), the switch has always only a connection to one game card, and sees it as if it would be inserted.
Its nothing more complicated then say an input switcher for analog audio, can be done with relays, logic circuits, and many other ways. The speed / clock speed is not so high that the increased distance the signal needs to travel would be a problem. the usb kable is only needed to power the electronic switching with the press of a button.

Essentially: you select an input, it tunnels the input to the output, and the switch sees it as a single cartridge, the device never talks to the switch or interferes with the content of the cartridge.

 

[LuigiV]

I uh.. might not be the brightest person, but I did make this Switch 2 concept just yet. It popped into my head, as I found to be cool if we got NSO DS games on the next system. So yeah, my concept for Nintendo Switch DS.

This seems overly complicated. If you're going to make a hinged device anyway, just make it a 360 degree hinge like we see on a lot of touchscreen laptops.

Yeah that would be less versatile (as the split screen thing would only work with the two players facing each other) but at least that wouldn't have all the insane design challenges that this proposal would require (a durable detachable hinge design with power and display connectors, 2 SOCs, 2 wifi chip sets, 2 kick stands, 4 batteries, 4 speakers, HD capable wireless display streaming with low latency, near-symmetrical weight distribution).

 

[YolkFolk]

Monolith Software with PS4 (+) graphics is THE dream. Really can't wait.

Here’s how Final Fantasy VII Remake looks on the PS4 Pro. Now imagine how Xenoblade could look.

 

[Deleted member 3433]

It's kinda funny seeing people online triggered by the sentence "new cartridge format". People, we're talking about new tech here, not the physical compatibility of game cards. No, it wouldn't surprise me if 3D NAND is gonna be a thing here.

 

[PedroNavajas]

There's a couple of Lovelace features (focused on power consumption) and possibly the most significant Lovelace feature of them all ( the 5nm node). Otherwise it seems to be ampere. Some uncertainty about the OFA, but frame generation likely wouldn't be feasible anyway.

Yeah, but since the rumor (leak?) states Samsung, the NSW2 will likely need custom node work anyway. Thanks for the answer.

 

[Concernt]

I had a dream about the next gen Dev Kit.

No display, but notably it did have a GCN controller port for testing games using analogue trigger input.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I mean if Game Freak's PS5 game can be announced way in advance, I bet they could stealth drop a look at a Pokemon game with next gen graphics without so much as mentioning a title or a date. Sort of a "plans for the future" sort of deal.

Not really the same because the ps5 game is owned by GF entirely. All pokemon stuff still goes through TPC amd Nintendo would be mighty pissed if one of their affiliates start implying about new hardware before they give the ok

 

[kvetcha]

I had a dream that the Game Boy Advance had been a gargantuan hit. This success meant Nintendo never fully dropped the Game Boy branding, resulting in the Switch eventually being released as the Nintendo Dream Boy. It was purple.

There was also some appropriately surreal name for the dock, I think, but it vanished in the morning light like Mitsuha.

 

[Terrell]

It's kinda funny seeing people online triggered by the sentence "new cartridge format". People, we're talking about new tech here, not the physical compatibility of game cards. No, it wouldn't surprise me if 3D NAND is gonna be a thing here.

If the card reader has pins that can touch the contact points and they keep the chip that transmits the data, the card reader can likely read the card.

And I think anyone who's anyone knew that something was going to change about them. This notion of keeping Game Cards as is with a "you'll just download a piece of your physical game online instead" solution would make the next Switch really unappealing without over 1TB of internal storage to retain those downloaded pieces or absolutely necessitating multiple external storage purchases that artificially inflate the price for the average user, because no one wants to re-download a game that they only deleted to make room for something else. It's not one-to-one, but you'd be looking at something at least a bit akin to the "always-online Xbox One" fiasco but with a distinct "forced fridging" flavour.

I had a dream that the Game Boy Advance had been a gargantuan hit.

... it was tho? I think it still holds the highest average yearly sales total of any Nintendo hardware between launch and the launch of its successor.

 

[BloodMoon]

Here’s how Final Fantasy VII Remake looks on the PS4 Pro. Now imagine how Xenoblade could look.

I still want that ‘realistic’ Zelda. Heavily stylised like TP, that’s what I’ve wanted since 2012

 

[kalosmani]

If the card reader has pins that can touch the contact points and they keep the chip that transmits the data, the card reader can likely read the card.

And I think anyone who's anyone knew that something was going to change about them. This notion of keeping Game Cards as is with a "you'll just download a piece of your physical game online instead" solution would make the next Switch really unappealing without over 1TB of internal storage to retain those downloaded pieces or absolutely necessitating multiple external storage purchases that artificially inflate the price for the average user, because no one wants to re-download a game that they only deleted to make room for something else. It's not one-to-one, but you'd be looking at something at least a bit akin to the "always-online Xbox One" fiasco but with a distinct "forced fridging" flavour.

... it was tho? I think it still holds the highest average yearly sales total of any Nintendo hardware between launch and the launch of its successor.

Installing games isn't a big deal as long as you have 500gb minimum of internal storage. Most people don't play more that 4 games at once and 500gb iss plenty enough for at least 10 games minimum. Then of course you can expand with SD cards which are dirt cheap nowadays

 

[ShadowFox08]

I had a dream about the next gen Dev Kit.

No display, but notably it did have a GCN controller port for testing games using analogue trigger input.

Unless it has IR motion sensing, your dream was a nightmare

 

[kvetcha]

... it was tho? I think it still holds the highest average yearly sales total of any Nintendo hardware between launch and the launch of its successor.

I cannot advocate for the accuracy of my dream

 

[ika]

Here’s how Final Fantasy VII Remake looks on the PS4 Pro. Now imagine how Xenoblade could look.

But MSI won’t have that kind of money, time and manpower. also, they’re more focused on gameplay than FF teams that spends more money on graphics, realism and video sequences.

But yeah in any case Monolith showed that they’re wizards creating amazing worlds and fight choreographies, and more compelling characters, stories and lore than most FF games since probably X, not forgetting music so yeah, exciting times ahead.

 

[Giancarlo]

Rumors say that various Nintendo EPD teams are making games for the next Nintendo hardware.

pretend to be shocked, why make a article stating the obvious, Switch is in it sixth year of it lifecycle, seventh in the market, and soon it sucessor gonna be anounced/lauched with a bunch of intereting games

 

[Giancarlo]

Do you think Monolith Soft is developing for Nintendo’s next hardware already?!?

Monolith Soft action RPG launch title for Switch sucessor

 

[Concernt]

Unless it has IR motion sensing, your dream was a nightmare

To be fair, the Nintendo Switch Dev Kit didn't have IR motion sensing until the very last pre-release Dev Kit.

 

[Giancarlo]

Here’s how Final Fantasy VII Remake looks on the PS4 Pro. Now imagine how Xenoblade could look.

Xenoblade Chronicles 4 will problaby look like Hi-fi Rush or the action RPG Monolith Soft is working since 2017, imagine a Legend of Zelda/Xenoblade Chronicles with this art style

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

So, it's between the two. Also Frame Gen even at 60fps could work as long as it's consistent.

Regardless of how good 30->60 could look, it'd still be essentially asking a very low level 3000 series card to create those 30 frames on top of everything else, which seems a stretch.

I had a dream that the Game Boy Advance had been a gargantuan hit. This success meant Nintendo never fully dropped the Game Boy branding, resulting in the Switch eventually being released as the Nintendo Dream Boy. It was purple.

That's the tricky thing. It WAS such a gargantuan hit that they didn't want to risk the brand on something as out there as the DS in case it cratered.

I think it still holds the highest average yearly sales total of any Nintendo hardware between launch and the launch of its successor.

Hah, well, it's definitely the only one that never really had an end-of-life period before the successor. But doing some quick math... between GBA Japanese launch and DS US launch, and doing a very rough cut for the one quarter where only 52 days apply... about 46K GBAs shipped every day. Doing similar for DS... it comes out ahead, over 63K/day. Through the end of June, Switch is at 56K/day.

 

[fiendcode]

I think they will change it back to Nintendo Network. Or maybe call it Nintendo REDACTED Online.

Just "Nintendo Online" probably works better as a catch all. It can cover Switch, NX2, maybe even mobile.

 

[Concernt]

Just "Nintendo Online" probably works better as a catch all. It can cover Switch, NX2, maybe even mobile.

I don't see why they'd change the name, personally, but if they do, I think they'd go with Nintendo Online. Nintendo Network is, unfortunately, a dead brand, despite being one I thought was very good.

PlayStation Network, Xbox Network and Xbox Live exist, so the "available" term would be Nintendo Online. But given it's more than just Online, maybe it could be rebranded entirely, no "Online"? Maybe Nintendo Premium?

 

[Thraktor]

I don't think they'll do this. The entire purpose of their current solution is to have the source(s) of trust for the gamecard hardware completely separate from the main SoC to prevent the creation/usage of pirated carts even if the entire OS is compromised. Which has worked exactly as intended considering the gamecard hardware is the only pretty much the only thing on Switch that hasn't been compromised.

That's a fair point, and worth spending a few dollars on for an extra IC. Besides, now that I think of it, if they want to still be able to support Switch game cards, they'll need to either retain the Lotus3 chip or an updated version of it anyway.

Is PCIe reasonable for hotplug? As a consumer of it (in a datacenter and at home), I've always felt that it was always a bunch of special handling to do that. Maybe they'd have to build in some special handling for power protection and such. I could see them adding a second row of pins to the cartridge for handling 4 PCIe pins, putting in a dummy game for when a redacted cart was inserted into a switch, and using the original pins to provide any power needed for the PCIe device to operate.

Would also make sense if they use PCIe/NVME for internal storage and maybe even storage expansion. Keep it all in the same family.

Yeah, PCIe supports hot-plugging. You probably shouldn't yank your GPU out in the middle of a game, but for enterprise storage hot-plug support is necessary. Both CFexpress and Xbox's expansion cards use PCIe and support hot-plugging too.

Interestingly on the current Switch all three storage formats use SD/eMMC interfaces (which are basically variants of the same thing). The removable storage is obviously SD, the internal storage is eMMC, and the game cards use a proprietary SPI-style interface, but connect via the Lotus3 security chip which itself is connected as an eMMC device. Conceivably they could do the same thing with either PCIe or M-PHY this time around.

 

[EddyZacianLand]

So, do you think Nintendo will tease the successor for a bit, or do you think they will just make a post saying come back tomorrow for a big announcement?

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

FLCL. It's a 6 episode OVA (Original Video Animation, which is basically Direct to Video). It's a classic coming of age story from the early 2000's. A little raunchy, but it holds up super well, imo, with great animation to boot.

You’re underselling the randomness of the show

Oh and be prepared for seaweed eyebrows

I had a dream that the Game Boy Advance had been a gargantuan hit. This success meant Nintendo never fully dropped the Game Boy branding, resulting in the Switch eventually being released as the Nintendo Dream Boy. It was purple.

There was also some appropriately surreal name for the dock, I think, but it vanished in the morning light like Mitsuha.

this sounds like a mid 2000s boy band name that was funded by Nintendo. I’m dead.

 

[LuigiBlood]

If the card reader has pins that can touch the contact points and they keep the chip that transmits the data, the card reader can likely read the card.

And I think anyone who's anyone knew that something was going to change about them. This notion of keeping Game Cards as is with a "you'll just download a piece of your physical game online instead" solution would make the next Switch really unappealing without over 1TB of internal storage to retain those downloaded pieces or absolutely necessitating multiple external storage purchases that artificially inflate the price for the average user, because no one wants to re-download a game that they only deleted to make room for something else. It's not one-to-one, but you'd be looking at something at least a bit akin to the "always-online Xbox One" fiasco but with a distinct "forced fridging" flavour.

... it was tho? I think it still holds the highest average yearly sales total of any Nintendo hardware between launch and the launch of its successor.

don't worry third parties are usually terrible with filesizes and would always do a big day one patch so you'll need a lot of storage anyway

 

[RennanNT]

Just "Nintendo Online" probably works better as a catch all. It can cover Switch, NX2, maybe even mobile.

Yeah, now that 3DS and Wii U are dead, a more flexible name is probably a good idea. Specially so if they decide to give perks in other areas.

That abbreviates to "NO" though. Not sure if Nintendo cares, but I rather an acronym which the others will immediately get it.

 

[Concernt]

So, do you think Nintendo will tease the successor for a bit, or do you think they will just make a post saying come back tomorrow for a big announcement?

Big announcement this month baybeee

 

[Kingpin722]

Cryptic Emoji guy says Nintendo Switch Online won’t be called Nintendo Switch Online ‘sooner or later’. This could just be brand futureproofing, changing a name better fit what they offer but a new console brand is more fun in my brain.

I wouldn't mind the simplistic approach to a potential rename but i feel in this case Nintendo should try something outside the obvious. If they were to make it where you could watch the SMB movie (and future movies) on the service, I would imagine that they are looking for a potential names that are more encompassing than "Switch ____". Nintendo Infinite maybe?

 

[D36]

Look, I haven't seen it in years and I was tired, gimme a break

 

[Concernt]

I wouldn't mind the simplistic approach to a potential rename but i feel in this case Nintendo should try something outside the obvious. If they were to make it where you could watch the SMB movie (and future movies) on the service, I would imagine that they are looking for a potential names that are more encompassing than "Switch ____". Nintendo Infinite maybe?

Nintendo Premium sounds right to me, if a little plain. Nintendo Unlimited?

Whatever it is, it needs to encompass all their premium services, future ones, and multiple platforms, while spanning cultural divides and languages. Not many terms can do that.

 

[TomNookYankees]

Nintendo Online would almost be a fine name except the acronym being NO would be unfortunate.

 

[YolkFolk]

But MSI won’t have that kind of money, time and manpower. also, they’re more focused on gameplay than FF teams that spends more money on graphics, realism and video sequences.

But yeah in any case Monolith showed that they’re wizards creating amazing worlds and fight choreographies, and more compelling characters, stories and lore than most FF games since probably X, not forgetting music so yeah, exciting times ahead.

You say that but Xenoblade 3 looks better than FF13 in my opinion.

 

[NineTailSage]

I wonder why they would keep Orins OFA (if it's Indeed much larger). If frame generation is out of the picture anyway, why wouldn't they want Ampere's OFA? Like they went with desktop amperes tensor cores, where Orin tensor cores might actually have an advantage. But they kept Orins OFA, where it would have slim to non advantage (unless. they include a camera)

I can definitely see the added functionality being around AR/VR support, Nvidia also lists the OFA as great for object detection and tracking.

 

[Multiverse]

I forgot to add.

About the 8-inch screen rumor, someone here did a mockup, and there’s no way they can keep the same body size if the screen is 8 inches. The body would need to be bigger, as well as the joy-cons. This is like actual tablet territory. Switch is technically a “tablet” but it isn’t. It is smaller than most tablets, even the small ones. My problem is that I don’t think the switch needs to be bigger. I also think Nintendo is fully aware of that. Switch era Nintendo is very mindful of design, particularly aesthetics. The switch is actually a very attractive piece of tech. They made design choices that trade certain ergonomics for looks. I don’t think this is even the right word. At first, I wanted to say "sacrifice" but I don’t think they did that either. It’s more of a middle ground trade for aesthetics. It’s comfortable enough to hold while still looking amazing. It doesn’t have a "d-pad" because the joy-cons need to work as separate controllers, but that also gives the console a strikingly symmetrical look. The thumb sticks are also positioned for the same reason, and they also feed into the aesthetics of the console. This time asymmetrically. The switch doesn't need to have a bunch of lumps and bumps on the back of the device because it isn’t needed. That would be atrocious.

In short, I can’t see them making a bigger, clunkier device. The steam deck tanked for a reason. The 8 inch screen and 512 gb memory all seem very fishy to me. "Plans" will keep changing methinks.

 

[TLZ]

But MSI won’t have that kind of money, time and manpower. also, they’re more focused on gameplay than FF teams that spends more money on graphics, realism and video sequences.

But yeah in any case Monolith showed that they’re wizards creating amazing worlds and fight choreographies, and more compelling characters, stories and lore than most FF games since probably X, not forgetting music so yeah, exciting times ahead.

I'm one of those who find Xenoblade extremely boring. I tried but nothing clicked.

 

[ika]

You say that but Xenoblade 3 looks better than FF13 in my opinion.

I’m speaking solely about how much Square spends and focus trying to have the best visuals against focusing on gameplay and compelling plot and characters. Even I find FFXVI graphics disappointing coming from a next-gen hardware, but that doesn’t mean they're not trying and wasting millions of yen. Imagine what could Monolith accomplish with such a budget and more time and employees.

Takahashi always says his games are “AA” at best and Nintendo only gives big budgets to Zelda team and maybe 3D Mario, that was what I meant, even with a PS4 Pro kind of hardware, they could only do so much compared with the budget of FF team. But yeah, I thing MSI are now the more capable team of both, doing some wizardry with fewer resources.

I'm one of those who find Xenoblade extremely boring. I tried but nothing clicked.

They’re obviously not games for everyone, of course.

 

[Guaraná]

Grubb seems decently reliable, so I'm lead to believe he has a reason for thinking it'll be revealed this summer. Whether that comes true or not, it's clear that there's real info out there now, and we're on the edge of hearing much much more.

maybe he meant summer in the southern hemisphere that starts in December and lasts until March

 

[OctoSplattack]

The steam deck tanked for a reason.

...Did it? I thought it was doing pretty well compared to other handheld gaming PCs.

 

[Νεφέλωμα]

I forgot to add.

About the 8-inch screen rumor, someone here did a mockup, and there’s no way they can keep the same body size if the screen is 8 inches. The body would need to be bigger, as well as the joy-cons. This is like actual tablet territory. Switch is technically a “tablet” but it isn’t. It is smaller than most tablets even the small size ones. My problem is that I don’t think the switch needs to be bigger. I also think Nintendo is fully aware of that. Switch era Nintendo is very mindful of design, particularly aesthetics. The switch is actually a very attractive piece of tech. They made design choices that trade certain ergonomics for looks. I don’t think this is even the right word. At first, I wanted to say "sacrifice" but I don’t think they did that either. It’s more of a middle ground trade for aesthetics. It’s comfortable enough to hold while still looking amazing. It doesn’t have a "d-pad" because the joy-cons need to work as separate controllers, but that also gives the console a strikingly symmetrical look. The thumb sticks are also positioned for the same reason, and they also feed into the aesthetics of the console. This time asymmetrically. The switch doesn't need to have a bunch of lumps and bumps on the back of the device because it isn’t needed. That would be atrocious.

In short, I can’t see them making a bigger, clunkier device. The steam deck tanked for a reason. The 8 inch screen and 512 gb memory all seem very fishy to me. "Plans" will keep changing methinks.

Good analysis until the last paragraph. Switch 2 will just be a bigger tablet. I was on the side of ergonomics before but now I think that it will be just a slab. Also, steam deck hasn't tanked cause its main competitors are gaming laptops, another market entirely.

 

[Adulfzen]

I forgot to add.

About the 8-inch screen rumor, someone here did a mockup, and there’s no way they can keep the same body size if the screen is 8 inches. The body would need to be bigger, as well as the joy-cons. This is like actual tablet territory. Switch is technically a “tablet” but it isn’t. It is smaller than most tablets even the small size ones. My problem is that I don’t think the switch needs to be bigger. I also think Nintendo is fully aware of that. Switch era Nintendo is very mindful of design, particularly aesthetics. The switch is actually a very attractive piece of tech. They made design choices that trade certain ergonomics for looks. I don’t think this is even the right word. At first, I wanted to say "sacrifice" but I don’t think they did that either. It’s more of a middle ground trade for aesthetics. It’s comfortable enough to hold while still looking amazing. It doesn’t have a "d-pad" because the joy-cons need to work as separate controllers, but that also gives the console a strikingly symmetrical look. The thumb sticks are also positioned for the same reason, and they also feed into the aesthetics of the console. This time asymmetrically. The switch doesn't need to have a bunch of lumps and bumps on the back of the device because it isn’t needed. That would be atrocious.

In short, I can’t see them making a bigger, clunkier device. The steam deck tanked for a reason. The 8 inch screen and 512 gb memory all seem very fishy to me. "Plans" will keep changing methinks.

Nintendo is subject to the same real physical problems that resulted in PS5 and Xbox Series X being relatively bigger machines compared to their older generation. To reach a certain performance goal while having proper cooling sometimes a bigger device itself is necessary.

also mentionning Steam Deck has having tanked is hilarious when it's on its way to be Valve most succesful hardware and how it's currently dominating the PC handheld markets. It was never meant to be competing with traditional consoles, let alone the Switch.

 

[Kingpin722]

What do you guys think about Nintendo potentially implementing storage capabilities into the next gen Dock, and have a ultra fast transfer feature that works over both internet and locally so that you can move games back and forth easily. For example, when COD comes to Switch but you leave the game stored on the Dock’s storage, it can receive updates while you’re away playing the games you’ve selected to take with you undocked. When you’re ready you can dock it and move the game over quickly. Nintendo is likely positioned to receive more huge AAA ports so I think this would be a neat way to prevent the constant huge updates from interfering with the undocked experience by having to constantly be near an internet connection so your games can update. Almost function as mini cloud server.

It would also be compatible with all Switches so you could transfer from OG Switch seamlessly to the successor

 

[ILikeFeet]

...Did it? I thought it was doing pretty well compared to other handheld gaming PCs.

it didn't. it's around 2M-2.5M right now. they're limited by how much they an make and ship

 

[Concernt]

Nintendo is subject to the same real physical problems that resulted in PS5 and Xbox Series X being relatively bigger machines compared to their older generation. To reach a certain performance goal while having proper cooling sometimes a bigger device itself is necessary.

also mentionning Steam Deck has having tanked is hilarious when it's on its way to be Valve most succesful hardware and how it's currently dominating the PC handheld markets. It was never meant to be competing with traditional consoles, let alone the Switch.

Steam Deck alone has pushed the global OS marketshare from MacOS in second to Linux in second (for gaming)

 

[Concernt]

What do you guys think about Nintendo potentially implementing storage capabilities into the next gen Dock, and have a ultra fast transfer feature that works over both internet and locally so that you can move games back and forth easily. For example, when COD comes to Switch but you leave the game stored on the Dock’s storage, it can receive updates while you’re away playing the games you’ve selected to take with you undocked. When you’re ready you can dock it and move the game over quickly. Nintendo is likely positioned to receive more huge AAA ports so I think this would be a neat way to prevent the constant huge updates from interfering with the undocked experience by having to constantly be near an internet connection so your games can update. Almost function as mini cloud server.

It would also be compatible with all Switches so you could transfer from OG Switch seamlessly to the successor

I would more or less hate that, and the massively increased complexity and thus price would be unacceptable for a bunch of reasons. Originally Nintendo had intended to allow users to attach a USB storage device to the 3.0 port on the back of the first Dock, for storing digitle titles and captures, like how the PS3 could store Vita games. However this never materialised, and now the USB 3.0 port is gone entirely from newer docks, so I doubt they'll be exploring that concept again, especially with how fast expandable storage got cheaper in the realm of MicroSD card.

 

[iag]

If 8 inches is real, have we discussed why would Nintendo do it? Is it because users want a bigger screen? Bigger joycons and buttons? Redacted needs to be bigger because of cooling? Sorry if that was discussed, thread moved way fast this week.