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

[karmitt]

Right, I suppose what I'm wondering is how you encorporate the character without compromising on the usability

I think some very careful extra flourishes could go a long way. I don’t think they should be making sweeping changes to the UI, but they have a lot of wiggle room to make things, ya know, wiggle more. Nintendo vibe stuff.

 

[eye0h]

Yes it has been proven that the previous leaker had been banned.

Not by Nintendo and I don't even think it was reddit

So called trusted "peeps" that were talking about a mythical Star Fox Racing game and Metroid Trilogy.... RIGHTTTTT.

I also don't like the pick and choose when people get to be credible thing.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Right, I suppose what I'm wondering is how you encorporate the character without compromising on the usability

Themes, extra colors, etc. A jpg/png background doesn't reduce how fast the UI is and is the bare minimum of what people are asking

 

[Giancarlo]

This. People are too pessimistic about what the Switch can do.



"It can't possibly run UE4..."

Yoshi Crafted World and this game

 

[kvetcha]

I think some very careful extra flourishes could go a long way. I don’t think they should be making sweeping changes to the UI, but they have a lot of wiggle room to make things, ya know, wiggle more. Nintendo vibe stuff.

I do love the existing sound design. So crisp and friendly.

 

[Foltzie]

Even better: Browse games on DekuDeals and just finish the purchase on the nintendo.com.

Not only it has a faster/smoother experience, it has functions I doubt we will see in any official store like price history (because it doesn't benefit the store) or integration with other services like how long to beat.

This is the way.gif

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

It almost certainly is considering it had a lower quality making it easier for switch

lol no

Edit: I was gonna add but I don’t think I should since it would be piling on and I don’t want to pile on you, but this is not the correct assumption to make.

PS3 version is the one that is avoided more often than not, they go with the easiest system of that generation, the 360. This is true for many games of that era.

 

[Thraktor]

It's not a lack of RAM at issue. It's a confluence of things that end up hitting mostly the CPU disproportionately hard. In no particular order:

• The eShop is a web app. Much has been said about why this decision was made, but, in short, it's on a much different and faster release cycle as the rest of the OS for a variety of reasons, to the point where it really makes more sense to have it release separately. This approach doesn't preclude having a native app (like Xbox does), but just not having a local client simplifies things further and means that they can share code more easily with their web storefront (which I have no direct evidence they're doing, but it seems likely)
• The web applets on Switch are not granted permission to use the JIT sysmodule for security reasons, so their JS runtime is forced to run in interpreter-only (read: slow) mode.
• It's not immediately clear from Switchbrew what CPU resources are granted to the web applets, but what is clear is that many games (mostly ones that do network communication) don't fully suspend right away when put into the background, and eat into that allocation.
• JS is notoriously single-threaded, with some pretty steep costs incurred on what limited parallelization options do exist.
• It is stupidly easy to leak memory in JS, and I kinda suspect the eShop does this.

More RAM would only kinda help with that last point, but even then, that's probably not what it would be used for. A faster CPU should improve the situation significantly.

The funny thing is that there's an example of the alternative approach right next to it on the Switch main screen: the news app. It's a native applet, it has very frequent content updates, and it's very quick. I believe it also pre-loads content in the background to make it as responsive as possible.

I don't know if they'll switch to a native app or not, but I'm expecting some kind of redesign of the eShop one way or another. If they're moving to a roughly 8 inch 1080p screen, that's about 60% more screen real estate and about a 20% higher pixel density, they'll need a redesign to make sure everything's appropriately laid out for the new display.

 

[Johnson]

Edit: I realize now this is the hardware thread and not the RDR thread. Sorry.

 

[eye0h]

TOO BIG FOR SWITCH?

 

[ertaboy356b]

So uh any informative stuff from the recent Pokemon Presents in connection to that Pokemon Leak from 4chan?

 

[eye0h]

So uh any informative stuff from the recent Pokemon Presents in connection to that Pokemon Leak from 4chan?

All the info from that leak was real but we knew that months ago. The only thing we don't know about is the next gen switch they mentioned. We still don't have a date for dlc 2

 

[Paxie]

So uh any informative stuff from the recent Pokemon Presents in connection to that Pokemon Leak from 4chan?

TPC are still not giving The Indigo Disk a release date despite showing a lot of footage, if they intended to release it CY2023 they would've said so at this point imo

 

[Suswave]

TPC are still not giving The Indigo Disk a release date despite showing a lot of footage, if they intended to release it CY2023 they would've said so at this point imo

they explicitly say “Winter 2023”

 

[kvetcha]

they explicitly say “Winter 2023”

(Which extends into early 2024.)

 

[Paxie]

they explicitly say “Winter 2023”

Oh boy here we go again (nothing directed to you, just a debate that's happened a lot)

The phrase "Winter 2023" actually covers December 2023 to March 2024. In terms of evidence, a reliable leak said The Indigo Disk releases in early 2024 and the placeholder for The Indigo Disk goes all the way to the end of April (for reference, The Teal Mask's placeholder was the end of December - even when accounting for the time differential between TTM's placeholder and actual date and applying it to TID, TID would still release in January).

 

[Concernt]

they explicitly say “Winter 2023”

I've marched that path before, it's an unwinnable discussion (because Winter 2023 means different things to everyone.)

 

[Concernt]

Oh boy here we go again (nothing directed to you, just a debate that's happened a lot)

The phrase "Winter 2023" actually covers December 2023 to March 2024. In terms of evidence, a reliable leak said The Indigo Disk releases in early 2024 and the placeholder for The Indigo Disk goes all the way to the end of April (for reference, The Teal Mask's placeholder was the end of December - even when accounting for the time differential between TTM's placeholder and actual date and applying it to TID, TID would still release in January).

Well, winter in 2023 already had a month or two, or three, it's currently ongoing in Australia, and will begin November 1st in some European regions. Utterly meaningless. Sometimes Nintendo follows astronomical seasons, like a summer release in September, and sometimes they follow meteorological seasons, like a Spring release in early March. Who knows, really.

 

[Concernt]

So uh any informative stuff from the recent Pokemon Presents in connection to that Pokemon Leak from 4chan?

It continued to confirm their information was 100% accurate. So there's that.

Something's coming in hot. If I were a betting person I'd say by end of Fiscal Year.

 

[Link_enfant]

Well, winter in 2023 already had a month or two, or three, it's currently ongoing in Australia, and will begin November 1st in some European regions. Utterly meaningless. Sometimes Nintendo follows astronomical seasons, like a summer release in September, and sometimes they follow meteorological seasons, like a Spring release in early March. Who knows, really.

Do you think a 3 months timeframe between both DLC would be somehow too short? I can't recall how long that was for Sword/Shield DLC.
Now we know the date for DLC 1 that could give us some kind of indication regarding the possible date for DLC 2, but personally I think early 2024 wouldn't be too late at all and "Winter 2023" could absolutely imply that.
Not that I want the 4chan leak to be absolutely real, but well.

 

[OctoSplattack]

Well, winter in 2023 already had a month or two, or three, it's currently ongoing in Australia, and will begin November 1st in some European regions. Utterly meaningless. Sometimes Nintendo follows astronomical seasons, like a summer release in September, and sometimes they follow meteorological seasons, like a Spring release in early March. Who knows, really.

Regardless of whether you're doing it astronomically or meteorologically, Winter 2023 for the Northern Hemisphere still includes early 2024, though. Granted, I don't think anyone really expects the DLC to drop as late as March. If they can't make a December release, they are absolutely releasing it in January, hell or high water.

 

[Dakhil]

Apple, Samsung to invest in Arm as it eyes September IPO

SoftBank chip design unit to debut on Nasdaq, market cap seen topping $60bn

asia.nikkei.com

TOKYO/LONDON -- SoftBank Group's British chip design unit, Arm, plans to float its shares in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq in September, Nikkei has learned. The unit's market capitalization by that time is expected to be more than $60 billion, which would make the deal the world's biggest initial public offering so far this year.

SoftBank will officially apply to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the listing later this month. Then it must obtain approval from Nasdaq. Leading global chipmakers, including Apple, Samsung Electronics, Nvidia and Intel, will invest in Arm as soon as the company is listed on the market.

Arm's share flotation is slated for mid- to late September. The company is sounding out investor demand and hopes that Arm's corporate value will rise further. The chip designer's valuation has doubled since SoftBank Group bought the company for $24 billion pounds ($31 billion at the time) in 2016.

At present, 75% of Arm's shares are owned by SoftBank Group, while the remaining 25% stake is held by the SoftBank Vision Fund, a unit that invests in tech companies around the world. The Vision Fund will sell 10% to 15% of its Arm shares on the open market.

Arm plans to welcome the big chipmakers as medium- to long-term shareholders, selling them stakes of a few percent each. This is meant to stabilize the stock price at the time of the listing.

Arm is a critical player in the global semiconductor industry. U.S. chipmaker Nvidia previously proposed a takeover of the U.K. chip designer. By holding Arm's shares, chipmakers will hope to have sway over Arm's management.

Arm is headquartered in Cambridge, in southeastern Britain. The unit has been called the country's "crown jewel," having been created through a collaboration between British industry and academia. Since its founding in 1990, it has developed integrated circuit design data, the "blueprint" for semiconductors. Chipmakers base their products on these blueprints.

Arm's power-sipping designs have given it a global market share of more than 90% for chips used in smartphones, where battery life is at a premium.

Arm's sales reached $2.8 billion in fiscal 2022, up 70% versus fiscal 2016, when SBG acquired the startup. More than 250 billion chips using its designs have been shipped in all. SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son told shareholders at his company's annual general meeting in June that he expected that number to "reach 1 trillion."

After purchasing Arm in 2016, the Japanese company made it a pillar of the group. It agreed to a $40 billion buyout offer from Nvidia in 2020, but abandoned the deal after regulators voiced opposition. Since then, SoftBank has been trying to take the unit public. SoftBank and Arm declined to comment on the expected IPO.

Arm's listing will be the first big IPO in a year, according to data from a U.K.-market researcher Refinitiv. Technicolor Creative Studios, a French visual effects technology company, was listed on the Euronext exchange in September 2022 for $97 billion.

The IPO market has improved dramatically in recent years, as central banks around the world eased monetary policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The amount of capital raised through IPOs worldwide in 2021 was $416.2 billion, up 80% from the previous year and the largest amount since 2000, according to Refinitiv.

But after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year contributed to a sharp rise in inflation, central banks across the world have jacked up interest rates. With the sudden rate hikes setting off market turbulence, the value of IPOs plummeted by two-thirds in 2022 from the previous year. However, the pace of tightening has slackened recently, whetting investor appetite for growing companies.

The listing of Arm is a symbol of the resurgence of high-tech stocks, which have until recently performed poorly.

 

[Paxie]

Do you think a 3 months timeframe between both DLC would be somehow too short? I can't recall how long that was for Sword/Shield DLC.
Now we know the date for DLC 1 that could give us some kind of indication regarding the possible date for DLC 2, but personally I think early 2024 wouldn't be too late at all and "Winter 2023" could absolutely imply that.
Not that I want the 4chan leak to be absolutely real, but well.

It was mid-June and then late October, so just over 4 months. I could see them maybe eeking out a late December release just before Christmas, but all the evidence we have right now points to 2024

 

[ziggyrivers]

Do you think a 3 months timeframe between both DLC would be somehow too short? I can't recall how long that was for Sword/Shield DLC.
Now we know the date for DLC 1 that could give us some kind of indication regarding the possible date for DLC 2, but personally I think early 2024 wouldn't be too late at all and "Winter 2023" could absolutely imply that.
Not that I want the 4chan leak to be absolutely real, but well.

Pokemon SwSh DLC had a five month difference:
• June > November (6 + 5 = 11)

 

[Deleted member 2]

Also looking at the last Nintendo Direct which people want to claim is "Strong" was clearly the lineup of a system on its way out the door. We had a bunch of A (Not to be confused with AAA or AA) and below Tier games, meshed together with a bunch of Ports ( COME ON GUYS.... LUIGI'S MANSION DARK MOON A DS GAME PORT..... REALLLLLLY). But I know somebody is going to say it, but what about Super Mario Bros Wonder..... ANDDDD What about it??? It's here to tide people over the Holiday season because 2D Mario is going to sell regardless, and most of the world already has a Switch. If they want holiday sales they'll just bundle the consoles with a digital game and done. So I said all that to say this I strongly believe we'll get an announcement SOON as in this year. And Release the first quarter of 2024. March worked wonderfully last time so why not again?

This "lineup of a system on its way out the door" is straight up better than Nintendo's 2018 lineup

Compare Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario RPG, Luigi's Mansion 2, and a brand new Peach game to..... Smash Ultimate, Pokemon: Let's Go.........................

 

[lattjeful]

This "lineup of a system on its way out the door" is straight up better than Nintendo's 2018 lineup

Compare Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario RPG, Luigi's Mansion 2, and a brand new Peach game to..... Smash Ultimate, Pokemon: Let's Go.........................

Be careful. You're playing with fire by putting that game there.

I agree though...

 

[TomNookYankees]

This idea that because the Pokémon leaker got names right means they must have been right about the release date is absurd, especially when we have already seen with other stuff (Prime Remaster, GBA NSO, Fire Emblem Engage, etc.) that Nintendo loves to finish things far in advance and then sit on that finished product for several months, even up to around a year, before even announcing/releasing it.

 

[OctoSplattack]

This idea that because the Pokémon leaker got names right means they must have been right about the release date is absurd, especially when we have already seen with other stuff (Prime Remaster, GBA NSO, Fire Emblem Engage, etc.) that Nintendo loves to finish things far in advance and then sit on that finished product for several months, even up to around a year, before even announcing/releasing it.

I... just can't look at a Pokémon game and say "Yeah, this is totally a title that went gold over six months ago, and they were just waiting for the best time to release it." Game Freak is constantly working on several Pokémon titles on top of each other, and I'd be shocked if each project isn't worked on until they have no choice but to toss them out into the wild. You don't get something that performs like Scarlet and Violet if you have large amounts of lead time.

 

[Concernt]

Regardless of whether you're doing it astronomically or meteorologically, Winter 2023 for the Northern Hemisphere still includes early 2024, though.

Oh no it doesn't!

Some companies (important here) only consider Winter of a given year to be December!

As I said. Broadly? Meaningless.

For this, however, I think a March release is very possible if it's targeting new hardware. But, so is December, even if that means 2023 comes back to life.

Then again. As if 2023 was ever dead, in my heart.

 

[Concernt]

This "lineup of a system on its way out the door" is straight up better than Nintendo's 2018 lineup

Compare Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario RPG, Luigi's Mansion 2, and a brand new Peach game to..... Smash Ultimate, Pokemon: Let's Go.........................

So,
2D Mario, an SNES game, a 3DS game, a Mario Spin-off.

Versus the first home console, mainline Pokémon game and SMASH BROS.?

That's a terribly unfair comparison for 2023, not for 2018. 2023 is closer to Wii U's first year in quality. Which is fine, for a final year!

 

[Foltzie]

The funny thing is that there's an example of the alternative approach right next to it on the Switch main screen: the news app. It's a native applet, it has very frequent content updates, and it's very quick. I believe it also pre-loads content in the background to make it as responsive as possible.

I don't know if they'll switch to a native app or not, but I'm expecting some kind of redesign of the eShop one way or another. If they're moving to a roughly 8 inch 1080p screen, that's about 60% more screen real estate and about a 20% higher pixel density, they'll need a redesign to make sure everything's appropriately laid out for the new display.

I'm assuming the news applet has a set memory footprint, which allows for its content to always be prepared to fit inside its app and background updates can occur whenever. The eshop content doesn't have that predictability.

Still, I would think that making an app with all of the text of the eshop should be fairly lightweight and could be saved on the device side.

Thick client, thin client/web app. The eternal struggle.

 

[TomNookYankees]

I... just can't look at a Pokémon game and say "Yeah, this is totally a title that went gold over six months ago, and they were just waiting for the best time to release it." Game Freak is constantly working on several Pokémon titles on top of each other, and I'd be shocked if each project isn't worked on until they have no choice but to toss them out into the wild. You don't get something that performs like Scarlet and Violet if you have large amounts of lead time.

I absolutely can considering they STILL haven’t done a patch that truly fixes performance issues but went ahead and announced DLC instead. They knew this game wasn’t running well and released it anyway.

 

[Angel Whispers]

I think you very much underestimate the capabilities of the Switch, or rather overestimate the capabilities of the PS3/XB360.

If I may say so, I really despise DF’s framing of every Switch game running competently as a “miracle” port. At some point, one surely has to acknowledge that it’s a hell of a lot more capable than they ever anticipated, AND what we’re seeing now is that it could’ve had even more during its lifecycle - So, No Man’s Sky and NieR: Automata were last year, Tears was “too good to run on the Switch” until it arrived and performed really well (as expected), Sparks Of Hope “must have been on a mystical Pro” until it wasn’t, and EA are using Frostbite as a marketing point for their new soccer game, meaning we could’ve had feature-parity sports games from the start, as well as Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Switch is performing so many “miracles” that it’ll get its own gospel in a Newer New Testament at this point.

 

[Thraktor]

I'm assuming the news applet has a set memory footprint, which allows for its content to always be prepared to fit inside its app and background updates can occur whenever. The eshop content doesn't have that predictability.

Still, I would think that making an app with all of the text of the eshop should be fairly lightweight and could be saved on the device side.

Thick client, thin client/web app. The eternal struggle.

The news applet doesn't pre-load absolutely everything, just the latest items from the channels you follow (basically everything that's on the front page of the news applet, as far as I can tell). If you search for other channels or go back to old news items from the channels you follow, you'll notice loading indicators pop up. Still, loading is a lot quicker because it's a native app, as you're not waiting for some JS to chug away in interpreter mode. I suppose the equivalent for the eShop would be for them to pre-load everything that's on the front page, and maybe the recent releases, charts, etc.

 

[lattjeful]

If I may say so, I really despise DF’s framing of every Switch game running competently as a “miracle” port. At some point, one surely has to acknowledge that it’s a hell of a lot more capable than they ever anticipated, AND what we’re seeing now is that it could’ve had even more during its lifecycle - So, No Man’s Sky and NieR: Automata were last year, Tears was “too good to run on the Switch” until it arrived and performed really well (as expected), Sparks Of Hope “must have been on a mystical Pro” until it wasn’t, and EA are using Frostbite as a marketing point for their new soccer game, meaning we could’ve had feature-parity sports games from the start, as well as Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Switch is performing so many “miracles” that it’ll get its own gospel in a Newer New Testament at this point.

Eh I don't think it's that bad. Clickbaity? Sure, but I don't think acknowledging how impressive these games are is inherently a bad thing. The Switch is so fundamentally different from the other consoles that it's not just about the power, but also the devs putting in the time and effort. You can't really brute force things with the Switch.

Also I can't speak about Sparks of Hope, but the reason there was that "too big for Switch" sentiment around Tears of the Kingdom was because at least one of the trailers is showing the game running at much better image quality than both Breath of the Wild and what would end up being the final game.

 

[Dakhil]

This is bad news if this is true.

 

[Deleted member 2]

This is bad news if this is true.

What does this mean for us?

 

[Deleted member 887]

I hear all this conversation about a Late 2024 launch, and I'm going to jump out on a limb and say NO (Not Happening).

Jump out on that limb! We love wild speculation! I'm gonna go point by point not because I think you're wrong, but just to laser in some details

First of all there's too many Developer Kits out in the wild, and let us not forget this is Nintendo. They have strong First Party IPs and don't require a ton of 3rd party games to be there right at launch as well as it will more than likely be capable of playing current Switch games, so not necessary.

You (and I) have no idea how many developer kits are out in the wild. Yes, the noise tends to increase when there are more devkits out there, but as you point out, Nintendo "don't require a ton of 3rd party games to be there right at launch" so I'm not sure we can make hard release timing guesses from it.

Also moving on to something that was stated in a previous shareholders meeting. The president stated that the current financial projection does not account for any additional hardware releases. Now this can be read 2 different ways the first is what most people ran with which is (Nintendo has nothing coming out in this fiscal year). However the more likely correct answer based on Nintendo's past is they're saying (We have not calculated for or included any new hardware into this projection for this fiscal year) which means yes there will be new hardware this fiscal year but we have not announced it yet and made it public and due to that reason it is not included into what we expect to make.

Sure, Furukawa might be hedging but a denial "means yes there will be new hardware this fiscal year" is a bit much. If Furukawa wasn't saying new hardware was included, then aren't they saying they plan to sell 15 million Switches? How do you sell 15 million Switches while releasing new hardware, which you announce before the holidays?

Moving on from there we have the Pokemon leak which as of right now has been 100% spot on, and stated the DLC2 which has been enhanced for the upcoming console is slated for Winter which runs up until March. Anyone want to answer why they would enhance it if they expecting to launch the new console almost a year later???

The Pokemon leak came out the day before the Direct, and included nothing confirmable that wasn't in the video. I think we have reason to be dubious about it

We can also take a look at Nintendo's recent actions, a known leaker from Foxconn was banned from Reddit by Nintendo a couple months ago. This was more than likely preventative measures to keep information from leaking out early. Which means more than likely the console is going into production this year.

We know that hardware is in production because where else would devkits come from? That doesn't mean it's retail hardware.

Part of the problem here is that the only "modern" Nintendo launch we have good data on is the Switch, and we know the Switch was rushed out the door. This is about the time that devkit/retail production started up in 2016 for the Switch launch, but we also know that Nintendo was putting beta firmware on their hardware, because they were rushing to make March. So maybe they are targeting March again. Or maybe the last launch was rushed, and this isn't?

Also looking at the statements of Ubisoft (Should have waited just a little while longer to release Mario + Rabbids 2 when the new console released)

That's not a thing Ubisoft said. They said they were told by Nintendo that one game-per-console was the best cadence. This conversation likely happened when planning for Sparks of Hope began, early 2021 at the latest.

and Microsoft makes it sound as if it is coming soon.

Microsoft internal documents say they expect 2024, not any specific date, and the expectations seem based purely on speculation. Microsoft internal documents also said Tears of the Kingdom would launch 2020.

Also looking at the last Nintendo Direct which people want to claim is "Strong" was clearly the lineup of a system on its way out the door.

I think you're right, but was it "last 3 months" out the door or "last 9 months" out the door? That's the difference between a March and a September release. Do you release Wonder as your Holiday title, target 15 million units sold, then announce the new hardware in September?

March worked wonderfully last time so why not again?

I think it could work again! But March was forced on Nintendo when they couldn't get the Switch out the door for the intended release date of October 2016. It wasn't a considered choice by Nintendo, and I'm not sure if they'd repeat it.

 

[Deleted member 2]

So,
2D Mario, an SNES game, a 3DS game, a Mario Spin-off.

Versus the first home console, mainline Pokémon game and SMASH BROS.?

That's a terribly unfair comparison for 2023, not for 2018. 2023 is closer to Wii U's first year in quality. Which is fine, for a final year!

Sure, you can frame it however you want to disprove my point - but your "mainline Pokemon game", while a great game, is Let's Go. And then there's Smash.

But 2D Mario stands with the greatest games of all time, and the "SNES" game is a full remake of one of the best SNES JRPGs of all time.

And then of course you have Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Fire Emblem Engage, Advance Wars 1 + 2... you're saying that's comparable to Wii U's first year?

 

[ILikeFeet]

This is bad news if this is true.

Intel just can't stop holding these Ls

 

[ertaboy356b]

It continued to confirm their information was 100% accurate. So there's that.

Something's coming in hot. If I were a betting person I'd say by end of Fiscal Year.

If all goes well, Nintendo would have to announce console before gamefreak can announce the enhancement pack.

 

[Deleted member 887]

What does this mean for us?

Short term, probably nothing. Long term, it's bad for the whole industry that there isn't a third player in the foundry market.

Medium term there will probably be knock on effects that can prevent the sorts of cost reductions that make hardware more profitable over time, which in turn enables cost reduced versions and premium versions.

 

[Giancarlo]

If I may say so, I really despise DF’s framing of every Switch game running competently as a “miracle” port. At some point, one surely has to acknowledge that it’s a hell of a lot more capable than they ever anticipated, AND what we’re seeing now is that it could’ve had even more during its lifecycle - So, No Man’s Sky and NieR: Automata were last year, Tears was “too good to run on the Switch” until it arrived and performed really well (as expected), Sparks Of Hope “must have been on a mystical Pro” until it wasn’t, and EA are using Frostbite as a marketing point for their new soccer game, meaning we could’ve had feature-parity sports games from the start, as well as Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Switch is performing so many “miracles” that it’ll get its own gospel in a Newer New Testament at this point.

Switch is full of impressives ports of games, no one believed the console could handle, cof cof cof Doom/Doom Eternal, the Witcher 3 and so on

 

[Foltzie]

The news applet doesn't pre-load absolutely everything, just the latest items from the channels you follow (basically everything that's on the front page of the news applet, as far as I can tell). If you search for other channels or go back to old news items from the channels you follow, you'll notice loading indicators pop up. Still, loading is a lot quicker because it's a native app, as you're not waiting for some JS to chug away in interpreter mode. I suppose the equivalent for the eShop would be for them to pre-load everything that's on the front page, and maybe the recent releases, charts, etc.

A good point, heck pre-loading all of the eshop text (with formatting) should measure in say a few hundred MB at most.

Shoot format it something like markdown and kick into the web view for purchases. You would only need to load images dynamically.

It certainly seems like a solvable problem.

Like others, I find the eshop "fine", it's just weird that it could be better.

 

[Giancarlo]

Jump out on that limb! We love wild speculation! I'm gonna go point by point not because I think you're wrong, but just to laser in some details


You (and I) have no idea how many developer kits are out in the wild. Yes, the noise tends to increase when there are more devkits out there, but as you point out, Nintendo "don't require a ton of 3rd party games to be there right at launch" so I'm not sure we can make hard release timing guesses from it.


Sure, Furukawa might be hedging but a denial "means yes there will be new hardware this fiscal year" is a bit much. If Furukawa wasn't saying new hardware was included, then aren't they saying they plan to sell 15 million Switches? How do you sell 15 million Switches while releasing new hardware, which you announce before the holidays?


The Pokemon leak came out the day before the Direct, and included nothing confirmable that wasn't in the video. I think we have reason to be dubious about it


We know that hardware is in production because where else would devkits come from? That doesn't mean it's retail hardware.

Part of the problem here is that the only "modern" Nintendo launch we have good data on is the Switch, and we know the Switch was rushed out the door. This is about the time that devkit/retail production started up in 2016 for the Switch launch, but we also know that Nintendo was putting beta firmware on their hardware, because they were rushing to make March. So maybe they are targeting March again. Or maybe the last launch was rushed, and this isn't?


That's not a thing Ubisoft said. They said they were told by Nintendo that one game-per-console was the best cadence. This conversation likely happened when planning for Sparks of Hope began, early 2021 at the latest.


Microsoft internal documents say they expect 2024, not any specific date, and the expectations seem based purely on speculation. Microsoft internal documents also said Tears of the Kingdom would launch 2020.


I think you're right, but was it "last 3 months" out the door or "last 9 months" out the door? That's the difference between a March and a September release. Do you release Wonder as your Holiday title, target 15 million units sold, then announce the new hardware in September?


I think it could work again! But March was forced on Nintendo when they couldn't get the Switch out the door for the intended release date of October 2016. It wasn't a considered choice by Nintendo, and I'm not sure if they'd repeat it.

Switch spring release(march 2017), was set, because software was not ready,ready for the console original planned launch date in holiday 2016, so Nintendo has to internally delay the console launch to spring 2017,Nintendo Switch sucessor could be ready(the hardware itseft)but it launch date/year not, without it launch titles ready, Nintendo will not launch Switch sucessor in day X or Y, they want all Switch sucessor launch games to go gold/ready, to set a definitive launch date for the successor, that might explain, why we have so many conflicting information when Nintendo is gonna launch it next hardware.

 

[lattjeful]

A good point, heck pre-loading all of the eshop text (with formatting) should measure in say a few hundred MB at most.

Shoot format it something like markdown and kick into the web view for purchases. You would only need to load images dynamically.

It certainly seems like a solvable problem.

Like others, I find the eshop "fine", it's just weird that it could be better.

Does the Switch allow web view for that stuff, or even period? I thought that the whole reason the eShop is so sluggish is because there's not really much of anything in the way of a web browser to handle the brunt of the work.

 

[Pokemaniac]

The funny thing is that there's an example of the alternative approach right next to it on the Switch main screen: the news app. It's a native applet, it has very frequent content updates, and it's very quick. I believe it also pre-loads content in the background to make it as responsive as possible.

I don't know if they'll switch to a native app or not, but I'm expecting some kind of redesign of the eShop one way or another. If they're moving to a roughly 8 inch 1080p screen, that's about 60% more screen real estate and about a 20% higher pixel density, they'll need a redesign to make sure everything's appropriately laid out for the new display.

The difference between the two is that the news app is mostly content updates, with the client updating on the same schedule as the rest of the firmware, while the eShop gets code updates fairly frequently. It's hard to tell exactly how often it happens without paying much closer attention to it than I do, but potentially any eShop maintenance is them rolling out new code for the eShop UI. A native eShop app would have to be able to update itself like a game to be feasible, which is definitely something Nintendo could do, but probably won't to keep it fairly platform agnostic and low friction to update.

 

[theguy]

they should just make really crappy ports of everything for switch and then when switch 2 comes out “here’s your old games but better”

this is a joke

 

[Foltzie]

If I may say so, I really despise DF’s framing of every Switch game running competently as a “miracle” port. At some point, one surely has to acknowledge that it’s a hell of a lot more capable than they ever anticipated, AND what we’re seeing now is that it could’ve had even more during its lifecycle - So, No Man’s Sky and NieR: Automata were last year, Tears was “too good to run on the Switch” until it arrived and performed really well (as expected), Sparks Of Hope “must have been on a mystical Pro” until it wasn’t, and EA are using Frostbite as a marketing point for their new soccer game, meaning we could’ve had feature-parity sports games from the start, as well as Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Switch is performing so many “miracles” that it’ll get its own gospel in a Newer New Testament at this point.

Ports on the Switch can require work to get running, work to get optimized, and more work to do those both well.

It's not that such a thing has never happened before. Aspyr has made an entire business out of porting games from one platform to another.

That the Switch requires a bit of work to get games working extremely well and is getting that attention is the miracle. Nintendo hasn't been able to secure that kind of support reliably since the Wii and arguably not this well since the SNES/NES era.

Heck, developers from other large AAA franchises were lauding TotK physics engines.

 

[Bonejack]

this is a joke

(Not for a lot of devs)