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

[TomNookYankees]

BC won't be digital only. But even if it was, Nintendo could easily implement a system for registering physical games to a Nintendo Account and permit that account to redownload them digitally on the new hardware.

How would that even work tho? In such a scenario of digital only BC, I doubt nintendo would want to spend that much resources verifying ownership of physical games. They sure as hell aren't going to invite switch owners to mail in several carts just to verify ownership and unless there is some data on the carts that is both unique and impossible to copy via piracy, nintendo wont trust people to verify cart ownership digitally.

 

[Joy-Boy]

How would that even work tho? In such a scenario of digital only BC, I doubt nintendo would want to spend that much resources verifying ownership of physical games. They sure as hell aren't going to invite switch owners to mail in several carts just to verify ownership and unless there is some data on the carts that is both unique and impossible to copy via piracy, nintendo wont trust people to verify cart ownership digitally.

There's ways they can figure it out.

For example, Vudu had an option where you scan the barcode on the back of the Blu-ray case, pay them $2-3 bucks and they'll give you the digital copy on their service.
It was easily abusable (Like you could find a picture of the case online and scan that), but since they got cash for each conversion, they didnt really care if you redeemed movies that werent your own.

For Switch, I imagine it's as simple as reading the save data on your console and having that register as an Owned Game in the e-shop.

 

[Concernt]

Since Mario 64 made it to NSO, I imagine the plan was/is to make them all avaliable in some other form down the road.

A random Gamecube shadowdrop for Sunshine can happen whenever, and for Galaxy they can do the same thing as Pikmin, physical dual pack of Galaxy 1/2 with the option to buy them seprate digitally

Is it totally unnessesary when they could have simply just left 3DAS on shelves and been done with it? Yes, but here we are

Honestly I would expect NSO to move towards those "individual release" type deals. With GCN, Wii and 3DS games all being available for individual purchase as they're ready, then added to NSO+ Expansion Pack bit by bit.

For for instance, GC NSO launches, and instead of a bunch of games on a new app with each game on it taking up a whole gigabyte, you just open the NSO Applet, select GameCube, and there they are, no extra app required.

Say it launches tommorow with Sunshine. Nothing changes for most people. If you have Expansion Pack, Pikmin 1+2, Sunshine, and Metroid Prime all become free to download immediately, and are displayed in the NSO Applet under the GCN section.

It adds value to NSO+EP and begins the build up to the inevitable "Nintendo Pass". These games, 3DS Wii and GCN, all need specific optimisations and changes to work on Switch anyway, so using remasters rather than straight emulation makes a lot more sense for them.

In my opinion, the next five years of NSO look something like this:

GCN (individual installs), then DS (dedicated app), Wii (individual installs), 3DS (individual installs), and finally Switch.

Yes. Switch. They'll catch up to it eventually. When they do, I fully, 100% expect Nintendo to turn around and just put their first year of published Switch games on it, then the next year the next, and so on.

Given this is a pretty clear upwards trajectory in perceived value, I would also expect to see a price hike and/or additional tier... And maybe a rebrand

Perhaps Nintendo Premium (Online, GB/C, S/NES), Nintendo Premium Plus (Expansion Pack, games up to Wii), and Nintendo Premium Ultra (3DS and Switch).

 

[Concernt]

There's ways they can figure it out.

For example, Vudu had an option where you scan the barcode on the back of the Blu-ray case, pay them $2-3 bucks and they'll give you the digital copy on their service.
It was easily abusable (Like you could find a picture of the case online and scan that), but since they got cash for each conversion, they didnt really care if you redeemed movies that werent your own.

For Switch, I imagine it's as simple as reading the save data on your console and having that register as an Owned Game in the e-shop.

Every Game Card has a unique ID the system saves and can register online. More or less, the "solution" if they do this would be to give you a digital copy for any games you claimed Gold Points on, then ask you to register any other games. One copy per Game Card. Hard to exploit other than the fact that the digital and physical copies could be split across two people, but only across different generations.

 

[TomNookYankees]

There's ways they can figure it out.

For example, Vudu had an option where you scan the barcode on the back of the Blu-ray case, pay them $2-3 bucks and they'll give you the digital copy on their service.
It was easily abusable (Like you could find a picture of the case online and scan that), but since they got cash for each conversion, they didnt really care if you redeemed movies that werent your own.

For Switch, I imagine it's as simple as reading the save data on your console and having that register as an Owned Game in the e-shop.

But how would that work for people who share carts? Nintendo is not going to allow for the possibility of people getting "free" games by registering a cart that was already previously registered, so they are not going to do the method you mentioned.

Every Game Card has a unique ID the system saves and can register online. More or less, the "solution" if they do this would be to give you a digital copy for any games you claimed Gold Points on, then ask you to register any other games. One copy per Game Card. Hard to exploit other than the fact that the digital and physical copies could be split across two people, but only across different generations.

If there's unique IDs per cart then that could work.

 

[TomNookYankees]

Honestly I would expect NSO to move towards those "individual release" type deals. With GCN, Wii and 3DS games all being available for individual purchase as they're ready, then added to NSO+ Expansion Pack bit by bit.

For for instance, GC NSO launches, and instead of a bunch of games on a new app with each game on it taking up a whole gigabyte, you just open the NSO Applet, select GameCube, and there they are, no extra app required.

Say it launches tommorow with Sunshine. Nothing changes for most people. If you have Expansion Pack, Pikmin 1+2, Sunshine, and Metroid Prime all become free to download immediately, and are displayed in the NSO Applet under the GCN section.

It adds value to NSO+EP and begins the build up to the inevitable "Nintendo Pass". These games, 3DS Wii and GCN, all need specific optimisations and changes to work on Switch anyway, so using remasters rather than straight emulation makes a lot more sense for them.

In my opinion, the next five years of NSO look something like this:

GCN (individual installs), then DS (dedicated app), Wii (individual installs), 3DS (individual installs), and finally Switch.

Yes. Switch. They'll catch up to it eventually. When they do, I fully, 100% expect Nintendo to turn around and just put their first year of published Switch games on it, then the next year the next, and so on.

Given this is a pretty clear upwards trajectory in perceived value, I would also expect to see a price hike and/or additional tier... And maybe a rebrand

Perhaps Nintendo Premium (Online, GB/C, S/NES), Nintendo Premium Plus (Expansion Pack, games up to Wii), and Nintendo Premium Ultra (3DS and Switch).

At that point wouldn't it make more sense to just bring back a new iteration of Virtual Console? Would also have the benefit of being easier to get licenses for third party games if it's just sold per game like in Virtual Console on Wii/3DS/WiiU.

 

[Concernt]

At that point wouldn't it make more sense to just bring back a new iteration of Virtual Console? Would also have the benefit of being easier to get licenses for third party games if it's just sold per game like in Virtual Console on Wii/3DS/WiiU.

How would it? They have set it up as a subscription service because subscription services are more desirable and they've proven their implementation is profitable. Why on earth would they give that up?

Part of the point of the current set-up for Nintendo is they let third parties release their own games on Switch. Why would Nintendo want to make it "easier for them to licence"? That's just extra work for Nintendo.

 

[TheRealTalker]

Phil folded but I guess it is better to fold then to have devs skip Xbox entirely.

Guess we will see how much it impacts Series S users later in this gen.

 

[Vanillalite]

How would it? They have set it up as a subscription service because subscription services are more desirable and they've proven their implementation is profitable. Why on earth would they give that up?

Part of the point of the current set-up for Nintendo is they let third parties release their own games on Switch. Why would Nintendo want to make it "easier for them to licence"? That's just extra work for Nintendo.

Cause you want the games? I’m not saying I’d agree with going back to the VC, but it’s obvious why you’d want to make it easier.

 

[TheRealTalker]

In Microsoft's official Xbox requirements documentation, it says: "To maintain consistency across console generations, games must... Ensure that identical game modes are offered across console types within the generation"Splitscreen isn't a "mode"? Or Xbox policy has changed

Policy has probably changed. Larian wasn't the once enforcing it via their interviews.

 

[Concernt]

Cause you want the games? I’m not saying I’d agree with going back to the VC, but it’s obvious why you’d want to make it easier.

It's already easier for Nintendo to licence these games for individual release than ever.

If Nintendo want to licence games to publish on the eShop. They can and they already do? Virtual Console being irrelevant to the situation.

 

[LoneRanger]

Despite Larian problems porting Baldurs Gate 3 to Series S, I think Nintendo will try to push to quickly get a port into Switch NG by 2025.

 

[Hosermess]

To expand on this, here's a comparison shot straight from the horse's mouth.

Before:

After:

hey what do you know...a before and after I can actually spot the differences in

 

[Concernt]

Despite Larian problems porting Baldurs Gate 3 to Series S, I think Nintendo will try to push to quickly get a port into Switch NG by 2025.

"By 2025" doesn't sound very "quick" to me.

 

[ertaboy356b]

Man, I bet Phil Spencer can’t wait for the Switch 2 to come out.
Because then if a dev is developing a game for the Switch 2 (which understandably would be lower spec as a handheld device) then developing that same game on Series S won’t seem so much like a burden since they had to take into account both lower end machines.

Basically, there will probably be less complaining.

Unless NG Switch comes packed full of available RAM… then yeah devs will probably still complain about Series S…

Edit: spelling

Devs already have a low profile, it's called a pc. Believe it or not, majority of PCs have shit specs.

 

[LoneRanger]

"By 2025" doesn't sound very "quick" to me.

If Switch NG is releasing late 2024, 2025 would be its first year.

 

[Magic-Man]

Despite Larian problems porting Baldurs Gate 3 to Series S, I think Nintendo will try to push to quickly get a port into Switch NG by 2025.

The Series S problems are related to RAM. If the Switch 2 doesn't have split-screen and implements DLSS it should be okay.

 

[Deleted member 3433]

I think we're in for a real treat when it comes to the hardware and its third-party support.

 

[Vanillalite]

Despite Larian problems porting Baldurs Gate 3 to Series S, I think Nintendo will try to push to quickly get a port into Switch NG by 2025.

To clarify the game runs perfectly fine solo.

It’s just split screen that’s the issue. I’m not even entirely sure it’s all RAM. Split screen co-op going back going back to hell Mario Kart 64 is always a pain in the ass on a system.

 

[Shoulder]

Hearing some of the folks about Switch 2 helping Xbox Series S, or Switch 2 being the baseline next gen system, I’m wondering if the opposite will be true.

Given the improvements in tech with Drake compared to what is known about Series S, including the split pool of memory, I wonder if Switch 2 might end up edging out Series S simply because of newer tech, despite a raw TFLOP disadvantage.

I think it might come to a point where developers will be eager to make games for Switch 2 because of the flexibility, while dread Series S, despite their “similarities.”

We’re saying Switch 2 will help Series S, and vice versa. I wonder if Switch 2 might end up hurting Series S in the long run.

 

[eye0h]

Phil folded but I guess it is better to fold then to have devs skip Xbox entirely.

Guess we will see how much it impacts Series S users later in this gen.

Was there a precedent for feature parity before this point?

 

[Deleted member 887]

Thanks for the detailed, yet slightly worrying answer.

Welcome to the long running back and forth over BC.

I wonder though, since you're talking about stutter, hence I assume we're in the tens, maybe hundreds of milliseconds range, whether some kind of hybrid workaround would be feasible: again, totally (un)educated guess on my part, but would developers NOT willing to fully recompile their games be able to implement some kind of pre-run on-the-fly recompilation of the shaders?

I doubt it. Most devs are working in something like Unreal, which is hiding the Nintendo SDK from them. And the shader code, even. Lots of devs are making shaders inside an Unreal blueprint, but couldn't write actual shader language to save their lives. Adding this kind of pre-launch step would require engine support, which would in turn likely require a project rebuild.

What might happen is that Nintendo, when it detects a Switch game being launched, tries to scan the game for shaders and pre-compile them in the background. For something like a Unity or Unreal game, detecting the shader is probably fairly easy. But essentially you'd need to write this sort of detection tool over and over again for each engine.

Microsoft did something similar for 360 games, which don't have compatible shaders with the Xbox One. Except that they did it on the cloud side, which allowed them to ship out shaders in compiled blobs.

Does this even make sense? Sorry if it sounds dumb, I'm just trying to picture what could end up being the actual solution for backwards compatibility.

It doesn't sound dumb, it's pretty common in PC land.

I think the strategy would look like this, but this is just me speculating. At base you'd get exactly what you mentioned in the beginning, a compatibility layer the maps a Maxwell driver call to an Ampere driver call. That kind of monkeypatching is everywhere in emulator land, and isn't hard so much as tedious, but Nintendo and Nvidia know where all the bodies are buried.

When it comes to shaders I can see a tiered strategy. The bottom tier is a shader transpiler that just tries to be really fast. The Maxwell and Ampere ISAs aren't compatible but they are related, so the whole decompile/recompile process that PC emulation uses can be skipped for a much simpler, quicker strategy. Switch NG is 8 cores, Switch was 4, that leaves you with a dedicated core for transpilation. Switch NG has faster memory, though with small shaders, that's not a huge advantage.

The middle tier might be some sort of aggressive strategy to find shaders before they're invoked - try to detect them when read off storage for example, or like I suggested, scan the whole game for shaders. The key is you don't want to scan through 16GB of data on startup looking for shaders, then precompile all of them before the game launches, which would make startup potentially take minutes or hours, but you do want to grab them before they're needed

And the top tier might be some sort of pre-seeded shader cache that Nintendo distributes, either in the OS or as game patches. Expect Nintendo to triage this heavily, moving devs to next-gen patches where the games are well supported, and to give little attention to the poorly supported games that live right above shovelware on the eShop.

 

[lattjeful]

Was there a precedent for feature parity before this point?

Feature parity, yes. Graphical parity, no. The Series S bandwidth situation meant that there were games that had things like raytracing on Series X, and just rasterized lighting on Series S.

Whether this is due to the feature set being able to handle everything so far or because of some mandate from Xbox, we don't know. The mandate thing was something that spread throughout the Internet, and Phil Spencer said that a mandate didn't exist. Whether he's telling the truth or doing his job as the PR mouthpiece for Xbox by saving face is up to you.

Whether it will stay as a precedent will be interesting to see. Cross-gen is just now ending, so it'd make sense that we're finally seeing the limitations of the system crop up and affect things beyond graphics.

 

[LiC]

How would that even work tho? In such a scenario of digital only BC, I doubt nintendo would want to spend that much resources verifying ownership of physical games. They sure as hell aren't going to invite switch owners to mail in several carts just to verify ownership and unless there is some data on the carts that is both unique and impossible to copy via piracy, nintendo wont trust people to verify cart ownership digitally.

Game cards have serial numbers and registering them is already possible (you can get gold points for physical purchases).

 

[TomNookYankees]

How would it? They have set it up as a subscription service because subscription services are more desirable and they've proven their implementation is profitable. Why on earth would they give that up?

Part of the point of the current set-up for Nintendo is they let third parties release their own games on Switch. Why would Nintendo want to make it "easier for them to licence"? That's just extra work for Nintendo.

I'm not saying Virtual Console should replace NSO/NSO+ but should be there in addition. Maybe I've misread because it sounded like you were suggesting something similar where the individual games are purchasable on E-Shop and then later would be added to NSO+, I'm saying that if they were to sell GCN/Wii/3DS games individually then they are better off bringing back Virtual Console and have it as a section on the e-shop to put those individual purchase options under, with the added benefit that nintendo would be able to get third party retro games on Virtual Console even for games they would never intend to bring to NSO/NSO+.

 

[Concernt]

I think we're in for a real treat when it comes to the hardware and its third-party support.

I'm trying to think what the barriers are.

Probably not performance, if they're willing to be aggressive with resolution.

Probably not memory, if they go with 12GB.

Online infrastructure? Well companies can use their own now, and Nintendo's improved. Maybe companies would have questions about improving social features?

CPU? Both the performance being lower and the architecture being different could make things complicated, but it's well into the 60+% range with the same number of cores, so I doubt it would be a problem outside of extreme circumstances. The architecture might be a challenge for optimisation but shouldn't be a roadblock.

OVERALL ease of porting? Nintendo and Nvidia have put a lot of work into that, so I'd doubt it.

Other than "Nintendo-Developer Relations", there isn't much of a barrier other than "more effort", rather than "we need to rebuild this", "we need to customise that".

 

[TheRealTalker]

Was there a precedent for feature parity before this point?

yes all Xbox Series S and X games have to have the same parity in modes - basically series s and series x games have to feature the same amount of gameplay options/stuff beyond visual features like res, fps and rt

we started seeing this becoming an issue around summer this year as this gen started to mature

even cross gen games had some cracks showing

this is Naruto X Boruto Storm Connections basically having a toggle mode to exclude Series S players for MP due to MP being in 30fps

idk what else could get excluded for Series S users moving forward as the gen gets older but I feel indie devs will still be forced to follow said parity rules but big pubs and devs will be allowed to make exceptions to the rule

 

[Concernt]

I'm not saying Virtual Console should replace NSO/NSO+ but should be there in addition. Maybe I've misread because it sounded like you were suggesting something similar where the individual games are purchasable on E-Shop and then later would be added to NSO+, I'm saying that if they were to sell GCN/Wii/3DS games individually then they are better off bringing back Virtual Console and have it as a section on the e-shop to put those individual purchase options under, with the added benefit that nintendo would be able to get third party retro games on Virtual Console even for games they would never intend to bring to NSO/NSO+.

How would that benefit Nintendo, though? They can do that... Without revitalising a dead, unprofitable brand?

Let me make this clear. If third parties want to release their classic games on Switch. They already can. They already do. If Nintendo wants to release THEIR games on Nintendo Switch, they can, they do. If Nintendo wants to BOLSTER NSO, in what way would PAYING other companies for stuff they might ALREADY have intended to port for it NOT to end up on NSO? They'd spend MORE money and get LESS. That's just bad business!

There is more money in NSO than VC, significantly. Why would they put money into "VC"-type endeavours when they've already shown to themselves and their investors that putting a dollar into NSO makes them more money than trying to... Become a publisher for a smattering of retro titles?

 

[GPKs3]

"By 2025" doesn't sound very "quick" to me.

If Switch NG is releasing late 2024, 2025 would be its first year.

Would BG3 being a launch title for Switch 2 be out of the question? Better yet, what are the odds that Larian has dev kits or might acquire some in the next few months or so?

 

[Giancarlo]

To expand on this, here's a comparison shot straight from the horse's mouth.

Before:

After:

i must be blind, cant tell the difference between this shorts

 

[LoneRanger]

Would BG3 being a launch title for Switch 2 be out of the question? Better yet, what are the odds that Larian has dev kits or might acquire some in the next few months or so?

I don’t think Nintendo will want a WIiU launch situation where there was lots and lots of third party (retail) titles.

It would be more intelligent to spread out mayor third party (late) ports of late 2010's/first 2020's decade (Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk, Street Fighter VI, Resident Evil Village or 4 Remake, Control, Alan Wake 2, MGS3 Delta, Guilty Gear Strive, Diablo 4, Final Fantasy XIV, RDR2, Metro Exodus, Elden Ring, maybe some surprises like Tekken or Yakuza and so on) through first 2 FY 2024/25-2025/26 so it can have a very good stream of third party titles.

+ indies (that are generally day 1)

+ some day 1 or not too late (6-12 months) future titles from mayor third party publishers (example: wonder woman)

 

[SiG]

i must be blind, cant tell the difference between this shorts

If you're looking at the pics on a phone, it might be harder to tell. It mostly affects anti-ailiasing and edges.

 

[Koren Lesthe]

i must be blind, cant tell the difference between this shorts

The first pic have quite a lot of aliasing, and the second one uses FSR 2.0 (one of the first game to use this version on the Switch ?) and is a lot cleaner with clean smooth edges.

 

[PedroNavajas]

I still believe that this time the difference between portable and docked will be considerably larger. Let's not forget that this time Nintendo is getting a full custom chip for their purpose rather than a tablet one. The chip might be large because of this.

 

[Concernt]

I still believe that this time the difference between portable and docked will be considerably larger. Let's not forget that this time Nintendo is getting a full custom chip for their purpose rather than a tablet one. The chip might be large because of this.

It most certainly will. I mean the target repslution for handheld/tabletop mode will likely be 1080p, and 4K for TV mode. So the portable modes are 25% of TV mode. On Switch those numbers are 720p and 1080p, or 40%.

However, Drake has (what I presume will be) a much better set of hardware upscaling options, so we might see the difference more in scaling ratio than anything.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I still believe that this time the difference between portable and docked will be considerably larger. Let's not forget that this time Nintendo is getting a full custom chip for their purpose rather than a tablet one. The chip might be large because of this.

That's wouldn't really affect the gap between docked mode and handheld mode

 

[PedroNavajas]

That's wouldn't really affect the gap between docked mode and handheld mode

Such a large chip "might not make sense" for a portable device, but it does for an stationary one. So, while Nintendo could achieve their performance target with a smaller chip but faster on the handheld side, they might be aiming for better stationary performance while docked needing a bigger chip.

 

[Deleted member 887]

I still believe that this time the difference between portable and docked will be considerably larger. Let's not forget that this time Nintendo is getting a full custom chip for their purpose rather than a tablet one. The chip might be large because of this.

T239 isn't designed to go below 1 TFLOPS or much above 3 TFLOPS. So there isn't really room for a much bigger gap.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Such a large chip "might not make sense" for a portable device, but it does for an stationary one. So, while Nintendo could achieve their performance target with a smaller chip but faster on the handheld side, they might be aiming for better stationary performance while docked needing a bigger chip.

We don't really know that. At its size they can also run slower and not need as much cooling as a smaller chip that runs faster. It's not like they have a physical size limit, we've seem bigger chips in x86 handhelds

 

[Look over there]

Policy has probably changed. Larian wasn't the once enforcing it via their interviews.

For those curious what Totilo's quoting from:

Xbox Requirements for Xbox Console Games - Microsoft Game Development Kit

Xbox Requirements (XRs) consist of the policies, technical requirements, and product component-related requirements to which all developers and publishers of Xbox console titles must conform.

learn.microsoft.com

 

[Semi Lazy Gamer]

Might be nothing, but multiple big names are at Nintendo NYC:

 

[ezidro3]

yes all Xbox Series S and X games have to have the same parity in modes - basically series s and series x games have to feature the same amount of gameplay options/stuff beyond visual features like res, fps and rt

we started seeing this becoming an issue around summer this year as this gen started to mature

even cross gen games had some cracks showing

this is Naruto X Boruto Storm Connections basically having a toggle mode to exclude Series S players for MP due to MP being in 30fps

idk what else could get excluded for Series S users moving forward as the gen gets older but I feel indie devs will still be forced to follow said parity rules but big pubs and devs will be allowed to make exceptions to the rule

Honestly this is stupid. There is no way XSS should be matching PS4 Pro especially in terms of FPS. XSS has a much more capable CPU, it should be doing 60FPS, whether it be a lower resolution like 1080p

 

[Concernt]

Might be nothing, but multiple big names are at Nintendo NYC:

First Hyrb now this.

Grubb did say this month.

What happens now.

 

[chocolate_supra]

Might be nothing, but multiple big names are at Nintendo NYC:

Nintendo wants influencer input on Mario's new voice

 

[Dekuman]

The influencer stuff is most definately not Switch 2 related. Probably a preview of their fall slate..

 

[ILikeFeet]

it's clearly Mario Wonder Preview even

Spoiler

on drake!

 

[Mr.Gamerson]

Well with the rumored 8" 1080p LCD being a thing, Nintendo is going to need a stronger and more power efficient chip than one would likely get on 8nm. Which to me points more towards T239/Drake and it being on a better node. If we knew Drake was in fact 8nm, an 8"/1080p screen rumor would seem false to me, especially when 7"/720p works fine and likely uses less power.

 

[Look over there]

it's clearly Mario Wonder Preview even

Spoiler

on drake!

...including previewing large scale multiplayer!
(...yes, the relevant part of that post is buried towards the end)

 

[Giancarlo]

Might be nothing, but multiple big names are at Nintendo NYC:

Nintendo is hiding something for us, it cant be a concidence all this Nintubers(YouTubers), decided to visit Nintendo now

 

[Giancarlo]

The influencer stuff is most definately not Switch 2 related. Probably a preview of their fall slate..

previews/reviews for Super Mario Bros Wonder coming?