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

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MuchLonk said:
I hope StreetPass will come back.
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If Steetpass come back will it be possible to use it just using the joycon. I am the type of person who doesn't use their switch in portable mode very often so carrying around just the joycon will be much easier.
 
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Concernt said:
Labo's patent, Pokémon Go Plus+, and elements of the Joy-Con all had theirs released to the public before reveal.
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I don't remember Labo's patent happening before announcement. Pokemon Go plus was already a product so an iteration on that isn't exactly something they'd need to keep secret. And the "elements" of the joycon IIRC were completely different modular controller parts, not actually anything the joycon fully has.
 
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I like when Nintendo tries wacky stuffs, I hate when this stuff becomes a hurdle or gives some features that have to be shoe in in each and every game...
Be simple and straight to the point with the hardware, and try funky stuff with software through peripherals, like they did with switch. That's what I hope.
 
dsm said:
Don't mind me, just posting to see everything.
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Don’t mind me, just posting to become something other, untethered, beyond.

Don’t mind me, just posting to slither my 200,000 meter tongue through the ley lines under this burning city to lick up all the secret salt: forgotten minerals that could give us all the answers, had we only looked.

Don’t mind me, just posting to become ten feet tall and full of matter, compressed to far smaller scale than that around me, hyperdense and volatile.

Don’t mind me, just posting to see everything. To see nothing. To exist in superposition both knowing and unknowing and eternal and eternal and eternal.

Don’t mind me, just a post-malapropism shitposter with a heart of gold and nothing to lose.
 
Skittzo said:
No.

Nintendo has the ability to request a patent application not be published until the product is officially revealed. This is what they have done 100% of the time with any patents/applications related to new hardware.

If a patent application of theirs is made public, you can be absolutely sure it will not be related to new, unreleased hardware.
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In addition to what @Concernt said regarding Labo, Pokemon Go+, and various elements of the Joy Con, remember that the NSO N64 controller's patent was found before its reveal.
 
The Competition said:
This is interesting, would love to get more details on your thoughts on this. So from my very limited understanding, it sounds to me like the NG GPU is going to be better placed compared to current gen versus where Switch 1's GPU was compared to last gen right? (I might be misremembering what people have been saying!)
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There is some nuance there, but yeah. To vastly oversimplify you can think of the Switch as like 1/5th of a PS4 in terms of GPU performance, and the NG as, like, 1/3rd of a PS5. That's a very silly way of thinking of things, but it does help you sort of see that the gap is closing, but the gap isn't tiny.

On the other hand, if we look at the CPU, the story inverts. The gap between NG and current gen is larger than it was between Switch and last gen.

The Competition said:
As for memory, it seems decently likely NG will have as much memory as Series S has, if not more.

The NG CPU however will have a bigger gap compared to current gen, versus Switch 1 compared to last gen, is this the bottleneck you expect to prevent most current gen multiplats from reaching the NG, bar the occassional "miracle port"? Or is the bottleneck you're expecting elsewhere? If CPU is what you were thinking of, do we know that current gen games are generally using all/most of the Series S CPU capactiy for critical game logic tasks? I haven't played any current-gen only games yet so I don't know but am interested to find out! Is it more NPCs or something? Or is the CPU necessary for more than just game logic, in which case I'm looking in the wrong place for the bottleneck?

Basically, I'm just interested to hear where you think the bottleneck(s) will be that limits current-gen multiplats to just the occassional "miracle port" like it has been for Switch 1. Thanks!
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I think it's multi-layered. Ultimately, the bottleneck for a port will always be cash and time. Randy Linden put Quake on the GBA for goodness sake. The number of miracle ports will not just be about hardware, it will be about number of Switch NG sold. Better hardware makes port costs go down. But higher sales makes expensive ports profitable. So don't consider any of these problems "insurmountable".

I tend to think that CPU is going to be an issue. Not the only issue, and not an issue for every game, but Starfield and A Plague Tale: Requiem are both games that tax next gen CPUs to their limit to enable the core gameplay.

Then there are games like Gotham Knights - a game that doesn't so much stress the CPU for gameplay reasons, as use it as a crutch. I'm not defending that game, but there will be more of those. And there will be games like the Life is Strange series - games that aren't impossible on smaller hardware, but are only economically viable because a small team can just use Unreal Engine defaults for everything, and throw lots of CPU power at mocap'ed animation, and not pay a dozen programmers to optimize the engine.

I also think the GPU will start becoming more and more of an issue. We're coming out of the long cross-gen period, we're going to see more and more 30fps games, more and more low-res/high reconstruction games. We're going to see more games skip Xbox because of Series S + Weak Sales, and we're going to see nigh-unplayable Series S versions.

At some point devs will be competing with each other to deliver better and better looking experiences on the same hardware, and they will start deploying the sorts of cuts for "low end hardware" on the current gen consoles to do it. AAA game development that starts today will be targeting a 2028 release date. That will only be the 3-4th year of the Switch NG, but it will be the cross-gen period for the Playstation Six.

This all sounds like Nintendoom, and I don't mean that. I actually think I'm pretty optimistic! Last gen consoles were a little weak, relative to where technology was at the time. They had very bad CPUs, and very modest GPUs. Switch was able to capitalize on that, offering a more modern GPU despite the lack of power, and a CPU which actually started to get close to what the then-current consoles were doing. Those were the aces-in-the-hole for making games like The Witcher III possible.

The PS5 and the Series X aren't just more powerful consoles than last gen, they're more powerful relative to their era. AMD was now top-of-the-heap on CPU tech, and if you pull up any list of "best graphics cards in 2020" and compare specs, the consoles are competitive. Not to mention the forward thinking bells and whistles - SSDs, custom decompression hardware, 3D audio engines.

These consoles don't have the sorts of weaknesses that give NG as much "catchup" room as the Switch had, and yet - Nintendo seems to be delivering. The CPU gap was going to get larger, but Nintendo is keeping it from becoming massive. The GPU gap is getting smaller, despite the 10x leap that the Series X made over the Xbox One. DLSS 2 and Nvidia's RT solution are more forward thinking than the AMD counterparts. Nintendo seems to be keeping pace with storage speed and decompression hardware.
 
bellydrum said:
In addition to what @Concernt said regarding Labo, Pokemon Go+, and various elements of the Joy Con, remember that the NSO N64 controller's patent was found before its reveal.
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Ah that's true, I do remember that.

Still, that particular hardware design had been around for ages, so it's hardly something worth keeping under wraps. I more meant an actual design or major feature of a new console hasn't ever "leaked" in a patent before the thing was announced, and that's because anyone filing for a patent can put in a non-publication request if they want it to be kept secret. Once it's granted they can just delay paying the issue fee so it's not published until they're ready.
 
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About Smash Bros., it's likely it'll get an update at some point this year.

Sora has no amiibo data. The only way to add it is via a patch. Sooooo, yeah, something is likely coming at some point. :p

EDIT: Oops, missed the thing where we were to move this discussion to the Direct thread. My bad.
 
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epicmartin7 said:
About Smash Bros., it's likely it'll get an update at some point this year.

Sora has no amiibo data. The only way to add it is via a patch. Sooooo, yeah, something is likely coming at some point. :p

EDIT: Oops, missed the thing where we were to move this discussion to the Direct thread. My bad.
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Don't forget it needs support for Switch 2 in an update, too. 😀
 
Dark Cloud said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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RETURN OF TABS BAYBEE LET'S GOOOOOOOO
 
chocolate_supra said:
Some of us aren't well-versed in handhelds, sorry. I just now found out from Dark Cloud above that the 3DS even had an adaptable card slot. 😅
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No issue!
I just feel like the 3DS is not that old so it must be pretty well known, but of course not everyone will know about that :)
 
We're going the GB -> GBA route where they'll fit in the same card slot but Switch 2 card slots will be half the size. Switch 3 carts will be smaller than your fingernail. Switch 4 carts will be as big as my hopes and dreams.
 
Serif said:
We're going the GB -> GBA route where they'll fit in the same card slot but Switch 2 card slots will be half the size. Switch 3 carts will be smaller than your fingernail. Switch 4 carts will be as big as my hopes and dreams.
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That would be very possible, since Switch Game Cards are ALREADY only half used in many situations, especially larger sizes. However if there ARE significant internal differences due to a size difference, I (kind of hope to) think those would be to facilitate more flash chips. Like if the new ones are wider and can fit two+ individual chips and extra circuitry, for higher maximum storage and better speed.
 
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chocolate_supra said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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A) We kinda knew or at least heavily expected both of those things already, B) as said above you can have multiple card formats fit into the same slot, as Nintendo has done several times in the past.

Like I said, nothing in that leak is surprising or interesting, and it's probably BS anyway.
 
Really happy if the camera rumor is true. As I wrote months ago, Nintendo casual games felt restricted on Switch without a mic and a camera.
Gingerbread Man said:
Most people think Switch 2 will be a Switch with enhanced graphics, but I think re-introducing at least a camera and a mic is a top priority for Nintendo (perhaps as part of the Joycons?). Their "core" games might make minimal use of such features, but they are vital for series such as Nintendogs. Brain Training Switch already feels limited without a mic. Animal Crossing and Miitopia would be better games if they supported scanning QR Codes (AC does, by using your mobile phone as an external camera, but having it integrated with the hardware would be more convenient).
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Another cheap mobile tech they could include is a GPS.
 
Paxie said:
I feel like someone should make a master post on why this thread has been exploding lately
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Gamescom had stuff happening, leaks are starting to come in. Some fake, some possibly not fake.

That's all there is to it.
 
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I'm afraid the "source" of this last batch of information is a bullshitter. Someone who supposedly knows about every project at both Sega/Atlus and Square Enix and has even claimed to know about first-party Nintendo content in upcoming Directs to boot. They've already gotten multiple things publicly wrong, denied the veracity of leaks that were later proven real, and their only claim to fame is piggybacking details of the recent Persona announcements off another, actually reliable Atlus leaker.
 
Herb Alpert said:
With AR, you'll get a terrible camera and a few mini games that will be fun 10 minutes before you never touch them again.
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You would have thought Nintendo would have learned from the 3DS AR 'features'.

I don't get why they would waste any time on a feature like AR, it adds nothing to the Switch gaming experience. Or any gaming experience, really.
 
NintenDuvo said:
So do we trust this Hero guy ?
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We are all able to make our own decisions, I have spoken to him before and heard about all the FF7Rebirth stuff. If his track record is spotty we shouldn't just believe everything he says but he is a significant person until proven otherwise.
 
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