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

Reader mode
ShadowFox08 said:
If we're assuming a similar launch date as the Switch, I believe the Switch didn't get a price reveal until January 12. And that's the blowout reveal.
Click to expand...
I think a similar timeframe will be used but I expect the price and release date to drop alongside the reveal so they can open pre-orders. Nothing better than a holiday you can have casuals buying discounted current gen and hardcore players steadily pre-ordering next gen.
 
so regarding nate's podcast, is it plausible one could make a summary of it once it happens tomorrow morning? just in case he/MVG makes key details in the podcast and some people would miss it
 
0
GigaUltraMoon said:
Wouldn't there be some kind of trail of Nvidia activity or internal information surrounding a new dedicated SoC that could reasonably be assumed to be intended for a portable device like the NG if this was the case though? Unless there's a T239+ running on the 4nm process when previously it was in fact the assumed 7-8nm?
Click to expand...
Not if it's Mediatek developing the chip using Nvidia's IP.

Mediatek has always been using ARM CPUs and ARM Mali or PowerVR GPUs, but recently they partnered with Nvidia to enter the infotainment market.
I don't think they would sign a deal without extensive R&D before-hand.

Some of their chips are already on TSMC's 4nm.
They're actually well ahead of Nvidia when it comes to mobile SoCs.

Nintendo "could have" cancelled t239 when they heard Mediatek had a better chip close to finalization.
I think Mediatek would be very happy to share some of those R&D costs and bring-in a new client.

It's all speculation of course and t239 is probably our guy, but those 5% of doubt keep nagging me.
 
The discussion about expandable storage is definitely more interesting in light of the Matrix demo, as there's no way that's going to run off a 100MB/s MicroSD card. Of course for the demo it would have been running off internal storage, but when you're telling developers that your console is going to be able to pull off the fast asset streaming your competitors can do, they'd be pretty pissed off to later find out it only applies to built-in storage.

The more I think about it, the more sense CFexpress Type A makes. The spec was just updated to support PCIe 4.0, meaning up to 2GB/s read speeds for Type A, with new cards expected next year. The cost to implement from Nintendo is near zero, with it being a straight-forward single-lane PCIe setup. T239 already has PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare, so just wire one up to the card slot and you're done. The cards themselves are just M.2 NVMe drives in a plastic case, so they can rely on existing R&D to drive increased sizes and reduced costs over the generation. It's also, importantly, the only card format faster than 300MB/s that has actually achieved any meaningful market share.

SD Express is dead in the water, with no indication that it will ever see widespread support, given the camera industry has committed strongly to CFe. It's also technically worse than CFe in almost every way. Devices need to support both the old SD modes and SD Express's PCIe interface, which means Nintendo would need to add an extra I/O chip which would add cost and complexity and take up motherboard space. On the card side, this means the SD Express cards need custom controllers, they can't use off-the-shelf NVMe controllers like CFe cards do. This means they're manufactured at far lower volumes, therefore being more expensive, and are made on older manufacturing processes, so they'll consume more power. The only SD Express controller I'm aware of on the market is manufactured on 28nm, while most NVMe controllers are on TSMC's 12nm process, and Samsung's newest entry-level OEM SSD uses a controller manufactured on their 5nm process.

SD Express doesn't even win on backwards compatibility. It breaks compatibility with UHS-II cards, which have been reasonably common in the camera market. This is part of the reason there's no interest in adopting them in that industry. Meanwhile, Sony is shipping cameras with combo CFe Type A & UHS-II SD slots, which have better backwards compatibility with SD cards than an SD Express slot would.

UFS cards would be nice, but I feel like the time has passed. They have many of the benefits of CFe, being an existing standard in a plastic case, but there's no movement on the standard, and CFe Type A now has a decent performance advantage on the (unreleased) v3.0 cards, with 2GB/s vs 1.2GB/s. It would require a bigger push than I can imagine from Nintendo, particularly as the only thing they'd need to do with CFe is get a manufacturing partner on board to have reasonably-priced branded cards available at launch.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that Sandisk, who have traditionally been Nintendo's partner on these cards, don't currently sell CFe Type A cards, despite being probably the biggest manufacturers of Type B cards. This means there wouldn't be any conflict of selling low-margin cards to Nintendo customers while trying to keep selling high margin cards to pro photographers. They could enter the Type A market at much lower margins with the guaranteed sales volume to justify it, while still charging crazy mark-up on their Type B line to pros who are willing to pay that much.

Concernt said:
Nintendo already has input on SDe
Click to expand...

This isn't true. They are a "General Member" of the SD Association, which entitles them to use SD cards, but doesn't give them voting rights on specifications.
 
Cuzizkool said:
I’ve… never been excited for a Monday before. This is an odd feeling…
Click to expand...
I wouldn't really expect exciting new information, just a recap of the same tech demos we've already been discussing, and some opinions about how they might have been running and the significance of that. Educated guesses/informed speculation are all well and good but we've kind of already covered all that in this thread. The juicy underlying info seems to have already been shared.
 
Thraktor said:
The discussion about expandable storage is definitely more interesting in light of the Matrix demo, as there's no way that's going to run off a 100MB/s MicroSD card. Of course for the demo it would have been running off internal storage, but when you're telling developers that your console is going to be able to pull off the fast asset streaming your competitors can do, they'd be pretty pissed off to later find out it only applies to built-in storage.

The more I think about it, the more sense CFexpress Type A makes. The spec was just updated to support PCIe 4.0, meaning up to 2GB/s read speeds for Type A, with new cards expected next year. The cost to implement from Nintendo is near zero, with it being a straight-forward single-lane PCIe setup. T239 already has PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare, so just wire one up to the card slot and you're done. The cards themselves are just M.2 NVMe drives in a plastic case, so they can rely on existing R&D to drive increased sizes and reduced costs over the generation. It's also, importantly, the only card format faster than 300MB/s that has actually achieved any meaningful market share.

SD Express is dead in the water, with no indication that it will ever see widespread support, given the camera industry has committed strongly to CFe. It's also technically worse than CFe in almost every way. Devices need to support both the old SD modes and SD Express's PCIe interface, which means Nintendo would need to add an extra I/O chip which would add cost and complexity and take up motherboard space. On the card side, this means the SD Express cards need custom controllers, they can't use off-the-shelf NVMe controllers like CFe cards do. This means they're manufactured at far lower volumes, therefore being more expensive, and are made on older manufacturing processes, so they'll consume more power. The only SD Express controller I'm aware of on the market is manufactured on 28nm, while most NVMe controllers are on TSMC's 12nm process, and Samsung's newest entry-level OEM SSD uses a controller manufactured on their 5nm process.

SD Express doesn't even win on backwards compatibility. It breaks compatibility with UHS-II cards, which have been reasonably common in the camera market. This is part of the reason there's no interest in adopting them in that industry. Meanwhile, Sony is shipping cameras with combo CFe Type A & UHS-II SD slots, which have better backwards compatibility with SD cards than an SD Express slot would.

UFS cards would be nice, but I feel like the time has passed. They have many of the benefits of CFe, being an existing standard in a plastic case, but there's no movement on the standard, and CFe Type A now has a decent performance advantage on the (unreleased) v3.0 cards, with 2GB/s vs 1.2GB/s. It would require a bigger push than I can imagine from Nintendo, particularly as the only thing they'd need to do with CFe is get a manufacturing partner on board to have reasonably-priced branded cards available at launch.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that Sandisk, who have traditionally been Nintendo's partner on these cards, don't currently sell CFe Type A cards, despite being probably the biggest manufacturers of Type B cards. This means there wouldn't be any conflict of selling low-margin cards to Nintendo customers while trying to keep selling high margin cards to pro photographers. They could enter the Type A market at much lower margins with the guaranteed sales volume to justify it, while still charging crazy mark-up on their Type B line to pros who are willing to pay that much.



This isn't true. They are a "General Member" of the SD Association, which entitles them to use SD cards, but doesn't give them voting rights on specifications.
Click to expand...
So, what would you say is the minimum speed for getting the Matrix demo running? Would a Sata 600MB/s suffice?
 
0
I think it's nice to say this, as there's ton of people here who aren't really knowledgeable (not that is a problem, mind you. We're all here to learn). But, in the ramp up to a new console release, tons of fake leakers and so claimed leakers appear out of nowhere. Don't be swayed by them and start to be pessimistic due to it. Always refer to the most reliable bit of information that's available.

This thread here is ahead of the game as we had access to the Nvidia Data Breach/Hack. So we had access to some bits of information which allowed us to know some of principal innards of the next Nintendo console SoC. Couple to that, thanks to the fantastic posters we have here, who are on top of their game and tracked tons of Linux 4 Tegra and Github updates, we were able to have a more clearer picture. If any of you have any doubt or want to know more about what is known, the first page of this thread has an extensive summary thank to the OP Dakhil.

Finally, don't be swayed by these "leakers" who claim the SoC/Chip has been changed. Modifications of an SoC/Chip or the creation of a new SoC/Chip isn't something that can be done on a whim and these things take quite a bit of time (years). It isn't something that can be done on short notice and, as it's public knowledge, Nvidia was working on T239 SoC/Chip quite recently. Nothing points out to a cancellation nor a creation of a new SoC/Chip. And if that happened, we wouldn't be talking about a release of a new console next year, but in late 2025 or 2026 even.

Really, don't be swayed by any rumor that pops out, specially from untrustworthy people who claim to be leakers. In meantime, MLID (Moore Law is Dead), RGT (RedGamingTech), OreXda/Connor, and others aren't leakers, nor reliable or know anything about Nintendo or Nvidia plans.
Noleth said:
Ok now I’m getting really worried about the system
Click to expand...
There's no reason to be. What we know already paints a pretty positive picture and coupled with Eurogamer/VGC and others report, things have been quite rosy.
 
LiC said:
I wouldn't really expect exciting new information, just a recap of the same tech demos we've already been discussing, and some opinions about how they might have been running and the significance of that. Educated guesses/informed speculation are all well and good but we've kind of already covered all that in this thread. The juicy underlying info seems to have already been shared.
Click to expand...
Nate did say that he knew some things that the articles didn't mention, but he also said that he was unsure if he would talk about it at this time. So if he decides to talk about it we could get some more details at least tomorrow.
 
It’s great to see people actively sourcing info, so the following is to continue the conversation and not to discourage anyone from posting content.
  • The Twitter user Connor is not reliable. A member of this thread tested her by feeding her some objectively false info, and she tweeted it out without any vesting or examination.
  • MediaTek and Nvidia collaborated on a Chromebook project with an MT SoC and an NV discrete GPU. There was never an MT SoC with integrated NV GPU cores.
  • MediaTek and Nvidia are collaborating on upcoming automotive SoCs. No one has seen or even leaked these SoCs yet. What’s more, these MT SoCs supposedly will be using Nvidia’s new GPU chiplets, and (you guessed it) no one has seen these chiplets either.
  • As oldpuck pointed out, the CPU config suggested by RGT is designed for burst computing on a phone. However for a game console you want sustained performance, therefore the T239 design most likely will perform better in the real world than this imaginary “monstrous” SoC.
  • Dakhil also brought up the important point of 32bit incompatibility.
  • RGT and Notebookcheck are content mills that employ little journalism standards. In this day and age, it’s crucial to be discerning with the source of info. Mis/disinformation paddlers like to sow distrust in journalism/journalists so that they’d be on equal footing with organizations/people who do more trustworthy reporting. But we know better.
Edit: corrected typos and info regarding Connor
 
Last edited:
Thraktor said:
The discussion about expandable storage is definitely more interesting in light of the Matrix demo, as there's no way that's going to run off a 100MB/s MicroSD card. Of course for the demo it would have been running off internal storage, but when you're telling developers that your console is going to be able to pull off the fast asset streaming your competitors can do, they'd be pretty pissed off to later find out it only applies to built-in storage.

The more I think about it, the more sense CFexpress Type A makes. The spec was just updated to support PCIe 4.0, meaning up to 2GB/s read speeds for Type A, with new cards expected next year. The cost to implement from Nintendo is near zero, with it being a straight-forward single-lane PCIe setup. T239 already has PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare, so just wire one up to the card slot and you're done. The cards themselves are just M.2 NVMe drives in a plastic case, so they can rely on existing R&D to drive increased sizes and reduced costs over the generation. It's also, importantly, the only card format faster than 300MB/s that has actually achieved any meaningful market share.

SD Express is dead in the water, with no indication that it will ever see widespread support, given the camera industry has committed strongly to CFe. It's also technically worse than CFe in almost every way. Devices need to support both the old SD modes and SD Express's PCIe interface, which means Nintendo would need to add an extra I/O chip which would add cost and complexity and take up motherboard space. On the card side, this means the SD Express cards need custom controllers, they can't use off-the-shelf NVMe controllers like CFe cards do. This means they're manufactured at far lower volumes, therefore being more expensive, and are made on older manufacturing processes, so they'll consume more power. The only SD Express controller I'm aware of on the market is manufactured on 28nm, while most NVMe controllers are on TSMC's 12nm process, and Samsung's newest entry-level OEM SSD uses a controller manufactured on their 5nm process.

SD Express doesn't even win on backwards compatibility. It breaks compatibility with UHS-II cards, which have been reasonably common in the camera market. This is part of the reason there's no interest in adopting them in that industry. Meanwhile, Sony is shipping cameras with combo CFe Type A & UHS-II SD slots, which have better backwards compatibility with SD cards than an SD Express slot would.

UFS cards would be nice, but I feel like the time has passed. They have many of the benefits of CFe, being an existing standard in a plastic case, but there's no movement on the standard, and CFe Type A now has a decent performance advantage on the (unreleased) v3.0 cards, with 2GB/s vs 1.2GB/s. It would require a bigger push than I can imagine from Nintendo, particularly as the only thing they'd need to do with CFe is get a manufacturing partner on board to have reasonably-priced branded cards available at launch.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that Sandisk, who have traditionally been Nintendo's partner on these cards, don't currently sell CFe Type A cards, despite being probably the biggest manufacturers of Type B cards. This means there wouldn't be any conflict of selling low-margin cards to Nintendo customers while trying to keep selling high margin cards to pro photographers. They could enter the Type A market at much lower margins with the guaranteed sales volume to justify it, while still charging crazy mark-up on their Type B line to pros who are willing to pay that much.



This isn't true. They are a "General Member" of the SD Association, which entitles them to use SD cards, but doesn't give them voting rights on specifications.
Click to expand...
I hope they don't use it. I went to Amazon and the cheapest and lowest capacity CFExpress A card with 80GB costs 99 dollars. The cheapest 260GB card costs 199 dollars and only achieves a peak of 800MB/s reads. That's way too expensive for that amount of storage and speed.
 
Thraktor said:
This isn't true.
Click to expand...
Well, it isn't true that they get to vote on specifications.

I also didn't say they vote on such.

What I did say was true.

What isn't true is that being a General Member confers the right to, or makes one "entitled", to use an SD card reader, or support SD cards. To quote the SD Card Association:

Membership with the SD Card Association does not confer rights to use the SD logos, essential patents or other technology. These rights are only granted through appropriate license agreements, such as, but not limited to the CLA or HALA.
Click to expand...
 
0
Thraktor said:
The discussion about expandable storage is definitely more interesting in light of the Matrix demo, as there's no way that's going to run off a 100MB/s MicroSD card. Of course for the demo it would have been running off internal storage, but when you're telling developers that your console is going to be able to pull off the fast asset streaming your competitors can do, they'd be pretty pissed off to later find out it only applies to built-in storage.

The more I think about it, the more sense CFexpress Type A makes. The spec was just updated to support PCIe 4.0, meaning up to 2GB/s read speeds for Type A, with new cards expected next year. The cost to implement from Nintendo is near zero, with it being a straight-forward single-lane PCIe setup. T239 already has PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare, so just wire one up to the card slot and you're done. The cards themselves are just M.2 NVMe drives in a plastic case, so they can rely on existing R&D to drive increased sizes and reduced costs over the generation. It's also, importantly, the only card format faster than 300MB/s that has actually achieved any meaningful market share.

SD Express is dead in the water, with no indication that it will ever see widespread support, given the camera industry has committed strongly to CFe. It's also technically worse than CFe in almost every way. Devices need to support both the old SD modes and SD Express's PCIe interface, which means Nintendo would need to add an extra I/O chip which would add cost and complexity and take up motherboard space. On the card side, this means the SD Express cards need custom controllers, they can't use off-the-shelf NVMe controllers like CFe cards do. This means they're manufactured at far lower volumes, therefore being more expensive, and are made on older manufacturing processes, so they'll consume more power. The only SD Express controller I'm aware of on the market is manufactured on 28nm, while most NVMe controllers are on TSMC's 12nm process, and Samsung's newest entry-level OEM SSD uses a controller manufactured on their 5nm process.

SD Express doesn't even win on backwards compatibility. It breaks compatibility with UHS-II cards, which have been reasonably common in the camera market. This is part of the reason there's no interest in adopting them in that industry. Meanwhile, Sony is shipping cameras with combo CFe Type A & UHS-II SD slots, which have better backwards compatibility with SD cards than an SD Express slot would.

UFS cards would be nice, but I feel like the time has passed. They have many of the benefits of CFe, being an existing standard in a plastic case, but there's no movement on the standard, and CFe Type A now has a decent performance advantage on the (unreleased) v3.0 cards, with 2GB/s vs 1.2GB/s. It would require a bigger push than I can imagine from Nintendo, particularly as the only thing they'd need to do with CFe is get a manufacturing partner on board to have reasonably-priced branded cards available at launch.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that Sandisk, who have traditionally been Nintendo's partner on these cards, don't currently sell CFe Type A cards, despite being probably the biggest manufacturers of Type B cards. This means there wouldn't be any conflict of selling low-margin cards to Nintendo customers while trying to keep selling high margin cards to pro photographers. They could enter the Type A market at much lower margins with the guaranteed sales volume to justify it, while still charging crazy mark-up on their Type B line to pros who are willing to pay that much.



This isn't true. They are a "General Member" of the SD Association, which entitles them to use SD cards, but doesn't give them voting rights on specifications.
Click to expand...
But aren't CFexpress Type A cards incredibly expensive? What we don't need is a Vita scenario going on for Nintendo.
 
Just for entertainment ...
The Mediatek Dimensity 9400 seems have an Nvidia GPU on 3nm.

www.digitimes.com

MediaTek to adopt Nvidia GPU in flagship mobile chip

MediaTek is expected to integrate an Nvidia GPU into its next-generation flagship mobile processor as early as 2024, according to industry sources.
www.digitimes.com

www.notebookcheck.net

MediaTek successfully tapes out first 3 nm SoC; renowned leaker says it is the Dimensity 9400

MediaTek has announced that it has successfully manufactured its first-ever 3 nm mobile AP. It is 18% faster than its predecessor and 32% more power efficient. The chip in question will be available commercially in the latter half of 2024.
www.notebookcheck.net www.notebookcheck.net

I don't think Nvidia has even ported their arch to 3nm, but anyway ...
 
Discostew said:
But aren't CFexpress Type A cards incredibly expensive? What we don't need is a Vita scenario going on for Nintendo.
Click to expand...
That's true, but it's also going to be true for ANY format Nintendo goes with. The power consumption is pretty much in line with their other options, the main concern would probably be where to fit it, since it's a non-trivial footprint next to MicroSDe. The problem of course is that MicroSDe... does not presently exist, and CFe Type A does.

It's a rock and a hard place problem. Though, depending on the dimensions of the console, they could go with a New Nintendo 2DS type solution, placing the expandable storage reader right next to the Game Card reader, either stacked or side by side. Still an extremely difficult situation.
 
Concernt said:
That's true, but it's also going to be true for ANY format Nintendo goes with. The power consumption is pretty much in line with their other options, the main concern would probably be where to fit it, since it's a non-trivial footprint next to MicroSDe. The problem of course is that MicroSDe... does not presently exist, and CFe Type A does.

It's a rock and a hard place problem. Though, depending on the dimensions of the console, they could go with a New Nintendo 2DS type solution, placing the expandable storage reader right next to the Game Card reader, either stacked or side by side. Still an extremely difficult situation.
Click to expand...

Do we really need external storage if this thing has 512gb internal storage? What if nintendo goes with a fixed storage this time similar to PS5

Basically we would end installing and uninstalling games
 
P4bl0 said:
Do we really need external storage if this thing has 512gb internal storage? What if nintendo goes with a fixed storage this time similar to PS5
Click to expand...
PS5 has expandable storage, though, even if it didn't support it at launch.

As for myself, I'm using about 300GB on my Nintendo Switch, and while I am probably exceptional, that means I can fit what, my current library and a small handful of next gen games on NG Switch?
 
Thraktor said:
The discussion about expandable storage is definitely more interesting in light of the Matrix demo, as there's no way that's going to run off a 100MB/s MicroSD card. Of course for the demo it would have been running off internal storage, but when you're telling developers that your console is going to be able to pull off the fast asset streaming your competitors can do, they'd be pretty pissed off to later find out it only applies to built-in storage.

The more I think about it, the more sense CFexpress Type A makes. The spec was just updated to support PCIe 4.0, meaning up to 2GB/s read speeds for Type A, with new cards expected next year. The cost to implement from Nintendo is near zero, with it being a straight-forward single-lane PCIe setup. T239 already has PCIe 4.0 lanes to spare, so just wire one up to the card slot and you're done. The cards themselves are just M.2 NVMe drives in a plastic case, so they can rely on existing R&D to drive increased sizes and reduced costs over the generation. It's also, importantly, the only card format faster than 300MB/s that has actually achieved any meaningful market share.

SD Express is dead in the water, with no indication that it will ever see widespread support, given the camera industry has committed strongly to CFe. It's also technically worse than CFe in almost every way. Devices need to support both the old SD modes and SD Express's PCIe interface, which means Nintendo would need to add an extra I/O chip which would add cost and complexity and take up motherboard space. On the card side, this means the SD Express cards need custom controllers, they can't use off-the-shelf NVMe controllers like CFe cards do. This means they're manufactured at far lower volumes, therefore being more expensive, and are made on older manufacturing processes, so they'll consume more power. The only SD Express controller I'm aware of on the market is manufactured on 28nm, while most NVMe controllers are on TSMC's 12nm process, and Samsung's newest entry-level OEM SSD uses a controller manufactured on their 5nm process.

SD Express doesn't even win on backwards compatibility. It breaks compatibility with UHS-II cards, which have been reasonably common in the camera market. This is part of the reason there's no interest in adopting them in that industry. Meanwhile, Sony is shipping cameras with combo CFe Type A & UHS-II SD slots, which have better backwards compatibility with SD cards than an SD Express slot would.

UFS cards would be nice, but I feel like the time has passed. They have many of the benefits of CFe, being an existing standard in a plastic case, but there's no movement on the standard, and CFe Type A now has a decent performance advantage on the (unreleased) v3.0 cards, with 2GB/s vs 1.2GB/s. It would require a bigger push than I can imagine from Nintendo, particularly as the only thing they'd need to do with CFe is get a manufacturing partner on board to have reasonably-priced branded cards available at launch.

Speaking of which, one thing I've noticed is that Sandisk, who have traditionally been Nintendo's partner on these cards, don't currently sell CFe Type A cards, despite being probably the biggest manufacturers of Type B cards. This means there wouldn't be any conflict of selling low-margin cards to Nintendo customers while trying to keep selling high margin cards to pro photographers. They could enter the Type A market at much lower margins with the guaranteed sales volume to justify it, while still charging crazy mark-up on their Type B line to pros who are willing to pay that much.



This isn't true. They are a "General Member" of the SD Association, which entitles them to use SD cards, but doesn't give them voting rights on specifications.
Click to expand...

CFe was something I was looking at back when I made my NVMe suggestion, thought it seemed so cost prohibitive that I had doubts. But I suppose I could see Nintendo working with a partner to drive costs down a little. Or maybe Nintendo don’t care and we’ll all just be buying £200 storage…
 
Cybergatuno said:
I hope so.

I just don't think there will be any new relevant information, in which case it'll be just speculation which we have been doing over here since the articles came out.
And frankly, specially when it comes to hardware, some people here are at least as much creditable IMO.

... unless there is new info ...
Click to expand...
We disclose stuff that was not shared by EG/VGC.
 
NateDrake said:
We disclose stuff that was not shared by EG/VGC.
Click to expand...

aight-yeah.gif
 
Concernt said:
I mean, it's what Xbox does. The cost of doing business (running modern software), unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Tbf in the xbox case that was entirely self-inflcited imo, could've just allowed a plug-in m.2 card but they decided on something proprietary. Nintendo on the other hand is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to next-gen storage.
 
Re: expandable storage. There is no currently cheap option that offers high speed data transfer. You can either have
  1. No expandable storage
  2. Expandable storage that breaks some/many/all games - possibly requiring you to swap games on/off card in order to play them.
  3. Proprietary expandable storage
  4. Fast, non-proprietary storage that is expensive now, but might get cheaper later if Nintendo manages to crack open the market. The c
These are your only options. @Thraktor is trying to game out possibilities for #4.

The issue is that 1) the pro-sumer market got eaten by cell phones, and 2) cell phones stopped offering expandable storage. So while there are a couple of high-speed technologies out there, none of them took off. The people stuck on things that need them really need them, and they're not manufactured in huge quantities. So the markup on them is high.

The question is, which of these semi-failed technologies is Nintendo's best bet for resurrecting. And as a factor in that question - which would manufacturers be able to ramp up production on quickly and cheaply.
 
0
entut1 said:
Does it include anything else besides the BOTW demo running on 4K/60fps through DLSS?
Click to expand...
I don't think he's going to disclose the contents of his podcast that is releasing tomorrow until his podcast releases tomorrow
 
0
rinku said:
Tbf in the xbox case that was entirely self-inflcited imo, could've just allowed a plug-in m.2 card
Click to expand...
Surprisingly... maybe not. Xbox Expandable Storage uses Compact Flash Express, but only cards that have been vetted and "blessed" by Microsoft will actually work without workaround hardware. Thing is, Xbox Storage Storage Expansion Cards are usually cheaper per gigabyte than their non-proprietary lookalikes. A lot cheaper! The vetting and blessing process from Microsoft also makes sure they make thermal contact with the cooling system of the console, which is a plus.

Could they have just gone with an M.2 slot on the back? Given the size of the console... maybe. But maybe not. When Xbox Series X launched, their Expansion Cards had competitive prices next to similarly specced M.2 SSDs. So at launch, there didn't seem to be any benefit to a standard slot for Microsoft, since it wouldn't be cheaper for consumers and it would take up a lot more space inside the console.

Nowadays though? Boy, wouldn't it be nice if they just provided an Expansion Card to M.2 adapter?
 
Cybergatuno said:
A detail that I find odd ...

VGC mentioned the demos were "running on target specs for its next console" and not on final hardware.

If t239 has been tapped out over a year ago, why would they simulate it?
What are those devkits made of?
Click to expand...
This is quite common even post reveal. Although they could and maybe should show things off on real hardware, at the moment the final hardware might still be having its clock speed adjusted, even as production begins, and that happened to Switch, too, so it's nothing to worry about. But what it means is using "real hardware" could give inconsistent performance, while using a simulation (or... emulation) gives you the IDEA of what it's going to be like, but is much easier to work with.
 
fwd-bwd said:
It’s great to see people actively sourcing info, so the following is to continue to conversation and not to discourage anyone from posting content.
  • The Twitter user Connor is not reliable. Z0m3le tested her by feeding her some objectively incorrect info, and she tweeted it out without any vesting or examination.
  • MediaTek and Nvidia collaborated on a Chromebook project with an MT SoC and an NV discrete GPU. There was never an MT SoC with integrated NV GPU cores.
  • MediaTek and Nvidia are collaborating on upcoming automotive SoCs. No one has seen or even leaked these SoCs yet. What’s more, these MT SoCs supposedly will be using Nvidia’s new GPU chiplets, and (you guess it) no one has seen these chiplets either.
  • As oldpuck pointed out, the CPU config suggested by RGT is designed for burst computing on a phone. However for a game console you want sustained performance, therefore the T239 design most likely will perform better in the real world than this imaginary “monstrous” SoC.
  • Dakhil also brought up the important point of 32bit incompatibility.
  • RGT and Notebookcheck are content mills that employ little journalism standards. In this day and age, it’s crucial to be discerning with the source of info. Mis/disinformation paddlers like to sow distrust of journalism/journalists so that they’d be on equal footing with organization/people who do more trustworthy reporting. But we know better.
Click to expand...
Correction, it wasn't me, it was someone else in here that we all know and love, but yes they did that.
 
Concernt said:
That's true, but it's also going to be true for ANY format Nintendo goes with. The power consumption is pretty much in line with their other options, the main concern would probably be where to fit it, since it's a non-trivial footprint next to MicroSDe. The problem of course is that MicroSDe... does not presently exist, and CFe Type A does.

It's a rock and a hard place problem. Though, depending on the dimensions of the console, they could go with a New Nintendo 2DS type solution, placing the expandable storage reader right next to the Game Card reader, either stacked or side by side. Still an extremely difficult situation.
Click to expand...
But still, the price for how much space is on these Type A card is ridiculous for a all-age gaming system that you're also buying games for. Folks would probably rather stick with current microSD as non-runnable storage for Drake games where they'd need to copy to internal.
 
I expect Switch 2 to launch with 128-256GB and UHS SD card reader. The Matrix demo, according to what @Thraktor said, would not be able to run on the SD card but Nintendo would not care much and leave third party developers and users to deal with the issue, just like Asus and Valve currently do.
 
Cybergatuno said:
A detail that I find odd ...

VGC mentioned the demos were "running on target specs for its next console" and not on final hardware.

If t239 was tapped out over a year ago, why would they simulate it?
What are those devkits made of?
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It's a countermeasure to avoid leaks in advance. I must say the final chip remains a mystery, though... It has to be Drake, and these shady rumors about even better ones are unlikely to change that.
 
Cybergatuno said:
A detail that I find odd ...

VGC mentioned the demos were "running on target specs for its next console" and not on final hardware.

If t239 was tapped out over a year ago, why would they simulate it?
What are those devkits made of?
Click to expand...
Well to name a few
  • Security
    • Don't want anyone stealing a devkit
  • Supply
    • At this stage devkits are likely created and shipped per-development team. So it'd critically slow down development for those dev teams (Be it internal or third party) if one of those kits were taken away from them and shown off to run software at Gamescom.
      • Also further makes the security argument better
  • Cost
    • The supply issue could be fixed by just going "Why not make a devkit to show off"...but then that's sort of wasted money and also a security risk as that devkit would have no studio/team to go to immediately...and would be effectively one of a kind in purpose.
 
Discostew said:
I wonder. How much modding work would it take to uncap a Switch game that was forced to limit itself below the Switch's 1080p60 max (720p60 max portable)? Just wondering because what if the Switch 2 could make such modifications if it knew where to look? If it were something simple, like set memory locations in the games, then maybe as part of the system's base FW, it included a list of ALL (or most sought after) current Switch physical game releases. Switch game is loaded, and alterations are made based on the information for that game in the list. FW updates could include more physical games to this list. For digital games and game updates, this information could be downloaded, focusing only on the latest versions and clearing out old versions.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...
I believe Switch emulators employ heuristics to try to find the necessary memory locations automatically, but obviously Nintendo isn't going to have their consoles doing that. I think they'll probably favor developer patches over mods for any actual changes to game files. I don't think they'll include much in the firmware besides a list game IDs (below the first SDK version with full Switch 2 support) that they've tested to be functional at the full clocks for native games.
Discostew said:
But aren't CFexpress Type A cards incredibly expensive? What we don't need is a Vita scenario going on for Nintendo.
Click to expand...
The market that they're targeting is fairly high end. I don't think it's obvious the prices would hold with a more mainstream device using them.
 
Cybergatuno said:
A detail that I find odd ...

VGC mentioned the demos were "running on target specs for its next console" and not on final hardware.

If t239 was tapped out over a year ago, why would they simulate it?
What are those devkits made of?
Click to expand...
"specs" and final hardware are not mutually exclusive. It could have been running on Drake, with non final clocks, that are unlikely to change much. But could be minor adjustments.
 
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