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

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D36 said:
This is a sound argument, but the real issue lies in the long term. What happens when a system's respective storefront shuts down permanently? We've already seen examples with the Wii Shop, PSN, and the upcoming 360 store. We have no guarantee that these current storefronts will stick around for years to come. Perhaps this all-digital future will ensure that they don't shutdown after a decade and they stick around and form an ecosystem that transcends console generations. Until that becomes a guaranteed reality, I wouldn't put too stick to digital only, regardless of how enticing it may be.

At least there's still a market for physical and I don't see that going away anytime soon.
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What is shocking to me is that Sony and Microsoft seem to be signaling that the physical market is not just dwindling, but an albatross support wise.

Which if that's what the data shows, so be it; however, I wonder what their retail relationship will be once they have units w/o disk drives as the only devices on shelves. Today Microsoft and Sony enjoy about 16 to 24 feet of retail space for games in big box retailers and another 8 to 12 for consoles and accessories. Do Sony and Microsoft provide retailers with enough margin on hardware/accessories to keep stocking consoles w/o games? Sony doesn't offer game cards at all and today Microsofts game cards fit in 4 feet of space.

They can and do of course offer their own storefronts, but is that sufficient?
 
NintenDuvo said:
I honestly don't care for anymore specs or game leaks, someone PLEASE leak when this mystery device is getting announced
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I can leak that the announcement of the device wont be leaked ;-)

Social Media Blast -> Hardware Announcement Trailer -> Software Announcement Direct

This structure (used for the Switch) means the ability for marketing and partner leaks is limited, if not non-existent, prior to the announcement trailer.
 
Giancarlo said:
is not pessimism, is realism, we been realistic, we know for severals reasons, third parties refuse to release it games on Nintendo consoles(someone paying to not bring the game, Nintendo consoles been underpowered compared to it competitors, concept/gimmicks for it consoles, that disgust third parties)
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Good Lord... Compared to Wii/Wii U, Switch has had a generous and healthy flow of third-party support. Switch even got games(miracle ports) no one would have ever even fathomed. With the leaks we've had, it's pretty safe to say the hardware for the Switch successor will be pretty impressive in comparison to the Switch. Also add in the fact that the Switch name is pretty much a household name at this point and its install base is 130 million+. If Nintendo plays their cards right, which seems to be the case as of now, the Switch successor will be a successful platform with impressive third-party support, even more so than the original Switch.
 
Foltzie said:
What is shocking to me is that Sony and Microsoft seem to be signaling that the physical market is not just dwindling, but an albatross support wise.

Which if that's what the data shows, so be it; however, I wonder what their retail relationship will be once they have units w/o disk drives as the only devices on shelves. Today Microsoft and Sony enjoy about 16 to 24 feet of retail space for games in big box retailers and another 8 to 12 for consoles and accessories. Do Sony and Microsoft provide retailers with enough margin on hardware/accessories to keep stocking consoles w/o games? Sony doesn't offer game cards at all and today Microsofts game cards fit in 4 feet of space.

They can and do of course offer their own storefronts, but is that sufficient?
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I've also been wondering that. Are the profit margins for digital sales enough to make a digital only market sustainable?
 
TheSentry said:
For what it’s worth, Nintendo has been using cartridges for portable hardware since the original Gameboy and has been using ARM on their portable devices since GBA. And most portable battery efficiency focused devices have used ARM.

I think if the Switch had been exclusively a home console they would have used disc too.

I love Nintendo but I don’t think they deserve particular praise for these hardware choices. I think it’s what most hardware developers would do. PSVita even used ARM and cartridges.
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But it’s not. That’s the point. And the point about all portables using ARM, that’s moot. It’s like saying all phones in the 90s can make calls. None of them phones are like the smartphones we have today.

Why did the Switch become a hybrid in 2017? Why not earlier? Why not during the GameCube era??? Why wasn’t the Vita dockable?

And the SteamDeck exists. The Ally whatever exists. They are not using ARM. It’s really not “what most hardware developers would do”. Tell that to Valve and Lenovo. Yes, the cartridge stuff came with the portable side of things, but once again, it was the right decision, as you can see now that CDs are on its way out. With that said, the PSP used a disc, so it’s not as given as you think it is. And the cartridge on Switch isn’t the same as its use on the Vita. This is a home console using a cartridge. They basically went against what is typical/standard with the current home console.

This has been said many times. I’m not the first to say this. Nintendo jumped on the opportunity when ARM became powerful enough to be able to be used as a console. That is foresight that these other companies do not have. This is before Apple did it with their laptops.

They are also going to be the first console manufacturer to have hardware-accelerated AI upscaling. You can see it as ”market forces”, but it’s also their conscious decision to do these things. The Switch didn’t need to be a hybrid. The next one doesn’t need to use DLSS, but it will. These are the results of their decisions with their partners. They have been very forward thinking esp with the Switch.
 
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qwerp said:
Digital market share continues to increase per generation. By Switch 4, they could do an all digital console easily. It would be the standard.
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The shares increase but there is little reason for Nintendo to go all digital currently. For instance take JP where if the split is 40/60 then they are needlessly cutting mindshare & sales for no reason. Add onto the fact that they haven’t taken steps to be a fully digital company yet; signals they view retail as an important aspect of the company still.
Danny said:
But even with digital games discounts starts happening when the sales of the different games starts to plummet. Only Nintendo seems reluctant to have more regular price cuts on their digital storefronts.
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Nintendo does plenty of sales for their games over the years. This is not including things like the voucher either now. Where they are reluctant is permanent price cuts which shouldn’t shock anyone due to their software philosophy: premium games at premium prices. Once they start dropping prices permanently it’s hard to get people to be untrained from that.
 
ReyVGM said:
They will.

So far Nintendo has always followed a successful system with a system using the same nomenclature as the one before it.
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This requires arguing that the SNES, N64, GBA, and 3DS were not successful.
seyfeselassie said:
Hey, new to the forum but I've been following this thread for a while. I've been seeing the idea of UFS proprietary storage cards for the Switch 2 floating around.
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Not proprietary. They're a standard format, just one that wasn't successful in the marketplace.

seyfeselassie said:
Is there a read/write speed advantage that proprietary cards have over microSD cards?
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Yes, a massive one. That's why it gets brought up - the "instant loading" that was demoed at Gamescom isn't going to be possible with a standard microSD card.

seyfeselassie said:
I'd also be pretty worried about the availability and price of these cards, especially with what happened with the Vita.
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Yeah, it's a serious concern. It's why the thread has gone round and round on storage. There is no solution that is fast, user friendly, and common.

There are standards for super fast memory cards. UFS is one of them. But because phones basically stopped offering card slots, the market for super fast memory cards never materialized. The argument for something like UFS is that, because it is standard, and built on top of common technologies, that many companies could start making them, driving the price down.
 
I’m on the “Nintendo 2Switch” camp as the most Nintendo they can do

But since management has changed, maybe it’ll be something clear and concise, like the Lite:
• Nintendo Switch 2/Duo/II/^2/Second

I’m a sucker for the Nintendo Switch Second because of how it reminds me if the Bravely series naming convention 🤣
 
D36 said:
I've also been wondering that. Are the profit margins for digital sales enough to make a digital only market sustainable?
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I assume that the margin on software codes is the same %30 as boxed software.

Hardware itself was lower at around %5 and accessories higher around %30 too.

Maybe it works fine, just with less floor space. After all most box places sell tablets with no ability to sell software to those customers.
 
Multiverse said:
This has been said many times. I’m not the first to say this. Nintendo jumped on the opportunity when ARM became powerful enough to be able to be used as a console. That is foresight that these other companies do not have. This is before Apple did it with their laptops.
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Not to downplay Nintendo, but it's not the same to decide to put ARM on a tablet that can dock to a TV that to migrate an entire computing platform to ARM. Also, Microsoft and PlayStation 100% have been experimenting with ARM in the background no doubt.
 
oldpuck said:
There are standards for super fast memory cards. UFS is one of them. But because phones basically stopped offering card slots, the market for super fast memory cards never materialized. The argument for something like UFS is that, because it is standard, and built on top of common technologies, that many companies could start making them, driving the price down.
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It's a bit unweildy but if they go with this format I feel like the solution would be expandable storage + microSD support for fridge management.

Nintendo can use their presence at retail to push these UFS cards into stores, but I think they will keep the microSD especially if BC is a thing and just to give people an add on storage solution where they can x'fer games into the internal memory as needed, with the internally memory itself being expandable.
 
Physical copies will always be a thing. They’ll need a tight inventory, possibly behaving like the early Amiibo days: scarcity
 
Multiverse said:
Why did the Switch become a hybrid in 2017? Why not earlier? Why not during the GameCube era??? Why wasn’t the Vita dockable?
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Fun fact, there was something like a GameCube hybrid planned, revealed in the gigaleak



I think something like this has been in various stages of prototyping since the Super Game Boy days. I'm glad we finally got to see it in action once Nvidia produced a sufficiently powered ARM chip.
 
Dekuman said:
It's a bit unweildy but if they go with this format I feel like the solution would be expandable storage + microSD support for fridge management.

Nintendo can use their presence at retail to push these UFS cards into stores, but I think they will keep the microSD especially if BC is a thing and just to give people an add on storage solution where they can x'fer games into the internal memory as needed, with the internally memory itself being expandable.
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I'm gonna be controversial and say fridging is worse than proprietary solutions. at least with proprietary solutions, you still have immediate access to your games rather than having to wait to transfer shit. and lord help you if you're trying to tranfer shit when your fridge is already fill

thankfully, Nintendo won't go for proprietary solutions, and I still think SD card as a slow alternative is still on the table. if they went with UFS, they can make the slot support both, if they went with type a CFe, then they can make a type a card an SD card reader
 
Νεφέλωμα said:
Not to downplay Nintendo, but it's not the same to decide to put ARM on a tablet that can dock to a TV that to migrate an entire computing platform to ARM. Also, Microsoft and PlayStation 100% have been experimenting with ARM in the background no doubt.
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What do you think every Switch games are running on? All 12,000 plus games. Are Switch games considered software?

Is there a secret Nintendo game developed for x86 or have they moved their entire development pipeline and studios to ARM? That’s the big question. This is definitely not a huge and risky thing at all.
 
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Dekuman said:
It's a bit unweildy but if they go with this format I feel like the solution would be expandable storage + microSD support for fridge management.

Nintendo can use their presence at retail to push these UFS cards into stores, but I think they will keep the microSD especially if BC is a thing and just to give people an add on storage solution where they can x'fer games into the internal memory as needed, with the internally memory itself being expandable.
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I dunno, I think the messaging here risks getting confusing. I think the nonexistent market for UFS cards is actually a benefit in the sense that customers know that if they buy one, it is a simple upgrade to Switch's storage, no need to think about speeds and grades or any of that stuff. Or cold storage and moving games around.

Also, yeah, the pricing will probably suck but it's probably gonna be a one time purchase. For people who already buy a lot of games. I don't think it's that big of a deal?
 
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Dekuman said:
It's a bit unweildy but if they go with this format I feel like the solution would be expandable storage + microSD support for fridge management.

Nintendo can use their presence at retail to push these UFS cards into stores, but I think they will keep the microSD especially if BC is a thing and just to give people an add on storage solution where they can x'fer games into the internal memory as needed, with the internally memory itself being expandable.
Click to expand...

If Nintendo is using UFS cards, I would bet dollars to donughts it's going to be a proprietary set up like the Vita had, except Nintendo has a reasonable reason for doing so (ensuring high speed, no one else is really making UFS cards either). But that will also ensure every retailer carrying a Switch 2 also sells the cards so there's no issue of "will retailers stock this type of card". It'll just be a Switch 2 accessorie sitting next to the Joycons or how Sony and Nintendo Memory Cards used to sit next to the PS2 and GameCube. There will no confusion about compatibility because well it'll be the "official" memory card for the system.

And of course, there's that little bonus of Nintendo being able to pocket the profits from such a format all to themselves ... if you sell 100 million of these cards at $10-$15 profit margin per card ... that's not a bad chunk of change at all.
 
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Multiverse said:
What do you think every Switch games are running on? All 12,000 plus games. Are Switch games considered software?

Is there a secret Nintendo game developed for x86 or have they moved the entire development pipeline and studios to ARM? That’s the big question. This is definitely not a huge and risky thing at all. Not similar at all.

“ARM on a tablet that can dock to a TV” 💀🤣
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In all honesty I don't think Nintendo really did any of that stuff to be a visionary. They had no choice. The Wii U flopped, they had no real way of going forward with stationary home consoles, and there were basically only like 1-2 options for a mobile chip that was powerful enough to run Wii U games like BoTW at the time.

The Tegra X1, the Snapdragon equivalent, and Apple's A9X basically, I believe all are ARM based.

As for cartridges, every portable system basically used cart/card format aside from the PSP. The Game Gear had carts. The Neo Geo Pocket had carts. The Vita even used carts. The PSP is basically the only exception and frankly that was actually kind of a neat engineering feat they pulled off allowing a fairly compact device to have a mini-disc format like that.
 
Machrider said:
In all honesty I don't think Nintendo really did any of that stuff to be a visionary. They had no choice. The Wii U flopped, they had no real way of going forward with stationary home consoles, and there were basically only like 1-2 options for a mobile chip that was powerful enough to run Wii U games like BoTW at the time.

The Tegra X1, the Snapdragon equivalent, and Apple's A9X basically, I believe all are ARM based.

As for cartridges, every portable system basically used cartridges aside from the PSP. The Game Gear had carts. The Neo Geo Pocket had carts. The Vita even used carts. The PSP is basically the only exception.
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Nope, they just chose the best route.

And they are doing it again by sticking with Nvidia. You all saw the AMDs and the Mediatek rumors💀. Those made zero sense, but people still come up with them because it’s not… entirely improbable. The best route is to stick with Nvidia, and they did.
 
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Multiverse said:
Nope, they just chose the best route.

And they are doing it again by sticking with Nvidia. You all saw the AMDs and the Mediatek rumors💀. Those made zero sense. It would if Nintendo was stup!d 💀.
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I mean even that ... there is no choice. An AMD or Mediatek chip wouldn't have backwards compatibility with the Switch 1, which is where that discussion begins and ends.
 
Machrider said:
I mean even that ... there is no choice. An AMD or Mediatek chip wouldn't have backwards compatibility with the Switch 1, which is where that discussion begins and ends.
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The Switch wasn’t backward compatible with the Wii U, but they did it anyway. Let me guess you’re going to response with “there is no choice”.
 
Multiverse said:
The Switch wasn’t backward compatible with the Wii U, but they did it anyway. Let me guess you’re going to response with “they have no choice”.
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I mean they always have a choice, they have a choice of reusing the SNES chipset too. It's just about how plausible that choice is.

Once the Switch sold 70+ million units, the successor was always going to have to have direct backwards compatibility.
 
Machrider said:
I mean they always have a choice, they have a choice of reusing the SNES chipset too. It's just about how plausible that choice is.

Once the Switch sold 70+ million units, the successor was always going to have to have direct backwards compatibility.
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Where’s the backward compatibility for the 3DS which sold 75 million+ units?
 
Multiverse said:
Where’s the backward compatibility for the 3DS which sold 75 million units?
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I should clarify once it hit 70+ million units shipped in like what? Half the time the 3DS did it? And it was clear it was going to top 100+ million life time?

There's no discussion at that point at all. It's Nvidia or nothing barring some kind of situation where Nvidia is being completely unreasonable.
 
As an aside, I've always thought it would have been quite interesting (in terms of "boldness") if Nintendo expanded the concept they had in the 80s in Japan of letting people basically download games from in-store kiosks to the N64 in the 90s.

The N64 badly needed some kind of mass storage format, I've always thought it would have been neat if Nintendo basically sold like a hard drive for the system (proprietary probably, maybe plugging right into the cartridge slot) which could have been like 2GB in size and let people just download games from kiosks that would have been in stores like Blockbuster Video (remember we're talking the 1990s here), 7-11, Toys R' Us, etc.

The N64 probably could've gotten a bunch of PS-Saturn ports that way and this probably would've worked better than the 64DD concept that they never could get off the ground.
 
Giancarlo said:
NVIDIA suffering this, could negatively impact Nintendo next hardware


gameranx.com

Nvidia Offices In France Reportedly Raided By Authorities - Gameranx

French authorities have revealed they raided a graphics card company in a cloud competition investigation. WSJ reports it was Nvidia.
gameranx.com gameranx.com
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I'm sure Nvidia's French cloud division will cause Nintendo great harm. I am now very worried about this. Especially the fact that the article isn't even sure Nvidia were raided at all. Very worrying! Nintendoomed??
 
Giancarlo said:
NVIDIA suffering this, could negatively impact Nintendo next hardware


gameranx.com

Nvidia Offices In France Reportedly Raided By Authorities - Gameranx

French authorities have revealed they raided a graphics card company in a cloud competition investigation. WSJ reports it was Nvidia.
gameranx.com gameranx.com
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It's only one office in France that has been raided by French competition authority over "anti-competitive practices regarding the cloud computing and AI chip markets".

This wouldn't impact Nintendo at all...nor the total operation of Nvidia.
 
Multiverse said:
What even is that? How is it “a big deal”?
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Gorilla Tag is one of the biggest VR exclusives of the last couple years. Many players, a popular game to stream, I believe is the most-reviewed game on the Quest store, and has a bunch of lower-rent copycats. And looks like this.
eXFFuwP.jpg

Danny said:
Can you see any logical reason why Ubisoft is planning day and date releases of brand new games such as Far cry 7 to the Switch 2 while Japanese third party developers can't even be bothered to work on ports of old PS4 games to the Switch 2?
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Sales expectations higher for new game than for old port?
 
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Here is FSR3 on the ROG Ally, it is able to take a game that runs at about 32-40 fps only over 80 fps.



I have to wonder what the input lag is like.

To be honest I don't think you need to do something crazy like 30 fps to 100 fps ... that's not really that useful for a device like the Switch 2. 30 fps to even 45 or 60 fps would be a big difference maker.

I wonder if Nintendo or Nvidia can sort of study what FSR3 does and incorporate that into something for the Switch 2 with DLSS.
 
Serif said:
Fun fact, there was something like a GameCube hybrid planned, revealed in the gigaleak



I think something like this has been in various stages of prototyping since the Super Game Boy days. I'm glad we finally got to see it in action once Nvidia produced a sufficiently powered ARM chip.
Click to expand...


Nintendo totally should've done this back then. Because the GameCube being $199.99 was kind of pointless, if they could've made a some kind of mobile version of it for even $350, it likely would've sold a lot better.
 
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Machrider said:
Here is FSR3 on the ROG Ally, it is able to take a game that runs at about 32-40 fps only over 80 fps.



I have to wonder what the input lag is like.

To be honest I don't think you need to do something crazy like 30 fps to 100 fps ... that's not really that useful for a device like the Switch 2. 30 fps to even 45 or 60 fps would be a big difference maker.

I wonder if Nintendo or Nvidia can sort of study what FSR3 does and incorporate that into something for the Switch 2 with DLSS.
Click to expand...


I mean, they could just literally use FSR3, lol.

If Xenoblade 4 runs at 20 FPS and using FSR3 can bring it up to 30 without being horrible... Maybe.
 
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