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

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10k said:
Just the way the thread is moving and the rumours swirling around. Plus a couple of discords I'm in.
Click to expand...

Actually, ever since a lot of ReDraketed discussion was spun off in it's own thread, this thread moves considerably slower.

And the mentioned other thread is running in circles already.

So if you have some new stuff, fake or not, post it!
 
Bonejack said:
Actually, ever since a lot of ReDraketed discussion was spun off in it's own thread, this thread moves considerably slower.

And the mentioned other thread is running in circles already.

So if you have some new stuff, fake or not, post it!
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Me every time I check in and there are no new posts here.

remarkably-peaceful-captain-kirk.gif
 
Bonejack said:
Actually, ever since a lot of ReDraketed discussion was spun off in it's own thread, this thread moves considerably slower.

And the mentioned other thread is running in circles already.

So if you have some new stuff, fake or not, post it!
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I dunno stuff that hasn't already been said lol.

  • There's likely a digital-only SKU of Switch 2
  • The current dev kit has a slot that can handle Switch and Switch 2 carts (likely the way 3DS did it with DS)
  • The DLSS version that was running during that matrix demo from Gamecom or whatever was 3.5
  • EPD Tokyo is working on a Donkey Kong game ("not a Country title") and not the Mario vs DK game we just saw as well as a Mario game (duh).
  • RT performance will be better than XSX/PS5 because of Nvidia magic and DLSS (I dunno I'm not a techie)
  • Sounds like they're aiming for a weird launch of May 2024?
 
10k said:
I dunno stuff that hasn't already been said lol.

  • There's likely a digital-only SKU of Switch 2
  • The current dev kit has a slot that can handle Switch and Switch 2 carts (likely the way 3DS did it with DS)
  • The DLSS version that was running during that matrix demo from Gamecom or whatever was 3.5
  • EPD Tokyo is working on a Donkey Kong game ("not a Country title") and not the Mario vs DK game we just saw as well as a Mario game (duh).
  • RT performance will be better than XSX/PS5 because of Nvidia magic and DLSS (I dunno I'm not a techie)
  • Sounds like they're aiming for a weird launch of May 2024?
Click to expand...
Calling BS on point 1, 2, 5 and 6. Point 3 is a safe guess and point 4 has been rumored for years.
 
10k said:
I dunno stuff that hasn't already been said lol.

  • There's likely a digital-only SKU of Switch 2
  • The current dev kit has a slot that can handle Switch and Switch 2 carts (likely the way 3DS did it with DS)
  • The DLSS version that was running during that matrix demo from Gamecom or whatever was 3.5
  • EPD Tokyo is working on a Donkey Kong game ("not a Country title") and not the Mario vs DK game we just saw as well as a Mario game (duh).
  • RT performance will be better than XSX/PS5 because of Nvidia magic and DLSS (I dunno I'm not a techie)
  • Sounds like they're aiming for a weird launch of May 2024?
Click to expand...
I always believed in MonkEPD
 
ILikeFeet said:
after the price increase of the PS5 Digital model, this "rumor" (using that very loosely) makes even less sense
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Sony is all about margins right now and being "premium".

Nintendo is the in the unique situation of getting more of it's revenue from first party than third party and I'm sure they'd love to get 100% cuts of every 1st party game sold digitally.

Maybe the rumour was just something they thought about or prototyped.
 
10k said:
I dunno stuff that hasn't already been said lol.

  • There's likely a digital-only SKU of Switch 2
  • The current dev kit has a slot that can handle Switch and Switch 2 carts (likely the way 3DS did it with DS)
  • The DLSS version that was running during that matrix demo from Gamecom or whatever was 3.5
  • EPD Tokyo is working on a Donkey Kong game ("not a Country title") and not the Mario vs DK game we just saw as well as a Mario game (duh).
  • RT performance will be better than XSX/PS5 because of Nvidia magic and DLSS (I dunno I'm not a techie)
  • Sounds like they're aiming for a weird launch of May 2024?
Click to expand...
Yeah, no.

There's no evidence of any leaks or "strong" potential evidence that turned up on 1, 4, 5, or 6.

#3 (DLSS) is near-certain (99.9%).

#2 is probably a safe bet (BC)

#5 I don't think is technically possible. "Comparable" probably, but not actually better.
 
Hermii said:
Calling BS on point 1, 2, 5 and 6. Point 3 is a safe guess and point 4 has been rumored for years.
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Why would point number 2, the one that relates to BC, be the one you find to be BS


Is the thread back to its extremely annoying doomer phase where people believe there isn’t BC
 
10k said:
Any reasons why?
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Bad reading comprehension on 2. Point 2 sounds reasonable. I thought it said 2 slots.

2 SKUs with 1 digital only was part of the leak that was immediately debunked.

Better RT than Series X/PS5? I don't know. Kinda doubt it.

Launch in may? Could launch any month really. But not a lot of people would know that info.
 
I would not be surprised at all if the Nintendo Switch 2 LITE dropped the card slot AND headphone jack, and came with half the storage. But at launch? It's already going to be BIGGER with reasonable certainty, it's meant to be backwards compatible, about half of all Switch games are sold physically. All digital doesn't make sense at this current moment.
 
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10k said:
Sony is all about margins right now and being "premium".

Nintendo is the in the unique situation of getting more of it's revenue from first party than third party and I'm sure they'd love to get 100% cuts of every 1st party game sold digitally.

Maybe the rumour was just something they thought about or prototyped.
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I still don't think it's worth it just to remove the card reader

maybe if they made a digital-only, docked-only unit
 
pelusilla6 said:
Next year we are getting Switch 2, Ps5Pro and perhaps something from Xbox and Valve (Deck refresh, "same" specs).

Interesing year :)
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Xbox and Deck next year are refreshes with improved wireless capabilities but no performance improvemens. Due to the glut of hardware this and that next year, I think Nintendo will target earlier next year.

No, earlier than that.

Back a bit.

Yep, March.
 
ILikeFeet said:
digital-only, docked-only unit
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CALCIO LIVES! CALCIO. LIVES!

At launch I expect they wouldn't DARE complicate things beyond the one unit and storage quantity. I think a digital only set-top box is possible next year, but if it happens it'll be the OG Nintendo Switch repackaged, like how Wii Mini and New Nintendo 2DS XL came out after their successors and stripped key features. (With the Wii Mini being PHYSICAL only, no Wii Shop Channel support.)
 
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Hermii said:
8nm will absolutely hold back performance. Were talking about double/ twice the performance per watt, you cant compensate fully by reducing battery life. The hotter it gets, the more cooling it needs too so it gets bigger/ bulkier.

And its definitely possible Samsung gave them an amazing deal. But the question remains: Why design a custom 12SM soc on that node?
Click to expand...

Ultimately, the only real and sensible way 8nm happens for Drake is if the system is a docked only device.

In other words, I’m fairly confident in saying Drake is NOT 8nm.
 
Concernt said:
Xbox and Deck next year are refreshes with improved wireless capabilities but no performance improvemens. Due to the glut of hardware this and that next year, I think Nintendo will target earlier next year.

No, earlier than that.

Back a bit.

Yep, March.
Click to expand...
The Xbox refresh might happen, but the Steam Deck? Ehhhhhhhh, I've got my doubts.

It seems like Valve is doing gradual improvements with the device instead of one-massive dump of changes like the other refreshes we know and tolerate. Of course they'll have that big Steam Deck 2 (Decker), but Valve just doesn't seem to be the type to do something like how the other console developers are handling it. We actually saw this recently when Valve potentially stealth-updating the Deck to Wifi 6E
Also need to reiterate... Handheld Computer. Not a console. Different markets, different sensibilities.
 
I don't see Nintendo making a digital-only SKU of the next Switch since I don't think the minor benefit of encouraging digital purchases is going to offset the following issues:
  • The physical footprint of a card reader isn't large enough to noticeably affect the device form factor, and so both SKUs will be very similar in appearance. This poses a problem for marketing when trying to differentiate the two products since the card reader is largely invisible to begin with.
  • The pricing of the SKUs need to justify the existence of multiple SKUs, but it's extremely difficult to convince consumers that the digital-only should cost less and the physical should cost more when they both look and function identically.
  • The inevitable flood of complaints that will arise when somebody buys a digital-only SKU but expected to be able to play a physical copy. While stupid consumers doing stupid consumer things is going to happen regardless, having multiple SKUs provides additional possibilities for these people to shoot themselves in the foot.
Nintendo is currently hosting in-store demos of Super Mario Wonder that isn't available digitally, and these stores are generally going to be selling physical copies of games over digital redemption codes. They do value having a physical presence, so I don't think they'll find a digital-only SKU to be compelling enough to overcome the problems and complexities that having multiple largely identical SKUs introduces.
 
InsaneZero said:
The inevitable flood of complaints that will arise when somebody buys a digital-only SKU but expected to be able to play a physical copy. While stupid consumers doing stupid consumer things is going to happen regardless, having multiple SKUs provides additional possibilities for these people to shoot themselves in the foot.
Click to expand...
Considering the bulk of casual consumers that buy Nintendo systems, I can see this happening.
 
InsaneZero said:
I don't see Nintendo making a digital-only SKU of the next Switch since I don't think the minor benefit of encouraging digital purchases is going to offset the following issues:
  • The physical footprint of a card reader isn't large enough to noticeably affect the device form factor, and so both SKUs will be very similar in appearance. This poses a problem for marketing when trying to differentiate the two products since the card reader is largely invisible to begin with.
  • The pricing of the SKUs need to justify the existence of multiple SKUs, but it's extremely difficult to convince consumers that the digital-only should cost less and the physical should cost more when they both look and function identically.
  • The inevitable flood of complaints that will arise when somebody buys a digital-only SKU but expected to be able to play a physical copy. While stupid consumers doing stupid consumer things is going to happen regardless, having multiple SKUs provides additional possibilities for these people to shoot themselves in the foot.
Nintendo is currently hosting in-store demos of Super Mario Wonder that isn't available digitally, and these stores are generally going to be selling physical copies of games over digital redemption codes. They do value having a physical presence, so I don't think they'll find a digital-only SKU to be compelling enough to overcome the problems and complexities that having multiple largely identical SKUs introduces.
Click to expand...
Super Mario Wonder is available digitally in all markets where Nintendo eShop is available*. In any market without Nintendo eShop, they wouldn't launch a digital only model.


*except China.
 
SoldierDelta said:
Considering the bulk of casual consumers that buy Nintendo systems, I can see this happening.
Click to expand...
I expect Nintendo customer support to already have their hands full at launch with people that try to run Switch 2 games on the original, so the possibility of a digital-only SKU would be maddening if I were in their position.
 
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Concernt said:
Super Mario Wonder is available digitally in all markets where Nintendo eShop is available*. In any market without Nintendo eShop, they wouldn't launch a digital only model.


*except China.
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I was referring specifically to the demo rather than the actual game itself.
 
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can i make a discord chat with only myself in it and tell myself rumors/leaks i made up, then bring them here to say i got 'em from some secret discord too?
 
idk #5 sounds reasonable to me. AMD sucks RT performance on their GPUs are mega doo doo. Nvidia is on another dimension with theirs.
 
Hello all! It's been a while since I last posted here on...April 16th, wow. With the split of the Switch 2 speculation threads I'm feeling a little more confident to hop back in and catch up on some technical discussion with some kind and knowledgeable folks.

I'd hate to be yet another person asking for a recap on what I've missed since I've been gone for the last ~6 months, but have there been any informative threadmarks since that time frame? I at least read Dakhil's OP (and again, thanks again for keeping track of all the relevant news and rumors!), so I'm understanding the confidence in 12GB of RAM for the console. I'm assuming the thread is at least feeling fairly optimistic about the known specs so far?

Everyone here is just discussing their reasoning of what the nm size of the SoC could be and the clock speeds based on necessary efficiencies, yeah? Anything else that's still relatively unknown?
 
FireGrey said:
Something else to keep in mind is that they’re likely not going to target 4k60 but rather 4k30 most of the time.
We’ve seen with most console games that 30fps is the target with some having “performance modes” with 60fps.
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Lower framerates would be bad because the lower the framerate the more noticeable the input latency from DLSS becomes. I'd rather have 1080p60fps than 4k30fps.
 
Any chances of Nintendo adopting a different audio protocol instead of using Bluetooth?

Maybe integrated RF or something? I would love to use wireless headsets but not Bluetooth ones.
 
TomNookYankees said:
Lower framerates would be bad because the lower the framerate the more noticeable the input latency from DLSS becomes. I'd rather have 1080p60fps than 4k30fps.
Click to expand...
I too prefer 1080p 60fps for all games if it is possible, im not much or a graphical guy so if you give me performace and better resolution than we have now (is pretty ok for me tbh) im more than happy
 
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I've been thinking, if it's really possible to run Ray Tracing and DLSS in parallel to the shader cores, maybe the real performance of NG will be much greater than we imagine.
Imagine running a game at 720@60 internally, and being able to upscale each frame to 4K and even add Ray tracing, spending up to 16.6ms, without any performance cost, costing only latency, which would reduce the game's responsiveness to what it would be if it were running at 30FPS, but the fluidity of movement would remain as 60FPS.
 
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LinkURL said:
I'm thinking, we know that the cost of DLSS scales with the output resolution, so regardless of the internal resolution the cost will always be the same.
Basically using the ultra performance mode from 720p > 2160p costs the same as upscaling from 1800p > 2160p.
But why does it have to be like this?
Ok, on the PC we have a standardization of the algorithm. But perhaps it wouldn't be possible, on customized hardware, to have an algorithm in which the developer could choose the quality of the upscaling? In order to better balance and find a sweet spot between internal resolution / output resolution / cost in milliseconds?
Let's say in a hypothetical scenario, a lighter game, a developer is getting 1440@70 consistently before DLSS, but for the costs associated with upscaling to 4K using DLSS would be a performance loss, but at the same time you are basically leaving part of the silicon in the console unused.
Why not have the option of spending those extra 2.38ms you're getting, and being able to reach 4K, even though with an upscaling that's not as good as the standard performance mode, but which at least delivers extra quality practically for free.
Click to expand...
It doesn't have to be as complicated as needing a new lighter version of DLSS. If you're willing to settle for "4K but less good", you can...
*Instead DLSS to 1600p or 1800p or whatever you can afford and let the system's default scaler take it the rest of the way. End result: a 4K image that looks less good.
*If pre-DLSS your game is 1440p and can't afford the 4K upscale, you take it down to 1260p or something and see if you can afford the 4K DLSS now. End result: a 4K image that looks less good.
 
ILikeFeet said:
after the price increase of the PS5 Digital model, this "rumor" (using that very loosely) makes even less sense
Click to expand...
Technically, it's no longer a digital model.
It is the standard one and you can stick a blu-ray drive on it at any time.

Doesn't make a digital only switch more likely tho. Unless you consider that the industry as a whole is moving towards full digital.
Nintendo is not afraid to remain an outlier, but for how long?
 
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Digital only also means the device better have a large internal storage to start as well as expandability options this costs more money than a standard Switch 2 with a cart slot and less internal storage.

Digital only Switch 2 only works If Nintendo positions the non digital only Switch as more premium and make people pay to have physical BC. Are people prepared to pay $50 extra for a cart slot and possibly less internal storage out of the box than the Digital edition?

Otherwise the economics of a digital only Switch is the inverse of the PS5 and Series X/S since those have large expensive disc drives being removed resulting in real BoM and shipping savings. A cart slot is a few pennies
 
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10k said:
I dunno stuff that hasn't already been said lol.

  • There's likely a digital-only SKU of Switch 2
  • The current dev kit has a slot that can handle Switch and Switch 2 carts (likely the way 3DS did it with DS)
  • The DLSS version that was running during that matrix demo from Gamecom or whatever was 3.5
  • EPD Tokyo is working on a Donkey Kong game ("not a Country title") and not the Mario vs DK game we just saw as well as a Mario game (duh).
  • RT performance will be better than XSX/PS5 because of Nvidia magic and DLSS (I dunno I'm not a techie)
  • Sounds like they're aiming for a weird launch of May 2024?
Click to expand...
1: Was discussed last week.
3: Was discussed last month
4: Zippo said this weeks ago
5: Was discussed last month
 
Brofield said:
Hello all! It's been a while since I last posted here on...April 16th, wow. With the split of the Switch 2 speculation threads I'm feeling a little more confident to hop back in and catch up on some technical discussion with some kind and knowledgeable folks.
Click to expand...
Welcome back! It really has been... 500+ pages since you hung out here. Woof! It'll be hard for me to remember what's transpired, exactly, though you're probably right to bow out because despite the sound and fury, not much has changed?

The chip is still Drake
Every time reliable hardware detail comes out, it just confirms prior knowledge/speculation about Drake/T239. Most recently, @LiC ran down a rabbit hole of shipping/customs documents, and found records of what are almost certainly devkits being shipped to/from an Nvidia division in India. Dates match the speculated tape-out timeline, explicitly mention T239, and confirm it's memory bus.

The storage is very fast
Multiple reports have come out about fast on-board storage and a new cartridge format. Here is Nate's podcast about loading times in the Gamescom demos. @Thraktor hunted down a candidate for the new cart technology

LCD screen
VGC reported that the device might have a LCD screen instead of an OLED...
Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.


RAM
Nate has said he's gotten conflicting info on RAM but that "8GB is not one of the numbers I've heard." necrolipe, brazilian journalist and now thread semi-regular, has said he's heard 12GB for retail, with 16GB in devkits, matching prior speculation

The Gamescom Demos
VGC, Eurogamer, and Nate (previously linked) all reported on demos from Gamescom. At least one demo ran on "target spec hardware", not a devkit, and the demos were not hands on.

One demo was the Matrix Awakens, running with some kind of ray tracing. Reports have said things like "comparable to Series S" but without further details, it's unclear what that means. Here is a Digital Foundry video that I think dives into that pretty well but it matches "plausible but optimistic" descriptions of what T239 could be capable of that you likely remember

The other demo was a high frame-rate, high-res Breath of the Wild. According to Nate, the primary intent of that demo was to show that loading times have been "erased". Strong support for prior speculation on UFS based storage, and the powers of the File Decompression Engine.

Clock speeds
Not long after you left the thread, @Thraktor did some really smart analysis of power curves. The ultra-short version is that very low clocks on T239 don't make financial sense. This is also considered solid evidence of the process node.

That debate is as ongoing as ever, but the era of arguing that "Nintendo will clock this thing into the ground" is mostly over.

Battery Life
A loooooong while back I was reliably told that Nintendo was shooting for 3-6 hours of battery life. I have no idea if there is another source for that info, but I considered it stale enough for everyone involved to have plausible deniability, so I brought it up. Season that with salt to taste.

Gimmick? Camera?
Nothing about a new control scheme or feature has come out except for some likely-bullshit reports about a camera.

Launch Timing
@fwd-bwd has uncovered "for entertainment purposes only" some Taiwanese investment rags claiming that Foxconn expects manufacturing to happen later this year. They've doubled down on that report as recently as last week.

Nate also heard a context-less "March" rumor. Emphasis on context-less. Could be reveal, could be an internal deadline, could be just rumblings in as much as we have any info on it whatsoever.

I think that's the highlights?
 
FernandoRocker said:
Any chances of Nintendo adopting a different audio protocol instead of using Bluetooth?

Maybe integrated RF or something? I would love to use wireless headsets but not Bluetooth ones.
Click to expand...
Not very likely, considering the other wireless audio codecs (e.g. aptX, LDAC, etc.) are proprietary and requires Nintendo to pay royalty fees.
 
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