LiC
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Makes sense. And in that case the articles are for a niche that isn't relevant to the technology or market question as it pertains to Nintendo, so the author's opinions are still not really relevant to us.
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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)
- Thread starter Dakhil
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What about
Best hybrid now even better, Nintendo games being able to look like the competition when it comes to graphics, more 3rd party games than ever being day and date. Oh and all those old Switch games, they will run and look better.
Raccoon
Fox Brigade
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meaningless
not true
probably yeah
if this turns out to be the case then yeah I'd agree it's a solid selling point. sort of like a Switch Pro in the potential absence of anything that sets it apart
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I think there will be a new hook of some sort but I don't think there needs to be one.
The concept of the hybrid works and the Nintendo games provide the selling power. The majority of people buying the Switch 2 won't give a shit that it's the worst of the high powered hybrids or the worst of the home consoles in terms of power. They'll see a Nintendo Handheld/Console that can play their favourite games and they'll get it.
Danny
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The whole Nintendo EPD with all its separate divisions have about 700-800 developers. So Nintendo as it is currently sized aren't sized to make that kind of super big AAA games like other major game companies do. They are scaled to work on multiple smaller/medium size titles at the same time. I mean the big fidelity AAA games take about 300 dev teams working on that game pretty much for years, that is half the whole Nintendo EPD.
Neoxon
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The PS5 & XSX|S have dedicated RT cores, it’s just that AMD is behind Nvidia when it comes to ray-tracing.
John Omaha
Moblin
No, I totally got what you were saying. My point is that to make a meaningful comparison in the first place, the games' graphical styles need to be at least somewhat similar. The art direction in your average Nintendo first party game is so different from that of high-end games aiming to push the PS5 and Xbox Series that they're hard to compare unless you get really technical.
And terms of lighting, which is one of the few areas you can compare fairly objectively regardless of art style, Nintendo may actually be ahead of everyone else thanks to Nvidia's tech.
FireGrey
Rattata
Nintendo of America President: “Everyone Has the Right To Form a Union”
Inverse sat down with Doug Bowser to talk about the release of 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder,' the future of the Nintendo Switch, and the state of the industry.
Interesting comment from Doug Bowser emphasising Nintendo Accounts in the transition to next gen, digital BC?
“Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say — on the rumors that are out there. But one thing we've done with the Switch to help with that communication and transition is the formation of the Nintendo Account. In the past, every device we transitioned to had a whole new account system. Creating the Nintendo Account will allow us to communicate with our players if and when we make a transition to a new platform, to help ease that process or transition.”
EdFiftyNine
Switch 2 hype recharged
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Nintendo of America President: “Everyone Has the Right To Form a Union”
Inverse sat down with Doug Bowser to talk about the release of 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder,' the future of the Nintendo Switch, and the state of the industry.www.inverse.com
Interesting comment from Doug Bowser emphasising Nintendo Accounts in the transition to next gen, digital BC?
“Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say — on the rumors that are out there. But one thing we've done with the Switch to help with that communication and transition is the formation of the Nintendo Account. In the past, every device we transitioned to had a whole new account system. Creating the Nintendo Account will allow us to communicate with our players if and when we make a transition to a new platform, to help ease that process or transition.”
I think that’s as close to a confirmation of BC as we’ll get prior to an actual hardware reveal. Obviously he hasn’t actually confirmed BC, but what else would be the point in having such an emphasis on the Nintendo Account —your friends list moves over with you?
lemonfresh
#Team2024
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but what does xbox era have to say about it
SoldierDelta
Designated Xenoblade Loremaster
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Agreed. BC is basically all but guaranteed then.
There's still some specifics to be ironed out (namely about how Backwards compatibility will be done and if there's going to be upgrades between systems) but other than that... pretty much no reason to discuss it any further.
That or Doug is hinting at moving on from Friend Codes for some reason, which I'd gladly take at this point.
Samuspet
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This is exactly why I can foresee people being letdown in terms of visuals by a lot of Switch 2 games. Nintendo will continue to use their art direction to carry them but now their games will have great image quality aswell as better textures, lighting and techniques like rt to aid that art direction.
I expect them to use a lot of the extra compute to expand geometry rather than pure fidelity of the visuals exactly because of the manpower it takes to make modern AAA games. 3D Zelda is perhaps the only game I could see them pushing the boat out for in this regard.
darthdiablo
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Hosermess
Koopa
Nintendo of America President: “Everyone Has the Right To Form a Union”
Inverse sat down with Doug Bowser to talk about the release of 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder,' the future of the Nintendo Switch, and the state of the industry.
Interesting comment from Doug Bowser emphasising Nintendo Accounts in the transition to next gen, digital BC?
“Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say — on the rumors that are out there. But one thing we've done with the Switch to help with that communication and transition is the formation of the Nintendo Account. In the past, every device we transitioned to had a whole new account system. Creating the Nintendo Account will allow us to communicate with our players if and when we make a transition to a new platform, to help ease that process or transition.”
They're really overselling the Nintendo Account thing. But seeing as that's really the only thing they can currently talk about in public, it makes sense why they always bring it up.
Laughed a little after he corrected himself "Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say" - High level CEO speak right there.
Danny
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It could very well be that the main improvement on the Switch 2 compared to Switch 1 will be FPS and image quality, textures etc, not that the games in themselves will be on a whole new AAA level compared to the Switch games. Just that the games will look cleaner and run better. I don't imagine that Nintendo will start making Last of us type games on the Switch 2 any time soon.
John Omaha
Moblin
Are they really that small? For comparison, Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica each have about 400 employees.
The 700 number is from 2019, I would be surprised if they had only grown by about 100 employees since then.
Adulfzen
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this talk about Nintendo making the same looking games but with better framerate and IQ is a bit of nonsense when whenever they have had more power available their games visuals have improved significantly to reflect that.
Stylized artstyles have nothing to do with how far you can push your geometry, lighting and rendering techniques.
Stylized artstyles have nothing to do with how far you can push your geometry, lighting and rendering techniques.
Thraktor
"[✄]. [✄]. [✄]. [✄]." -Microsoft
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Yeah, the C10 and U3 marks are redundant by this stage, but still exist on a lot of cards alongside V30/V60/etc. for reasons I don't fully understand. They might be mandated by the SD association, I'm not sure. They're all focussed on sustained writes, which is important for photography, but not really relevant for use in a console like the Switch. Camera manufacturers often recommend V60 or V90 cards for specific high bitrate video modes, or high fps continuous shooting, but for a console high write speeds really aren't that important.
Danny
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Yeah its hard to know the exact size today, we know that Nintendo have expanded pretty significantly in the last few years but its hard to know exactly how many of those hired are devs for EPD teams or doing other kinds of jobs at Nintendo.
But then again Nintendo do have access to other devs separate from Nintendo EPD, i mean Monolith and other smaller studios can help Nintendo EPD studios make games so the overall devs available for Nintendo EPD studios are more than that 800 figure just by that fact alone. But still its unlikely that Nintendo EPD are big enough to make super high fidelity AAA games because that would mean that they would have to commit too much resources for that game alone while Nintendo wants their EPD teams to make multiple new games at the same time.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Manakete
Significantly improved texture quality and IQ will make the Switch 2's visuals feel like a big leap. Nintendo's games look very good, but are blurry in general and have some very blurry spots (due to very low res textures).
darthdiablo
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Exactly. I have a 1-TB "U1" (which implies writing speed between 10MB/s to 30MB/s), which is fine because the card had 120 MB/s read speed (faster than Switch's 95 MB/s). The vast majority of time, the card is used for reading, not writing. The card isn't used for saving either (saves go to Switch 1 internal storage), so about the only time writes occur to the card is when game(s) is being downloaded to it.
Danny
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But this discussion is more of a manpower issue than a hardware issue, sure the hardware is clearly going to be capable of being a massive improvement over Switch games. But will the manpower Nintendo have available mean that in many instances the quality jump won't be that massive? We aren't going to see Nintendo make super high fidelity ultra realistic games like Sony does even though Nintendo would clearly have the hardware to do that, but its not in Nintendo's strategy to commit 300 devs for such a project over a few years time when they can instead make a few solid smaller games with smaller dev teams working on those projects instead.
So yes i do think that the most noticeable improvement Switch 2 games will have over Switch 1 games will be much better FPS performances and IQ.
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Thanks, I was just about to ask
Seeing multiple comments about how it won't be powerful enough to run RT had me going "wait, coulda sworn Drake has actual RT cores"
Goodtwin
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I have been of this opinion since they first started talking about Nintendo Accounts and the importance of them for the transition to the next gen hardware. Having a your username and friends list carry over isn't of significance. That isn't something that carriers much weight with consumers. Compare that to consumers learning that their entire Switch library of games will not carry over to the new hardware. Now that is something could cause many user to give pause on if or when they will purchase the new hardware. By comparison, consumers learning that their library of games will be coming with them will incentivize them to upgrade to new hardware sooner rather than later or potentially never. I have yet to hear a good argument for Nintendo Accounts making any significant difference on transitioning customers to new hardware unless their library of games comes with them. Especially now that its basically industry standard. PS4 plays PS4 games and the Series consoles play Xbox One games. When your two primary competitors are offering backwards compatibility, it makes it stand out even more if you do not.
D
Deleted member 887
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Not to knock on you, just using your post as a springboard - but this has nothing to do with BC, and I see it brought up all the time.
Bowser is an exec signalling to investors, not gamers when he says stuff like this. "A smooth transition" has diddly to do with people who already are buying a Switch 2. He's talking about using the accounts system as a way to directly market to customers and convince them to Switch. He tells you directly:
You're going to get an email when the new Switch comes out. You're going to get alerted when you boot up your Switch. You're going to get an alert on your phone. It's going to list exclusives on the new machine that you might like based on what you've purchased in the past. The email is going to link to the phone app which opens a transition checklist.
Yes, BC might make a transition more compelling, and smoother. But that's not why they're talking about the Nintendo account. They're talking about a changing relationship with customers based on not having your accounts be tied to your machine anymore.
Nintendo will make a non-BC device in the future. Maybe it's the Switch 4, losing compat with Switch 1. Maybe it's a new pokemon handheld. Maybe it's a VR headset. And when that device comes, your Nintendo account will be there.
If Bowser were signalling BC explicitly here in public, then they'd be saying it to their partners, but they aren't. At least one Studio You Have Heard Of still* doesn't know if their existing games will be available on the new device day one, or if it will require a port.
I think Nintendo are very foolish if they don't deliver BC, but I don't think this Nintendo Account stuff is about that. It's about Nintendo ceasing to reboot their whole account structure every time a new console comes out.
*I say still, the most recent thing I heard is ~a month old.
Thanks, I was just about to ask
Seeing multiple comments about how it won't be powerful enough to run RT had me going "wait, coulda sworn Drake has actual RT cores"
I'm getting a good laugh at all the insider experting. It's this new generation of kids that thinks they are all on tv, or broadcast rockstars or something. People are listening and care. You are all special little journalists.
I seriously doubt nvidia designs, manufactures and ships nintendo's new gpu with RT and tensor cores but forgot to do the math. It's all a big grift, and nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank.
'Can you believe we sold them RT cores' <snicker>
Alovon11
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Also shows RR's Perf savings on Lumen too, which would be a massive boon for UE5 on Swtich 2
darthdiablo
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Fair points.
Would however be kind of weird to be transitioning customers toward a non-BC device using communications through Nintendo Account..
"Hello <name!> We regret to inform you that Switch 2 is not compatible with everything you've bought for Switch 1. Please understand, we tried our best.
Here's the transition checklist:
1) Buy Switch 2
2) Buy Switch 2 games
Once you complete those steps, you've completed your transition to the wonderful world of Switch 2! Oh by the way, friends you have added to your Nintendo Account will still be there, aren't you glad we did that?"
But yeah, I think BC is far more likely as you said.
As for this:
Which studio was that? (If you can disclose, of course).
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Goodtwin
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And what better way to strengthen the relationship with your customer by giving them a big fuck you, your library of games is stuck on your old hardware. The importance of your Nintendo Account is directly tied to the user library. I know this, you know this and Nintendo knows this. Nothing is a lock until it is announced, but man, this would be a huge self inflicted wound that creates a barrier to the new hardware rather than encourage it.
Lancelot
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Wait, the entirety of EPD was really that small by then? Jesus, just Insomniac alone have 400+ developers, Nintendo's development force is insanely small then. The increased IQ will help for sure, but there's a possibility that they might have considered at some point of time.
I guess the only way for Nintendo to start producing games on par with the rest of the industry (production-value wise) is cutting out their output significantly for a couple of massive GOTY candidates per year, the way of Sony you'd say. I don't see this happening at all, but it's what everyone else in the industry is doing.
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korok
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You have very valid concerns about Nintendo manpower, and is realistic not to expect a lot of games with the production values of The Last of Us 2. But I think you will get a nice surptise when Nintendo shows the first Switch 2 games. There is no way they are not going to utilize the new illumination possibilities thanks to RT, increase texture quality and shadows resolution or make higher detailed models. Switch 2 games are going to be much more than Switch games with better resolution, FPS and some extra particles, I'm sure of it.
D
Deleted member 887
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… we see you’re playing Super Mario Bros Wonder! As a valued Nintendo customer, right now you can get a free upgrade with new features and levels if you buy a Switch 2!
Not only that, the new 3D Mario, Super Mario Universe is only available on the Switch 2 device.
More free enhancements and exclusive games are coming for Switch 2, buy now to get access as soon as these come out.
I can’t at the moment, but if current events continue then the consequences will likely vanish.
Danny
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Yeah but one important thing to remember is that the devs Nintendo have available at any given time is bigger than just the EPD developers because they also have Monolith Soft and other minor studios that can lend devs to work on EPD games in a supporting capacity. And another caveat is that we don't know what the percentage of new Nintendo employees that are new developers hired to work directly on Nintendo EPD, it could be that Nintendo EPD alone is now something over 1000 or so developers due to Nintendo having increased their employee count over the last few years.
Individualised
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Why would they make this a huge selling point to investors?
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I know this is a hardware discussion, but very interesting that he namedropped Bowser's Inside Story when the interviewer mentioned Nintendo franchises that should see a comeback. Given the remakes of Mario RPG and TTYD, having a new Mario & Luigi (or a remake of Superstar Saga) after AlphaDream went tits-up would be cool to see.Nintendo of America President: “Everyone Has the Right To Form a Union”
Inverse sat down with Doug Bowser to talk about the release of 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder,' the future of the Nintendo Switch, and the state of the industry.
Interesting comment from Doug Bowser emphasising Nintendo Accounts in the transition to next gen, digital BC?
“Well, first I can't comment — or I won't comment, I should say — on the rumors that are out there. But one thing we've done with the Switch to help with that communication and transition is the formation of the Nintendo Account. In the past, every device we transitioned to had a whole new account system. Creating the Nintendo Account will allow us to communicate with our players if and when we make a transition to a new platform, to help ease that process or transition.”
eye0h
"aggressively persue a multiplatform strategy"
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Mario and Luigi would have amazing visuals on Switch. I'd be so excited to see that.
Lancelot
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Great analysis friend, let's hope they really meant it when they said they'd significantly increase their development capacity to keep up with rising costs and maintain their standards of quality. Modern game development is an extremely competitive, soul draining place with high rewards, I'd expect them to know better than anyone what does it take to compete on it.
Adulfzen
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Probably not the best place to vent but I was listening to a giant bomb morning news video hosted by Jeff Grubb where they discussed Nate most recent podcast talking about ray reconstruction and they're essentially saying that raytracing in general won't actually be used as a feature in games and it's just there purely for marketing and Nvidia essentially pushed it onto Nintendo for the custom chip without any plans of making it useable.
It's paraphrasing but just a load of nonsense I needed to share because I find it baffling when people supposedly reporting gaming even at a casual level would think Nintendo would pay Nvidia to make hardware with tensor and raytracing just for the sake of it and not make it actual viable for development.
It's paraphrasing but just a load of nonsense I needed to share because I find it baffling when people supposedly reporting gaming even at a casual level would think Nintendo would pay Nvidia to make hardware with tensor and raytracing just for the sake of it and not make it actual viable for development.
Raccoon
Fox Brigade
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damn ubisoft is finally going under
TechnicalTip6578
Tektite
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not saying i don't trust you at all nor are you wrong, but considering the last part of the question was about the content & investement of switch 1:
I felt that, while he isn't necessarily confirming anything, he might be trying to point people in the right direction when it comes to BC concerns
John Omaha
Moblin
I hope their recent hiring spree is primarily aimed at increasing their software output, and not at doing the bolded.
Adulfzen
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I'd argue Nintendo wouldn't need to inform third party devs a year in advance (if september release) if they do indeed have a solid backwards compatible solution so they don't have to bother with ports.
On the other hand if they were no plans to have backwards compatibility then it'd make sense to tell devs fairly early enough so they can prepare ports which can take a decent amount of time.
How was Nintendo informing devs prior to the original Switch ?
Lancelot
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Me too, I really hope we get a better picture on their priorities this generation as soon as possible.
darthdiablo
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Yeah. Nintendo's not going to allow itself to be bullied into unwanted features for the custom SoC.
Giancarlo
Nintendo connoiseur
so more evolved puzzles using Ray-Tracing, just like the light/sun puzzles of Ocarina of Time now with RAY-TRACING?
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