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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

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Individualised said:
Please keep the software discussion to the other thread...
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I'm just saying that a March release makes very little sense due to already announced and not announced software. A Switch 2 March launch would have to be headlined by EA FC, Splatoon 3 DLC, Princess Peach Showtime, a downport of Cyberpunk 2077, and some PS4 ports. It would be followed up by months where their big games were remakes of TTYD and LM2 that were cross-gen.

It would be an extremely odd launch window.

April or May is... Literally possible I guess? Just is largely unprecedented.
 
I think 3D Mario is a great candidate to have in a launch year, but we've only ever seen Nintendo launch it day and date ONCE. 3D Mario is... Well, extremely mass market. Having little Timmy crying he can't play the new Mario because the hardware is impossible to find is not good marketing. 3D Mario soon? Sure, but I'm thinking like Odyssey, waiting until there's some available stock, some slack in the supply chain.

Having a massively desirable game at launch SOUNDS good but it kind of just... Isn't? Not for the game, anyway. Even Breath of the Wild was on Wii U and smaller than a Mario game (at least in terms of sales speed, BOTW has proven to have freakishly long legs).

If Nintendo has a first party launch title that isn't Princess Peach Showtime, I'd expect it to be cross-gen Prime 4 on account of the weird upcoming Metroid Amiibo restock.

Basically, I'd see a "good" launch working out as Prime 4 cross gen, Fluidity/smaller puzzler using the unique hardware and a casual title from Nintendo at launch, Princess Peach Showtime a week or two later, with tonnes of third parties bringing games from gen 8 and 9 so that they can have some kind of handheld version (and thus sell more than 2 units in Japan).

A "workable" launch, in terms of first parties, though, could be as little as... Princess Peach Showtime, a weird eShop title and... That's it, leaving the big impressive games for 3rd parties to launch and keeping their ace, 3D Mario, up their sleeve until closer to the holidays, so it doesn't launch into a market where its corresponding hardware is so supply constrained it creates downward pressure on Mario's sale momentum.
 
ReyVGM said:

Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST|​


"Come for the hardware talk, stay for the off topic software discussion."
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Nintendo's definition of a console is "Integrated Hardware-Software Platform"

It's not off-topic, it's part of the platform! The platform we're discussing!

Though I do try to refrain from software here unless there's something to be said about hardware (like an RT dependent game, a weird gimmick title, or how a console's production capacity necessarily limits sales of any exclusives.)
 
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Bonejack said:
:D
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oh-yes.gif
 
Pokemaniac said:
Most of the prerelease marketing for Switch was compressed into around 4.5 months. I wouldn't expect them to go too much higher than that this time around.
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Regardless if Nintendo announces SNG year prior to launch or five months prior to launch, the real marketing push wont start until the two months leading up to its release. I have never seen a TV advertisement for a console six months prior to launch. So the debate of short versus long marketing cycle leading up to launch is a frivolous one, because the real marketing cycle is always a short one. I do not count gaming magazine articles and gaming news sites. Why? Because that is where people go looking for information. Advertising/marketing is intended to inform consumers about there product that wont go looking for that news on their own. If Nintendo were to reveal and launch within five months, the only difference between that and how Nintendo handled the build up to Switch was acknowledging the codename NX.

SoldierDelta said:
If Metroid Prime 4 was an enhanced cross-gen title for the Switch 2, would you buy the system at launch with that game?
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Yes, and I think they could get away with this in the west, but in Japan that would not be a good move.
 
snorkellingfish said:
While we've used OLED shipping data as a precedent to guestimate timing, we don't actually know if a new console launch is going to follow the same timing as a mid-gen refresh.
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After reading oldpuck's excellent explainer (and followup response to my question) on the "beta" process that takes place before final assembly/mass production few days ago and then coming across this, I thought about it for a bit.

I'm not sure there'd be that much of a difference in that process between mid-gen hardware refresh (SWOLED) vs Switch 2?

As Oldpuck explained, even though SWOLED is a mid-gen refresh, it's not like they can even reuse Switch's mass production setup. They have to literally start from the "beta product" step and figure out the steps for the final assembly/mass production.

By the time they're doing Switch 2 "beta product" and figuring out how the final assembly will work out, it's not like they don't know what the specs and features are going to be. They already know what the final product will have. It's a matter of figuring how the mass production steps will assemble pieces/parts that gives us the "final" product.
 
Goodtwin said:
Yes, and I think they could get away with this in the west, but in Japan that would not be a good move.
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I'm not sure. Thing is, Switch is INSANELY popular Japan, way more than even the west. The NG system is destined to sell out for months on end in Japan. Launching it with a not super popular in Japan title could allow for more slack in the supply chain before the major titles launch, and encourage Japanese players to pick up Prime 4 to have something to play day 1 that uses their fancy pants new tab's new features.
 
darthdiablo said:
After reading oldpuck's excellent explainer (and followup response to my question) on the "beta" process that takes place before final assembly/mass production few days ago and then coming across this, I thought about it for a bit.

I'm not sure there'd be that much of a difference in that process between mid-gen hardware refresh (SWOLED) vs Switch 2?

As Oldpuck explained, even though SWOLED is a mid-gen refresh, it's not like they can even reuse Switch's mass production setup. They have to literally start from the "beta product" step and figure out the steps for the final assembly/mass production.

By the time they're doing Switch 2 "beta product" and figuring out how the final assembly will work out, it's not like they don't know what the specs and features are going to be. They already know what the final product will have. It's a matter of figuring how the mass production steps will assemble pieces/parts that gives us the "final" product.
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I know I get fixated on this bit, but they've already

Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.
 
The Switch 2 is either going to launch at 30% higher prices in Japan than the US, be scalped relentlessly at launch, or will have region lock.

You need to keep this in mind when talking about Japan.

There's a decent chance it doesn't matter if the software at launch is appealing at all to Japanese consumers because Japanese consumers will be buying almost none of the systems sold in Japan
 
Paraspikey said:
If they had a soft launch with a heavy hitter, it wouldn't be much of a soft launch at that point, as launching a 3D Mario with it in H1 2024 would just... cause the same stock problems they're looking to avoid. They would be creating infinitely more demand and, therefore, make it a lot harder to actually build up stock, therefore, making it harder to sell as many units as they would by the end of the FY. I also think them NEEDING to stick to the Mario's and Zelda's for launch games is... weird, as it just prevents any other franchise with the potential to sell millions from actually doing so. Nintendo could very well want to put Metroid up to that level, and having Prime 4 at launch would do just the trick.
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Expecting Metroid to magically go from 3 million to 10+ million is unrealistic, especially when Japan (one of the Switch 1’s biggest regions) couldn’t give any less of a shit about the franchise.

This isn’t about just Mario & Zelda, it’s about having a game that’ll likely at least hit 10 million units to push hardware sales. Metroid isn’t that franchise, it won’t sell hardware. Mario/Zelda/Smash/Splatoon/Animal Crossing/Pokémon sell hardware.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
The Switch 2 is either going to launch at 30% higher prices in Japan than the US, be scalped relentlessly at launch, or will have region lock.

You need to keep this in mind when talking about Japan.

There's a decent chance it doesn't matter if the software at launch is appealing at all to Japanese consumers because Japanese consumers will be buying almost none of the systems sold in Japan
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Man where is this even coming from? We discussed this like 2 weeks ago. Such a tired idea no one agreed with you on last time. Just leave it in the past.
 
carbvan said:
Man where is this even coming from? We discussed this like 2 weeks ago. Such a tired idea no one agreed with you on last time. Just leave it in the past.
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Like 20-50% of consoles sold in Japan this year are pretty clearly being shipped out of Japan by scalpers, lol.

The PS5 and Switch's trendlines and software sales in Japan relative to the rest of the world makes no sense otherwise.

No one agreed with me because all three options are bad and people do not like picking between three bad options. The issue is that there aren't really other options that make any sense.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Like 20-50% of consoles sold in Japan this year are pretty clearly being shipped out of Japan by scalpers, lol.

The PS5 and Switch's trendlines and software sales in Japan relative to the rest of the world makes no sense otherwise.

No one agreed with me because all three options are bad and people do not like picking between three bad options. The issue is that there aren't really other options that make any sense.
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Nobody's agreeing with you because you're extrapolating the unexplained hardware/software PS5 disparity to the entire regional market without any actual reasoning or evidence backing up your assertion.
 
InsaneZero said:
Nobody's agreeing with you because you're extrapolating the unexplained hardware/software PS5 disparity to the entire regional market without any actual reasoning or evidence backing up your assertion.
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The reasoning is that the yen is historically weak and the Switch is now magically doing much better in Japan than everywhere else in the world despite this inconsistency not appearing until the yen became historically weak.

(And Sony raised the price of the PS5 by 17k yen)
 
New poster here.

Just want to share some tidbits since everyone's talking about announcement to launch timing. Nintendo said in an IR report (though I'm having trouble finding it) that the super early announcement of the "NX" was unprecedented and that they had no desire to repeat that with whatever comes next.

Also, looking at Sony: The PS4 was announced in Feburary 2013 and launched in November 2013. February to November is 9 months. The PS5 was "affirmed" in April 2019, but "unveiled" in March 2020 and launched in November 2020. March to November is 8 months.

The 3DS was announced in March 2010 and launched in February 2011. 11 months. Wii U was teased in April 2011, unveiled in June 2011 and launched in November 2012. 5 months.

The Xbox Series S|X was "teased" in June 2019, "unveiled" the X in November 2019 and the S in September 2020, then launched in November 2020. Depending on which you measure from we can say up to 12 months.

The Valve Steam Deck was announced in July 2021 and released in February 2022. 7 months.

I would be surprised at a November 2023 unveiling and a March 2024 (4 months) launch for the NG just based off historical info and comparisons to competitors. The shortest turnaround I've seen is 5 months with the Wii U and units were impossible to find for months after launch -- and that platform sold miserably. I find Q2 2024 (April, May, June) much more likely.

Edit: Oops! I got the math wrong on the Wii U! Unveiled in June 2011 at E3 and launched in Nov 2012 -- that's 17 months!
 
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TamazonX said:
New poster here.

Just want to share some tidbits since everyone's talking about announcement to launch timing. Nintendo said in an IR report (though I'm having trouble finding it) that the super early announcement of the "NX" was unprecedented and that they had no desire to repeat that with whatever comes next.
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Yeah, at the time Nintendo was fighting off persistent rumors that Nintendo will be exiting console business and going in game development only, publishing games for other consoles. So that probably pressured them into staving off those persistent rumors.

It was so bad that people start looking for connections that weren't there - like Nintendo entering partnership with DeNA, thinking that was real evidence of Nintendo exiting the console business.

Edit: Welcome to Famiboards!
 
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ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
The reasoning is that the yen is historically weak and the Switch is now magically doing much better in Japan than everywhere else in the world despite this inconsistency not appearing until the yen became historically weak.

(And Sony raised the price of the PS5 by 17k yen)
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I've seen the MC sales threads on IB and I don't see anything particularly unusual or extraordinary about how the Switch is performing recently in Japan. Switch sales in other regions is generally irrelevant when trying to understand the Japanese market, because those other regions aren't Japan.
 
InsaneZero said:
I've seen the MC sales threads on IB and I don't see anything particularly unusual or extraordinary about how the Switch is performing recently in Japan. Switch sales in other regions is generally irrelevant when trying to understand the Japanese market, because those other regions aren't Japan.
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So the Switch is just not declining in Japan (while it's declining everywhere else) just for reasons and those reasons do not include the yen being historically weak?
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
So the Switch is just not declining in Japan (while it's declining everywhere else) just for reasons and those reasons do not include the yen being historically weak?
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huh? not sure if I'm reading you right, but are you suggesting Switch sales are declining elsewhere outside Japan because yen is weak?

The reason why sales are declining is simple: Switch is old. Old console hardware see sales decline. That has always happened, as sure as gravity.
 
darthdiablo said:
huh? not sure if I'm reading you right, but are you suggesting Switch sales are declining elsewhere outside Japan because yen is weak?

The reason why sales are declining is simple: Switch is old. Old console hardware see sales decline. That has always happened, as sure as gravity.
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I'm saying that the Switch should be declining in Japan because it's year 7 and it's declining everywhere else.

Buuuuuuut, it's not declining in Japan and is suddenly having an unprecedentedly strong year 7 while the yen is unprecedentedly weak.
 
The wiiu announcement to release was not 5 months but rather 1.5 years no ? Guess the shortages for the console were attributable to poor supply chain management. Nintendo really lost it with this one despite producing real pearls as games go.
 
does any of this leaks/reports hint Switch sucessor will have suport for SD Cards?if they have, will they allow ourself to migrate our games/media to Nintendo next hardware?
 
carbvan said:
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Looks more like 5 months to me on that chart. Chart is divided in quarters. October -> March.

Which lines up, I remember Switch mass production started around the same time it was announced (October 2016)
 
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Neoxon said:
Expecting Metroid to magically go from 3 million to 10+ million is unrealistic, especially when Japan (one of the Switch 1’s biggest regions) couldn’t give any less of a shit about the franchise.

This isn’t about just Mario & Zelda, it’s about having a game that’ll likely at least hit 10 million units to push hardware sales. Metroid isn’t that franchise, it won’t sell hardware. Mario/Zelda/Smash/Splatoon/Animal Crossing/Pokémon sell hardware.
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I never gave that number either, but I do think such a number is possible within the first 3 years of its launch IF it's a launch game and if it is marketed well. You can't make a small franchise instantly sell millions more simply by having it be a launch game, but it'll give the franchise more general exposure and marketing. It's not going to be at the levels of Mario and Zelda, due to its more hardcore appeal compared to those two's more general appeal, but they can definitely get more eyes on the franchise as a whole and make it more popular in the mainstream, and in my opinion, an overall healthier option for their brand instead of just relying on Mario and Zelda most of the time.

It's absurd to think that they'll see a 10 million+ seller for a brand new 400-dollar console within its launch window. Regardless of what game launches with it or when the system launches, that isn't going to happen. But if marketed right, Metroid Prime could very well sell people on getting new hardware due to it showing off the new hardware extremely well. Consumers aren't opposed to trying new things or new entries in old, niche series. Nintendo knows this. It's one of the major reasons why the Switch is insanely successful: the amount of variety in its offerings, first and third-party wise. Prime 4 wouldn't be the only game known to be for the Switch 2 anyway, in this scenario.

By the time the system releases, we will probably see the next 3D Mario and stuff like Mario Party, on top of patches for games like BOTW, TOTK, Pokemon SV, and more. I also never said Prime 4 would be the only game they have at launch, nor would their first-party offerings be the only thing enticing people. While the RDR2 rating was probably a mistake, it was still heavily rumored to be on the "Pro.". I wouldn't be surprised if that were within the first couple of months of launch. Monster Hunter 6 is probably next year as well (I'm not saying it's the March 2024 game), and that will most definitely come to the new console around the game's launch time.

In this timeline, Nintendo can launch the system earlier, properly build up stock, and then actually have a 3D Mario launch in the holidays that will push more units that they're able to restock fully due to an earlier launch, and could very well meet a "10+ million units" launch week sales for Mario. They don't NEED to, nor should they aim THAT high for sales the moment the system is released. Having that high of expectations is 100% going to backfire on them regardless of whether Mario or Metroid launches the system, and is really going to bite them back hard.
 
karmitt said:
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carbvan said:
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ProngoLuvr said:
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ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I'm just saying that a March release makes very little sense due to already announced and not announced software. A Switch 2 March launch would have to be headlined by EA FC, Splatoon 3 DLC, Princess Peach Showtime, a downport of Cyberpunk 2077, and some PS4 ports. It would be followed up by months where their big games were remakes of TTYD and LM2 that were cross-gen.

It would be an extremely odd launch window.

April or May is... Literally possible I guess? Just is largely unprecedented.
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You shouldn't assume you know what Nintendo's whole first half next year looks like before the year has even started. At least one of the launch titles (though probably both at this point) will be something Nintendo has yet to publicly acknowledge, and Nintendo has quite a lot more to fill in still for 2024 in general.
 
oldpuck said:
This is my new favorite fact.

It's not what anyone else has been talking about - "40fps in a 120fps container" means using the fact that 120 can be evenly divided by 3 to send a consistently paced 40fps update inside a 120fps HDMI signal. The same way 30fps works by effectively sending one frame, then dropping a frame inside a 60fps container, 40fps is "send a frame, drop 2 frames, send a frame."

What you're talking about involves running the CPU at 120fps, but only running the GPU at 40fps - you don't need 120fps support for that. You could do this with any arbitrary frame rate you like. You could run the CPU at 72fps and run the screen at 14fps - or more sanely, 90fps and 30fps. Or 120fps and 60fps.

I'm not familiar with what Spider-Man 2 does here, but I can only imagine it making sense in a situation where the game is extremely demanding on the GPU (so it will never get to 60fps, but could hit 40), but the CPU load is so relatively small, that it can run at a full 120fps - and the game has 40/120fps support already built in and tested as a product of having a robust PC port.

That just seems unlikely on the NG.
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What I've always heard is that outputting at 120hz improves input latency regardless of framerate. I thought this was due to controller response being set to the display hz rather than the game fps, but if that would actually require the CPU to be running at 120fps then that doesn't seem likely.

The overall effect is real though. This DF video covering Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart did latency tests and found that the 60fps RT mode has 75ms of end-to-end input lag at 60hz and 60.8ms at 120hz, with no actual change in framerate.

www.eurogamer.net

Why Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart's 40fps support is a potential game-changer

A few weeks back, Insomniac patched Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart on PlayStation 5 to introduce a revised version of it…
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net

I don't believe this has anything to do with the game code either, as IIRC this thing actually started with Insomniac accidentally having a 120hz option and users finding it improved the latency (they patched it out and proceeded to deliver an official version that also included the 40fps mode).
 
Pokemaniac said:
You shouldn't assume you know what Nintendo's whole first half next year looks like before the year has even started. At least one of the launch titles (though probably both at this point) will be something Nintendo has yet to publicly acknowledge, and Nintendo has quite a lot more to fill in still for 2024 in general.
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If it's March, how many other games are they putting in March along with Splatoon 3 Roguelite and Princess Peach Showtime and like 5-6 third-party significant third-party games and 10 other more minor third-party games?

I'm saying the release schedule makes no sense for a March release in particular.
 
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