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

[manfromthedam]

No one IIRC reporting on this is lying intentionally, reporting on industry news is their job. The way people treat these reports as if they are personally being attacked is unhealthy, and it's being fanned by bad actors as well.

Completely agreed. Internet culture can be so juvenile. All the stuff about "lying insiders", "lazy devs", "[game_title] is the best]", "[console_name] sucks", "getting away with...", "devs should give us..." sounds like they come from the mouths of 15 year olds. Real life is not middle school, alright?

It is not a stretch to say BOTW 2 isn't making this FY, it effectively a certainty. Nintendo FY ends on March31, Spring starts March 20th. BOTW2 isn't launching in those 2 weeks.

You never know, of course, but the end of March has become a trusted release slot for games that didn't make it out in time for the holidays. Doom Eternal, Animal Crossing and Kirby spring to mind. It's a way to delay a game but still have it's launch week in that financial year.

So for a game delayed out of 2022 to "Spring" I think March is a reasonable assumption.

 

[ILikeFeet]

If only it were so simple…

Honestly, the way this forum jumped on that vague and non-committal article - with so many people eager to say "I told you so" - was disappointing. Don't do that too often, OK Fam?

yea, only do the "i told you so" when things get explicitly confirmed/deconfirmed. don't want receipts of showing your ass. do that later

 

[Serif]

That, it is. In 2021, with the OLED/Drake confusion, Mochi - and plenty of others - got burned by being overly optimistic. Now they seem eager to overcompensate.

Yeah, discussion about new Switch hardware has become rather toxic after that. The Nvidia leak was a bright spot because it not only validated the DLSS information but blew away some of our minimum expectations. It warrants a degree of optimism.

 

[daase ko]

Yesterday I got confused by a Mochizuki tweet that contains quotes in quotes in japanese lol.
And yeah the no announcements is not from Furukawa.

 

[kvetcha]

If only it were so simple…

would that it t'were so simple

 

[Pavolink]

Kinda funny to see youtubers headlines with the “Nintendo confirmed no new model this year”.

I guess it’s easier to see how many did their homework, and which ones don’t.

 

[Herb Alpert]

Oh wow, I remember this. Is this from ERA?

Yep, from MC threads

 

[manfromthedam]

Kinda funny to see youtubers headlines with the “Nintendo confirmed no new model this year”.

... and see here why I don't call myself a "YouTuber" despite the platform being my main online presence. Blegh.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

120 million Switches and when I said this people still thought the next MK could skip the OG model. not very likely when Nintendo is primarily in the business of selling software and not everyone who wants a Drake will be able to get one for a couple of years.

Mario Kart 7 skipped 150 million DSes in favor of an at-launch 3DS userbase of about 10m. Mario Kart has always launched early to a userbase smaller than the previous machine's, with the exception of MK Wii since it didn't take Wii long to eclipse GameCube.

 

[NateDrake]

Sorry to ask here, but what is the actual debate that is happening? There is surely a new Switch coming, and frankly this is something to be expected, as the OG Switch is from 2017. Why people get so intense in a debate about inside information of a release window? Those things change, anyone who has worked in any big project for any company / industry can confirm you that.

Because people don't accept that simple truth.

Just want to drop a note, i see a lot of casual commentary around Nikkei lying or not lying or Bloomberg's Mochizuki being a liar etc.
They are journalists, they have sources, they infer things from information they have. this is how Mochizuki pretty much reported on the Switch OLED but jumped to incorrect conclusions based on other information he had.

No one IIRC reporting on this is lying intentionally, reporting on industry news is their job. The way people treat these reports as if they are personally being attacked is unhealthy, and it's being fanned by bad actors as well.

No one is lying. Plans change. It's not an excuse. It's a reality that people think is used as an excuse. No outlets have reported anything about the hardware this year because there hasn't been anything substantial enough to report on that hadn't been reported prior. Information from last year was what was planned at that time.

Since then... we have had a war, supplies became tougher to allocate, suppliers who expected to secure parts have had to modify their own forecasts and reveal they cannot get what they expected. These weren't things being factored in last year. It's a fluid industry and, honestly, I'd wager that hopes for 2022 were dashed only within the past couple of months once reality of supply chain problems became crystal clear.

 

[Hosermess]

It is not a stretch to say BOTW 2 isn't making this FY, it effectively a certainty. Nintendo FY ends on March31, Spring starts March 20th. BOTW2 isn't launching in those 2 weeks.

lol while I'd rather not dredge up the discussions involving ridiculously strict definitions on intentionally vague wording, I'm curious...what makes those 2 weeks, those 11 days, impossible to launch in?

I mean I get it, the odds say you are probably correct. Those 2 weeks vs the field (the other 50 weeks in the year - and that's if you only include '23), you'd take the field. But other than that, any particular reason to rule it out?

 

[rickyson33]

it's funny to see people that were all in on "Nintendo is announcing a Switch Pro in July because reasons!" slowly realizing that hey maybe the state of the world matters more for release timing than literally zero after all

 

[Instro]

lol while I'd rather not dredge up the discussions involving ridiculously strict definitions on intentionally vague wording, I'm curious...what makes those 2 weeks, those 11 days, impossible to launch in?

I mean I get it, the odds say you are probably correct. Those 2 weeks vs the field (the other 50 weeks in the year - and that's if you only include '23), you'd take the field. But other than that, any particular reason to rule it out?

They would have specified if they intended to launch it before the end of the fiscal year. March 2023 for example. They say Spring because it doesn't sound as bad or as long as saying this game isn't being released until June or whatever.

 

[Blue Monty]

They would have specified if they intended to launch it before the end of the fiscal year. March 2023 for example. They say Spring because it doesn't sound as bad or as long as saying this game isn't being released until June or whatever.

Kirby Forgotten Land was announced as Spring 2022, it ended up being a March game.

 

[Brofield]

They would have specified if they intended to launch it before the end of the fiscal year. March 2023 for example. They say Spring because it doesn't sound as bad or as long as saying this game isn't being released until June or whatever.

I dunno, I can't think of many Zelda fans beyond enthusiasts who post on forums/reddit/discord who know or even care about Nintendo's fiscal year ending on March 31st. We're only hyperfixated on that specific date because we are burdened with knowledge and curiousity.

Spring is spring; announcements from Nintendo are for the laymen. Even if a new Switch is tailored for more core gamers, the marketing will still want to cast as wide a net as possible that people understand a shiny new toy will do things better than the old toy.

 

[Instro]

Kirby Forgotten Land was announced as Spring 2022, it ended up being a March game.

Fair enough.

 

[CullenLX87]

Well i just bought an OLED Switch. I now expect an announcement early next year. To fuck me.

 

[Deleted member 341]

Well i just bought an OLED Switch. I now expect an announcement early next year. To fuck me.

thank you for your sacrifice.

 

[Kevin]

Well i just bought an OLED Switch. I now expect an announcement early next year. To fuck me.

Nah Switch Pro next week. Nikkei article was wrong!

 

[Serif]

Man do I dislike the 'Switch Pro' moniker.

 

[Hermii]

Man do I dislike the 'Switch Pro' moniker.

It’s just a catchy way to say more powerful switch. None of us know how Nintendo will position it.

 

[Serif]

It’s just a catchy way to say more powerful switch. None of us know how Nintendo will position it.

I know. Still don't like it. I'm on teams Super Switch, Switch Advance, and Switch Ultra. If either of those end up being the name, I'm partying.

 

[Pavolink]

Man do I dislike the 'Switch Pro' moniker.

Personal guess: there’s no Switch pro, but there’s Switch 2-Plus-New Gen

 

[Serif]

Personal guess: there’s no Switch pro, but there’s Switch 2-Plus-New Gen

Nintendo Switch Plus Ultra

 

[Blue Monty]

Nintendo Weeb. Nintendo has decided to become the modern Squaresoft and it will be a console that only plays JRPGs, all Nintendo internal teams will only make JRPGs from now on

 

[Pavolink]

Nintendo Switch Plus Ultra

Mmmmm

I don’t want it anymore if it is going to punch me.

 

[Look over there]

Idk about all that for those games…

Maybe 720-810p at best on PS4, mostly 30 and 1080-1200p or so on PS4 Pro.


And really paired back.

The issue would be the CPUs I feel of those consoles.


I think it’s possible that they are aiming for the best perf per watt in portable mode and it scales fine for docked mode. I was trying to do the math the other day for it and it makes a lot of assumptions, I don’t think it actually works like this because these have curves not a linear relationship per se. Or a curve that can’t be ignored.

Ok, so the MX570 is an ampere based GPU on 8nm that has a max TGP of 25W @ 1155MHz, contains 2048 CUDA cores as well. if we apply it to Drake at the same frequency I’d assume that Drake would draw 18.75W, being 75% of the MX570 TGP because it has 75% of the cores.


Even if we halved that for portable mode, you’d get 9.375W just for the GPU, so I thought, “what if we moved from 10nm to the 7nm family?”
From TSMC 10nm to 7nm, it’s supposed to be a 40% power reduction while at the same clock frequency, no?


But here’s the tricky part: This isn’t easy as it’s 1) 8nm which is just an improved 10nm and 2) a different Foundries 7nm node.

Granted, it’s agreed upon that TSMC nodes are noticeably better than their Samsung equivalent, so for the sake of convenience I’ll say that a 8nm SEC is equal to a 10nm TsMC and if there was an 8nm TsMC (10nm+) it would be better than the 8nm SEC.

Anyway, “9.375W” at 8nm for the portable and “18.75” for the docked clocked profile.

If we reduce it by 40% or so in power which would align with the TSMC figure, you’d get “5.625W” in the lower clocked ~577.5MHz and “11.25W” in the docked configuration of 1155MHz.


If we drop it a little more in clock frequency to 460MHz and 921MHz respectively, we can reduce the consumption probably a little more.

Probably ~4.5W at 460MHz in portable mode and ~8.9W at 921MHz in docked mode. Docked mode is a less concern here though as that isn’t going to be so limited unlike portable mode.

In portable mode though…

Ok so, how would this compare to the TX1 though, the 20nm version. Do you happen to know a way of figuring that out?

And yes yes, there’s a bunch of caveats here yada yada. Just working with what we got!

If we're above the voltage floor, then cutting down to half frequency saves more than half the power draw in theory (quarter even; inversely it should be quadruple voltage to double frequency). Buuuut looking at Thraktor's 3070 again, he couldn't further lower voltage at around 1,305 MHz. He was able to get his total power nearly halved going from 1,305 MHz to 495 MHz though. For an example of halving frequency, 1,200 MHz to 600 MHz had chip power going from 76.1W to 47.3W, or ~-38%.

As for 20nm TX1/Erista...
Did Thraktor ever make an estimate for GPU power? I'm not entirely sure...
But if we're starting from scratch...so what parts do we know?
From this, we see that their docked Switch running at 11W for itself (screen off). Undocked, 7.1 to 8.9W depending on brightness. Caveat is we don't know how much the screen uses at min brightness.
From this, we know that quad A57@1 GHz on Samsung's 20nm node draws about 1.83 watts. TSMC's 20nm node shouldn't be too far off, so 1.83 +/- 10% sounds reasonable? Probably allocate 1.6-2 watts. Or stick with ~1.8.
From this post by Thraktor, the LPDDR4 ram in Erista needs about 2 watts for the 25.6 GB/s. Then, looking at the profiles listed here, the other lower clock rates for ram are 1,331.2 MHz (-16.8%, or ~1.66 watts) and 1,065.6 MHz (~-33%, or ~1.33 watts).

 

[Skittzo]

Nah Switch Pro next week. Nikkei article was wrong!

You joke but that's exactly the type of thing that would happen after all these headlines.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

If we're above the voltage floor, then cutting down to half frequency saves more than half the power draw in theory (quarter even; inversely it should be quadruple voltage to double frequency). Buuuut looking at Thraktor's 3070 again, he couldn't further lower voltage at around 1,305 MHz. He was able to get his total power nearly halved going from 1,305 MHz to 495 MHz though. For an example of halving frequency, 1,200 MHz to 600 MHz had chip power going from 76.1W to 47.3W, or ~-38%.

As for 20nm TX1/Erista...
Did Thraktor ever make an estimate for GPU power? I'm not entirely sure...
But if we're starting from scratch...so what parts do we know?
From this, we see that their docked Switch running at 11W for itself (screen off). Undocked, 7.1 to 8.9W depending on brightness. Caveat is we don't know how much the screen uses at min brightness.
From this, we know that quad A57@1 GHz on Samsung's 20nm node draws about 1.83 watts. TSMC's 20nm node shouldn't be too far off, so 1.83 +/- 10% sounds reasonable? Probably allocate 1.6-2 watts. Or stick with ~1.8.
From this post by Thraktor, the LPDDR4 ram in Erista needs about 2 watts for the 25.6 GB/s. Then, looking at the profiles listed here, the other lower clock rates for ram are 1,331.2 MHz (-16.8%, or ~1.66 watts) and 1,065.6 MHz (~-33%, or ~1.33 watts).

Perhaps this may help?

With the CPU @ 1.9GHz, GPU @ 998MHz and RAM @ 1.6GHz I think it’s supposed to equate the 15W TDP.

We can extrapolate the RAM and the CPU uptake and perhaps extrapolate from there the rest.

The TX1 stock at the CPU frequency should consume about ~6.5W, give or take.

With the RAM supposed to be @ 1.6GHz, it would be 2W.

So, the TX1 with 998MHz for the GPU should consume about 6.5W give or take.

And from there we can perhaps further extrapolate the portable TDP it’s rated for.

CPU is supposed to be around 1.83W and RAM about 1.66W right?

So combined 3.49W, roughly speaking…

 

[CullenLX87]

thank you for your sacrifice.

hehe thank you!

 

[Josh5890]

Since then... we have had a war, supplies became tougher to allocate, suppliers who expected to secure parts have had to modify their own forecasts and reveal they cannot get what they expected. These weren't things being factored in last year. It's a fluid industry and, honestly, I'd wager that hopes for 2022 were dashed only within the past couple of months once reality of supply chain problems became crystal clear.

So you are telling me that global events could actually lead to my favorite video game maker changing their upcoming production plans??????

 

[Deleted member 341]

So you are telling me that global events could actually lead to my favorite video game maker changing their upcoming production plans??????

 

[ShadowFox08]

It’s just a catchy way to say more powerful switch. None of us know how Nintendo will position it.

If bugs me too that people throw out the "Switch Pro" moniker out so casually. It's not just positioning/advertising. That's important, but pro implies it's treated as a mid gen upgrade, and a switch 2 successor (many pro fans have argued this here) will come out in 3-5 years, when hardware wise it's definitely not a pro in that sense. New 3DS can't be comparable, at least from a hardware perspective. We don't know how seemless backwards compatibility will be considering we have completely new CPU, GPU, RAM and hardware in general.

But whatever. Most know my own personal opinions on this (I think it's a successor that will have cross gen support treatment like Xbone/PS4 and X Series/PS5 for a few years), but I've been recently trying to refer it to it just as "Drake" at this point.

 

[Kevin]

You joke but that's exactly the type of thing that would happen after all these headlines.

It's true. My current mindset is still Spring 2023 with Zelda. That was my guess pretty much all year now. I thought 2022 had a small chance with Metroid Prime but I'll go with Nate here and say it looks unlikely with no real factory leaks or anything occurring so late in the year.

I wonder if we will start hearing about factory stuff late this year if Spring 2023 becomes a reality for the launch? Time will tell.

 

[Thugstas]

It's true. My current mindset is still Spring 2023 with Zelda. That was my guess pretty much all year now. I thought 2022 had a small chance with Metroid Prime but I'll go with Nate here and say it looks unlikely with no real factory leaks or anything occurring so late in the year.

I wonder if we will start hearing about factory stuff late this year if Spring 2023 becomes a reality for the launch? Time will tell.

I guess September could a leak month….. or not

 

[manfromthedam]

Nintendo Weeb. Nintendo has decided to become the modern Squaresoft and it will be a console that only plays JRPGs, all Nintendo internal teams will only make JRPGs from now on

They don't need new hardware for that, just a name change xD .

 

[Blue Monty]

They don't need new hardware for that, just a name change xD .

Nintendo EPD doesn’t make JRPGs yet

 

[Kevin]

I guess September could a leak month….. or not

I'm more curious to see if we get a general Direct in September or not and what new games could be unveiled. I have a feeling the next general Direct won't be until February again though I hope I'm wrong.

I'll be curious to see if if a potential September Direct could yield any hints of new hardware in 2023. Mostly in what games are in the lineup, big games, mid-tier games, etc.

I feel like if new hardware is coming in the Spring, the rumor mill and leaks should start increasing this fall into the winter season.

 

[HankyPanky]

edit: oops wrong thread

 

[Thugstas]

I'm more curious to see if we get a general Direct in September or not and what new games could be unveiled. I have a feeling the next general Direct won't be until February again though I hope I'm wrong.

I'll be curious to see if if a potential September Direct could yield any hints of new hardware in 2023. Mostly in what games are in the lineup, big games, mid-tier games, etc.

I feel like if new hardware is coming in the Spring, the rumor mill and leaks should start increasing this fall into the winter season.

We will get a general direct before February.
We will get leaks before the end of this CY.

 

[Brofield]

We will get a general direct before February.
We will get leaks before the end of this CY.

I know it's logical to expect at least one Direct before then, if not practical before the end of 2022, but man that sudden whoosh of fear and panic of not getting any official news of anything software or hardware related by 2023 still hit me hard

 

[Blue Monty]

I know it's logical to expect at least one Direct before then, if not practical before the end of 2022, but man that sudden whoosh of fear and panic of not getting any official news of anything software or hardware related by 2023 still hit me hard

Unless you think that Nintendo will not release anything more than maybe BOTW2 in Q1, there is no reason to doubt a Direct with 1st party content happening.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Nintendo EPD doesn’t make JRPGs yet

RingFit weeps in the corner

 

[Thugstas]

I know it's logical to expect at least one Direct before then, if not practical before the end of 2022, but man that sudden whoosh of fear and panic of not getting any official news of anything software or hardware related by 2023 still hit me hard

Keep ya head up like an old poet said and keep faith young T. H.U.G.S.T.A

 

[Brofield]

Unless you think that Nintendo will not release anything more than maybe BOTW2 in Q1, there is no reason to doubt a Direct with 1st party content happening.

Oh yeah, I don't doubt Nintendo will release content between now and BOTW2, but given the last Nintendo game I purchased was Pokemon Legends Arceus and the next title that's on my radar is Bayonetta 3 and Pokemon Scarlet, I'm hoping something will be revealed that appeals to me in the near future

The only game I could realistically see myself picking up sometime that I missed already is Kirby, but Brain Age/FDC/Switch Sports/Strikers/Xeno/Splatoon/FE is like water in the gas tank, and I'm not that foolish to believe in Metroid Prime HD, F-Zero, Pikmin or Custom Robo being this year's December game lol. I won't argue with the history books that 2022 will be an amazing year for Switch; it's just not to my taste for the most part.

Keep ya head up like an old poet said and keep faith young T. H.U.G.S.T.A

Haha, even if new games aren't on the horizon for me, I still have a mighty huge backlog and N64 on NSO to pass the time I'm not too stressed mon ami, I'll just be irritated if I have to unplug my Switch to make room for the Gamecube if I'm still fixing for Pikmin content before long lol

 

[mariodk18]

So let’s assume Drake comes out in March. What’s the latest we could expect manufacturing to start? When did the OG Switch production begin?

 

[KeijiKG]

Kirby Forgotten Land was announced as Spring 2022, it ended up being a March game.

I mean sure, but Kirby games for all the care they have in content and difficulty curves for early demographics are not as dense as Zelda games.

 

[Salah Kalajo]

is this means anything ?


referring to 8 Cores A78 and 1024 Cuda Cores for the New Switch ?
is it possible to see Drake Run at 1536 Core on Dock Mode and 1024 Core on handheld which means they can use smaller 1024 core chips for future Switch 2 lite ?

 

[Look over there]

Perhaps this may help?

With the CPU @ 1.9GHz, GPU @ 998MHz and RAM @ 1.6GHz I think it’s supposed to equate the 15W TDP.

We can extrapolate the RAM and the CPU uptake and perhaps extrapolate from there the rest.

The TX1 stock at the CPU frequency should consume about ~6.5W, give or take.

With the RAM supposed to be @ 1.6GHz, it would be 2W.

So, the TX1 with 998MHz for the GPU should consume about 6.5W give or take.

And from there we can perhaps further extrapolate the portable TDP it’s rated for.

CPU is supposed to be around 1.83W and RAM about 1.66W right?

So combined 3.49W, roughly speaking…

The way I'm reading the chart, ~6.5W's for 1.8GHz and ~7.39W for 1.9GHz. Although there is mention that above 1.6 GHz, there's this observation that it's getting hot enough for power consumption to noticeably further climb over a minute. So for towards the right end of the graph, I'm not sure if the numbers are for pre-heating up or post-heating up. Actually, probably post-heating up, because a bit later, there's an estimate of ~1.48W per core at 1.8GHz. Multiply by 4, that's 5.92. Then there's about 10% increase from there to get to ~6.5. That seems like a plausible difference between pre-heating and post-heating? In that case, maybe ~6.7W for 1.9GHz pre-heating... not that it makes much difference if that heating period's only a minute.

~3.5W for CPU + RAM in typical portable, yea.
The approach I was thinking of was to focus on the difference between docked and undocked, but that's lacking two components: the screen's power draw and exactly which profile the undocked Switch was using for Breath of the Wild in the Anandtech article. If we set docked to 11W and undocked to either 7.1W (min brightness) or 8.9W (max brightness), then the difference is either 2.1 (max brightness) or 3.9W (min brightness).
CPU and wireless should be the same in either state, so ignore them.
Joy-cons are assumed either already charged or not even attached, so ignore them too.
I'm assuming that storage is either not in usage while testing either state, or storage is used, but equally so, in both states, so I'm ignoring that too.
Typical ram difference between the two modes is about 1/3 of a watt? I'm assuming that the profiles setting RAM to 1331.2 MHz are more commonly used than the 1065.6 MHz profiles. 2.1 - ~0.33 ~= 1.77 (max brightness) or 3.9 - ~0.33 ~= 3.57 (min brightness)
Am I missing anything else? Until then...
1.77 = (docked_GPU_power - undocked_GPU_power*) - (screen_max_brightness_power)
Or, 3.57 = (docked_GPU_power - undocked_GPU_power) - (screen_min_brightness_power)

*caveat is, within the three profiles that set RAM to 1331.2 MHz, the possible GPU clocks are 307.2 MHz, 384 MHz, and 460.8 MHz.
...but can it be whittled down? Was the 460 MHz option added sometime later?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Small thing I realized. The 3DS announcement came 5 years 4 months after the DS release. Switch is now 5 years 5 months old, so it's gone longer without the next big thing announced. However, 3DS didn't release until 6 years 3 months after DS, so it's still feasible for Drake to come to market sooner than that.