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

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Dekuman said:
Price was part of it but 3DS sales had an unnatural non standard curve due to the price drop. There was no groundswell of support after it had stabilized and dropped annually after. This was due to other factors weighing on the system which I outlined in post. Ad I said , price is important but it's not the only factor.

I think the only year it saw an increase was around 2016 to 2017 when new 2DS launched and the console benefited from the afterglow of the Switch launch and there was some hope it could leg it out a few more years. But thay ultimately didn't happen as sales dropped steeply after that
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Every 2DS sale was another person to potentially buy at least one Pokémon title. I think Nintendo was quite content with the 2DS and how they handled the latter half of the 3DS life cycle (as much as Switch fans ground their teeth about it).
 
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LiC said:
Are you saying there was nothing wrong with the 3DS's launch price, and they should have just kept it as-is and followed a normal handheld price cut schedule?
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I'm saying the 3DS problem wasn't the price. Had it launched at $200, it would have still sold basically the same thing in the end. Had they launched the 2DS first in order to match the DS Lite price on day 1, it wouldn't have a positive impact either.

The 3DS problem was it simply lacked mass appeal to sell more, same for the XB1, Wii U and Vita but worse. Hundreds of millions can afford much more than $250 or $350 in luxury goods, but that doesn't matter if they don't want to buy it to begin with.

The 3DS failed to impress at $250 or $200, then they tried a less appealing but cheaper model and the 2DS failed to impress at $80 with a game too, then they tried a more expensive console but significantly more appealing and... people are still paying $300 for it 5 years later, with a quite bigger and a lot more active install base than the cheaper 3DS had. And then there's the Switch Lite which proved cheaper doesn't make it the best selling model.

A theoretical $500 Switch 2 can outsell a theoretical $400/$300 Switch 2 if that $100/$200 is used to make it a lot more appealing. Only Nintendo knows what they can deliver for those price points though, so trying to decide which of these is the correct price point to maximize sales when all we have is a vague idea of the specs, which by themselves means nothing anyway, is a fool's errand.
 
Dakhil said:
I'm confident that the person narrating the video is Oliver Mackenzie, not John Linneman.

Although the difference is not stark, Oliver Mackenzie's voice does sound noticeably different from John Linneman's voice when paying close attention to the differences.
Anyway, considering Jensen Huang mentioned wanting to announce a new GPU architecture uring GTC 2022 on 20 September 2022, I wonder if Nvidia's going to talk a little more about Atlan, assuming Atlan's using AD10B.
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I see. They sound pretty similar. Not too familiar with Oliver, he's been writing articles for less than a year.

oldpuck said:
It’s Oliver Mackenzie speaking.

DF often have inside info, but they don’t hint around, there are no tea leaves to read. They’ll actively avoid discussions where they have information that they’re not in a position to divulge, and state that they’ve heard stuff when they are.
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Makes sense.
 
PashArcade said:


Another hint that Nintendo Switch 2 may be coming in the near future, unless Nintendo thinks they can hold out until all the way until those games are completed, which will probably be be 2025 minimum
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Doubt that's a hint since Eiyuden Chronicles was also supposedly hitting the next Switch despite that its new trailer doesn't show it needs the upgrade at all.

They're just guessing.
 
Raccoon said:
that was six weeks ago???
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I had a bit of a senior moment and got lost on the page counter. Forgive me for being an old grouch.

Still, as I've said before, I wouldn't worry about size. I doubt they'll break compatibility with the very successful (if maligned) Joy-Con Controllers, so it'll almost be the same thickness and height as before, with the only variable being the width (distance from Joy-Con Rail to Joy-Con Rail). Much like how the OLED Model added a millimetre or two to that dimension, I might imagine the Switch 2/Super will too.
 
Concernt said:
"The Switch is nearing its expiry date."
"Reportedly being replaced soon."

These are such specific comments to come out of Digital Foundry, especially for a company that tends to stray closer to factual than speculation. Especially considering Eurogamer, their umbrella organisation, is big in the Switch leaks business, having leaked the original.

Between this and John Linneman's comments. I think there might be something they know that we done.

Also Nintendo Switch 2 is definitively entering its hype cycle if Digital Foundry is putting it in their video titles... I mean come on, this is a company that has an active, amicable press relationship with Nintendo.
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Oliver Mackenzie's written article on Eurogamer does strongly leans towards the fact that Oliver Mackenzie was simply speculating.
⋮
This got me thinking: how might a future Switch cope with similar challenges? I suspect advanced reconstruction techniques, like AMD's FSR 2.0, will be the key. These techniques produce more detailed images with low input resolutions. The elephant in the room is Nvidia's DLSS. With Nvidia widely tipped to deliver future Switch chips, a version of Nvidia's AI upsampling tech is a tantalising possibility. We'll have to wait and see, but if Nvidia can deliver a tuned version of DLSS suitable for a SoC that might only consume a few watts in portable play, that could give the system enough breathing room to handle more complex current-gen titles. Even still, there are likely to be many other hangups - storage speed, RAM, and CPU power among them - but perhaps there may be room for new "impossible ports" on future hardware that don't make such stark image quality concessions.

On a more basic level, upgraded hardware could potentially revitalise some of the more challenging software from the Switch's existing library. Recent Microsoft and Sony systems have given older software the ability to run with higher clock rates and greater access to system resources. A hypothetical "Switch 2" might allow older games to run like this, maximizing frame-rate and dynamic resolutions in the process. Of course, that all depends on Nintendo following industry conventions, of which there is no guarantee - but at least years of modding reveal that most games run perfectly fine with system-level overclocks applied.
⋮
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RennanNT said:
I'm saying the 3DS problem wasn't the price. Had it launched at $200, it would have still sold basically the same thing in the end. Had they launched the 2DS first in order to match the DS Lite price on day 1, it wouldn't have a positive impact either.

The 3DS problem was it simply lacked mass appeal to sell more, same for the XB1, Wii U and Vita but worse. Hundreds of millions can afford much more than $250 or $350 in luxury goods, but that doesn't matter if they don't want to buy it to begin with.

The 3DS failed to impress at $250 or $200, then they tried a less appealing but cheaper model and the 2DS failed to impress at $80 with a game too, then they tried a more expensive console but significantly more appealing and... people are still paying $300 for it 5 years later, with a quite bigger and a lot more active install base than the cheaper 3DS had. And then there's the Switch Lite which proved cheaper doesn't make it the best selling model.
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Can't really agree with much of what's said about the 3DS here. I think the misread on the 2DS is especially big. But to get back to the salient point:

RennanNT said:
A theoretical $500 Switch 2 can outsell a theoretical $400/$300 Switch 2 if that $100/$200 is used to make it a lot more appealing. Only Nintendo knows what they can deliver for those price points though, so trying to decide which of these is the correct price point to maximize sales when all we have is a vague idea of the specs, which by themselves means nothing anyway, is a fool's errand.
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Nintendo doesn't know. They have to weigh the risk of overshooting against the risk of undershooting, because they don't have an oracle to tell them the perfect intersection between appeal and price. Saying "price doesn't matter, as long as you make it worth the price" is just an oxymoron.

So if you aim low, what do you risk? Your margins may end up slimmer than what you could have gotten away with -- something you can never be sure of anyway -- but as long as you're not losing money, you're still profiting and building the install base where you can focus on evergreens and attach rate, as Nintendo does best. And then you never have to cut the price!

The Switch dispositively shows Nintendo following that logic. It's basically the Wii U gamepad with the rest of the Wii U stuffed inside it and then some, and yet it costs the same as the Wii U did. $50 less than the launch price of the model with the same storage capacity, before accounting for inflation. They very clearly didn't decide the price based on the maximum they could get away with. They erred on the conservative side.* And I will acknowledge that they were in a much riskier position in 2016 than they are today, but I find it highly implausible that just because the next model's launch isn't as do-or-die, they're going to do anything differently from the safe and demonstrably lucrative strategy they've been doing. Take the differing situation in 2016 vs. now, add to it inflation and uncertainty, and yep, you likely get a significantly increased price -- but not a price without a ceiling.

*Again, not the same thing as aiming for cheapness because I think cheapness sells or whatever.
 
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Mr.Gamerson said:
Make a $400 break even model, and a $500 profit model. Ship more of the profit model until the break even model becomes profitable enough. I would do at least a 70/30 model split in favor of the $500 model at least for the first few rounds of shipments.

Do you guys think they think they can have 256gb of storage and at least 8gb of ram in a $400 model and break even?
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The amount of ram is highly likely to at least be 8 GB.
IIRC, what's explicitly stated in the hack is that Drake/T239 uses LPDDR5 and 1 frame buffer partition. Orin/T234 is listed as having 2 frame buffer partitions.
Public information states that Orin has a memory bus width of 256 bit.
Therefore, we can reasonably infer that Drake has a 128-bit wide memory bus.
Looking through Samsung and Micron's LPDDR5 catalogs, it's not currently possible to fill a 128-bit memory bus with less than 8 GB. Interestingly, for modules listed as in Production at this time, the floor's 12 GB (via a pair of 6 GB 64-bit modules). (as for SK Hynix, I don't trust my ability to interpret their catalog)
 
Nintendo aren't going to be ordering RAM via the website so idk about that. But having more than 8GB of ram would definitely be a good move for 3rd party support.
 
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True, but if any lower option were to exist at all, it'd probably be listed by now for some potential phone maker client.
Kinda wish I knew more about the details of RAM so I can actually understand the 'why' more. Like sure, I can observe that the lowest density/amount per bit of bus width has been going up (128 Megabit per 1-bit for LPDDR4X, 512 Megabit per 1-bit for LPDDR5, and 1 Gigabit per 1-bit for LPDDR5X so far, I think?). But I'm not clear on the how/why behind such observations.
 
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Dakhil said:
I think the question is when Nintendo's new hardware's launching rather than is Nintendo launching new hardware.

The illegal Nvidia leaks are clearly proof Nintendo's planning on launching new hardware. But when Nintendo's planning to launch new hardware is unknown.
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The answer: When they're good and ready.
 
ILikeFeet said:
not a hint at anything other than they think it'll be out before they release their games
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Thanks for your clarification 😃

It's a shame though, I miss the days when I unbox Nintendo's "next machine" and its new experience that came with it, and it's been over 5 years

I really don't want them to be the only company that doesn't release their next console this generation
 
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PashArcade said:


Another hint that Nintendo Switch 2 may be coming in the near future, unless Nintendo thinks they can hold out until all the way until those games are completed, which will probably be be 2025 minimum
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That doesn't hint anything but the developer hedging their bets.
The timeframe of development does put it in a bracket where Switch may not be the "Hardware of the time" anymore or if Switch sales are going strong even when the Drake-chip one is already out, it could be for both.
 
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LiC said:
Can't really agree with much of what's said about the 3DS here. I think the misread on the 2DS is especially big. But to get back to the salient point:


Nintendo doesn't know. They have to weigh the risk of overshooting against the risk of undershooting, because they don't have an oracle to tell them the perfect intersection between appeal and price. Saying "price doesn't matter, as long as you make it worth the price" is just an oxymoron.

So if you aim low, what do you risk? Your margins may end up slimmer than what you could have gotten away with -- something you can never be sure of anyway -- but as long as you're not losing money, you're still profiting and building the install base where you can focus on evergreens and attach rate, as Nintendo does best. And then you never have to cut the price!

The Switch dispositively shows Nintendo following that logic. It's basically the Wii U gamepad with the rest of the Wii U stuffed inside it and then some, and yet it costs the same as the Wii U did. $50 less than the launch price of the model with the same storage capacity, before accounting for inflation. They very clearly didn't decide the price based on the maximum they could get away with. They erred on the conservative side.* And I will acknowledge that they were in a much riskier position in 2016 than they are today, but I find it highly implausible that just because the next model's launch isn't as do-or-die, they're going to do anything differently from the safe and demonstrably lucrative strategy they've been doing. Take the differing situation in 2016 vs. now, add to it inflation and uncertainty, and yep, you likely get a significantly increased price -- but not a price without a ceiling.

*Again, not the same thing as aiming for cheapness because I think cheapness sells or whatever.
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I agree. It's easy to say in retrospect that the Switch should have been $350 or even $400, but nobody knew how much of a success it would be before launch. And just because the Switch sold does not mean its successor will sell. Before 3DS, Nintendo did their market research and came to the conclusion that it would do well at $250, and it fell below expectations. Yes, surrounding factors were not the same, but there are always unknown factors prior to launch.

So even if their research is telling them Switch drake will sell well at $450/500, would they go for it? There are certainly people who will buy the thing for that much, but how many of them are there, and will there be unpredictable factors that affect desirability? A price cut even 1 or 2 years in will be somewhat embarrassing compared to the Switch which has yet to get one 6 years in. Given the failures they've had over the years, I think they will choose to err on the side of caution.

(which is what I was getting at 3 pages ago)
 
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Uncle Squingis said:
I agree. It's easy to say in retrospect that the Switch should have been $350 or even $400, but nobody knew how much of a success it would be before launch. And just because the Switch sold does not mean its successor will sell. Before 3DS, Nintendo did their market research and came to the conclusion that it would do well at $250, and it fell below expectations. Yes, surrounding factors were not the same, but there are always unknown factors prior to launch.

So even if their research is telling them Switch drake will sell well at $450/500, would they go for it? There are certainly people who will buy the thing for that much, but how many of them are there, and will there be unpredictable factors that affect desirability? A price cut even 1/2 years in will be somewhat embarrassing compared to the Switch which has yet to get one 6 years in. Given the failures they've had over the years, I think they will choose to err on the side of caution.

(which is what I was getting at 3 pages ago)
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$300 was the right price. Easy to say retroactively I know, but it's sales proves it.

Sometimes, you know a product isn't priced right and the value propostion isn't quite there even when it is at a price that is competitive ie: Sega Saturn after its price drops to match the PS1, 3DS, GameCube when it was $99. etc.
 
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LiC said:
Nintendo doesn't know. They have to weigh the risk of overshooting against the risk of undershooting, because they don't have an oracle to tell them the perfect intersection between appeal and price. Saying "price doesn't matter, as long as you make it worth the price" is just an oxymoron.

So if you aim low, what do you risk? Your margins may end up slimmer than what you could have gotten away with -- something you can never be sure of anyway -- but as long as you're not losing money, you're still profiting and building the install base where you can focus on evergreens and attach rate, as Nintendo does best.
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Sorry, looking at it again after sleeping, you were replying to a post about profit margins specifically. In that case I agree, they should keep the margin low to sell more software.

I've seen the too many posts about how $350 or $400 is a ceiling for a console they don't even know what offers and using the 3DS as an argument and I ended misreading yours, my bad.
 
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to be fair, all these other gaming handhelds are using big-ass AMD APUs in switch-like bodies, so it's not like they can't fit an 8core cpu/1536core gpu into a switch body
 
ILikeFeet said:
to be fair, all these other gaming handhelds are using big-ass AMD APUs in switch-like bodies, so it's not like they can't fit an 8core cpu/1536core gpu into a switch body
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Yeah to me the size isn't the issue as much as the power efficiency is.
 
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In the "likely" September Direct, we may guess (more or less) when to expect the new hardware, from the amount and type of games that will be shown.

The amount of games announced for Switch during Gamescom was medium-low, to me that means: we could have a very rich September Direct or Nintendo needs to hurry up and bring out the new Switch.

I wonder what line-up it might have... between remastered, upgraded, porting and new games it could be the end of my wallet 🤔
 
The next-gen Switch is coming next year.
Other than BotW2, more sequels reusing engines/assets, and remasters, any new made-from-scratch big game is being made or planned for the next console.

Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.

I firmly believe Prime 4 will be the launch showcase game for the next console, but a less impressive version will probably also be on the Switch purely to not piss off the fanbase.
 
ReyVGM said:
Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.
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I wouldn't bet on Odyssey 2/Next 3D Mario being an exclusive for Drake, but for anything else in that list I 100% agree.
 
ReyVGM said:
The next-gen Switch is coming next year.
Other than BotW2, more sequels reusing engines/assets, and remasters, any new made-from-scratch big game is being made or planned for the next console.

Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.

I firmly believe Prime 4 will be the launch showcase game for the next console, but a less impressive version will probably also be on the Switch purely to not piss off the fanbase.
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Metroid 4 was restarted in 2019. 14 months after Odyssey was released.
 
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ReyVGM said:
The next-gen Switch is coming next year.
Other than BotW2, more sequels reusing engines/assets, and remasters, any new made-from-scratch big game is being made or planned for the next console.

Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.

I firmly believe Prime 4 will be the launch showcase game for the next console, but a less impressive version will probably also be on the Switch purely to not piss off the fanbase.
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Backstage Pass
 
LiC said:
Are we really comparing post price-cut to launch prices? And on top of that, applying it to a system that hasn't had price cuts? Not to mention basically predicting exponential growth? Or is this a joke post?
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No joke. Switch is the price it is now because that's what the market allows it to be. Same with the prices all those other systems were before successors arrived. If the market is willing to allow Switch to be so much more expensive than those systems were, it doesn't seem irrational to me that Nintendo bean counters would think the market will allow the next thing to get away with a lot, too. Of course I don't think $800+ is a reasonable forecast, but anything below 500 would be a historically moderate price increase.
Thraktor said:
Several people in this thread have said that they won't charge $400 for the new model because it's far too much additional value vs the $350 for the OLED model, but that's entirely the point! The new model has to be obviously far better value than the existing models, because Nintendo will make more off the new model in the long run, and they don't want anyone to buy the old model unless they simply can't afford the newer one.
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This is all well and good, but really only an issue if supply is very high. If in a certain time period they can sell 20m Drakes vs 10m Drakes + 10m Olds, that's worth considering. But if they're only going to be selling 10m Drakes no matter what, a lower price just brings in less money and helps dissuade people on a budget from getting an older model.
 
Yeah I'm on team crossgen. Having Zelda and Mario as Drake launch window games while also being on Switch will address a lot of things at once

They get to sell to their 110m market, and show off the value of the new hardware. The Drake games will likely be 60fps 4k with a lot of features.

One thing i expect is expanded video recording and social features on Drake. Perhaps something like Twitch integration to stream directly from the device
 
I agree that $499 is unlikely, but I do think they’ll split the difference and go for $449 or so. $100 more than OLED seems good. After all, if Drake is only $50 more than OLED, then it’ll make OLED look pretty unappealing. If you had money to spend on an OLED, why wouldn’t you spend another $50 to get a way better console?

I think they were definitely aiming for $399 before, but inflation and rising costs elsewhere will cause a $50 increase or so.
 
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If I had to guess, more cross gen for online heavy titles, less cross gen for single player titles. Particularly with Switch's piracy/emulation issues.
 
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ReyVGM said:
Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.
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Don't expect Odyssey 2, period
 
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I assume it’s obvious at this point, but since no one has said it outright:

The 2022 dream is dead right? We’re in late August and there’s been no hints or smoke for a holiday release this year.
 
PashArcade said:
Having some cross gen games is fine, as long as we also have some next gen exclusive games, much like PS5 did with Demon Souls, Returnal, and Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart
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To be fair even Those 3 games barely moved the needle, people were still complaining about PS5 and next-gen consoles as a whole being a cross-gen borefest. Sadly, if people want iterative platform environments, then they'd have to deal with a lot more cross gen stuff, because it makes economic sense to keep the users of the larger installed base engaged.
 
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mariodk18 said:
I assume it’s obvious at this point, but since no one has said it outright:

The 2022 dream is dead right? We’re in late August and there’s been no hints or smoke for a holiday release this year.
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Hold your horses on the hearses, there'll be none of that while I'm around.

New Nintendo 3DS, August reveal, October release.

PS4 Pro, September reveal, November release.

And while it wasn't a same year release:
Nintendo Switch, October reveal, March release (same fiscal year).

Switch Lite, two months as well.

I mean PS4 Slim was practically announced and released the same day.

While unlikely, Nintendo could start shipping these things BEFORE they announce it, which wouldn't even be too unprecedented.

The CY2022 dream is dead December 31st 2022. The FY2022-23 dream is dead March 31st 2023.

I don't see them ending the fiscal year without announcing it, and I think it's more likely they won't end the fiscal year with it unreleased.
 
Concernt said:
While unlikely, Nintendo could start shipping these things BEFORE they announce it, which wouldn't even be too unprecedented.
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not unprecedented, but a very dumb move. this is how you lose control of the narrative and the device's guts are splayed onto the internet for all to see prior to reveal
 
ILikeFeet said:
not unprecedented, but a very dumb move. this is how you lose control of the narrative and the device's guts are splayed onto the internet for all to see prior to reveal
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That's already begun, the API leaked... They need to announce it sooner than later if they want to have any control of the narrative here. Even if it's as late as June 2023, I don't see them waiting more than a month or two from the start of production to announce it, and if our friend who leaked the Splatoon 3 OLED Model is right, that points to a reveal soon. Personally I think it'll be announced and start shipping in September. Though by "start shipping" I mean loaded onto container ships in China en route to California, not arriving at stores.
 
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ReyVGM said:
The next-gen Switch is coming next year.
Other than BotW2, more sequels reusing engines/assets, and remasters, any new made-from-scratch big game is being made or planned for the next console.

Don't expect Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Xenoblade 4, Mario Kart 9, Splatoon 4, etc. on the current Switch because all of them are planned for the next-gen console.

I firmly believe Prime 4 will be the launch showcase game for the next console, but a less impressive version will probably also be on the Switch purely to not piss off the fanbase.
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I pretty much agree with this. But it's also why I believe at this point Nintendo will market this as the successor system, ie "Switch 2". I just don't see Odyssey 2, Luigi's Mansion 4, Animal Crossing Next, Mario Kart 9, etc, all being exclusive to a "Pro" / revision model.

We're coming up on 6 years into the Switch's lifespan. This will be the Nintendo Switch 2.
 
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