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

I mean yeah, OLED Model launched at over 400$ in Europe. Since when was anything less than 399.99$ ever reasonable to expect when OLED Model is 349.99$?

I'd say 449.99$ would be the absolute minimum launch price of the next Switch unless OLED falls to 299.99 to fit a 399.99 Drake model into the lineup cleanly. This could mean the discontinuation of the V2 (speculated for some time.) This would explain the OLED Model's relatively tame advertising before launch. OLED Model is what V2 was meant to be, internally it's been price optimised to hell and back, with smaller circuit boards, smaller chips, smaller cooling system, lots of empty space. V2 by comparison is incredibly inefficiently designed with an oversized cooling system and support circuitry the Mariko doesn't need because the V2 just got it dropped in hot off the press with no optimisations. The actual "S" model (comparable to Xbox One S, or Xbox 360 S) of this generation is the OLED Model. The only difference from usual is that this redesign became more expensive, but that's not entirely unusual, the PSP Go was a cost reduced product sold at a "premium" price. It would also hugely simplify production going into a new model. Four forms of the "same" machine on sale at the same time is just unlikely and inefficient. By replacing V2 with the OLED in the market, it allows more flexibility with Drake pricing, could mean if Drake uses the same adaptor, dock and cables, they could even simplify production with only one kind of HDMI cable, one kind of dock, and one kind of adaptor being shipped, along with internal optimisations (OLED and Drake sharing the same hinge design, Joy-Con rails, possibly battery, then OLED and Lite using the same cooling assembly.)
My OLED was £320 from Amazon UK.
 
My OLED was £320 from Amazon UK.
When I say "Europe", I mean Europe, as in either the peninsula of Eurasia, or the economic and political union of Europe (The EEA and EU respectively), the UK being in neither place, and when I talk prices IN EUROPE, I think, at least, I would HOPE, that I can safely assume one realises I am talking about the EUROPEAN currency, the EURO, which as far as I'm aware the UK fought very hard in 1980, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2007 and 2016 NOT to partake in.

Even then... £320 (Pounds Sterling) was over $400 (American Dollar/USD) at the launch of the OLED Model. It was €365 MSRP in the Eurozone, which, to reiterate, if someone is talking "European prices", you can usually safely assume they mean the price in Euros, the clue being in the name, and 365 European Euros in October of 2021 was indeed in excess of 400 US Dollars.

Moreover Nintendo UK sets MSRP for both GBP and Euro sales (In the Republic of Ireland). £320 or €365 in October 2021 were pretty much the same price, give or take VAT but ROI and UK have if not synchronised, then at least, similar VAT rates.

The point stands, Nintendo has already positioned a Switch no more powerful than the original ABOVE $400(USD) in some markets, including the world's largest by total spending power (EEA), so a new more powerful one would certainly go above and beyond that unless they restructure pricing.
 
I really hope Nintendo doesn’t ignore what happened with the Switch on the 20nm node when designing Drake.

I really don’t want to see multiple profiles which Nintendo slowly rolls out during its lifespan just because off a “crap” node
 
It is extremely distasteful to start a dialogue about a potential invasion, placing the focus on the ease of acquiring game consoles. We heavily discourage such framing, and ask that you please be more tactful, in the future. - Aurc, Donnie, BozPaggs
Don't want to be a downer but it's really looking like China is going to invade Taiwan very soon:


Not sure how this will play out but this will cripple tech imports for years if not decades if China really does invade. This really sucks and it's making me have a hard time getting excited for a potential Switch 2 when people may not even be able to buy old consoles soon. :confused:
 
Don't want to be a downer but it's really looking like China is going to invade Taiwan very soon:


Not sure how this will play out but this will cripple tech imports for years if not decades if China really does invade. This really sucks and it's making me have a hard time getting excited for a potential Switch 2 when people may not even be able to buy old consoles soon. :confused:

There won't be an invasion... For now that is.
There's too much at stake for China if they invade Taiwan. Their economy is still struggling because of covid.

But I also believe it will happen one day. And things will get very ugly then.
 
When I say "Europe", I mean Europe, as in either the peninsula of Eurasia, or the economic and political union of Europe (The EEA and EU respectively), the UK being in neither place, and when I talk prices IN EUROPE, I think, at least, I would HOPE, that I can safely assume one realises I am talking about the EUROPEAN currency, the EURO, which as far as I'm aware the UK fought very hard in 1980, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2007 and 2016 NOT to partake in.

Even then... £320 (Pounds Sterling) was over $400 (American Dollar/USD) at the launch of the OLED Model. It was €365 MSRP in the Eurozone, which, to reiterate, if someone is talking "European prices", you can usually safely assume they mean the price in Euros, the clue being in the name, and 365 European Euros in October of 2021 was indeed in excess of 400 US Dollars.

Moreover Nintendo UK sets MSRP for both GBP and Euro sales (In the Republic of Ireland). £320 or €365 in October 2021 were pretty much the same price, give or take VAT but ROI and UK have if not synchronised, then at least, similar VAT rates.

The point stands, Nintendo has already positioned a Switch no more powerful than the original ABOVE $400(USD) in some markets, including the world's largest by total spending power (EEA), so a new more powerful one would certainly go above and beyond that unless they restructure pricing.
They have not officially set an RRP in the EU/UK for years due to them being fined by the EU for price fixing 2 decades ago, it's why all their global retail announcements avoid mentioning European prices.
 
They have not officially set an RRP in the EU/UK for years due to them being fined by the EU for price fixing 2 decades ago, it's why all their global retail announcements avoid mentioning European prices.
As someone who lives in the Eurozone. That's untrue.

As much as they may seem to avoid "publishing" it, as someone who has actually been involved in purchasing Nintendo products for an organisation, it is patently untrue that they do not set a recommended price. They do. And retailers observe it almost to a fault with the only exception I've personally had the pleasure of happening across being Amazon France.

Furthermore, Nintendo came out outright last year to announce the reduction in MSRP of the Nintendo Switch (V2), so no, they don't even not announce it. They avoid specifics, yes, but that's because even the European Union (much to the shagrin of itself and myself and my home country) has more than one currency at different exchange rates.

The point remains: the price of Nintendo Switch OLED Model in Europe and the UK was above 400 USD equivalent. Therefore the next device being anything LESS than that without the OLED Model being repositioned in the market seems absurd.
 
TIL :) Another fun fact: the Norwegian equivalent to donuts is literally called "lard rings"
Came for hardware news; left with hunger for Norwegian fried dough 🤤. There are a couple Scandinavian restaurants in my city, and I'll see if they have this.

Tabletop mode is probably one of the more underrated switch features.

How can that be improved if at all?🤔
A much bigger display. Everything else is secondary. Back when a mini-LED panel was rumored, I wrote a post hypothesizing the business case for an iPad sized Switch; it's probably too niche for Nintendo though. Since I'm traveling more this year, I decided to build my own Switch XL travel kit:

gHDzga6.png

Start with a minimalist 13" laptop bag that can easily fit into a carry-on luggage.

3KRkVOf.png

On the right (in the padded sleeve):
13.3" OLED portable monitor (e.g., this or this)​
On the left (top to bottom):
Combo Bluetooth transmitter and earbuds case (e.g., this or this; you don't really need it if you can tolerate Switch's laggy Bluetooth audio)​
Low profile gamepad for flat packing (e.g., this or this; you need a hard case to prevent accidental button pressing from wasting battery)​
USB-C PD power bank (60W should be enough)​
Switch console in a mesh pocket (so that the vents are not blocked)​
Cables:
Audio to USB-C cable (Switch headphone jack to Bluetooth transmitter)​
USB-C charging cable (power bank to monitor)​
USB-C 3.1 or better cable (monitor to Switch)​

tkFVnRt.png

Take out the controller and earbuds, prop up the monitor inside the laptop bag, and it's ready to play! Easy to set up and pack up on a plane or in a hotel. No messy wires and completely self-contained.
 
Don't want to be a downer but it's really looking like China is going to invade Taiwan very soon:


Not sure how this will play out but this will cripple tech imports for years if not decades if China really does invade. This really sucks and it's making me have a hard time getting excited for a potential Switch 2 when people may not even be able to buy old consoles soon. :confused:
Counterpoint: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...an-isn-t-happening-anytime-soon?sref=R8NfLgwS

China has wanted to annex Taiwan for the better part of a century now, and while yes the Chinese army has grown a lot - which is concerning - China will probably first try to get it's way through economic and political means. They know an invasion will mean crippling the world economy - not least of which their own, which isn't doing well as-is - so they probably won't take that risk until other routes have been fully attempted, which hasn't happened yet.

Also they know that if they decide to do it, it'll be a bloodbath. Taiwan is very well-armed, hard to take as an island, and all of its most valuable economic assets (the foundries) are located on points where fighting would happen in case of an invasion. That'd mean these extremely valuable - and vulnerable - assets will be damaged or destroyed in the conflict. They call this their "silicon shield":

.

Just some thoughts from someone who's also worried, but cautious to get swept up in the negative hype.
 
This is very good analysis, however, I think the power-per-pixel ratios don't take DLSS properly into account. The power-per-pixel number needs to be factored based on the targeted internal resolution, not the targeted output, with accommodations made for additional frame budget for DLSS.

One example scenario is that 4k output is achieved via something like DLSS Performance Ultra mode, and that Tensor Cores are disabled in handheld mode. That would mean that the target internal resolution in handheld is 720p60, and the target internal resolution of docked mode is 1080p70 - same gap as current, res wise, but the extra frame time is needed in docked mode to have time to run DLSS to get to 4k

Another scenario is that handheld targets 1080p70, with DLDSR running to downsample supported games to 720p60, with docked mode targetting and internal res of 1440p70, again, DLSS that higher quality image to the same 4k.

My assumption is that, just like on current Switch, Nintendo will offer an array of performance profiles for each mode, and a game will be able to trade off various clocks across the CPU, GPU, Tensor cores (if independently scalable?), and Memory to maintain power draw. My suspicion too is that migrating state from fully shut down cores transitioning between docked and undocked mode - or spinning up cores and expanding the threadpool - requires too thick an abstraction layer or too tricky a dev environment, and that instead they'll go with ridiculously low clocks instead.

Yeah, I was making the implicit assumption that internal resolution and output resolution would be at a consistent ratio between the two modes, which isn't necessarily going to be the case.

However, I don't understand the logic of disabling tensor cores in handheld mode. Even if we're only considering the DLSS use-case, the reason they're using the technology is that with a given cost (ie transistor budget) and power budget, DLSS should allow them to get better image quality than devoting those transistors to other GPU logic and rendering directly at a higher resolution. That transistor and power efficiency should be just as true in handheld mode as it is in docked mode. There is some limitation at super-low source resolutions (I found artifacting start to creep in when testing at ~360p and below), but even 540p to 1080p is eminently doable with DLSS.

Secondly, there are other uses for the tensor cores than just DLSS. I'm more interested in what other ML use-cases developers might find use for with Drake, and limiting tensor cores to docked mode only would cut off a lot of that. Also, on Ampere standard FP16 operations are performed on the tensor cores, so they'll need to be active for any FP16 code to work (including backwards compatibility).

I'll readily admit to ignorance on what would be required on the software side to make this work, and I'm sure it's non-trivial. Not impossible if that's what's necessary to achieve their performance/power consumption goals, but definitely quite a bit of work.

I still think 5nm is on the table. Whether or not Drake uses it would depend on when Nvidia saw the warning signs of glut early on.

That said, whatever they make for 8nm would have been the goal, not the concession. So no, "if Nintendo spent more we could have gotten the TX2" shit here
What manufacturing process to use would have been pretty much the first decision made when work started on the chip. From the Nvidia leak, the deal with Nintendo would have been signed around late 2019/early 2020, so they would have made the decision then. This would have been before even the covid semiconductor shortage, let alone any post-covid 5nm glut.

Part of the reason I see TSMC 5nm as a possibility is that they're reportedly using it for even the lowest end of the Ada lineup. This suggests that despite the higher wafer costs for TSMC 5nm vs Samsung 8nm/5nm/4nm or TSMC's 6nm process, the higher density, better yields and higher clocks mean it's actually a better value proposition than the alternatives for cost-sensitive chips like AD107. They likely would have made the decision to manufacture the low-end Ada chips on TSMC 5nm at about the same time as they were deciding what process to use for Drake, so the value proposition may have been in favour of 5nm for Drake as well.

Another factor is that 12 SMs is simply a very large GPU for a portable device on 8nm. On TSMC 5nm, however, it's quite reasonable. There's also the possibility of a process between these two, like Samsung 5nm/4nm or TSMC 6nm, but given Orin on 8nm and Ada going whole-hog on TSMC 5nm, those two options seem the most likely to me.
 
Counterpoint: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...an-isn-t-happening-anytime-soon?sref=R8NfLgwS

China has wanted to annex Taiwan for the better part of a century now, and while yes the Chinese army has grown a lot - which is concerning - China will probably first try to get it's way through economic and political means. They know an invasion will mean crippling the world economy - not least of which their own, which isn't doing well as-is - so they probably won't take that risk until other routes have been fully attempted, which hasn't happened yet.

Also they know that if they decide to do it, it'll be a bloodbath. Taiwan is very well-armed, hard to take as an island, and all of its most valuable economic assets (the foundries) are located on points where fighting would happen in case of an invasion. That'd mean these extremely valuable - and vulnerable - assets will be damaged or destroyed in the conflict. They call this their "silicon shield":

.

Just some thoughts from someone who's also worried, but cautious to get swept up in the negative hype.

There will be no Invasion for a lokg time. China would get crushed from the US within days - and this without A-Bombs (and no I am
Not American, but its a fact that the military capabilities of the US are unbelievably terrifying to say at leadt)
 
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Don't want to be a downer but it's really looking like China is going to invade Taiwan very soon:


Not sure how this will play out but this will cripple tech imports for years if not decades if China really does invade. This really sucks and it's making me have a hard time getting excited for a potential Switch 2 when people may not even be able to buy old consoles soon. :confused:
I'm no military of or history expert but I always figured when a country is making very vocal and overt threats that they actually have no desire to follow through on those anytime soon. If they were preparing an invasion they wouldn't be advertising it so loudly, right?
 
I really hope Nintendo doesn’t ignore what happened with the Switch on the 20nm node when designing Drake.

I really don’t want to see multiple profiles which Nintendo slowly rolls out during its lifespan just because off a “crap” node
I was under the impression the initial Switch stock was basically using up surplus NVidia TX1 boards, which was a win both for NVidia, which needed to get rid of the things, and Nintendo, which presumably got a deal on them. Don’t think they had much choice in the node to begin with, and they pretty obviously moved away from 20nm as soon as they reasonably could.

Drake being a custom design for Nintendo, I expect they will try to avoid this situation repeating itself.
 
I was under the impression the initial Switch stock was basically using up surplus NVidia TX1 boards, which was a win both for NVidia, which needed to get rid of the things, and Nintendo, which presumably got a deal on them. Don’t think they had much choice in the node to begin with, and they pretty obviously moved away from 20nm as soon as they reasonably could.

Drake being a custom design for Nintendo, I expect they will try to avoid this situation repeating itself.
I know I keep saying it but.

WHERE DID THIS IDEA THE SWITCH WAS CRAP AT LAUNCH COME FROM?

It WASN'T, it STILL isn't, it was a portable that has ten times the shader cores of PS3, making it a handheld console closer to Xbox One than Xbox 360, graphically. How is that "crap"? Even the battery life wasn't terrible, being 2.5-12 depending on the game.
 
This entire thread

Don't forget, you're here forever.

Actually i'm out of here the moment the Drake model is officially announced. At latest when it releases.

Gotta plan what games i wanna replay in nice next to BotW 1. ;D

(Joke, i have so little time, i can't even finish new games let alone replay old ones ;_;)
 
It’s gonna be real neat when Splatoon 3 comes out and people datamine a bunch of DLSS code in the engine before the DLSS-capable model is even revealed.
 
It’s gonna be real neat when Splatoon 3 comes out and people datamine a bunch of DLSS code in the engine before the DLSS-capable model is even revealed.
Digital Foundry will see the game has a homegrown TAA solution and we'll lose our minds over possible hook-ins
 
I know I keep saying it but.

WHERE DID THIS IDEA THE SWITCH WAS CRAP AT LAUNCH COME FROM?

It WASN'T, it STILL isn't, it was a portable that has ten times the shader cores of PS3, making it a handheld console closer to Xbox One than Xbox 360, graphically. How is that "crap"? Even the battery life wasn't terrible, being 2.5-12 depending on the game.
I never suggested it was crap. But it was my understanding that NVidia produced a ton of TX1 boards and never sold enough Shields or signed enough hardware partners to actually get through them. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for Nintendo to get ahold of what was at the time a very powerful mobile chipset (despite being over a year on the market) at favorable rates, and for NVidia to clear out their stock.

The 20nm node is pretty widely acknowledged as lousy, though. There's a reason they got away from it as quickly as was feasible.
 
I never suggested it was crap. But it was my understanding that NVidia produced a ton of TX1 boards and never sold enough Shields or signed enough hardware partners to actually get through them. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for Nintendo to get ahold of what was at the time a very powerful mobile chipset (despite being over a year on the market) at favorable rates, and for NVidia to clear out their stock.

The 20nm node is pretty widely acknowledged as lousy, though. There's a reason they got away from it as quickly as was feasible.
That scenario was entirely speculation and had no basis in fact. Is it possible that or something similar happened? Sure, I guess, but there is zero evidence pointing to that.

In fact we do have reason to believe Nvidia had input from Nintendo when designing the TX1 in the first place, which would kinda poke a major hole in that theory.
 
That scenario was entirely speculation and had no basis in fact. Is it possible that or something similar happened? Sure, I guess, but there is zero evidence pointing to that.

In fact we do have reason to believe Nvidia had input from Nintendo when designing the TX1 in the first place, which would kinda poke a major hole in that theory.
Good to know. It was largely just my recollection of talk from around the launch period, wasn't sure how much if any had been substantiated since.
 
So since Splatoon 3 is getting support until the end of 2024, it’s clear that the next switch will not come until 2025.


did I do this right?
(Along with the MK8D DLC) it does add much more weight to the idea that the new console is part of the current Switch hardware line up rather than a Switch 2.

On another subject the game looked rough during some of the mp footage. Maybe a more aggressive lower bound for scaling.

The city environments really do show what you can gain from hardware when you limit software to 30fps instead of 60. It has very nice image quality and better lighting, textures and materials versus the gameplay 60fps mode.

I wonder how people would feel if Nintendo went down the Halo Infinite path for cross gen games where the standard Switch has games limited to 30fps while Drake runs them at a higher resolution and at 60fps?
 
In sales figures?

Yes. Yes you are.

It's not that the Deck isn't popular, but Valve just doesn't have the capacity to meet demand, and moreover, the Switch has many benefits (far superior ease of use, automatic clock changes, automatic docking and undocking.). These are things the PC platform is inherently incapable of, as they are symptoms of its primary advantages, flexibility and compatibility.
Indeed, sales estimates including reservations for Deck are around one million units. Which is great for an enthusiast device but only just beats the Virtual Boy and Sega 32X in terms of sales and for comparison N-Gage sold ~3M units.
 
I'll give you a 6/10, solid effort, but you lack the proper refinement.
Almost, you forgot to call anyone who doesn't agree with you delusional.
You two are right:


“So since Splatoon 3 is getting support until the end of 2024, it’s clear that the next switch will not come until 2025, late 2025 to be exact. You’re delusional if you think it’s coming anytime before then.”

How’s that?

(Along with the MK8D DLC)
Xenoblade is also getting DLC until next year.
what even is a "switch 2" if 6x compute units, at least 2x more ram, and a billion-x better cpu performance ain't that @_@
A miserable pile is reportings.
 
You two are right:

“So since Splatoon 3 is getting support until the end of 2024, it’s clear that the next switch will not come until 2025, late 2025 to be exact. You’re delusional if you think it’s coming anytime before then.”
"It'll be a minor upgrade, 1080p at the most, and it won't be backwards compatible or carryover eShop purchases. Nintendo wants to sell Splatoon 3 DX after all."
 
"It'll be a minor upgrade, 1080p at the most, and it won't be backwards compatible or carryover eShop purchases. Nintendo wants to sell Splatoon 3 DX after all."
Bold of you to assume it’ll be called Splatoon 3 DX, it’ll be called “Splatoon 1 DLC 3rd wave Deluxe”

We are on Splatoon 1.x still after all.
 
I'm no military of or history expert but I always figured when a country is making very vocal and overt threats that they actually have no desire to follow through on those anytime soon. If they were preparing an invasion they wouldn't be advertising it so loudly, right?

Russia did exactly that with the Ukraine and then invaded months later. China so far is replicating what Russia did with the Ukraine. Threatening to attack, military drills, launching bombs near them. Seems to be the same stuff here with China. Still I hope cooler heads prevail.
 
Russia did exactly that with the Ukraine and then invaded months later. China so far is replicating what Russia did with the Ukraine. Threatening to attack, military drills, launching bombs near them. Seems to be the same stuff here with China. Still I hope cooler heads prevail.
Try not to worry about these things. What will be, will be. IMO China are just flexing their muscles because a high ranking US political leader visited it. If they wanted to take Taiwan they would have taken it years ago. There’s too much trade between the nations and a lot of money to lose especially with a war already denting the world’s economy. Money talks as per usual.
 
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Furthermore, according to this follow-up post, all off-topic chat will be moderated.
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