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

[Skittzo]

Was giving a look into this and two things standout to me: Orin NX 8GB, which has 6 cores, 1xNVDLA and max GPU freq of 765MHz tops out at 20W. While Orin NX 16GB with 8 CPU cores(+2), 2xNVDLA(+1) and max GPU freq of 918MHz, tops out at 25W. That indicates to me that these clocks are still within the efficiency range of the V/f | Perf/W curve. When you look at Orin AGX, the 64GB SKU with + 4 CPU cores and GPU max freq at 1.3 GHz, consumes + 20W(60W) compared to the 32GB SKU. Nothing substantial of course, but it gives us a rough idea for Drake/T239.
Honestly, after seeing this, i'm more relaxed about T239 on 8nm. Nvidia and Nintendo will cut all of these Automotive/AI unintended hardware of the SoC and will clock it quite lower(Mainly on CPU side).

Yeah I think the die size is really the main issue at hand. And hopefully we'll have a good idea about that as soon as some outlets get their hands on these.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

yea, you ain't gonna see this. only one game did this and they stopped after that one game

In that case, the problem was that the portable rendering resolution was the same as the docked resolution, which just seems like a mysteriously stupid unfixed oversight.

 

[totofogo]

In that case, the problem was that the portable rendering resolution was the same as the docked resolution, which just seems like a mysteriously stupid unfixed oversight.

Honestly with the news about lack of optimization in Strangers Paradise, also from KT, I don’t doubt it.

 

[Dakhil]

I don't know if I've missed these or Nvidia recently added these, but there are more sessions at GTC 2022 (Spring 2022) that could be of interest.

• Orin Developer Tools: The Next Frontier [S41447]
• NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI [S41957]
• Designing Carrier Boards for Jetson AGX Orin [SE2601]
• Research Advances Toward Real-time Path Tracing [S43047]
• Rendering Accurate Images using Progressive Denoising [S41865]
• Practical Vulkan: From API to Applications [S41209]
• The Making of Unity's Latest Flagship Demo, An Achievement in Graphics and Rendering [S42723]
• NVIDIA DLSS Overview and Game Integrations [S42501]
• Advances in Spatial Hashing: A Pragmatic Approach to Robust, Real-time Light Transport [S41194]
• Instant Neural Graphics Primitives [S41441]

Here are the supplementary slides that comes provided with the following GTC 2022 (Spring 2022) sessions so far.

• Orin Developer Tools: The Next Frontier [S41447]
• NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI [S41957]
• Acceleration Structures in Ray Traced Open World Games [S42111]
• Practical Vulkan: From API to Applications [S41209]
• NVIDIA DLSS Overview and Game Integrations [S42501]
• Advances in Spatial Hashing: A Pragmatic Approach to Robust, Real-time Light Transport [S41194]

---

Maybe Nintendo will increase the RAM to 10GB. Have 2 dedicated for OS like PS4 Pro.

A potential problem with that idea is that requires two separate RAM channels, with one RAM channel having 8 GB dedicated to games, and another RAM channel having 2 GB dedicated to the OS, similar to how the RAM's configured on the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S. And considering Xbox Series X versions of games can still generally perform worse than PlayStation 5 versions of games, despite Xbox Series X devkits being available for more than a year (e.g. Elden Ring, The Medium, etc.), I suspect that the way the RAM's configured on the Xbox Series X could inadvertently create a RAM bottleneck that can hinder the performance of games.

---

Hopefully, die shots of Jetson AGX Orin's die won't take long.

Anyway, once someone gets a nice picture and/or measurements of Jetson Orin NX then we can get a really good idea of what the die size of Drake would be on 8nm.

Well, unfortunately as shown in the slides provided for the session titled "NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI", the Jetson AGX Orin and the Jetson Orin NX modules won't be available until Q4 2022 (October 2022 for the Jetson AGX Orin modules).

So I reckon there probably won't be die shots of Jetson AGX Orin and/or Jetson Orin NX from sources outside of Nvidia until December 2022 or January 2023 at the earliest.

But there's still a chance Nvidia could save talking about more hardware details (e.g. process node being used, die measurements, etc.) with potentially what I call "artistic PR die shots" (e.g. Xavier's die shot from Hot Chips 30) for Jetson AGX Orin and/or Jetson Orin NX for Hot Chips 34.

 

[Look over there]

Regarding the 8+2 GB ram option; I'm not a fan of it from a real estate/physical area efficiency angle.
The 8 GB's presumably 2 modules to hit 128-bit width. A 3rd module just for the OS sounds dicey; I'm not even sure we expect to have room for a 3rd? And even if there's space for a 3rd, it's probably better to keep it together into one pool for it to be 192-bit wide for the bandwidth, and continue with the logical reservation for system stuff.
Actually, you know what? I don't see what advantages physical dedicated ram for the OS has over logical partition. I'd love to hear an explanation.

 

[fwd-bwd]

A recently published patient filed by Alps Electric (aka Alps Alpine), who designed/manufactured pretty much all major brands' joysticks, shows an electromagnetic thumbstick that looks remarkably similar to the Joy-Con's analog stick.

The patent is not about the joystick being electromagnetic (which isn't a new invention), but how to accurately detect the stick movements by maintain a constant distance between the magnetic stick and the electromagnetic sensor.

In addition to the low-profile thumbstick (for Joy-Con?) above, the patent filing includes a second embodiment that is a conventional joystick suitable for the Pro Controller and most other controllers really.

So Alps is not only trying to eliminate drifting (via magnetic sensing), but also to ensure consistent accurate reading. Seeing this along with another recently published Alps patent that describes a stronger, more durable mount for shoulder buttons (images below), I suspect that Nintendo, and possibly other corporate customers too, are putting pressure on Alps to improve the reliability of their components.

 

[LiC]

A recently published patient filed by Alps Electric (aka Alps Alpine), who designed/manufactured pretty much all major brands' joysticks, shows an electromagnetic thumbstick that looks remarkably similar to the Joy-Con's analog stick.

The patent is not about the joystick being electromagnetic (which isn't a new invention), but how to accurately detect the stick movements by maintain a constant distance between the magnetic stick and the electromagnetic sensor.

In addition to the low-profile thumbstick (for Joy-Con?) above, the patent filing includes a second embodiment that is a conventional joystick suitable for the Pro Controller and most other controllers really.

So Alps is not only trying to eliminate drifting (via magnetic sensing), but also to ensure consistent accurate reading. Seeing this along with another recently published Alps patent that describes a stronger, more durable mount for shoulder buttons (images below), I suspect that Nintendo, and possibly other corporate customers too, are putting pressure on Alps to improve the reliability of their components.

I wasn't sure, so I looked it up and evidently the Joy-con's exact analog stick (distinctive notched cap and all) has been used in other non-Nintendo products. Would be neat if some advancement in controller technology made it into a future Switch revision, though. I assume the reason things like this and optical sensing haven't become commonplace is simply cost.

Edit: Actually, the products I'm seeing are all knockoff Nintendo emulation systems, so they may have just replicated the look of the Joy-con stick's cap. And none of them have information about the actual joystick parts used, so I dunno. Would be interesting to know in the context of this patent whether that cap is something anyone can get from Alps or not.

 

[ShaunSwitch]

On the topic of electromagnetic thumb sticks.

There is one controller I know of currently that utilises them and that is the GuliKit Kingkong 2 pro. I got one of these controllers recently and have been using it for just over a month now in preparation of reviewing the controller, so I have a bit of experience with electromagnetic thumb sticks and shoulder buttons.

Needless to say, it's definitely the way forward for the industry. It's not about just removing drift, the precision offered by both the thumb sticks and shoulder buttons is unrivalled, in fact the controller has become my go to for both PC and Switch so much so I think I am going to buy a second one.

Furthermore, the lack of friction on both components due to it not needing electronic potentiometers makes the movement seem so much smoother, this is also aided by the controller having metal stick rings and sticks, so the contact from the stick to the controller body is metal on metal.

There is one downside, electromagnetic devices such as speakers from the environment can interfere with the sticks function, but you need to literally put a device like a speaker very close to the controller for this to happen, there is also a tiny bit of background electromagnetic energy in the environment but you only ever see this manifest if you put the controller in pro mode which disables the already tiny dead zone on the controller and even then it comes in the form of a very slight bit of "wobble" on the stick test screen that is almost impossible to perceive in that screen, let alone gameplay.

I have other issues with the joy con, in particular the range of motion of the sticks not allowing for precise gameplay, but if they decide to use electromagnetic components in the successor it will be a big improvement from my experience.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Was giving a look into this and two things standout to me: Orin NX 8GB, which has 6 cores, 1xNVDLA and max GPU freq of 765MHz tops out at 20W. While Orin NX 16GB with 8 CPU cores(+2), 2xNVDLA(+1) and max GPU freq of 918MHz, tops out at 25W. That indicates to me that these clocks are still within the efficiency range of the V/f | Perf/W curve. When you look at Orin AGX, the 64GB SKU with + 4 CPU cores and GPU max freq at 1.3 GHz, consumes + 20W(60W) compared to the 32GB SKU. Nothing substantial of course, but it gives us a rough idea for Drake/T239.
Honestly, after seeing this, i'm more relaxed about T239 on 8nm. Nvidia and Nintendo will cut all of these Automotive/AI unintended hardware of the SoC and will clock it quite lower(Mainly on CPU side).

It’s the TDP of the whole board if I’m not mistaken. But yes you pointed out an interesting aspect.

Seems like having 2 more CPU cores at 2GHz, raising the clocks by almost 200MHz for the GPU, having another DLA which has clock speed of 614MHz as well would raise the highest TDP by just 5W.

I think though that the extra 4SMs in the case of Drake are going to offset this though.



So, if I were to offer my own speculated specifications, I think if they use the ORIN NX 16GB as it has the others, it would be like this(below)

For portable:
GPU- 384MHz (again) with other frequencies that include like the 460MHz clock speed (some games are at this speed) and 307MHz.

CPU- 8 cores but clocked in the 1.3-1.6GHz range, down from the max of 2GHz. Maybe one of these clocked even lower for the OS core.

LPDDR5- instead of the 102GB/s it would be probably 70-88GB/s in portable mode


Remove the PVA, the DLA, and I think it should be possible to get a TDP below 10W. Probably.

There isn’t anything public on the PVA, as NV doesn’t publicize information on that part of the silicon, but it doesn’t consume a 0 amount in the TDP.

While I say below 10W, I don’t think it would be where Nintendo would like it and we have the other aspects of the switch that consume like 5W or so.

Like I said, if Nintendo feels like being graceful they would be ok with the switch system consuming 12W-15W portable (with a larger battery).



That said, the size of this die is still going to be massive.


And I’m unsure if they’ll keep the SLC as the L3 cache or L4 cache (for the GPU and CPU respectively).

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

On the topic of electromagnetic thumb sticks.

There is one controller I know of currently that utilises them and that is the GuliKit Kingkong 2 pro. I got one of these controllers recently and have been using it for just over a month now in preparation of reviewing the controller, so I have a bit of experience with electromagnetic thumb sticks and shoulder buttons.

Needless to say, it's definitely the way forward for the industry. It's not about just removing drift, the precision offered by both the thumb sticks and shoulder buttons is unrivalled, in fact the controller has become my go to for both PC and Switch so much so I think I am going to buy a second one.

As a sucker for trying out different types of controllers, you've convinced me to go for a GuliKit KingKong 2 Pro. I didn't realize these types of sticks were actually starting to show up in products.

 

[Thraktor]

A recently published patient filed by Alps Electric (aka Alps Alpine), who designed/manufactured pretty much all major brands' joysticks, shows an electromagnetic thumbstick that looks remarkably similar to the Joy-Con's analog stick.

The patent is not about the joystick being electromagnetic (which isn't a new invention), but how to accurately detect the stick movements by maintain a constant distance between the magnetic stick and the electromagnetic sensor.

In addition to the low-profile thumbstick (for Joy-Con?) above, the patent filing includes a second embodiment that is a conventional joystick suitable for the Pro Controller and most other controllers really.

So Alps is not only trying to eliminate drifting (via magnetic sensing), but also to ensure consistent accurate reading. Seeing this along with another recently published Alps patent that describes a stronger, more durable mount for shoulder buttons (images below), I suspect that Nintendo, and possibly other corporate customers too, are putting pressure on Alps to improve the reliability of their components.

The first diagram actually looks like it's showing an identical housing to the sticks used in the Joycons. Here's a photo from iFixit's teardown:

 

[NineTailSage]

Was giving a look into this and two things standout to me: Orin NX 8GB, which has 6 cores, 1xNVDLA and max GPU freq of 765MHz tops out at 20W. While Orin NX 16GB with 8 CPU cores(+2), 2xNVDLA(+1) and max GPU freq of 918MHz, tops out at 25W. That indicates to me that these clocks are still within the efficiency range of the V/f | Perf/W curve. When you look at Orin AGX, the 64GB SKU with + 4 CPU cores and GPU max freq at 1.3 GHz, consumes + 20W(60W) compared to the 32GB SKU. Nothing substantial of course, but it gives us a rough idea for Drake/T239.
Honestly, after seeing this, i'm more relaxed about T239 on 8nm. Nvidia and Nintendo will cut all of these Automotive/AI unintended hardware of the SoC and will clock it quite lower(Mainly on CPU side).

Yeah I think the die size is really the main issue at hand. And hopefully we'll have a good idea about that as soon as some outlets get their hands on these.

It's still pretty strange that we don't know the manufacturing process for Orin yet (even after they announced Hopper H100 being on TSMC's 4nm)... Also I found it interesting that they divulged the actual clock speeds of the DLA's in Orin/Orin NX, since we haven't heard much about that up until now.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

It's still pretty strange that we don't know the manufacturing process for Orin yet (even after they announced Hopper H100 being on TSMC's 4nm)... Also I found it interesting that they divulged the actual clock speeds of the DLA's in Orin/Orin NX, since we haven't heard much about that up until now.

I’m pretty sure it’s 8N.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

I’m pretty sure it’s 8N.

Nvidia hasn't confirmed officially though.

 

[NineTailSage]

I’m pretty sure it’s 8N.

I would usually agree with you but Nvidia aren't ones to shy away from disclosing information like that and they're radio silent when it comes to Orin's manufacturing home...

 

[Skittzo]

Well, unfortunately as shown in the slides provided for the session titled "NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI", the Jetson AGX Orin and the Jetson Orin NX modules won't be available until Q4 2022 (October 2022 for the Jetson AGX Orin modules).

So I reckon there probably won't be die shots of Jetson AGX Orin and/or Jetson Orin NX from sources outside of Nvidia until December 2022 or January 2023 at the earliest.

But there's still a chance Nvidia could save talking about more hardware details (e.g. process node being used, die measurements, etc.) with potentially what I call "artistic PR die shots" (e.g. Xavier's die shot from Hot Chips 30) for Jetson AGX Orin and/or Jetson Orin NX for Hot Chips 34.

Oh, I thought someone had said they were available now. Maybe available for purchase now but won't be delivered until late this year?

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Nvidia hasn't confirmed officially though.

I would usually agree with you but Nvidia aren't ones to shy away from disclosing information like that and they're radio silent when it comes to Orin's manufacturing home...

Not officially, but considering it’s ~45MTr/mm and it has a die size of around ~460mm^2 (based on pixel count) for a total of 21B transistors, that would be pretty low for a 7nm chip, even more for a 5nm chip.

Those nodes can achieve over twice the density, and even if it wasn’t using the mobile libraries of 7nm, it would have been around 65MTr/mm like the other NV GPUs at TSMC.

It would be weird to be so sparse

Then again, the XBox Series X is pretty sparse I believe but it doesn’t employ the mobile libraries at TsMC. But it’s 34% denser in transistor and only 16% larger.

 

[BobNintendofan]

I don't think all of the leaks were wrong or lying, but I really don't see it coming out this year. Assuming this super pro/successor or whatever is coming out this year, we'd probably be hearing about it existing around now (from Nintendo) and then a full unveiling in the summer for a fall release. Whether this thing is called a successor by Nintendo or not, it effectively would be, because of the massive hardware gap, and you cant just shadow drop a successor to your console. You need a big marketing campaign, you need to show off all the massively improved or even exclusive games. But we're hearing nothing right now. We would also likely be seeing tons of leaks from third parties regarding Super Switch games. While Nintendo may be able to hold back leaks, someone like Ubisoft would have leaked ports by now.

Where there's fire, you'd expect there to be smoke, and there's none. What I'm thinking is before 2020 Nintendo planned to do a late 2022/early 2023 release of this device, but a combination of covid pushing up demand for their console, and the chip shortage caused them to push their new console back until late 2023 or early 2024. Even without the chip shortage, the boosted demand alone makes it a little silly to launch a new console now. By pushing it back a year, they can both milk the massive switch install base for more money, as well as improve the hardware of their next console, either by aiming for a newer manufacturing process than what they were originally leaning toward or just spending more money on other parts like the battery with the cheaper parts.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

and the chip shortage caused them to push their new console back until late 2023 or early 2024.

I have yet to see any company have their hardware delayed by this shortage.

 

[BlueKing]

I have yet to see any company have their hardware delayed by this shortage.

Also the shortage isn't really a "shortage", there are more chips being made then ever before, its an issue of extreme demand.

 

[Skittzo]

I don't think all of the leaks were wrong or lying, but I really don't see it coming out this year. Assuming this super pro/successor or whatever is coming out this year, we'd probably be hearing about it existing around now (from Nintendo) and then a full unveiling in the summer for a fall release. Whether this thing is called a successor by Nintendo or not, it effectively would be, because of the massive hardware gap, and you cant just shadow drop a successor to your console. You need a big marketing campaign, you need to show off all the massively improved or even exclusive games. But we're hearing nothing right now. We would also likely be seeing tons of leaks from third parties regarding Super Switch games. While Nintendo may be able to hold back leaks, someone like Ubisoft would have leaked ports by now.

Where there's fire, you'd expect there to be smoke, and there's none. What I'm thinking is before 2020 Nintendo planned to do a late 2022/early 2023 release of this device, but a combination of covid pushing up demand for their console, and the chip shortage caused them to push their new console back until late 2023 or early 2024. Even without the chip shortage, the boosted demand alone makes it a little silly to launch a new console now. By pushing it back a year, they can both milk the massive switch install base for more money, as well as improve the hardware of their next console, either by aiming for a newer manufacturing process than what they were originally leaning toward or just spending more money on other parts like the battery with the cheaper parts.

There have been a ton of leaks. There's plenty of smoke, you're just choosing to ignore it for some reason.

There is zero reason why Nintendo would need to announce it this early, especially considering the OLED model just released 5 months ago and they'd like for people to still buy that. The announcement should happen by August for a release this year, it doesn't really need to be sooner.

 

[Dakhil]

Oh, I thought someone had said they were available now. Maybe available for purchase now but won't be delivered until late this year?

Jensen Huang mentioned Jetson Orin AGX and Jetson Orin NX devkits were available during the GTC 2022 (Spring 2022) keynote yesterday. But I suspect Jensen Huang's talking about Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin NX devkits being available for pre-order, with product shipments expected in Q4 2022 (October 2022 for Jetson AGX Orin devkits), going by the supplementary slides provided for the "NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI" session.

It's still pretty strange that we don't know the manufacturing process for Orin yet (even after they announced Hopper H100 being on TSMC's 4nm)... Also I found it interesting that they divulged the actual clock speeds of the DLA's in Orin/Orin NX, since we haven't heard much about that up until now.

I mentioned this before, but I think there's still a chance Nvidia could save talking about more hardware details (e.g. process node being used, die measurements, etc.) with potentially what I call "artistic PR die shots" (e.g. Xavier's die shot from Hot Chips 30) for Jetson AGX Orin and/or Jetson Orin NX for Hot Chips 34.

 

[BobNintendofan]

I have yet to see any company have their hardware delayed by this shortage.

I don't think it's just the shortage, it's the combination with their extremely high boosted demand. Normally you would expect that their sales would be way down by now. In its 3rd year the PS4 sold 23.6 million. In its 6th year it was down to 14 million. And in the 7th year it sold 4.5 million units. Now obviously part of that last drop was because of the announcement of the PS5 depressing sales, but even without it I doubt they would have passed 8 million. By releasing the next console, even in the middle of the chip shortage, Sony's console sales for the year ended up being about 21 million total instead of about 8 million total had they delayed it. The Switch probably still sells 20 million this year. With the chip shortage, it's hard to see Nintendo substantially passing that number right now.

 

[BobNintendofan]

There have been a ton of leaks. There's plenty of smoke, you're just choosing to ignore it for some reason.

There is zero reason why Nintendo would need to announce it this early, especially considering the OLED model just released 5 months ago and they'd like for people to still buy that. The announcement should happen by August for a release this year, it doesn't really need to be sooner.

The full reveal could happen in August, but again this is something you cant just shadow drop one day. They need to start setting up for it around now. And the leaks I'm talking about aren't general things like the hardware it's using or the fact developers are making games for it. These things can both be accurate while it still releases next year. What I'm talking about is more specific leaks, like someone leaking that a 4k batman collection is planned or something. We don't have any of the leaks that would point to a finalized, ready to go product.

 

[Zedark]

I would say the fact that a very mature chip leaked along with the continue insistence from several insiders that dev kits are already out can be seen as smoke for this device being planned sooner rather than later. I don't think we should expect any Switch Pro versions to leak out by this point in time, most games probably wouldn't make the distinction in any of the marketing folders yet (I.e. they would say 'for Switch', not necessarily 'enhanced on Switch Pro' at this point in time I feel).

That's not to say it's definitely 2022 or anything. Ultimately we don't know with a large degree of certainty either way.

 

[BobNintendofan]

I would say the fact that a very mature chip leaked along with the continue insistence from several insiders that dev kits are already out can be seen as smoke for this device being planned sooner rather than later. I don't think we should expect any Switch Pro versions to leak out by this point in time, most games probably wouldn't make the distinction in any of the marketing folders yet (I.e. they would say 'for Switch', not necessarily 'enhanced on Switch Pro' at this point in time I feel).

That's not to say it's definitely 2022 or anything. Ultimately we don't know with a large degree of certainty either way.

The leak of the chip is a little different from a normal leak, having come from a hack. Had this been a normal leak, like Bloomberg reporting today that they heard this chip is happening this year, I would be inclined to agree with you. But all a hacked leak tells me is that Nvidia is working on this chip for release at some point, which is very interesting but not particularly surprising.

 

[Skittzo]

The full reveal could happen in August, but again this is something you cant just shadow drop one day. They need to start setting up for it around now.

Why? When have they ever needed to do that for an upgrade/revision?

And the leaks I'm talking about aren't general things like the hardware it's using or the fact developers are making games for it. These things can both be accurate while it still releases next year. What I'm talking about is more specific leaks, like someone leaking that a 4k batman collection is planned or something. We don't have any of the leaks that would point to a finalized, ready to go product.

We don't always get those specific kinds of leaks. And anyway, a Batman collection specifically was leaked. I'm not sure why we need or expect to hear "4k" along with the leak.

 

[BobNintendofan]

Why? When have they ever needed to do that for an upgrade/revision?

We don't always get those specific kinds of leaks. And anyway, a Batman collection specifically was leaked. I'm not sure why we need or expect to hear "4k" along with the leak.

Even if Nintendo markets this as a revision, I don't consider this a revision, I guess that's the difference. I can see Nintendo calling it a Super Switch and saying it's just an iteration on the switch, even continuing a lot of support for the normal switch. But the massive power gap would inevitably lead to a slew of exclusives, particularly third party games. If it's marketed as a revision it would be a "revision" in the way the gameboy color was a "revision." It wouldn't be similar to a ps4 pro.

To illustrate why, the PS4 pro was like 2.5-3x stronger than the base PS4, which mostly led to higher resolution and little else. This Switch "pro", factoring DLSS, should be at minimum 10x stronger than the switch, and even include raytracing which the switch can not do at all. Then imagine if Nintendo makes it VR compatible in the future, which seems like a decent possibility considering they experimented with VR on the switch, even adding VR support for some of their biggest games. Well, the switch cant do that.

Anyway, with everything considered, this device would be a major chunk of their business for many years, not something they dump out to boost sales for one fiscal year.

 

[LiC]

The first diagram actually looks like it's showing an identical housing to the sticks used in the Joycons. Here's a photo from iFixit's teardown:

I can't seem to find a product on the Alps website that has exactly this housing. The closest is the RKJXY (which was "deleted" and dis-recommended in February 2020), which has a slightly different housing and different cap. I'm sure their website doesn't have all the information companies actually use to order these, but it would be useful if we could determine whether this housing and cap are or were available to anyone. If they were only ever sold to Nintendo, that makes the patent more interesting.

 

[Skittzo]

Even if Nintendo markets this as a revision, I don't consider this a revision, I guess that's the difference. I can see Nintendo calling it a Super Switch and saying it's just an iteration on the switch, even continuing a lot of support for the normal switch. But the massive power gap would inevitably lead to a slew of exclusives, particularly third party games. If it's marketed as a revision it would be a "revision" in the way the gameboy color was a "revision." It wouldn't be similar to a ps4 pro.

To illustrate why, the PS4 pro was like 2.5-3x stronger than the base PS4, which mostly led to higher resolution and little else. This Switch "pro", factoring DLSS, should be at minimum 10x stronger than the switch, and even include raytracing which the switch can not do at all. Then imagine if Nintendo makes it VR compatible in the future, which seems like a decent possibility considering they experimented with VR on the switch, even adding VR support for some of their biggest games. Well, the switch cant do that.

Anyway, with everything considered, this device would be a major chunk of their business for many years, not something they dump out to boost sales for one fiscal year.

Again I'm having trouble understanding why that would necessitate them announcing the product long in advance, even before revealing it.

The new 3DS which also got a bunch of third party exclusives (and had 6x the CPU power) was announced 2 months before release. Even the GBC was announced only 4 months before release.

 

[BobNintendofan]

Again I'm having trouble understanding why that would necessitate them announcing the product long in advance, even before revealing it.

The new 3DS which also got a bunch of third party exclusives (and had 6x the CPU power) was announced 2 months before release. Even the GBC was announced only 4 months before release.

The New 3DS was not a successor, it got like 10 exclusives which were mostly ports of old Wii and Wii U games.
The problem is again that you are considering this a pro version, like a New 3DS or a PS4 Pro when even if it ends up being considered an iterative sequel it would be like a Gameboy Color.

 

[Skittzo]

The New 3DS was not a successor, it got like 10 exclusives which were mostly ports of old Wii and Wii U games.
The problem is again that you are considering this a pro version, like a New 3DS or a PS4 Pro when even if it ends up being considered an iterative sequel it would be like a Gameboy Color.

... which is why I also mentioned that the GBC was announced only 4 months before release.

Plus the new 3DS got a lot of third party exclusives, mostly Unity games. It essentially had the same positioning as the GBC, it was just replaced sooner.



And for the record I've been staunchly against calling this a "pro" version and likening it much more to the GBC, pretty consistently for the past year or so.

 

[Golden Darkness]

Oh, I thought someone had said they were available now. Maybe available for purchase now but won't be delivered until late this year?

Only thing available now would be dev kits. The modules for installing in hardware will come out later in the year.

 

[MMXZero]

Real talk: How would people feel if Nintendo made NSO GameCube games exclusive to the Switch revision like they did SNES games on New 3DS?

 

[Hosermess]

It's not like Nintendo doesn't already have a lot of stuff they can and will be focusing on this year. 3 months for OLED seemed to have worked just fine. I doubt a shadow drop would do any damage.

And as far as specific game smoke, I do wonder if Nintendo is able to be even more strict with NDA/leakers this time around because of the current Switch's ongoing success and the possibility of some kind of punishment for any who cross the line. Now I have no idea if that kind of thing happens at all in this business, but it could be something they'd hold over a developer's head (by a gentle reminder) to keep lips from getting loose. (as opposed to other times when maybe they'd secretly welcome the attention/hype and/or couldn't risk being punitive). Just a dumb theory.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I don't think all of the leaks were wrong or lying, but I really don't see it coming out this year. Assuming this super pro/successor or whatever is coming out this year, we'd probably be hearing about it existing around now (from Nintendo) and then a full unveiling in the summer for a fall release. Whether this thing is called a successor by Nintendo or not, it effectively would be, because of the massive hardware gap, and you cant just shadow drop a successor to your console. You need a big marketing campaign, you need to show off all the massively improved or even exclusive games. But we're hearing nothing right now. We would also likely be seeing tons of leaks from third parties regarding Super Switch games. While Nintendo may be able to hold back leaks, someone like Ubisoft would have leaked ports by now.

If this were following the Switch precedent, talking about it this month would be for an August launch. How many Switch ports were leaked before its official announcement? There was the premature DQXI NX announcement.

 

[LiC]

Jensen Huang mentioned Jetson Orin AGX and Jetson Orin NX devkits were available during the GTC 2022 (Spring 2022) keynote yesterday. But I suspect Jensen Huang's talking about Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin NX devkits being available for pre-order, with product shipments expected in Q4 2022 (October 2022 for Jetson AGX Orin devkits), going by the supplementary slides provided for the "NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI" session.

"Available today" probably doesn't just mean pre-orders. Are we sure it's not that dev kits are available now, with the final production model shipping in Q4?

 

[BobNintendofan]

Real talk: How would people feel if Nintendo made NSO GameCube games exclusive to the Switch revision like they did SNES games on New 3DS?

I think it's pretty likely. It can double as both a steady revenue stream and a selling point for their new console. 1440p or 4k (if they can get it running, I'm curious how they could fit DLSS into the emulation process).

 

[BobNintendofan]

... which is why I also mentioned that the GBC was announced only 4 months before release.

Plus the new 3DS got a lot of third party exclusives, mostly Unity games. It essentially had the same positioning as the GBC, it was just replaced sooner.



And for the record I've been staunchly against calling this a "pro" version and likening it much more to the GBC, pretty consistently for the past year or so.

Comparisons of pro versions to the gameboy color really bother me, because it feels like people who make them never actually owned a gameboy color. The gameboy color got 113 exclusives, The gameboy color was effectively a new console with a short life span. The New 3DS had about 10 exclusive games for comparison.

Edit:
In fact, I think rather than comparing the GBC to the N3DS or Ps4Pro the best comparison to it is the Wii U. The Wii U had a much smaller library than the Wii, was backwards compatible with its games, and had a shorter life, but it still did have a decent chunk of exclusive games as well as its own unique gimmicks (color/second screen). Just because a console wasn't successful enough to have a 6-7 year life and was backwards compatible, that doesn't make it a revision. The Wii U was not a revision of the Wii. The gameboy color was not a revision of the gameboy.

 

[Serif]

Real talk: How would people feel if Nintendo made NSO GameCube games exclusive to the Switch revision like they did SNES games on New 3DS?

I'd be annoyed. There's no hardware limitation, Mario Sunshine is emulated on the current Switch.



Arguably the old 3DS wasn't hardware limitrd either, but I'm guessing the SNES emulation that was possible wasn't up to Nintendo's standards and it became new 3DS exclusive.

Yes, it could be an entirely business driven decision to make GCN NSO Drake exclusive. But that'd be cutting off a lot of existing NSO subscribers. Especially if they enable online multiplayer. Even if they don't go the NSO route and make GCN games eshop titles.

What I'd prefer is having N64 and GCN be 4K in Drake. It'd be powerful enough to emulate those games natively in 4K and would still be a compelling reason to upgrade.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I don't think it's just the shortage, it's the combination with their extremely high boosted demand. Normally you would expect that their sales would be way down by now. In its 3rd year the PS4 sold 23.6 million. In its 6th year it was down to 14 million. And in the 7th year it sold 4.5 million units. Now obviously part of that last drop was because of the announcement of the PS5 depressing sales, but even without it I doubt they would have passed 8 million. By releasing the next console, even in the middle of the chip shortage, Sony's console sales for the year ended up being about 21 million total instead of about 8 million total had they delayed it. The Switch probably still sells 20 million this year. With the chip shortage, it's hard to see Nintendo substantially passing that number right now.

Let me ask this in a different way then, do console manufacturers start the next generation as soon as they see a decline in sales, or is it that they plan it pretty early on in the console life cycle and only stave off the decline as best as they could until it is optimal for them to release a successor platform?

Do they have enough foresight to see well into the future to know when to release it? Or do they start before it even gets to that point to be ready for its release?

Did Nintendo actually expect the switch to sell over 100M this easily? Or was it just an occurrence that graced their luck that they left to the heavens?

The Sony PlayStation 2 was selling quite well, and Sony decided to release the PS3, who was even delayed due to hardware issues that caused a need to delay it. But Sony planned for the PS3 architecture several years in advance, right after the PS2 released.

The Nintendo Wii U started development in 2008-ish, only to release in 2012, a year after the death of the Wii.

Microsoft started working on the Series X console in around 2015-16 and the XBox One was already near dead by 2020 judging by the sales. It peaked early anyway.

DS was selling gangbusters in 2010 and Nintendo went to throw in the 3DS the following year.

PS4 development started after the PS3 launched and in 2007-8, the PS3 was a flop at launch. Only thing Sony did was accelerate the desire to adopt the platform and reduce the awfulness of the PS3. They shifted focus on blockbuster titles that released giving it life after life and the PS3 remained until 2017.


Quite frankly, this argument that “it’s selling well” does not compute when a product selling well and being received well is a gamble, a gamble that takes into account that A) they have known quantities and B) their known quantities can produce a desirable product.

A product selling well is a result of playing the cards right and the audience perceiving it well enough to support it. Wii U is an example of playing multiple cards incorrectly. Switch is an example of playing cards correctly.

Every company wants a product to sell well because they want to profit off of the consumer base that throws money at them. No company wants a product to sell poorly, it’s selling better than expected is nice to have but it is not the limiting factor of why or when they release a product.


Rather than the arguments simply being, “They will release it when it is ready“, it is “they will release it when it’s not selling so well“. Companies aim to stop it from not selling well, they don’t actively make it sell bad. And yes, you may be questioning while reading this, “when did I say they did?”, let me just say it’s not you and not anyone. No one actually says they aim to sell a bad product. That’s not really my point.

My point has to do with timing.


Let’s take into account what you mentioned previously which is the Silicon shortages, correct? If they delay the product just because it is selling well they will not get another window that is in their favor. The shortages are so bad that going this far into development and then simply canning it doesn’t mean they’re going to release it in 2023 or 2024, that means that the next likely window would be well after 2026 or 2027. Why are you may ask? Because the silicon shortages pertains to high demand in short supply, except that they are at a high supply amount already, but there’s more demand than that supply.

All industries at the moment are booked to full capacity for several years and this does not only affect the chip that operates the system, but other factors that are pertaining to said system. Board, storage, memory, etc.

If Sony had the PS5 ready in 2019, they would have released it in 2019, but that was not the case.

 

[PedroNavajas]

Jensen Huang mentioned Jetson Orin AGX and Jetson Orin NX devkits were available during the GTC 2022 (Spring 2022) keynote yesterday. But I suspect Jensen Huang's talking about Jetson AGX Orin and Jetson Orin NX devkits being available for pre-order, with product shipments expected in Q4 2022 (October 2022 for Jetson AGX Orin devkits), going by the supplementary slides provided for the "NVIDIA Jetson: Introducing AGX Orin, Next-Level AI Performance for Next-Gen Robotics and Edge AI" session.

Ugh, I was expecting way earlier than that....

 

[Skittzo]

Comparisons of pro versions to the gameboy color really bother me, because it feels like people who make them never actually owned a gameboy color. The gameboy color got 113 exclusives, The gameboy color was effectively a new console with a short life span. The New 3DS had about 10 exclusive games for comparison.

Edit:
In fact, I think rather than comparing the GBC to the N3DS or Ps4Pro the best comparison to it is the Wii U. The Wii U had a much smaller library than the Wii, was backwards compatible with its games, and had a shorter life, but it still did have a decent chunk of exclusive games as well as its own unique gimmicks (color/second screen). Just because a console wasn't successful enough to have a 6-7 year life and was backwards compatible, that doesn't make it a revision. The Wii U was not a revision of the Wii. The gameboy color was not a revision of the gameboy.

New 3DS had about 50 exclusive games, 30 of which were SNES VC so if you want to remove those it's around 20 games. Obviously not the level of the GBC but like I said support for the new 3DS was pulled a lot sooner. Positioning/marketing wise the GBC and the n3DS were the same type of upgrade.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I'd be annoyed. There's no hardware limitation, Mario Sunshine is emulated on the current Switch.


Arguably the old 3DS wasn't hardware limitrd either, but I'm guessing the SNES emulation that was possible wasn't up to Nintendo's standards and it became new 3DS exclusive.

SNES emulated pretty well on regular DS, too. But not well enough for Nintendo. I don't think anybody has managed to swap out Sunshine for anything else, so we don't know how well it runs other things.

 

[Foltzie]

There have been a ton of leaks. There's plenty of smoke, you're just choosing to ignore it for some reason.

There is zero reason why Nintendo would need to announce it this early, especially considering the OLED model just released 5 months ago and they'd like for people to still buy that. The announcement should happen by August for a release this year, it doesn't really need to be sooner.

The lack of a leak that Drake has been taped out is a bit surprising for there to be a potential 2022 launch.

 

[Dakhil]

"Available today" probably doesn't just mean pre-orders. Are we sure it's not that dev kits are available now, with the final production model shipping in Q4?

The product page for Jetson AGX Orin mentioned there's no stock available currently.

---

Anyway, Jensen Huang apparently officially confirmed that Nvidia's considering using Intel Foundry Services (IFS) in the future. And Jensen Huang mentioned he's been delighted with Intel's efforts in the semiconductor foundry sector.

 

[Skittzo]

The lack of a leak that Drake has been taped out is a bit surprising for there to be a potential 2022 launch.

Tape out doesn't always leak. Did it leak for the PS5/XSX/S chips?

 

[Alovon11]

Tape out doesn't always leak. Did it leak for the PS5/XSX/S chips?

Iirc nothing concrete for a specific time saying "PS5 is taped out!"

 

[Foltzie]

Tape out doesn't always leak. Did it leak for the PS5/XSX/S chips?

True, but I'm under the impression that Nvidia is a little more leaky in that regard.

 

[BlueManifest]

A recently published patient filed by Alps Electric (aka Alps Alpine), who designed/manufactured pretty much all major brands' joysticks, shows an electromagnetic thumbstick that looks remarkably similar to the Joy-Con's analog stick.

The patent is not about the joystick being electromagnetic (which isn't a new invention), but how to accurately detect the stick movements by maintain a constant distance between the magnetic stick and the electromagnetic sensor.

In addition to the low-profile thumbstick (for Joy-Con?) above, the patent filing includes a second embodiment that is a conventional joystick suitable for the Pro Controller and most other controllers really.

So Alps is not only trying to eliminate drifting (via magnetic sensing), but also to ensure consistent accurate reading. Seeing this along with another recently published Alps patent that describes a stronger, more durable mount for shoulder buttons (images below), I suspect that Nintendo, and possibly other corporate customers too, are putting pressure on Alps to improve the reliability of their components.

Anything special devs could do with this that they couldn’t do before or it’s just a drift fix and nothing else