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

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CypressFX said:
They mean, that it will be a more powerful version within the same console generation - like the PS4 Pro to the PS4.

Still, rumors say that it still could have exclusives - then it would act as a generational leap console
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Or perhaps generations are a dead and outdated concept to Nintendo.
 
Hmm iv had this thought since dread launched the same day as the oled, with a obvious kind of theme(white joycon), and thought they were testing the waters of a metroid game launching with new, stronger hardware and had this in mind for Prime 4. With what JeffGrub is saying now, that prime 1 remaster is nintendos big holiday game, what if that is what they were testing the waters of a launch for and not prime 4?
 
Skittzo said:
This much inventory in April for a launch 11 months later seems a bit excessive IMO.

Either it's not (mainly) due to new hardware or the new hardware is launching sooner, like this November or December.
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Question: If you think the Succ is launching holiday this year, do you have a theory what it would be launching with? Just Mario+Rabbids? That plus a new unannounced Mario game? Something else?
 
Skittzo said:
Or perhaps generations are a dead and outdated concept to Nintendo.
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We can’t get everyone to agree on the definition of a console “generation” or “revision”. Switching being a mobile device only blurs it further. What is definite, however, is the market segment that a consumer product can occupy based on its price point. So I’d suggest that we consider Drake’s product positioning through that lens.

Based on the Nvidia leak, most seem to agree that the Drake model will fall in the $400-$450 bracket (or even higher for more memory). If true, it obviously cannot replace any of the existing models at $200/$300/$350, except a small chance of replacing the OLED Model as the only premium option in the product lineup.

Following that logic, the existing hybrid and Lite models need to live on for a few more years until new products of similar price points are introduced to replace them—those new models will be the true “Switch 2” or “Lite 2”. Being a higher-priced enthusiast product, the Drake SKU is very unlikely to be marketed as a new standard model.

Whether that makes Drake a pro, revision, or next-gen, it’s for the enthusiasts to debate. For the mass market consumers, they only need to know that Nintendo is not obsoleting their $200-$300 devices, and they can continue enjoying their Mario games just fine.
 
Ragna said:
Hmm iv had this thought since dread launched the same day as the oled, with a obvious kind of theme(white joycon), and thought they were testing the waters of a metroid game launching with new, stronger hardware and had this in mind for Prime 4. With what JeffGrub is saying now, that prime 1 remaster is nintendos big holiday game, what if that is what they were testing the waters of a launch for and not prime 4?
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Don't the prime games usually tend to be a visual showcase of what the system its on can do? Not sure if I'm correct on that, but if so, would make more sense to launch the remaster with the 4k model
 
Demon Lizardman said:
Oof, not sure if I like the sound of that.
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The only thing we know for certain were the stolen Nvidia specs. We know it has 12 SM's, containing 1534 shader cores 12 Ray tracing cores, and I don't remember how many tensor cores, but those too. The original switch had 2 SM with 256 shader cores.


The original PS4 had 1152 shader cores. The PS4 pro went up to 2302 shader cores. (It also upped the clock speed)

The switch had 256 shader cores, Drake will have 1,532 shader cores.

From it's ps4 starting point, PS4 pro is a 2x increase in shader count.

From it's switch staring point, Drake is a 6x increase in shader count.
 
Shiba said:
Grubb talked about the successor being 2024 beyond recently and while I think he said it was more speculation before he seems adamant that’s the case.
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He was not 'adamant' about anything. He's taken a bearish approach on the revision subject ever since the 2021 OLED model launched, and never has he framed it as anything other than speculation. I've been listening to GamesBeat Decides/Last of the Nintendogs, and Morning Mess and this time around was no exception.

Let's drop Grubb's commentary on Switch hardware until he calls it a scoop / leak / report. It's not that a 2024 launch of a successor could not work for Nintendo's business - I'm sure they'd do fine if that was their planning all along; It's that the evidence accumulated in this thread does not point to anything around 2024, nor does it point to any sort of Switch Lite OLED that he keeps peddling.

ezidro3 said:
Metroid Prime remaster seems like a good candidate. OLED launched with Dread last year
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Dream launch title if it's actually a big visual overhaul. It's honestly a blessing to so many other games to have Breath of the Wild 2 delayed to next year. Gives all these other titles a solid launch boost opportunity they might not have had.

Also I'm not sure if many will agree, but I'd be really happy to jump into Scarlet/Violet with a big performance boost.
 
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Ragna said:
Don't the prime games usually tend to be a visual showcase of what the system its on can do? Not sure if I'm correct on that, but if so, would make more sense to launch the remaster with the 4k model
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I think Nate said it was described to him as an upgrade similar to the Xenoblade remaster. I never played Xenoblade, was it considered technically impressive?
 
Uncle Squingis said:
I think Nate said it was described to him as an upgrade similar to the Xenoblade remaster. I never played Xenoblade, was it considered technically impressive?
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I would also describe it similarly to crisis core reunion. The skeleton of the game is pretty much the same, but it’ll look current-gen on top, more or less.
 
Uncle Squingis said:
I think Nate said it was described to him as an upgrade similar to the Xenoblade remaster. I never played Xenoblade, was it considered technically impressive?
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Personally? I thought Xenoblade DE was a pretty ugly game with poor performance, and a far cry from something that felt built for the platform :) It's world and visuals were a step down from Xenoblade 2 for me. Somebody will probably quote me and post a bunch of stills to say otherwise but I played it and found it exceptionally OK.

It's why I hope whoever is giving Nate his info doesn't see the game in the same light as me.
 
Uncle Squingis said:
Question: If you think the Succ is launching holiday this year, do you have a theory what it would be launching with? Just Mario+Rabbids? That plus a new unannounced Mario game? Something else?
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Metroid Prime. Probably also a few third party games (like maybe Elden Ring or something else impressive).

I don't see it being a "succ" so I don't think it really needs to launch with much. It'll also sell out for many months regardless of the lineup.
 
karmitt said:
Personally? I thought Xenoblade DE was a pretty ugly game with poor performance, and a far cry from something that felt built for the platform :) It's world and visuals were a step down from Xenoblade 2 for me. Somebody will probably quote me and post a bunch of stills to say otherwise but I played it and found it exceptionally OK.

It's why I hope whoever is giving Nate his info doesn't see the game in the same light as me.
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From what iv seen of the original, it was a huge improvement and one of those that people would go back and forth of if its a remaster or remake, and I think metroid prime 1 still holds up well on its own today. So he might just mean its 's one of those that borders on high quality remaster/ lower end faithful remake. Like said above similar to crisis core reunion
 
fwd-bwd said:
We can’t get everyone to agree on the definition of a console “generation” or “revision”. Switching being a mobile device only blurs it further. What is definite, however, is the market segment that a consumer product can occupy based on its price point. So I’d suggest that we consider Drake’s product positioning through that lens.

Based on the Nvidia leak, most seem to agree that the Drake model will fall in the $400-$450 bracket (or even higher for more memory). If true, it obviously cannot replace any of the existing models at $200/$300/$350, except a small chance of replacing the OLED Model as the only premium option in the product lineup.

Following that logic, the existing hybrid and Lite models need to live on for a few more years until new products of similar price points are introduced to replace them—those new models will be the true “Switch 2” or “Lite 2”. Being a higher-priced enthusiast product, the Drake SKU is very unlikely to be marketed as a new standard model.

Whether that makes Drake a pro, revision, or next-gen, it’s for the enthusiasts to debate. For the mass market consumers, they only need to know that Nintendo is not obsoleting their $200-$300 devices, and they can continue enjoying their Mario games just fine.
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the biggest problem is that people need to be conditioned to accept that the switch and lite won't be worth it since it won't get games after a while
 
karmitt said:
Personally? I thought Xenoblade DE was a pretty ugly game with poor performance, and a far cry from something that felt built for the platform :) It's world and visuals were a step down from Xenoblade 2 for me. Somebody will probably quote me and post a bunch of stills to say otherwise but I played it and found it exceptionally OK.

It's why I hope whoever is giving Nate his info doesn't see the game in the same light as me.
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Xenoblade de still has a ton of original Wii assets in it.

Visually it's definitely a step down from xb2
 
Ragna said:
From what iv seen of the original, it was a huge improvement and one of those that people would go back and forth of if its a remaster or remake, and I think metroid prime 1 still holds up well on its own today. So he might just mean its 's one of those that borders on high quality remaster/ lower end faithful remake. Like said above similar to crisis core reunion
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The Wii game had horrendous character models and faces and they did a great job updating the faces and textures, but there was just a ton in the game that felt lifted straight from the Wii. I couldn't help but see through any of the tidying they did, and what made it worse was that it hardly performed better than Torna. I thought for sure we were going to get a game that hit native resolutions but it wasn't close.

My hope for Metroid Prime is that the release serves as an example of the type of experience Retro intends to deliver with Metroid Prime 4, both mechanically and visually.
 
karmitt said:
The Wii game had horrendous character models and faces and they did a great job updating the faces and textures, but there was just a ton in the game that felt lifted straight from the Wii. I couldn't help but see through any of the tidying they did, and what made it worse was that it hardly performed better than Torna. I thought for sure we were going to get a game that hit native resolutions but it wasn't close.

My hope for Metroid Prime is that the release serves as an example of the type of experience Retro intends to deliver with Metroid Prime 4, both mechanically and visually.
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Fair enough, I also see that hopefully being the aim of the prime 1 remaster
 
Crusters said:
The only thing we know for certain were the stolen Nvidia specs. We know it has 12 SM's, containing 1534 shader cores 12 Ray tracing cores, and I don't remember how many tensor cores, but those too. The original switch had 2 SM with 256 shader cores.


The original PS4 had 1152 shader cores. The PS4 pro went up to 2302 shader cores. (It also upped the clock speed)

The switch had 256 shader cores, Drake will have 1,532 shader cores.

From it's ps4 starting point, PS4 pro is a 2x increase in shader count.

From it's switch staring point, Drake is a 6x increase in shader count.
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Ah ok, well then I expect some improvements because games like the new Fire Emblem Warriors kind of run a bit like ass.
 
Demon Lizardman said:
Ah ok, well then I expect some improvements because games like the new Fire Emblem Warriors kind of run a bit like ass.
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Yeah, for me the Nintendo 1st party IP warriors game makes me want a more powerful hardware. I really want to play Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity at better IQ 60 fps.
 
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karmitt said:
Personally? I thought Xenoblade DE was a pretty ugly game with poor performance, and a far cry from something that felt built for the platform :) It's world and visuals were a step down from Xenoblade 2 for me. Somebody will probably quote me and post a bunch of stills to say otherwise but I played it and found it exceptionally OK.

It's why I hope whoever is giving Nate his info doesn't see the game in the same light as me.
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if-thats-what-you-need-to-believe-january-jones.gif
 
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karmitt said:
My hope for Metroid Prime is that the release serves as an example of the type of experience Retro intends to deliver with Metroid Prime 4, both mechanically and visually.
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The best info we've got is that the Prime Remake is that it is a 1:1 remake that uses the original collision meshes, but all other assets (models, textures, possibly sound and animation) are new, running in Retro's in house engine, which has been shared from MP1 down to Tropical Freeze.

Whether or not Retro's engine is still used for MP4 is unclear to me
 
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I'll be super impressed with Retro if they were able to complete the MP1 ReMaster/Make for the Drake while also developing MP4. Especially since a few people have said that Nintendo has been sitting on the completed game for a while now. I can't see that being the case though. But yeah, would be a nice surprise for sure.

It would have to be one hell of an in-house engine for it to be used effectively on Drake 20 years later.
 
fwd-bwd said:
Based on the Nvidia leak, most seem to agree that the Drake model will fall in the $400-$450 bracket (or even higher for more memory). If true, it obviously cannot replace any of the existing models at $200/$300/$350, except a small chance of replacing the OLED Model as the only premium option in the product lineup.
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I'm pulling for $400. Any higher and it better have the power to go with it.
 
Ragna said:
My bets 400 also, but that was before inflation so now wouldn't be surprised. But also imagine oled gets price dropped to 300 shortly after, and Redbox discontinued
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This is actually what I've been expecting for a long while. OLED gets a price drop with Drake at the top, redbox gets big discount until it's phased out completely and OLED is the new "base." But with things the way they are now... 🤷‍♂️
 
I can only see $400 if they drop the OLED price end of this year. I wasn’t expecting that’s something they’d do only a year after launch but I guess it couldn’t happen?

I’m guessing it’ll be $450. OLED stays the same, and 2017 sees an official price cut.
 
karmitt said:
I can only see $400 if they drop the OLED price end of this year. I wasn’t expecting that’s something they’d do only a year after launch but I guess it couldn’t happen?

I’m guessing it’ll be $450. OLED stays the same, and 2017 sees an official price cut.
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I think the Redbox will get discontinued but won’t see an official price drop instead they will get unofficial ones to clear inventory.
 
Grubb is right. What we see Nintendo doing indicates that they want to milk the current switch as much as possible.
He doesn't imply that Nintendo saw the switch sales being great last year and decided to postpone their new console; he implies that Nintendo's strategy was to milk the switch and this decision was taken long ago. From 2019-2020, it was clear to anyone with two brain cells that the switch was not only a massive success, but one that wouldn't suddenly fall off a cliff like the Wii did. Nintendo probably planned accordingly, and having a Mario Kart DLC releasing until 2023 is a great way to maintain momentum, along with Splatoon 3, Zelda, the switch OLED and so on.
 
Metroid Prime Remaster as the "big launch game" would be extremely unimpressive, I have a hard time believing in it.
 
Thanks to @Vash_the_Stampede's input, I replaced the unconsolidated inventories data in my table with consolidated inventories. The data entries are also updated to bi-annual. Although Vash may very well be right that the stockpile of raw materials can be intended for the holiday stock, the very elevated level of raw materials still look suspicious to me. My comments below:

61EOvq9.png

cHb00nX.png

  • Since 03/2017 (the Switch era), the money tied up in raw materials never exceeded 9% of the total inventories, except at the following points:
    • In 03/2019, before the Lite and v2 models entered production, the share of raw materials grew to 25.66%.
    • In 03/2020, the level of raw materials rose to 19.28%, possibly due to the COVID factory shutdown.
    • In 03/2021, before the OLED model entered production, the ratio went up to 14.46%. If not for the COVID logistic challenges, I suspect that the number could've been even higher.
    • In 09/2021, the share of raw materials jumped to 35.52%. A couple potential explanations:
      • Nintendo might be behind schedule to produce the holiday stock. (Furukawa did say that some of the holiday stock were shipped by plane and train.)
      • They started stockpiling raw materials to preempt any future logistic disruptions.
      • Or maybe both.
  • The latest raw materials number from 03/2022 reached an eye-popping level of 52.80%—close to $800 million USDs!
    • The large pile of materials may be in preparation of the holiday stock. However, in other years it never came close to this level.
    • Again, the stockpiling may be intended to combat the global supply chain difficulties. But tying up half of their total inventories in raw materials seems excessive.
    • Looking at the elevated level of raw materials in 03/2019 and 03/2021, it's plausible that Nintendo is again holding more materials in advance of a new model launch.
    • Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.
    • Considering the unprecedented amount of yens in raw materials, it's probably all of the above.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that Nintendo changed their accounting standard from 04/2021. Thus, their 09/2021 and 03/2022 inventories increased a bit (when compared to using the old accounting standard). It shouldn't impact the analysis because the increases are small, and affect only the finished goods (not work in progress or raw materials) if I understand it correctly. I'm not an accountant though. Note that I also made a small edit regarding the production line disruption for clarity.
 
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Glio said:
Metroid Prime Remaster as the "big launch game" would be extremely unimpressive, I have a hard time believing in it.
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Its not like THE ps5 didn’t launch with deamon souls.

+ if this is a soft launch, like the series consoles they don’t need to sell a ton of consoles fast. Because the fist party software and most of the third party software will be on the old console for years to come.

+ supply issues.

That being said, I’m still team botw 2.
 
Thing is, just because Nintendo launch a new console doesn’t mean the OG will stop selling, especially if it’s part of the same family. Nintendo’s games will still launch and be playable on the OG model and just get a performance boost on the new system.

The reason I think we need a new system soonish is due to third parties, now they are getting to grips with PS5/XsX the gap between them and Switch is huge so chances are less and less devs will be bothered with Switch ports/versions unless they get a boosted system where they don’t need to downgrade things so much that it’s more hassle than it’s worth.
 
Hermii said:
Its not like THE ps5 didn’t launch with deamon souls.

+ if this is a soft launch, like the series consoles they don’t need to sell a ton of consoles fast. Because the fist party software and most of the third party software will be on the old console for years to come.

+ supply issues.

That being said, I’m still team botw 2.
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Well, for me Demon's Souls was a weird launch game too.
 
I think prime 1 remaster/remake is fine for launch if it is used to show the graphic capabilities like demon souls, as stated by many others the og switch will be more than likely supported crossgen for another 1-2yrs. So I imagine third party is the main thing they plan to push for early adopters to upgrade quickly that and major first party games like botw2 in 4k
 
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Bosintang said:
Grubb is right. What we see Nintendo doing indicates that they want to milk the current switch as much as possible.
He doesn't imply that Nintendo saw the switch sales being great last year and decided to postpone their new console; he implies that Nintendo's strategy was to milk the switch and this decision was taken long ago. From 2019-2020, it was clear to anyone with two brain cells that the switch was not only a massive success, but one that wouldn't suddenly fall off a cliff like the Wii did. Nintendo probably planned accordingly, and having a Mario Kart DLC releasing until 2023 is a great way to maintain momentum, along with Splatoon 3, Zelda, the switch OLED and so on.
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This post really sounds like hindsight bias talking. Even from Nintendo's perspective, the last two years or so of the Switch were anything but predictable.
 
Pokemaniac said:
This post really sounds like hindsight bias talking. Even from Nintendo's perspective, the last two years or so of the Switch were anything but predictable.
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Are you kidding me? Nobody in their right mind thought, in 2019, that the Switch was going to be just a fad. It was already selling a lot, software was doing amazingly well, including third parties, and unlike the Wii, the switch audience was much more versed in gaming. Nintendo was actually so confident in their machine that they often repeated that this generation would last longer than usual.

Releasing a successor after 7 years and supporting the current model for 2 years after that, giving the og switch a lifetime of 9-ish years, fits exactly in that narrative.
 
Glio said:
Yeah, but Demon's and Astro were the only PS5 exclusives.

(It really is that I think it was not a great launch).
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I mean, Breath of the Wild was a killer app (1-2 Switch was the only Switch exclusive) and it was cross-gen.

We should expect most games to be cross-gen during the launch window and it is a fairer approach than in the past.
 
Funny how supporting your current and active system with a lot of games is considered milking nowadays lol.
Lets just ignore the pandemic and chip shortage, regardless of when and if Nintendo were to release the Drake - the OG Switch and the games for it wouldnt go away anytime soon.

Calling it milking is quite disrespectful, the market exists of more people outside of the few that will be able to get their hands on Drake Day 1 for +400 games and Nintendo knows that.

Having that said...really hope BotW 2 +Drake happen Spring 23.
 
Demon Soul was a great launch game in my opinion, and it conveyed a clear message: the same games as before, but looking better.
 
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