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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)
- Thread starter Dakhil
- Start date
Edit: can't remember anything
Danny
Koopa
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I think what lessens the demand of third party releases on the Switch is that a big chunk of the Switch userbase is multiplatform ie they have both a Switch and a PS/Xbox/PC that they use as well. If more people only had a Switch the demand for Switch to have more AAA third party games would be much bigger.
Meelow
Koopa
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D
Deleted member 2181
Guest
What are the stats for this btw?
Given the outsized success of the Switch compared to the other consoles, I would have expected plenty of Switch-only players.
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No, it would require some active cooling, but it would not need to be as aggressive. I'll explain below. But you are correct that there's a cost savings, and the chassis could still achieve a smaller number of cubic centimetres, but mostly from IC eliminations, a smaller PCB and more options for vertical clearance (basically, they could play around with dimensions a lot more, and would be incentivized to do so to use less circuit board material with fewer ICs present).
It does not necessarily require a heat pipe. The heat pipe and blower assembly are used because of space limitations and a need to move a lot of heat that is transferred to a fixed point. With those considerations removed by no longer being a portable device, they could opt for the cheaper heat sink and fan. What's the difference? You will recognize a heat sink as that batch of tall metal fins/pins that sit directly atop an SoC (such as you see in, for one example, the Wii U) to dissipate heat as far up and away as possible from the SoC and then use the fan pushing air through the entire chassis to push the heat out. Fans typically do not have to move air as quickly as blower assemblies do, relying on the science of airflow to do some of the heavy lifting, and these heat sinks that pull heat up vertically are typically cheaper because they require far less copper and fluid in their construction except in the most extreme heat-generating circumstances.
Depending on how many chips are binned and where the failure points are, I have considered that binned chips would see re-use in a newer Shield or a micro-PC by Nvidia to offer a cost saving to Nintendo. I favour the micro-PC idea because Nvidia wouldn't need to sell more than the binned chip quantity regardless, because it'd just be a means to maximize value on the wafer and not a stable product offering. I could even see them selling them only to enterprise clients, because they're usually the ones who have the most interest in micro-PCs anyways.
In the funniest timeline, Nintendo buys the whole wafer of chips including the binned ones and makes their own set-top box/micro-PC/other misc. consumer product from them. That'd be WILD.
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NG Switch isn't a souped up last gen console, though, it's a current gen handheld. Why are people worried that a game designed for this gen won't come to a handheld... designed for this gen. It doesn't lack features, it's likely to be a stone's throw away from Series S in raw horsepower in TV mode, and it has more upscaling options.
Unless the game is severely CPU choked on PS5, and I doubt that, it's unlikely that there will be insurmountable hurdles. Compromises, of course, resolution especially, but impossible? I can't see it.
Even CPU clocks can be clawed back- the Witcher 3 on Switch offloaded tasks to the GPU, some CPU tasks could be done on Tensor cores, some could be pre-chewed and kept in RAM, room made by reducing texture quality.
Will it definitely come to NG Switch? No, but that's a business decision really.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Pikmin
No one has ever moved CPU tasks to the tensor cores, the tensor cores have never been for anything but neural networks.
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Approximately 100 million active Switch users, 100 million active PC gamers, 100 million active PS gamers, ~50 million active Xbox users, there's bound to be MILLIONS in crossover.
For me, it's Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and while I don't plan on getting GTA VI after not enjoying V nor the trailer, if I did I'd probably get it on Xbox, personally.
Neoxon
Like Like
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To play devil’s advocate, the Series S won’t be CPU-constrained in the same way the Switch 2 will likely be.
LoneRanger
Chain Chomp
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being honest..
I think the whole narrative that “people who have a Switch also have a PS/XB system” its 2 groups:
There should be plenty of people who only has a Switch.
Remember, gaming is a luxury hobby for most countries.
I think the whole narrative that “people who have a Switch also have a PS/XB system” its 2 groups:
- The so called “hardcore” gamers group who usually owns 2 or even 3 systems.
- People in US (that its biggest gaming market).
There should be plenty of people who only has a Switch.
Remember, gaming is a luxury hobby for most countries.
Neoxon
Like Like
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Well, yes & no. Third-party games aren’t the main reason people buy Nintendo systems, but they are a major factor. There’s some truth to the idea that people primarily buy Nintendo systems for Nintendo games, but to say that third-party games don’t matter at all is taking it too far (to the person you’re replying to, not you).
Danny
Koopa
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As a caveat this could be true only of the US, i don't know if this pattern holds globally as well in Japan and Europe for instance. But a large chunk of Switch users in the US are cross owners who i'd think use Switch to play Nintendo games while they play AAA games on PS or Xbox.
Aether
Kremling
Yeah, I don't know many multi console gamers (who even has the time
) but a lot of people that have capable pcs next to a switch...but don't use then for gaming but for WORK.I myself have a private 13 inch notebook (not gaming capable) and a workstation notebook (work stuff), no other gaming platform then the switch.
Sure, in hardcore circles (YouTube sphere, online gaming spaces) it's normal to have multiple systems, and I guess the us market where going by income numbers systems are less expensive in relation to the total income... There I could see people having more then 1 current system at a time
ziggyrivers
thunder
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We’ll get Grand Theft Auto VI - Pocket Edition - and we’ll like it
Aether
Kremling
Not a fan of that chart (can mean 42% of owners also have another console or 77%... Realistically it's about every second switch owner.)
I'm also not sure: is this by owner or by household?
If it's by household, then I think it's really skewing the numbers. (The chard said owners, but I could not find the original data , if somebody could find the course that would be great)
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I imagine the percentages look quite a bit different than they did in mid-2019 (when PS4 and XBO were in their final years and Switch was only in the beginning of its 3rd year).
9-Volt
Yoshi
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I wouldn't say "major" as they couldn't save Wii U at all. Wii U got too many high quality first party titles yet ended up being worst selling Nintendo console. It was no different for 3DS, it only gained its momentum with Pokémon XY and Animal Crossing release. And it ended up as the least selling Nintendo handheld. And Nintendo DS. Best selling Nintendo system ever, second best selling console ever and guess what. Fewest number of Mario games after NES and SNES...
There's a core crowd who gets Nintendo platforms for the first party offerings before anyone but its never a major drive for Nintendo hardware sales. People buy systems according to their needs. Software is selling because the hardware is selling. And that's the reason why Nintendo home consoles traditionally struggled compared to handhelds...
I mean... yeah, of course they are. Rockstar literally created some of the most influential and successful games of all time. The GameCube never receiving any GTA games is one of the reasons it lost to the original Xbox in terms of sales.
Nintendo upgrading to a console about 4 times as powerful as what they had before will lead to them having to get used to bigger projects once more, just like they did in the Wii U days, where they apparently underestimated HD development. Not to mention that they will have to learn new technologies like ray tracing. This time around, they will absolutely need more third parties to compensate, and getting a game like GTA VI would be a dream come true. Luckily, considering how incredibly successful their current system is, third parties will be lining up to bring their games to whatever follows in terms of hardware.
LinkURL
Bob-omb
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To be quite honest, the only thing in yesterday's trailer that really gave me the feeling of next-gen was the physical modeling and animation of the characters (which even caused me a bit of the uncanny valley effect).
For the rest, these are all things that I saw Red Dead 2 do the same or come close to, being a game designed for the XBox One and PS4.
This combined with the fact that GTA V ran on many old PCs when it was released on the PC, of course with the necessary limitations and downgrades but which remained essentially the same game, I don't see why Rockstar would take the next game and prevent it from running on humbler machines.
For the rest, these are all things that I saw Red Dead 2 do the same or come close to, being a game designed for the XBox One and PS4.
This combined with the fact that GTA V ran on many old PCs when it was released on the PC, of course with the necessary limitations and downgrades but which remained essentially the same game, I don't see why Rockstar would take the next game and prevent it from running on humbler machines.
Shoulder
Paratroopa
I'm going to disagree, and say the purpose of the Lite is to be handheld only. I get that from a consumer standpoint given the namesake, it could be confusing that while it is called "switch" it does not switch. But at the same time, this is how they keep the price down to a budget level. On the flip side, I always thought they were going to launch a Switch TV that was purely a docked only version of the Switch ala Shield TV, but alas that never materialized.
Hall effect sticks though I think should be mandatory for Switch 2 given the ongoing controversy, and growing pains of drifting. I would be incredibly surprised if Nintendo only reused the same analog sticks. I'm actually looking to upgrade my analog sticks with the Gulikit Hall Effect ones, though as of right now, my OEM replacement sticks do work as intended. I'm even looking to do the same for my Steam Deck, but that'll come later.
k samedi
Bob-omb
Which AAA games are you actually talking about? I don't remember any or are we talking about old ports?
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What with Calcio datamined, it seemed at one point a TV only model was conceptualised and maybe even tested, but a hurdle is that while EVERY game can theoretically provide every game mode on Lite, even Tile Mode, provided people bring their own controllers (the only exception, I think, is Nintendo Switch Sports doesn't allow local multiplayer with one system on the Lite... Which makes sense for safety reasons), with a TV only console, there's a surprising amount of games and features that wouldn't work right without a touchscreen. I don't even think you can evolve Inkay in Pokémon in TV mode. Turning the controller upside-down never worked for me anyway, had to be upside-down handheld mode.
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Shoulder
Paratroopa
Which would be hilarious, because by that logic, PC is doomed also. Might as well pack up our RTX 4090s, and Ryzen 7800X3Ds, and go home. kthxbye.
/s
Teal'c
Boo
I won't talk about numbers, I don't understand much about them.
But, as I see it, we saw an in-engine build running on who knows what PC. Beautiful, it's true, but I believe that in the end, the game will be scalable to run on all the handheld PCs that are emerging, I can feel it.
But, as I see it, we saw an in-engine build running on who knows what PC. Beautiful, it's true, but I believe that in the end, the game will be scalable to run on all the handheld PCs that are emerging, I can feel it.
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That's a pretty safe bet considering Rockstar's history.
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A Nintendo Switch 2 dosen‘t need GTA6 to be successful. It would be a huge deal for Nintendo no question, but if they keep their software strategy they are having with the Switch right now, Third Party will remain just another pillar of their core business. GTA certainly isn‘t the only release that could give Switch 2 a reputation of having good (or at least good enough) Third Party Support.
How about another name such as Jr. instead of Lite?
Switch Jr. will be the final model like the new 2DS XL.
Shoulder
Paratroopa
Hell, I'm still waiting for GTA4, and GTA5 to make their way to Switch. And for good measure, let's put the original games on Switch, including London 1969. And then for good measure, tack on Chinatown Wars as a remastering of sorts.
We got ourselves a DOOM Machine. Why not make it a Grand Theft Switch Machine as well?
ItWasMeantToBe19
Pikmin
Well to be fair, if cloud streaming takes off, Nintendo will probably go third-party (along with Sony and Microsoft) before GTA7 is even released ;p
Estimated release dates
Switch 2: Fall 2024
GTA6: Fall 2025
Switch 3: Fall 2032
GTA7: Fall 2037
Switch 4: Fall 2040
Switch 5: Fall 2048
GTA 8: Fall 2049
If cloud gaming gains dominance within two decades, the Switch 5 probably won't happen and we're only left with two GTA titles that could have ever come to Nintendo systems, lol.
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I don't know if you're joking or not buy that sounds like a really good deal for Rockstar. GTAV+Online the first holiday, giving it one final sales period where it's on a handheld, brushed up remasters of older titles releasing every other month in the lead-up to GTA VI. On the other platforms people are very familiar with GTA, Nintendo's home consoles have never had one, so it would work to introduce them to the series, at least ONE of their prior efforts might grab someone.Hell, I'm still waiting for GTA4, and GTA5 to make their way to Switch. And for good measure, let's put the original games on Switch, including London 1969. And then for good measure, tack on Chinatown Wars as a remastering of sorts.
We got ourselves a DOOM Machine. Why not make it a Grand Theft Switch Machine as well?
Last gen and prior games should have minimal hurdles on NG Switch and really, should be pretty trivial to port. I expect a small rush of last gen ports to NG Switch within the first year, and for it to get the majority (even if it's a slim majority) of current gen multi-plats going forward. With game development getting more expensive, but games being more scalable, and NG Switch likely "good enough", multiplat including Nintendo should make financial sense.
As for relevance to technical aspects, well there's the "likely good enough" part, which seems to be the case with T239, but I believe we've also heard rumours that the porting process is relatively painless, working with NG Switch is easier than Switch, and not just because of more power. It seems Nintendo and Nvidia have invested into creating porting tools, which seems wise, and I think it'll likely bear a LOT of fruit.
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The Competition
Piranha Plant
I could be wrong, but I imagine offloading CPU tasks to GPU would only be useful if NG had fewer CPU cores than the competing consoles, which isn't going to be the case.
Unless the devs find a way to parallelise logic even more than the CPU allows (which i think is unlikely) then this approach might not work well for NG.
But yeah hopefully the CPU doesn't prevent this port regardless. In the worst case, maybe they will have to reduce NPC density and vehicle density and animal density. The trailer clearly showed greater density of all these things than in GTA V and even most games in general.
If they did, that probably means no crossplatform play with NG and other consoles, but it would be awesome if the game still came
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It was just an in-engine, two-years-from-release trailer, from a beefed up dev PC, we don't even know if Xbox Series X will be using that kind of NPC/object density.
Further parralelisation is exactly what I'm suggesting - since it's not just about physical cores, NG Switch will have 8 fewer threads.
The Competition
Piranha Plant
The higher it is on Series X, the better for NG because the final NG version will be more acceptable and truer to the original vision.
Going from 10 flamingoes to 4 is worse than going from 30 to 12. The gap might be bigger, but 12 still looks like a large group, whereas 4 is barely a group any more, the meaning of the scene has changed.
Samuspet
Octorok
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Some companies operate outside the realm of others. Rockstar are one such company. They have quite rightly earned the right to do whatever the hell they like. Case in point their games straight up skip PC at launch. Now in 2007 this was understandable to a point because of the state of PC gaming at the time. In 2013 it was shocking due to the resurgence of PC gaming. In 2023 it’s unacceptable for most people considering PC gaming is booming. Yet they do it. Because they can. If they feel their vision would be too greatly sacrificed by downgrading it to the point of The Witcher 3 or god forbid Arkham Knight then they have the power to simply tell their publisher no. There’s not many development houses that have this power.
Also I don’t know why this seems to be fact to most people here but in no World will Drake be as powerful as Series S for a multitude of reasons but the most important fact is that Drake games (like Switch games) will be developed around its handheld clock speeds.
Drake’s CPU is going to have at best 70% the performance of Series S. This becomes a massive, massive issue especially if Rockstar target 30fps for GTA VI and don’t offer performance modes.
Drake even if it has the same or more RAM than Series S will have at best 50% of it’s memory bandwidth.
Drake in a best case scenario will be 2TFLOPs in handheld mode. This means it will have 50% less GPU compute than Series S. Also remember that Series S has many games that render games below 1080p and the games that do regularly use a combination of FSR and DRS.
Nintendo’s choice of storage drive is still unknown but it’s very likely to be much slower than the SSD found in Series S/X for power and heat reasons.
On top of the technical issues Nintendo’s online infrastructure is a joke. Plain and simple. Even their first party games like Mario Kart, Splatoon 3 and Smash are absolutely lagfests even while using an OLED Ethernet connection to play.
Then there’s the massive and potentially alone issue that’s enough to stop this port even leaving the drawing board - storage size. Be it the size of the flash / SSD for a potential needed install like the other consoles or the size of the game cards Nintendo decide to use. GTAVI has the potential to be the largest game ever made in terms of data. It could easily be north of 200gb.
Does any of the above mean it will never come to Drake? Of course not but what it does mean is it’s very, very unlikely imo.
ziggyrivers
thunder
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Which is what I feel could happen. If the graphical fidelity sacrifice is too much, then I’m not expecting GTA VI to hit the Switch 2.
Unless Nintendo releases a Switch 2 Pro, which could be a necessity if they want broader 3rd party support
A pro wouldn't do squat for third party support, as devs would still have to support the original.
Also if Drake launches on 5nm, the pro will have to be 3nm at least, which will be expensive for a very long time.
Shoulder
Paratroopa
Only semi-joking. I think it would be a great idea actually.
D
Deleted member 1978
Guest
GTA VI is explicitly a 2025 release that we have only 90 seconds of footage for. That's still a long way away and there's not enough information to accurately assess how demanding the game actually is, so I don't think we can make any useful analysis for whether the still-unannounced Switch 2 can feasibly run the game.
Thraktor
"[✄]. [✄]. [✄]. [✄]." -Microsoft
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Not releasing on PC alongside PlayStation and Xbox has nothing to do with preserving their "vision" for the game, it's 100% a commercial decision. They know that people will double-dip if they release the PC version later, so they hold off on it like they did with GTA V and RDR2. Whether it comes to Switch 2 will also be entirely a commercial decision. If Take Two think they can make more money by releasing it on Switch 2 than not, they will. If they think they can make even more money from double-dipping by releasing the Switch 2 version late as well, then that's what they'll do.
This is a meaningless comparison when they're very different architectures.
Storage is one area where power and heat aren't issues. They could get drives faster than PS5's with a peak power consumption of 1.2W if they wanted. They very likely won't, but that's more to do with the form factor than power/heat/cost (plus it's absurd overkill). The more likely bet is UFS 3.1, which hits around 2GB/s, which is in the ballpark of the Series S/X drives, and peaks at around 1W. Going slower doesn't even save power, as UFS 2 hits 1.65W, and power consumption for reads is basically static on these drives, so there's no benefit to throttling down to lower speeds either.
However laggy third party games are has nothing to do with Nintendo's online infrastructure, as they don't use it. They use Switch's network API to establish a connection to their own servers, and then the game communicates directly with their servers (or other players, if the game uses P2P connections). It's entirely up to their own network code and servers as to how smooth the online performance is going to be. Now you could talk about missing system-level online features like voice chat, but even those can be implemented in-game.
Storage size will be far less of an issue with Switch 2 than it was with Switch. Sony and MS were using mechanical hard drives when Switch was using flash, so PS4 and XBO were able to include far more storage for their money than Nintendo was. The baseline models of PS4 and XBO had 500GB hard drives when Switch was using 32GB of flash, which was over a 15x difference. Now that Sony and MS have switched to flash storage, they've barely been able to increase storage sizes over last generation, and the baseline (Series S) has the same storage that the XBO launched with.
Meanwhile, Nintendo will be able to increase storage substantially over last gen. The lowest possible option here is 128GB, which is one quarter the capacity of the PS5/Series baseline, and most people would think 256GB is reasonably likely, which is only half of Series S (compared, again, to 1/15th last gen). There have been rumours that they're considering 512GB as well, which would mean they're in exactly the same boat as Series S.
I don't know if GTA VI will come to Switch 2 or not, but there's no way we'll be able to tell from watching a short cinematic trailer. We have no idea how scalable the engine is, no idea how CPU intensive it is, no idea what resolutions it's running at on other consoles, no idea how well its technologies map to Switch 2's Ampere architecture, and we also have a load of unknowns on the Switch 2 side, like clock speeds. We also have no idea whether Take Two management think that putting money into a Switch 2 build will be a good return on investment or not, which is the most important question.
TomNookYankees
The Baby
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Going to wait to see what the framerate of the game is going to be on Gen 9 consoles, but best case scenario is that if this game is running 60FPS on Series S AND
Otherwise it's safe to assume Nintendo is not getting GTA6 until whenever they release the Switch 3.
D
Deleted member 1978
Guest
You're not going to get an accurate and useful assessment of a game's performance characteristics when it's going to be at minimum a full year away from release, as performance optimizations are generally reserved near the end of development after features are implemented. I don't think it's worth speculating right now on whether GTAVI will run on Switch 2 when the latter is expected to come out before the former does.
Hosermess
Koopa
I do agree with you, but on the other hand - this isn't the useful analysis thread, this is the speculation thread.
But hey, at least this will be another point of discussion that gets added to the loop.
So I may as well add something to it on the first occurrence - if the longstanding RDR2 rumour is true, R* probably already has a pretty good idea on how feasible a task it would be to get GTA 6 on Drake. Whether that decision has been made or not, it wouldn't be revealed before Drake itself is.
D
Deleted member 1978
Guest
Speculation that isn't based on any concrete or well-defined information is by definition baseless, and there's a entirely separate thread dedicated specifically for that.
bixente
Tingle
The only system I game on is the Switch and I consider myself pretty hardcore. I have hundreds of games for the thing. I don't need any other platform.
Shoulder
Paratroopa
I think GTAVI will be targeted at 30fps on consoles, with only the possible PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series XL capable of 60fps. Sure, that is based on only 90 seconds of footage, but I think we're going to see a similar case when GTAV came onto PS3 and Xbox 360. Even PS4 and Xbone didn't have 60fps as they were limited to 30fps. Wasn't until PS5 and XSeries did we see 60fps for GTAV, and even on top of that, PC was still higher fidelity than even PS5 at least in terms of draw distance foliage and such.
Could be wrong, but that is my initial hunch. And if PS5/XSeries are at 60fps, they will NOT look like the trailer is also my thinking.
I don't think GTA6 will be on Switch 2 just looking at that trailer, that would be on the very high end of what the Switch 2 could possibly do I think, and if it's that much of a struggle to port, I think Rockstar will just pass. That looks like something that will run at some super low FSR resolution on Series S, even on a PS5 I'm not sure I'd be expecting anything above 30 fps. The lack of a PC release at launch also shows me they're still playing the same platform nonsense as in the past.
Not terribly broken up about it though, I've never really cared for the series and got bored with GTAV after 20 minutes. Open world games in a non fantasy or sci-fi world are snooze fests for me and it's not like the Switch needed GTAV at all to sell.
Not terribly broken up about it though, I've never really cared for the series and got bored with GTAV after 20 minutes. Open world games in a non fantasy or sci-fi world are snooze fests for me and it's not like the Switch needed GTAV at all to sell.
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