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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

Form a tech pow:
Larger chassis means easier heat management and more room for battery, so its advantageous regardless of their fab node of choice.
Form a marketing pow:
You'll want your new console to look distinctive and from the old one at first glance (and also look more premium I would add).
A larger screen is an effective way to do that.
But at the same time we're also rapidly approaching the point of diminishing returns for marketing a bigger screen - one doesn't want a handheld with TOO BIG of a screen.
 
If everything is bigger, doesn’t that mean 8nm is more propable than ever? hmm.
I know this is oversimplifying since node names are lies, but I suppose a machine with an 8" screen and a 8nm SOC would be proportionally similar to a machine with a 7" screen and a 7nm SOC. Still proportionally larger SOC than the one in original model Switch.
thank you! how am I, a woodland creature averaging between 16 and 18 inches in height, to use a device of this size? it's preposterous frankly
01-l.jpg
 
A larger screen can also make the benefits of higher resolution more apparent. 1920 x 1080 is a large canvas. 2.25x the pixels of 720p. Games will actually hit this resolution, with and without DLSS.

If anything the possibility of an 8 inch 1080p display makes me believe in a more efficient process node, perhaps they're confident they can provide enough juice with their custom chip to power a 1080p handheld and provide sufficient battery life. I also personally doubt that despite increases in screen size, that Nintendo will make their console significantly heavier or thicker due to the wider net they cast with their audience.
 
And please, I beg of you, to read and respond to a comment in full. Per the end of my last post, I don't even know if I'm being punked here. Are you being for real?
first: no, you're not being punked

second, the only point of discussion in your original post was what I singled out. your assertion that the t239 should have no bearing on size is as baseless as any argument to the contrary would be. we don't know the node, among other factors, so we don't know how the thermals look

returning to the playstation portal, I recognize your point about the bezel cutout for the sticks and that accordingly a switch as we know it wouldn't necessarily suffer the same
 
My primary gripes with NSO are the inability to purchase individual games, lack of per emulator button mapping, stupid borders, and the N64 emulation not being up to snuff (F-Zero X still dropped frames when I last tried), though I'm aware it has had significant improvements since launch. I otherwise enjoy the subscription model as a way of discovering games I would have never ever tried like Kuru Kuru Kururin.

As for the actual quality of emulation - the NES, SNES, GB/C and GBA emulators are all great. No more dark filter like the Wii / U for NES/N64/GBA, no more blurry filter like the WIi, proper horizontal interpolation for non-integer scaling to avoid shimmering, good display filter options especially for the GB/C/A, proper color correction for GB/C/A, and rewind. And apparently, reduced input lag for N64 since recent updates, which was apparently notoriously poor on the Wii U.
These are my exact same gripes except that I don't care much about purchasing each game. I recognize that as a negative but I personally don't care about it since I can already "own" those games on a lot of other devices with emulation. The value of NSO retro games for me is being able to discover and pick up and play any game from the library, and having an unified library of old games with my friends so we can jump into any of them online.
 
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How much do you guys think this will benefit Switch 2 sales if it is fully backward compatible + Xbox going full digital and Sony moving in that direction as well?

It will benefit marginally from all of those. The biggest driver of their hardware will be software + a desirable product. If it’s lacking in those two areas then hardware growth will stagnate until addressed.
 
I personally hope the new joycons are more ergonomic but I doubt the Switch 2 will be much heavier or bigger. Nintendo makes their products for all ages so they need to consider children and little people and big people, all across the spectrum of ages and sizes. Personally, I think the original Switch size is the max that they probably would want to go.
Agree. I hope they make it clamshell (and hopefully also dual-screen, even thoug it's unlikely). I think the perfect screen size would be 6.5-7.5", but if the report is accurate it's 8", even with small bezels, it'd probably be a decent bit bigger than the current Switch.
 
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A larger screen can also make the benefits of higher resolution more apparent. 1920 x 1080 is a large canvas. 2.25x the pixels of 720p. Games will actually hit this resolution, with and without DLSS.

If anything the possibility of an 8 inch 1080p display makes me believe in a more efficient process node, perhaps they're confident they can provide enough juice with their custom chip to power a 1080p handheld and provide sufficient battery life. I also personally doubt that despite increases in screen size, that Nintendo will make their console significantly heavier or thicker due to the wider net they cast with their audience.
But PPI is bigger with a smaller screen.
 
Thought I would share the mockups with a 7.9in screen I created over the past few months just for reference lol. There's a lot so I'll throw it in a spoiler.

switch2design.png


supernintendoswitch.jpg

How it compares to the OLED with a similar size bezel. (slightly bigger buttons/sticks)


switch2mockup2.jpg

In white with the SUPER treatment, and compared to the Portal.


fakesnsleak.jpg

Shopped over a competitor's 8in screen device (forget which it was).

The size of the mockups above were partially inspired by the potential joycon info we found in the shipping data, which was about this much bigger than current JoyCon:
joycon2.jpg



Super-Nintendo-Switch.jpg

BONUS! SUPER INSPIRED SUPER SWITCH!

Speaking of the angles.. How much is too much?
switch2_angles.gif
 
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Thought I would share the mockups I created over the past few months just for reference lol. There's a lot so I'll throw it in a spoiler.

switch2design.png


supernintendoswitch.jpg

How it compares to the OLED with a similar size bezel. (slightly bigger buttons/sticks)


switch2mockup2.jpg

In white with the SUPER treatment, and compared to the Portal.


fakesnsleak.jpg

Shopped over a competitor's 8in screen device (forget which it was).


Super-Nintendo-Switch.jpg

BONUS! SUPER INSPIRED SUPER SWITCH!

Speaking of the angles.. How much is too much?
switch2_angles.gif
The first one demonstrates the size differnce very well.
 
But PPI is bigger with a smaller screen.
You're right, that being said, a 7.91 inch 1080p screen has a PPI of ~278, the Switch LCD model has a PPI of ~236, the Lite is ~267. It'll be very dense and sharp.

Higher resolutions mean more detail packed into the image and it be harder to appreciate that level of detail the smaller a screen is. It's why I wanted to buy the biggest possible 4K TV and why my computer monitors max out at 1440p. A 4K monitor is useful for productivity but for consuming content like video games I'd prefer those pixels be painted on a larger canvas so I can take it all in at a distance. But this is just a personal thing. From Nintendo's POV, the effect of a larger screen and higher resolution will turn heads and that's probably what they care about most for the launch model. I feel a Lite model is inevitable anyways.

fakesnsleak.jpg

Shopped over a competitor's 8in screen device (forget which it was).
The Legion Go, which has an 8.8 inch screen. That thing is a behemoth.
 
Please refrain from making "boys club" jokes. Famiboards strives to be an inclusive place for everyone. – Party Sklar, Dardan Sandiego, big lantern ghost, VolcanicDynamo
Just to show that the argument works also in the other direction.
Well, the point is that our eyes register patterns first and foremost, not pixels. Going for high PPI is not a goal, the goal is to be able to see more detail on screen. For that, you might want to have a bigger screen in order for details to appear larger in absolute terms. Of course, you need to keep the PPI large enough to avoid obvious discretisation. This is where Serif's post makes sense: the fact that they are willing to go for a larger screen with higher resolution is a suggestion that they are confident that they can hit those high (1080p) resolutions and make use of the real estate to showcase extra detail. In order words, they don't fear a degradation in visual quality due to massively sub-native rendering on a larger screen. Which supports (in a minor fashion, it's not necessarily strong evidence or anything) the idea that the chip is powerful to the tune of a 4N processed chip rather than an 8nm one.

But the entire argument is entirely too contrived imo considering it's a 0.91 inch difference. Typically only one's girlfriend (or boyfriend) is animated by such differences in size. 🤭

Edit: Serif beat me to it already, but yeah, basically that is the argument.
 
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Microsoft already does this with OG Xbox and 360 emulation and going into DirectX to up the resolution, so theoretically, yes?

Whether NVIDIA can do a similar thing with NVN is TBA. I lean towards no.
those xbox and 360 games required per-game modifications. and these versions of directx aren't like PC. they're still tuned on a per-console basis, making BC much like other companies systems
 
Well, the point is that our eyes register pattern first and foremost, not pixels. Going for high PPI is not a goal, the goal is to be able to more detail on screen. For that, you might want to have a bigger screen in order for details to appear larger in absolute terms. Of course you need to keep the PPI large nough to avoid obvious discretisation. This is where Serif's post makes sense: the fact that they are willing to go for a larger screen with higher resolution is a suggestion that they are confident that they can hit those high (1080p) resolutions and make use of the real estate to showcase extra detail. In order words, they don't fear a degradation in visual quality due to massively sub-native rendering. Which supports (in a minor fashion, it's not necessarily strong evidence or anything) the idea that the chip is powerful to the tune of a 4N processed chip rather than an 8nm one.

But the entire argument is entirely too contrived imo considering it's a 0.91 inch difference. Typically only one's girlfriend (or boyfriend) is animated but such differences in size. 🤭
A small different for a screen, a big difference for my pocket./s
 
Thought I would share the mockups with a 7.9in screen I created over the past few months just for reference lol. There's a lot so I'll throw it in a spoiler.

switch2design.png


supernintendoswitch.jpg

How it compares to the OLED with a similar size bezel. (slightly bigger buttons/sticks)


switch2mockup2.jpg

In white with the SUPER treatment, and compared to the Portal.


fakesnsleak.jpg

Shopped over a competitor's 8in screen device (forget which it was).


Super-Nintendo-Switch.jpg

BONUS! SUPER INSPIRED SUPER SWITCH!

Speaking of the angles.. How much is too much?
switch2_angles.gif
Can you do it with minimal bezels? Say, the side bezels of LG G6 (~0.2"), or the distance between the stick encasement and screen of the PS Portal?

I realise LCDs might have limitations, like needing one bezel be big enough for the control circuit, but technically there's been LCDs with 0.1" bezels on the thickest side. I believe this is done by folding the control board behind it, Nintendo already does this with OLED Model.

On LG G6, the thickest bezel, the bottom, is 9mm, to be fair.

(Sorry if I'm asking too much. Maybe I should do something in GIMP, but it wouldn't be as good.)
 
first: no, you're not being punked

second, the only point of discussion in your original post was what I singled out. your assertion that the t239 should have no bearing on size is as baseless as any argument to the contrary would be. we don't know the node, among other factors, so we don't know how the thermals look

returning to the playstation portal, I recognize your point about the bezel cutout for the sticks and that accordingly a switch as we know it wouldn't necessarily suffer the same
I appreciate the clarification, for sure.
However,
your assertion that the t239 should have no bearing on size is as baseless as any argument to the contrary would be.
I would absolutely disagree here.

This does not seem to be the case, there IS evidence that T239 is small and efficient, there ISN'T evidence to suggest it is large, inefficient and requires an unwieldy design. You can't claim an evidenced stance is "as baseless" as an entirely unevidenced one, that is factually incorrect.
 
It's an 8BitDo Micro
I'm a WEIRDO, where despite my hands being uh... Let's say, Steam Deck Verified, I adore tiny portable controllers. I've been very tempted by the Micro myself, I just don't play enough games that would work with it to justify it. That reminds me of how I genuinely enjoy single Joy-Con Play. It's kinda comfortable sometimes! I go out of my way to play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with a single Joy-Con in a Joy-Con wheel because it's... Comfortable and fun.

I don't expect the next generation controllers to stay nearly as small, but if they really are just a little bigger but with a rear grip, I think I'll be quite happy. Compact, comfortable controllers are a difficult nut to crack, and I think Joy-Con got pretty close.
 
Can you do it with minimal bezels? Say, the side bezels of LG G6 (~0.2"), or the distance between the stick encasement and screen of the PS Portal?

I realise LCDs might have limitations, like needing one bezel be big enough for the control circuit, but technically there's been LCDs with 0.1" bezels on the thickest side. I believe this is done by folding the control board behind it, Nintendo already does this with OLED Model.

On LG G6, the thickest bezel, the bottom, is 9mm, to be fair.

(Sorry if I'm asking too much. Maybe I should do something in GIMP, but it wouldn't be as good.)
Sure.

supernintendoswitch3.jpg
 
This one is for the 3D fans. Fun to wish one last time before the incoming reveal in the next few months, however unlikely it may be. One can still hold out hope.

My wish with Sharp would be to unearth its 3D tech from N3DS and bring it back with the better lcd tech of 2024.

N3DS was still/is impressive, even on its low res screen. Imagine what a resolution bump would do, even if it was to give you 720 per eye at 8", maybe even assisted by dlss.

For the 3D faithfull, the last 2 years at CES have shown us 3D tech from Spatial labs, licenced out to the likes of Acer and Lenovo. Asus spitting out Oled 3D



And even Samsung this year aiming at gamers



With apple trying with apple vision Pro to make 3D mainstream, albeit with a vr headset (sorry spatial computing device 😒), the idea of stereo being made mainstream by a giant player like them can only be a boost for the medium. The fact that 15 pro shoots stereo video.



Other than that Leia gunning for glasses free crown buying up patents from Philips. They were behind the tech of the ill fated red phone. Tech was immature then, but incredibly more robust in 2024. Also that phone promised too much and failed to deliver. 3D is not what killed it. There current offering the Leia pad 3D looks great. And yes, Leia. You know, like the princess.

Anyway. These are just my observations.. even for those who believe 3D is/was a pointless gimmick or not, its still a viable medium for artistic expression and immersion.

The late Gunpei Yokoi & Satoru Iwata, dreamed of bringing 3D to the masses with attempts from the Nes, virtual boy



, rnd attempts from the GBA and Gamecube. But eventually materialising in the 3DS. Even there were attempts at the wii and I think I read early concepts of what eventually became the switch were still considering 3D. This camera that people once talked about could be about augmented reality. Don't know if some form of lidar was ever discussed.


Side note. I also just realised something. What if there was a peripheral at the time that could have sent 3D from the gc to the gba had the dba 3D been realised as planned, especially since the GC still has all the 3D circuitry still built in. Aside from the 3D screen that was scrapped.

 
Oh hell yes. Can I ask which measurements you used here, 9mm on the bottom bezel and sub-5mm for the sides?

Either which way, this looks... Perfect. (Although I expect the Joy-Con to change more, it's already beautiful like that.)
 
This one is for the 3D fans. Fun to wish one last time before the incoming reveal in the next few months, however unlikely it may be. One can still hold out hope.

My wish with Sharp would be to unearth its 3D tech from N3DS and bring it back with the better lcd tech of 2024.

N3DS was still/is impressive, even on its low res screen. Imagine what a resolution bump would do, even if it was to give you 720 per eye at 8", maybe even assisted by dlss.

For the 3D faithfull, the last 2 years at CES have shown us 3D tech from Spatial labs, licenced out to the likes of Acer and Lenovo. Asus spitting out Oled 3D



And even Samsung this year aiming at gamers



With apple trying with apple vision Pro to make 3D mainstream, albeit with a vr headset (sorry spatial computing device 😒), the idea of stereo being made mainstream by a giant player like them can only be a boost for the medium. The fact that 15 pro shoots stereo video.



Other than that Leia gunning for glasses free crown buying up patents from Philips. They were behind the tech of the ill fated red phone. Tech was immature then, but incredibly more robust in 2024. Also that phone promised too much and failed to deliver. 3D is not what killed it. There current offering the Leia pad 3D looks great. And yes, Leia. You know, like the princess.

Anyway. These are just my observations.. even for those who believe 3D is/was a pointless gimmick or not, its still a viable medium for artistic expression and immersion.

The late Gunpei Yokoi & Satoru Iwata, dreamed of bringing 3D to the masses with attempts from the Nes, virtual boy



, rnd attempts from the GBA and Gamecube. But eventually materialising in the 3DS. Even there were attempts at the wii and I think I read early concepts of what eventually became the switch were still considering 3D. This camera that people once talked about could be about augmented reality. Don't know if some form of lidar was ever discussed.


Side note. I also just realised something. What if there was a peripheral at the time that could have sent 3D from the gc to the gba had the dba 3D been realised as planned, especially since the GC still has all the 3D circuitry still built in. Aside from the 3D screen that was scrapped.


Really hope it has 3D, wouldn‘t even be mad at them if they used a 8“ screen. It also shows that Nintendo was always interested in 3D, as they always were interested in Dualscreens, from multi-screen Game&Watches, over Game Boy Advance+Gamecube to DS, 3DS and Wii U. I‘m pretty sure they‘ll return to these technologies, the question is just: When?
 
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this is a good point though. nintendo probably didn't want to make this monster but nvidia's stupid chip forced them to
Genuine question (and I'm not trying to be rude); were you trying to be controversial by saying this? Because I really don't understand the point in saying this in a thread where you know people are very enthusiastic and excited for the hardware that's going to be in the system.
 
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I think he‘s being sarcastic.
I don't think he is lol. Raccoon has been doomposting about anything larger than the OLED for a very long while now, it's quite funny to see.
Genuine question; were you trying to be controversial by saying this? Because I really don't understand the point in saying this in a thread where you know people are very enthusiastic and excited for the hardware that's going to be in the system.
To be fair this isn't necessarily a hype thread
 
Anyway, since Hartmann's investigation implies a higher possibility of Nintendo using a custom display from Sharp based on Sharp mentioning working with a company on a video game console during the R&D phase, assuming the rumour based on old information of Nintendo using 7.91" 1080p LCD displays from Innolux and Tianma are referring to devkits, I wonder if the 7.91" 1080p LCD displays from Innolux and Tianma have features (e.g. VRR, 120 Hz, etc.)? I do know the Asus ROG Ally uses a LCD display from Tianma, which supports 1080p and VRR.

I don't expect them to support it, but I would say VRR support would be a worthwhile reason for using an LCD panel. As far as I'm aware no smartphone OLED panels support the kind of VRR required for gaming, ie the ability to adjust the frame time of each individual frame, rather than picking from a pre-defined set of refresh rates. Even phones with "seamless" VRR still switch between set refresh rates, just with more refresh rates supported.

Furthermore, while many TV and monitor-sized OLED panels support VRR, they all exhibit some degree of flicker when frame rates change quickly. I haven't personally used a VRR OLED screen to judge how noticeable it is, but it does come up moderately frequently in discussion of VRR on OLED screens online, so it seems to bother at least some people. From what I can read up online, it's not limited to one particular manufacturer or process, with both LG OLED and Samsung QD-OLED panels exhibiting it.

My understanding is that it's due to OLED pixels requiring different current levels to produce the same brightness at different refresh rates, effectively requiring an individual gamma curve to be used for each refresh rate. OLED TVs and monitors with VRR support don't do this, and it's probably not even practical with current technology, as the display driver would need to dynamically calculate the gamma curve on the fly. So when a VRR OLED panel switches from one refresh rate to another the brightness changes because the gamma curve hasn't been adjusted, and that's visible to the user as flicker. It's probably not noticeable with small frame rate deviations (eg dropping from 60fps to 58fps), but is apparently noticeable during quick changes in frame rate, and in dark areas of the screen particularly.

I would guess this is why smartphone OLED screens don't support that kind of VRR. The benefit of VRR in smartphones is more about reducing power consumption (ie minimising refresh rate while viewing static content, or low-fps video on a high refresh rate display), so fully seamless VRR isn't that beneficial. With a fixed set of supported refresh rates, my guess is that they can use a LUT of gamma curves for each supported refresh rate, ensuring consistent screen brightness and no flicker when changing refresh rates.

As I said, though, I don't expect VRR on Switch 2 in any case, as I would wager Nintendo will want parity on features like this between handheld and docked mode, and relatively few people have TVs with VRR support as of yet. Which is a shame, as VRR would be pretty much top of my list for relatively low-cost ways to improve a handheld gaming device. Games which struggle to achieve a locked 60fps, like Link's Awakening, would be vastly better on a VRR screen than on a fixed refresh rate panel, and it would also benefit a huge number of games which would otherwise be locked at 30fps by allowing them to hit higher framerates.
 
I don't think he is lol. Raccoon has been doomposting about anything larger than the OLED for a very long while now, it's quite funny to see.

To be fair this isn't necessarily a hype thread
The one doesn’t really exclude the other. Racoons have always a strong character (think about Tom). And I agree he‘s quite funny.
 
Well, the point is that our eyes register patterns first and foremost, not pixels. Going for high PPI is not a goal, the goal is to be able to see more detail on screen. For that, you might want to have a bigger screen in order for details to appear larger in absolute terms. Of course, you need to keep the PPI large enough to avoid obvious discretisation. This is where Serif's post makes sense: the fact that they are willing to go for a larger screen with higher resolution is a suggestion that they are confident that they can hit those high (1080p) resolutions and make use of the real estate to showcase extra detail. In order words, they don't fear a degradation in visual quality due to massively sub-native rendering on a larger screen. Which supports (in a minor fashion, it's not necessarily strong evidence or anything) the idea that the chip is powerful to the tune of a 4N processed chip rather than an 8nm one.

But the entire argument is entirely too contrived imo considering it's a 0.91 inch difference. Typically only one's girlfriend (or boyfriend) is animated by such differences in size. 🤭

Edit: Serif beat me to it already, but yeah, basically that is the argument.
If I put 0.91 inch to mm in google it says to me that this are 23 mm. 2,3 cm is a big difference for me when thinking about handheld devices
 
If I put 0.91 inch to mm in google it says to me that this are 23 mm. 2,3 cm is a big difference for me when thinking about handheld devices
Agree. As handheld Nintendo fans I‘m hoping day and night that the screen‘ll be smaller.

As a console Nintendo fans I‘m not caring and laugh about the handheld fans.
 
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I don't think the Switch 2 model will only have colored SNES style buttoms, it will be a joycon/release variant similar to the OG Switch having a grey model and a blue/red model.
 
Is there a better process node than TSMC 4N available or in the works? The reason why I'm asking this is because shrinking it for later is how we traditionally got major price drops for later revisions or just revisions in general. While the Switch never got a price drop, it did get a pretty substantial node shrink that helped make the Lite margins (and size) possible. So beyond the initial Switch 2 launch, how would redesigns and stuff fare beyond an OLED revision? Is a Lite even possible?
 
Is there a better process node than TSMC 4N available or in the works? The reason why I'm asking this is because shrinking it for later is how we traditionally got major price drops for later revisions or just revisions in general. While the Switch never got a price drop, it did get a pretty substantial node shrink that helped make the Lite margins (and size) possible. So beyond the initial Switch 2 launch, how would redesigns and stuff fare beyond an OLED revision? Is a Lite even possible?
The Chip would already be pretty small, so it‘s only a matter of shrinking/cutting other parts.
 
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