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

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ezidro3 said:
I think BotW, Odyssey, New Horizons, Smash, and especially MK8D are all likely as games updated at launch
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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is very likely to get patched, as it is being actively supported right now, but the rest of those are a bit more questionable. Smash I think is somewhat unlikely, as it probably doesn't really have a dev team behind it anymore, while the EPD games are something of a toss-up given their history.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is very likely to get patched, as it is being actively supported right now, but the rest of those are a bit more questionable. Smash I think is somewhat unlikely, as it probably doesn't really have a dev team behind it anymore, while the EPD games are something of a toss-up given their history.
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The most I see for Smash is 4K, increased shadow resolution, and faster loading times.
 
Legend of Zelda Age of Calamity will get a patch to finally run at cinematic 24FPS instead of 12FPS.


Prepare to be amazed!

;)
 
Pokemaniac said:
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is very likely to get patched, as it is being actively supported right now, but the rest of those are a bit more questionable. Smash I think is somewhat unlikely, as it probably doesn't really have a dev team behind it anymore, while the EPD games are something of a toss-up given their history.
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Considering how late both ARMS and Splatoon 2 got updates, I’m willing to bet that, for the most part, almost all Switch titles from launch will get some sort of forward compatible support.

Only titles that hinge on particular development studios are likely to not get any, but that also depends if they’re high profile enough to get it too.

Edit: Seeing how there’s a “silence” coming from them, I could see this as a sign of Nintendo about to make a big transition. I have no proof of this, I’ll admit, but there was also this sort of period back in the Wii U era where people were just assuming Nintendo was letting its audience languish or whatnot. Then again, it could just have been the GAF/Era effect…
 
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SiG said:
Edit: Seeing how there’s a “silence” coming from them, I could see this as a sign of Nintendo about to make a big transition. I have no proof of this, I’ll admit, but there was also this sort of period back in the Wii U era where people were just assuming Nintendo was letting its audience languish or whatnot. Then again, it could just have been the GAF/Era effect…
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The silence approaching E3 time certainly has me on the edge of my seat. Usually by now we have a clear date and plan for E3.

The coping part of my mind is just attributing the silence to the lack an E3; They’re not obligated to any person or organization anymore. The optimist is expecting something big tho.
 
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A lack of communication in this time of year can also be attributed to a lack of physical presence or simply a lack of E3 imo. Normally when Nintendo attend E3 with their Treehouse live streams, things have to be planned far in advance thus early announcements of date time information. This year E3 is gone, thus Nintendo can probably record Treehouse streams in advance and announce things on their own agenda.
 
Strange to see E3 being cancelled due to covid when I've been attending 3 in person international conferences just in 2022 and I have 3 more planned until the end of the year. I guess it really depends on the field and the videogame industry has been much more impacted than other.
 
I'm almost certain we are getting a June direct, it's been a consistent thing since directs became a thing and most of them have been big directs announcing software for fall. If we were getting new hardware in fall I think we could hear of the device this month but not in the main June direct. Nintendo has often times done two directs in June, one on software and one focused direct on one particular title etc. So for that reason I think we could get a software direct towards the end of next week, then a switch 2 direct two weeks later, or in July.

If the hardware is now a March 2023 deal I think we will see it in a January direct. 3-4 months between reveal and launch.
 
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I hope there is a big sale for games getting patched for Drake. Would be good for older titles getting more sales and visibility But I wouldn’t mind if games like Xcom 2: War of The Chosen got PS4 assets as an payed upgrade.
 
Mr Swine said:
I hope there is a big sale for games getting patched for Drake. Would be good for older titles getting more sales and visibility But I wouldn’t mind if games like Xcom 2: War of The Chosen got PS4 assets as an payed upgrade.
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it will be all up to Nintendo on how they want to promote this.

I think they should also set up a fund to get some 3rd party games patched and pay for it or subsidize it. Witcher 3 and all the service games like Fortnite etc would be very high on my list.
 
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Bosintang said:
Strange to see E3 being cancelled due to covid when I've been attending 3 in person international conferences just in 2022 and I have 3 more planned until the end of the year. I guess it really depends on the field and the videogame industry has been much more impacted than other.
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Aren’t minors also allowed to go to E3 and play with games on the show floor and different booths set up by different publishers?
 
Bosintang said:
Strange to see E3 being cancelled due to covid when I've been attending 3 in person international conferences just in 2022 and I have 3 more planned until the end of the year. I guess it really depends on the field and the videogame industry has been much more impacted than other.
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Based off what some press members have said on twitter, E3's situation had been boiling over for awhile now. We knew some of the issues, due to both people speaking publicly about it and how some companies struggled to get show floor presence unless a bigger company shielded them from that.

COVID absolutely didn't help for sure but sounds like last year was an absolute disaster, since E3 was still charging they usual fees for remote and that seemed to have been the final straw. I'm not even sure if we'll see an E3, despite them saying "we're regrouping for next year". If it does happen, they're going to have to make some massive changes with how they operate and how they handle certain things. I really don't see publishers going back to them otherwise, especially if doing stuff remotely and online shows wield continue to work for them, while also attending other conventions with less issues/fees associated with them.
 
Tentacle-tropes said:
From the creator of Custom Robo
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Bought it day one and did play for a couple hours, but I dunno, it was missing...something. Like, without resorting to "the vibes are off" I guess the mechanics are solid enough but it doesn't make any of the customizable parts very memorable in a way that makes you want to try different combinations, and it doesn't help that the designs also felt very underbaked and lacking in colour. It tries to deliver backstory exclusively via text and it doesn't even make all that much sense like it's jumping in the middle without providing any contextual clues, nor does it seem to have any story to advance in the first place

I do want to give it another go and maybe a few updates later it's made some changes I'm unaware of, but if anything it just makes the desire for the specific IP Custom Robo to come back sooner (and with less chance of that happening than F-Zero)
 
Mendinso said:
Based off what some press members have said on twitter, E3's situation had been boiling over for awhile now. We knew some of the issues, due to both people speaking publicly about it and how some companies struggled to get show floor presence unless a bigger company shielded them from that.

COVID absolutely didn't help for sure but sounds like last year was an absolute disaster, since E3 was still charging they usual fees for remote and that seemed to have been the final straw. I'm not even sure if we'll see an E3, despite them saying "we're regrouping for next year". If it does happen, they're going to have to make some massive changes with how they operate and how they handle certain things. I really don't see publishers going back to them otherwise, especially if doing stuff remotely and online shows wield continue to work for them, while also attending other conventions with less issues/fees associated with them.
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I assume that E3 is just dead at this point.
 
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Brofield said:
Bought it day one and did play for a couple hours, but I dunno, it was missing...something. Like, without resorting to "the vibes are off" I guess the mechanics are solid enough but it doesn't make any of the customizable parts very memorable in a way that makes you want to try different combinations, and it doesn't help that the designs also felt very underbaked and lacking in colour. It tries to deliver backstory exclusively via text and it doesn't even make all that much sense like it's jumping in the middle without providing any contextual clues, nor does it seem to have any story to advance in the first place

I do want to give it another go and maybe a few updates later it's made some changes I'm unaware of, but if anything it just makes the desire for the specific IP Custom Robo to come back sooner (and with less chance of that happening than F-Zero)
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Well you’ll be waiting for a long time because it doesn’t look like Nintendo wants anything to do with Custom Robo considering there is no one to stan for the ip at hq.
 
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Mendinso said:
Based off what some press members have said on twitter, E3's situation had been boiling over for awhile now. We knew some of the issues, due to both people speaking publicly about it and how some companies struggled to get show floor presence unless a bigger company shielded them from that.

COVID absolutely didn't help for sure but sounds like last year was an absolute disaster, since E3 was still charging they usual fees for remote and that seemed to have been the final straw. I'm not even sure if we'll see an E3, despite them saying "we're regrouping for next year". If it does happen, they're going to have to make some massive changes with how they operate and how they handle certain things. I really don't see publishers going back to them otherwise, especially if doing stuff remotely and online shows wield continue to work for them, while also attending other conventions with less issues/fees associated with them.
Click to expand...

It's a shame. I'm not invested enough in videogames to follow all the smaller events, so I enjoy the idea of a yearly pissing contest where every videogame company under the sun tries to convince to buy their latest toy
 
I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what those of us who believe the pro was scrapped due to the chip shortage think.
What we think is not that Nintendo took the pro device and literally threw the thing in the garbage, of course scrapping a piece of hardware they spent a long time R&Ding is ridiculous. What we believe is that they took that hardware, went back to the drawing board and are going to release it as the next console.

To be more specific, the idea being that Dane was the pro switch and it got reworked into Drake, moving from 8nm to 5nm and adding some extra bells and whistles, and that drake will be a successor instead of a pro due to a 2023 launch instead of a 2021 launch (a pro makes sense 4 years in but not 6)

No one is suggesting that Dane was just abandoned entirely because that would be a ridiculous waste.
 
BobNintendofan said:
I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what those of us who believe the pro was scrapped due to the chip shortage think.
What we think is not that Nintendo took the pro device and literally threw the thing in the garbage, of course scrapping a piece of hardware they spent a long time R&Ding is ridiculous. What we believe is that they took that hardware, went back to the drawing board and are going to release it as the next console.

To be more specific, the idea being that Dane was the pro switch and it got reworked into Drake, moving from 8nm to 5nm and adding some extra bells and whistles, and that drake will be a successor instead of a pro due to a 2023 launch instead of a 2021 launch (a pro makes sense 4 years in but not 6)

No one is suggesting that Dane was just abandoned entirely because that would be a ridiculous waste.
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How about their NEVER was a Switch PRO because Pro consoles don't sell very well.
 
I have a question for anyone who'd like to answer it.
To me the Drake is clearly not on the 8nm process, given how big and power hungry it would be to run the hardware we've seen in the switch's form factor.
So if Drake is on the 5nm process and releasing early next year, why is Orin, releasing around the same time, on the 8nm process? Why would Nvidia go out of their way to make essentially two versions of the same hardware at the same time and use the 5nm process for one and the 8nm process for the other?

Because to me occam's razor here is that they're not launching around the same time, and so using a better process simply makes sense for a device launching a year after the Orin.
 
BobNintendofan said:
To me the Drake is clearly not on the 8nm process, given how big and power hungry it would be to run the hardware we've seen in the switch's form factor.
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We do not know for sure, it just seems likely that other nodes can’t be ruled out but a person should not be surprised if it is 8nm, not be that disappointed.

Since it has 1MB L2, not 4MB apparently, it can be smaller than expected by a few several hundred million transistors and that can save space.
 
BobNintendofan said:
I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what those of us who believe the pro was scrapped due to the chip shortage think.
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I don’t think this is an “us” so much as “you”. Not a criticism, just I think that your particular position on the matter is a little more thought out than others :)
BobNintendofan said:
What we think is not that Nintendo took the pro device and literally threw the thing in the garbage, of course scrapping a piece of hardware they spent a long time R&Ding is ridiculous. What we believe is that they took that hardware, went back to the drawing board and are going to release it as the next console.
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This is what I was referring to when I said “scrapped” before. I don’t think this is happened, but I don’t think it’s absolutely impossible.

BobNintendofan said:
To be more specific, the idea being that Dane was the pro switch and it got reworked into Drake, moving from 8nm to 5nm and adding some extra bells and whistles, and that drake will be a successor instead of a pro due to a 2023 launch instead of a 2021 launch (a pro makes sense 4 years in but not 6)
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell, this is the rationale here. Please tell me if I’m missing something

  • Drake is referred to in two places (a leak from kopite7kimi and once in the Nvidia hack)
  • Dane appears awful big, going by the hack.
  • No new info about release since September
  • Chip shortage and Switch success make Pro a bad idea economically right now
  • Ergo, Dane is an beefier version of Drake targeting “successor” status.
I’ve considered this possibility but here is why I don’t buy it
  • paying the kill fee on broken contracts with 3rd party devs drives up costs
  • There are likely dedicated porting engineers for new hardware who would be let go
  • The japanese version of Mochi’s article includes devs stating that delaying the revision would kill trust in Nintendo
  • Killing Pro would likely cause more leaks than “staying on target”
  • And probably costs more than releasing revision that, due to capacity problems “only” sells 20 million units.
  • The current switch is already throttled by the chip shortage. Wildly enough, a redesign is their best opportunity to reduce their need for non-SoC chips and expand production
The stronger financial pressure on Pro is likely inflation, a far more variable situation, and one which might be hitting Nvidia harder than Nintendo if the prices for the silicon were set 2 years ago

I’ve also considered that “yes a pro is coming but Drake isn’t it - Drake is the beefy successor that is also in development.” That feels more possible to me, just as a gut check. But if they’re really doing that and targeting a 7+ year generation, and 5nm, then why rework Ampere/Orin? Why not just build on Ada/Atlan?
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
We do not know for sure, it just seems likely that other nodes can’t be ruled out but a person should not be surprised if it is 8nm, not be that disappointed.

Since it has 1MB L2, not 4MB apparently, it can be smaller than expected by a few several hundred million transistors and that can save space.
Click to expand...
It will be very surprising if it's 8nm based on the hardware we've seen because the thing would be huge and run very hot. We're talking more like a steam deck, and there's no reason to think Nintendo would go that route.
 
BobNintendofan said:
So if Drake is on the 5nm process and releasing early next year, why is Orin, releasing around the same time, on the 8nm process?
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ORIN is already out in devkit form.

It seems like it’s going to release July 2022.

www.nvidia.com

NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin

Next-level AI performance for next-gen robotics.
www.nvidia.com

There might be some SKUs that aren’t out yet and are set for later while others are set for now, like how nVidia released the 3090/80/70 and then later released the 3060/60TI/70TI/80TI/90TI.

Fake edit: judging from the site, yes

“Jetson AGX Orin Series modules will be available starting July 2022.
Jetson Orin NX series modules will be available starting September 2022.

Get started developing for all four modules today with Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit, available now.”


BobNintendofan said:
Why would Nvidia go out of their way to make essentially two versions of the same hardware at the same time and use the 5nm process for one and the 8nm process for the other?
Click to expand...
In this case, considering it is “supposed” to be a derivative of an existing product that goes through regulation and was so for perhaps 2-3 years due to its field (automotive and medical), creating a derivative between then when it was announced and when it released based on what Nintendo was willing to pay for isn’t so far fetched.
 
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BobNintendofan said:
So if Drake is on the 5nm process and releasing early next year, why is Orin, releasing around the same time, on the 8nm process? Why would Nvidia go out of their way to make essentially two versions of the same hardware at the same time and use the 5nm process for one and the 8nm process for the other?

Because to me occam's razor here is that they're not launching around the same time, and so using a better process simply makes sense for a device launching a year after the Orin.
Click to expand...
The reason is because the primary use case for Orin is to be the SoC for automotive vehicles. And automotive vehicle SoCs have to be rigorously tested and certified to be in compliance with automotive safety standards (e.g. ISO 26262), which can be an extremely time-consuming process. That means that automotive vehicle SoCs have to be taped out far in advance in order to be tested and certified for compliance with automotive safety standards.

The primary use case for Drake on the other hand is to be used as the SoC for a consumer product from Nintendo, which doesn't need to undergo rigorous testing and certification that automotive vehicle SoCs do.
 
oldpuck said:
I don’t think this is an “us” so much as “you”. Not a criticism, just I think that your particular position on the matter is a little more thought out than others :)

This is what I was referring to when I said “scrapped” before. I don’t think this is happened, but I don’t think it’s absolutely impossible.


As far as I can tell, this is the rationale here. Please tell me if I’m missing something

  • Drake is referred to in two places (a leak from kopite7kimi and once in the Nvidia hack)
  • Dane appears awful big, going by the hack.
  • No new info about release since September
  • Chip shortage and Switch success make Pro a bad idea economically right now
  • Ergo, Dane is an beefier version of Drake targeting “successor” status.
I’ve considered this possibility but here is why I don’t buy it
  • paying the kill fee on broken contracts with 3rd party devs drives up costs
  • There are likely dedicated porting engineers for new hardware who would be let go
  • The japanese version of Mochi’s article includes devs stating that delaying the revision would kill trust in Nintendo
  • Killing Pro would likely cause more leaks than “staying on target”
  • And probably costs more than releasing revision that, due to capacity problems “only” sells 20 million units.
  • The current switch is already throttled by the chip shortage. Wildly enough, a redesign is their best opportunity to reduce their need for non-SoC chips and expand production
The stronger financial pressure on Pro is likely inflation, a far more variable situation, and one which might be hitting Nvidia harder than Nintendo if the prices for the silicon were set 2 years ago

I’ve also considered that “yes a pro is coming but Drake isn’t it - Drake is the beefy successor that is also in development.” That feels more possible to me, just as a gut check. But if they’re really doing that and targeting a 7+ year generation, and 5nm, then why rework Ampere/Orin? Why not just build on Ada/Atlan?
Click to expand...
I really strongly disagree with the notion that launching a 5nm system in early 2023 would be easier to supply than the current switch. 5nm early 2023 is gonna be in ridiculously high demand, they will be competing with apple.
 
Dakhil said:
The reason is because the primary use case for Orin is to be the SoC for automotive vehicles. And automotive vehicle SoCs have to be tested and certified to be in compliance with automotive safety standards (e.g. ISO 26262), which can be an extremely time-consuming process. That means that automotive vehicle SoCs have to be taped out far in advance in order to be tested and certified for compliance with automotive safety standards.

The primary use case for Drake on the other hand is to be used as the SoC for a consumer product from Nintendo, which doesn't need to undergo rigorous testing and certification that automotive vehicle SoCs do.
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I'm sure they have been planning Drake for years as well, that's hardly a good argument.
 
If Nvidia chooses 8nm for Orin products launching late 2022 and Nintendo chooses 5nm for an Orin product launching early 2023 the reason is not because of some dubious idea of planning it out earlier, both have likely been planned together from the beginning. It's exceptionally likely that Nintendo was always planning to use the Orin for their next hardware, planning for a new console begins as soon as the previous console releases. So if they each chose different processes for the same device there has to be an actual reason why. You could argue something like Nintendo is willing to pay a higher price or deal with lower supply, but these are not compelling to me. What is compelling is the idea that Nintendo is launching theirs a year later. That would explain everything.
 
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BobNintendofan said:
It will be very surprising if it's 8nm based on the hardware we've seen because the thing would be huge and run very hot. We're talking more like a steam deck, and there's no reason to think Nintendo would go that route.
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I mean, that’s true and I don’t disagree but I do feel like we have to consider how much Nintendo is willing to put out to have this. No it could be 8 nm, 7nm with its extension 6nm or 4 nm which is an extension of the 5mm family.

The R&D process is perhaps the most expensive aspect of this, and Nintendo can choose to cheap out for the R&D to sell a chip that needs more silicon and clock it pretty low, or bite the bullet on the R&D expense to have a more chips made from each wafer but it be cheaper to work with per unit.

That said, nVidia is the one that actually and ultimately chooses the node based on what their client is willing to pay. So I suppose it depends on if Nintendo gave Nvidia sufficient amount of dollar signs or a check with enough zeros for a chip that made for them. Considering it’s their only platform now, their hardware R&D isn’t so split between portable and home console, it’s just one but it’s been getting more expensive and more sophisticated.
 
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Dakhil said:
I don't think Nintendo finalised plans on what SoC to use in 2017.
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No one really does, but it isn’t unlikely that they know their hardware plans ahead of what their partner has in development.

That said, the data breach seems to indicate that it was in demoing in 2019 it seems.

This was before the better version of DLSS was out :p

BobNintendofan said:
I am confident Nintendo has been planning the successor to the switch since 2017.
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Planning a successor? Yes, but probably not really a chip. Just a general idea of goals with design concepts and targets existing as a skeleton.

For example, the PS4 started development the year the PS3 launched!

The project was called Orbis I believe with the SoC being called Liverpool.


In the case of Nintendo, it could be Project NX2 with SoC that came later and it is called Drake.

Blue Monty said:
It sold 15M WW that's pretty good for a 'Pro version'
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I guess, I mean compared to the DSi or GBC it did poorly, I think. Though it maybe depends on the relative percent of it.
 
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Quoted by: LiC
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ReddDreadtheLead said:
No one really does, but it isn’t unlikely that they know their hardware plans ahead of what their partner has in development.

That said, the data breach seems to indicate that it was in demoing in 2019 it seems.

This was before the better version of DLSS was out :p
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The thing they were demoing to Nintendo in 2019 was DLSS 2.0.
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
I am referring to the public :p

Version 2.0 wasn’t available to the public until April 2020.

Nintendo hopped on it knowing it would be good😂
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I know. I'm saying, deciding on the kind of device they wanted definitely happened in 2019, since that's when the features that are a big part of the architecture were demoed and (presumably) approved. Also that Nvidia wasn't necessarily pitching a chip at that point but rather a feature set, which the chip would need to support.
 
BobNintendofan said:
I really strongly disagree with the notion that launching a 5nm system in early 2023 would be easier to supply than the current switch. 5nm early 2023 is gonna be in ridiculously high demand, they will be competing with apple.
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I think what @oldpuck meant is that by redesigning the system Nintendo's engineers can consolidate microchips that are not the central SoC, so as to require fewer chips per system. (Sorry if I read either of your posts wrong!) That particular bullet point doesn't require a power upgrade, the OLED model could have done it (maybe they did to a degree? I haven't looked closely at teardowns of it), but any redesign is an opportunity to chip away a bit more (pun intended.)

On another note, Nvidia's paid almost ten billion dollars to reserve 5nm (probably 4N) capacity, so Nintendo wouldn't be competing with Apple, they'd be competing with Nvidia within the allocated capacity. Whether Nvidia is willing to play ball there depends on their priorities. Are they willing to allocate a sizable fraction of that to Nintendo's Drake in hopes of increasing the popularity of DLSS among game developers over other technologies that don't require Tensor cores, thus laying the groundwork to cement market-share dominance on PC for the next five or ten years? Or rather than take that gamble, bet on larger immediate profits by producing Drake on 8N or 6nm and dedicating all of their 4N capacity to RTX 4x00 and Hopper with their higher profit margins?

The most important thing is that, even if Drake is hard to supply, those numbers will tend to be in addition to Switch rather than instead of it.
 
Future Boy Nemo said:
probably 4N
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It would be this I think, 4N being an extension of 5nm, but who knows? Maybe nVidia does regular Lovelace at 5nm while Hopper remains at 4N? Or both are on 4N?

Either way they are on 5nm in some way, shape or form.

Granted, 7nm/6nm shouldn’t be ruled out for Drake.

and again, 8nm, but this is beside the point
 
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