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

Botw's engine suits them better. They really need to get on it..


Anyone else excited for a RE4 remake on Switch 2? It's pretty much a shoe in. DF/Eurogamer tested on all consoles.
DF summarizes for PS4 and Series S, which Switch 2 will be in between the two:

It runs 900p on PS4 and 4k on PS4 (checkerboard renderin), and 1080 (FR mode) and 1440p (resolution mode, using checkerboard reconstruction) on Series S. 50-60fps in FR mode for Series S.

PS4 has cutback texture resolutions and streaming, lighting and shadows, and static grass. PS4 has animation issues at a distance for enemies and issues loading textures (can take up to 10 seconds), which seems like it's CPU constrained according to DF. PS4 and PS4 Pro run about 35-50 and close to 60fps in framerate mode, but it's unstable. Resolution mode drops to 30fps on PS4 Pro. DF thinks PS4 versions are a good port though overall.

Strangely enough xbone consoles don't have a port. I mean maybe 720p was possible on xbone base, but it's odd it's not ported

More info, including series s performance:

What are you guys expecting/hoping? 1080p without DLSS should be a given on Switch 2. 1080p and a fairly stable 60fps should be doable on Switch 2 without DLSS, assuming it hits 3 tflops on docked.. but then again, I'm not accounting for current gen features though...
1080p60+DLSS to 4K seems hopeful, even to hopeful little me, but definitely possible if they spent time and attention porting it and made smart cutbacks. As for "modern" features, really Drake appears to be rather the opposite; it's not a powerful handheld lacking modern features, but a modern featureset with a tight power envelope. For that reason I'd expect all the same bells and whistles- but for those bells and whistles to be a little toned down to achieve a steady performance target.

3TF in TV Mode certainly seems possible, and would position this console extremely well in the grand scheme of things. Even "cheap and dirty" ports could skimp on optimisation when the performance is so close to Series S, tamp down the render resolution and hope DLSS or FSR take the reigns for them.

I think we'll probably see two kinds of third party port on Drake. Careful, considered ports with minimal cutbacks, steady performance and 4K output, and sloppy, "it'll do" rushjobs that lean on upscaling to make up for a dire resolution needed to stabilise performance.

Built in, effective upscaling options should definitely make third party support easier from a "can it fit" standpoint, and better from an image quality standpoint.

In all I remain hopeful, but more than even Switch, I think performance on Drake will depend in large part on how much time and effort went into optimising for its specific feature set, like handing off CPU limited tasks to Tensor Cores or CUDA cores.
 
The USB ports wouldn't be disabled in that case, it would just bump down to USB2 speeds via the aux pins on the USB-C connection. Off the top of my head, ethernet is the obvious example, as gigabit ethernet would be bottlenecked over USB2.
With little reason to change the dock, that would line up with the Dock with LAN Port, which actually specifically removed USB 3 ports in favour of a (USB 2 bottlenecked) LAN port. Perhaps further evidence they considered 4K output for what became OLED Model, or perhaps, like the power pass through and additional ventilation, future proofing for future consoles compatible with Dock with LAN Port.
 
The USB ports wouldn't be disabled in that case, it would just bump down to USB2 speeds via the aux pins on the USB-C connection. Off the top of my head, ethernet is the obvious example, as gigabit ethernet would be bottlenecked over USB2.
It's probably not a huge deal if Ethernet tops out at 480Mbps. The only thing that would meaningfully affect is game downloads, and those will probably still be bottlenecked by Nintendo's CDN regardless.
 
Botw's engine suits them better. They really need to get on it..
Unity still works for what they need. it can do open worlds (not the best at it though) and they already have experience with it. if they're committed to keeping with their own tools, I hope their engineering R&D is allowed to completely overhaul the renderer. hire the director of Sonic Unleashed if you have to
 
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Botw's engine suits them better. They really need to get on it..
In what way? Xenoblade has more on-screen characters in the players party alone than Breath of the Wild ever had on screen at once. There is no indication that King System (the BotW engine) could handle a Xenoblade game without re-engineering.

In this specific case, with Monolith developing low power TAAU and consulting on Zelda, I suspect any perceived advantages that Zelda has over Xenoblade is the product of a much longer development cycle, a higher budget, and being the Nintendo’s prestige franchise.
 
Probably, but I wouldn't know how much. Physical interfaces are usually the parts of chips that scale worst as you move to new processes, so anything you can do to cut down on the amount of silicon you're dedicating to them is probably good.
Hm, I see. I’ve been playing around with the numbers for potential due sizes for Drake, and I keep getting around 170mm^2, +/- 5%. so around 7-8B Transistors is what I’m falling on.
 
This is a separate post, but this will be an infamous week. Either something happens, or nothing happens at all.

The thread will become A) insufferable with drive by posts

Or b) over enthusiastic with beyond the moon predictions


I am ready.
For what reason? GDC?

Honestly I'm not expecting anything much in either direction, official or rumours, for some weeks, perhaps two or three months. The days leading up to the official announcement and briefly after will probably be the most concentrated, and that's likely not for another while.
 
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No it wouldn't.

If they wanted to reassure shareholders or something they'd do that at the end of FY meeting in May, not the last week of the FY. Last week of the FY has never been important to them AFAIK.
That’s why I said
This is a separate post, but this will be an infamous week. Either something happens, or nothing happens at all.

The thread will become A) insufferable with drive by posts

Or b) over enthusiastic with beyond the moon predictions


I am ready.
:p
 
1080p60+DLSS to 4K seems hopeful, even to hopeful little me, but definitely possible if they spent time and attention porting it and made smart cutbacks. As for "modern" features, really Drake appears to be rather the opposite; it's not a powerful handheld lacking modern features, but a modern featureset with a tight power envelope. For that reason I'd expect all the same bells and whistles- but for those bells and whistles to be a little toned down to achieve a steady performance target.

3TF in TV Mode certainly seems possible, and would position this console extremely well in the grand scheme of things. Even "cheap and dirty" ports could skimp on optimisation when the performance is so close to Series S, tamp down the render resolution and hope DLSS or FSR take the reigns for them.

I think we'll probably see two kinds of third party port on Drake. Careful, considered ports with minimal cutbacks, steady performance and 4K output, and sloppy, "it'll do" rushjobs that lean on upscaling to make up for a dire resolution needed to stabilise performance.

Built in, effective upscaling options should definitely make third party support easier from a "can it fit" standpoint, and better from an image quality standpoint.

In all I remain hopeful, but more than even Switch, I think performance on Drake will depend in large part on how much time and effort went into optimising for its specific feature set, like handing off CPU limited tasks to Tensor Cores or CUDA cores.
I didn't say anything about 4k RE4 remake 😐. Just that we could get 1080p 60fps in a performance mode in docked at least. But I didn't account for current gen features that PS4 is lacking.
In what way? Xenoblade has more on-screen characters in the players party alone than Breath of the Wild ever had on screen at once. There is no indication that King System (the BotW engine) could handle a Xenoblade game without re-engineering.

In this specific case, with Monolith developing low power TAAU and consulting on Zelda, I suspect any perceived advantages that Zelda has over Xenoblade is the product of a much longer development cycle, a higher budget, and being the Nintendo’s prestige franchise.
Gameplay wise, Pokemon is looking a lot more like Botw. Botw's terrain and art style works good for Pokemon. No need to push graphical detail as hard as Xenoblade. Yes, more Pokemon on screen is important though.
 
Probably, but I wouldn't know how much. Physical interfaces are usually the parts of chips that scale worst as you move to new processes, so anything you can do to cut down on the amount of silicon you're dedicating to them is probably good.
I know we slag off a lot on AMD, but Infinity + Chiplets is a really great combo for APUs for this (and other) reasons. It'll be interesting to see what RDNA 4 APU in a SteamDeck 2 could look like, especially if UCIe doesn't take off, or if Nvidia stays on a monolithic die for Blackwell.
 
Gameplay wise, Pokemon is looking a lot more like Botw. Botw's terrain and art style works good for Pokemon. No need to push graphical detail as hard as Xenoblade. Yes, more Pokemon on screen is important though.
I am dumb, I lost the thread and thought "they" were Monolith, not GameFreak!

Game Freak is stuck between a rock and a hard place that I do not envy. They're running a scaled up 3DS engine, they're a tiny company, and they have built their empire on these ridiculously short development cycles. I imagine they've got a large set of tooling that is built to turn these games around quickly and is bespoke to the Pokedex - not just models but battle logic, and literal decades of tuning the same damn parameters over and over again. The smart move is to throw money at the problem - hire up, toss their in-house engine, select something anything and put in the elbow grease to rebuild their tooling around it, and to stop making games for 2 years while they do it. But even if someone over there has that vision to do so, they are in constant crunch mode that stopping the runaway train long enough to get it back on track is superhuman levels of effort
 
Surely when Nintendo inevitably mentions nothing of substance regarding new hardware this thread will be civil... right?
There are 3,000+ Famiboards members, and less than 50 regular posters. Can 50 posters who know each other be civil? Sure. Can 3,000 Nintendo fans flood a thread? Absolutely.

The day this thing is announced, watch as every possible facet of the community comes to "I told you so" at each other, while the remainder are 1) saying Nintendo is doomed because they didn't innovate enough, 2) doomed because they did, 3) are delivering a Playstation 6 from the future, but portable, 4) "basically N64 graphics, lul", or 5) that releasing a new console is unethical because they just bought the first Switch yesterday.
 
Surely when Nintendo inevitably mentions nothing of substance regarding new hardware this thread will be civil... right?
This week? Yeah, I don't expect anyone to go crazy when they say nothing this week because I don't see anyone expecting anything this week, besides I guess Redd?
 
I am dumb, I lost the thread and thought "they" were Monolith, not GameFreak!

Game Freak is stuck between a rock and a hard place that I do not envy. They're running a scaled up 3DS engine, they're a tiny company, and they have built their empire on these ridiculously short development cycles. I imagine they've got a large set of tooling that is built to turn these games around quickly and is bespoke to the Pokedex - not just models but battle logic, and literal decades of tuning the same damn parameters over and over again. The smart move is to throw money at the problem - hire up, toss their in-house engine, select something anything and put in the elbow grease to rebuild their tooling around it, and to stop making games for 2 years while they do it. But even if someone over there has that vision to do so, they are in constant crunch mode that stopping the runaway train long enough to get it back on track is superhuman levels of effort
GF should let the IP management company manage the IP while they spend time tooling up. the series has a lack of spin-offs nowadays that can fill gaps
 
I am dumb, I lost the thread and thought "they" were Monolith, not GameFreak!

Game Freak is stuck between a rock and a hard place that I do not envy. They're running a scaled up 3DS engine, they're a tiny company, and they have built their empire on these ridiculously short development cycles. I imagine they've got a large set of tooling that is built to turn these games around quickly and is bespoke to the Pokedex - not just models but battle logic, and literal decades of tuning the same damn parameters over and over again. The smart move is to throw money at the problem - hire up, toss their in-house engine, select something anything and put in the elbow grease to rebuild their tooling around it, and to stop making games for 2 years while they do it. But even if someone over there has that vision to do so, they are in constant crunch mode that stopping the runaway train long enough to get it back on track is superhuman levels of effort
For as many technical issues as SV have, I don't really think it's the engine's fault. They've definitely worked past the "3DS game in HD" phase that Sword and Shield were stuck in. We know that they've been investing pretty significantly into their technology lately, and that does seem to be at least starting to pay off.

The problem, for better or worse, seems to be the schedule. Hopefully SV will finally be the wakeup call that they needed, because they've ended up with not only a lot more egg on their face than usual, but there's some signs (specifically the unusually messy index order of the Pokémon) that the game had a pretty tumultuous dev cycle even aside from the technical problems. The DLC is significantly further out from the initial release date this time around, at least.
 
Game Freak's total lack of communication with regards to if they'll fix SV at all makes me very skeptical that they're going to change at all moving forward.

Obviously fixing it would require massively changing huge chunks of code and assets so it can render everything more cheaply but like... you should do that?
 
For as many technical issues as SV have, I don't really think it's the engine's fault. They've definitely worked past the "3DS game in HD" phase that Sword and Shield were stuck in. We know that they've been investing pretty significantly into their technology lately, and that does seem to be at least starting to pay off.

The problem, for better or worse, seems to be the schedule. Hopefully SV will finally be the wakeup call that they needed, because they've ended up with not only a lot more egg on their face than usual, but there's some signs (specifically the unusually messy index order of the Pokémon) that the game had a pretty tumultuous dev cycle even aside from the technical problems. The DLC is significantly further out from the initial release date this time around, at least.
I understand they focus on a three year cycle, but hopefully they take a 4-year gap every once in a while. I feel like that since Switch is doing so great, they don't (or maybe Nintendo) feel like they have to get gen 10 out holiday 2025. Especially if Drake arrives in 2024. I'm sure they'll want a bigger install base.
 
Game Freak's total lack of communication with regards to if they'll fix SV at all makes me very skeptical that they're going to change at all moving forward.

Obviously fixing it would require massively changing huge chunks of code and assets so it can render everything more cheaply but like... you should do that?
There was literally a statement soon after the game was released that they'd be working on it. These things take time.
I understand they focus on a three year cycle, but hopefully they take a 4-year gap every once in a while. I feel like that since Switch is doing so great, they don't (or maybe Nintendo) feel like they have to get gen 10 out holiday 2025. Especially if Drake arrives in 2024. I'm sure they'll want a bigger install base.
If Gen 10 releases a moment sooner than fall 2026, I will significantly question the decision making abilities of Game Freak's management. If there's any time to take a step back and slow down, it's when you're having to go back and fix so much.
 
I can already comments mocking [✂️] because "OMG a new console in 2023/2024 and it's WEAKER than the Series S?! And it's more EXPENSIVE?!"

Par for the course, I suppose lol
 
There was literally a statement soon after the game was released that they'd be working on it. These things take time.

If Gen 10 releases a moment sooner than fall 2026, I will significantly question the decision making abilities of Game Freak's management. If there's any time to take a step back and slow down, it's when you're having to go back and fix so much.
I don't see any way gen 10 doesn't release in 2026 given that's Pokémon's 30th anniversary.
 
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There was literally a statement soon after the game was released that they'd be working on it. These things take time.

If Gen 10 releases a moment sooner than fall 2026, I will significantly question the decision making abilities of Game Freak's management. If there's any time to take a step back and slow down, it's when you're having to go back and fix so much.
BDSP > PLA > SV in a year was come crazy scheduling by them, when it was so unnecessary. If they can maybe get ILCA to do a "quick" gen 5 remake liek BDSP and give it its own year, I think that should be enough to buy another year for them. Not sure what they'll put out holiday 2024 though. Seems like something based on gen 2 or gen 5. We'll see.
 
I feel like that since Switch is doing so great, they don't (or maybe Nintendo) feel like they have to get gen 10 out holiday 2025. Especially if Drake arrives in 2024. I'm sure they'll want a bigger install base.
This made me curious: Approximate worldwide userbase when first new generation appeared on various hardware.
GB: Gen 1, 45m
GBA: Gen 3, 25m
DS: Gen 4, 26m
3DS: Gen 6, 35m
NSW: Gen 8, 45m

If Drake performs similarly to Switch and arrives at least by early 2024, then by late 2025 it should at least be beyond where GBA and DS were. If instead the game showed up late 2026, it would be... well, pretty exactly the Switch's Gen 8 situation.
 
The problem, for better or worse, seems to be the schedule. Hopefully SV will finally be the wakeup call that they needed, because they've ended up with not only a lot more egg on their face than usual, but there's some signs (specifically the unusually messy index order of the Pokémon) that the game had a pretty tumultuous dev cycle even aside from the technical problems. The DLC is significantly further out from the initial release date this time around, at least.
that'd be twice in a row considering SS has a lot of what looked like development troubles as well

BDSP > PLA > SV in a year was come crazy scheduling by them, when it was so unnecessary. If they can maybe get ILCA to do a "quick" gen 5 remake liek BDSP and give it its own year, I think that should be enough to buy another year for them. Not sure what they'll put out holiday 2024 though. Seems like something based on gen 2 or gen 5. We'll see.
a major spin off for 2024 that's not by Game Freak is still my expectation. by who and what it is, I have no idea
 
This made me curious: Approximate worldwide userbase when first new generation appeared on various hardware.
GB: Gen 1, 45m
GBA: Gen 3, 25m
DS: Gen 4, 26m
3DS: Gen 6, 35m
NSW: Gen 8, 45m

If Drake performs similarly to Switch and arrives at least by early 2024, then by late 2025 it should at least be beyond where GBA and DS were. If instead the game showed up late 2026, it would be... well, pretty exactly the Switch's Gen 8 situation.
I think alternating between 3 and 4 year cycles would be smart. If we get gen 11 in 2029 and gen 12 in 2033...and assume NS2 arrives next year, that would put Switch 3 in 2031?
 
I know we slag off a lot on AMD, but Infinity + Chiplets is a really great combo for APUs for this (and other) reasons. It'll be interesting to see what RDNA 4 APU in a SteamDeck 2 could look like, especially if UCIe doesn't take off, or if Nvidia stays on a monolithic die for Blackwell.
For Steam Deck-like devices, I'd be more curious to see how later generations of RDNA look like in monolithic form. I think that their current iteration of handling chiplets still isn't quite ready for ~25W and under devices yet. Even the current planned laptops that do use chiplets are at minimum 45W (so that's probably chunky laptop space?).

...Intel's stab at tiles would probably be the first we see of low power tiled/chiplet based devices, come to think of it.
 
Botw's engine suits them better. They really need to get on it..


Anyone else excited for a RE4 remake on Switch 2? It's pretty much a shoe in. DF/Eurogamer tested on all consoles.
DF summarizes for PS4 and Series S, which Switch 2 will be in between the two:

It runs 900p on PS4 and 4k on PS4 (checkerboard renderin), and 1080 (FR mode) and 1440p (resolution mode, using checkerboard reconstruction) on Series S. 50-60fps in FR mode for Series S.

PS4 has cutback texture resolutions and streaming, lighting and shadows, and static grass. PS4 has animation issues at a distance for enemies and issues loading textures (can take up to 10 seconds), which seems like it's CPU constrained according to DF. PS4 and PS4 Pro run about 35-50 and close to 60fps in framerate mode, but it's unstable. Resolution mode drops to 30fps on PS4 Pro. DF thinks PS4 versions are a good port though overall.

Strangely enough xbone consoles don't have a port. I mean maybe 720p was possible on xbone base, but it's odd it's not ported

More info, including series s performance:

What are you guys expecting/hoping? 1080p without DLSS should be a given on Switch 2. 1080p and a fairly stable 60fps should be doable on Switch 2 without DLSS, assuming it hits 3 tflops on docked.. but then again, I'm not accounting for current gen features though...
I’m guessing Series S as a base for the visuals, with textures slightly lower res, slightly less dense foliage, lower res shadows and effects, and animation frame rate cut at a distance. 960p internal resolution with DLSS Quality mode taking it up to 1440p for resolution mode (Hopefully with a 30fps cap). FPS mode keeps 1440p as the DLSS resolution, but shifted from Quality to Performance mode (internal resolution of 720p).
No hair strand option, maybe RT as an option depending on performance.

The ports of RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, RE7 and RE8 should be interesting as well.
 
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No, last week of the fiscal year. If it’s for the next one it would be odd to not announce it.

If it releases at the end of next fiscal year, like March 24, maybe we will get a cryptic hint at the shareholder meeting.
I don't see why they would say anything before.
 
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There are 3,000+ Famiboards members, and less than 50 regular posters. Can 50 posters who know each other be civil? Sure. Can 3,000 Nintendo fans flood a thread? Absolutely.

The day this thing is announced, watch as every possible facet of the community comes to "I told you so" at each other, while the remainder are 1) saying Nintendo is doomed because they didn't innovate enough, 2) doomed because they did, 3) are delivering a Playstation 6 from the future, but portable, 4) "basically N64 graphics, lul", or 5) that releasing a new console is unethical because they just bought the first Switch yesterday.
You forgot 6) (mine) told you you didn’t “know” anything and that it would be weaker than you all thought.
Guess I don’t need to post it now :)
 
I am dumb, I lost the thread and thought "they" were Monolith, not GameFreak!

Game Freak is stuck between a rock and a hard place that I do not envy. They're running a scaled up 3DS engine, they're a tiny company, and they have built their empire on these ridiculously short development cycles. I imagine they've got a large set of tooling that is built to turn these games around quickly and is bespoke to the Pokedex - not just models but battle logic, and literal decades of tuning the same damn parameters over and over again. The smart move is to throw money at the problem - hire up, toss their in-house engine, select something anything and put in the elbow grease to rebuild their tooling around it, and to stop making games for 2 years while they do it. But even if someone over there has that vision to do so, they are in constant crunch mode that stopping the runaway train long enough to get it back on track is superhuman levels of effort
For all of these reasons, Unity or Unreal Engine are their best options. They need to scale up rapidly and outsource as much as possible, using an industry standard instead of their own proprietary solution would allow them to cut down on training and support.

Furthermore, the japanese industry is having a bit of trouble finding videogame personnel (hence all the salary raises) so they should consider expanding outside the country. Their best bet is probably expanding around some foreign studio Nintendo already owns
 
think we'll probably see two kinds of third party port on Drake. Careful, considered ports with minimal cutbacks, steady performance and 4K output, and sloppy, "it'll do" rushjobs that lean on upscaling to make up for a dire resolution needed to stabilise performance.

Built in, effective upscaling options should definitely make third party support easier from a "can it fit" standpoint, and better from an image quality standpoint.

In all I remain hopeful, but more than even Switch, I think performance on Drake will depend in large part on how much time and effort went into optimising for its specific feature set, like handing off CPU limited tasks to Tensor Cores or CUDA cores
Yeah something like that.
.also will be interesting seeing Nintendo turn off half the cores for switch backwards compatibility and how much battery life will be extended..

Pokemon and BotW have very little in common currently as Pokemon has no complex physics right now.
You're telling me you wouldn't wanna pick a fight with a Charizard by rolling down and crashing a Golem or Electrode from a hill to it?!

Arceus legends and Violet have me a lot of botw vibes. Doesn't need Botw's complex physics. Just terrain and traversal.

I’m guessing Series S as a base for the visuals, with textures slightly lower res, slightly less dense foliage, lower res shadows and effects, and animation frame rate cut at a distance. 960p internal resolution with DLSS Quality mode taking it up to 1440p for resolution mode (Hopefully with a 30fps cap). FPS mode keeps 1440p as the DLSS resolution, but shifted from Quality to Performance mode (internal resolution of 720p).
No hair strand option, maybe RT as an option depending on performance.

The ports of RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, RE7 and RE8 should be interesting as well.
Switch 2 will automatically be best version with motion support. If only we got IR aiming back..m
 
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