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

I may be misremembering this, but Josef Fares said that Switch can't handle It Takes Two but he'd consider bringing it to a next system. There are lots of studios waiting for a Switch successor to save them from Switch's limitations, so it's very possbile that out of gate this Dane will have gigantic third party support.

Eh, publishers are where money is but devs care about ease of development too. There are no grudges between corporations, what Switch is missing is purely because of technical limitations and false marketing researches.

Activision brought everything to Switch but Call of Duty and that was because they probably couldn't get a well running downport of their liking. EA on the other hand, gives their studios some freedom. Those who don't want headaches caused by aged hardware are allowed to ignore Switch.

They could have released ports of older CoD games on Switch, EA could release the sims 4 but never did it
 
Just to add to 9-Volt's comment, there are also third party developers who seem to refuse to bring games to Nintendo platforms due to petty politics (e.g. Activision, EA, etc.).
Activision has ported games to switch.

Either way, whatever Activision did under previous leadership, is pretty much moot now

And it’s probably just a matter of time, before someone buys EA.
 
I can understand technically demanding games not coming to the Nintendo Switch. But the problem is that games that aren't inherently technically demanding (e.g The Sims) are also being skipped on the Nintendo Switch. In fact, an investor asked EA why EA hadn't bother bringing The Sims to the Nintendo Switch.
They could have released ports of older CoD games on Switch, EA could release the sims 4 but never did it
The Sims 4 is not on Switch also because of technical limitations, it has the same obstacle GTA5 got: Size problem. With all the DLC, The Sims 4 is around 90 gb. And there are literally tons of DLC and new ones are coming out constantly. Someone has to port all those to Switch one by one. The interesting thing about The Sims 4 is that it's the first The Sims game whose console versions are the exact same as the PC version. Not "gimped down" versions.

That said, I'm curious about EA's future on Switch. While technical problems are keeping their games off of Switch, they can be solved if EA pushes hard enough, as evident with Apex Legends (thanks Doug Bowser!) Will they bother with it or Lost in Random was the last non-FIFA (legacy edition) EA game we had on Switch, time will tell.
 
Any output I would want from EA evaporated years ago.
I know that they've been trained to not need Nintendo but I also think the Nintendo base ahas been trained to not give a crap about EA.
It doesn't help that EA continues to make garbage.

That being said.
Jedi Fallen order and it's sequel with time and a good port house I bet could have brought them to switch.
I'm pretty bummed EA bought codemasters and now GRID is gonna end up like NFS
Autosport was such a great port on switch and now we'll probably never get one again.
 
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One thing that's certain, is that game development for Switch will continue for a long time after new hardware arrives. They will not abandoned the current 100 million install base lightly, especially not during a chip shortage.
Assuming Gibson's QA translation wasn't a mistake, it does sound like they want to dovetail into new hardware smoothly, possible BC seems likely

 
As I said in Install Base, Nintendo probably scheduled the parts to make the next Switch years ago, this isn't something they can just reschedule just because the current Switch keeps selling well beyond all expectations (that were made 3-4 years ago). If they wanted to reschedule it'd delay the launch for several years, specially now during the SC shortage. If they intended to launch it late 2022 - early 2023, then that's the plan still, unless they want to scrap it all and release it in 2025+, which I find unlikely. Considering since when the devkits have been out, I doubt they'd want to delay it by several years, so I think it'll still release either later this year or early next year.
 
As I said in Install Base, Nintendo probably scheduled the parts to make the next Switch years ago, this isn't something they can just reschedule just because the current Switch keeps selling well beyond all expectations (that were made 3-4 years ago). If they wanted to reschedule it'd delay the launch for several years, specially now during the SC shortage. If they intended to launch it late 2022 - early 2023, then that's the plan still, unless they want to scrap it all and release it in 2025+, which I find unlikely. Considering since when the devkits have been out, I doubt they'd want to delay it by several years, so I think it'll still release either later this year or early next year.
Oh yeah, that's another reason I didn't even think about (They likely had to order more than just the Silicon far in advance).

Yeah, Dane is either coming out in 2H 2022 to March 2023 and if not then it likely was scrapped (for some reason)
 
The Sims 4 is not on Switch also because of technical limitations, it has the same obstacle GTA5 got: Size problem. With all the DLC, The Sims 4 is around 90 gb. And there are literally tons of DLC and new ones are coming out constantly. Someone has to port all those to Switch one by one. The interesting thing about The Sims 4 is that it's the first The Sims game whose console versions are the exact same as the PC version. Not "gimped down" versions.
Considering that there are an increasing amount of Nintendo Switch games with a large file size, is digital only, and requires a microSD card, I'm not sure if the file size being an obstacle is completely overblown.

Anyway...
 
Considering that there are an increasing amount of Nintendo Switch games with a large file size, is digital only, and requires a microSD card, I'm not sure if the file size being an obstacle is completely overblown.

Anyway...

I kinda hate how the monicker "pro" stuck with mainstream gaming press and people. Nintendo was doing "pro" consoles before anyone else and they never called it "pro".
 
I think the file size problem is way overblown. There are quite a few options for companies to pick from nowadays that could alleviate it as @Dakhil said. Any option which I find strange that only DQ11 uses is the cloud. It would be perfect for big games that have a multiplayer component.

Also I find it strange that people think Nintendo wasn’t going to implement BC in their next machine. Or they’ll somehow limit it or charge an upgrade fee (this one is weird because Sony is also doing that as well as some others).
 
Considering that there are an increasing amount of Nintendo Switch games with a large file size, is digital only, and requires a microSD card, I'm not sure if the file size being an obstacle is completely overblown.
It indeed is, but companies like EA have veeery low threshold for caring. They give up even on the smallest obstacle. Same goes for Take Two. Sure other two Mafia games cannot run on Switch, why not just port Mafia 2? Nope, if just one of them cannot run on Switch, I'm not bothering with any of them.

And Ubisoft failing at porting Steep. Just give it to a capable studio if you're not gonna do that.
 
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Is my faith misplaced to still hope for an announcement of a revision/successor/pro before March 2023?

I don't even know why I let it affect me this much my friend is being super smug about this quarter's earnings between hardware shipped, global chip shortage and middle of lifecycle that he guarantees there's not a chance there will be another Switch for a long while.

I personally disagree looking at the precedent of PS4 Pro and Xbox One X (where he personally owns the latter), but those don't count. Why, I'm not sure

inb4 I need to touch grass
Keep in mind this:

Nintendo released a device in 2017.

They released a new form of that device in 2019

They released another new form of the device in 2021.

Now, the company that has put out a device every 2 years during the switch era, do you think they will release nothing for the next few years and leave the switch be?

smug_tails_by_ganondork123_dc642k6-fullview.png

If 8nm is what Dane is on , it is also what Ampere consumer cards are on. That's probably a better metric than guessing the age of the process.
@Thraktor is usually amazing with his logic and reasoning in his posts but that bit about the age of the node was uncharacteristic.
Is it? Tang master also argued it, and I could see where they are coming from. Though Thraktor was more of the position that the node is fine, it’s a concerning node that it is on.
I guess this depends largely on how much customization Nvidia actually did for Nintendo. History doesnt not give us much information since the Switch used TX1 as it is with no customization whatsoever, so Nintendo probably didn't spend much if at all on design, and, we all(?) believe that orin is too large and aimed a too different market for Nintendo use it as it is.

So, the question is, how much customization was done for Dane and such work is prohibitively expensive to repeat? I do believe that Nvidia must be working on SoCs at newer nodes. How much customization would those need to be used in lieu of Dane? I also stand by my statement that node shrinking is a very important for Nintendo, as history proves.
The likely customization that’s done for this would be to have a device that targets a certain power budget that they are comfortable with. Removing the features that aren’t necessary for a game console and keeping the core features for a game console. It would be things like memory controllers, CPU, GPU, cache setup, possible DMA controller If it needs one, etc.

These are what would be modified if it’s a derivative of an existing chip.
My curiosity is more about that NoA job posting for a senior engineer who knows their shit about audio and video processing (importantly, including AV1 because the TX1 near certainly can't satisfactorily handle that); what's the rough range of time lag can we expect between the posting and then seeing the actual product utilizing their work?
Do you happen to have a link to that?
 
I feel very confident saying there will be another iteration which will be the switch “4K”. If they are serious about this switch still in mid-life cycle stuff. I don’t know how they pull it off but I believe that will happen.
 
I feel very confident saying there will be another iteration which will be the switch “4K”. If they are serious about this switch still in mid-life cycle stuff. I don’t know how they pull it off but I believe that will happen.
the only way they can make a Switch but in 4K is to use new hardware. they'd essentially make a Switch 2
 
Everything we've heard from unofficial sources still says whatever this is is launching before early 2023. Nothing has changed about that.

I I recall Nate said something like that launch this years is far from certain, other sources that you mentioned were very offten hit and miss and get confused with OLED version infos they heard.

At this point, people should give from expectation that we are getting new hardware this year.
 
Considering that there are an increasing amount of Nintendo Switch games with a large file size, is digital only, and requires a microSD card, I'm not sure if the file size being an obstacle is completely overblown.

Anyway...

If its too big for a game card, that definitely hurt the games sales potential though. 90+ gb games on switch, is a no go.
 
I I recall Nate said something like that launch this years is far from certain, other sources that you mentioned were very offten hit and miss and get confused with OLED version infos they heard.

At this point, people should give from expectation that we are getting new hardware this year.
Nate said that he's been told the plan is 2022 with the option to slip to early 2023 if necessary.
 
Nate said that he's been told the plan is 2022 with the option to slip to early 2023 if necessary.

He something that initial plan was something like that, and that things could easily change, he didnt sound sure about 2022. at all..

We will wait and see, but I am willing to bet that there is no stronger Switch this year.
 
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i think that if they refresh the hardware this year they could aim to a just tv console for the only purpose of actual Switch games in 4k.
Oled version is a very strong update for people who play in portability and the tv console is the upgrade for people who play on tv. They share the same games.
 
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The Sims 4 is not on Switch also because of technical limitations, it has the same obstacle GTA5 got: Size problem. With all the DLC, The Sims 4 is around 90 gb. And there are literally tons of DLC and new ones are coming out constantly. Someone has to port all those to Switch one by one. The interesting thing about The Sims 4 is that it's the first The Sims game whose console versions are the exact same as the PC version. Not "gimped down" versions.

That said, I'm curious about EA's future on Switch. While technical problems are keeping their games off of Switch, they can be solved if EA pushes hard enough, as evident with Apex Legends (thanks Doug Bowser!) Will they bother with it or Lost in Random was the last non-FIFA (legacy edition) EA game we had on Switch, time will tell.
Investors asked directly why The Sims 4 wasn't on Switch and the answer wasn't "because of technical limitations"...
If its too big for a game card, that definitely hurt the games sales potential though. 90+ gb games on switch, is a no go.
The Switch is no stranger to cards as physical DRM (aka game needs big download). We have no information if that affects negatively the sales of games.
 
Investors asked directly why The Sims 4 wasn't on Switch and the answer wasn't "because of technical limitations"...
But it was. The Sims 4 still is one of the games with most DLC right now.

I think they'll either consider making The Sims 5 with consoles in mind from start or just PC exclusive without console ports at all. One thing is certain, the days of "dumbed down console version" are long gone.
 
But it was. The Sims 4 still is one of the games with most DLC right now.

I think they'll either consider making The Sims 5 with consoles in mind from start or just PC exclusive without console ports at all. One thing is certain, the days of "dumbed down console version" are long gone.
But Andrew Wilson said that because:

"We have a lot of data that would suggest a great many Switch owners also own a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One or a PC and very often choose to play the games that we make on those platforms even though they have a Switch and they enjoy a lot of great content on the Switch."

Are we are not going to believe EA's CEO? There's no quote of anyone of EA saying that is because of technical reasons.
 
But Andrew Wilson said that because:

"We have a lot of data that would suggest a great many Switch owners also own a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One or a PC and very often choose to play the games that we make on those platforms even though they have a Switch and they enjoy a lot of great content on the Switch."

Are we are not going to believe EA's CEO? There's no quote of anyone of EA saying that is because of technical reasons.
Of course you don't believe him, that's a nutjob answer! Read again, he's literally saying people don't prefer Switch version of their games and at the time of this quote only EA game on Switch was freaking gimped down FIFA! Literally zero sense in this response.

NEVER believe in PR talk. They're just there to conceal the real reasons that they can't talk about.
 
I think the biggest counterpoint here is they have said they expect Switch to last 7 years and we are indeed getting close to that end date, they now only have a single platform to support (so no more faffing around with quick and easy updates on a side platform) and Dane is architecturally different and at the low end will likely be 3X more powerful. That is usually the definition of a successor.

Well that's kind of the thing. The architectural improvements from A78 and Ampere are definitely in line with what I'd expect from a successor, and as we creep past the five year point we're also at a stage where we'd expect a successor, not a "pro" model, to be launched. The rumours we've got on the first page of this thread, though, all seem to suggest a Switch 4K as a "pro" style model, and my argument is that the Samsung 8nm process is also indicative of a "pro" style model (ie designed for healthy profitability at launch, rather than low margins to accelerate adoption). Honestly I don't know what it is at this stage, and although I'm concerned that Nintendo may try an unorthodox approach of a quasi-"pro", quasi-successor that may not be successful, you can rest assured that I have a close to 0% success rate in predicting new Nintendo hardware, so if I'm saying it, it almost certainly isn't going to happen!

For what it's worth, I'm perfectly happy with an 8nm A78+Ampere SoC, and I'll be buying it day one regardless of whether they position it as a Switch 2, a Switch Pro, or something in between. I'm just trying to read the tea leaves, as it were, on their business strategy from the scraps of information we have.

But at the same time, chips redesigns to use newer nodes are not rare for the industry and even Nintendo did one for the current switch. Is true that a last time chip redesign would mean a significant delay, but the theory would be that the product is already delayed.

Redesigning to use newer nodes is common after a chip launches, but not during development. Or at least I'm not aware of any confirmed recent cases where a chip had gone through a large part of the design process on one node, only for a change of plan to redesign it for a different one. In most cases, for CPUs, GPUs, mobile SoCs, etc, I imagine they would probably just cancel the chip altogether, as they would already have a following generation lined up on the next node anyway. It's a bit different for console chips, which are obviously one-off designs, but it would still mean a delay, I assume of at least a year.

If we're to assume that they were developing on 8nm, but since changed nodes, then they would have had to make the change at the earliest mid-2021, as kopite7kimi was saying in July that it was being made on Samsung 8N. With probably a year to migrate to the new node, then tape-out and manufacturing, that would put early 2023 as the earliest date it could launch, possibly later.

Now that's not impossible, but it would definitely amount to a drastic change of plans. Unless there's any clear indication this has happened, I'm definitely still expecting an 8nm chip.

That's surprising to hear since they definitely were selling it at a loss after the $75 price cut. I guess shipping and packaging costs made up more of the price per unit than I thought.

Well yeah I don't think they designed it with a $500 launch price in mind, but I do think they're likely having discussions internally about driving up the price just based on current demand for any and all consumer electronics.

Switch isn't really all that available in most major markets, even now. In the US Amazon is backordered for every model but like a handful of the regular red/blue one. In Japan it's getting harder to find again, especially the OLED model.

Considering the OLED model has a price that serves as a premium entry point at this stage, the fact that it specifically is essentially sold out globally should indicate that a higher end 4k model that actually has more value in its upgrades would sell similarly well. PS4 Pro and XSX aren't exactly comparable specifically because we're not talking about a strictly "pro" style model here.

And I honestly disagree, I do think if the current climate existed during the launch of the PS4 Pro and X1X they would absolutely have sold out instantly just like the base models would have been doing.

There are sporadic, regional shortages of Switch, but (and perhaps I'm extrapolating too far beyond my local experience), it doesn't seem all that difficult to get one if you want one, and it points to supply being just a bit lower than demand, rather than demand far outstripping supply as it the case for PS5. SwOLED demand has been high, but again still seems to be available if you look. It's in a bit of a weird place as it's priced so closely to the base model, and it's still in the early adopter phase, so I'm not sure what demand will look like in the future. Of course, I suspect they may simply replace the base model with the SwOLED within the next year anyway, which would make the question moot.

I think it’s possible that, with the demand of the switch even before say, late 2019, which was pretty high, they could have designed the product as a 400 dollar product. The product that eventually came out, Aula, wasn’t designed it seems to be a 300 dollar product but a 350 despite not changing anything internally (drastically). Having the better screen being one of the features for it among the others. The dock was probably a last minute thing though, but the switch itself probably wasn’t.

And if course the packaging, the software, the retail, etc., are included in this.

Yeah, I suspect in late 2019/early 2020, if planning a successor they probably were looking at a price higher than $300, between the clear success of the Switch at that point, and just general inflation, I'd say a planned $350 sales price, or maybe even $400, would have been possible.

You might be reading too much into the (rumored) decision of fabricating Dane on the Samsung 8nm. For better or worse, the Switch SOCs are tethered to Nvidia's automotive products*. It started with Drive PX (TX1). When Drive PX 2 (TX2 on 16nm) came along, the Switch SOC followed it to 16nm too. So if Dane indeed will be using the 8nm process, it may not be indicative of Nintendo's succession strategy but simply what Nvidia makes available to them.

NVIDIA-Drive-Roadmap.jpg


* This could change if Nvidia decides to re-enter the mobile/Chromebook SOC market by forging a new partnership with, say, MediaTek.

There's certainly a lot of technology shared between Nvidia's automotive SoCs and their SoCs for Nintendo, but I don't think it makes sense to assume that Nvidia will simply treat Nintendo as some kind of small second-fiddle to their automotive designs. For one, it seems very likely that Nintendo currently accounts for more revenue for Nvidia than the entire automotive industry, and even if that changes in the future (and the automotive side becomes more profitable), the number of SoCs produced for Nintendo will still likely remain an order of magnitude higher than the number produced for the auto industry.

In fact, if we're to assume that Dane is intended for a successor which will fully replace the current Switch, then you'd be looking at possibly 100+ million chips over its lifespan, which would very likely make it the highest-volume production of any individual Nvidia chip for the coming years, perhaps by a large margin. In that case it really doesn't make sense for either Nvidia nor Nintendo to tightly restrict the design around other, much lower-volume chips. Certainly there's no reason to re-invent the wheel, and they wouldn't want to spend huge R&D budgets on redesigning minute aspects of the Ampere architecture, but I can't imagine the manufacturing process would have been off the table, if Nintendo had been willing to pay for the R&D required. And I don't see the cost of migrating to a different node being excessive in the context of 100m chips, particularly when Nvidia has plenty of experience migrating architectures between nodes, and even across different foundries.

Put it this way; when Nvidia started design on the Tegra X1, the idea that it would be used in a Nintendo console selling over 100 million units would have been the absolute best case scenario. But it was still worth migrating from the 28nm process used on their GPUs to the (then) cutting-edge 20nm process to squeeze out whatever performance and power efficiency that they could get. If they're now designing a chip which they know will be used in the successor to a 100m+ selling device, it would seem strange to me that they'd be much more conservative about the manufacturing process.

Of course that's in the context of a full successor with an estimated production approaching 9 figures. If Dane is for a Switch "Pro", and the expected run is closer to 10 or 20 million chips at most, then the R&D spend for a newer node wouldn't make sense, and going for an 8nm chip and keeping things as close as possible to Orin would be the way to go.

Is shrinking Dane down the road a given though? For what—Dane Lite? There's no guarantee such a product would ever be released. It's a budget model mainly for kids and casuals; might as well keep Mariko and lower the price instead. And if Nintendo (partnering with Nvidia?) is to wade further into cloud gaming, there'd be no incentive to replace Lite's SOC.

Even if a Dane Lite is in the cards, Nintendo could use the same 8nm Dane and accept a subpar battery life. Reasonable consumers would understand the trade-off for a budget model.

Well this is it. If Dane is being used for a successor, then yes, it should fully replace the existing Switch over time, and a Dane Lite should absolutely be expected to follow on a couple of years later to replace the OG Switch Lite as the original Switch is phased out completely. If it's a "pro" model to be sold alongside the standard Switch until a full Switch 2 (or something else) appears, then there's no need for a Dane Lite or a die shrink at all.

I think it's probably too late for a pro model, but maybe Nintendo are a lot more literal about being in the "middle phase" of Switch's life than I've thought, and they actually do expect the Switch to last 10 years. Maybe we don't see a successor until 2025/2026, and they're just going to ride this out as long as they can.
 
Of course you don't believe him, that's a nutjob answer! Read again, he's literally saying people don't prefer Switch version of their games and at the time of this quote only EA game on Switch was freaking gimped down FIFA! Literally zero sense in this response.

NEVER believe in PR talk. They're just there to conceal the real reasons that they can't talk about.
And why would EA conceal that the reason is a "technical one"? Many publishers and developers have say just that and is as an understandable and noncontroversial reason as you can get in the industry.

Redesigning to use newer nodes is common after a chip launches, but not during development. Or at least I'm not aware of any confirmed recent cases where a chip had gone through a large part of the design process on one node, only for a change of plan to redesign it for a different one. In most cases, for CPUs, GPUs, mobile SoCs, etc, I imagine they would probably just cancel the chip altogether, as they would already have a following generation lined up on the next node anyway. It's a bit different for console chips, which are obviously one-off designs, but it would still mean a delay, I assume of at least a year.
My thinking is that we are in an unique situation with COVID and global chain disruptions, so this is the time were we can expect never done before changes in production and timings.

I was on board on Switch 4k in 2022 train until it became that the chip shortage will not be over any time soon.
 
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the only way they can make a Switch but in 4K is to use new hardware. they'd essentially make a Switch 2
I dont think they are going to release a switch 2. They really are trying to push this mid lifecycle narrative. So if they are serious about that they can’t use the same internals and hardware for years to come. They have to refresh it with upgraded hardware. So a switch “pro”, “4K”, or whatever it will be called is the solution.
 
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And why would EA conceal that the reason is a "technical one"? Many publishers and developers have say just that and is as an understandable and noncontroversial reason as you can get in the industry.
They're not going to say "We're pretty incompetent, we have failed bringing the game to Switch", "Our studios don't want to work on Switch" or something like that. They'd never tarnish the company in front of investors.

"Why your game is not on the fastest selling system today" indeed is a tough question by investors and Wilson had to come up with something on the fly. He ended up giving a nonsensical answer and a completely wrong one. Their only Switch game at that time, FIFA, actually sells pretty well on Switch and is one of the most played third party titles in Europe.
 
Investors asked directly why The Sims 4 wasn't on Switch and the answer wasn't "because of technical limitations"...

The Switch is no stranger to cards as physical DRM (aka game needs big download). We have no information if that affects negatively the sales of games.
A gb or two or five is no big deal. But is there any example of a 50gb + game on switch that sold well?
 
Assuming Gibson's QA translation wasn't a mistake, it does sound like they want to dovetail into new hardware smoothly, possible BC seems likely


I dont know how there was ever any doubt Nintendo would have BC going forward.

Around when Switch launch, Jensen said to investors he expected a 20+ year partnership. If Nvidia cant acheive compitability going forward, that partnership was doomed from the start.
 
There are sporadic, regional shortages of Switch, but (and perhaps I'm extrapolating too far beyond my local experience), it doesn't seem all that difficult to get one if you want one, and it points to supply being just a bit lower than demand, rather than demand far outstripping supply as it the case for PS5. SwOLED demand has been high, but again still seems to be available if you look. It's in a bit of a weird place as it's priced so closely to the base model, and it's still in the early adopter phase, so I'm not sure what demand will look like in the future. Of course, I suspect they may simply replace the base model with the SwOLED within the next year anyway, which would make the question moot.
Specifically for the OLED Switch I haven't seen one available for MSRP in any store or online retailer in my region since October. Personally I think for that you're underestimating the gap between supply and demand, as anecdotally it seems to be a similar situation globally.

Now, I personally don't feel the need to get an OLED Switch so I haven't been searching that hard for the entire 4 months it's been out but I did have a couple friends ask me to look for them for a period of probably 4-5 weeks and I had zero luck finding one at MSRP.
 
A gb or two or five is no big deal. But is there any example of a 50gb + game on switch that sold well?
Yeah that's a great question. A quick Google search tells me the biggest game file on Switch is NBA2k21 at 39.4GB.

Part of me wonders from time to time if Nintendo mandated that a game can't be over a certain size, or can't require mandatory downloads of a certain size.
 
Yeah that's a great question. A quick Google search tells me the biggest game file on Switch is NBA2k21 at 39.4GB.

Part of me wonders from time to time if Nintendo mandated that a game can't be over a certain size, or can't require mandatory downloads of a certain size.
I think its a few things.
-The largest games self select out of being on Switch. (we speculated CoD console versions may not have been ported for this reason)
-Devs don't want to deal with backlash and low uptake (smaller adressable market) of a game with a large required download, they probably have data on how many people don't have a microSD installed and the average microSD sizes
-The good ports optimize to get the size down

Which is why i think getting to 32GB as standard and 64GB as the equivalent of today's 16GB would be crucial, it would bring Switch to effective parity with BR discs and open the door for more physical releases and more games to release.
 
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Yeah late 2022/early 2023 for 2/Pro makes the most sense to me with the lineup over the next couple of years. Nintendo can easily ship 15-20 million units of this new 4K system even if they plan on doing a proper Switch 2 in 2025/2026. All they have to do is charge an extra $100-200 to help make up the costs for producing the system while still making their normal profit margins on switch hardware. They will have a system that is capable of playing all of these new games they plan to release with great fidelity which will help reviews, sales, word of mouth, help to defend against competing devices etc. If this system has the rumored specs we have been discussing and exclusives, it's selling out even at $500 easily.
 
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Awesome, I missed that comment somehow. We'll see, it's been quite a ride, but I'm not one to give up just because it didn't happen when I imagined it would have made sense. In the current climate, of course, there's every chance the thing will never materialise even if it was in the planning (what with the terrible chip shortages), so I'm keeping all possibilities open personally.

Keep in mind this:

Nintendo released a device in 2017.

They released a new form of that device in 2019

They released another new form of the device in 2021.

Now, the company that has put out a device every 2 years during the switch era, do you think they will release nothing for the next few years and leave the switch be?

smug_tails_by_ganondork123_dc642k6-fullview.png
The Nintendo Switch OLED Lite will cleanse this sinful world.

On a serious note: none of the revisions have been very impactful (YMMV on battery duration and OLED screen, of course), and launching something with a massively redesigned chip is definitely more difficult right now. So I'd say the question is more whether they release a Pro-like device or just some sort of hardware refresh without a chip update. Either one fits the bill for the trend you pointed out, but the former is mostly what we want around here lol.
 
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I've been a lurker for a while, but one question keeps bugging me: If a Switch "Pro" were to come out and 4K DLSS is a thing, which Switch model would game devs build upon? If the Switch Pro has a significantly stronger SoC than the Tegra X1, wouldn't the gap in performance be too big? I'm thinking of the 3DS compared to the New 3DS, but the gap being bigger where games would be able to run on the Pro model while impossible or heavily downgraded on the OG model. Someone, please put my mind at ease :LOL:
 
I've been a lurker for a while, but one question keeps bugging me: If a Switch "Pro" were to come out and 4K DLSS is a thing, which Switch model would game devs build upon? If the Switch Pro has a significantly stronger SoC than the Tegra X1, wouldn't the gap in performance be too big? I'm thinking of the 3DS compared to the New 3DS, but the gap being bigger where games would be able to run on the Pro model while impossible or heavily downgraded on the OG model. Someone, please put my mind at ease :LOL:
Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I imagine a good amount of Western third party developers would abandon the Nintendo Switch in favour of the DLSS model* relatively quickly. I imagine a good amount of Japanese third party developers, including Nintendo, would continue to release cross-gen games, meaning games that can be played on both the Nintendo Switch and the DLSS model*, for a long while, outside of maybe some Western focused Japanese third party developers.
 
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I can imagine "Only on Switch Pro" games already. I hope the gap won't bother the development of Nintendo's IPs too much. I believe Nintendo's first-party studios are competent enough to optimize their games for the OG model but scaling well with the Pro model. However, stronger CPU, memory bandwidth, and probably I/O speeds should be the main factors whether a game can only run on the Pro model and not on the OG model, or am I wrong?
 
I can imagine "Only on Switch Pro" games already. I hope the gap won't bother the development of Nintendo's IPs too much. I believe Nintendo's first-party studios are competent enough to optimize their games for the OG model but scaling well with the Pro model. However, stronger CPU, memory bandwidth, and probably I/O speeds should be the main factors whether a game can only run on the Pro model and not on the OG model, or am I wrong?

Most likely games being developed for both will be more or less this:

  1. Uncapped frame rate (games will run at 60fps on the more powerful hardware or at a stable frame rate)
  2. Dynamic resolution (games will run at a much lower resolution on the old hardware while making out on the more powerful)
  3. Lower effects, shorter draw distance, worse shadows and 15fps animations on NPV/objects from close distance to conserve bandwidth and GPU resources on the weaker hardware
Basically turning down everything for the Switch while the more powerful hardware can max everything out
 
However, stronger CPU, memory bandwidth, and probably I/O speeds should be the main factors whether a game can only run on the Pro model and not on the OG model, or am I wrong?
That's correct, considering the CPU and the RAM were the biggest bottlenecks with the Nintendo Switch.
 
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Most likely games being developed for both will be more or less this:

  1. Uncapped frame rate (games will run at 60fps on the more powerful hardware or at a stable frame rate)
  2. Dynamic resolution (games will run at a much lower resolution on the old hardware while making out on the more powerful)
  3. Lower effects, shorter draw distance, worse shadows and 15fps animations on NPV/objects from close distance to conserve bandwidth and GPU resources on the weaker hardware
Basically turning down everything for the Switch while the more powerful hardware can max everything out
if a game is coming to the base switch, the Pro version would be based on a build optimized for the base switch. if someone i's bringing a game to the Pro because only it can handle it, then they won't be scaling down further
 
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This is totally anecdotal and hopefully not too off-topic. But I recently witnessed my cousin (an adult in their twenties) deleting games off their Switch. When I asked why, she said it was to clear space so she could re-download Mario Party and that she has to do this frequently to “rotate” which games she can play. I obviously brought up the Switch’s expandable storage and she was completely unaware of it but super excited at the concept of not having to do these “rotations”.

Now, my cousin is not necessarily representative of the majority of Switch gamers out there. But it did make me wonder if this is the behavior that a lot of 3rd party developers with large games worry about when making a decision to port games to Switch.

I think the PS4 had a 500 GB HDD at launch. I think that became a defacto standard in a lot of developers minds. Obviously, when talking about a Switch revision, size and cost are particularly relevant metrics for potential storage solutions. But I wonder how much longer Nintendo can get away with 16 GB cartridges and 32 GB storage. The OLED moved to 64 GB, which is encouraging. But it still seems like a half step.

Nintendo doesn’t “need” 90 GB 3rd party games on their platform to be successful. But it seems like this is a practical area that consumer behavior would influence. People are just used to more storage on all their devices these days. If Nintendo wants those sweet margins on digital purchases vs cartridges, seems like something’s gotta give.
 
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Redesigning to use newer nodes is common after a chip launches, but not during development. Or at least I'm not aware of any confirmed recent cases where a chip had gone through a large part of the design process on one node, only for a change of plan to redesign it for a different one. In most cases, for CPUs, GPUs, mobile SoCs, etc, I imagine they would probably just cancel the chip altogether, as they would already have a following generation lined up on the next node anyway. It's a bit different for console chips, which are obviously one-off designs, but it would still mean a delay, I assume of at least a year.
Technically, there's Intel's Rocket Lake desktop lineup that launched last year. Rocket Lake's Cypress Cove cores are mainly a backport of Sunny Cove cores from 10nm back to 14nm. And Sunny Cove was used in the Ice Lake laptops that launched in late 2019. Hmm, and I just remembered that Rocket Lake doesn't use the Gen 11 integrated graphics that Ice Lake used, but instead Xe-LP (introduced with the Tiger Lake laptops on 10nm SuperFin). So that's a backport of something on a different version of 10nm back to 14nm. But circumstances were... very not normal for Intel desktop then. Your point still holds.
 
I've been a lurker for a while, but one question keeps bugging me: If a Switch "Pro" were to come out and 4K DLSS is a thing, which Switch model would game devs build upon? If the Switch Pro has a significantly stronger SoC than the Tegra X1, wouldn't the gap in performance be too big? I'm thinking of the 3DS compared to the New 3DS, but the gap being bigger where games would be able to run on the Pro model while impossible or heavily downgraded on the OG model. Someone, please put my mind at ease :LOL:
It'll be a case by case thing. There'll be a mix of:
  1. Games only built for the current Switch running via BC
  2. Games built for the current Switch with enhancements on Dane
  3. Games built for Dane and downported to work on the current Switch
  4. Games only built for Dane
With things trending towards the latter options over time.
 
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I wonder if the next Xenoblade will feature RT on Dane? Monolith Soft kind of goes crazy with what they can do with the hardware even if it hurts the resolution/framerate, though I think they'll only really exploit the new hardware with their following game.
 
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