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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)

Reader mode
Ashee said:
i have 12hs so even if its earlier for me, i expect this to blow up by the time i reach work so i have something to pass the time lol
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I’ll be prepping for work when it explodes xD

Erathix said:
Tom Henderson saying he doesn't expect Nintendo to show anything in May/June literally means nothing.

Seriously, I expected a Direct if E3 was still going ahead as that is something they used to do with Treehouse and everything but that ceased when E3 ended completely for this year and every year to come (dead and buried guys, dead and buried.)

July is when I expect a Direct for this. This doesn't rule anything out in the slightest as July is very much a possibility after Pikmin 4.

This only gives more credence to Holiday 2023 release in my view. They are waiting until the last possible moment to do anything, letting their entire H1 catalogue carry the first half of the year and not whispering a word about H2.

Don't expect anything from anywhere else either, Nintendo will engage in nothing but wordplay with everyone, even shareholders, not confirming or deconfirming anything about a new console until the time is right. They won't show their hand to anybody until they decide to unexpectedly.
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Can’t Nintendo make a Direct even without participating in e3?

Tho I understand you’re reasoning that, since e3 isn’t happening, they have no commitment attached to the month of June.

But still, if they plan to release a game in June, they should make a Direct the first weeks of June
 
CypressFX said:



Isnt he the same who backpedaled when reporting the very same thing?
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Mirev said:
Honestly, no Nintendo Direct in June to me feels right if a new console is coming by early 2024.
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I think the quote was "Nintendo has no games" (for H2) which was hyperbolic and he walked it back.
This was consistent with Chris dring (iirc) saying he isn't aware of a major game for H2 on Switch (later clarifying he didn't count Metroid Prim4 as a major game due to Metroid's sales history being below 5 million)

The interesting thing is both of them said this before the Direct that left us hanging with nothing announced past July.

Something is definately happening and they're both right in their own ways. The question now is, what the heck is happening in H2 that would cause even insiders to have no visibility
 
Well, the good thing in this whole situation, we don't have to wait too long to find out what's going on.

Either Nintendo has some Direct (Partner Showcase or general one) within the next two months after May, or they will resort to Twitter announcements.
Either they announce ReDraketed in about the same timeframe for holiday 2023, or they don't and we can safely all go into CY 2024.

hologram said:
What did I do
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At least you were featured in the schedule! ;_;
 
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Tomorrow will be when the fun will start. Will be either celebrating or lamenting another year with current Switch hahaha.
Anyway I really want to see what will be their guidance for the next fiscal year and if it will shine a light onto the sucessor and/or the empty H2 schedule.
 
Ghostsonplanets said:
Tomorrow will be when the fun will start. Will be either celebrating or lamenting another year with current Switch hahaha.
Anyway I really want to see what will be their guidance for the next fiscal year and if it will shine a light onto the sucessor and/or the empty H2 schedule.
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I don't think they necessarily have to announce or hint at anything tomorrow, especially with TOTK releasing this week.

Tomorrow's meeting will be backwards looking to sumamrize Q4 and annual performance, so it should give us a good idea of Switch's trajectory for 2023-2024.
That said that is one opportunity for investorys and Nintendo to say something, so not ruling out we hear something. The most interesting thing will be how they forecast 2023-2024 Switch sales (rather than them outright announcing a new platform) right now.

They also have an AGM in June that could give us more info. But actually announcing the hardware itself doesn't have to fit into these dates.
 
Ghostsonplanets said:
Tomorrow will be when the fun will start. Will be either celebrating or lamenting another year with current Switch hahaha.
Anyway I really want to see what will be their guidance for the next fiscal year and if it will shine a light onto the sucessor and/or the empty H2 schedule.
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Nothing to expect unless we get a "no new hardware for this year" answer like in early 2020 iirc
 
Reminder that UFS 3.0 has been in flaghship phones for at least FOUR YEARS, AND that this post from a bit over a year ago shows Nvidia's Orin documentation supports UFS 3.0 - I don't know if there are further updates to this, but considering that UFS 4.0 is in the S23 series of phones, the idea that version 3.X would be "too expensive" or "not a realistic option" for a console releasing today or later is another example of claims that go unchecked, but accepted. I would even put version 4.0 on the table right now, because I don't see any part of this process where Nintendo looked at that support option for a new console, and said something other than "Yes, Please!!" - I know that what was leaked from the horse's mouth is still "too good to be true" for some (lurkers included), but trying to "because Nintendo" one's way into worse/worst case scenarios and doom spirals doesn't help. At least, I remain unconvinced that the storage options are a huge concern at this point, and one could dare to have a little more faith.

It's also worth noting that this likely wasn't much of an option in 2017 - One look at the Wikipedia page on UFS shows that Samsung's S6 phone was the first to adopt UFS in 2015, while they announced their first UFS cards in 2016, based on UFS 1.0, and less than a year before the Switch's launch. It means that this was still relatively new tech at the time, which wasn't yet well-understood, and perhaps too close to product tape-out for it to be possible on the Switch. That isn't the present case, even with lower storage capacity NVMe SSD options, which are currently available for much less some people would have others believe.
 
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Looking forward to the breakdowns and analysis of the inventory on hand and R&D figures (etc.). Not that I think anything conclusive can or will come from them, but they're still pretty interesting.
 
Dekuman said:
Something is definately happening and they're both right in their own ways. The question now is, what the heck is happening in H2 that would cause even insiders to have no visibility
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Probably Marketing hasn’t been given the go to produce material, so no source of leak. Wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo Co., LTD hasn’t discussed anything with its branches or left 2H plans in the executive level for their regions.

As to why these upcoming products haven’t initiated marketing, I don’t know. The only logical explanation I can think of is that they’re tied to a condition or set of conditions. What are these conditions? I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s not normal for a company to not have publicly disclosed their plans for the latter half of the year.

And going outside the typical January-December period, we have to look at it from Nintendo’s Fiscal Year: April 1st - March 31st of the next year. This is how Nintendo’s next Fiscal Year looks like in 1st party software:
• April: Advance Wars
• May: Zelda
• June: Nothing
• July: Pikmin
• August: Nothing
• September: Nothing
• October: Nothing
• November: Nothing
• December: Nothing
• January: Nothing
• February: Nothing
• March: Nothing

Let’s overlook the first three months of next year:
• April, May and July have software
• The other months have nothing

Now, I know Nintendo can host a Direct and announce their upcoming lineup, but the reason I enlisted their coming months is this: how can you go to an investors meeting without a visible plan of what’s to come? Yes, Nintendo is a hardware company, but with a product that’s saturated the market, what’s left is to release software for it. So, where’s the beef (software, lol)?

They can always just say “At Nintendo, we take our commitment to delivering quality products to our customer. Please look forward to when we are ready to unveil what we’ve been working on”, but it’s not like we have a confirmed release for the second half of the year. And I’m not counting Prime 4 because we have no official confirmation for when in this year it’ll release.

—————

This is what my confirmation bias is telling me:

• Nintendo is going with an empty software calendar to the investors meeting because they are confident on what they’re going to reveal

• JUST a software lineup shouldn’t be base for a VERY confident attitude. There must be something else.

• This something else is the Switch successor: The Nintendo Switch 2/^2/Advance

• When I mentioned “condition”, this is what I meant: Nintendo’s lineup of software will enter marketing once the Redacted has officially entered promotion. Afterwards, it’s a plethora of announcements that are either tied directly or not to the Drake because they may have better performance on it

Also, I’d like to mention a small idea:

• Perhaps redacted will launch with two SKUs:
— Just the console
— Console w/ a game

I mentioned this because:
www.pushsquare.com

Half of All Recent PS5 Sales Bundled with Horizon Forbidden West in UK

Over the past three months
www.pushsquare.com www.pushsquare.com

I know Nintendo doesn’t need to do this, but, working under my confirmation bias: there may be unannounced games because one of them is being pampered to release jointed with the Switch’s next version

—————

Those are my two cents~
 
Dekuman said:
I don't think they necessarily have to announce or hint at anything tomorrow, especially with TOTK releasing this week.

Tomorrow's meeting will be backwards looking to sumamrize Q4 and annual performance, so it should give us a good idea of Switch's trajectory for 2023-2024.
That said that is one opportunity for investorys and Nintendo to say something, so not ruling out we hear something. The most interesting thing will be how they forecast 2023-2024 Switch sales (rather than them outright announcing a new platform) right now.

They also have an AGM in June that could give us more info. But actually announcing the hardware itself doesn't have to fit into these dates.
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Mobius said:
Nothing to expect unless we get a "no new hardware for this year" answer like in early 2020 iirc
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IIRC New hardware was always announced before the new FY, so we're truly in uncharted territory. I expect us to be able to infer something from their guidance and some of the investor question. I don't think new hardware is coming this FY24, but in a few hours we'll get a more clearer picture. IMHO Switch 2 is bound for FY25.
 
Not that we were expecting anything there, but Nintendo answered this question in the Nintendo Live 2023 FAQ:

www.nintendo.com

Home – Nintendo Live 2023 – Nintendo Official Site

Thank you for joining us at the Seattle Convention Center and from home this year!
www.nintendo.com www.nintendo.com

Nintendo Live 2023 said:
Will there be new product announcements?

No such announcements are planned. Nintendo Live 2023 is first and foremost an in-person celebration of Nintendo fun for all members of the family.
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Ghostsonplanets said:
IIRC New hardware was always announced before the new FY, so we're truly in uncharted territory. I expect us to be able to infer something from their guidance and some of the investor question. I don't think new hardware is coming this FY24, but in a few hours we'll get a more clearer picture. IMHO Switch 2 is bound for FY25.
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This was done by completely different management. The Switch Successor does not need to follow all old decisions. Most of the old guard is now retired or about to go out. As they tended to fail on a successor, its also not unlikely, that Nintendo would let the younger guys who are in good favor of Furukawa do their thing. So it is imo not unlikely that they do more risks this time, while e.g. Miyamoto got distracted with Mario Movie and Theme parks.
 
invwar said:
This was done by completely different management. The Switch Successor does not need to follow all old decisions. Most of the old guard is now retired or about to go out. As they tended to fail on a successor, its also not unlikely, that Nintendo would let the younger guys who are in good favor of Furukawa do their thing. So it is imo not unlikely that they do more risks this time, while e.g. Miyamoto got distracted with Mario Movie and Theme parks.
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I mean, this is not just "what Nintendo has done in the past" but also "what literally every other console manufacturer ever has done in the past"

If Nintendo is releasing a console this year, it's at the very latest being shown next month with maybe dozens of games from many publishers... And Nate, Grubb, VGC, Eurogamer, WSJ, and Bloomberg have heard literally nothing about this happening next month, lol.

The Switch 2 is probably just Fall 2024 (or later)
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I mean, this is not just "what Nintendo has done in the past" but also "what literally every other console manufacturer ever has done in the past"

If Nintendo is releasing a console this year, it's at the very latest being shown next month with maybe dozens of games from many publishers... And Nate, Grubb, VGC, Eurogamer, WSJ, and Bloomberg have heard literally nothing about this happening next month, lol.

The Switch 2 is probably just Fall 2024 (or later)
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If Pokemon gen 10 is a 2026 release, a 2024 launch is reasonable.
 
0
Angel Whispers said:
Reminder that UFS 3.0 has been in flaghship phones for at least FOUR YEARS, AND that this post from a bit over a year ago shows Nvidia's Orin documentation supports UFS 3.0 - I don't know if there are further updates to this, but considering that UFS 4.0 is in the S23 series of phones, the idea that version 3.X would be "too expensive" or "not a realistic option" for a console releasing today or later is another example of claims that go unchecked, but accepted. I would even put version 4.0 on the table right now, because I don't see any part of this process where Nintendo looked at that support option for a new console, and said something other than "Yes, Please!!" - I know that what was leaked from the horse's mouth is still "too good to be true" for some (lurkers included), but trying to "because Nintendo" one's way into worse/worst case scenarios and doom spirals doesn't help. At least, I remain unconvinced that the storage options are concern at this point, and one could dare to have a little more faith.

It's also worth noting that this likely wasn't much of an option in 2017 - One look at the Wikipedia page on UFS shows that Samsung's S6 phone was the first to adopt UFS in 2015, while they announced their first UFS cards in 2016, based on UFS 1.0, and less than a year before the Switch's launch. It means that this was still relatively new tech at the time, which wasn't yet well-understood, and perhaps too close to product tape-out for it to be possible on the Switch. That isn't the present case, even with lower storage capacity NVMe SSD options, which are currently available for much less some people would have others believe.
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TLDR up front, Whatever storage option Nintendo chooses it will probably be fine for the games and engines that support the [Redacted].

The question isn't "Is UFS 2.x or 3.x a viable option?", because it certainly is viable. The question how does Nintendo manage varying speeds between internal storage, game cards, and expansion storage.

Game Cards are a bit of a black box, but expansion storage presents unique issues. Either Nintendo:
  1. Adopts a different format in UHS-II SD, CFexpress, or whatever or to get speeds to match faster internal storage speeds, but is considerably more expensive. This was the decision made by Sony and Microsoft.
  2. Nintendo opts for faster internal storage but supports UHS-I speeds for fridge storage via SD/Micro-SD. Not ideal, but it's something that Sony and Microsoft support today and it works OK.
  3. Nintendo continues to support USH-I directly and relies just on compression efficiency.
With sufficient internal storage at launch, most regular consumers may never interact with whatever solution Nintendo selects

I would guess 1 or 2 is the answer if UFS offers sufficient internal storage (be that 128GB, 256, ect) at a reasonable price that means most day to day users never have to interact with the expansion storage.
 
CypressFX said:



Isnt he the same who backpedaled when reporting the very same thing?
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Looking at Nintendo's current lineup, they're not getting very far past that window without doing a Direct or similar presentation.

That said, June still seems most likely.
Foltzie said:
TLDR up front, Whatever storage option Nintendo chooses it will probably be fine for the games and engines that support the [Redacted].

The question isn't "Is UFS 2.x or 3.x a viable option?", because it certainly is viable. The question how does Nintendo manage varying speeds between internal storage, game cards, and expansion storage.

Game Cards are a bit of a black box, but expansion storage presents unique issues. Either Nintendo:
  1. Adopts a different format in UHS-II SD, CFexpress, or whatever or to get speeds to match faster internal storage speeds, but is considerably more expensive. This was the decision made by Sony and Microsoft.
  2. Nintendo opts for faster internal storage but supports UHS-I speeds for fridge storage via SD/Micro-SD. Not ideal, but it's something that Sony and Microsoft support today and it works OK.
  3. Nintendo continues to support USH-I directly and relies just on compression efficiency.
With sufficient internal storage at launch, most regular consumers may never interact with whatever solution Nintendo selects

I would guess 1 or 2 is the answer if UFS offers sufficient internal storage (be that 128GB, 256, ect) at a reasonable price that means most day to day users never have to interact with the expansion storage.
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UFS can be used for both internal and external storage, if Nintendo desires.
 
Erathix said:
That would be funny and Nintendo will answer their question with another question and that will be that.
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An investor would probably ask a general question like: “what games are coming after July?”. They can respond with “please look forward for when we announce new software”.

eye0h said:
Can't wait till all the questions are just about AI and more movies 0.0
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That’s actually something they can ask xD
 
Angel Whispers said:
Reminder that UFS 3.0 has been in flaghship phones for at least FOUR YEARS, AND that this post from a bit over a year ago showed that Nvidia's Orin documentation supports UFS 3.0 - I don't know if there are further updates to this, but considering that UFS 4.0 is in the S23 series of phones, the idea that version 3.X would be "too expensive" or "not a realistic option" for a console releasing today or later is another example of claims that go unchecked, but accepted. I would even put version 4.0 on the table right now, because I don't see any part of this process where Nintendo looked at that support option for a new console, and said something other than "Yes, Please!!" - I know that what was leaked from the horse's mouth is still "too good to be true" for some (lurkers included), but trying to "because Nintendo" one's way into worse/worst case scenarios and doom spirals doesn't help. At least, I remain unconvinced that the storage options are concern at this point, and one could dare to have a little more faith.

It's also worth noting that this likely wasn't much of an option in 2017 - One look at the Wikipedia page on UFS shows that Samsung's S6 phone was the first to adopt UFS in 2015, while they announced their first UFS cards in 2016, based on UFS 1.0, and less than a year before the Switch's launch. It means that this was still relatively new tech at the time, which wasn't yet well-understood, and perhaps too close to product tape-out for it to be possible on the Switch. That isn't the present case, even with lower storage capacity NVMe SSD options, which are currently available for much less some people would have others believe.
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I don't think UFS 4.0 is particularly likely, but I agree that UFS 3.0/3.1 is on the table. Google released the Pixel 7 Pro back in October with 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, and Counterpoint Research published a supplier breakdown from their BoM analysis of the phone in February. SK Hynix provides the UFS, and they reportedly accounted for 4% of the BoM. With the total coming to $413, this would mean the UFS cost approximately $16.52. However, flash prices have been dropping significantly over the past year and will continue to do so.

Counterpoint don't make it clear whether they're using prices as of the initial manufacturing of the Pixel 7 Pro or as of the writing of the report. If they're taking prices as of the initial manufacturing, with a new Nintendo console releasing a year later, then Trendforce estimates of UFS pricing suggest an approximately 44% drop in prices over that period, which would push the price of a 128GB UFS 3.1 module down to around $9.25. Even if the price quoted was for the start of 2023 and Nintendo is purchasing in mid-2023, then you'd still expect an approximately 22% drop in prices, down to around $12.88. These prices should continue to drop, if you're expecting a launch in 2024. I can't find a good source for how much 32GB eMMC would have cost Nintendo in 2017, but I would be surprised if it were significantly below $10.
 
ziggyrivers said:
An investor would probably ask a general question like: “what games are coming after July?”. They can respond with “please look forward for when we announce new software”.


That’s actually something they can ask xD
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welp those are my submissions for the impromptu bingo lmao
 

  • done through a raffle on your nintendo account
  • 1 ticket per person for 1 day
Yeah, this event is definitely NOT going to be used to showcase a new console lmao
 
Bonejack said:
I'm a little bit huffy that there's no part of "Bonejack coming in with dumb jokes" in that schedule, not gonna lie.

;_;
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That’ll be comedy hour, we can squeeze that in somewhere. I don’t know where, but somewhere.

Thing is that your jokes always come during the chaos to help settle down the chaos, so it would sorta be included in a sense 😹
Nintendojitsu said:
Whoever brings potato salad with raisins in it; we fighting!
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If I find a bone in the potato salad, it’s on sight.
hologram said:
What did I do
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nothing, you’re just our special guest for the evening.
 
Pokemaniac said:
UFS can be used for both internal and external storage, if Nintendo desires.
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I edit my post to add UFS cards specifically to bullet #1. I should have enumerated it instead of leaving it covered by whatever.

At the risk of being pedantic, I dont know if anyone is making UFS external cards. Samsung seems to have discontinued its line.
 
Hypothesis:

If Nintendo nails the Switch to Drake transition, I think the Switch will be a staple console and business model for them. And if they want to do anything, it’ll be around the device
 
Discostew said:
Do note that 100MB/s is the number for uninterrupted sequential transfers, not including random access delays. When a game loads, it isn't reading one continuous strand of data from one end to the other. It's jumping around all over the place to get each piece it needs, which can be even as little as a handful of KB, tacking on random access delays each jump and dropping that overall transfer rate harshly. It's better than what PS4/XB1 had to deal with as those used mechanical drives with moving parts, but still.

Here's the thing. If Nintendo recommended a microSD based on having a sequential read speed between 60MB/s and 95MB/s for the Switch that had the CPU decompressing assets, then what does that mean for the goal of Drake's FDE with a 100MB/s microSD? To simply take the pressure off the CPU and not really provide faster loading?
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wont Switch sucessor need a huge memory or something in case a third party that have a game developed on Unreal Engine 5 decided to port it game on the console?
 
Foltzie said:
I edit my post to add UFS cards specifically to bullet #1. I should have enumerated it instead of leaving it covered by whatever.

At the risk of being pedantic, I dont know if anyone is making UFS external cards. Samsung seems to have discontinued its line.
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No one is really making anything faster than what Nintendo is already using in more than a niche capacity when it comes to memory cards right now, so they're all fairly similarly situated.
 
Dekuman said:
I think the quote was "Nintendo has no games" (for H2) which was hyperbolic and he walked it back.
This was consistent with Chris dring (iirc) saying he isn't aware of a major game for H2 on Switch (later clarifying he didn't count Metroid Prim4 as a major game due to Metroid's sales history being below 5 million)

The interesting thing is both of them said this before the Direct that left us hanging with nothing announced past July.

Something is definately happening and they're both right in their own ways. The question now is, what the heck is happening in H2 that would cause even insiders to have no visibility
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this is very worrysome and strange, considering we have a very packed first half of the year, i dont believe Nintendo dont have any game planned for the second half of the year, we need to know what will be the holiday game this year, it cant be the Pokemon Scarlet e Violet DLC, it must be something else
 
Angel Whispers said:
Competitive Smash isn't fun
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Plenty of people would disagree - smash majors are getting more viewers than ever recently xd
Angel Whispers said:
and the same is true for its community.
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The smash "community" everyone always refers to is just twitter and reddit. If you ever go to a local scene you'll find amazing people, regional pride etc etc. Because of the incidents that happened, there's this weird notion that everyone in the "community" is a weird pest which is super unfair
Angel Whispers said:
and most people want to play with items. It's better this way.
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Those people wouldn't have to play in a tournament?
Angel Whispers said:
Well, Sakurai wanted to make a fun party game for everyone to enjoy.
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While I agree it is a party game to a certain extent it is pretty well balanced, the game has a ton of depth and nuance and was definitely designed with competition in mind considering the decisions they made in game as well as inviting professional smash players including Amsa (number 2 player in the world) to play test during development. Even sakurai made jokes about himself not being allowed to talk about frame data because people think smash is just a party game

sorry for long and irrelevant reply to hardware thread but this comment irked me LOL

edit: lowkey I'm a bit of a hypocrite since I said people don't take MK8 and splatoon seriously which is kinda untrue to a certain extent, more accurately - they don't have the scenes or support that smash does ^-^
 
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Pokemaniac said:
No one is really making anything faster than what Nintendo is already using in more than a niche capacity when it comes to memory cards right now, so they're all fairly similarly situated.
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Agreed. I'm curious to see which way Nintendo goes. I dont hate fridge storage on the XSX, but thats just me.
 
0
Considering SD Express is backwards compatible with UHS-I, I would say that it has a slightly higher chance at showing up than UFS Card.

I do find it interesting how there are multiple laptops with SD Express 7.0 support, and yet I've only ever seen 2 models of SD Express cards, one available almost nowhere, and another one from a not well-known brand. I wonder if Nintendo would collab with SanDisk to make custom ones like their current Nintendo-branded SD Cards...
 
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