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

i would much prefer 720p because of how hard the image quality can be pushed without DLSS (sky is the limit in terms of games if we're talking lower resolutions upscaled to 720p) but something tells me the later it comes, the more likely 1080p becomes. i'm not sure if everyone has written off the Sharp thing but i still think that's likely Nintendo (1080p mLED) with a late 2024 or 2025 release date. trial production this year as stated then ramping up next FY. i also think Nintendo is insane if we wait another 18months+ before the new model drops, we might get some new games but the Switch will be on life support and a lot of people seriously questioning the management as it's damaging the brand to milk this thing dry. people shouldn't need emulate TOTK to run their latest flagship game @ 60fps. Nintendo doesn't give the option and leaves a lot of money on the table by not having it out now or certainly within the year. /rantover lol
 
i would much prefer 720p because of how hard the image quality can be pushed without DLSS (sky is the limit in terms of games if we're talking lower resolutions upscaled to 720p) but something tells me the later it comes, the more likely 1080p becomes. i'm not sure if everyone has written off the Sharp thing but i still think that's likely Nintendo (1080p mLED) with a late 2024 or 2025 release date. trial production this year as stated then ramping up next FY. i also think Nintendo is insane if we wait another 18months+ before the new model drops, we might get some new games but the Switch will be on life support and a lot of people seriously questioning the management as it's damaging the brand to milk this thing dry. people shouldn't need emulate TOTK to run their latest flagship game @ 60fps. Nintendo doesn't give the option and leaves a lot of money on the table by not having it out now or certainly within the year. /rantover lol

I don't know if it's damaging the brand in the long run, but Tears of the Kingdom is very much the Switch swan song in my view, and I'm perfectly content setting the system down and just ignoring it from here on out. I'm feeling especially removed from the ecosystem now that I've got that game under my belt. I suppose I can only be invested in a single piece of tech for so long, and 7 years is a long time (the OLED only did so much to revitalize it).

If we are waiting 18 months to get new hardware, I certainly hope they're pulling out all the stops, and I don't just mean visuals - OS improvements, social features, build quality, and a fantastic launch lineup that doesn't neglect third party etc. There's an opening to really impress people again with a successor to the Switch.
 
I don't know if it's damaging the brand in the long run, but Tears of the Kingdom is very much the Switch swan song in my view, and I'm perfectly content setting the system down and just ignoring it from here on out. I'm feeling especially removed from the ecosystem now that I've got that game under my belt. I suppose I can only be invested in a single piece of tech for so long, and 7 years is a long time (the OLED only did so much to revitalize it).
Agreed, but how dope would a surprise Mario game as the holiday title be? Even just a 2D one
 
Agreed, but how dope would a surprise Mario game as the holiday title be? Even just a 2D one

I’ll be peeking in on happenings over the year for sure. 2D Mario leaning into the Kotabe drawing style would be dream. Another NSMB? Not so much.
 
After going through a Switch v1, OLED, Steam Deck, and my Samsung Galaxy S20+ for the occasional games... I am perfectly content with native 720p. 1080p would be nice for sure, but them sticking to 720p wouldn't be upsetting to me.

Moving away from an OLED screen WOULD be upsetting, on the other hand...
 
I'm not sure how I could have missed this, but apparently the 4chan leak that predicted some Pokémon DLC stuff and implied a graphical update on a new Switch was debunked by the author himself who posted here?
Or am I confusing this with another leak/rumor?
 
I'm not sure how I could have missed this, but apparently the 4chan leak that predicted some Pokémon DLC stuff and implied a graphical update on a new Switch was debunked by the author himself who posted here?
Or am I confusing this with another leak/rumor?
wasn't that for a separate hardware 'leak'
 
I'm not sure how I could have missed this, but apparently the 4chan leak that predicted some Pokémon DLC stuff and implied a graphical update on a new Switch was debunked by the author himself who posted here?
Or am I confusing this with another leak/rumor?
I think you're confusing it with a separate rumor that used a similar technique for identity verification.
 
I think you're confusing it with a separate rumor that used a similar technique for identity verification.
Thank you both, that's kinda reassuring!

As for the screen discussion, I really don't mind for either 720p or 1080p.
Both would look great imo (as long as it's OLED and, hopefully, HDR compatible), and I'm sure Nintendo will choose what makes sense for the many different factors that matter here.
 
We talk a lot about technical specifications of future hardware, which is logical. But one of the things I’m very curious about is how they’re going to design the console to give it its own identity.

We know that the form factor will be the same, we know that they will not abandon the concept of the hybrid game console. But visually, how much leeway do they have to clearly distinguish themselves from the current generation?
 
Oh, you're okay with 3hrs now? Hmm.

As much as I don't mind a 720p screen for better battery life (and preferred it), 1080p is the next logical evolution to have it (or at least 900p) on a Nintendo console. I know it's gonna constantly be compared to steam deck, and quite frankly I don't know how well/bad 720p games will look on a 6- 7" 1080p screen, but at least there's DLSS.

In 1-2 years time (and I imagine the steam successor), all portable handhelds will be in 1080p, not just ASUS rally.
I should add that... Switch games should theoretically be no problem at 1080p native. For Drake/Switch 2, if we get like 1.4 TFLOPs in handheld, I feel comfortable in saying we should be theoretically matching any PS4 game that is 1080p, at the same resolution and performance without DLSS.

It gets trickier with porting current gen titles though.. that's when DLSS would be needed. Not worried about 1st party games as much as 3rd party. 4k X)is5 current gen games ported might have to be 720p internal on handheld, not accounting for DLSS. If we start getting less than 4k native ports from series X/ps5 in Drake--which we will eventually.. then 540p (or even jess) native is gonna be needed for handheld.


But anyway.. I don' mind a 720p-800p screen on Drake.. but I think not going for 1080p isn't future proofing it, and would be kind of odd to not bump it from switch.

Could a 720p screen with launch models make sense, and a 1080p screen for a revision? I dunno. Only if a lot of (switch and PS4 ports) games end up being 1080p games downsampled to 720p resolution from the beginning. But that doesn't cover current gen ports and I can see a situation where multiple profiles are made to accommodate launch and pro gpu clock speeds. It would be a headache.
My reasoning for why not to go to 1080p funnily enough has more to do with the memory bandwidth Situation…. :p

Higher resolutions tend to demand more memory bandwidth 😬
You got a fair point. I'm not too worried a last gen ports, but current gen ports, yeah.. DLSS could help migate it.
Will be interesting to see how much 102-133 GB/s bandwidth can do. I feel confident PS4 ports shouldn't be too much of an issue.
 
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720p on a 7 inches screen is more than enough. 1080p would mean more battery consumption just for an insignificant difference in such a small screen. As others have stated, the important thing here is keeping the OLED display. Returning to LCD, that would be a huge pain.
 
Bear in mind that by default, Switch OLED's have the "vivid colors" setting enabled which adds even more saturation to make the colors pop (and probably lose some details/nuances in some cases).
I'll always have a grudge against Nintendo for doing this and "dupe" consumers and early hardware reviews.
It's not as if the screen wasn't great by itself; the colors already pop in standard mode and you can definitely notice the improvements over the standard Switch screen without forcing it.
My point is that while OLED is definitely better, the actual comparison should be made with this setting disabled (and it's just better to leave it off for better accuracy imo) and the Switch LCD screen isn't that bad to be honest - at least on non-Lite models.
 
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I don't know if it's damaging the brand in the long run, but Tears of the Kingdom is very much the Switch swan song in my view, and I'm perfectly content setting the system down and just ignoring it from here on out. I'm feeling especially removed from the ecosystem now that I've got that game under my belt. I suppose I can only be invested in a single piece of tech for so long, and 7 years is a long time (the OLED only did so much to revitalize it).

If we are waiting 18 months to get new hardware, I certainly hope they're pulling out all the stops, and I don't just mean visuals - OS improvements, social features, build quality, and a fantastic launch lineup that doesn't neglect third party etc. There's an opening to really impress people again with a successor to the Switch.
how about Metroid Prime 4? we are waiting to play this game, since it anouncement on E32017
 
how about Metroid Prime 4? we are waiting to play this game, since it anouncement on E32017
That's still very much vaporwave to me right now. The Prime remaster tells me that it's relatively close - at least I think so - but without a release date or gameplay to go off of, I can't say I'm hyped. A modern Prime game should be great on paper; there's been a lot of advancements in tech and game design since 3, but not knowing what a modern Prime actually is means it's hard to be excited for it.
 
Well, for one it would need to not be a portable device and 2, would need to have sufficient cooling. 3, let’s assume the chip is equipped for a set top box and has a 256-bit interface.

4, let’s also assume that it is on 4N.


Since battery life isn’t a thing it has to worry about, the system can clock rather high.

Series S is rated for 100W TDP if I’m not mistaken?

So, the 8 A78 CPU cores, ok so the CPU can clock up to 3.3GHz and probably consume about 12-15W I believe? For the sake of conversation let’s say it’s only 3GHz, Per core, and have it consume no more than 10W for just the CPU. I think, based on what ARM claims at 5nm and at 3GHz being 1W.

The GPU on the other hand can probably clock all the way to 2GHz and consume 20-30W. Ampere can already clock higher than this, but this is supposed to be on a much more efficient process than ampere.



The memory I described above would consume about 3-3.8W I think and offer 204GB/s(?). I’m basing it off an Orin sheet where 2 ram modules operating at full consume I think it was 1.5-1.9W.


This is still lower bandwidth than the Series S faster RAM at 224GB/s but ampere can be more efficient than the IC-less RDNA 2 of the series S. But it depends.


For storage, since power is less of an issue here, lest throw in an NVMe storage but of the smaller kind because we want to fit it into something no bigger than the GameCube for aesthetic reasons.

Some NVMe drives can consume 4-6W and offer slower speeds but at that point I don’t think you need really really fast PS5 like speeds. So a 1.8GB/s capable drive? Should be ok. I think.




A CPU that can get within spitting distance of the series S, in theory.

A GPU that on paper has higher theoretical performance and can utilize DLSS in scenarios needed.

Memory bandwidth that isn’t the same, lower, but with what would be supposedly a similar in theory due to other aspects that can make it more efficient with it.

Enough theoretical performance that can work for RT loads better than the Series S.

And all for about half of the TDP of the Series S, but costing probably the same as the Series D (USD).

A fan that uses say, 5W. And let’s give 5W for everything else in the system (this may be overdoing it anyway).

47-54W for the total device.

Would be about 6.14TFLOPs fwiw.


Drake, the chip, is very capable in theory. It will not operate at that though for obvious reasons.

You can probably shave some of this in terms of consumption, to be closer to say… the Wii U in TDP. I’m probably overestimating some of this in consumption.

And the only change I made to the silicon is a 256-bit bus vs the 128-bit.

Oh, yeah, so in this case it has 16GB of RAM.
Popped in to see what was new. We will have to see if the pokemon leaker was legit or mixing in his own fake rumor.

Xbox Series S is 74w during active game play, uses TSMC 7nm, which TSMC 5nm can reduce power consumption by 40% (from the CPU/GPU). Switch's successor could draw up to 25 watts in a similar form factor, Switch launch models can draw over 18 watts, so we are talking about 1/3rd the power draw for Switch 2 at most vs XBSS. Because TSMC 4N should be a little better than TSMC 5nm, I think the estimation of 25w is ok for a realistic number, but it's certainly the high end.

ARM A78 at say 2.4GHz would draw ~4 watts across all 8 cores and offer as much as 80% of the XBSS' CPU performance. The memory bandwidth is very light weight power consumption wise, but I do think 128bit is the realistic option here, it could go as high as 136GB/s, which for the efficiency of the architecture and the performance it will give, is enough that extra bandwidth probably is wasted power consumption, this type of memory would be cheap on power consumption.

Drake's GPU will likely draw no more than 12 watts, this wattage is enough to push the GPU to 1.4GHz or 4.3TFLOPs, though I still believe we are looking at 3.456TFLOPs via a 1.125GHz clock, which seems realistic with power consumption that TSMC 4N could offer Drake.

EMMC can do 400MB/s, UFS 1 can do 800MB/s single lane, I could easily see it doing 1GB/s on the storage for just a watt or so, Fan at most 2watts...

Docked, a system like this would draw no more than Erista does, and would offer a GPU on par with XBSS, but with RT support and DLSS for higher resolution via AI upscaling. A CPU that shouldn't be a bottleneck, and enough memory bandwidth to not get in the way of performance. It's certainly possible for Nintendo to come to market with a next generation hybrid console that performs on par with XBSS, and because of the size of Drake, I do think it won't be drastically behind it.
 
No events in June, maybe that will be the case. The summer sales will be this week, and some announcements have been made via social... 🤔
Yeah, I was just seeing the Pikmin tweet. It’s a one minute video, so they can still host Pikmin 4 on a general Direct, or make a centered Direct in the game close to its release day



My sentiments exactly
 
Bear in mind that by default, Switch OLED's have the "vivid colors" setting enabled which adds even more saturation to make the colors pop (and probably lose some details/nuances in some cases).
I'll always have a grudge against Nintendo for doing this and "dupe" consumers and early hardware reviews.
It's not as if the screen wasn't great by itself; the colors already pop in standard mode and you can definitely notice the improvements over the standard Switch screen without forcing it.
My point is that while OLED is definitely better, the actual comparison should be made with this setting disabled (and it's just better to leave it off for better accuracy imo) and the Switch LCD screen isn't that bad to be honest - at least on non-Lite models.
The vivid setting isn't a filter, it's more or less just the default settings for an OLED display. It doesn't sacrifice detail, it just lets the OLED display its default colours, more or less, while the other setting IS a filter to emulate the colour response of the original Switch IPS display.

Different screens have different vividness depending on technology. GameBoy Color games look more vivid on a GameBoy Advance SP 101 model.
 
The vivid setting isn't a filter, it's more or less just the default settings for an OLED display. It doesn't sacrifice detail, it just lets the OLED display its default colours, more or less, while the other setting IS a filter to emulate the colour response of the original Switch IPS display.

Different screens have different vividness depending on technology. GameBoy Color games look more vivid on a GameBoy Advance SP 101 model.
This is also more complicated than that.
Vivid mode is like turning using the "native" option on most TVs' "Color Space" setting (instead of Auto), while SDR content, like Swithc games, is calibrated for the standard Rec.709 color space.
All this does is make colors over saturated and less accurate, whatever reason they had to make it the default. This isn't technically a filter, and they could perfectly make the same thing on LCD Switches (and this would also make the colors pop and less accurate).
 
I'm going to be honest, I do think the random Twitter drops for, well, EVERYTHING points solidly to Nintendo clearing out the advertising and announcements for original Switch games to prepare for something else. If they had an event on Nintendo Switch this month, they could have saved Everybody 1-2-Switch and the new Pikmin 4 trailer for it, and they didn't.

Now, I trust the Kotaku rumour about Nintendo having a "digital event" rather than a Nintendo Direct. Now we find ourselves in this gulf. All the Nintendo Switch games are announced. One suspiciously exactly inside H1. The other, a game that marks a point where we know absolutely nothing afterwards.

We're in no-man's-land.

Nintendo HAS something for the second half of this year. They won't go a holiday without a game. Now is the time to reveal them.


There was no reason to be this secretive, this leak-less, this conservative about revealing games for Nintendo Switch. Longer marketing periods and much more importantly, long periods in which to pre-order, are usually seen as good things.

The only logical reasons I can think of are:

This holiday has nothing of value. Pure filler. They're going to let Nintendo Switch rot without so much as a major holiday title.

They're making room to reveal, market and release their new console.

Now option 2 makes a lot more business sense, so I think it's more likely.

Option 1 I think is possible but probably only happens if Option 2 was delayed internally.
 
I’ve stopped caring enough to anticipate its release, but if it ends up being a good game I’ll probably have a look.
i still higly otmistic Metroid Prime 4 is gonna release on Nintendo Switch(problaby in this holiday season or in the next holiday season, as the final major release for Nintendo Switch), beside Nintendo will not put to waste the profissional that are workimg on the game since january 2019, Metroid Prime 4 will be a masterpiece, i can garantee you that, Nintendo would have released the game already if they not cared about the quality of the game, i trust Retro Studios will give us a masterpiece, just like did with the Metroid Prime trilogy, the two Donkey Kong games.
 
Let's assume they are going to release Switch 2 this holiday season. When does everyone bet they'll announce it?

It's also tricky because they'll probably do like they did with the OG Switch and drop a 3-5 minute reveal video of the device followed by a big event full-reveal (including software) a month or so later. So what I'm asking for is the initial reveal. You get one guess. Go.

My guess: Next week.
/drops mic
 
i still higly otmistic Metroid Prime 4 is gonna release on Nintendo Switch(problaby in this holiday season or in the next holiday season, as the final major release for Nintendo Switch), beside Nintendo will not put to waste the profissional that are workimg on the game since january 2019, Metroid Prime 4 will be a masterpiece, i can garantee you that, Nintendo would have released the game already if they not cared about the quality of the game, i trust Retro Studios will give us a masterpiece, just like did with the Metroid Prime trilogy, the two Donkey Kong games.
if anything, nintendo will drop p4 for switch out of obligation, no matter when it comes out like botw
 
Let's assume they are going to release Switch 2 this holiday season. When does everyone bet they'll announce it?

It's also tricky because they'll probably do like they did with the OG Switch and drop a 3-5 minute reveal video of the device followed by a big event full-reveal (including software) a month or so later. So what I'm asking for is the initial reveal. You get one guess. Go.

My guess: Next week.
/drops mic
Probably June or July. Part of me thinks they might wait until just after Pikmin, but sooner rather than later seems more likely.
 
All the various showcases, directs & fests will be over by the middle of June so that leaves the latter half for Nintendo alone, if it does choose to do anything. And if there is anything that's a certainty, it's that Nintendo has more patience than any of its fans lol

Quickly stole a chart from PC Gamer of them all:

State of PlayMay 24 (Wed)
Guerrilla CollectiveJune 7 (Wed)
Summer Game FestJune 8 (Thurs)
Day of the DevsJune 8 (Thurs)
Access-AbilityJune 9 (Fri)
Wholesome DirectJune 10 (Sat)
Future Games ShowJune 10 (Sat)
PC Gaming ShowJune 11 (Sun)
Xbox & StarfieldJune 11 (Sun)
Ubisoft ForwardJune 12 (Mon)
Devolver DirectJune 8 (Thurs)

and Capcom in June 12th

Now why would Nintendo announce anything in the middle of all this congestion?
 
All the various showcases, directs & fests will be over by the middle of June so that leaves the latter half for Nintendo alone, if it does choose to do anything. And if there is anything that's a certainty, it's that Nintendo has more patience than any of its fans lol

Quickly stole a chart from PC Gamer of them all:

State of PlayMay 24 (Wed)
Guerrilla CollectiveJune 7 (Wed)
Summer Game FestJune 8 (Thurs)
Day of the DevsJune 8 (Thurs)
Access-AbilityJune 9 (Fri)
Wholesome DirectJune 10 (Sat)
Future Games ShowJune 10 (Sat)
PC Gaming ShowJune 11 (Sun)
Xbox & StarfieldJune 11 (Sun)
Ubisoft ForwardJune 12 (Mon)
Devolver DirectJune 8 (Thurs)


Now why would Nintendo announce anything in the middle of all this congestion?
They like to be "last" iirc, when E3 was a thing they always chose to have their Direct after all other conferences/showcases.
 
All the various showcases, directs & fests will be over by the middle of June so that leaves the latter half for Nintendo alone, if it does choose to do anything. And if there is anything that's a certainty, it's that Nintendo has more patience than any of its fans lol

Quickly stole a chart from PC Gamer of them all:

State of PlayMay 24 (Wed)
Guerrilla CollectiveJune 7 (Wed)
Summer Game FestJune 8 (Thurs)
Day of the DevsJune 8 (Thurs)
Access-AbilityJune 9 (Fri)
Wholesome DirectJune 10 (Sat)
Future Games ShowJune 10 (Sat)
PC Gaming ShowJune 11 (Sun)
Xbox & StarfieldJune 11 (Sun)
Ubisoft ForwardJune 12 (Mon)
Devolver DirectJune 8 (Thurs)

and Capcom in June 12th

Now why would Nintendo announce anything in the middle of all this congestion?

Something hot ... on a line ... with lots of Bling!
 
Let's assume they are going to release Switch 2 this holiday season. When does everyone bet they'll announce it?

It's also tricky because they'll probably do like they did with the OG Switch and drop a 3-5 minute reveal video of the device followed by a big event full-reveal (including software) a month or so later. So what I'm asking for is the initial reveal. You get one guess. Go.

My guess: Next week.
/drops mic
I think if the device really is releasing this fall and that’s a big IF July announcement
 
Probably June or July. Part of me thinks they might wait until just after Pikmin, but sooner rather than later seems more likely.
and risk the precious holiday sales for Switcht, no way Nintendo will anounce it next hardware this month/year, beside, Shuntaro Furukawa made it very clear no new hardware is factored on the 15 milions hardware they aim to sell this fiscal year
 
I'm going to be honest, I do think the random Twitter drops for, well, EVERYTHING points solidly to Nintendo clearing out the advertising and announcements for original Switch games to prepare for something else. If they had an event on Nintendo Switch this month, they could have saved Everybody 1-2-Switch and the new Pikmin 4 trailer for it, and they didn't.

Now, I trust the Kotaku rumour about Nintendo having a "digital event" rather than a Nintendo Direct. Now we find ourselves in this gulf. All the Nintendo Switch games are announced. One suspiciously exactly inside H1. The other, a game that marks a point where we know absolutely nothing afterwards.

We're in no-man's-land.

Nintendo HAS something for the second half of this year. They won't go a holiday without a game. Now is the time to reveal them.


There was no reason to be this secretive, this leak-less, this conservative about revealing games for Nintendo Switch. Longer marketing periods and much more importantly, long periods in which to pre-order, are usually seen as good things.

The only logical reasons I can think of are:

This holiday has nothing of value. Pure filler. They're going to let Nintendo Switch rot without so much as a major holiday title.

They're making room to reveal, market and release their new console.

Now option 2 makes a lot more business sense, so I think it's more likely.

Option 1 I think is possible but probably only happens if Option 2 was delayed internally.
I really found it weird that the “leaker” wouldn’t name Nintendo’s digital event as a Direct. Maybe we’ll really get a hardware reveal via a digital event, much like Apple’s keynote address. But… when?

Seeing the replies about the digital events scheduled, I think Nintendo could go the week Capcom’s event is on, seeing as how they’ve always done e3 Directs on the 11th or 12th and always a Tuesday. Maybe they’ll announce Monday evening and stream Tuesday?
 
Let's assume they are going to release Switch 2 this holiday season. When does everyone bet they'll announce it?

It's also tricky because they'll probably do like they did with the OG Switch and drop a 3-5 minute reveal video of the device followed by a big event full-reveal (including software) a month or so later. So what I'm asking for is the initial reveal. You get one guess. Go.

My guess: Next week.
/drops mic
If [redacted] was to come out this year, then the most likely dates for me are the first half of the week after next, before the shareholders meeting (coincidently)
 
If [redacted] was to come out this year, then the most likely dates for me are the first half of the week after next, before the shareholders meeting (coincidently)
Good point. It would also coincide with when they usually guve their e3 Direct
 
I really found it weird that the “leaker” wouldn’t name Nintendo’s digital event as a Direct. Maybe we’ll really get a hardware reveal via a digital event, much like Apple’s keynote address. But… when?

Seeing the replies about the digital events scheduled, I think Nintendo could go the week Capcom’s event is on, seeing as how they’ve always done e3 Directs on the 11th or 12th and always a Tuesday. Maybe they’ll announce Monday evening and stream Tuesday?
But hardware reveals are pretty much never made during Directs right?
 
Pardon my language but...

Oh. My. Fucking. God. It's close. It's never felt realer than this. It's so tangible.

I will not be able to check my hype for this game.

Anything with Prime 4 wins the the whole damn year.
Fingers crossed for a cross gen release.
 
To me, hardware or not new hardwere, the Holiday game must be Mario, it would an amazing mistake not having any kind of Mario game in the year of the movie, even a spin off
 
Please read this staff post before posting.

Furthermore, according to this follow-up post, all off-topic chat will be moderated.
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