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

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James said:
Just to toss it out there, Wii U achieved backwards compatibility by pretty much including a Wii within it. It runs pretty much perfect, down to even running GameCube games when modded because it's just a Wii, but it does drive production costs up. PS3 I believe did the same thing originally, which is part of the reason they gutted the feature when they needed to drive costs down. I know the general idea people run with is Nintendo achieving backwards compatibility via software, but honestly who's to say they won't go the Wii U or PS3 route again? And if that's the case suddenly it makes a whole lot of sense for Nintendo to offer a variant without Switch compatibility.

To be clear I'm not saying it's likely, this is definitely a rumor I need to hear reiterated by other sources before I put any stock into it. But I wouldn't completely dismiss it either, the idea really isn't that crazy if you think about it.
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Nvidia has every incentive to make bc work on ampere.

The big differentiator for the Switch, and those previous platform, is that Nvidia is providing hardware and software for Nintendo long term. In some ways it goes even deeper than Sony and MS AMD partnership, because AMD isn't creating the API and dev tools for Sony and MS.
 
James said:
Just to toss it out there, Wii U achieved backwards compatibility by pretty much including a Wii within it. It runs pretty much perfect, down to even running GameCube games when modded because it's just a Wii, but it does drive production costs up. PS3 I believe did the same thing originally, which is part of the reason they gutted the feature when they needed to drive costs down. I know the general idea people run with is Nintendo achieving backwards compatibility via software, but honestly who's to say they won't go the Wii U or PS3 route again? And if that's the case suddenly it makes a whole lot of sense for Nintendo to offer a variant without Switch compatibility.

To be clear I'm not saying it's likely, this is definitely a rumor I need to hear reiterated by other sources before I put any stock into it. But I wouldn't completely dismiss it either, the idea really isn't that crazy if you think about it.
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The Wii U achieved BC because it was a wii. Three Wii cpus fused together and a binary compatible gpu. So no, they can't do that again.

They won't do the PS3 because it's a tablet, they're extremely limited on die space. And they won't die shrink the tx1 because they're not gonna charge $600 for this
 
ILikeFeet said:
The Wii U achieved BC because it was a wii. Three Wii cpus fused together and a binary compatible gpu. So no, they can't do that again.

They won't do the PS3 because it's a tablet, they're extremely limited on die space. And they won't die shrink the tx1 because they're not gonna charge $600 for this
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To be fair, they would only have to include the tx1 gpu, cause arm 78 is already compatible.

But I agree there are far better ways to solve the problem,
 
so the rumors we're confident of rn are:

-Nintendo gave out dev kits to partners in July this year

-Nintendo showed Visual tech demos to 3rd party companies & indies in Gamescom, those being Matrix Awakens & an improved version of BOTW

-Kotick was told Switch 2 is comparable to PS4 & XONE in terms of performance

-The exclusion of Backwards Compatibility for Switch 2
 
I can’t find the “Always believe the opposite of what MVG says” and “Society if everybody stopped listening to MVG”, or whatever those pictures were called, but THAT. The successor will be backwards compatible. One doesn’t need a rumour mill to know that when Nintendo literally told you, when Iwata confirmed it before his death in his vision, and when most of you have changed your ARM-derivative phones and other devices at least once, AND been able to transfer all of your apps, digital purchases, etc. with little or no problems. Just because some emulation tool couldn’t crack a code, it doesn’t mean the successor will have trouble with BC. That requires you to believe Nintendo and Nvidia made colossal oversights when entering a long-term partnership, and I know that fits the “Because Nintendo” non-premise, but it’s the kind of reach that would have Stretch Armstrong, Dhalsim and Elastigirl tap out in submission. Stop.
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
no, i know what i said and i'm not actually trolling

think about it, before nick said it, no insider talked what they heard about BC either they're unsure of it or silent about it which backs up that BC doesn't exist for switch 2
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Because their sources are devs, and devs would only be told what they need to work on games for the thing. Which doesn't include the BC implementation.
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
i mean isn't it a bit realistic to go with a mindset that nintendo won't include BC on Switch 2?

they do make greedy & even dumb moves after all
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The thing that's most important to Nintendo is a smooth transition. Lack of BC will severely reduce the odds of that happening.

Besides in Nintendos history they have always included BC when possible even to their detriment. If the Wii U had went with an off the shelf/ semi custom x86 APU from AMD like the 2 others, they would likely have gotten significantly more bang for buck. But they would lose out on compatibility.
 
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TechnicalTip6578 said:
i mean isn't it a bit realistic to go with a mindset that nintendo won't include BC on Switch 2?

they do make greedy & even dumb moves after all
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I really can’t see how not making BC possible as a good financial/business decision to Nintendo.

Sony showed how well they managed to get across the last gen just because people could easily buy ps4 games on their new system.

I know many people will buy a new system to play new games, but the amount of people who will buy a new console to play good old games with the new ones is much greater. People just want to buy good things. And developing new games takes time and it’s hard to make everything be a 85+ metacritic.

I’m still playing many ps4 games on my ps5. I just want easy access to all my games and have the confidence that I will eventually get the hottest games in Christmas.

If Nintendo doesn’t bring BC to switch 2, it will be for any reason but not a financial one.

GBA, DS and even 3ds had this feature.

And saying that Nintendo didn’t have BC with WiiU/Switch is a bad example. They were jumping that sinking ship.

The Wii U is the only console in history that had almost every single game ported to the next console. They were not trying to resell their games. They were assuming how bad the WiiU was and trying to hide it from the public. And it worked in the end.
 
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TechnicalTip6578 said:
which is why that sounds like a likely move from nintendo to pull, mainly cuz of either they can't do it because different specs and such or they can do it but chooses not to just to save costs
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For you to believe they can't do it, is the same as believing the worlds biggest gpu company is incapable of implementing a bc solution for their own tech.

If it doesn't have BC, it is by choice. And imo it's not worth entertaining that possibility.
 
kvetcha said:
personally, I could do without baseless ‘nintendo gonna nintendo’ nonsense in this thread
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i mean this IS nintendo we're talking about, full of too flawed business moves for both consoles & games so this shouldn't have been a surprise that they won't include BC especially since insiders like Nate & Necro either didn't hear about it or unsure of its existence
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
i mean this IS nintendo we're talking about, full of too flawed business moves for both consoles & games so this shouldn't have been a surprise that they won't include BC especially since insiders like Nate & Necro either didn't hear about it or unsure of its existence
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they have consistently bent over backwards to provide hardware BC In every scenario where it was technically feasible, to the point that they crippled an entire hardware generation to allow for it. T239’s CPU is inherently backward compatible, meaning that your entire argument hinges on whether NVidia, the largest GPU company in the world, can figure out how to provide a translation layer between two of their own GPUs.

speculation should have a basis. this is not the I’m Scared Nintendo is Irrational thread.
 
I'm hoping, and low-key expecting, their BC to be rather seamless. At MOST, forcing a download for shaders compiled on a server when you launch a BC game for the first time.

Next Gen Patches will probably be patches and not entirely seperate "apps", we already have what seems to be evidence of this.

While eShop and Nintendo Switch already have the capability to take a single "SKU", and distribute seperate builds/data depending on the state of the system. Right now this is only really used for region and the seperation between physical and digital titles (which may get different patches applied differently). But because they've had this system in place, where one DRM entitlement can refer to more than one build, it's trivial for them to have that system decide whether to download the Nintendo Switch build, or the Switch 2 build, depending on whether the target system is one or the other.

So that's the two big questions answered re: cross gen. Games that are Nintendo Switch games with NG patches have that system supported. Games that have seperate builds but the same SKU/Application ID have a system of distribution to suit that.

Unless Nintendo's execs make a business decision counter to these, it's reasonable to expect Nintendo to move forward with this Xbox Smart Delivery style compatibility.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't one of the dev kit rumours about how BC was unconfirmed, bc some devs reported that their kits had BC, and others said theirs didn't? Idk how credible that specific rumour was tho. Although it's possible that maybe dev kits without BC were earlier or more basic models
 
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kvetcha said:
they have consistently bent over backwards to provide hardware BC In every scenario where it was technically feasible, to the point that they crippled an entire hardware generation to allow for it. T239’s CPU is inherently backward compatible, meaning that your entire argument hinges on whether NVidia, the largest GPU company in the world, can figure out how to provide a translation layer between two of their own GPUs.
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Source? this is the first time hearing about it
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
Source? this is the first time hearing about it
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There's not much to source here- they're both ARM, with T239 having the newer cores. Within a certain range, ARM architectures are backwards compatible.

Specifically, T239 uses Cortex A78 cores using the ARMv8.2-A 64-bit instruction set, and Tegra X1(+) uses Cortex A57 cores using the ARMv8-A 64-bit instruction set.

It's not even a major version number in the difference- ARMv8.2-A is fully backwards compatible with ARMv8-A.

Here's a source on that since you asked:

community.arm.com

Armv8-A Architecture Evolution

The Arm architecture continues to evolve and Armv8.2-A is the second set of changes being introduced to the Armv8-A architecture profile.
community.arm.com community.arm.com
 
A console that isn’t BC at launch makes no sense, no BC is just for later revisions when there is already a big enough catalog for the console and I doubt it even makes sense if BC is software based.
 
Blue Monty said:
A console that isn’t BC at launch makes no sense, no BC is just for later revisions when there is already a big enough catalog for the console and I doubt it even makes sense if BC is software based.
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Yeah, it's probably always going to be BC with a shared library, but that doesn't discount the possibility of a digital only version.

Just... Yeah, not at launch, obviously.
 
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TechnicalTip6578 said:
well unless we hear anything new about BC for switch 2 from someone reliable (be it good news or not), i'm still going with a realistic mindset that Nintendo won't include BC on Switch 2
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As for the CPU, Nvidia said that T239 uses 8 CPU cores in a single cluster. Nvidia also lists the Cortex-A78C in L4T, the only CPU in the Cortex-A78 family that allows for 8 CPU cores per cluster. (The Cortex-A78 and the Cortex-A78AE only allow for 4 CPU cores per cluster.) And Arm said that Arm v8.2-A, alongside new features and enhancements, are backwards compatible with Arm v8-A, which the Cortex-A57 uses.

And as for the GPU, a dataminer has found that Nintendo's new hardware looks to use a backwards compatibility translation layer/workaround to achieve backwards compatibility.
 
My 2 cent on backwards compatibility would be that it is very likely to happen given the runaway success of the Switch:

They are using Nvidia again and the performance leap is enormous making emulation low effort
The Wii U Deluxe editions strategy was because of the low Wii U install base and I don't see a widespread strategy happening again on the NG
As pointed out above, this generation is about easing as much of that Switch install base into the NG with minimal friction
They make a lot more money from people buying digital games and so showing people they can port their collections over to the new system (along with fast, cheap memory expansion) is a great way to up the digital take rate which would boost their margins dramatically
They already have a subscription model for most of their NES, SNES & N64 properties so they don't lose anything from BC there
They have an opportunity to monetize BC by offering NG performance patches for say $9.99, this would be a Nintendo thing to do imo

The above points don't mean BC is a lock by any means but I think there are many compelling business reasons to do it and minimal technical hurdles
 
Nintendo already did this. The Wii was BC with the GameCube. Down the road they released a Wii which got rid of the BC with GameCube. The DS had GBA BC at launch then later on they released one that didn’t have it. I mean damn already with people trying to bring up a doom scenario which Nintendo hasn’t shown to partake in.
 
Let's flip this on its head.

I 100% believe that Nintendo and Nvidia will work together to produce the best backwards compatability solution out of the big three (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo.)

Firstly because almost every Nintendo handheld has had backwards compatability and the two generations prior to the switch from a home console perspective also had it to the devices detriment. Nintendo has more history with backwards compatability than the other two.

Secondly because Nvidia is providing a level of software support to Nintendo that goes above and beyond what AMD provide. With them providing a lot of the tooling. Nvidia has a reputation for providing better software for their products than AMD for at least a decade. They are the largest GPU company on the planet and are the market leaders for a reason.

Nintendo is an important client to Nvidia, one who has a history of doing everything they can to enable backwards compatability and also to make their legacy software available through NSO or VC. They value their existing software library probably more than any other gaming company on the planet.

Both these companies will put their minds together to provide a solution and I would put money on it being better than even the most positive of us could imagine.
 
ShaunSwitch said:
Let's flip this on its head.

I 100% believe that Nintendo and Nvidia will work together to produce the best backwards compatability solution out of the big three (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo.)

Firstly because almost every Nintendo handheld has had backwards compatability and the two generations prior to the switch from a home console perspective also had it to the devices detriment. Nintendo has more history with backwards compatability than the other two.

Secondly because Nvidia is providing a level of software support to Nintendo that goes above and beyond what AMD provide. With them providing a lot of the tooling. Nvidia has a reputation for providing better software for their products than AMD for at least a decade. They are the largest GPU company on the planet and are the market leaders for a reason.

Nintendo is an important client to Nvidia, one who has a history of doing everything they can to enable backwards compatability and also to make their legacy software available through NSO or VC. They value their existing software library probably more than any other gaming company on the planet.

Both these companies will put their minds together to provide a solution and I would put money on it being better than even the most positive of us could imagine.
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MS really went the extra mile with BC (auto hdr/ fps boost). So I don't expect Nintendo to take the crown, but I do expect their implementation to be very good.
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
so the rumors we're confident of rn are:

-The exclusion of Backwards Compatibility for Switch 2
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Confident?
i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means-princess-bride.gif
 
ramen_shake said:
"Hmm, it's been a bit since i kept up with the thread, I wonder what new and interesting-"

Ahh, like I never left
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We just an interesting trail of discussion were LiC digged a little and dumped every difference between T234 (Orin) and T239 (Drake), alongside confirming that the DLAs were removed from T239. We also talked a bit about DLSS costs and the feasibility of optimized version, about the performance differences between Docked and Portable and why they need to be within a certain margins of each others, Oldpuck also said that the DF video about RTX 2050 power testing is close to being finished, etc...Lots of interesting talking points.

Yet people lap into a baseless rumor about Switch Digital and no BC. Even though we had accounts from within the homebrew community saying that they think Nintendo might have figured out a software BC solution....
 
TechnicalTip6578 said:
i mean isn't it a bit realistic to go with a mindset that nintendo won't include BC on Switch 2?

they do make greedy & even dumb moves after all
Click to expand...
Yeah nintendo makes some dumb decisions sometimes, I will never forget mario superstars and pulling it from the Market less than 1 year from launch. If they dont include bc that would really suck. I hope Nintendo is better than that but yeah they can do dumb shit sometimes
 
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TechnicalTip6578 said:
no, i know what i said and i'm not actually trolling

think about it, before nick said it, no insider talked what they heard about BC either they're unsure of it or silent about it which backs up that BC doesn't exist for switch 2
Click to expand...

I guarantee to you right now, that there is no universe in which Nintendo would spend all the time and money making a brand new highly requested 2D mario game only for it to release it on a platform that is being replaced in the next 12 or so months and not have it be playable on the follow up console, effectively ensuring it only gets a fraction of the sales a 2D mario would be expected to.
 
Ghostsonplanets said:
We just an interesting trail of discussion were LiC digged a little and dumped every difference between T234 (Orin) and T239 (Drake), alongside confirming that the DLAs were removed from T239. We also talked a bit about DLSS costs and the feasibility of optimized version, about the performance differences between Docked and Portable and why they need to be within a certain margins of each others, Oldpuck also said that the DF video about RTX 2050 power testing is close to being finished, etc...Lots of interesting talking points.

Yet people lap into a baseless rumor about Switch Digital and no BC. Even though we had accounts from within the homebrew community saying that they think Nintendo might have figured out a software BC solution....
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Thanks for the cliffnotes. I just think it's funny that we've circled back to the bc argument  again.

Like, come on. There's no indication anywhere that the Switch 2 is gonna be some massive departure from the Switch, and I feel like we'd have heard about a game-changing gimmick by now. There's literally no reason for it not to be backwards compatible, it's an simple way to ensure a smooth transition. At worst they may charge for upgrades like some PS5 games do, but baseline bc that locks performance and resolution is like the most simple way of demonstrating the Switch 2's capabilities for early adopters. Don't gotta overthink it
 
Linkstrikesback said:
I guarantee to you right now, that there is no universe in which Nintendo would spend all the time and money making a brand new highly requested 2D mario game only for it to release it on a platform that is being replaced in the next 12 or so months and not have it be playable on the follow up console, effectively ensuring it only gets a fraction of the sales a 2D mario would be expected to.
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they can release a version of the game for switch 2 next year with extra features and DLSS lol sell you the same game twice. Honestly wouldnt be surprised
 
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Raccoon said:
I disagree. If it's coming out in November I bet we have until about March to hear about an additional hook of some kind
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No, we would've heard about it already from the closed door developer rumors, since the people making games for this thing needs to know what features it has in order to actually use them.
 
InsaneZero said:
No, we would've heard about it already from the closed door developer rumors, since the people making games for this thing needs to know what features it has in order to actually use them.
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I was going off the July 2016 Eurogamer blowout, but I guess the hybrid nature of NX was long-rumored previously. Ah well, fair enough. It's a shame but what can you do
 
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TechnicalTip6578 said:
so the rumors we're confident of rn are:

-Kotick was told Switch 2 is comparable to PS4 & XONE in terms of performance

-The exclusion of Backwards Compatibility for Switch 2
Click to expand...

No and no. BC is almost a 100% given, and Bobby only gave an estimate of what he expected. He was not told or given a look at the specs by the time he had made that statement.
 
Raccoon said:
I disagree. If it's coming out in November I bet we have until about March to hear about an additional hook of some kind
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Honestly, I don't think so (not just because I'm on copium for a May launch). We've heard reports about devkits and demonstrations for a bit now, and they've only really emphasized massive leaps in performance and dlss and whatnot, not really anything about radically new ways to play. If there's gimmicks on Switch 2, which there will be, they'll most likely be less intrusive, like those patents for the magnetic fluid in the joystick that function similarly to the dualsense's adaptive triggers. That kind of gimmick is not really integral for development and would only really be used by internal Nintendo teams for early games using the gimmick ala Arms for demonstrating the joycons. Something massive like VR or whatever doesn't really seem feasible, a simple upgrade is all the Switch 2 really needs to keep an ecosystem for Nintendo going forwards
 
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ns156 said:
No and no. BC is almost a 100% given, and Bobby only gave an estimate of what he expected. He was not told or given a look at the specs by the time he had made that statement.
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I mean it should still be around ps4 power, like no way is it touching ps5 level so I think that is a good guess
 
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