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

[carbvan]

then why the Pokemon games still end up badly?

GameFreak has to coordinate with TPC when making games. This is so that TPC can get the anime, merchandise, etc ready. They're on a pretty tight schedule and once that schedule has been set they can't really change it because delaying the anime, merchandise, etc is such a bad idea financially it might as well not be possible.

 

[Tyrien]

Hey guys I received a warning so you might want to stop. Even though my post was just a response to somebody else derailing the conversation.

 

[VagrantValmar]

Yeah, pokemon sucks now, we can all agree, please stop.

 

[Boxle]

Just to kind of put a cap to the Pokemon section and bring the topic back to where it is. Pokemon is, at least currently, a showcase of what happens when timing is not worked out correctly. I don't think Pokemon is incapable of releasing compelling products, but I think timing is their main issue and if they don't learn from it, they will keep hitting the same wall. The Wii U was also, in my opinion, a showcase of bad timing as well. Nintendo sat on the Wii's success for too long, and the Wii U was positioned as a powerful console just before PS4 and Xbox One came out and demolished it in terms of capabilities. The system had far and few system seller games even multiple years after it came out, let alone the first year. You can blame the Wii U's success on a hollow gimmick or bad advertising, but I think it equally has to do with the timing and management of the console that set the precedent for the rest of the consoles lifetime.

The Switch on the other hand had some great exclusive system sellers (even if some were ports) within the first year of it's release, that worked well as a selling point for the systems main feature set. Nintendo seemingly learned from the Wii U, and developed a compelling library within the first year, and subsequent years. Perhaps even more impressive right now is that Nintendo is still delivering many compelling games in the eve of a new system reveal, which was not the case with the Wii or Wii U (again, opinion).

We might all be chomping at the bit for the next Switch, but I think it's safe to say there are more than a few examples of how important the timing of a system launch is, and it would be foolish of Nintendo to just throw something out there again if there aren't plenty of reasons why it should be released at that time.

 

[mjayer]

Next week.

Spoiler: Right?

Right?

Edit, some actual content:

Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

Apple yesterday announced that it will be holding an online event on Monday, October 30 starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, and there are several...

www.macrumors.com

Looks like apple might actually be getting serious with gaming. This has a 99.9% chance of having nothing to do with Nintendo's next system, other than it will be interesting to see how much juice Apple's 3nm chips are going to deliver if they have a more gaming focus. Oh also MacRumors person tweeted:
"A source informed us that Apple is holding its online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. Pacific Time because it will fall during business hours in Japan, and claimed that the event will include a major tie-in with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information."

So that's spicy!

 

[KeijiKG]

Next week.

Spoiler: Right?

Right?

Edit, some actual content:

Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

Apple yesterday announced that it will be holding an online event on Monday, October 30 starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, and there are several...

www.macrumors.com

Looks like apple might actually be getting serious with gaming. This has a 99.9% chance of having nothing to do with Nintendo's next system, other than it will be interesting to see how much juice Apple's 3nm chips are going to deliver if they have a more gaming focus. Oh also MacRumors person tweeted:
"A source informed us that Apple is holding its online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. Pacific Time because it will fall during business hours in Japan, and claimed that the event will include a major tie-in with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information."

So that's spicy!

Pretty sure the major Japanese game developer is a 3rd party like the Square-enicks or the Capsule Computer.

 

[lemonfresh]

Next week.

In gaming magazines

 

[ReyVGM]

Switch 2 announcement impacting sales is a mute point,

*moot point

Sorry, it bothered me too much.

 

[darthdiablo]

Next week.

Spoiler: Right?

Right?

Edit, some actual content:

Apple Event Next Week Likely to Emphasize High-End Gaming on Mac

Apple yesterday announced that it will be holding an online event on Monday, October 30 starting at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, and there are several...

www.macrumors.com

Looks like apple might actually be getting serious with gaming. This has a 99.9% chance of having nothing to do with Nintendo's next system, other than it will be interesting to see how much juice Apple's 3nm chips are going to deliver if they have a more gaming focus. Oh also MacRumors person tweeted:
"A source informed us that Apple is holding its online event at the unusual time of 5 p.m. Pacific Time because it will fall during business hours in Japan, and claimed that the event will include a major tie-in with a Japanese game developer, but we have not independently confirmed the accuracy of this information."

So that's spicy!

Please not this again, we killed off this discussion many pages ago. Mobile gaming isn't gonna take off.

Honestly how many of you here would rather game on your iPhone? I wouldn't.

Like always, the buzz around mobile gaming is gonna be short lived and fizz out. Nobody who does serious gaming like we do here is gonna want do it on their iPhones.

 

[kvetcha]

Please not this again, we killed off this discussion many pages ago. Mobile gaming isn't gonna take off.

Honestly how many of you here would rather game on your iPhone? I wouldn't.

Like always, the buzz around mobile gaming is gonna be short lived and fizz out. Nobody who does serious gaming like we do here is gonna want do it on their iPhones.

fwiw the event is expected to be more about their computer-grade SOCs.

 

[darthdiablo]

fwiw the event is expected to be more about their computer-grade SOCs.

That crossed my mind too, but then the description of the event mentioned 3nm. Is Apple also going to enter the handheld gaming market? When the description mentioned a major Japanese publisher (thinking maybe Capcom or Square Enix), I also was thinking it's probably just something that will end up on iOS devices (iPhones/IPads), but yeah we shall see.

 

[Tof]

That crossed my mind too, but then the description of the event mentioned 3nm. Is Apple also going to enter the handheld gaming market? When the description mentioned a major Japanese publisher (thinking maybe Capcom or Square Enix), I also was thinking it's probably just something that will end up on iOS devices (iPhones/IPads), but yeah we shall see.

3nm as M3 Pro/Max Chips that have strong GPUs now capable of accelerating Ray tracing workloads?? In a laptop form factor.
Honestly as someone who spends a lot of time watching and discussing Apple products as much or even more than Nintendo products. I really really REALLY wish Apple would genuinely take a real stab at the gaming market. Imagine a gaming handheld with the performance of the current M2 or M3. That’s in the realm of speculated performance of NG (between PS4 and PS4 Pro. I know Apple won’t do this but it would be nice to dream of having a gaming console seamlessly connect with all your other Apple devices in ways we can only begin to imagine.

 

[TLZ]

New OLED bundle with Mario Kart (surprising right? )

Nice. Clean up time.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

One thing that surprised me a little (though it makes sense when you think about it) is that it's WAY easier for DLSS to go from 540p to 1080p then to go from 1080p to 4K. Via: https://github.com/NVIDIA/DLSS/blob/main/doc/DLSS_Programming_Guide_Release.pdf

If the Switch 2 is 7x weaker than the RTX 3070, then this would give a very reasonable 2.87ms DLSS cost in handheld mode and a pretty bad 9.52ms cost in handheld mode to go to 4K. (assuming a reasonable 540p handheld and a not reasonable 1080p docked internal in the first place. 720p to 1440p docked would be 4.62ms in cost which is more than handheld mode, but hopefully the extra power in docked mode could compensate in other ways)

 

[Alovon11]

One thing that surprised me a little (though it makes sense when you think about it) is that it's WAY easier for DLSS to go from 540p to 1080p then to go from 1080p to 4K. Via: https://github.com/NVIDIA/DLSS/blob/main/doc/DLSS_Programming_Guide_Release.pdf

If the Switch 2 is 7x weaker than the RTX 3070, then this would give a very reasonable 2.87ms DLSS cost in handheld mode and a pretty bad 9.52ms cost in handheld mode to go to 4K. (assuming a reasonable 540p handheld and a not reasonable 1080p docked internal in the first place. 720p to 1440p docked would be 4.62ms in cost which is more than handheld mode, but hopefully the extra power in docked mode could compensate in other ways)

Not quite how it works, especailly as there are a multitude of factors to consider as the speed/cost of DLSS can varry (as the chart shows).


So the main thing they'd be targeting IMHO is getting 4K Frametime cost ~<2Ms, whether it be via clocking the GPU high enough to compute it faster, or optimizing the Algorithm of DLSS (NVIDIA Side) to make it faster.

This is primarily because the clocks between Portable and docked would be different, so Docked being powerful enough/the Algorithm being fast enough to compute 4K DLSS would ensure 1080p DLSS Functions well within the frametime needed despite the reduced clocks of portable mode (Portable mode will most likely be between 1.6-2.2TFLOPs)

 

[BreakAtmo]

One thing that surprised me a little (though it makes sense when you think about it) is that it's WAY easier for DLSS to go from 540p to 1080p then to go from 1080p to 4K. Via: https://github.com/NVIDIA/DLSS/blob/main/doc/DLSS_Programming_Guide_Release.pdf

If the Switch 2 is 7x weaker than the RTX 3070, then this would give a very reasonable 2.87ms DLSS cost in handheld mode and a pretty bad 9.52ms cost in handheld mode to go to 4K. (assuming a reasonable 540p handheld and a not reasonable 1080p docked internal in the first place. 720p to 1440p docked would be 4.62ms in cost which is more than handheld mode, but hopefully the extra power in docked mode could compensate in other ways)

Well the handheld mode would be much weaker in turn, so the cost for 1080p DLSS in handheld mode would probably be more like 5ms. But with DLSS Concurrency, either cost should be ok as long as the extra latency isn't too rough. I do hope that Drake has the Lovelace tensor cores, even if the chip is "custom Ampere".

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

derp, forgot to apply the clockspeed difference across modes to DLSS calculations as well.

 

[Alovon11]

The main thing about DLSS's cost, is that the final result is a thing we can't properly predict.

Like, an RTX 3070 and a 4070 have the same exact core count, the only differences are the Architecture, Node, Memory (G6 vs G6X), and the clocks as byproduct.

3070 = 1.36ms at 4K at ~1.7GHz (20TFLOPs) (Assuming standard boost here)
4070 = ???ms at 4K at 2.4GHz (29TFLOPs)

Lovelace allegedly doubled the speed of The Tensor Cores again, So at the same clock it should be 0.67ms at 4K and then 42% faster still as the clocks are 42% faster.

The math here is inherently flawed as DLSS doesn't scale neatly to core count, generation, or clocks. So what determines what is hard to define on what is exactly the thing to focus on in the DLSS Equation.

 

[redmutineer75]

(Portable mode will most likely be between 1.6-2.2TFLOPs)

That's a hell of a range. What clock speeds do each of those extremes correspond to?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

But the thing still remains that it's 3x harder to go from 1080p to 4K than from 540p to 1080p and docked mode would probably only be 2.25x~ stronger.

(And it's doubtful docked gets past 810p)

Assuming that the handheld Switch 2 is around 12x weaker than the RTX 3070, we're looking at around ~5ms for DLSS in handheld mode as a rough estimate, but that's very rough.

Then again, it doesn't look like the speed increases as much as you would expect for each bump in teraflops and tensor cores so it may be less than a 12x jump in processing speed even if the Switch 2 handheld is 12x weaker than the 3070.

 

[Alovon11]

But the thing still remains that it's 3x harder to go from 1080p to 4K than from 540p to 1080p and docked mode would probably only be 2.25x~ stronger.

(And it's doubtful docked gets past 810p)

Assuming that the handheld Switch 2 is around 12x weaker than the RTX 3070, we're looking at around ~5ms for DLSS in handheld mode as a rough estimate, but that's very rough.

You can't just say 12X weaker, TFLOPs don't correlate to DLSS's cost.

Anyway

That's a hell of a range. What clock speeds do each of those extremes correspond to?

Well covering a minimum then a hypothetical maximum like the various modes in docked. But the ~1.6TFLOP number (more like 1.7) is 550MHz.
At that range with how big the GPU is, the slightest increases to clock at the low end vastly increase the TFLOP Value, 1GHz even would be 3TFLOPs. for example

Quirk of a wider design.

 

[Koren Lesthe]

Me : Man, Ray Tracing is still taking a ton of ressources. At least a 4090 RTX might be more than enough for Alan Wake 2.
Remedy : Lol.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Me : Man, Ray Tracing is still taking a ton of ressources. At least a 4090 RTX might be more than enough for Alan Wake 2.
Remedy : Lol.

path tracing is heavy, that's never really gonna change. devs can work around that however, but that's why games like Quake and Minecraft are path traced and why Cyberpunk and Alan Wake need a beefy PC.

it won't be a problem for lighter methods of ray tracing, as we're seeing with mobile RT

 

[TomNookYankees]

But the thing still remains that it's 3x harder to go from 1080p to 4K than from 540p to 1080p and docked mode would probably only be 2.25x~ stronger.

(And it's doubtful docked gets past 810p)

Assuming that the handheld Switch 2 is around 12x weaker than the RTX 3070, we're looking at around ~5ms for DLSS in handheld mode as a rough estimate, but that's very rough.

Then again, it doesn't look like the speed increases as much as you would expect for each bump in teraflops and tensor cores so it may be less than a 12x jump in processing speed even if the Switch 2 handheld is 12x weaker than the 3070.

what about 360p -> 1080p compared to 1080p -> 4K?

 

[ILikeFeet]

what about 360p -> 1080p compared to 1080p -> 4K?

gonna be faster still. someone will have to test the difference in milliseconds for render time or have a paid version of Nsight to tell how much it's cost

 

[Deleted member 887]

Well the handheld mode would be much weaker in turn, so the cost for 1080p DLSS in handheld mode would probably be more like 5ms. But with DLSS Concurrency, either cost should be ok as long as the extra latency isn't too rough. I do hope that Drake has the Lovelace tensor cores, even if the chip is "custom Ampere".

It does not, but there are no gaming benefits to the lovelace tensor cores.

 

[Lancelot]

path tracing is heavy, that's never really gonna change. devs can work around that however, but that's why games like Quake and Minecraft are path traced and why Cyberpunk and Alan Wake need a beefy PC.

it won't be a problem for lighter methods of ray tracing, as we're seeing with mobile RT

I mean, I guess some people don't know but pathtracing is literally how every offline rendering product is lit. 3D Animation, Big Budget movie, TV shows... It's pre-rendered technology being used for real time scenarios, it'll never not be demanding. There's a reason all those things listed rely on extensive render farms which take several hours to just put out 1 frame.

 

[BreakAtmo]

But the thing still remains that it's 3x harder to go from 1080p to 4K than from 540p to 1080p and docked mode would probably only be 2.25x~ stronger.

Just something to keep in mind that whole those numbers are from tests where they used a quarter of the resolution, the internal res doesn't affect the DLSS cost, only the final image quality. You probably already know this, I just wanted it to be clear to others since I've heard it brought up before.

It does not, but there are no gaming benefits to the lovelace tensor cores.

Really? What are the benefits? Are they only useful for things like professional AI research?

 

[ILikeFeet]

at the Star Citizen event, they shown off their RT GI solution, which is based on AMD's solution, built around screen space probes (25K of them) and world space cache





there are a lot of solutions out there of various quality and render times for Nintendo to choose from if they decide their game could use one. this might be an AMD derived solution, but as we seen from FSR and other solutions, Nintendo likes open sources solutions if they're available. the Star Citizen solution looks great, but it remains to be be seen how it scales, but that shouldn't be a problem when tuning it for a single piece of hardware

Really? What are the benefits? Are they only useful for things like professional AI research?

there's a point where faster TC don't net you much more performance. and the Lovelace TCs add support for aspects that aren't really used in DLSS

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

what about 360p -> 1080p compared to 1080p -> 4K?

I don't know how the docked version would get to 1080p if handheld was 360p though.

(360p to 1080p is also much more questionable)

Ultra performance for FSR2 is a bit cheaper than Performance FSR2, but FSR2 is very different from DLSS and isn't a neural network.

 

[D36]

He’s on medical leave.

Hope he's doing alright.

 

[D36]

Is this user reliable? I am not aware that the company FineMTec is related to the development of Nintendo Switch and Nintendo [REDACTED].

Late once again, but they're a notorious faker, so no.

 

[D36]

How thick would be a foldable switch 2? Can we imagine twice as mush as the og switch or there is room for improvement?

When you say foldable, do you mean a clamshell design or those foldable smartphones? Because the latter would be unfeasible for obvious reasons, while the former may need to be not only thicker, but also smaller. You'd have to get rid of the Joy-Cons and even the dock, at that point. (Assuming that's what you were referring to, anyway)

 

[Bowser Sr.]

Pardon in advance for my technological cluelessness, but with all of these Switch 2 rumors in mind, should we expect the machine to be significantly heavier than the current model? The Switch is kind of the limit of "wrist straining heavy" for me and if it gets any heavier I think it would end up being a TV-console-only system for me, which would be a shame.

 

[Andre3333456]

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-patent-detachable-dual-screen-gaming-device/

Nintendo filed a patent that looks like it is a successor to the DS and the Switch but it's likely not going to happen at all which it is just pretty sad.

 

[carbvan]

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-patent-detachable-dual-screen-gaming-device/

Nintendo filed a patent that looks like it is a successor to the DS and the Switch but it's likely not going to happen at all which it is just pretty sad.

Yeah it makes sense that the patent is out there and they're not going forward with this concept. They'd need a second screen somewhere in docked mode and I can't imagine that would be cheap.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Pardon in advance for my technological cluelessness, but with all of these Switch 2 rumors in mind, should we expect the machine to be significantly heavier than the current model? The Switch is kind of the limit of "wrist straining heavy" for me and if it gets any heavier I think it would end up being a TV-console-only system for me, which would be a shame.

The current rumor says the screen is bigger and it's a LCD. So i'd expect the device to be slightly bigger and thus a bit more heavier. However, we're talking about Nintendo here. They always had user experience, comfort and interaction with their handhelds in mind when designing them, even with some misses here and there. Given Switch and Nintendo caters to a wider userbase, from childs to seniors, I expect Nintendo to engineer something that it will still be comfortable and lightweight to use. I don't think we'll see some weights monsters like SteamDeck, ROG Ally, Lenovo GO, etc.

 

[lemonfresh]

if the switch 2 is going to have a lcd screen and be heavier might as well wait until a revision tbh unless there are must play titles that I really need to play, prime 4 will come to switch 1 so I'm good with that I can wait for a new mario cause I had my fix with wonder and can wait for a while to play a new one and smash isnt a day 1 game for me and it might just be a enhanced port anyways

 

[majimazio]

What the Switch 2 needs is a TV mode-only model.
The rumors of a digital-only model are very silly and the cartridge reader is a cheap component unlike the disk drive.
Eliminating the screen and battery would answer the needs of gamers who want to get it inexpensively or don't need a handheld.

 

[Individualised]

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-patent-detachable-dual-screen-gaming-device/

Nintendo filed a patent that looks like it is a successor to the DS and the Switch but it's likely not going to happen at all which it is just pretty sad.

Is it normal that Nintendo files a bunch of these patents around the same time?

Yes, I know this means that the concept is not going to be used, but judging by past patents (such as the one for INDY) it probably means they were considering or developing such a product before. So again this could be related to Switch 2 like the other patent I asked about already, even if only representative of an earlier revision of it.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Is it normal that Nintendo files a bunch of these patents around the same time?

Yes, I know this means that the concept is not going to be used, but judging by past patents (such as the one for INDY) it probably means they were considering or developing such a product before. So again this could be related to Switch 2 like the other patent I asked about already, even if only representative of an earlier revision of it.

yes it's not unusual

and not, it doesn't necessarily mean they're related to switch 2. it could be that they had done a lot of prototyping of various concepts for various reasons. they have patents of things that would never realistically see the light of day

 

[Individualised]

and not, it doesn't necessarily mean they're related to switch 2. it could be that they had done a lot of prototyping of various concepts for various reasons. they have patents of things that would never realistically see the light of day

This is true, I honestly forget how many almost nonsense patents Nintendo file but I had a quick look and this doesn't seem all that interesting now.

The other patent from a while ago still intrigues me though. Unlike these "spam" patents that Nintendo file it does not seem to be referring to a specific concept, it's just a patent for a console design like they do for actual released systems. Even makes reference to mundane things such as the home button being on the bottom of the system. That makes me think that it was for something that actually existed as a product that was being developed and not just a concept.

 

[Foltzie]

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-patent-detachable-dual-screen-gaming-device/

Nintendo filed a patent that looks like it is a successor to the DS and the Switch but it's likely not going to happen at all which it is just pretty sad.

Boy do I dislike the news cites that take the picture, but don't cite the patent language or the patent number.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Cyberpunk's/NVIDIA's old denoiser had a runtime cost of 2.72 ms at 1440p on a 3090 at best quality.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354065087_ReBLUR_A_Hierarchical_Recurrent_Denoiser

So we can estimate that RR runs somewhat faster than this, but unclear how much faster as there are very few docs on it yet. The cost presented here by ReBlur is obviously far too high to be viable at all for the Switch 2, we'll see how lean RR can get on more limited ray-tracing situations.

 

[chocolate_supra]

New OLED bundle with Mario Kart (surprising right? )

hOLEDay bundle

 

[ReyVGM]

if the switch 2 is going to have a lcd screen and be heavier might as well wait until a revision tbh unless there are must play titles that I really need to play, prime 4 will come to switch 1 so I'm good with that I can wait for a new mario cause I had my fix with wonder and can wait for a while to play a new one and smash isnt a day 1 game for me and it might just be a enhanced port anyways

Missing:
, . '

 

[carbonaxiom]

I think discussions of game engine falls squarely within the purview of the thread, and that inevitably will mean some game play discussion, but yeah, there is a place for that discussion.

I realize that at some point the Tech Detectives sorta made this thread our home, in what was probably back in Era a more far ranging discussion, but now that it's a whole Nintendo site,I think we can afford to separate them.

I don't play Pokemon - I bought Arcaeus to try to get into it, but I honestly didn't understand the gameplay, and the game seemed to have no interest in teaching me, so we parted ways. But the signs of rushed production are everywhere, and that was miles ahead of SV, technically. I'm not sure it's even a lack of technical acumen, it's a lack of manpower and schedule management. If you've worked in software dev, you can see it everywhere.

There is something called "Zero Bug Methodology." If you've written more than 3 lines of code, you know that all software has bugs. It's actually provable as a mathematical point, bug-free code is impossible. But in a zero bug world, it means that bugs discovered during development always always always have priority over features, no matter how small. Features are what define the schedule for software, especially when you're starting out. The regions need to be this big, there are this many cut scenes, there are these pokemon, it needs to be open world... you build the schedule around delivering those featuers.

When you have a tight schedule, it's tempting to keep the train moving on features, and only fix bugs as needed to keep the schedule up, or trying to triage bugs into major and minor, and only work on major ones, saving minor ones for "free time" that never comes, or for post-release support, or a final wave of bug fixing during the "optimization" phase.

This is terrible. Bugs are easiest to fix the moment you discover them, because they're likely related to a change you just made, easily found, and that you still understand. The impact of a bug is hard to measure - two minor bugs can interact to create a major bug. And the longer bugs persist in a system, the more likely they are to become load bearing.

There is a bug in a piece of software I use daily - a very minor one on paper, but that can occasionally cause disastrous problems. We know exactly what we need to do to fix it. But we can't, because there are hundreds of known parts of the system that have accidentally depended on the buggy behavior. This is incredibly common - we talk about bugs or outdated systems being "technical debt". Over time, just like financial debt, technical debt accrues interest.

As long as GameFreak is operating on the current schedule, and reusing their engine, they will never have time to pay down their debt and the situation will get worse instead of better. Instead of maturing into increased stability and "annoying but well documented and understood" cruftiness, the GF engine is collapsing under it's own weight. Hiring the greatest game engine programmers on the planet will not fix a project management issue.

For what it's worth, Pokemon Legends: Arceus is precisely the one example of GameFreak attempting to fix the fundamental issues with their bloated game engine and processes. I don't know if anyone has narrowed down how much of Arceus' engine is new vs. all other Pokemon games, but given that development on the game started in the Fall of 2018, before Sword/Shield released, and more than a year before Scarlet/Violet began development in 2019, it's not a stretch to say that the game had more fixes in the "underlying issues" department than other Pokemon games.

It definitely makes use of the Havok Physics Engine, which is one of those curmudgeonly well documented and understood engines. You still need to put a lot of time into fixing bugs regardless of what you use Havok for, which the development of Arceus perhaps didn't do enough of (Breath of the Wild is an example of a game that did), but since this was the first time a Pokemon game used this engine I take it as an acknowledgment from GameFreak of the fundamental work that needs to be done. Hopefully a continuation of this work will start showing up in future games.

 

[Terrell]

That's not going to happen. Transistor Scaling and general "Moore Law" curve for most of the industry has died. Things are getting more expensive or remaining the same price and macroeconomic situation aren't favourable for the foreseeable future. Sucks, but it is what it is. The times of GameCube or X360 getting a lot of price cuts is long gone.

Besides, Nintendo already provides a damaged goods option for those without greater income. It's called Switch Lite.

This is… not precisely true?
Moore’s law is effectively (if not actually-factually) dead, that is true, so is the idea that a $99 console is not achievable with mere part cost reductions and is going to involve taking things out of hardware to facilitate that pricepoint, but what that means isn’t that costs cannot move down. Moore's law is simply running up against Rock's law (aka Moore's 2nd law), which stipulates the initial costs of semiconductor fabrication facilities for new nodes double every 4 years (while it stopped for a bit in the 90s and 2000s and led to much of our modern gadgetification and the race to bigger and better performance, Rock's law looks to have poked its head out again in the 2010s and especially the 2020s).

The newest process nodes have higher costs because of Rock's law, with companies like TSMC using early customer orders for the newest nodes to help pay down a large part of the cost for the fab. As time moves on, costs for making chips on those process nodes do decrease, but they would have a higher floor for cost than chips that came before and take a bit longer to reach that floor due to amortization of the costs of building the fab stretching that timeframe out more than in the past. And any of the potential costs saved through newer nodes is eaten up by new chip designs to maximize performance at similar die sizes (because software creators try to pretend Wirth's law - which states software becomes slower and more cumbersome at a greater rate than hardware performance increases - does not exist; this is especially true in video games, constantly trying to outstrip hardware capabilities as they are). What this means is that new nodes that once took 10-15 years to reach rock-bottom prices will now likely take 20-25 and will likely settle at a higher cost for rock bottom when it gets there when adjusted for inflation, but they do still come down in price over time and through economies of scale.

When taking a pre-existing design on a "larger" process node to a "smaller" process node with no additions, so long as your binned chip rate is the same or lower, you absolutely save money on silicon used, as the die size will shrink and they can produce more chips per silicon wafer. Silicon use (and waste) is the other major factors regarding costs. Combined with continued cost reductions for the exact same chip over 4+ years on a "smaller" process node to achieve economies of scale, there is a savings there, it's just not as good of a savings as in the past. But that savings on smaller processes is precisely why TSMC is trying to move as many chips as they can off of ancient nodes (like the 350-45nm ones) and onto 28nm (building a bunch of new capacity for it that was meant to roll out this year), because silicon is a pricey commodity and 28nm is now an incredibly cost-effective planar node that can produce more in less time and with less silicon.

So yeah, long story short Nintendo has seen significant cost reductions on Tegra X1s since 2017, between the shrink from 20nm to 16nm and just time in the refinement of the manufacturing process causing a reduction in cost on an older node that has seen more of the fab's costs recovered. This is the singular reason PS5s with the 6nm die shrink (and PS5 Slim) exist right now, die shrinks are cost-saving measures. And the same is very likely to be true for their next hardware cycle.
As to why that cost savings was not passed down to the consumer if it was substantial enough, that's simple: in a prior statement by Kimishima, he stated Nintendo made their aim of the Switch hardware cycle to recover all the projected revenue they didn't make in the prior WiiU/3DS cycle and shore up cash reserves in preparation to meet future needs.

 

[Toasty]

Please not this again, we killed off this discussion many pages ago. Mobile gaming isn't gonna take off.

Honestly how many of you here would rather game on your iPhone? I wouldn't.

Like always, the buzz around mobile gaming is gonna be short lived and fizz out. Nobody who does serious gaming like we do here is gonna want do it on their iPhones.

Not as the main interaction with gaming but you really see no interesting factor in having a purchase propagate across the entire platform and allow you to play on your iMac and then pick back up on your phone? If we’re being honest, with something like the Razor Kishi if the iPhone had more console quality games it wouldn’t inherently be too different from a switch in portable mode.

 

[Νεφέλωμα]

Gaming is trending towards hybrid concepts and platforms instead of generations (which still exist of course) by influence of mobile technology. Smartphones have been popular for "only" 10 years, so it's no surprise other branches of computing are still feeling its influence. Every company is choosing some form of hybrid gaming, cause people want to play on the go, or at least have the option. And hardware developed for mobile is more efficient. Nintendo chose the pure hardware route of making a portable easy to connect to a TV. Xbox is choosing the cloud to make your phone, laptop and/or PC your everything console. Apple, wanting to invest into games, is using their tight ecosystem of computers and phones to make a platform of hardware that plays the same games. And Sony is testing the waters with the PSPortal, and no doubt they are experimenting in the back some hybrid strategies.