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

[ILikeFeet]

Remember that Alps Alpine patent for an electromagnetic thumbstick that seems to depict the Joy-Con analog stick? There is a new Alps Alpine patent for a clickable circle pad:

I'm not sure if the Steam Deck, GPD, or Aya Neo got enough volume for Alps Alpine to design a new circle pad. Therefore, unless MS, Sony, or Apple is secretly developing a gaming handheld, Nintendo might be the intended client. Could it be for an updated Lite model? That Japanese retail buyer did cryptically tweeted about raising the handheld mode resolution of Xenoblade titles. I shudder to think that instead of Drake, Nintendo would release another weird half-step upgrade (like the OLED Model) to slightly improves the graphic quality of Lite.

Or it may simply be an R&D prototype. Nothing to see here.

probably just prototyping to have more options available to clients

that said, I didn't hate circle pads like a lot of other people. a clickable circle pad sounds really bitchin, especially for a Drake Lite

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I don't see the benefit of them doing that and starting a months long shitstorm. For them anyway. I can see why it would be for our benefit though. I bet the leaks would be fast and furious once Nintendo actually acknowledges its existence.

It would be to get ahead of leaks and set the market expectations and shifting them to the next platform. Usually for a leak to happen it’s because whatever it is was shown after production starts.

Microsoft and Sony announced and showed the console before they started production, and got ahead of that I think. I know Microsoft did with the Series X that is.

Can’t remember if series S was shown at all in any pre-prod leaks for its casing. Or if Sony did reveal it in June or not….

 

[Vanillalite]

It would be to get ahead of leaks and set the market expectations and shifting them to the next platform. Usually for a leak to happen it’s because whatever it is was shown after production starts.

Microsoft and Sony announced and showed the console before they started production, and got ahead of that I think. I know Microsoft did with the Series X that is.

Can’t remember if series S was shown at all in any pre-prod leaks for its casing. Or if Sony did reveal it in June or not….

MS had a big separate Series S reveal where they invited everyone to MS to talk with the hardware team and then were like btw we have this OTHER console.

 

[beaglor]

I really hope there's some kind of interface innovation with this machine. If Nintendo is going to be pretty much the only publisher that won't put their games on PC, I'd like to see continued justification for that beyond them thinking it's the best way to make a lot of money.
Gimme some rotary analog sticks/rotary shoulder buttons. Dials would be useful for quick-selecting items/weapons or turning a character in a first or third person shooter without using up a whole stick. Games like Xybots/Midnight Resistance/Forgotten Worlds and Nintendo's own Sheriff showed this can be fun. The original programmable console - the Fairchild Channel F had a rotary stick with a button on it.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

I really hope there's some kind of interface innovation with this machine. If Nintendo is going to be pretty much the only publisher that won't put their games on PC, I'd like to see continued justification for that beyond them thinking it's the best way to make a lot of money.
Gimme some rotary analog sticks/rotary shoulder buttons. Dials would be useful for quick-selecting items/weapons or turning a character in a first or third person shooter without using up a whole stick. Games like Xybots/Midnight Resistance/Forgotten Worlds and Nintendo's own Sheriff showed this can be fun. The original programmable console - the Fairchild Channel F had a rotary stick with a button on it.

I don’t see any of those being implemented at a hardware level from Nintendo nor do I see how not being on PC would need some form of justification with a new machine beyond the obvious.

 

[Hermii]

I really hope there's some kind of interface innovation with this machine. If Nintendo is going to be pretty much the only publisher that won't put their games on PC, I'd like to see continued justification for that beyond them thinking it's the best way to make a lot of money.
Gimme some rotary analog sticks/rotary shoulder buttons. Dials would be useful for quick-selecting items/weapons or turning a character in a first or third person shooter without using up a whole stick. Games like Xybots/Midnight Resistance/Forgotten Worlds and Nintendo's own Sheriff showed this can be fun. The original programmable console - the Fairchild Channel F had a rotary stick with a button on it.

In a capitalist society, that’s the only justification any company needs.

 

[beaglor]

In a capitalist society, that’s the only justification any company needs.

shrug In a capitalist society, you still need to differentiate your hardware. ofc software is what does that, but you can further differentiate your software with unique hardware ideas. They've done that the last, what, five systems? It would be a shame if they broke that combo, is all I'm saying.

I don’t see any of those being implemented at a hardware level from Nintendo nor do I see how not being on PC would need some form of justification with a new machine beyond the obvious.

I'm just spitballing - but that's a withered technology that's waiting to be brought back and I don't see anyone else doing it. It's just an example of something that would make sense.
Failing that ...

https://www.popsci.com/uploads/2019/03/18/DTV5SPCUIZO2ZFEL4QB6TZSO6U.jpg

Do it you cowards!

 

[ShaunSwitch]

I'm not sure if this is something we would see on a switch 2 but a re-engineered circle pad would be a great option for a number of reasons.

The small analogue sticks on the switch are less than ideal when it comes to requiring any kind of precision. It's common knowledge that greater range of motion enables greater accuracy, it's the reason people add rubber grips to heighten analogue sticks and why the mouse reigns supreme when it comes to FPS titles. The range of motion of those tiny thumb sticks is extremely limited.

Nintendo can't release joy con's with larger sticks as that causes issues when transporting it. How many owners throw their switch in a bag? Sticks the protrude too much from a console that is portable are at risk of being damaged which opens up Nintendo for liability again.

The circle pad solves both these issues and I have found myself wishing Nintendo had stuck with them. With some tweaks to the level of tension on the circle pads return to center, added click, and an increased range of motion vs the 3ds I can see them being a vastly superior option to a tiny little joy stick. Maybe even go with an electromagnetic circle pad, who knows.

Who is up for a giant version of the rubber nub from the RHS of the new 3ds?

 

[RennanNT]

Since we're slow on news... I believe this news was already brought up here months ago, but there's a part I don't remember being mentioned:

Nvidia's GPU-powered AI is creating chips with 'better than human design'

So, it's using AI accelerated by its GPUs to accelerate its GPU development.

www.pcgamer.com

Perhaps the most interesting of all the use cases Dally explains is in automating standard cell migration. Okay, it doesn't sound all that interesting, but it actually is. Essentially, it's a way of automating the process of migrating a cell, like a fundamental building block of a computer chip, to a newer process node.

"This does two things for us. One is it’s a huge labor saving. It’s a group on the order of 10 people will take the better part of a year to port a new technology library. Now we can do it with a couple of GPUs running for a few days. Then the humans can work on those 8 percent of the cells that didn’t get done automatically. And in many cases, we wind up with a better design as well. So it’s labor savings and better than human design."

NVidia is using machine learning to greatly reduce labor on process node migration.

Could this open up possibilities which would be otherwise not worth the R&D cost? For example:

• Releasing 2 Drake models on different process nodes to workaround limited capacity.
• Slim model(s) releasing late in the lifecycle.
• Nintendo using T1++ for the successor instead of Drake, because Nintendo. /jk

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

shrug In a capitalist society, you still need to differentiate your hardware. ofc software is what does that, but you can further differentiate your software with unique hardware ideas. They've done that the last, what, five systems? It would be a shame if they broke that combo, is all I'm saying.

I'm just spitballing - but that's a withered technology that's waiting to be brought back and I don't see anyone else doing it. It's just an example of something that would make sense.
Failing that ...

https://www.popsci.com/uploads/2019/03/18/DTV5SPCUIZO2ZFEL4QB6TZSO6U.jpg

Do it you cowards!

See this picture would work better then technology no one is frankly using in the previous post.

 

[ShadowFox08]

Since we're slow on news... I believe this news was already brought up here months ago, but there's a part I don't remember being mentioned:

Nvidia's GPU-powered AI is creating chips with 'better than human design'

So, it's using AI accelerated by its GPUs to accelerate its GPU development.

www.pcgamer.com

NVidia is using machine learning to greatly reduce labor on process node migration.

Could this open up possibilities which would be otherwise not worth the R&D cost? For example:

• Releasing 2 Drake models on different process nodes to workaround limited capacity.
• Slim model(s) releasing late in the lifecycle.
• Nintendo using T1++ for the successor instead of Drake, because Nintendo. /jk

They're not gonna release two different nodes of Drake at the same time.

Since the chip itself is going to be small, in theory it should be as hard to find as an x box series s, not x series x or PS5. Might even have more yield actually.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Nintendo using T1++ for the successor instead of Drake, because Nintendo. /jk

Objectively speaking, this is the most correct and only option of course.




On a more serious note, this should in theory massively reduce the R&D for swapping node mid development if it happened.

 

[SiG]

Since we're slow on news... I believe this news was already brought up here months ago, but there's a part I don't remember being mentioned:

Nvidia's GPU-powered AI is creating chips with 'better than human design'

So, it's using AI accelerated by its GPUs to accelerate its GPU development.

www.pcgamer.com

NVidia is using machine learning to greatly reduce labor on process node migration.

Could this open up possibilities which would be otherwise not worth the R&D cost? For example:

• Releasing 2 Drake models on different process nodes to workaround limited capacity.
• Slim model(s) releasing late in the lifecycle.
• Nintendo using T1++ for the successor instead of Drake, because Nintendo. /jk

So, is this like the case of the "Infinite Improbability Drive" from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

 

[RennanNT]

They're not gonna release two different nodes of Drake at the same time.

Since the chip itself is going to be small, in theory it should be as hard to find as an x box series s, not x series x or PS5. Might even have more yield actually.

I don't find it likely myself, but I wouldn't use Microsoft as the basis for this, they likely benefited from having contracts made before the pandemic and Nintendo is probably aiming to sell significantly more than MS.

 

[ShadowFox08]

I don't find it likely myself, but I wouldn't use Microsoft as the basis for this, they likely benefited from having contracts made before the pandemic and Nintendo is probably aiming to sell significantly more than MS.

Yeah contracts do come into play, but I use MS as an example because companies can get a lot of more yield out of smaller chips vs bigger chips. It's one of the main reasons why there's lot more series s (like 2x as many?) available than X and PS5.

So I would be surprised if Switch 2 is as hard or harder to find than current gen when it comes out.

 

[10k]

I’ve been on team Q1 2023 for awhile but the smoke seems to be pointing to a Q4 2022 release. I’m all for it.

 

[Hosermess]

and what smoke would that be? (other than the Direct/investor meeting wishcasting i don't know what else there would be )

 

[Hermii]

I’ve been on team Q1 2023 for awhile but the smoke seems to be pointing to a Q4 2022 release. I’m all for it.

What smoke?

 

[Dark Cloud]

I’ve been on team Q1 2023 for awhile but the smoke seems to be pointing to a Q4 2022 release. I’m all for it.

Please tell us all about the smoke.

 

[Shiba]

and what smoke would that be? (other than the Direct/investor meeting wishcasting i don't know what else there would be )

It’s 10k. So don’t believe a word they say.

 

[Bosintang]

and what smoke would that be?

What smoke?

I'm not sure discussing drugs is allowed here

 

[mjayer]

Please tell us all about the smoke.

 

[RennanNT]

Yeah contracts do come into play, but I use MS as an example because companies can get a lot of more yield out of smaller chips vs bigger chips. It's one of the main reasons why there's lot more series s (like 2x as many?) available than X and PS5.

So I would be surprised if Switch 2 is as hard or harder to find than current gen when it comes out.

Yeah, better yields will help and MS made quite a bit more consoles than they would without XSS, but I really doubt it's anywhere near 2x. If Series had outsold PS5, Phil would have told us most likely, and if it had greatly outdone it, then he would absolutely not be quiet about it.

What most likely is happening is a combination of scalpers not interested, enthusiasts waiting for XSX/PS5 and MS prioritizing some markets more than Sony, leading to we seeing and hearing about XSS on shelves often and giving the impression the global stock is far better than it actually is.

And with 12 SM, chances are that Drake isn't that smaller (if at all) than XSS SoC, so the difference in yields between them would depend on how much they will be pushing Drake clocks.

 

[Skittzo]

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Should be noted that the GPU and CPU will not be clocked high enough to be so concerned with yields even on 5nm, 7nm or 8nm

 

[ShadowFox08]

Yeah, better yields will help and MS made quite a bit more consoles than they would without XSS, but I really doubt it's anywhere near 2x. If Series had outsold PS5, Phil would have told us most likely, and if it had greatly outdone it, then he would absolutely not be quiet about it.

What most likely is happening is a combination of scalpers not interested, enthusiasts waiting for XSX/PS5 and MS prioritizing some markets more than Sony, leading to we seeing and hearing about XSS on shelves often and giving the impression the global stock is far better than it actually is.

And with 12 SM, chances are that Drake isn't that smaller (if at all) than XSS SoC, so the difference in yields between them would depend on how much they will be pushing Drake clocks.

X series S outsold PS5 by 2x last month in Japan for a week. It may or may not not be 2x as many yields, but it's pretty significant. X series is cheaper than ps5, but Japan usually goes for Sony over MS by a large margin.

Xbox Series S Outsold The PS5 By More Than Double In Japan Last Week - PlayStation Universe

According Famitsu's sales report, Microsoft's Xbox Series S alone sold more than double the number of Sony PlayStation 5 consoles from May 9 to 15.

www.psu.com

 

[Blue Monty]

X series S outsold PS5 by 2x last month in Japan for a week. It may or may not not be 2x as many yields, but it's pretty significant. X series is cheaper than ps5, but Japan usually goes for Sony over MS by a large margin.

Xbox Series S Outsold The PS5 By More Than Double In Japan Last Week - PlayStation Universe

According Famitsu's sales report, Microsoft's Xbox Series S alone sold more than double the number of Sony PlayStation 5 consoles from May 9 to 15.

www.psu.com

That was in huge part because Sony sent almost all their japanese stock for Golden Week (japan holidays) the two weeks before that week which resulted in close to 0 PS5 stock, usually PS5 has around at least 6 times the stock it had that week

 

[Hermii]

I would imagine the series s physical size, is a big selling point in Japan.

 

[RennanNT]

X series S outsold PS5 by 2x last month in Japan for a week. It may or may not not be 2x as many yields, but it's pretty significant. X series is cheaper than ps5, but Japan usually goes for Sony over MS by a large margin.

Xbox Series S Outsold The PS5 By More Than Double In Japan Last Week - PlayStation Universe

According Famitsu's sales report, Microsoft's Xbox Series S alone sold more than double the number of Sony PlayStation 5 consoles from May 9 to 15.

www.psu.com

That's just 1 week and a huge outlier.

Here are the latest numbers in Japan, if you look at the LTD, PS5 is outselling XBS by over 7x:

Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2022 (Jun 06 - Jun 12)

Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2022 (Jun 06 - Jun 12) 01./00. [NSW] Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles # (Aniplex) {2022.06.09} (¥6.800) 02./00. [NSW] Mario Strikers: Battle League (Nintendo) {2022.06.10} (¥5.980) 03./01. [NSW] Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)...

www.installbaseforum.com

 

[ILikeFeet]

I would imagine the series s physical size, is a big selling point in Japan.

not that big of a selling point given how it is selling, shortages notwithstanding

 

[Blue Monty]

That's just 1 week and a huge outlier.

Here are the latest numbers in Japan, if you look at the LTD, PS5 is outselling XBS by over 7x:

Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2022 (Jun 06 - Jun 12)

Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2022 (Jun 06 - Jun 12) 01./00. [NSW] Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles # (Aniplex) {2022.06.09} (¥6.800) 02./00. [NSW] Mario Strikers: Battle League (Nintendo) {2022.06.10} (¥5.980) 03./01. [NSW] Nintendo Switch Sports (Nintendo)...

www.installbaseforum.com

Xbox Series had the worst launch of any mainstream console ever in Japan so it isn't really fair, if we want to compare stock is probably better to just compare YTD.
XBS: 103K
PS5: 467K
Is more like x4 times more, but still Japan is a market Xbox is neglicting compared to Europe/NA so isn't a good mesure of stock sent in general for Xbox while for PS5 is slighty more stock than it should get using PS4 numbers but losing even more Japan isn't a thing SIE can let happen atm

 

[RennanNT]

Xbox Series had the worst launch of any mainstream console ever in Japan so it isn't really fair, if we want to compare stock is probably better to just compare YTD.
XBS: 103K
PS5: 467K
Is more like x4 times more, but still Japan is a market Xbox is neglicting compared to Europe/NA so isn't a good mesure of stock sent in general for Xbox while for PS5 is slighty more stock than it should get using PS4 numbers but losing even more Japan isn't a thing SIE can let happen atm

The point wasn't to compare stock, but illustrate that we shouldn't extrapolate worldwide manufactured units from one market sales/stock. Sony didn't make 7x consoles than MS, but they have allocated 7x more stock to Japan since launch. We can use YTD and 4x if you want, but the result is the same: Sony and MS have different stock allocation strategies and Sony prioritized Japan more than MS, regardless of which company made more consoles in total.

 

[CullenLX87]

 

[Dakhil]

Orin's on the left.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Orin's on the left.

I'm impressed by the size given the specs (4096 gpu cores). I guess those 12 cpu cores take up a good deal of space relative to the gpu in Orin

 

[Cuzizkool]

Orin's on the left.

sometimes I wonder what hardware would result if Apple bought Nintendo. :dodges stones:

I mean I don’t WANT it to happen, but can you imagine a Switch powered by M2? Where budget for hardware R&D is (virtually) no object?

 

[karmitt]

I was just thinking…

Drake is going to release and I’ll bet that the revision vs successor discussion will continue. There’s going to be just enough ambiguity around it that we’ll literally never have an answer that satisfies everybody.

 

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Increasing number of headlines about falling consumer demand, especially in electronics. Chip shortage should ease sooner than people think.

Also this: for you techies

Samsung expected to announce mass production of 3nm chip next week | Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, June 22 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to announce mass production...

en.yna.co.kr

 

[Crusters]

To me, it wouldn't be surprising if Nintendo is doing or incentiving R&D on improving the circle pad, even if they ultimately don't like it enough and stick with sticks for all models.

Even without accounting how much they had to pay to replace drifting joy cons, circle pads would allow them to:

• Release a clam shell "Switch Pocket"
• Have the next Lite or any other smaller model to fit in the dock

And while I prefer the joy con stick over 3DS circle pads, it doesn't means the circle pads can't be improved to feel just as good or maybe better even.

I remember when I saw the joycon analog taken apart and figured out the design flaw (it's from combining rocker sticks to a linear pot), I made a bunch of polls on different websites and asked people if they would like a fixed joycon, but it was a circle slide pad, instead of a rocker stick..... And every single one overwhelmingly preferred to keep dealing with the drift situation rather than switch to the circle slider.

I really had no idea the circle slider was so disliked.

 

[Crusters]

Circle pads aren’t necessarily better fwiw when drifting comes into a concern.

Compared to other normal carbon resistor pots of comparable build quality? No better. No worse, well pot function wise. Lotta people really prefer rockers.

Compared to Nintendo's rocker stick, that mechanically translates rotational motion into shorter ranged linear motion, onto a really whacked out linear pot design with super fat pads, and super skinny sliders?

Pretty much anything is superior. Well pot wise. Have I mentioned People REALLY like having rocker sticks?

It's basically a tool for consistently increasing the resistance of a carbon resistor by reducing it's mass and increasing the complexity of it's cross section in a shocking amount of units. (Point of reference for shocking is considering the average defect rate is typically 3-4%)

 

[Deleted member 645]

I was just thinking…

Drake is going to release and I’ll bet that the revision vs successor discussion will continue. There’s going to be just enough ambiguity around it that we’ll literally never have an answer that satisfies everybody.

I think the naming will answer this whether we like the answer we get or not.

 

[Deleted member 645]

sometimes I wonder what hardware would result if Apple bought Nintendo. :dodges stones:

I mean I don’t WANT it to happen, but can you imagine a Switch powered by M2? Where budget for hardware R&D is (virtually) no object?

Literally drooling at the thought. GameCube was ahead of it’s time. I just want Nintendo to give us competitive power hardware just one more time.

 

[Crusters]

Orin's on the left.

Ah yes, aquagreen vs lilac.

So what is that, the 17 billion transistor orin and the 20 billion transistor M2?
the difference in transistor count between these two is literally like a billion more than the entire switch soc transistor count.

 

[Alovon11]

Ah yes, aquagreen vs lilac.

So what is that, the 17 billion transistor orin and the 20 billion transistor M2?
the difference in transistor count between these two is literally like a billion more than the entire switch soc transistor count.

Yeah, although being on a MUUUUCH smaller node lets them cram in a GPU that has more than double the theoretical TFLOPs in that die space.

NVIDIA could very well likely fit a 3060 Mobile GPU into the size of the Orin die if they tore out the DLAs and PVAs and switched to smaller A78/A78Cs versus the AEs and their lockstep.etc, which would easily beat the M1 Max GPU

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Ah yes, aquagreen vs lilac.

So what is that, the 17 billion transistor orin and the 20 billion transistor M2?
the difference in transistor count between these two is literally like a billion more than the entire switch soc transistor count.

ORIN= 21B transistors/ ~460mm^2/ ~45.6MTr/mm


M1Max= 57B Transistors/ ~432mm^2/ ~131.9MTr/mm

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

sometimes I wonder what hardware would result if Apple bought Nintendo. :dodges stones:

I mean I don’t WANT it to happen, but can you imagine a Switch powered by M2? Where budget for hardware R&D is (virtually) no object?

A (maybe) nice piece of hardware that would be a mess on the software side?

 

[Crusters]

ORIN= 21B transistors/ ~460mm^2/ ~45.6MTr/mm


M1Max= 57B Transistors/ ~420mm^2/ ~135.7MTr/mm

Hot damn.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Hot damn.

Fixed the typo.

 

[Dakhil]

 

[Hermii]

One more nail in the coffin for 8nm?