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

[Sorbete]

Any reason in particular as to why you don’t want a 4K tv?

In other words you can't go wrong looking at a 4k TV because prices are extremely low compared to where they started.
The real question is what do you want out of the TV (what's the primary usage for)?

Basically I play switch games and don't want them to look worse than on my current TV.

 

[Falcatops]

Basically I play switch games and don't want them to look worse than on my current TV.

Mmmm in that case maybe looking for a smaller tv might be best. In my country it’s like other people said, most manufacturers are only making 4K tvs, but it’s still hard to find a sub-32 inch tv that’s 4K

 

[ILikeFeet]

I've played switch games on my tv quite happily, but I'm more easy to please in that case. the games' visual problems would still be the same even on a 1080p display

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Job Openings - Careers at Nintendo of America

Senior Engineer, Shader Compiler (NTD), Software Development

careers.nintendo.com

And thus, the worry of BC is being tackled.

 

[ILikeFeet]

And thus, the worry of BC is being tackled.

could be for a great many things

 

[Dakhil]

One of the first 2022 chipsets has been taped out. Dane is still yet to be seen on the node used for the 2020 chipsets.

Bondrewd from Beyond3D has apparently heard Navi 33, not Navi 31, has taped out. And Bondrewd also claimed greymon55 is bullshitting on the tape out date for Navi 31.

 

[SiG]

Basically I play switch games and don't want them to look worse than on my current TV.

I don't think having a 4k TV will make Switch games look worse. It really depends on the display, and if you've properly configured your TV to remove any post-processing effects like interpolation, denoisiung, and the like.

The thing is, even 900p and 720p should still look good on a 4k display. I have a few retro consoles hooked up to my 4k display (Analog Super NT, GameCube via RetroBit Prism, Wii U) but I always make sure to give them the cleanest signal.

There's this video in My Life In Gaming that I linked to recently to another person who had the same "issues" as you did. Sometimes it even comes down to making sure both your TV and console are set to Full Range RGB or even Limited Range RGB. The fact is this setting is obfuscated to those who aren't too savy, so it might be worthwhile to check their channel out.


Full disclosure: I have a Samsung 4K TV with my Switch hooked up to it. I make sure it's set to Game Mode with things like sharpness and contrast set to default. It made a literal day and night different when I finally figured out what setting put my TV to "Limited Range" and "Full Range" RGB, as it was obfuscated under the setting of "HDMI Black Level", where Full Range is "Normal".

 

[ArchedThunder]

Basically I play switch games and don't want them to look worse than on my current TV.

I’ve got a 2020 TCL 6 series 55 inch 4k TV and Switch games look fine on it.

 

[Thraktor]

And thus, the worry of BC is being tackled.

Honestly I’m kind of surprised that they have shader compilation expertise in-house, I would have assumed Nvidia would be providing any shader compilers. That said, the position is “responsible for working with internal teams and vendors on critical features, performance tuning and troubleshooting”. The vendor here is clearly Nvidia, so perhaps this is more about setting requirements for Nvidia (both functional and performance) and validating them, rather than actually attempting to write their own compilers (or recompilers if we’re talking about Dane BC).

 

[MetalLord]

 

[Alovon11]

Well they are ramping up hiring it seems.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Honestly I’m kind of surprised that they have shader compilation expertise in-house, I would have assumed Nvidia would be providing any shader compilers. That said, the position is “responsible for working with internal teams and vendors on critical features, performance tuning and troubleshooting”. The vendor here is clearly Nvidia, so perhaps this is more about setting requirements for Nvidia (both functional and performance) and validating them, rather than actually attempting to write their own compilers (or recompilers if we’re talking about Dane BC).

NTD provides the SDK, yes? Even if the core graphics stack is provided by Nvidia, I'm sure it's a shared source arrangement with modifications by Nintendo.. Faster, cheaper, and generally better than trying to drive changes up to Nvidia's tools team, exclusively

 

[ILikeFeet]

NTD provides the SDK, yes? Even if the core graphics stack is provided by Nvidia, I'm sure it's a shared source arrangement with modifications by Nintendo.. Faster, cheaper, and generally better than trying to drive changes up to Nvidia's tools team, exclusively

NTD does hardware, and the software that supports it, a bit

 

[Metal Gear Miyamoto]

Whilst I've seen people talk about this in other threads, I'd like to get everyone's opinion here as well: what are you expecting in terms of positioning for this device? A clean break alá Gamecube to Wii to Wii U? A Pro version alá Xbox One to One X or the smartphone model where it's really a successor but the company rolls the sales numbers of the successor in with the original device like Apple has done with the iPhone?

 

[ILikeFeet]

Whilst I've seen people talk about this in other threads, I'd like to get everyone's opinion here as well: what are you expecting in terms of positioning for this device? A clean break alá Gamecube to Wii to Wii U? A Pro version alá Xbox One to One X or the smartphone model where it's really a successor but the company rolls the sales numbers of the successor in with the original device like Apple has done with the iPhone?

a mix of all of them. hardware-wise, it's gonna be so far ahead, everyone will make for it and the current switch will eventually whither away. but while it's alive, you'll see a lot of cross-gen titles with enhanced modes like XBO > XBOX, and the last point depends on Nintendo, but they have done something similar with the Game Boy Color

 

[ArchedThunder]

I’m expecting it to be positioned like a Game Boy Color. A brand new system, not a simple revision, but still a Switch, though obviously with a much bigger bump in specs than the Game Boy Color had over the Game boy.

 

[fwd-bwd]

While I agree that the Switch sales probably had peaked, the decline isn't as dire as some people making it out to be. The Bloomberg chart that looks alarming is actually missing some context:

• First of all, let's remove the outliners
  • Week 1 to 3, new year sales
  • Week 13, Monster Hunter Rise
  • Week 18, golden week + New Pokemon Snap
  • Week 41, OLED Model + Metroid Dread
• Although the weekly total sales have been "dwindling", it's mostly due to the decline of Switch Lite
  • Lite sales seemed to be strongly linked to the success of ACNH; I recall during the height of ACNH last year, the Lite briefly made up 70% of Switch sales (the hybrid model was also supply constrained)
  • Therefore, I don't believe that this indicates the decline of Switch platform as a whole, simply that casual mainstream hits such as ACNH are crucial to the Lite sales
  • Too bad that RFA doesn't work well with Lite; it would've pushed the Lite sales much higher
  • With the release of Happy Home Paradise, we might see a small sales boost
• Switch v2 sales remained steady until mid September
  • The pre-order of OLED Model started on 9/24 in Japan, and the promotion also started in earnest in mid September
  • Up until this point, the sales of Switch v2 hold up incredibly well, despite how Bloomberg portrayed it
• Let's also not forget that Vietnam went into lockdown from June to September, disrupting the supply chain

I'm not accusing that Bloomberg has any agendas. In this case it seems that they have a story to tell and cherry pick data to frame it.

 

[NineTailSage]

Whilst I've seen people talk about this in other threads, I'd like to get everyone's opinion here as well: what are you expecting in terms of positioning for this device? A clean break alá Gamecube to Wii to Wii U? A Pro version alá Xbox One to One X or the smartphone model where it's really a successor but the company rolls the sales numbers of the successor in with the original device like Apple has done with the iPhone?

I definitely think Nintendo will choose to move with the strategy of unified platform (even if it’s not expressed publicly that way) they don't have another pillar to lean on if they were planning to take the clean break path. Which is also why they can't wait until the Switch is in a major decline in order to give a roadmap of what comes next!

I think Apple does this pretty amazing actually in that they have something new coming out every year and today's high end phone will be rolled into a revamped mid-range device by next year. So you keep an economy of scale for your community that if they are happy with the device they have today, they can wait and still get a meaningful upgrade down the road in their own time. It also gives those that want absolute cutting-edge the options of moving onto what's next hardware and software wise and everyone is happy in the end...

Nintendo are such a secret driven company though, I'm not sure they can ever get to the point of having a roadmap in at least the hardware side similar to Apple, where we know for certain there's going to be new hardware refreshes at the same time frame every 2 years. Make an event out of it and bring "Space World" back to just allow your developers and hardware teams to introduce the new tech to showcase new games and new OS level features.

 

[Sol]

If Dane/Switch 2 isn't launching until 2023, do we still expect it to be using A78 cores? Those cores would be 3 years old by the time the console even gets released.

I would hope at this point that Nintendo and Nvidia would be opting for A710 cores, especially so it's kind of future proofed by being able to take advantage of the Armv9 ISA.

 

[My Tulpa]

I think you're over-stating a lack of availability. Non-OLED Switch is readily available on every regional Amazon site and at every brick-and-mortar retailer in a 200km radius of me. There's also evidence from Famitsu sales figures and market analysis that Switch sales are steadily waning.

That article is only speculating that demand is waning based on…well nothing. (Bloomberg analysis is always negative towards Nintendo. They have speculated worst case scenarios since it launched in 2017. They speculated a downward turn in 2018 after Smash released)

That article admits the “low sales” of OLED switch is due to less product shipped. Yet the article is skewed to suggesting it’s less demand overall.

Nintendo being able to meet demand for OLED and the older models by being able to stock shelves as soon as they deplete doesn’t mean demand is lower.

Nowinstock might not be a great barometer, but I was watching it with the OLED release. The OLED and older neon/grey models were consistently going out of stock and back in stock for the entirety of Oct.

Nintendo is going to sell more Switches this fiscal year than last…how is that waning demand?

In addition, Nintendo's share price fell 20% so far this year, dropping another 1.5% after the OLED launch, which has its own financial effect. So current market conditions aren't what you think they are. Either expect a price drop or for sales to continue their steady decline.

Stock movement on Nintendo has nothing to do with what is happening with Nintendo. That has rarely been the case. Investors always get skittish about what Nintendo isn’t doing that they think they should.

And anyways, my post was in response as to why the Switch hasn’t gotten a price cut yet. Not that it isn’t going to get one. Of course the older models will get one. Sometime next year I imagine.

To the second point here, likely both 3DS and Wii U contributed to Nintendo's losses in that time period, but given the differences between hardware and software sold for 3DS and Wii U in the time period of 2012-2016 and how 3DS hardware sales were profit generators by mid-2012, between the 2, one of those things is most definitely not like the other. It's not even remotely debatable to suggest which contributed substantially more to that.

The fiscal year ending March 2012, Nintendo posted $533 million in losses. First time ever. The previous fiscal year they posted ~$1 billion in profit.

This was entirely because of the 3ds.

Sure, Wii was in a steep decline that year, but that didn’t cause those losses. It just didn’t negate the losses like a 2009 Wii would.

Fiscal year ending March 2013, Nintendo reported $366 million in losses. This is still entirely because of the 3ds hardware fiasco. It wasn’t until August 2012 that Nintendo stopped hemmoraging on every 3ds sold…finally breaking even. They didn’t make a profit on 3ds until the end of 2012.

The losses during Fiscal year ending 2014, can indeed be atttibuted to the Wii U…since they had to aggressively cut its hardware prices in most territories during 2013 and its software sales weren’t enough to offset those losses.

From 2014 on, Nintendo started posting profits again.

But absolutely the great majority of the losses Nintendo had from 2011-2013 were because of the 3ds. The poor sales of the Wii U in 2013 had very little to do with this.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

If Dane/Switch 2 isn't launching until 2023, do we still expect it to be using A78 cores? Those cores would be 3 years old by the time the console even gets released.

Of course, while the cores would be 3 years since they were introduced, phones have only just reached the successor to the A78, the A710 in a few months. It is also a derivative of an existing chip, ORIN, which uses the A78 automotive variant. A78 also the most efficient but also performant for what it is from ARM. X1 is more performant but it’s meant for quick loads and not sustained loads, also having heating problems. A78 is meant for sustained loads on the other hand.

I would hope at this point that Nintendo and Nvidia would be opting for A710 cores, especially so it's kind of future proofed by being able to take advantage of the Armv9 ISA.

At the moment, I’m not really sure they would need to it to go for ARM v9, the focus for v9 right now seems to lean more into security and AI, one of which the Dane unit should be better at than the smartphone contemporaries who use the ARM NPU which is less performant than the TC nVidia had for their purpose. Is there other feature that they would need v9 or is it more of a nice to have type of thing?

 

[Pokemaniac]

Whilst I've seen people talk about this in other threads, I'd like to get everyone's opinion here as well: what are you expecting in terms of positioning for this device? A clean break alá Gamecube to Wii to Wii U? A Pro version alá Xbox One to One X or the smartphone model where it's really a successor but the company rolls the sales numbers of the successor in with the original device like Apple has done with the iPhone?

Probably somewhere between the Xbox Series X and the iPhone.

If Dane/Switch 2 isn't launching until 2023, do we still expect it to be using A78 cores? Those cores would be 3 years old by the time the console even gets released.

I would hope at this point that Nintendo and Nvidia would be opting for A710 cores, especially so it's kind of future proofed by being able to take advantage of the Armv9 ISA.

At this point I think the hardware will probably be mostly locked in. If it doesn't release until 2023, that will likely mean they couldn't get it out in 2022 for some reason.

 

[Dakhil]

If Dane/Switch 2 isn't launching until 2023, do we still expect it to be using A78 cores? Those cores would be 3 years old by the time the console even gets released.

I would hope at this point that Nintendo and Nvidia would be opting for A710 cores, especially so it's kind of future proofed by being able to take advantage of the Armv9 ISA.

Assuming that Dane's still fabricated using Samsung's 8N process node, yes, considering that the oldest process node optimised for the Cortex-A78 is a 10 nm** process node. And Samsung's 8 nm** process node is an extension of Samsung's 10 nm** process node.

On the other hand, if Cadence's press release and WikiChip's entries on the Cortex-A710 (Matterhorn) and the Cortex-A510 are any indication, the oldest process node optimised for the Cortex-A710 is a 7 nm** process node. So the Cortex-A710 isn't a viable option if Samsung's 8N process node is still used to fabricate Dane.

** → a marketing nomenclature used by all foundry companies

 

[My Tulpa]

First, reducing dollar value to a percentage is a rather crude way of looking at things. A $30 price jump is a much easier pill to swallow than a $150 price bump, as is a $100 MSRP compared to $450-500. To argue differently would be a fool's errand.

Huh? % increase is far more applicable than your trying to make comparison between two disparate dollar figures.

$30 increase to the $69 GBC is not the same as a $30 increase to a $350 Switch.

If $60 games suddenly went to $90…that’s a huge deal. Gamers would revolt cause that percentage increase is insane. If the Ps5 sold for $530 instead of $500…eh not so much.

You pointing to the GBA being $30 more expensive than the $69 GBC is similar to the me saying the New Switch being $100-$150 more than the OLED Switch. It just is.

And this position of Nintendo not caring if a new hardware release sells slowly is a contradiction to your earlier claim.

Nintendo allegedly won't do a price cut because they want to make the maximum amount of money from their hardware... but they'll invest a whole bunch of their R&D budget into a brand-new (and more expensive to produce) SoC, among other potential component changes, for it to languish with slow sales at retail? You see the problem there, don't you?

No?

It’s the same concept of the ps4 pro or Xbox X. The uptake doesn’t have to be fast. The purpose is to elongate the lifecycle, not replace.

There is no such thing as “languishing with slow sales” for the new Switch or even the OLED. They are enhancement models. The uptake rate isn’t important. Nintendo doesn’t make their profit on hardware sales, so that doesn’t matter. Their profit is software. If someone in 2023 buys a $450 4K Switch or a $300 OLED Switch or a $250 grey Switch or a $170 Lite…Nintendo doesn’t give a damn. They all play the same Nintendo published games, that’s what’s important.

The R&D is already paid for. By 4 years of Switch software/NSO revenue success. The price point of the new Switch will cover its marginal production increase.

And I never said Nintendo won’t ever do a price cut, of course they will. I was explaining why the hybrid model hadnt gotten one up to this point.

By this logic, Switch Lite should have launched at $249 to maximize profits, since that still delineates it from the original Switch model.

lol no…even Nintendo realized the main appeal of Switch was the hybrid factor (“home console on the go!”). They knew the Lite was supposed to be a supplemental console. And appealing only to the minority “portable only” gamer. They had to make the price reflect that.

A Switch hybrid with 4K and the promise of better graphics/performance can demand $100-$150 price tag increase. Certainly if just a bigger/better screen can command a $50 price increase.

And it's unlikely they saved $100 per unit in component costs over the standard Switch to make that Switch Lite price as profitable as the original was at that time (R&D for TX1+ Mariko would have eaten into a huge chunk of any money saved by using a smaller LCD, lighter battery and non-detachable controls).

Nah. When the Lite came out, Nintendo was already making a decent profit on the hybrid model.

Pretty sure if you take out the detachable joycon costs, the dock costs, the wires costs, the smaller screen etc…the Lite at $200 still made a small profit I’m sure

Money in this business relies on software sales, large amounts of revenue on hardware is typically just a nice extra, so Nintendo will price however they feel they must to keep software sales as high as possible for every piece of hardware they release.

Of course. That’s why the price of the 4K Switch doesn’t really matter at launch. Because they are still selling the OLED and the 2019 hybrid model and the 2019 Lite model. They will all have accessible price points. Nintendo doesn’t need to sell a ton of 4K Switches to increase Mario Kart 9 or MP 4 sales. That userbase is covered by all the other models. This is my entire point.

Additionally, to that last point about software being the most important revenue source, if you insist on the "revision" idea, every enhanced hardware revision Nintendo has ever released has exclusive software, both from Nintendo and from 3rd-parties (2 out of every 3 Game Boy Color games was only playable on GBC, even the modest seller that was New 3DS had a Xenoblade and Fire Emblem Warriors), but that requires an install base to sell such titles to, so slow-selling hardware of ANY sort is not a smart play. There's no universe in which Nintendo is fine with hardware meeting with slow sales.

Take a look at what these Nintendo published exclusive examples you are talking about are. They are titles that Nintendo expects to be relatively low sellers anyways. I hate the term “niche”, but it’s apt here.

Feel free to point to a major AAA Nintendo published title exclusive to the 4K Switch from 2022-2026. Doubt you’ll find it though.

This isn’t a successor like the Series X or ps5. Microsoft and Sony expect the majority of the 3rd party gaming market in 2023 (3 years after launch) to be primarily on the Series X/ps5. Thus they want their userbase to migrate as quickly as possible because most of their revenue/profit is reliant on this AAA 3rd party revenue market.

Nintendo doesn’t expect most of its Nintendo games sales in 2025 to be for the 4K Switch. Not at all. I bet the big game they release in 2025 will have the majority of buyers playing it on models that ARENT the 4K Switch model.

 

[davec00ke]

The problem is the price of chips are not decreasing like they did in the past.

 

[Hermii]

If Dane/Switch 2 isn't launching until 2023, do we still expect it to be using A78 cores? Those cores would be 3 years old by the time the console even gets released.

I would hope at this point that Nintendo and Nvidia would be opting for A710 cores, especially so it's kind of future proofed by being able to take advantage of the Armv9 ISA.

I don't expect release timing to influence specs at all. Except for maybe it gets more memory, if prices fall. Thats a change that can be done on short notice.

 

[YolkFolk]

Feel free to point to a major AAA Nintendo published title exclusive to the 4K Switch from 2022-2026. Doubt you’ll find it though.

I doubt anyone would find anything considering the hardware or software isn’t even announced. Stop acting like you have top secret information to Nintendo’s plans. It’s hardly an outlandish statement to think that a potentially next generation device is going to have some exclusive Nintendo games on it. We’ll have to see how things turn out.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Take a look at what these Nintendo published exclusive examples you are talking about are. They are titles that Nintendo expects to be relatively low sellers anyways. I hate the term “niche”, but it’s apt here.

Feel free to point to a major AAA Nintendo published title exclusive to the 4K Switch from 2022-2026. Doubt you’ll find it though.

This isn’t a successor like the Series X or ps5. Microsoft and Sony expect the majority of the 3rd party gaming market in 2023 (3 years after launch) to be primarily on the Series X/ps5. Thus they want their userbase to migrate as quickly as possible because most of their revenue/profit is reliant on this AAA 3rd party revenue market.

Nintendo doesn’t expect most of its Nintendo games sales in 2025 to be for the 4K Switch. Not at all. I bet the big game they release in 2025 will have the majority of buyers playing it on models that ARENT the 4K Switch model.

Obviously nothing currently announced is going to be exclusive to unannounced hardware, but all that stuff is probably going to be out by 2023 at the latest. I don't really expect "AAA" support for the current Switch to last significantly beyond that, with probably only historically more handheld aligned stuff sticking around longer.

 

[BlackTangMaster]

256GB UFS2.1 / 8GB LPDDR4X / 1080p@120HzHDR / 1TFLOPsGPU+4*A76,7nmSOC --> available at €225 with taxes in France on the official Xiaomi Store.

UFS2.1, 8GB ram and small on the shelf 7 nm SoCs seems to be achievable for the Lite model pricing point.

 

[Alovon11]

256GB UFS2.1 / 8GB LPDDR4X / 1080p@120HzHDR / 1TFLOPsGPU+4*A76,7nmSOC --> available at €225 with taxes in France on the official Xiaomi Store.

UFS2.1, 8GB ram and small on the shelf 7 nm SoCs seems to be achievable for the Lite model pricing point.

Considering NVIDIA and Nintendo would likely get a very big bulk discount on Dane, that would give them plenty of price headroom to jump to UFS 3.1 imho assuming a 400$ MSRP

 

[BlackTangMaster]

Considering NVIDIA and Nintendo would likely get a very big bulk discount on Dane, that would give them plenty of price headroom to jump to UFS 3.1 imho assuming a 400$ MSRP

If they were planning for a simultaneous release with a Dane Lite model, maybe they will stick to UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X.

 

[Alovon11]

If they were planning for a simultaneous release with a Dane Lite model, maybe they will stick to UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X.

Ehh I doubt it.

The LPDDR4X would sort of not solve the bandwidth problem the current Switch has.

So they'd have to use LPDDR5.

So the Lite is coming later unless Nintendo wants to eat a loss on Lite Sales for a little bit.

 

[Mercury_Sagit]

256GB UFS2.1 / 8GB LPDDR4X / 1080p@120HzHDR / 1TFLOPsGPU+4*A76,7nmSOC --> available at €225 with taxes in France on the official Xiaomi Store.

UFS2.1, 8GB ram and small on the shelf 7 nm SoCs seems to be achievable for the Lite model pricing point.

Tbf at this price range durability is a big question and at least Xiaomi's entry range is quite poor in this aspect, so for Dane we should add some cost for QA. But I really don't know how much would that be ...

 

[Dakhil]

The question is which is the best option for external storage for the DLSS model*. Games are only increasing in file size, not decreasing, especially if Nintendo mandates all games be installed on the internal flash storage. And that doesn't take into account including a feature similar to Quick Resume, which takes a sizeable amount of storage space in the internal flash storage on the Xbox Series S.

I personally think that UFS Card 3.0 is the best choice in terms of sequential speeds since I think UFS Card 3.0 offers a good balance of respectable power consumption, thermals, and sequential speed performance. And considering UFS Card 3.0 offers comparable performance to UFS 2.1, I think UFS 2.1 is also the best choice when it comes to the internal flash storage in the instance of UFS Card 3.0 being used as external storage.

Of course, I'm certain many people are going to disagree with me. But I need to put in my two cents.

~

Anyway, Nvidia wants to remind people interested that the GTC 2021 (November 2021) keynote is on 9 November 2021 at 8am (PST or UTC-08:00).


I wonder if VideoCardz will leak anything interesting about the GTC 2021 (November 2021) keynote, like for the GTC 2021 (April 2021) keynote.

 

[fwd-bwd]

Anyway, Nvidia wants to remind people interested that the GTC 2021 (November 2021) keynote is on 9 November 2021 at 8am (PST or UTC-08:00).

A few sessions I think of interest:

GTC 2021 Keynote - November
Tue Nov 9, 12am PST / 9am CET

NVIDIA On-Demand

A searchable database of content from GTCs and various other events.

events.rainfocus.com

Integrating DLSS in Frostbite
Tue Nov 9, 5am PST / 2pm CET

NVIDIA On-Demand

A searchable database of content from GTCs and various other events.

events.rainfocus.com

NVIDIA Orin Platform: Modular and Scalable Architecture for High-Performance AI Compute
Wed Nov 10, 7am PST / 4pm CET

NVIDIA On-Demand

A searchable database of content from GTCs and various other events.

events.rainfocus.com

P.S.: Did Jensen go back to the future?

 

[ILikeFeet]

Yall ain't asking the important questions: what kind of black leather jacket will Jensen wear, and how many spatulas are in his kitchen?

 

[Alovon11]

I do think NVIDIA will likely reveal their next-series of GPUs at GTC.

Whether that be the

• RTX 3000 Super cards leaked by Kopite7Kimi
• The "3070Ti 16GB" and "3080 12GB" as rumoured by VideoCardz today
• The RTX 3050/3050Ti Desktop Cards

Either way, something is getting announced IMHO, and at very least the middle can not coexist with the former most and lattermost.

 

[Dakhil]

I do think NVIDIA will likely reveal their next-series of GPUs at GTC.

Whether that be the

• RTX 3000 Super cards leaked by Kopite7Kimi
• The "3070Ti 16GB" and "3080 12GB" as rumoured by VideoCardz today
• The RTX 3050/3050Ti Desktop Cards

Either way, something is getting announced IMHO, and at very least the middle can not coexist with the former most and lattermost.

Nvidia doesn't announce consumer GPUs at GTC, considering that Nvidia saves consumer GPU announcements for consumer focused events (e.g. CES, Computex, etc.). However, Nvidia does announce datacentre and professional GPUs at GTC (e.g. A100, GV100, etc.). (At least as far as dedicated GPUs are concerned.) Not only was there a rumour that Hopper was taping out soon, AMD's also planning on announcing CDNA 2 (and Genoa) on the first day of GTC 2021 (November 2021).

 

[ShadowFox08]

It's probably gonna be the 3000 super series at least.

Anyway, i think it would make sense for Nintendo to release two Switch 2 models (whenever that happens). One at 128GB (or 256GB) and the more expensive model at 256 (or 512GB). $500 for a 512GB or even 1 *TB switch model is a bit of a hard pull to swallow though.

 

[Dakhil]

It's probably gonna be the 3000 super series at least.

Nvidia doesn't announce consumer GPUs at GTC. Nvidia saves consumer GPU announcements for consumer oriented events (e.g. CES, Computex, etc.).

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

If they were planning for a simultaneous release with a Dane Lite model, maybe they will stick to UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X.

do you mean having the Dane Lite have LPDDR4X instead of 5 while the flagship comes with the LPDDR5? If, yes, I don’t think that is likely at all really.

even 1 GB switch model is a bit of a hard pull to swallow though.

The Vita 1000 rears its ugly head

 

[Dakhil]

do you mean having the Dane Lite have LPDDR4X instead of 5 while the flagship comes with the LPDDR5? If, yes, I don’t think that is likely at all really.

I think BlackTangMaster means the DLSS model*, alongside the Nintendo Switch Lite model equipped with Dane, will come equipped with LPDDR4X, assuming the DLSS model* launches simultaneously with the Nintendo Switch Lite model equipped with Dane.

 

[Terrell]

Whilst I've seen people talk about this in other threads, I'd like to get everyone's opinion here as well: what are you expecting in terms of positioning for this device? A clean break alá Gamecube to Wii to Wii U? A Pro version alá Xbox One to One X or the smartphone model where it's really a successor but the company rolls the sales numbers of the successor in with the original device like Apple has done with the iPhone?

I think I've made my opinion on this rather plain, but I'll reiterate in here, too.

I expect it to not be what people typically define as a "clean break" for Nintendo: it will not feature vastly different form factors, inputs (such as the transition from controller to motion controls to touchscreen with the last 3 console generations), game media (mini-DVD to DVD-esque to pseudo-proprietary disc media), etc.

This upcoming transition will be far closer to the transition from NES to SNES in a bunch of ways, but the Switch will have FAR more in common with its successor than NES and SNES did. Maybe some minor controller changes (for example: adding Gamecube-esque analog triggers, Bluetooth 5 for better battery life), but I half-expect a form factor incredibly similar to OLED, very similar game cards (to allow it to accept standard Switch game cards, if nothing else), minimal to no OS changes, blah blah.

The primary changes will all be internal and what it is capable of, which will be a much larger leap than PS4 to PS4 Pro, just by virtue of the system-on-chip that will be in it, and on that basis alone, it will be an actual-factual hardware transition, where Nintendo will dedicate all its game production to it. The timeline of that transition by Nintendo is what's up in the air and only Nintendo will be able to answer that, though I don't expect it to take longer than 2 years. Not every game they make will need the extra horsepower under the hood, which will permit a cross-gen development situation that could last longer than most; even with cross-gen games, while the initial games will be engineered for Switch and tweaked up, at some point shortly after release, the new hardware will become the target and Switch will get some games with a version tweaked down to meet its capability, so long as it is not a major development expense to do so.

But what I consider undeniable is that it will not be marketed in a way that says "this is just a Switch that does 4K" like PS4 Pro or XB One X were. It will be Nintendo's "generational leap", still a fair amount weaker than PS5 and XB Series by virtue of its hybrid/portable nature, but far closer to those 2 than most likely expect it to be. And Nintendo will absolutely market it as such a generational leap. In my opinion, marketing the next Switch as just another Switch operating in 4K would leave potential buyers asking "well, why would I buy this if it's just a 4K Switch? I don't even have a 4K television, so why should I care?" And for a piece of hardware that will have exclusive software from 3rd-parties right out of the gate and from Nintendo within the first 2 years, cutting a hardware release off at the knees by marketing it that way would be a terrible mistake.

All that said, there's this conception floating around here that new hardware means that Switch will shrivel up and die, but leaving aside how software sales bottomed out on Wii and leaving out any cross-gen development that may occur, when Nintendo had successful hardware in the past, its longevity after the introduction of a generational leap was quite strong because prior hardware was priced accordingly and had a well-established library. Switch currently has the library to make that the case, all it will need is adequate price reductions to keep it selling at retail long after new hardware is introduced. As a reminder, Famicom wasn't discontinued in Japan until 2003, and they repaired Famicom hardware until 2007 when they finally ran out of viable replacement parts. When they talk about platform longevity, this is what I think Nintendo was talking about, creating a piece of hardware that looms large in gamer consciousness long after official software support has ended, continuing to perform at retail for several years after.

TL;DR - It won't be a "clean break", as people put it, but my assertion is that it absolutely will be a "break" of some sort, one that doesn't immediately sacrifice Switch's place at retail the way people believe it will.

 

[BlackTangMaster]

do you mean having the Dane Lite have LPDDR4X instead of 5 while the flagship comes with the LPDDR5? If, yes, I don’t think that is likely at all really.


The Vita 10000 rears its ugly head

I think BlackTangMaster means the DLSS model*, alongside the Nintendo Switch Lite model equipped with Dane, will come equipped with LPDDR4X, assuming the DLSS model* launches simultaneously with the Nintendo Switch Lite model equipped with Dane.

Orin (S) being able to scale down to 5W would suggest that Dane would be able to run at Mariko power consumption for the Lite model. Moreover, using 2*LPDDR5 modules could be more expensive than using 2*LPDDR4X + more system cache memory.

If Nintendo are really planning to release both models at the same time, we will actually have to expect a BOM compatible with a $200 Lite model. That could lead to the use of UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X (...and 8 nm).

 

[fwd-bwd]

Orin (S) being able to scale down to 5W would suggest that Dane would be able to run at Mariko power consumption for the Lite model. Moreover, using 2*LPDDR5 modules could be more expensive than using 2*LPDDR4X + more system cache memory.

If Nintendo are really planning to release both models at the same time, we will actually have to expect a BOM compatible with a $200 Lite model. That could lead to the use of UFS2.1 and LPDDR4X (...and 8 nm).

This May 2020 Japanese article reported that Nvidia's VP of Automotive "Danny Shapiro said that the [Orin] sample will ship in 2021, the regular version in 2022, and the 5W low-power version in 2023." I don't know if the low-power variant bears any relevance to the next Lite model; if it does, the new Lite probably won't be released until further into 2023.

 

[BlackTangMaster]

This May 2020 Japanese article reported that Nvidia's VP of Automotive "Danny Shapiro said that the [Orin] sample will ship in 2021, the regular version in 2022, and the 5W low-power version in 2023." I don't know if the low-power variant bears any relevance to the next Lite model; if it does, the new Lite probably won't be released until further into 2023.

Lite Dane will use the Hybrid Dane SoC. Maybe a power binned version of the Dane SoC. The 5W ADAS Orin may have to use a logic binned version of Dane SoC running at an higher clock rate.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Lite Dane will use the Hybrid Dane SoC. Maybe a power binned version of the Dane SoC. The 5W ADAS Orin may have to use a logic binned version of Dane SoC running at an higher clock rate.

I don't see a binned anything being used. it'll be full Dane, just like the current Lite being full Mariko. given the low power Nintendo is targeting, there probably won't be enough binned chips to fulfill Lite allocations

 

[BlackTangMaster]

I don't see a binned anything being used. it'll be full Dane, just like the current Lite being full Mariko. given the low power Nintendo is targeting, there probably won't be enough binned chips to fulfill Lite allocations

Lite SoCs won't need to run at docked clocks. That means that they could actually use power binned chips for the Lite model, especially if they are aiming for 15W in docked mode.

I'm not saying that they will make that decision. I'm saying that it is a possibility. All the H2 "+ model" snapdragon chipsets and a good portion of galaxy note chipsets (compared to galaxy S chipsets) were power binned chips that were able to run at higher clocks than their H1 chipsets counterparts.

 

[NineTailSage]

I don't see a binned anything being used. it'll be full Dane, just like the current Lite being full Mariko. given the low power Nintendo is targeting, there probably won't be enough binned chips to fulfill Lite allocations

Then again if the Lite model launches probably a year later, that means a full year of Dane production and any binned chips could be used for the Lite or Nano Next. I'm fully expecting Nintendo to introduce another Switch tier with this new model I'm dubbing 2.0 for right now...

:4k 2.0 Switch premium for $450 in 2023
:2.0 Regular hybrid for $350 in 2023
:Switch Lite 2.0 for $250 in 2024

 

[NineTailSage]

Nvidia doesn't announce consumer GPUs at GTC. Nvidia saves consumer GPU announcements for consumer oriented events (e.g. CES, Computex, etc.).

They definitely seem to be advertising this GTC more than usually, so hopefully he shows some needed details about the Orin family of chips.