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

[the_marmolade]

Nothing beat this:

 

[Skittzo]

Yeah, but that looked fake from the beginning. The only reason people were believing it in the first place was that people were desperate for NX news.

Nah that's kinda revisionism. That fooled a lot of people.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Yeah, but that looked fake from the beginning. The only reason people were believing it in the first place was that people were desperate for NX news.

no, people were believing it because it was literally a Nintendo patent that the CNC studio made real. not to mention insiders were saying that it tracked with the description of the Switch they were given

 

[Dekuman]

Nah that's kinda revisionism. That fooled a lot of people.

yeah i believe you're right. the design was not an accident and was lifted from a patent application by Nintendo. A lot of people believed it to be real.

On that note, i recall people where looking at reflections of trees on the controller to prove it was fake, but I don't remember the specifics anymore. Did that go anywhere or was that another rabbit hole that turned out to arrive at the correct conclusion but wasn't based on anything?

 

[Alovon11]

this reminds me that I'm surprised there's no Skyrim for Windows on ARM. if they can add in mod support, that'd be a great show of force. and maybe something like Gears of War 4, again, as a proof of concept

Honestly NV strikes me as the guys to add in a fixed function hardware peice dedicated to recompiling/translating x86 to ARM.

Maybe that's what a DLA could be used for example.etc

 

[Skittzo]

yeah i believe you're right. the design was not an accident and was lifted from a patent application by Nintendo. A lot of people believed it to be real.

On that note, i recall people where looking at reflections of trees on the controller to prove it was fake, but I don't remember the specifics anymore. Did that go anywhere or was that another rabbit hole that turned out to arrive at the correct conclusion but wasn't based on anything?

No the reflections on the trees were supposed to help us figure out which studio it was that leaked it. People had mostly accepted that it was real by then.

 

[Hermii]

No the reflections on the trees were supposed to help us figure out which studio it was that leaked it. People had mostly accepted that it was real by then.

Many people didn't buy into it.

 

[Skittzo]

Many people didn't buy into it.

I think there was a team real vs team fake count on the gaf thread and team real outnumbered team fake by a fair amount before it was revealed to be fake.

 

[Hermii]

no, people were believing it because it was literally a Nintendo patent that the CNC studio made real. not to mention insiders were saying that it tracked with the description of the Switch they were given

That's the reason it should have been dismissed straight away though. The part about being the exact same as the patent.

 

[Smash Kirby]

I don't expect a new Shield TV, because it doesn't make sense to spin up full-scale manufacturing just for that. A Shield TV would likely come after the new Switch, or after any other major product using Drake.

Actually, to be more specific, there's one potential (although I would say pretty unlikely) announcement which could be pertinent for this thread: Microsoft breaking their Qualcomm-exclusivity for Windows ARM, and announcing a Nvidia ARM-powered laptop.

I've been thinking about the Linux commits, and trying to figure out any reason I can why Nvidia would start up manufacturing on Drake if Nintendo weren't ready to go on their new console. There would have to be at least one other major device using the chip. Shield products aren't a big enough market, and outside that you've basically got tablets and laptops. The Android tablet market isn't great, particularly the high-end which Nvidia would want to target, and Google have just announced a new tablet using their own chip, so I don't think there's scope there for Nvidia. Chromebooks run ARM, but are typically low-end, low-margin machines, and Nvidia have already partnered with Mediatek to support their dedicated GPUs in Chromebook's, which seems like a more sensible approach for them to target that market.

That leaves Windows laptops. The major issue here is that Windows ARM is only supported on Qualcomm SoCs, so Microsoft would have to break that exclusivity. Combining that with the generally small size of the market, Microsoft's own laptops are pretty much the only viable entry-point to the Windows ARM market for Nvidia. They would also have to settle for a more mid-range position. Microsoft's current ARM-based Surface Pro 9 uses (I believe, it's hard to find definitive specs) 4x X1 and 4x A78, and significantly underperforms the Intel version. If Drake is using 8x A78C, as we suspect, then it would come in even below that, let alone a 2023 Qualcomm chip. It would perform very well on the GPU side of things, but I can't imagine anyone buys Windows ARM laptops to play games on. Even if the GPU is capable, virtually no Windows games are compiled for ARM, and the x86 emulation would result in a significant performance hit compared to equivalent Intel/AMD laptops. Perhaps Nvidia could work with developers to port some AAA titles to ARM to show off the laptop, but it would take an enormous amount of work to even put a dent in the x86's architecture's dominance in Windows gaming.

Still, a Windows ARM laptop seems the least-unlikely major use-case for Drake outside of the Switch itself. So if we see a Microsoft/Nvidia announcement about ARM laptops, then that may shake things up a little bit in terms of our expectations around the new Switch (and certainly around Drake).

I could see MS making a Windows 11 powered mobile gaming device.

 

[Hocot8]

I think there was a team real vs team fake count on the gaf thread and team real outnumbered team fake by a fair amount before it was revealed to be fake.

Yes lol. As someone who was deep in the NX talk on GAF this is true. It fooled a lot of people. IIRC the real count outnumbered the fake count but it was pretty close.

 

[MP!]

I was on team real mostly because I wanted to see how they would manage their UI and inputs ... it was fascinating to think about.
haha

Those were the days

 

[Skittzo]

I was on team real mostly because I wanted to see how they would manage their UI and inputs ... it was fascinating to think about.
haha

Those were the days

Yeah pretty sure I was team real for a similar reason, it was such a wild concept I wanted to see how it would play out.

 

[Hidden04]

I think the biggest evidence of Switch 2 launching this year is if the T239 isn't announced at Nvidia's CES Panel.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

@oldpuck in what quarter of the year did you find the info for what would be the Engineering Sample? Like what quarter of the year was that from?

 

[Concernt]

I don't expect a new Shield TV, because it doesn't make sense to spin up full-scale manufacturing just for that. A Shield TV would likely come after the new Switch, or after any other major product using Drake.

Actually, to be more specific, there's one potential (although I would say pretty unlikely) announcement which could be pertinent for this thread: Microsoft breaking their Qualcomm-exclusivity for Windows ARM, and announcing a Nvidia ARM-powered laptop.

I've been thinking about the Linux commits, and trying to figure out any reason I can why Nvidia would start up manufacturing on Drake if Nintendo weren't ready to go on their new console. There would have to be at least one other major device using the chip. Shield products aren't a big enough market, and outside that you've basically got tablets and laptops. The Android tablet market isn't great, particularly the high-end which Nvidia would want to target, and Google have just announced a new tablet using their own chip, so I don't think there's scope there for Nvidia. Chromebooks run ARM, but are typically low-end, low-margin machines, and Nvidia have already partnered with Mediatek to support their dedicated GPUs in Chromebook's, which seems like a more sensible approach for them to target that market.

That leaves Windows laptops. The major issue here is that Windows ARM is only supported on Qualcomm SoCs, so Microsoft would have to break that exclusivity. Combining that with the generally small size of the market, Microsoft's own laptops are pretty much the only viable entry-point to the Windows ARM market for Nvidia. They would also have to settle for a more mid-range position. Microsoft's current ARM-based Surface Pro 9 uses (I believe, it's hard to find definitive specs) 4x X1 and 4x A78, and significantly underperforms the Intel version. If Drake is using 8x A78C, as we suspect, then it would come in even below that, let alone a 2023 Qualcomm chip. It would perform very well on the GPU side of things, but I can't imagine anyone buys Windows ARM laptops to play games on. Even if the GPU is capable, virtually no Windows games are compiled for ARM, and the x86 emulation would result in a significant performance hit compared to equivalent Intel/AMD laptops. Perhaps Nvidia could work with developers to port some AAA titles to ARM to show off the laptop, but it would take an enormous amount of work to even put a dent in the x86's architecture's dominance in Windows gaming.

Still, a Windows ARM laptop seems the least-unlikely major use-case for Drake outside of the Switch itself. So if we see a Microsoft/Nvidia announcement about ARM laptops, then that may shake things up a little bit in terms of our expectations around the new Switch (and certainly around Drake).

Occam's Razor says no, thanks be to God. The simplest answer is this chip is for Nintendo.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Occam's Razor says no, thanks be to God. The simplest answer is this chip is for Nintendo.

Because of this, watch nvidia announce a product tomorrow with it

 

[Concernt]

Because of this, watch nvidia announce a product tomorrow with it

 

[Lancelot]

Zelda, and Pikmin (and F-Zero) in 4k all in the same year would be funny if it ended up coming true, 9 ½ years after Miyamoto said that.

Yep. Not to mention limited quantities and could potentially be regional exclusive as well.

4K is arguably the less crazy part about those announcements in such case, I think it would kinda prove he didn't want to make more entries because he wanted a powerhouse to blow heads away with again. Miyamoto has basically been waiting for this moment to happen, and i'm wondering how the rest of the creatives will use the insane power jump... Maybe Star Fox can come back to have a proper next gen Sci-Fi title?

 

[Lancelot]

True, but per the tests we've seen on PC, 720p to 4K gives you a lot more headroom than 1080p to 4K, but doesn't scale perfectly (like you're not doubling your performance by halving your input pixels with DLSS, at least not perfectly).

Still, I think the cases where a game is struggling to do 720p to 4K with DLSS and opts for 1440p output will be relatively rare.

And of course there's always more upscaling that can be done after 1440p.

No matter how it's sliced, Drake seems to be built to be an image quality first machine, and I have confidence it will achieve that.

Image quality is certainly a big gimmick going for it, but it's unrealistic to think it'll be able to hold internal HD resolutions later down the line. The next gen is just starting, and the whole point of DLSS is running games in atrocious Switch-like resolutions without them absolutely destroying the image. It is up to the developer, but some 1st party games targetting internal 540/720p for beyond insane visuals is definitely a choice.

 

[Hosermess]

Drake is releasing in 2023 because Pikmin 4 is also releasing in 2023, and Miyamoto the arbiter of when 4K is important says Pikmin will benefit. 4K will make Pikmin 4 more fun:

Is it though?




Though to be fair, when Pikmin 4 was revealed, I was highly skeptical of that release year and still am (I also immediately wondered about the significance of the clock time). But after a while I started to contemplate that maybe it's farther along than I think and it wasn't dated because it's meant to be a Drake launch title. Then again, this is the same thinking I had with ToTK lol

I have been here too long that I wouldn't give guess of mine more than 25% odds of being correct.

 

[Deleted member 887]

@oldpuck in what quarter of the year did you find the info for what would be the Engineering Sample? Like what quarter of the year was that from?

I don't remember when I found it, but the commits are from April of this year. Also, just to be fully transparent, it's not 100% clear that it was running on hardware but seems likely.

In June of last year, Orin release was sufficiently "imminent" that T239's Linux development was split off into its own repository, so that there wouldn't be any dangling T239 code in the Jetpack release for Orin. In April, there is a number of bug fixes to hardware timings for both Orin and Drake that imply bugs that were discovered running on hardware.

Of note: while digging this back up, I found this commit showing T239 needing bugfixes for SD Express support. I don't think that's especially relevant, as obviously Nintendo won't run Linux on their hardware, and this is likely to support some other integration

https://github.com/OE4T/linux-tegra-5.10/commit/dd163bff3865181ab4ed6e7c6891b0fb4e2a1535

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Because it's the super cheapo model.

Yes, but you were saying it's something they'd prefer to do even if it was only a matter of a few cents, a priority beyond costs.

 

[Hermii]

Yes, but you were saying it's something they'd prefer to do even if it was only a matter of a few cents, a priority beyond costs.

I'm saying if they were to release a model without a card slot, the price of the card slot would be irrelevant. Higher margins on software would be the true motivation.

The same reason Sony greenlit the DE. 20$ less in bom, 100$ less in price. Make back the rest with higher software margins.

 

[Concernt]

Image quality is certainly a big gimmick going for it, but it's unrealistic to think it'll be able to hold internal HD resolutions later down the line. The next gen is just starting, and the whole point of DLSS is running games in atrocious Switch-like resolutions without them absolutely destroying the image. It is up to the developer, but some 1st party games targetting internal 540/720p for beyond insane visuals is definitely a choice.

I think I quite thoroughly agree. The upscaling technologies integrated and used on Drake will make it capable of some incredible feats by... Running the game like mud and prettying it up! Which I think is a good thing, how else was Gen 9 meant to become a handheld?

It's what I think will be the secret sauce of Drake, like how the Switch got miracle ports from Gen 8, even the most demanding titles of Gen 9 can squeeze onto Drake. After all, Switch got Gen 8's third party crown jewel, Witcher 3.

 

[Kenka]

Is it though?

...This was cold.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I don't remember when I found it, but the commits are from April of this year. Also, just to be fully transparent, it's not 100% clear that it was running on hardware but seems likely.

In June of last year, Orin release was sufficiently "imminent" that T239's Linux development was split off into its own repository, so that there wouldn't be any dangling T239 code in the Jetpack release for Orin. In April, there is a number of bug fixes to hardware timings for both Orin and Drake that imply bugs that were discovered running on hardware.

Of note: while digging this back up, I found this commit showing T239 needing bugfixes for SD Express support. I don't think that's especially relevant, as obviously Nintendo won't run Linux on their hardware, and this is likely to support some other integration

https://github.com/OE4T/linux-tegra-5.10/commit/dd163bff3865181ab4ed6e7c6891b0fb4e2a1535

Oh no, not when you found it, just when what you found became available publicly is all…

So it’s Q2. Interesting.

 

[Lancelot]

I think I quite thoroughly agree. The upscaling technologies integrated and used on Drake will make it capable of some incredible feats by... Running the game like mud and prettying it up! Which I think is a good thing, how else was Gen 9 meant to become a handheld?

It's what I think will be the secret sauce of Drake, like how the Switch got miracle ports from Gen 8, even the most demanding titles of Gen 9 can squeeze onto Drake. After all, Switch got Gen 8's third party crown jewel, Witcher 3.

Even without any upscaling tricks involved, every Nintendo studio should be already able to make games on par with Forbidden West, TLOU2 and GOW Ragnarok if they have the skills and expertise. With DLSS, RT hardware and modern feature sets on the ecuation (as well as the power from docked mode), nobody should underestimate this little monster.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

The unsung hero/heroine in this is DLAA for 1080p.

Should be a pristine image.

 

[Hidden04]

Oh no, not when you found it, just when what you found became available publicly is all…

So it’s Q2. Interesting.

I'm confused. What does this have to do with a Q2 launch?

 

[Look over there]

Oh no, not when you found it, just when what you found became available publicly is all…

So it’s Q2. Interesting.

Ooh, yea, whenever Drake launches, it'd be fun to compare the time frame of engineering sample testing -> launch against PC space. Where PC space would be (engineering sample come in and get tested) -> engineering samples leak/"leak" -> launch.

 

[C_Ali]

Even without any upscaling tricks involved, every Nintendo studio should be already able to make games on par with Forbidden West, TLOU2 and GOW Ragnarok if they have the skills and expertise. With DLSS, RT hardware and modern feature sets on the ecuation (as well as the power from docked mode), nobody should underestimate this little monster.

I mean, every man should be able to breathe underwater, if they have gills.

 

[Lancelot]

I mean, every man should be able to breathe underwater, if they have gills.

Hm, good analogy but this is a graphical/computation thread after all. Switch games clearly lack the quality geometry, shaders and illumination from PS4/One titles no matter how much they try to hide it. Until now, graphical artstyles have been a crutch for not being able to keep up with those things... Now? We're certainly playing in those ballparks and more, only if their studios are as technically talented as they say to be.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I'm confused. What does this have to do with a Q2 launch?

Ooh, yea, whenever Drake launches, it'd be fun to compare the time frame of engineering sample testing -> launch against PC space. Where PC space would be (engineering sample come in and get tested) -> engineering samples leak/"leak" -> launch.

 

[Dekuman]

I think we already have the cheapest Switch configuration. The Lite is dockless and doesn't need separate joycons.
Cardless Switch doesn't make sense. Unlike PS5, where the BR drive ia major BOM expense, the card slot is peanuts and doesn't really bring any other advantages to the device (doesn't make it smaller, or significsntly cheaper). It only drives users to digital, which highlights the inadequate 32GB storage. They could up it to the 64GB or even 128GB, but that would be increasing their BOM.

The biggest thing is, third parties, especially those with free to play service games really really want their games to be able to be downloable into the internally memory out of the box without additional investments for MicroSDs. Releasing a cut down 32GB Switch with no card slot would put further pressure on users using the 24~GB available to games , which could mean these 15-20GB downloads would not work if there's a 5-6GB Nintendo first party game already installed.

 

[C_Ali]

Hm, good analogy but this is a graphical thread after all. Switch games clearly lack the quality geometry, shaders and illumination from PS4/One titles no matter how much they try to hide it. Until now, graphical artstyles have been a crutch for not being able to keep up with those things... Now? We're certainly playing in those ballparks and more, only if their studios are as technically talented as they say to be.

Yet, by your own admission you admit they aren’t as technically versed. To make a statement that they should unequivocally be at a standard they aren’t, given they have the “skills and expertise” means absolutely nothing. Yes, their image quality should jump. Nobody is debating otherwise.

Technically talented as they claim to be? Or people claim them to be?

 

[Lancelot]

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *


* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

Sounds about right for an announcement in May, just in case. Nintendo is clearly interested in showing ToTK is the very peak of what can be made on Switch, showing the successor a bit after is a way to say this is indeed the best they can make for it.

 

[bmfrosty]

Regarding Mochizuki's reports, they changed over time, and @mariodk18 posted a helpful summary here. Up until March 2021, he simply stated that there would be a 4K-capable Switch released in 2021. In March 2021, he stated that it would have an OLED screen and use DLSS, and then in September 2021 he stated that a 4K-capable Switch wouldn't be released until late 2022 at the earliest.

My hypothesis (which could be entirely wrong) is that Mochizuki's sources were talking about a couple of different models, which were conflated together. An overclocked Mariko model may have been the basis for the first couple of reports, and that could have been cancelled (say in early 2021), and at the same time Nintendo started talking to developers about their DLSS-capable next-gen system instead. So in late 2020 he talks to developers about a 4K Switch launching in 2021 (the mid-gen upgrade), then in early 2021 he asks other developers and they say "The 4K Switch? Yeah, it's using DLSS" (but they're actually talking about the next-gen console that's further out), and then supply chain reports tell him Nintendo have ordered a load of OLED panels for delivery this year, and he connects the dots to get a 4K-DLSS-OLED system in late 2021.

I'll readily admit that an overclocked Mariko is very much a stretch to be called 4K-capable, but perhaps it was more "4K output" rather than rendering at (or even close to) 4K.



Just for clarification, the old roadmap had Nano Next to launch before Jetson Orin, but not necessarily before Orin itself. Orin was shipping to automotive customers for quite a while before any of the Jetson products shipped (since sometime in 2021, at least). So conceivably they could have planned to take dies that didn't meet automotive bins and use them in Jetson Nano, although it would have been a bit strange to not have any intermediate binned chips (like they're using for Jetson Orin NX), unless some automotive customers would use these as well.

One thing that has me thinking Orin was always planned to be used for Nano Next is that it's just much better suited to Jetson use-cases. With double-performance tensor cores, the Orin Nano 8GB (with 8 SMs active) would comfortably outperform Drake's 12 SMs in ML workloads clock-for-clock. A hypothetical pre-Drake Nintendo chip would have almost certainly underperformed even the current Orin Nano 4GB, so wouldn't have made much sense to use for a Jetson product when significantly cut-down Orin chips are apparently viable.

The other, related issue is DLSS performance. It's hard to judge exactly how much performance is required for DLSS in a console environment, but I feel like they'd be stretching to get close to 4K with a chip the same architecture as Drake, but less powerful. Personally, my expectation for Drake is DLSS to 4K at 30fps, but only around 1440p at 60fps (which I'd be perfectly happy with). If there were a pre-Drake chip with, say 6 SMs, you'd then be looking at perhaps a 1440p max from DLSS at 30fps, and not exceeding 1080p at 60fps. The logical thing to do here would be to use Orin's architecture instead, with double-performance tensor cores, as a 6 SM chip could then get the same ML performance, clock-for-clock, as our 12 SM Drake. This is basically what I was predicting before the Nvidia hack, and I still think it would have made sense for a mid-gen upgrade, but if there was a change in architecture like this, I would expect some kind of remnants in the Nvidia hack pointing to it, such as a different code for the chip (ie not T239).

Also, if Nintendo were planning to release an Ampere-based Switch device in 2021 (a year after Ampere desktop launch), then after cancelling that, why would they stick with Ampere for a 2023 release? If you're already making architectural changes, and possibly node changes, why not switch to Ada? It would still be launching about a year after the desktop Ada launch, so it wouldn't be any more cutting-edge than Ampere in 2021.

I'm not 100% ruling out the intermediate chip theory, and I admit that the overclocked Mariko theory is far from perfect, but it just seems the less-improbable scenario to me at the moment.

I think the original concept for NX would have had Mariko upclocked at release in 2019 and a newer SoC (Drake) in 2021. Repeat as long as it works.

I don't think that the new management had the political will to follow through on 2019 and the "chip shortage" made Drake hard to manufacture in large, reliable quantities well enough to make the new management follow through.

 

[Lancelot]

Yet, by your own admission you admit they aren’t as technically versed. To make a statement that they should unequivocally be at a standard they aren’t, given they have the “skills and expertise” means absolutely nothing. Yes, their image quality should jump. Nobody is debating otherwise.

Technically talented as they claim to be? Or people claim them to be?

I'm just saying I can't expect every EAD studio to take the same massive jump that Mario and Zelda EAD (as well as Monolith Soft) will make on this hardware. They don't all have the same level of expertise, and many of them have been actually unable to squeeze the Switch properly (looking at you, Game Freak). Nintendo has overall less experience making cutting edge videogames like those, Sony is a lot more consistent in squeezing the PS4 (that is, with glaring exceptions like Bend Studio which were clearly rookies by the time of Days Gone).

 

[C_Ali]

I'm just saying I can't expect every EAD studio to take the same massive jump that Mario and Zelda EAD (as well as Monolith Soft) will make on this hardware. They don't all have the same level of expertise, and many of them have been actually unable to squeeze the Switch properly (looking at you, Game Freak). Nintendo has overall less experience making cutting edge videogames like those, Sony is a lot more consistent in squeezing the PS4 (that is, with glaring exceptions like Bend Studio which were clearly rookies by the time of Days Gone).

Oh, I apologize I must’ve misunderstood this statement:

“Even without any upscaling tricks involved, every Nintendo studio should be already able to make games on par with Forbidden West, TLOU2 and GOW Ragnarok if they have the skills and expertise.”

I took it literally as EVERY Nintendo studio. Apologies.

 

[Hidden04]

I can still see a May 2023 launch with Zelda, as the OLED will release a couple of months before. We will know soon since the device could enter production by the end of January.

 

[C_Ali]

I can still see a May 2023 launch with Zelda, as the OLED will release a couple of months before. We will know soon since the device could enter production by the end of January.

I will keep hope alive!

 

[Lancelot]

Oh, I apologize I must’ve misunderstood this statement:

“Even without any upscaling tricks involved, every Nintendo studio should be already able to make games on par with Forbidden West, TLOU2 and GOW Ragnarok if they have the skills and expertise.”

I took it literally as EVERY Nintendo studio. Apologies.

Don't worry, it's fine. I just have seen a crapton of hardware discussion about Drake that's clearly a very promising console (the strongest they will ever make for a real while), but... Really, in real world scenarios, it's hard for me to imagine getting a FW-tier game from every major 1st party studio, they're all over the place as long as optimization and budgets go.

 

[hologram]

700 pages, nice work

I don't always post in this thread a ton but I appreciate how knowledgeable y'all are and how much I've learned by reading here

 

[Lancelot]

I think that for the first time since the Nintendo Gamecube... We have never gotten information about something that will legitimately catch more than a half of Nintendo unprepared. That is, exclusively in the topic of having every EAD studio squeezing or even needing those very likely 1.6/3.1 TFLOPS.

In summary: It may be severely underutilized by their own makers until a real while, just like many 3rd party studios are already unable to squeeze PS4 properly. For some context of the GC, barely anything actually used that console except for F-Zero GX, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime and Star Fox Adventures. The first mostly made by Sega, the second by Capcom, the third by Retro Studios (a just acquired studio by then) and the fourth by Rare. No actual first party there, these actually struggled to release games with the intended content and features, which unavoidably hurt the reputation of the Gamecube for the rest of that generation (from Miyamoto's words, a WW with the style from SpaceWorld 2000 would've taken 10 years to make).

 

[Concernt]

I think we already have the cheapest Switch configuration. The Lite is dockless and doesn't need separate joycons.
Cardless Switch doesn't make sense. Unlike PS5, where the BR drive ia major BOM expense, the card slot is peanuts and doesn't really bring any other advantages to the device (doesn't make it smaller, or significsntly cheaper). It only drives users to digital, which highlights the inadequate 32GB storage. They could up it to the 64GB or even 128GB, but that would be increasing their BOM.

The biggest thing is, third parties, especially those with free to play service games really really want their games to be able to be downloable into the internally memory out of the box without additional investments for MicroSDs. Releasing a cut down 32GB Switch with no card slot would put further pressure on users using the 24~GB available to games , which could mean these 15-20GB downloads would not work if there's a 5-6GB Nintendo first party game already installed.

Thing is, the screen, even on the Lite, is a considerable cost. Being able to cut that and the battery would help slice the price.

While the Lite is a good example of a price cut Switch, I think a price cut, TV CAPABLE unit would appeal to a new audience.

Still, that's up for Nintendo to determine.

 

[Lancelot]

Thing is, the screen, even on the Lite, is a considerable cost. Being able to cut that and the battery would help slice the price.

While the Lite is a good example of a price cut Switch, I think a price cut, TV CAPABLE unit would appeal to a new audience.

Still, that's up for Nintendo to determine.

A TV only unit of the Switch, you mean? Wouldn't be bad if we got it to overclock decently, that should make the docked experiences a bit more bearable.

 

[Hermii]

A TV only unit of the Switch, you mean? Wouldn't be bad if we got it to overclock decently, that should make the docked experiences a bit more bearable.

That would not require a TV only device, and would benefit handheld mode the most anyway.

 

[Concernt]

A TV only unit of the Switch, you mean? Wouldn't be bad if we got it to overclock decently, that should make the docked experiences a bit more bearable.

What else would I talk about? A TV only 3DS?

But seriously, I think it could happen. No overclocks, though. Just OG Switch TV mode.

 

[Lancelot]

What else would I talk about? A TV only 3DS?

But seriously, I think it could happen. No overclocks, though. Just OG Switch TV mode.

I mean that you maybe forgot there's a more expensive system coming soon, that would certainly benefit from a TV-only version merely for docked clocks alone... But yeah, that's where the question came from, there's not much to cut from the Switch's price point at this point. The system is worth 100$ to make at best, that could be the price if they wanted to.