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

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Feel increasingly confident that Prime 4 and the next 3D Mario game will be released alongside or after the Switch 2 and will be cross-gen games that have some extra focus on making the Switch 2 version look good.
 
oldpuck said:
I don't recall any leak from kopite about GPU size. In this thread, @Alovon11 was the only significant pusher of 8SMs pre leak. Most of us, myself included, thought it was too far to go on Samsung 8nm, Alovon's argument was that it would be exactly half Orin, and be the simplest design move, consistent with the rest of the hardware.
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Funny. Its like we were predicting Tegra Orion NX at first.
karmitt said:
Why do you expect them to keep the V2 and not the OLED? I assumed the opposite would happen

I also don’t think they need to cut the cost if any of the other devices for a bit longer, just bring the OLED down to the original model price. Assuming a launch sometime this year, I could see end of year pricing looking like:
  • Switch 1 Lite $199 USD
  • Switch 1 (OLED) $299
  • Switch 2 $399
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Agreed. I've been saying this many times, though I think the lite should be dropped to $170-180.
Alovon11 said:
I will say, on the note of storage size, i should remind people of Sony's discussions on the capabilities of the PS5 and storage

The Strength of the PS5's Processing and the SSDs (This applies to the Series S|X too), allows developers to
  • Cut out Repeated use of assets in the installation as NAND has effective instant seek speeds
  • Have access to far more sophisticated compression algorithms (Games would need to be designed/converted to them and the system would need to support good decompression)
    • How fortunate Drake in a recent analysis of leaks, seemingly has a dedicated Decompression block like the Kraken in the PS5
  • A combination of the graphical fidelity achievable on the new consoles and the fast storage speeds leads to something that can drastically cut down install sizes for some types of games, Pre-Renders may no longer be needed.
    • An example of this is Final Fantasy XVI in which YoshiP has confirmed that all the footage in the recent Revenge Trailer was real-time and not pre-rendered,
      • For example, a game that made extensive use of Pre-rendered cutscenes from a previous generation, Final Fantasy 13, that game while around 48hr for the main objective completed, >100 for 100%, 9 hours of that was pre-rendered in some form either CGI or In-Engine. With the game on PC being 59GBs, and it is commonly reported that around 50GBs of that is the Pre-Rendered Cutscenes and Dual-Audio (So 25GB per language roughly)
      • If Final Fantasy XIII could run every cutscene in real-time it would fit onto the 16GB Switch Cartridge quite easily with room to stretch a bit to increase texture quality even.
    • So Next-Gen Exclusives that can utilize the instant seek speeds and far faster data speeds of the NAND storage can perform feats like FFXVI and eliminate pre-renders from the file size (Up to the developer on that, but you likely will see a split between games that are fully real-time, or games that use full-on FMV video files recorded on a high end PC rather than the older style of in-engine pre-renders)
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Man I wish language packs were optional downloads. That could save us quite a bit on space once we get to those big games.

Anyway, I do feel confident that Switch 2 games will be smaller than PS4/Xbone, and very much likely smaller than ps5 ports. I want Nintendo to give us a 500GB storage, but I can see them have two skus, with the more expensive one being closer to 500. I wish I was wrong though.

Serif said:
If Switch 2 is in May, what month would Nintendo announce it?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the possibility of them revealing the Switch 2 in a near timeframe to the TotK OLED. Marketing a $400+ successor so near to a $360 special edition for Zelda enthusiasts... while the game the special edition is celebrating may be a launch title for the next-gen. It's not impossible, but amusing to think about.
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Ideally, next week to the end of January. At the very latest, mid-February. the New 3DS was announced in August 29 and released in October 11 in Japan. Granted, New 3DS is basically a "Pro" version of the 3DS.. And we're talking about a switch successor here.

Maybe the closest time frame we got from an announcement to release for a new console successor is the Switch. Announced in October 20 and released in March 3rd. That's 134 days in between or about 4.5 months.
 
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Concernt said:
Wait, are Game Cards really more expensive than SD cards? Weren't they designed to be super cheap to produce so that they can function as a mass produced entertainment distribution media? What makes them more expensive?
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Game cards being less versatile and more expensive than SD cards is something I have frequently mocked over the years because it seems so stupid. 32GB game cards being prohibitively expensive for publishers to bother with, vs reliable 64GB microSD cards being available to end users for $10 or less.
ArchedThunder said:
People shouldn’t worry about game card storage size. Capacity per dollar improves every gen, Switch 2 32 gb cards for example should be cheaper.
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In all previous gens it's also been the case that we saw that capacity-per-dollar improvement along the way. SNES games going from half a megabyte to 4 megabytes standard. N64 games going from 8MB to 32MB norm. Early DS games on 16MB cards and some late ones on 256MB cards. 3DS cards ranging from 128MB to 4GB more or less. But since early 2017 we seem to have hit a wall, going from 16GB being common with 32GB being extremely rare, to 16GB being common with 32GB being extremely rare.
kalosmani said:
I don't have technical knowledge but does having 4k textures decrease performance. Would be quite wasteful to have 4k textures then if you are only playing in handheld mode
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PC games have this kind of slider all the time. You might need a GPU with a high amount of RAM to set your textures to Ultra, but if not you can set it to lower and the game performance won't hurt because the Ultra versions exist unused.
 
@kalosmani made a great post about switch 2 using two screens as a potential new gimmick. Just to add to this idea, I could see Nintendo, at some point, using foldable display tech to provide new experiences when it becomes affordable too.

You could use it in a clamshell style for 2ds/3ds back compat, fold it over completely for the two people opposite style previously mentioned, then as one big panel for a new type of portrait gameplay mode. Not that I think switch 2 will do this, but maybe the device after the switch?

On release timings, if we do really get this device in May, can we appreciate how well the Ninjas kept this under wraps? Everything we have is from Nvidia. Makes me nervous just speculating that one day I'll be walking down a dark alley, when there is a "Wahoooo, time to go" behind me, then I am never heard from again.
 
Truno said:
So, if we get the first direct of the year that fills most of the year with software releases and there's no mention of any hardware, would 2023 be officially dead?
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Honestly, if the Switch 2 doesn't get announced to be released alongside or little past/little before TOTK my next big bet is that it'll be saved for the return of E3 in an E3 Direct to be released for Q4 2023.

I personally wouldn't be ruling out 2023 even if we don't get it in May. A holiday 2023 release would still be in the cards and I believe the last resort for that news would be a major direct taking place in June. If we don't get that news by then, 2023 would absolutely be ruled out and we would be waiting on a September Direct for any sort of announcement regarding Drake for an early 2024 release.
 
Out of curiosity I put in T239 into LinkedIn - only got one hit that I could view:

Hardware Test Engineer
April 2022 - Present
Manage execution to electrically characterize and validate I/O interfaces (IC2, SPI/QSPI) of Nvidia GeForce RTX 40-Series GPUs and T239 GPU/SOC/CPU
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So this means nothing to me, but wondered if the work this person is doing, and the timeframe of it, would be relevant to the SoC’s production? Any takers?
 
karmitt said:
Out of curiosity I put in T239 into LinkedIn - only got one hit that I could view:



So this means nothing to me, but wondered if the work this person is doing, and the timeframe of it, would be relevant to the SoC’s production? Any takers?
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Lovelace gpu's are late 2022/ 2023 products. So them being grouped together with T239 means?

Edit: also nice find :)
 
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Just a reminder, original Switch was revealed 4.5 months before it's release. We are around just over 4 months away from Zelda release in May right now. So there is still enough of time to announce end of January and release in May for a Switch 2. They also don't need a huge gap from announce to release as Switch 2 will likely use the same concept. In fact the initial Switch 1 reveal was a concept trailer with a brief glimpse of games. The actual Switch 1 presentation with official game announcements happened only 2 months before switch 1 release. My guess Switch 2 gets revealed with a press release a week after Fire Emblem Release. First concept trailer 2 weeks after Fire Emblem release. Then press conference end of February with details of launch lineup pre-orders etc.
 
kalosmani said:
Just a reminder, original Switch was revealed 4.5 months before it's release. We are around just over 4 months away from Zelda release in May right now. So there is still enough of time to announce end of January and release in May for a Switch 2. They also don't need a huge gap from announce to release as Switch 2 will likely use the same concept. In fact the initial Switch 1 reveal was a concept trailer with a brief glimpse of games. The actual Switch 1 presentation with official game announcements happened only 2 months before switch 1 release. My guess Switch 2 gets revealed with a press release a week after Fire Emblem Release. First concept trailer 2 weeks after Fire Emblem release. Then press conference end of February with details of launch lineup pre-orders etc.
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If the announcement was right around the corner we would have more smoke by now. No smoke, no fire
 
Zemya said:
If the announcement was right around the corner we would have more smoke by now. No smoke, no fire
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The smoke is the Nvidia hack, bloomberg article etc. For comparison sake what smoke did we have for Switch 1 before the October reveal other than form factor leak (we can't really get form factor leak form successor if it's the same)
 
Zemya said:
If the announcement was right around the corner we would have more smoke by now. No smoke, no fire
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We have plenty of smoke at the moment.

And there's a reason the saying is "no smoke without fire" and not "no smoke, no fire".
 
karmitt said:
Out of curiosity I put in T239 into LinkedIn - only got one hit that I could view:



So this means nothing to me, but wondered if the work this person is doing, and the timeframe of it, would be relevant to the SoC’s production? Any takers?
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As I am understand it you can't do it I/O testing on a chip that hasn't been physically produced. So this seems to suggest that the chip physically exists which corroborates our previous assumption based on the Linux data also from (coincidentally enough) April 2022.
 
Zemya said:
If the announcement was right around the corner we would have more smoke by now. No smoke, no fire
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Reminder that we generally do not get rumors about gaming hardware in the November-December period when the people in supply chains are in full swing working on their current products. I expect we'll start hearing something by the end of the month if it's coming soon.
 
Skittzo said:
Reminder that we generally do not get rumors about gaming hardware in the November-December period when the people in supply chains are in full swing working on their current products. I expect we'll start hearing something by the end of the month if it's coming soon.
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Do you remember when we got the UE 4 data mine for the Switch?
 
Hermii said:
There's plenty of smoke about T239 and it's completion. Not so much about the actual Nintendo Nintendo product it's for.
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Yeah but if the T239 rumors started early last year I don't get why now we can think it's anytime soon

kalosmani said:
What about all the information from publications that Nintendo is working in a system that uses DLSS for 4K
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That's even older and we still got nothing concrete.
 
Zemya said:
Yeah but if the T239 rumors started early last year I don't get why now we can think it's anytime soon


That's even older and we still got nothing concrete.
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The Nvidia leak is pretty concrete. Just don't know when Nintendo will stuff it in a console.
 
Zemya said:
Yeah but if the T239 rumors started early last year I don't get why now we can think it's anytime soon


That's even older and we still got nothing concrete.
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I mean in this very page there is a LinkedIn profile grouping it together with other released/ soon to be released Lovelace cards. There are also the Linux commits implying it's a finished chip.
 
bellydrum said:
I would like a new Switch
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You got it! Introducing the New Nintendo Switch™! All the NEW! you could ever want!
Just make sure you clearly want a New New Nintendo Switch and not a Used New Nintendo Switch when you go to purchase it at the store!

I'll never get over that name for 3DS. Was so certain they'd actually change the International name.

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On that note, as people brought up, I'm surprised we haven't seen any information for Drake/Switch 2 in some of the public middleware engines out there (Unity, UE5, etc.), unless the partners have been extremely careful with the public builds to obscure those details in the internals?
 
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Zemya said:
Yeah but if the T239 rumors started early last year I don't get why now we can think it's anytime soon
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The timeline of chip manufacturing is why we're thinking it can happen soon. A user found information in the Linux kernel which indicates the T239 chip was physically produced, at least as a sample, as of April 2022 at the latest. People familiar with chip manufacturing have said it usually takes no more than a year to go from having samples to having the chip sold in a product.

Currently we know of no products using T239, yet it's been continuously getting Linux updates as of September 2022 at the latest I believe.


Also it's very healthy to bring in skepticism, I totally agree it's weird we haven't heard much from developer sources within the last year or so.
 
if Drake gets announced by the end of January, it'll have less time between announcement and release than the original Switch at <4 months. Switch was only done like that due to the Wii U dying before the next gen release, I doubt they're going to repeat that at the peak of their success. Imo it's Holiday 2023 at the earliest, and even I'm starting to have doubts about that given how MK8, XC3, and almost assuredly Pokemon's DLC ending this year increasingly feels like pre-generation house cleaning
 
Paxie said:
if Drake gets announced by the end of January, it'll have less time between announcement and release than the original Switch at <4 months. Switch was only done like that due to the Wii U dying before the next gen release, I doubt they're going to repeat that at the peak of their success. Imo it's Holiday 2023 at the earliest, and even I'm starting to have doubts about that given how MK8, XC3, and almost assuredly Pokemon's DLC ending this year increasingly feels like pre-generation house cleaning
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I feel like your reasoning here supports the exact opposite of your conclusion... The Wii U was dead and announcing a product earlier couldn't harm it any more then it already was. The Switch is not dead, it's selling extremely well for a going on 6 years console, so they will want to minimize the time between announcement and release of a new console to minimize the impact on current switch sales.

Am I wrong?
 
Paxie said:
if Drake gets announced by the end of January, it'll have less time between announcement and release than the original Switch at <4 months. Switch was only done like that due to the Wii U dying before the next gen release, I doubt they're going to repeat that at the peak of their success. Imo it's Holiday 2023 at the earliest, and even I'm starting to have doubts about that given how MK8, XC3, and almost assuredly Pokemon's DLC ending this year increasingly feels like pre-generation house cleaning
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That would give stronger evidence Switch 2 can come in May. Wii U was dead so there was a stronger reason to introduce Switch earlier. 4.5 months from announce to release for original Switch. So it wouldn't be surprising to have 3.5 month from announce to release for Switch 2 as Switch 1 is not dead like Wii U at this moment as well as no need to introduce a new concept of a hybrid system. Reminder the concept trailer for Switch was 4.5 months but the actual Switch presentation was only 2 months before release.
 
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