Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

I guess with more clear hardware stats pricing guesses come into play. I’m assuming this will be 400 dollars bare minimum, and I’m highly doubting they’d be willing to sell this at a loss, so my assumption is we may see like a 500 dollar version if they do an OLED sku.

For literal years, I have hoped against hope, blindly, faithfully wishing for Monolithsoft's new medieval fantasy IP to debut as a Switch 2 launch game.

Imagine Xenoblade X, combined with the old PS3 game Lair, with ARPG combat. My dream game. I still want to get into Xenoblade, but I'm dying for Monolithsoft to branch out with a new IP, and that long fabled medieval fantasy IP looked gorgeous.

Plus Monolithsoft's dev timing would line up for a new Switch 2 game.

This in and of itself will be one of the biggest reasons to replay every Switch game on Nintendo Muji (see what I did there?). The elimination of virtually all loading times will be absolutely massive, and experiencing the improvement firsthand cannot be understated. Animal Crossing New Horizons' lengthy load times, seamlessly walking into a TOTK shrine without any loading, I mean, the list goes on literally endlessly. Every single Switch game. Almost zero load times. I'm so hyped thinking about it. This is probably why last year's rumor said BOTW was shown off with zero load times.

Another big thing I hope backwards compatibility can do is upscale frame rate beyond 30fps. I'd love to see Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity bumped up to 60fps automatically with upscaling. A lot of Switch games with unstable 30fps would be great to be experienced at a fake 60fps.

This was the same exact thought I had in NL's Codename Muji article. Not only would a similar magnetic attach mechanic on the top and bottom of the Switch 2 tablet enable DS games and Tate mode games like SHMUPs, but also I'm imagining magnetic charging on the back of the tablet: a MagSafe-esque capability on the back so you can place a Switch 2 directly on a magnetic wireless charger, just like smart watches.

People were stuck on a literal, aesthetic interpretation of the term Muji, but with the idea of versatile magnetic accessory attachment, Nintendo's codename Muji is actually perfect when you imagine the new Switch 2 tablet as a metaphorical blank template capable of a next-generation level of modularity.

Nintendo Labo accessories being attached directly to the tablet, a second screen magnetically attached to the top of the tablet, a magnetic foldable screen protector, MagSafe-esque wireless charging, not to mention all the crazy things third-party manufacturers figure out what to stick onto the tablet...

If this turns out to be true, then the Switch's hybrid, modular concept really could be taken to the next level with attaching things to almost any and every part of the tablet.

I made such a wall of text that I forgot to mention the microphone! This more than anything else feels like a future-proofing for DS NSO. As we all know, many DS games utilized the microphone for gameplay mechanics, including important first-party titles like Zelda.

Another big hope is for the microphone to be used for long-awaited, much-needed, in-house friend chat features built right into the Switch (no phone apps needed).

Oh and the headphone jack is actually pretty smart since wired headphones are experiencing a recent resurgence in popularity. It's cool with the kids these days, apparently. Whereas I never left the boat to begin with.

Oops, yes. 3cm not 3m

TBH I'm not sure it did. However 6GB of total unified system memory for the amount of power we're talking about would be comically small. Case and point Sony and MS shipped with 8GB 10 years ago and it's not like RAM isn't significantly cheaper than it was back then. So they have 50% more than the home consoles from a decade ago. That's nice but it's not crazy. The Switch equivalent comparison would be like the 360/PS3 which had 512GB again about 10 years after. i.e. the Switch had 8X more than the home consoles from a decade ago

Obviously jokes, it is Nintendo here. It's also NVidia who is throwing 8GB of VRAM in 4060Tis. But realistically in this day and age 12GB is far from an extravagant amount. If anything if you read a lot of the discussion on this leak people are disappointed by it having "only 12GB"

Honestly, for a console that's going to spend most of its time doing stable 1080p this is a very sensible amount of memory

edit: as a side note. I don't think it's at all a coincidence that Nintendo announced their announcement last week on Tuesday and this shipping information was picked up on Friday. Notably they did more or less the same thing with the 3DS. The announcement was made, fairly non-eventfully in a press release, and then almost immediately after there were factory leaks of 3DS

A size comparison using the dimensions leaked here for the main unit. I've also made an assumption that the screen is, as the general consensus seems to be, 8" and thrown that in there so you can see how large the bezels would be. For the JoyCons I've just copy/pasted the existing from the regular Switch, will almost surely have larger JoyCon, making it even more wide overall, but doing anything else here would be a pure guess

@skywake Here's another mockup somebody made. Mockup is strictly about the size rather than the design.

https://www.androidauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/N...

Certainly will be the biggest handheld Nintendo has ever made. Not sure how I feel about that. I'll appreciate the bigger screen, but I think there's a limit. Steam Deck is way too big for my tastes, and I don't want a Nintendo console to ever get that big.

@Ulysses
Worth noting that the Steam Deck is also ~2cm thick in the middle and ~5cm at the grips while here we're talking about something that's basically no thicker than the current Switch. Which honestly makes sense if it allows compatibility with the existing dock. Anyways, these dimensions would suggest a device that's about as tall as the Steam Deck, probably less wide given the Steam Deck goes horizontal to makes space for touchpads, a lot thinner and almost surely a lot lighter

The 2 biggest drawbacks of the Switch hardware were its CPU and memory bandwidth. That shipping website doesn't give any info about the CPU of the Switch success, but it does provide details about its memory configuration: 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM running at 7500T/s.

This puts the memory bandwidth of the Switch successor at ~120GB/s, a very significant jump from the ~25GB/s memory bandwidth of the current Switch.

It'll be called the 'Switch Moo' and be shaped like a cow.

@Uncle_Franklin or the Switch Roo and a smaller model, the Switch Joey. It’d positively be a Switch Zoo..

@NinChocolate

well now you're just being silly.

@Ulysses
i do like the coloured buttons on the mockup and its actually something i would love to see on the switch,2 keeping the europe/japan SNES colour scheme

i find buttons having colours can help when it comes to button presses too, things like QTEs in bayonetta or some of the special attacks in the stick of truth i find easier since i tend to notice the colours before the letters (using those games as an example as they were on 360 which also had colours and letters on its buttons)

I would love the colored buttons. If they are adding more buttons, make the traditional ones pop a little more.

@GrailUK
For me i definitely feel the switch fits in its own niche due to being a console where the others feel more like portable PC's, so will be curious to see what switch 2 is capable of with software specifically made for it, whether it be first or third party. (im hoping that "miracle port"s of games like FFVII remake/rebirth or the like are viable)

really in terms of a console the closest thing to what the switch did would be something like psp-GO which had an accessory which let you dock the system and play on the TV with a controller, though the system had its issues (such as no UMD slot) and the feature wasnt included in vita in favour of the pstv which iirc flopped even harder than the vita.

its one of the reasons im happy to hear that the next system is pretty much confirmed to be a "switch" since i feel the system had too much potential to be only used for one generation, so for me im defintely hoping its a kind of "super switch" with full backwards compatibility (though also hoping the new "joycons" have analogue triggers)

The color-button theory is something I hope is correct. I feel like this started when both Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario TTYD remakes had the button-color scheme in-game. If this theory is true, doesn’t that imply backwards compatibility? Because obviously TTYD and SMRPG are Switch games and the colored buttons aren’t really a Switch thing.

Honestly I don’t think I want a Switch Successor without backwards compatibility. We’d just get a bunch of $70 ports/remasters of Switch games. The Switch library is plentiful, so if we had to start from scratch I’d be demotivated to even getting it. That means we’d get even less new games and just expensive ports/remasters instead.

I don’t mind Nintendo bringing back games. I’m actually very supportive of Nintendo doing that, they’ve been choosing some really great games to remake/port/remaster. But if they’re new Switch games I don’t really see the point. Unlike the Wii U, most people getting the Switch Successor have already played the Nintendo Switch games. We don’t need to pay $70 to play each one again. I just want simple backwards compatibility that could potentially upgrade some games.

I don't think backward-compatibility is really much of a question at this point, although I do hope they emphasize the fact whenever the official reveal is so that there is zero confusion.

I am curious if there will be a short list of games (I'm looking at you Ring Fit) which aren't back-compatible for some reason or another, similar to how there are a couple dozen games which don't have cloud save amongst the thousands that do or the occasional game which doesn't support pro controller, etc.

@PikminMarioKirby
From what I can tell the general view amongst some of the more technically minded is that they could offer backwards compatibility via a GPU compatibility layer with the main source code running directly on the new CPU. But then additionally it would be possible to "update" existing games to enhance them in pretty much any way they want

How they charge (or don't charge) for this? That's less of a technical question that's a bit more up in the air. But my suspicion is that the basic backwards compatibility would be at no charge and just part of the new console. But for more substantial updates to some titles like a possible BotW update.... my gut feeling is for something like BotW it'd be small fee, maybe ~$10, that's waived if you have an active NSO subscription. With other developers possibly making different decisions

@skywake My worst fear is that they don't have those updates free or for a small fee, but instead tie them only to expansion pack. And of course make it so it goes away when you leave expansion pack. If it were normal NSO that would be fine, but that seems too un-greedy.

I mean do you really want to force your audience to have a backpack to use it as a handheld? Isn't that too limiting? Unless you're a student that plans on taking it to school (which... wouldn't be very wise) I don't think there's much utility for a backpack handheld in the first place.

Not quite the new IP I'd be excited for, but sure, why not?

Okay I would love this concept. The modular nature of the Switch has so much potential, if they can expand on it with new peripherals and ways to connect it with other devices that would be amazing.

Soo... you're saying Switch is useless? 🤔 You may be in the wrong forum then.

Obviously you don't need a backpack, you can use a large purse, a car, a bathroom counter, etc. Personally I carry it in a backpack on planes and trains mainly. But yeah, normal Switch definitely would not fit in almost any pocket so I don't really see the change with making it slightly larger for Switch 2. People seem to enjoy it as a handheld nonetheless.

...as a handheld. I almost always use it docked. It really needs to fit in your pocket to be a good handheld.

Thing is that carrying around a bag all of the time is pretty tedious so I'd prefer not to unless I'm carrying around a large load (say, something larger than a cereal box). A handheld console doesn't need to be that large, they can make it more compact. By you know, making it a clamshell like the DS and 3DS.

I don't really see why people are so okay with the Switch as a handheld TBH. Having to get a bag just to carry around your handheld feels like overkill, and especially is irritating when the last 20 years of handhelds before it have been designed to fit in your pocket (GB, GBC, GBA, DS, and 3DS could all fit in your pocket, why wasn't the Switch designed to as well?).