Nintendo/Zynga responses to Bloomberg story carefully worded non-denials. Dev kits are out there with developers
A change from the Maxwell GPU in Tegra X1 means backward compatibility issues, with different options possible to solve
Speculation about upgrade model (not 'Switch Pro' revision anymore) launch being as early as late 2022
PS what I don't get is what SoC these dev kits are running, if they've been out since last year, but GPU version is an issue for compatibility. Are we still looking at a Xavier based SoC? Or something Ampere based, but pre-Orin??
If we see a more powerful Switch, I'm worried carts won't be able to accomodate the size of the games and Nintendo will step closer to being digital (granted, like the rest of the industry.)
I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.
@GrailUK Switch carts are supposedly able to go up to 64GB, and none have been released so far (that I'm aware of) that are that large. But they are also seemingly very expensive at that size. I'd expect them to get cheaper as time goes on but that's not happened yet. I guess Nintendo's format is not standard enough to benefit from reducing storage prices? Nate and MVG also discussed this in their podcast and one thing that stuck out was that if DLSS is used to get to 4K, then the assets can still stay at HD def as they do now. So games for a Switch 4K shouldn't need to get much bigger than they are now.
@Atomic77 Nate and MVG discussed the OLED dock being future proof on the podcast as well. They seemed to think the HDMI 2.0 port was chosen just because it was the cheapest available, and that recycling a previous models accessories isn't the sort of thing Nintendo would do.
@TSR3 The only problem I have with that is it sounds very under utilisation of the system. If it has increased specs yet DLSS is doing most of the lifting, then why does it need to have more specs? (Sorry if a dumb question.)
I never drive faster than I can see. Besides, it's all in the reflexes.
Sometimes I wonder if Nintendo really knows what they are doing with this OLED thingy? Nintendo tried something really cool once with a Virtual Boy and then after awhile it went poof and disappeared. I wonder if this is going to go that same route. I hope not.
Atomic77
Nintendo Switch OLED Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Edition Gamer
Sometimes I wonder if Nintendo really knows what they are doing with this OLED thingy? Nintendo tried something really cool once with a Virtual Boy and then after awhile it went poof and disappeared. I wonder if this is going to go that same route. I hope not.
@Atomic77 Replace 'OLED thingy' with 'Labo VR' and that would make more sense
@GrailUK Not a dumb question, but I suspect you know the answer already
Anyway, if you want to to DLSS (or Nintendo's equivalent) to fake 4K, then you need the latest, or future Tegra SoCs from Nvidia. The X1 SoC used by all the current Switches doesn't have the Tensor cores needed by DLSS, and you can't back port them.
More real talk ... a new SoC will change the integrated GPU, and that will cause compatibility problems for current Switch games. MVG explained it on the talk with Nate - all Switch games have the Maxwell GPU driver integrated into their bundle of code. They discussed 4 options to handling this ...
1) Break compatibility
2) Integrate an X1 SoC onto the new motherboard, or a Maxwell GPU into a new custom SoC
3) Recompile all Switch games
4) Patch all games
Nate really didn't like option 1 because he thought it would break customer expectations now that digital (e-Shop) is so prevalent. Option 2 would add more cost to any new hardware, and options 3 or 4 still might not be done for all games.
How would you feel if a new hardware model couldn't play current Switch games? Maybe this is why Nintendo are talking about 8-10 lifecycle for the Switch - they expect to become a two system company again (like 3DS in parallel with Switch between 2017-2020)?
If we see a more powerful Switch, I'm worried carts won't be able to accommodate the size of the games and Nintendo will step closer to being digital (granted, like the rest of the industry.)
Technically there isn't much of a limit on the capacity of Switch carts. There's a cost limit sure and technically the largest one is 64GB but in theory? There could technically be larger cartridges. Which in theory means Switch games could be larger because UHD BluRay is limited to 100GB
If it has increased specs yet DLSS is doing most of the lifting, then why does it need to have more specs? (Sorry if a dumb question.)
As others have said DLSS is part of the higher spec. To get into the technical specifics there are different kinds of processors that are better at different kinds of calculations. You know of CPUs and GPUs, there's now a third kind that's great at AI calculations. A good way to think of it, imagine your CPU is a Professor doing some calculations on a whiteboard. Well a GPU is kind of like a lecture theatre full of students and Tensor cores are like a stadium full of monkeys. Which is to say it's not magic, it's just a different kind of processing.
Now let say we get this monkey stadium Switch. Sure, we get the monkeys to do the DLSS which makes the image bigger but there are other areas that could be improved. The students are the ones responsible for things like texture resolution, shadow detail and draw distance. If we had more/better students we could get more in that respect. And what about the professor? He's sitting there decompressing the game file, handing out the worksheets to the students, communicating with other professors over NSO. Surely we'd get something out of a better professor even with our new stadium of monkeys
So yeah, Tensor cores would be a very nice addition but there's more than one part to running a game
@TSR3
Or 5) Include a driver compatibility layer. TBH I'm not a Switch developer so I'm far from familiar with the particular ins and outs here. But It strikes me as odd that Nintendo would not have some kind of foresight here in terms of compatibility. Remember the "NX" announcement was literally framed as Nintendo moving away from developing for multiple platforms. Starting with building NX in such a way to make Wii U ports as simple as possible. I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have been prepared for a GPU micro-architecture change
@skywake I may have mis-understood Nate's podcast, I only listened to it once. But I think the patch option was meant to be a compatibility layer. They were assuming Nintendo would have discussed this with Nvidia and planned a solution. They were just speculating what it could be.
For myself I hope there is a comprehensive solution. About 80% of my Switch games collections is from the e-Shop. My assumption had been Nintendo would continue with a single platform and just upgrade components as they go along. Similar to the mobile phone model, but without new hardware every year. However I know old games got dropped from my iTunes library when Apple went 64 bit only, and some developers didn't update their software. Perils of digital collections I guess!
Random rumour thing I saw just now, think it was one pushed last week. Someone saying that Nintendo are working on a digital only Switch revision/successor. Just posting here to say that that idea makes absolutely zero sense
Think about it, the entire reason why digital only consoles exist is to reduce costs. The PSP had a digital only model which meant they didn't have to have the UMD drive which made for a smaller unit that drew less power. The XBox Series has a digital only SKU which removes the need for the UHD BluRay drive and allows for a smaller design.
....... but the Switch uses cartridges. You'd barely save any cost omitting the cartridge slot. It's just a bunch of contacts. There's pretty much no reason for console manufacturers to make digital only SKUs unless they're either dumping physical media entirely or they can significantly reduce costs by omitting it. Neither is true for the Switch
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@BrazillianCara
Yeah, maybe. But it still doesn't really make much sense given the Switch uses cartridges. Cartridges are certainly expensive but cartridge slots are incredibly cheap. When we talk about the XBox Series S we're talking about a $500AU console that lacks the UHD BluRay compatible optical drive. The retail price of a BluRay drive for your PC is about $80AU, UHD BluRay players are about $200AU.
A digital only Switch SKU would only save Nintendo about as much money as removing the GBA port on the DSi or the later revisions of the Wii that lacked Gamecube ports. Or when Apple removed the headphone jack and everyone followed them. Does it save them much money? No, not really. Does it irritate the people who used it? Definitely
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@skywake Isn't the biggest reasons companies create digital only consoles that they get a bigger cut from digital purchases than physical purchases and it forces players into purchases that'll ultimately be more expensive long term?
So like if you buy a Series S, the cheapest option short term is to subscribe to Game Pass and buy games/DLC digitally you want that don't appear in Game Pass. However, long term that becomes the most expensive option as at some point Game Pass pricing will increase and the cheap loopholes (like upgrade up to 3 years of Gold for £1) disappear but if you let your subscription lapse you lose access to the stuff you didn't buy outright.
@Grumblevolcano
Except that the digital only SKU is the budget SKU, it kinda has to be because you're giving up an option right? So generally the people buying it aren't as invested in the platform. On average you'd typically sell maybe 10 games per console but the people on the bottom end of that bell curve would be probably a bit less than that. But for arguments sake lets say it's 10 games
A Switch game sells for $70AU whether it's digital or not. Lets say that 20% of that cost is lost when you distribute that game physically vs digitally. Which from what I've read is fairly accurate, especially for larger Switch titles. Nintendo would therefore net about $14AU more per game for a digital only user. Across 10 games that's $140AU. Which probably makes sense
However more than half of the games sold on the Switch are already sold digitally. Grab a random Switch user buying a game, more than half of the time that purchase will already be digital. And likely if you had a digital only SKU you'd be actively selecting users who are ok with digital so the proportion would be even greater than 50% amongst those users. So taking that into account, maybe you get an extra $30-50AU out of those users.... so how much less would you be able to charge for this SKU?
Compare that to the XBox Series X and S. They charge $250AU less for the digital only Series S. It has a significantly lower spec and it doesn't include the disc drive which is probably about $70AU of that price. Given how much lower the spec is? They've probably got a healthier margin on the Series S. They've effectively got two strategies in the two different SKUs. One cheaper with lower tier components and omitted features to get more profit on the sale of the console itself and a higher tier built under the assumption that they'll make that money back over the life of the console
With a cartridge based console? Omitting the cartridge doesn't really increase your margin on the hardware itself. For a portable console what reduces your margin is the screen and battery. Nintendo's strategy with different SKUs for different budgets is what we already see. OLED at the high end, smaller LCD and smaller battery and removing the dock at the lower end
@skywake I wonder if the rumour you saw was someone picking up the references to Calcio from the datamine at the beginning of this year? https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/01/rumour_datamine_app...
A cardless device sounds more like a prototype or early dev kit than anything else to me. But there seem to be some people dreaming of a cheap TV only Switch device!
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