Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@skywake I saw the same rumour and it came from a source that was saying since early last year that cloud versions would become much more common on switch and to be fair they are.

I would say you are ignoring one major factor. Altough ommiting the cartridge slot saves pennies that is just not true for the cartridge itself. Even the smaller ones are way more costly than CD based ones and if you go for 16gb or above they take a good chunck of profits.
Also if you omit physical versions you not only save on the cartridge itself but also on the box and delivery. On average for a third party I believe they get between 40-55% profits on physical and 70% on digital (30% goes to the platform holder)

I don't even think it's about "saving money on card slot and cartridge" or "getting more per game".

Companies release digital only because it's a product many consumers show demand for, and thus, one more avenue they can take to increase overall hardware sales.

We're far enough in the digital age most consumers prefer digital. A lower cost system that costs a bit less, that still does everything that particular consumer needs it to, is one more way to get a lower cost system out the door and drive hardware sales, and thus drive software sales.

Digital only system for $50 less may mean a smaller profit margin per system sold for Nintendo, but if it means selling an extra 10 million units over the generation, why wouldn't you.

Digital only systems, to me, seem to be a no brainer in this day and age. I'm all digital, and would totally be interested, if not for the fact I already have an OLED so, unless it's smaller and more portable, I would have no incentive to buy. But for those who haven't jumped in yet? A $250 fully featured hybrid Switch would certainly being in some extra sales.

@JaxonH
This is true however you can already be digital only on the current Switch. Digital only consoles justify their existence by being cheaper SKUs or at the very least offsetting the reduced cost of omitting the drive by making improvements elsewhere

A digital only Switch would not be much cheaper in raw BOM cost. We're talking cents. Something that might make sense when dropping backwards compatibility late in a console cycle. Doesn't really make much sense to lock out options for people to purchase games on the current platform for such a small benefit

I wouldn't be surprised if a digital only Switch did release eventually, even the current gen Switch, just without the cartridge slot. Nintendo might want to gauge interest for such a model for future reference.

Now if the next gen Switch will have a digital only version, maybe they foresee that the majority of games at that point won't fit in cartridges (at least no on the cheaper options) and will have mandatory downloads, so they see a digital only version make a lot of sense.

That pic you posted of your collection in another thread says otherwise 😉

@dmcc0
😆

I made the switch to digital but still have collector mentality as I already had so many Switch games after the first year, so I still buy physical because it makes no sense having an incomplete collection.

@JaxonH So do you buy a physical & digital? Not sure my wife would be onboard with that - she already complains about how many games I buy so buying them twice would tip her over the edge I think 😂

I'm by no means a collector, but I do still prefer physical on Switch. I've no issue with digital at all - I have a Series S and do play the odd old/indie PC game - but on Switch it's different for some reason - if there's a regular physical version available then I'll try and pick that up rather than the digital. I'm not really sure why either. It's not really a storage issue on anything like that; I'd actually prefer the whole library on a couple of SD cards for convenience with Switch, but something is still compelling me to buy carts over digital.

@Balta666 I don't think predicting that cloud versions would become more common on the Switch adds credibility to the source. That's been pretty obvious since the new generation came in, and would mean the Switch would find it harder to keep up. I think if the next Nintendo console dropped cartridges, that would be big news, but I think as @skywake suggests, a late model dropping backwards compatibility is more likely if at all. Is it possible to share the link to the original rumour so we can judge for ourselves?

@TSR3
I saw a long video rant from one of the more respectable (IMO) Nintendo focused youtubers. Not that that's saying much. But they seemed to be trying to give the idea credibility. I only posted about it here because I think it's nonsense. I don't really feel the need to hunt down the source of it to give someone who I think is full of it credit.....

I'm sure you could find what I'm talking about but if you really wanted to

The semiconductor shortage is going to last for years. Whatever Nintendo has in mind for the successor of the Switch, I don't think it'll come online anytime soon.

@skywake I found it and I understand now

I suppose if Nintendo decide to use an additional Tegra SoC to maintain backwards compatibility for any prospective Switch 2, then a cheaper model dropping backwards compatibility as well as cartridge support could make sense to hit a certain price point.

It's been Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference this week, and they've announced specs for the Orin NX Jetson kit, which is based on their lower powered version Tegra Orin SoC. This could be the basis for whatever Nintendo's next Switch or Switch replacement will use (Nintendo would probably have a version that ran at even lower power, and supported backwards compatibility). Its GPU will be Ampere based, however it won't be available until Q4 2022, so with manufacturing lead times I'm guessing that would also rule out a late 2022 launch for the next model. Oh, and it's going to be manufactured on Samsung's 8 nm process

Full technical details here ...
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/autonomous-machines/embedded-sys...

Oh where do we start pointing the obvious problem here. They release Digital Same price over and over for games that sell and have no incentive to lower selling Digital game prices. Where does it say that they have to make it less? They can make you pay MSRP for the life of the Digital release 2yrs on to infinite years and you still pay their price not market value price.

There no such facts to say that makes it cheaper - developers are in to make money remember They aren't your Friends. If they don't make money they die or get sold off and broken up. There is more then cents to be saved. Going all Digital they force you to pay their price not what Real market forces makes the price changes for a Physical cart game.

If one doesn't remember here's the same video I keep posting when people talk about Digital Only games and whom Owns whom. It's true back then and still true today.

Digital Distribution Vs Physical Media and True Ownership

@SwitchForce
I don't think anything that you said there is at all in reaction to what I'm saying. I'm actually trying to argue that a digital only console wouldn't make sense. Without question developers/publishers make a greater return on digital. However these are costs that they would have to recover across the life of a console. High volume consumers of games will not be interested in the cheaper "digital only" SKU. So it makes no sense to make such a SKU

The exception would be disc based consoles where going digital only allows you to omit the drive required to play those discs. Such as the XBox Series S. Those consoles didn't go digital only to recover costs over the life of the console, although that is a side benefit. They went digital only because it allows them to sell to more casual consumers at a lower price point.

It makes no sense for the Switch, the cartridge slot is not a significant hardware cost. The significant cost is the screen and battery. Which is why we get the Switch Lite and not a Switch Go

I think Nintendo will be forced to put a new GPU in the Nintendo Switch as they said the Nintendo Switch will take another 5 years. I think the new revision comes in late 2022 or early 2023 with the new GPU

I had an idea that if they used a much more powerful mobile chip, they could have the dock be like a large heatsink with a fan in it, so when it's docked it will connect up with the heatsink and give much more power than when it's not docked. I don't see why this is not possible?

The other thing would be to have an extra processor in the dock itself, but I'm not sure if that would introduce issues like using SLi/Xfire on PC used to do, like micro stuttering.

@Shaman_King The Nintendo Switch doesn't have a discrete GPU, it's built into the Tegra X1 SoC (silicon on chip) along with ARM CPUs, memory controllers, etc. Also changing the GPU will break compatibility - all Switch games have drivers for the Nvidia Maxwell GPU (included in the Tegra X1SoC) built into their distribution packages. Any change of GPU will need all Switch games to be patched at least, or re-compiled. The next model from Nintendo is more likely to be a new console rather than a Switch revision.

@FlyingFoxy I've chatted with modders on this site who have overclocked their jail-broken OG Switches, and they report much better frame rates without too much extra heat. So the current docks probably don't need upgrading if Nintendo wanted to unlock the Tegra's from their current conservative levels (could be a runner with the Mariko revision of the Tegra SoCs, use by the 2019+ red box Switches). Meanwhile some kind of active cooling could well be possible in the next model, assuming they keep the hybrid design and depending on how hot they want to run when docked. I can't see a dock having a 2nd GPU for latency issues like you suggest, plus cost.

@TSR3

I’ve been combing forums trying to see if anyone can shed light on this. I found this document:
https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/en-zz/Solutions/gtcf21/jet...
That lists the TFLOPs of Jetson AGX Orin as 4.096. Now I’m hardly a GPU/SoC expert, so I’m hoping someone can speculate better than I can about the likelihood that a modified version of this chip, meant for robotics, could be put in the Switch Pro/2. I also read on the pdf that the chip will have 15, 30, and 50 watt settings. It wasn’t made clear what wattage is needed to achieve the 4 TFLOPs.

If this SoC could be a 1 for 1 transfer to the next Switch, this would be huge. Almost as powerful as the PS4 Pro but in a handheld.

Thoughts? Feel free to correct me, because this almost seems too good to be true. In terms of decent battery life, could handheld mode be brought down to maybe 2 TFLOPs on perhaps a 900p OLED screen? Could this even handle 50 watts in docked mode without over heating? So many questions.

EDIT: Ah. I’m seeing the difference between NX and AGX now. Feeling dumb. But still. I wonder how many TFLOPs the NX can put out.

@Cuzizkool Yep, as you suspected it's too good to be true. The AGX is designed for large industrial equipment and cars. If you used it for gaming it would have to be in a TV based home console. I shared a link about the release of the Orin NX last week. Unfortunately there's no NX equivalent of the Technical Guide for AGX that you found yet. Previous speculation has guessed an Orin based Switch could hit 1.3 TFLOPS (so land in the same performance ball park as the OS Xbox One). Nvidia have published memory bandwidth for the NX - it's 102.4 GB/s, or about 4 times what the Tegra X1 SoC in the current Switch is capable of. That should help out with FPS!

However the game changer wouldn't be the TFLOPS but the TOPS (Tensor Operation). Nvidia's marketing crows a lot about AI performance now. In gaming terms the Tensor cores on Tegra SoC are the same on Nvidia GPUs that power DLSS. So the speculation is that a revised or upgraded Switch could use this tech to produce decent 4K output when docked.

I'm pretty sure the Xbox One had FPS issues. It doesn't matter how powerful the hardware is, developers will always push boundaries/be lazy and fail to optimize their software for the hardware in question. FPS issues are not determined by hardware power, they're determined by programmers.