Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@skywake I am of the feeling that the longer time passes since the Switch launch, the bigger the power jump is going to be needed. I’m curious what kind of power jump the Switch Pro would create other than maybe better frame rates and HDR. I feel Nintendo are about to, if not already hitting that barrier of what can be squeezed out of the current hardware and would need something a fair bit more hefty under the hood while still being backwards compatible. I definitely don’t think whatever happens the cartridge will change other than maybe larger capacity and the controllers would be the same.

@Kermit1 I'm still sticking with next year sometime, between Q2 and Q3, due to hardware cycles rather than any particular software release. I'm sure they'll have at least one big seller around the launch window period. Apart from Zelda, there's also a Mario movie next Spring which may well have a new game to go along with it?

@FragRed
To be fair, improved performance and additional features is pretty much all new hardware ever delivers. Arguably even the "transition" to the 3D era, we had 3D on the SNES it was just not really built around it and generally ran poorly and without features like textures. Overly simplified obviously but still, it's always performance and features.... which sounds boring but still, it's not insignificant

I mean take the recent Pokemon games. I quite liked Arceus in spite of the performance issues because of its fresh take but am skipping Scarlet/Violet largely because of the performance issues. The take is no-longer novel enough to carry it, IMO. More performance I think would greatly improve those games. Not just because it would allow them to render more assets at a nice framerate but also because it'd allow those empty fields to have a bit more stuff in them

And when you step back and think about it? Those sort of open world games are generally where the Switch falls a bit short. Especially in terms of third party support. Think about the most impressive ports on Switch, what do they have in common? Well generally they're either 360 era titles like Skyrim or they're corridor shooters like Doom. The only major exception is the Witcher 3 which is, frankly, kinda insane and shouldn't have worked.... although it's also a game that's effectively sub HD on Switch so there's that

And when I think about it, Witcher 3 on Switch misses the mark in pretty much all the same ways that the new Pokemon games do. Low resolution textures, static and/or low framerate environment elements and low performance generally. I mean, what can more performance offer? Basically this

.... in addition to maybe ports of the Tomb Raider and more recent GTA titles

I feel that people that skip a game in a series just because they think the graphics/performance aren't up to their standards don't really care about that series. It's not a critique, just an observation.

@BrazillianCara
To be blunt, I think your feeling is a bit wrong. With the exception of the GBA games I've played a game in every generation of Pokemon going back to Pokemon Red. Red, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Pearl, Soul Silver, Black, Black 2, Y, Moon, Sword and Arceus. So you can't really say I don't care about the series.....

Scarlet and Violet? I was certainly interested in them when they were announced but the more I see the less interested I have become. And performance is a large part of my declining. It seems to be a game that's either on hardware that's about a generation behind what it should be on or poorly optimised or maybe slightly too ambitious. Probably some combination of the three. So I'm sitting this one out, and not through lack of interest in the series. Lets see what they can do on the next spin

@BrazillianCara I get that. I think games are good based more on what you do than what you see. As gaming becomes increasingly popular, the bigger companies are really trying to push something equivalent to a cinematic experience than an engaging one. (Counting pixels isn't that engaging to me.)
Must be said, I appreciate style too and how performance can make a game better, but it's usually not a deal breaker if devs are thoughtful enough.

In terms of the upcoming Pokemon games specifically, the reason I'm skipping them isn't about the number of pixels being pushed. It's more to do with them releasing an unpolished product. Which is more a function of them not developing within the limits of the hardware. So it's both the hardware being behind but it's also them expecting a bit too much from the hardware

In some sense I'm skipping these Pokemon games because the graphics are "too good" for the hardware

@skywake Hey, that's fair enough Mr Bowser, sir I think everyone is wanting a new Switch (myself included!)

@skywake I have Witcher 3 on Switch and PC where I play in ultra wide 4K and I’ll be honest, that game as you said has no right running on the hardware. It probably wouldn’t normally be doable being it’s kinda only slightly more powerful that a Xbox 360/PS3 generation. I cannot remember what it was developers said at the time it was revealed that was incredibly up to date about the GPU side of it that allowed for these to happen. It’s gonna be bugging me now. A Switch Pro will allow some of the problems for games like Witcher 3 to run better and maybe look better if the developers do a patch for the latter. But it’s gonna need to be a pretty decent jump in hardware to something like PS4/Pro levels to really make people take interest in upgrading otherwise may as well wait it out.

They will sooner or later admit there is a Switch replacement coming as currently NMS clearly shows how far they can push the current chipset. If anyone played NMS they know what I am talking about. This games pushes as much as Witcher 4, BOTW did the limits of current GPU chipsets but still can play everyday games. They can make a 4K Switch DLSS but have it turned down to standard when Portable and change when Docked and game makers can update software to take advantage of the ubber GPU and tone down when goes to portable mode. So it can be done it's a matter when they will admit and give teaser for it.

@FragRed The main issue is Switch's memory bandwidth, 25 GB/s. If the next Switch iteration has memory bandwidth on par with the Steam Deck (88 GB/s) we should see games that have been developed under that spec performing better.

@Magician For comparison the Orin NX SoCs have 102.4GB/s memory
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-sys...

@TSR3 Could potentially have, sure. But it'll depend on what kind of power consumption and battery life Nintendo and Nvidia are aiming to achieve. I assume Nintendo's chief concern would be to target a battery life on a full charge to remain around 2.5 hours rather than reaching a memory bandwidth north of 100 GB/s.

@Magician
Memory bandwidth is certainly a significant limitation of the Switch but it's worth remembering that the "performance bottleneck" narrative is a bit of a simplified view. Different workloads have different bottlenecks.

The large asset heavy environments you tend to get with more "open world" games? Sure, memory bandwidth will be the biggest anchor on performance. But a title with more simulation type stuffs going on like a strategy/sim style game? That'll be more CPU limited. And a game with a fairly limited scope and not much in terms of physics/simulation/ai where the only game in town is high framerates and high resolutions? You'll want raw GPU number crunching

It's also worth noting that people aren't hyping up DLSS for no reason. DLSS is effectively just a way to run the game at a lower resolution and have some additional dedicated hardware do some fancy upscaling for you on the side. It's not exactly upscaling but, it also effectively is. And rendering at a lower resolution? It means you can have lower resolution assets than you otherwise would have needed for the post DLSS resolution. Which lowers the memory bandwidth and GPU compute requirements. A lot of these "bottlenecks" feed into each other like that

A bit on another tangent. Has anyone noticed how the tone in the gaming media has slightly shifted recently? I feel the Switch-next speculation has moved a bit from "not another rumour" and "will people shut up about it" to "this game could have really done with better hardware" and "when are they going to announce this thing?". The new Pokemon games in particular, a lot of reviews I've read have hit that note in a way they didn't even with Arceus earlier in the year. Seems like a bit of a shift in sentiment. The Switch is starting to have a bit of a Wii in 2010/11 smell about it

@skywake Probably that portion of games media and YTbers who are content with their Steam Deck and are now overly eager for Nintendo's response to Valve dipping a toe in their pool?

@skywake Given the nature of how release dates moved around this year (e.g. the sudden bringing XC3 forward to July after announcing 2 months earlier it would release in September), I think the internal schedule at some point before the February Direct for the 2nd half of the year was something like:

• July - XC3, Kirby's Dream Buffet
• August - Splatoon 3
• September - TotK + new hardware
• October - Bayonetta 3
• November - Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

TotK + new hardware got delayed to Spring 2023 resulting in XC3 taking the September slot to fill it but then Splatoon 3 needed extra time so you ended up with:

• July - XC3
• August - Kirby's Dream Buffet
• September - Splatoon 3
• October - Bayonetta 3
• November - Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

@Magician It is possible for Nintendo to create hardware that would be of the same size as the Switch and price range while also be near the Steam Deck? I’m not overly familiar with where about it stands in terms of hardware

Meh, the Holiday shopping season is upon us. Even though the Switch has only sold 6.68m units from April 1st to September 30th, the holidays are the busiest time for all the platform holders. I expect the Switch to have sold between 8m and 9m by the end of December. Granted, that's not as good as last year's 10.6m from October 1st to December 31st, but good enough to move the Switch Pro goal post to 2024 or later.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2022/221108e.pdf

There are going to be many sad pandas once we reach E3 2023 and still have nary a peep about the Switch Pro.

@FragRed It's possible. There are many portables on the market that come close.

The AYA Neo Air comes to mind.

@Grumblevolcano
The reason I don't buy that theory is that I'm not sure they would've delayed the hardware for TotK. And I'm also not sure they would've delayed TotK for the hardware. Although I'm slightly less confident on the latter

We also don't know for sure yet how well the new hardware will play with existing titles. If it's a New 3DS/PS4 Pro/XBox X like scenario where you just drop the old game in and it goes brrr? Well cool, and I probably then pick up Scarlett post the new hardware release. But if not..... these recent games are stuck in gimped hardware land forever