Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@Magician LoL, i get you. Everywhere i go there is someone talking about a switch pro/2 (Videos, forums, news sources, etc).
But it seems like it is a industry wide thing rather than a Nintendo exclusive one. i've also seen people talking about PS5/XSX pro versions coming next year, Steam Deck V2 and even a XSS pro.

@kaisu This happens every time a new console comes out. There always seems to be people who are never happy enough with the power.

@FragRed yep, seems to be influence of smartphone/modular hardware market growth in the past 20 years.

@Magician, I think you're wrong, next year there will be a new Switch...the Lite OLED!!!!

@SlashFuture
Frankly what I'm tired of is people labouring on this arbitrary point of "it won't be Switch Pro they'll just do Switch 2". I'm yet to see anyone peddling this line explain clearly what the difference is. I mean they'll say something like "even more powerful than Pro" or "they'll have something new". But when you push about BC they'll still say it'll have it

I mean really the only distinction I can think of between the two is marketing and whether or not games released for it will play on current Switch. The first is meaningless, call it Switch 2 if you want that's not what I mean when I say Switch Pro in threads like this. The second is a massive negative that has little reason to happen given we already know it'll still have a Tegra SoC

So yeah, bugger the "Switch 2". There's no advantage to it over "Switch Pro" at all. None. The traditional console cycle is dumb, the sooner we move past it the better off we'll all be

@kaisu
Two things. Firstly there will most certainly be a Steam Deck 2 and likely fairly soon given the content is in no way tied to the hardware. And even if there isn't someone else will make one. That's literally the entire point of Valve making this play. They don't want to sell hardware, they want to expand their platform

Secondly there is a notable difference between the current Switch Pro discussion and that typical fanboy fever dream stuff some people do on day 1. Firstly it isn't day 1, we're getting into year 6 and hardware sales are past their peak. Additionally the hardware itself is quite literally an order of magnitude behind their direct competitors

And we know what the SoC is. We have a fair idea what it's capabilities are (Switch forward and backwards compatibility should be doable) and we know the availability of other SoCs in that family (literally now). Also we know the murmurs of new dev kits started late last year which lines up with the above

To be blunt, a video of the final product could leak from a factory and some people here would still say it isn't happening. Hell, I bet even when Nintendo announces it and outlines what it is people will no-true-scottsman it away. "They called it New Switch so it's just a Switch with a camera, it's not a Switch 2 or Switch Pro. That bit about 4K is just upscaling it doesn't count. And there is no separate version of TotK specifically for New Switch so it's still Switch. They still track sales of it as Switch" etc, etc

@skywake i didn't say a new Steam deck is impossible or unlikelly, i just stated that the comunity also is waiting for a revision just like the Nintendo fanbase and basically the entire gaming comunity.
And i wasn't talking about rumors credibility or how likelly a switch sucessor/revision is, i just said that i know how @magician feels about the constant spam of switch pro related content.

@skywake I’m surprised we haven’t seen any leaked dev kit images yet especially when the PS5 dev kit was leaked months before the actual console was shown.

@kaisu
Well @magician holds the view that there won't be any hardware revision until 2025 or something. All I'm saying here is that there's a middle ground between the uncle who works at Nintendo who said there's a Switch 8K with DDR6, RayTracing and (insert other buzzword here) etc and the outright denialisim the PR machine requires and some fans cling to

And that middle ground is where most people have landed here. That's where most of this discussion you're complaining about is. New Tegra SoC with a Switch that is at the tail end of its cycle and past its peak. More probably than not new hardware within the next year. Also almost surely having software and hardware compatible more than most other generational transitions of the past

Label it whatever you want, put a pin in one end of that range of probable outcomes or the other. Speculate that its Switch 2 in 2024 or Switch Pro in 2023, it's all more or less the same and fits within the above

Hello

@skywake (Warning: Long Post Ahead)
Yeah that's a fair criticism, any newer chip used in Switch 2 could be classified as a "Pro", I guess, but I agree that classifications are dumb; We can thank Sony for that, I guess.
I guess when I think of a "Pro" console personally I think of them using the absolute cutting edge chip, which I don't see Nintendo doing.
When I talk about the Switch 2, I don't necessarily talk about the power part, because Nintendo generally uses older than current hardware anyhow, but from a Marketing standpoint. The Switch had great marketing and is still selling well.
But how does Nintendo market a future Switch? The novelty of the Switch has somewhat worn off by now, and BC will definitely be a huge selling point, but how can the Switch be expanded upon while still being a Switch? Can they get by just upgrading the chip more, putting the Tegra X2 or what chip people are talking about now, and keeping the form factor the same?

The switch is like really sus. I have a switch lite, but it seems weird.

My definition of Switch Pro (or Switch 2 if you'd prefer) is pretty much anything that can run most ported PS-4 era games without nerfing them (I wouldn't expect it to be at the level of the most resource-intensive PS-5 games) and can also still run current Switch games. I think a main reason people talk about a new Switch is because people really want back-compatibility which Nintendo often doesn't do with new consoles.

Note that Switch lites don't 'Switch' so I would still count a tv-connected-only device as a Switch Pro if it ran my current library, although probably the naming convention should change in that case. I do enjoy the ability to Switch between tv and handheld but if there was a future where that only worked on the less resource intensive games I wouldn't really mind.

@SlashFuture
Ahh, I see. I guess that's part of the confusion then. See I use the suffix "Pro" here in the same way Nintendo uses the "i" in DSi or the "New" in New 3DS and also how Sony used it for the PS4 Pro. Basically new hardware that has more capabilities but while maintaining largely the same library compatibility

And in that context "Switch 2" becomes a traditional successor. Basically also having new hardware, possibly some new form, possibly some new gimmick. Maybe backwards compatibility but not necessarily. Probably accessory incompatibility, definitely software incompatibility. So like Switch, Wii U or 3DS and most other new consoles

In the Switch Pro universe TotK is a Switch game, Pikmin 4 is a Switch game. We keep getting Switch games for years. With Switch 2? These games are probably playable but not in any enhanced sense on Switch 2. There may or may not be ports you can buy which won't work on Switch. Also on day 1 you will be buying Switch 2 games that aren't on and can't run on Switch.

That's the distinction we're making here and, IMO, the only one that makes much sense. I think new hardware is soon, I hope it's Switch Pro and not Switch 2. And I think anyone hoping for Switch 2 is..... well not sure what they're hoping for....

Normally, with exceptions like Twilight Princess and BOTW, Nintendo stop developing games for the previous system (3DS being the exception when the Switch launched) but the more time I think about it, the more I understand when others on here say they will probably support both the current Switch and whenever the Switch 2 ends up being released like how Sony are supporting both PS4 & PS5 at the moment. But after 2 years they only focus entirely on the newest hardware.

The Switch is definitely continuing to do crazy numbers year by year without a price drop which must be a shock to the heads at Nintendo. Maybe they have seen this huge base as something to keep supporting but all marketing shows the game’s running on the Switch 2.

It’s really hard to work out how Nintendo will ever do anything though. Whatever we all say will probably be totally wrong.

@skywake Yeah my apologies, I didn't quite articulate that right, sorry for the confusion! I definitely will be happy when Console definitions go out the window...
I definitely hope they keep the Handheld/Console system they have going right now, just maybe improve on it however you can, but I definitely would be happy to keep playing the future games on my current Switch, even at a lower frame rate, as long as it is smooth...
( When you've had a Lower-Spec Laptop for a while, you definitely appreciate when games just run smoothly)
But I definitely get what you're saying, and I do hope it happens that way too!

@skywake @kaisu

This one understands me. Appreciate that.

Seriously though, I concede that Nintendo may introduce either an OLED Lite or a Switch Home variant of the Tegra X1. But that the internals won't be updated until the successor is ready for worldwide distribution, and only after Switch sales figures have plummeted, say...below 5m annually. To which I feel Switch still has three years of 10m+ consoles sold potential in its lifecycle.

Just my perspective.

@Magician Is it really a wise decision to wait until annual sales slump that low before introducing new hardware? That seems pretty risky, especially if part of that is because people start/have moved onto other platforms or the Xbox streaming service. And I thought they said they wanted to move away from waiting for numbers to fall so low before introducing new hardware?

@FragRed It's the video game industry, there's risk around every corner. What portion of current Switch owners would be willing to spend $400+ on a half-step upgraded Switch versus a bona fide successor? I say $400 because the Switch won't get a price reduction until its final days and we're nowhere near its final days.

Nintendo have already stealthily increased the price of the Switch by selling its customers a more cost-efficient screen, an additional 32GB of internal storage, and an ethernet port for $50 more.

@Magician I agree with the general point you're making, but a drop off to below 5m seems too big, the annual sales are:-
Years
1 - 2.74m
2 - 15.05m
3 - 16.95m
4 - 21.03m
5 - 28.83m
6 - 23.06m

https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Nintendo_Switch

Below 5m would be just one third of it's worst ever sales year. I think if sales dropped off to 12m we'd see something.

The other question is, what if sales stay above say 18m per year for the next few years? What do Nintendo do? There's a new batch of kids getting older every year, maybe they can also attract even more casual gamers with the movies etc they have planned.

For context the Wii had dropped from 28mill/yr to 12mill/year from peak to the year prior to the Wii U launch. And it's generally agreed the Wii U was too late to launch as one of its many launch miscalculations.

The general belief in retrospect, as understand it, is that 2010 should have been the year for "Wii HD". Which in terms of sales trajectory is the year after it dipped from 28mill to 21mill. 2010 was 17mill, Switch will probably hit similar numbers in 2023. And this time they don't have a second platform to soften that transition

Waiting till 5mill would be lunacy