Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

I'm of the opinion mobile could still potentially be a danger to 'regular' gaming, although I agree so far it mostly hasn't been, partially because of failures of things like Stadia and success of things like Switch. Genshin Impact may earn more money than Zelda and be nominated for best mobile game every single year, but its still a very different (cough worse) gaming experience.

So far mobile gaming has mainly increased the overall number of people gaming (which is great) but now that the majority of the world has technically become gamers, the fight may be a bit different. Nintendo in particular has ended up positioning itself as a direct competitor to a certain portion of the mobile gaming market (watermelon game on your phone or your Switch??) , so I suspect it is a constant consideration for them.

So Steam Deck now has an OLED model and is phasing out 2 LCD models (64GB LCD, 512GB LCD) models so now there'll be 3 models:

• £349/$399 (256GB LCD)
• £479/$549 (512GB OLED)
• £569/$649 (1TB OLED)

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck

There's been plenty of discussion here about whether Switch 2 will be LCD, OLED or have both models so I feel this new info is relevant.

It'll be interesting to hear about what price Nintendo will be targeting with the NG Switch. I just can't fathom a launch price under $399, regardless of the configuration of storage or memory. Considering Nintendo are the Fisher Price of video games, launching the new console with a price lower than that might convey that Nintendo are cutting corners somewhere. Unless Nintendo bundle NG Switch with an evergreen title and push for $450?

I fully expect it to be $399. $50 more than the Switch OLED.

Digital Foundry...another timely video.

Between the Steam Deck OLED and it's clones and Apple now pushing for gaming on iOS Nintendo better get a move on.

There was a video on iOS gaming on LTT yesterday and while they're an outfit that is far from favourable to Nintendo you have to admit, the Switch didn't come out of the comparison very well at all. I mean sure, if you include cost and Library the scales tip significantly. But regardless, it's not the slam dunk victory it was a few years ago

If someone asked me what portable gaming platform they should buy? Right now I'd tell them Steam Deck OLED without hesitation

Another thing worth adding RE: Steam Deck OLED in terms of this discussion. We're in here speculating about what the spec Nintendo's next hardware will have with people dismissing outright some specs as being "over the top". Hell, on the front page of this side today under the article about the Steam Deck OLED there are all sorts of..... very bad takes....

But here we have right Infront of us Valve selling in comparatively low volumes hardware that has basically the Switch OLED's screen. Like literally the same sub-pixel layout but with a marginally different resolution, slightly higher refresh rate and significantly better peak brightness. Also with a 512GB NVMe SSD. WiFi 6E. 16GB of LPDDR5 @ 6400MT. Full HDR support both docked and not. VRR when docked. ~55% more expensive than the Switch OLED on the shelves now

So if we sit back for a second and consider that Nintendo's next hardware probably won't push the RAM spec quite that hard. Almost surely has a cheaper SoC that's significantly more efficient. And is also being made at MUCH larger volumes and releasing a full year from now? .....

I think some people who have been putting out some of the "grounded" takes RE specs may need to reconsider their positions just a tad. I mean, I still think they'll probably still go LCD just so they can be more aggressive with their pricing but, clearly, we're well past the days when an OLED portable with 100s of GB of flash storage was extravagant

Which makes me wonder how aggressive Nintendo will be with their pricing.

What could we expect with say...a $300 configuration and still manage to be competitive performance-wise to handheld PC gaming a year from now?

@Magician
What we can kind-of do is look at the prices of the various Steam Deck and Switch SKUs and get an idea of how much some of these components cost at scale. For example we have the $50US between the Switch and Switch OLED which nets you an OLED screen upgrade, an additional 64GB of flash and a LAN port in the dock. Then on the Steam Deck side they're charging $150US for an OLED upgrade with 256GB of additional NVMe storage, a more power efficient SoC, slightly larger battery and faster RAM

Then on the base spec the Steam Deck is $100US more and for that you get an SoC spec jump that in raw performance moves you from the PS3 era into the PS4 era. You get an extra ~200GB of significantly faster storage. You get an extra 12GB of RAM with ~3.5X the memory bandwidth. That's... quite a lot of hardware for $100US more

Then additionally we're talking about potentially late next year for release. Well, given we're talking Steam Deck, lets not ignore the fact that they've basically just announced that they're keeping their prices the same (in a high inflation environment) but adding ~200GB of storage to the cheapest SKU. And if you look at the price trend for these components.... I don't think they're doing this because they're just that generous.

IMO I think the prices for potential SKUs probably line up with the Switch as it currently exists on the shelves. Optimistically I think late next year they could reasonably land at the OLED SKUs price with 512GB of storage and an OLED screen. More realistically I think we get an LCD SKU with 256GB of storage for $350US or an OLED SKU with 512GB of storage at $450US. Either way I think it'll be lower spec but more efficient hardware than Steam Deck and will have the advantage of larger volumes to be far more aggressive on price

I think it definitely will bare minimum be 400 US dollars. But I can see it going higher, Nintendo likes to sell consoles at a profit and I don’t foresee them changing on that with the next system.

I think the Switch 2 will share more features with something like an iPad (every kid these days can use them with their eyes closed lol.) Would it be cool if say a shmup went Tate mode by rotating the console (instead of a menu)? Granted, still need a menu for docked but I reckon it would be a good thing for Nintendo to look at that space for improvements.

@GrailUK
Didn't some of the Arcade Archives games do that? Fairly sure it's a thing. Just not something that was supported particularly well with hardware or accessories. Hell, the flexibility of the Switch itself wasn't really something Nintendo really explored much at all

I mean we had the NSO NES controllers, LABO and Ring Fit Adventures. And obviously the GC controller push, SNES and N64 controllers and the Pro Controller. But JoyCon are still just JoyCon. When the Switch launched I remember people going wild with speculations about the possibility of JoyCons with different forms, functions and features. And it's certainly possible it just.... never happened....

@skywake Well, the Joy con did find some success with Ring Fit. Labo was interesting. And Arms was a hit. Granted, it's most;y Nintendo that experiment with gameplay (bless em.)

Are people still speculating that the multi-coloured button prompts in both Mario ROG & Thousand Year Door are connected to the Switch 2 controller? I never understood that thought trail as it makes zero sense why Nintendo would be so lax to let that slip through.

@FragRed And why would they do it for what are literally Switch 1 games?

This isn’t about the next console, but seeing as the Final fantasy IX remake will supposedly be on the level of Crisis Core Rebirth and will release during summer 2024, would a Nintendo Switch release be likely?

@FragRed I gotta be honest, I think that’s an artistic choice.

@GrailUK @JONOFTHEJONS Exactly. It’s not like either game would really benefit from a next generation upgrade or anything anyway. It is entirely artistic and nothing more. In all likelihood the joy cons will have the same buttons as the current one, just more advanced rumble.

@JONOFTHEJONS I think it'll only come to Switch if FFVII Remake comes to Switch 2. Both are remakes of massively iconic Square Enix PS1 exclusives whose originals went multiplatform in 2019. So if FFVII Remake doesn't come to Switch 2, I'd guess the strategy would've been something like "The originals can go to Xbox/Nintendo provided the remakes are PS console exclusive".

Valve not offering an OLED version of the cheapest Steamdeck model makes me believe that the rumor of Nintendo ditching OLED and returning to LCD for Switch 2 to keep costs down just might be true.