Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@kkslider5552000 The weird thing is how well Persona 5 Strikers seems to run on... everything. Like, usually the framerate being halved in the Switch version would bug me a bit in an action game, but it's so stable that I barely even notice the performance. And this also comes without any eye-bleeding resolution dips.

I feel like K-T benefits from working with a developer like Atlus that tends to release well-optimized games.

@Ralizah
Enough games run well that when I play a game that doesn't, it frustrates me, because I've seen countless games far more demanding running fine without issue.

MH Stories 2 in particular is frustrating because, as you said, the res has plenty of headroom to be lowered, and dynamic res is not being taken advantage of. It's like they don't even care.

Ys IX is frustrating because the Trails of Cold Steel games run just fine on Switch. Both Trails III and IV have no framerate issues, and their resolution is good too. And the game isn't exactly pushing the boundary of the technology. No reason Zelda and Witcher 3 and Doom Eternal can run fine but Ys IX can't.

And seeing Rune Factory 5 run in the 15-25 range is just unbelievable. You'd think these devs were fresh out of grad school or something. How is that even possible. That's frustrating because it's obviously not a graphically intense game.

Bravely Default ran fine, for the most part, but even that had some stutters in the grass. Like... how? The game was built ground up for the system and, sure, it's a big step up from 3DS, but not that big.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Razor's Edge is frustrating because the games were on PS3 and Vita. There should be no issues, especially at 30 frames.

Zelda Link's Awakening is frustrating because all they have to do is cap it at 30. That's it! Just cap it! Why on earth would you push 60 if it results in jarring dips to 30 and back? I just don't understand the why.

The overwhelming majority of games with issues are not ones too demanding to run. And in some cases, there's an easy remedy staring them in the face, and they simply opt to not address it.

What really gets me though, is that there's clearly issues on the software side, nonetheless, Nintendo could help address it by unlocking a higher tier of clock speed for developers, like they did when Mortal Kombat XI released. The Tegra X1 can push up to nearly twice what it's limited at right now. A 20% higher clock tier would result in 17% lower battery life, so games lasting 4 hrs 30 (which is the minimum we tend to see) would drop down to 3 hrs 45 min. A game lasting 5 hrs would drop to 4 hrs 10 minutes. A noticeable but worthy tradeoff, if it were absolutely needed (and in these cases, I believe it is).

edit
Zelda Joycon on Amazon Japan, ships global.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08WW6G2LD?

@JaxonH The kicker for me is still Hyrule Warriors DE. Running at 1080p docked isn't where I'd go with it, but it never dips too low, so it's not that big of a deal. But the fact that it runs 1080p in handheld mode and made the game noticeably less smooth is incredibly annoying. The Switch can't even display over 720p natively, so you just get a downscaled image that nukes the performance.

@Snaplocket It's not really a lazy port, though. They integrate stuff from the 3DS and Wii U versions, improved the My Fairy mode, etc.

It's a great port... except for the weird downsampled 1080p performance issue in handheld mode.

To be fair nobody who has any idea what they're talking about has been asking for 4K running on a battery. Hell most of the discussion about "Switch Pro" wasn't even talking about full true 4K docked. People have been talking about rendering at maybe 1080p docked and upscaling that to something higher and possibly as far as 4K via DLSS. The general consensus from the tech literate is that the Switch is pretty solid in handheld mode. Most people who have any clue will trade resolution at 7" for battery life. The issue is that there's a huge gap between what they could do in docked mode and what they're actually doing.

The games people are citing generally hit their framerate targets in portable mode at a lower, but acceptable for the size, resolution. Personally, all I could want out of a hardware revision in portable mode is a nicer screen, a longer battery life and more games aiming for a 60fps target. And the OLED model delivers on one of those three things.... two if you still have an OG Switch, they already improved battery life somewhat

The issue is docked mode. A lot of games target a higher resolution when docked because, well, missing 720p is a bigger deal on a 60" screen. Which means there are a fair number of games that miss the 30fps target when docked. It's also 2021 so a lot of people these days have 4K panels that can do some form of HDR and the Switch doesn't bother with any of that. Hell, they don't even need new hardware to make some ground here. The current Switch underclocks itself in docked mode to be about 60% lower than the Tegra SoC can handle. There's a heap of room for improvement there.

Also, on the topic of "remaining profitable". The gap between the RRP of the OLED Model and the regular Switch is about $100AU. The gap in price between a 7" LCD panel and a 7" OLED panel for a Raspberry Pi at retail for an individual unit is about $50AU. Nintendo has a higher margin on this OLED model than they do on the previous Switch. This ontop of them only dropping the RRP for the Switch by $20AU since launch. I mean good on them, they can do it, but lets not pretend that they're eating into their profit margin here to include the OLED panel

OLED has traditionally cost 4X more than LCD, but recently prices have dropped significantly to be less than twice the cost. I don’t know what the extra cost per panel would be, but let’s assume $20. It could be more, but I doubt it’s less.

There’s still the wider kickstand which will require more total weight of materials. A small cost, but still a buck or two more. The storage will also add about $10 to the cost. The LAN adapter will add $10 to the cost. And the better speakers will add about $10 to the cost. So… it doesn’t seem to me as if they’re making any gains. I suppose it’s possible the storage, LAN and speakers only add $5 each, but it’s also possible that OLED adds more like $25-30 too.

All that said, I do agree they have room to make small improvements that wouldn’t impact compatibility. The biggest bang for buck I see is memory bandwidth. How much data throughput can be streamed from memory. A lot of the games that have issues, seemingly have issues streaming data from memory. Zelda Link’s Awakening stutters because of memory bandwidth, for example. If they simply improved memory bandwidth, and used 6 GB RAM instead of 4GB (heck, even 5GB- that extra gig would go a long ways), alongside a marginal boost to available clock speeds for devs (even just 10-20%), that would do wonders. And they could do all of that for a very minimal increase in cost.

@JaxonH I doubt 32GB more memory is going to add 10$. The retail difference for 32gb vs 64gb flash memory is less than that, manufacturing is probably 5$ or less. Same goes for the Ethernet port, those things usually go 10-15 at retail for an entire Ethernet card, and they can cut costs adding it to an existing pcb, never mind the retail markup.

Speakers? I know nothing there tbh. But I'm guessing that there's a already some extra profit on this model based on the parts I can price.

@JaxonH
I think you're overestimating some of those prices. I mean I'm looking at Australian retail prices for some of these things and even though AUD is weaker than USD the gap is still lower than you say. Going from a 32GB to a 64GB flash drive/microSD card is about $5AU and a Gigabit NIC for $15AU. So that's about $20AU at retail for those two things.

Also lets ignore my estimate of how much the OLED costs and go to this graph from Bloomberg....

Rounding up to $19US, $19US -> $25AU. So adding that all up it's about $45AU for these three components. Storage, network adapter (although we don't know if it's Gigabit) and OLED panel. And they're charging an additional $100AU at retail so there's at least $55AU of additional profit.

Of course this is ignoring that the current Switch also has a screen so it'd be less than that. And it'd be less again because there's no way Nintendo are paying what I'd pay for a LAN adapter and cheap flash. And again, their RRP hasn't really moved that much since launch while the components they use have dropped in price significantly. Point is, on paper they're making more on the OLED model than they ever have.

Not complaining about this, they can do this and it'll still sell so good on them. I'm just not buying into this narrative that a higher spec SKU is somehow impossible because Nintendo's profit margin has been eaten up entirely by the OLED panel. It hasn't.

@skywake
I agree it hasn’t. They’ve said from the start they make a small profit on each unit sold (think it was around $17 for base Switch at launch, iirc.)

At the same time I don’t think they’re raking in money hand over fist on these newer consoles they’re selling either. At least, not in the US (their largest market). It’s only $50 more here. There are also hidden costs such as storing additional inventory of new parts, shipping, additional labor to manufacture, the R&D to design it, etc, all of which must be recouped. It’s never as cut and dry as just adding up the sum of the pieces. And, they’re not going to eat up all their margin either. They like making a profit on each unit sold so there has to continue to be a buffer that doesn’t get whittled away.

But of course. The cost of the things I’ve spoken of are minimal, and could easily be done without significantly impacting the bottom line. It would have an effect, but the benefits of games running better should translate into more copies sold, and it’s good for the brand.

@JaxonH
$50US is $67AU so I agree it's a bit less of a markup than we're getting. But I'm not sure these additional costs your raise would have much of an impact. Yeah there are additional costs above BOM, of course there are. But the problem is these costs also exist on the original Switch.

Point is, Nintendo has a larger margin on the OLED model than the original Switch. We're talking at a real stretch $45AU over the current SKU in BOM which is $34US. It's almost surely less than that because Nintendo isn't paying $15AU ($11US) for the LAN port. However you slice it this is less than the premium they're setting the RRP at.

Also I'm not sure on discounting, the current Switch apparently has a RRP of $450AU but I regularly see it discounted to $400AU. The OLED Model is apparently $540AU RRP (so I was wrong, it's technically "only" $90AU more not $100AU) but it's not clear how much it may be discounted or even if it will be. The gap may shrink or it may be wider at retail.

Either way, Nintendo clearly has plenty of room here on price. The OLED Model is going to be a significantly larger margin product than their current SKUs. Although we kinda already know these are high margin products. They can sell the Switch Lite for $330AU, internally it's identical to the Switch. The difference is a marginally larger screen and the dock which is definitely not worth what they charge. There's a LOT of fat in these prices

https://gamerant.com/nintendo-switch-pro-specs-4k/
So, apparently one of the alleged Switch Pro sources says that all he's ever been told about it was that it would come out in 2022, which would mean that the OLED and the Pro aren't the same. Game Rant has an interesting idea that they maybe should just make it the true successor to the Switch instead. Any of y'all think there's any weight to this, or is it just someone grasping at straws trying to stay relevant?

@KAI_MIDORIKAWA
There’s weight to it. There’s multiple sources saying the same thing. And we had already figured out those reporting on it had conflated the two revisions a while back. There’s 3-4 separate sources all saying the same thing. What’s more, the incredibly respected Kopite who in an Nvidia leaker of high regard in that community has twice spoken about a new chip for Switch, implying Orin line by the internal chip number. This guy has never been wrong. Ever.

So ya, there’s definitely a separate, more powerful Switch coming that has nothing to do with OLED, which is just a normal timely revision as per usual.

And it probably is the next generation Switch, not a “Pro”. Nintendo isn’t the one that does “Pro” models anyways. That’s Sony and MS. That’s not to say it couldn’t be. And that’s not to say it will matter how they classify anyways- it very well could be a new generation, but with full BC and keeping the Switch branding, it won’t be functionally any different than a Pro.

So ya, we know a different more powerful model with Orin chip is in the pipeline. We know they’re looking at DLSS. But I wouldn’t get too hung up on it because that’s going to be a few years away. For now, OLED is what we have. Come 2023, if Nintendo hasn’t announced it yet, then we can start talking about what’s what.

@skywake They aren't just including an OLED panel into the new cost of the system though.

They have doubled the internal storage, and remember how there have been yearly reports about phone companies getting first dibs on that stuff due to being able to order more and sell more through phones. A contract with Nintendo for a few million 64GB chips is nothing compared to Apple ordering 100 million of them.

So that price will be factored in. Opening new production lines for assembly, the R&D in design of the new dock.

All of these factors would add up to the, since you like using regional figures, £30 extra over the original model, quite comfortably.

The other thing about the price though, imagine if you are a business. You have the hottest consumer product on the market right now. Sales are up year on year on year. You haven't once dropped the price even for a holiday, just doing a bundle with a launch game that sells out.

Heck in your fourth year on the market the system was scalped and people were paying $400 and up for something you released in 2017.

If you were an executive and you had just seen that, and you could add in what are undoubtedly improvements, you'd want that price to go up because if newcomers to the system we're paying third party resellers $400 for what you had before, giving them something better for $350 has already been decided by the market as a good thing.

There's also a fair chance that what actually happens will blur the lines a bit. People are arguing about the idea of "revision vs successor" and "2022 vs 2023". But when you think about it there's a whole spectrum of options between those two things. Consider these two scenarios that push the limits of both ideas:

Scenario 1

• Marketed with a name that makes it sound more like a revision (think Wii -> Wii U)
• Some content that's exclusive including some major releases
• Significant boost in performance, something like 3X. Approaching the PS4 Pro spec
• Drops Joycon compatibility for a controller redesign that removes some of the Joycon issues
• Requires an entirely new dock, does not work in existing dock
• Late 2022 release, early December

Scenario 2

• Marketed with a name that makes it sound like a new platform (think XBox One -> XBox X)
• Barely any if any exclusive content, heavy forwards compatibility
• Small spec jump, think GC -> Wii. Yes there's DLSS but raw performance is very similar
• The bulk of the efficiency gains from the new SoC put towards improved battery life
• Maintains full accessory compatibility, identical Joycons and works in the current dock
• Early 2023 release eg March

Now both of these are entirely hypothetical scenarios, I expect what we'll actually get is a bit of both and possibly a bit of neither. But it kinda illustrates the point I think. I mean if you looked at the above two which would you call a successor and which would you call a revision? Not that clear is it.

@Haruki_NLI
64GB of Flash doesn't make up the rest of difference not matter how hard you want to spin it. Also scalpers are a non-factor for this discussion. Scalpers are at most of what people are willing to pay, that has nothing to do with how much the product could be sold at for a profit.

@skywake No, but a business is in the market of turning a profit.

If you see your system still selling out at $300, and you see scalpers turning regularly at $400, you wouldn't drop your price to add in an improved model.

You'd keep that price the same, and then add a new upgrade that costs more.

The market has said for 85m units that 70m or so of them at $300 and no less was a success. When your momentum isn't slowing down, you don't cut your price.

Plus if the OLED is positioned hard as the premium version, you spin your marketing to $200 for kids with a Lite, and $300 if you want the entry model. $350 if you want the premium experience.

And then eventually when momentum does slow, you start cutting prices towards end of life.

If the OG Switch is to be phased out of course, I can see this holiday dropping it to $250 to clear. It'll fly at that price.

But of course, this depends on Nintendo being smart. I know they said they don't intend to lose momentum but let's be real, sales can drop off a cliff at any moment for any reason.

I know they are milking it for profit, it's a business, they aren't looking to break even. But they have the data, they know what is selling, they even know how many people play handheld vs docked. No matter how much people complain about the price or the features, this was a very informed decision.

And sure people can say complaining did nothing. But they redid the kickstand, added more storage, out a LAN port in the dock and redid the airflow for the dock.

Let's be real, Nintendo could have ignored those quality of life changes, because that's all they are, and just plopped an OLED screen in for $350.

I mean, as a business that's probably what I would have done. Would have called it Switch XL though 🤣

@Haruki_NLI
Hmm, I think we're arguing different points here. I'm not against Nintendo making a profit, if anything I'd rather them make a larger profit by pushing up the price closer to what people are willing to pay. At least doing that puts the squeeze on the inevitable scalpers in the current climate.

What I disagreed with was this:

because:
1. People, at least anyone with even the slightest amount sense, were not expecting 4K on battery. People were thinking that maybe we'd get a spec bump that would improve performance in docked mode mostly. And ontop of that something like DLSS would maybe provide some perceived resolution bump

and
2. The OLED Model isn't even remotely close to being sold at a loss, there's a LOT of fat on the RRP as it stands. They could pretty easily up the spec without it being a product that sells at a loss

@skywake Site seems broken, Im not getting sent to your post when I click a notification

I agree they could have done more. Hard to say if chip issues would impact a new Tegra chip, and I imagine Nintendo would want a stockpile first and foremost to avoid issues that the PS5 and such has faced.

The easiest option would have been a RAM bump. Go from 4 to 8GB lets say, keep the low power DDR4 for battery reasons, and open up the bandwidth a bit. That'll fix a lot of issues of performance hitches from loading, which may actually be a brunt of the issues Switch exclusives face.

And maybe overclock the existing Mariko chip. Hard to say there.

I always believed that if Nintendo wanted to, they could turn any given Mariko Switch in homes right now into a Switch Pro of sorts. Take the chip, open the clock speeds up more when docked via firmware update, especially with this more ventilated dock now, and itd fix a lot of issues. Not perfect, but cost effective.

I'm not one to get upset with Nintendo about being, well, Nintendo... but if they sell this thing at 350 bucks and then pop out the "actual" Pro in 2022, I'll be pretty ticked off.

If they did this because of the chip stuff going on, fine. But now they've made their bed and need to lie in it for longer than 3 months. If (huge if) the Pro actually exists, they need to keep that puppy on the backburner until 2023 at the earliest.

Thinking about the Game Awards, Switch actually stands a chance this time with all the PS delays happening. I could see the nominees for GotY being something like:

• Monster Hunter Rise
• Metroid Dread
• Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
• Horizon Forbidden West (if it releases before the nominee deadline)/Forza Horizon 5 (if HFW releases after the deadline)
• Resident Evil Village
• Back 4 Blood

I genuinely don't see Dread being nominated for GOTY. Game Awards heavily favors big 3D or story-driven games in that particular category alongside the trending multiplayer title which I guess Back 4 Blood will be. Dread will probably be pegged for one of the categories but it being a "smaller" 2D game that isn't as big of a name as Mario or Zelda is going to put it at a disadvantage compared to other games. I'd love to be proven wrong but TGA is basically a popularity contest most of the time

In terms of Switch stuff I can see MH Rise and maybe even SMT V taking up those slots