Topic: What Would You Want In A Switch Pro Update?

This is a pretty bad take. You're ignoring entirely the fact that using the English "Two" is super prominent in Japanese marketing. Just to pick up a couple of recent videos from the NOJ Youtube Channel

Pikmin Three

Kirby Fighters Two

The only game I could find on their first page of videos on the NOJ channel that used the Japanese words for numbers in the video was the 51 classic games. They use the English words FAR more in marketing for numbers, especially when the numbers are low

More likely the Wii U was not named the "Wii 2" purely because Nintendo has always avoided naming their consoles with numbers. I suppose the rationale was that the Wii was a console for everyone while the Wii U was a console for everyone that also had a portable element for a single person to use. Which.... obviously didn't come across particularly well in the end

You are right saying that a "Switch U" doesn't make much sense. The Switch is the Switch because you can "Switch" it from a portable console to a console for your TV. If the U in Wii U was for that portable element then the Switch name already includes that, the U in Switch U would be redundant. More likely they'd find something defining about the new Switch or come up with a new name entirely

edit: Side note, I don't know why people struggle with Nintendo's naming. Every console name has had some kind of logic behind it. Even if sometimes it's been a bit on-the-nose.....
Famicom -> Family Computer, the computer for kids
NES -> Nintendo Entertainment System, basically trying to make it sound like it was a VCR
SNES -> Kinda lazy, Super. Basically just the NES but better
N64 -> 64 bits! because at this stage the race had been about colour range
GameBoy -> Like a Walkman, so portable... but for kids and with games not music
GameBoy Pocket -> GameBoy, but pocketable
GameBoy Color -> GameBoy, with Colour
GameCube -> It's a Cube.... also leveraging the GameBoy brand
GBA -> An Advanced Gameboy.... easy enough
DS -> Dual Screen.... because there are two screens
DS Lite -> A slimmer (or lighter) version for the DS, also has a brighter screen (more light)
DSi -> a DS.... with a camera
Wii -> Us, together. Console for everyone
Wii U -> It's the Wii... for You (groan)
3DS -> A DS... with 3D
2DS -> A 3DS.... without 3D? .... huh?
Switch -> Switches between modes

@skywake Yeah you're right, but I was talking more about the pronunciation of 2 rather than the number itself, but again, fair point.

So was I. Watch the videos

@skywake wow, I've been proven wrong.

@dionysos283 sometimes I ask myself the same questions. Do I even know anything about nintendo anymore? This week I asked myself "wait, why hitman and control? Why now? Does this mean we could have a switch pro with LTE/5g? Never seen nintendo doing that" The thing about hardware refreshes is that they help a lot keeping the momentum of sales. With the release of the switch lite, everyone who's been in the business for a while seems to have accepted the fact that the switch will be treated by nintendo like every other portable console of theirs, which by the way are historically their best consoles sales wise.
Nintendo portables have always sold better than their home consoles.
So by know they convinced me a "pro" is coming. In what form and with what strong selling point i don't know.
I don't know how nintendo makes their agreements with publishers about these streamed experiences, maybe it's their way to let every developer know that "hey, don't worry triple A studio, I know even if I refresh the switch hardware cyberpunk won't run on it, but guess what, xcloud is here, stadia is coming, so you can stream it on my console too".
That's my guess.
Would I play cyberpunk streamed on switch? It very much depends on the connection and the antenna. If they're really keeping this door open, the next switch better have the best antenna ever. I have tried streaming services on LTE and sure they work, but they better make sure they out the best antenna ever in there, unlike the current WiFi one.
The thing I'm really worried now is that knowing what margins nintendo likes to have on their consoles, the switch Pro will either come at Xbox series S price and some premium features that we hoped for missing, or it will cost more than these new consoles.
It could still work mind you, with the lite costing much less. But I'm worried nonetheless.

@teo_o
I don't think cloud streaming on the go is a viable option at this point. Not before 5G is common and widespread. And for this we'll need at least another 5 years. So I don't think Nintendo will release a Switch with LTE/5G. Doesn't make sense. Especially when you consider that Nintendo is always behind, when it comes to new technologies. They always wait until these technologies are cheap enough for them.

@HotGoomba
They were trying to market it as either a console for everyone as in "Wii" or a console specifically taylored to You the hardcore gamer. Wii U Get it?

Only problem was grandmas didn't care about it like they did the Wii for the motion control craze or maybe had no idea it was a new system to begin with. Also possibly because Nintendo hardly ever talked about motion controls on Wii U. By that point they kinda thought the motion fad wasn't hip anymore so they changed it from a shake shake machine to a touching one.

Now with switch we're back to shaking and nobody talks about the touch screen.

You gotta admit though. Wii U had it's issues but who didn't love playing their games without having to use the TV? Mommy wants to watch the news? No problem!

Regardless of what the Switch revision ends up being, bots and scalpers won't allow me to purchase one until 2027 anyhow. Almost six months since the XSX launched and I still can't just waltz onto Amazon and click "add to cart".

more power?

I missed that last Bloomberg one, all makes a lot of sense. DLSS, CPU bump, more RAM. I see no reason to doubt, these are obvious changes. Although I don't really agree with this editorial...

DLSS was first introduced as an image upscaling feature in 2018 and remains exclusive to Nvidia graphics cards. It’s an atypically advanced addition for Kyoto-based Nintendo, which has tended to opt for more mature and lower-cost technology than rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. adopt with their consoles. The new Switch will still lag the overall performance capabilities of its pricier rivals.

If implemented, “the graphics boost is a direct shot at core gamers who want to play the next Breath of the Wild, Pokemon, or the new Monster Hunter in the best quality,” said Michael Prefontaine, a global lead developer at Silicon Studio Corp. But “it is not a big appeal to Nintendo’s usual target of families and kids, who are mostly driven by content. It does show however that Nintendo wants to compete more.”

I mean sure, you can make the case that the higher spec in general isn't Nintendo's typical focus. But I don't see them going with DLSS to achieve it as an unexpected move for Nintendo. DLSS at it's core is a way to get lower spec and lower cost components to perform "better" than they otherwise should. So in a way DLSS, non-mature and high cost tech or not, enables Nintendo to use mature and lower cost components.

Also, yes, their main target audience might be "families" as opposed to the "watch frame by frame on Digital Foundry" crowd. But families are buying 4K TVs with HDR, the vast majority of new TV sales are 4K now and you can even buy 120Hz TVs. These aren't niche or high end specs in TVs these days. It makes sense for Nintendo to make moves so they can market themselves as being able to display at specs these newer TVs can support

Remember, this was one of the mistakes they made with the Wii in the late 2000s. In 2006 HDTVs were a thing but they were far from the majority of sales, the Wii thrived in that market. A handful of years later the majority had a 1080p TV. Microsoft and Sony made moves to capture Nintendo's audience by pushing for motion gaming. Nintendo made no moves towards HDTV capable console. 4K isn't even remotely as important a transition as HD was but it's still not a mistake worth repeating

The thing about DLSS it's that it needs to be "cooked". You have to train the algorithm on a per game basis, so it might be a feature that only double or triple As will use. but games like Age of calamity would greatly benefit from it.

@Slowdive
Firmware updates for the dock is interesting. Assuming a new Switch revision and a new Dock are both HDMI 2.0 capable I can see there being reason to make some adjustments here. Especially if Nintendo want allow the new Switch to use the old dock and old Switch to use the new dock. So I could see a firmware update to the current Switch dock so that it knows how to behave with the revision.

Or it could just be paving the way to rollout a firmware update to the current dock to allow some additional features when the revision is docked. Like Variable Refresh Rate or DD 5.1 output. Stuff in theory that don't require HDMI 2.0 but that the Switch doesn't current support

I want the Switch Pro to serve me keto-friendly cookies and coffee on demand.

The dock being responsible for providing the additional horsepower to output higher resolution to the TV is what a lot of people thought the original one did back when the Switch first launched, so that being a likely reality with the Pro is cool to finally see.

I'm actually a little surprised they're chasing 4K - maybe that's just an "its right there for free so you might as well take it" part of using DLSS upscaling, but I'm more interested in seeing them achieve a reliable baseline 1080p in games that currently rely on some heavy dynamic resolution scaling to run, like Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I'm not hugely familiar with the fine details of DLSS, but isn't it the case that for best (and less blurry) results you want a fairly decent native rendering resolution (I'm guessing at least 720p) for it to upscale well? I know DLSS 2 fares far better but I assume we're going with DLSS 1 here, so it'll be interesting to see how well it scales the Switch Pro's output all the way up to 4K

Does anyone know if the rumoured OLED screen would deal with sunlight better than the current one? I'd happily pay good money if it meant I could use it in the garden without squinting past my reflection at a vague, grey/brown smear.

Couple of technical points because.... well that's what I do....

I'm not sure I'd read the unpacking of that Switch update in this way. There are plenty of reasons you might want to update firmware of relatively dumb devices. I mean the dock is basically just a glorified USB-TypeC HDMI + Charger dongle.

4K is just the umbrella resolution buzzword of today. When companies say 4K what they generally mean is HDMI 2.0 or higher, which is mostly HDR and 4K/60Hz but depending on the circumstances can also include Variable Refresh Rate, Dynamic HDR (i.e Dolby Vision), Dolby Atmos, High refresh rate 1080p/1440p and a wider colour space. To be blunt, HDR and Variable Refresh Rate are much bigger deals than 4K. VRR in particular for a generally lower spec device like the Switch.

Like any upscaling the less it has to work the better the end result is. So they could target 720p for a rock solid 60fps on a more demanding game and it'll do ok. Or they could push 1440p on something easier to render and it wouldn't have to work as hard.

As a general rule OLED is less bright than LCD can be so on paper probably not. With that said, if it is OLED they're missing an easy win if they don't also go with HDR given high contrast is where OLED is king. The current Switch doesn't claim to be HDR which means they don't have to meet a minimum peak brightness spec, if the Switch Pro claims to be HDR it will have to meet a brightness spec.

So short answer possibly no, long answer maybe yes.

If this does happen, I'll probably be laughing as I see people devolve into the mindset that Nintendo shouldn't have released the upgraded switch, as Scalpers make it impossible to get ahold of one due to the chip shortage which is going on currently.

I want the the graphics to be updated in docked mode and I want handheld mode graphics t olook like the current Dock mode.

People also keep saying switch pro is going to be, well a switch but think about it, A switch lite nothing but Handheld, So what if the switch pro was purely dock mode? (Chances of that happening is like a 15%)

And what if we get a switch pro lite, that is a switch like but it can dock and do handheld, Nah, i'm just throwing stuff at the wall at this point but this thread asked so.

I would never buy one. Can't we all just wait until the full on switch successor? I mean come on it's probably not even two years away anyhow. Wouldn't a slight upgrade at this point be pointless and wasteful? Especially if it had exclusives? I don't get what everybodys hurry is.

@Slowdive
That's all well and good but then you have a system that lasts a short while and is quickly replaced by the true succesor. I'm getting Gameboy color flashbacks here. Basically what happened when the GBA launched and made GBC die instantly. The switch's age was an issue when it released. Even then it was the weakest of the main three.

I think people just got all hyper about an upgrade because the PS5 came out and now switch owners are even more behind in the graphics and power department.