Nintendo Switch 2 was showed off behind closed doors last month

[Shawn Knight]

Something to look forward to: A true successor to the Nintendo Switch could arrive sooner than anticipated. Sources told Eurogamer that Nintendo held closed-door presentations of the Switch 2 during Gamescom 2023 in Germany, last month. Those in attendance were shown various tech demos highlighting the system's beefier specs including a tweaked version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The original game arrived alongside the Switch as a launch title in March 2017 and is currently the fourth best-selling game for the platform with sales of 30.65 million units as of June 30, 2023.

It is worth mentioning that the tweaked version of Breath of the Wild was just a tech demo, and Nintendo has no plans to re-release an enhanced version of the game.

A separate source told VGC that Nintendo also demoed The Matrix Awakens, an open-world tech demo based on Unreal Engine 5.

Rumors of a next-gen Switch have persisted for years but Nintendo's only play thus far has been the introduction of the Switch OLED in October 2021. Nintendo showing new hardware to developers is a positive sign that suggests a rumored 2024 launch is not only plausible but likely.

A separate report from earlier this summer suggested the next-gen Switch would debut sometime in the second half of 2024, in time for next year's holiday season. Sources at the time said the new handheld will utilize an LCD panel instead of an OLED screen in order to keep costs down, and that its cartridge system will persist.

Backward compatibility remains a big unanswered question and of course, pricing will be of immense interest.

In the meantime, Switch gamers still have plenty to look forward to in 2023 and beyond including the launch of Super Mario Bros. Wonder on October 20 and the arrival of Super Mario RPG on November 17. An enhanced version of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon is also on the docket for 2024, as is a brand new game based on Princess Peach.

Image credit: Magnus Engo, Jesper Brouwers

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https://www.techspot.com/news/100071-nintendo-held-closed-door-demos-switch-2-gamescom.html

 

[m4a4]

Can't wait for the SwitchU

Seen some rumours going around. Some claims of it being almost as powerful as a PS5 (lol, no). I'd suspect they will aim for a similar price point, which means a modest bump in specs, but nothing close to current-gen.

The main thing I'm wondering is how sane their next name will be...

 

[bviktor]

It is Tegra Orin, right? That 10x perf boost would be incredible.

 

[bviktor]

Some claims of it being almost as powerful as a PS5 (lol, no).

The Tegra Orin already surpasses the performance of the PS4 Pro, and that's a 2 years old chip.

So in the WORST case, this will be somewhere in the middle between the PS4 Pro and the PS5.

 

[m4a4]

The Tegra Orin already surpasses the performance of the PS4 Pro, and that's a 2 years old chip.

So in the WORST case, this will be somewhere in the middle between the PS4 Pro and the PS5.

That really doesn't mean much, being more powerful than an almost 10 year old console.

And considering how beefy a PS5 is, there's no way it's coming close in such a small form factor (powered by a battery).

 

[neeyik]

Can't wait for the SwitchU

If it’s not called the Nintendo Super Switch, I’ll be brutally disappointed

 

[Eldritch]

Nintendo never goes for maximum performance but rather tries to strike a balance between power consumption, portability and performance. This approach has worked very well for them judging by the sales figures e.g. Switch sold 3x more consoles than massively popular PS 5.

Ps : Nintendo can burn in hell for their copyright abuses and heavy handed approach towards modding/remake community.

 

[kira setsu]

Kinda sad all they had to show on it was a wii-u game.

yeah, I said it.

 

[VcoreLeone]

Can't wait to kiss desktop gaming goodbye. will be waiting for next gen consoles + handheld.

That really doesn't mean much, being more powerful than an almost 10 year old console.

And considering how beefy a PS5 is, there's no way it's coming close in such a small form factor (powered by a battery).

ps4 pro more likely

 

[cldmstrsn]

No back compat no buy and definitely will wait till they release an OLED version

 

[neeyik]

It is Tegra Orin, right? That 10x perf boost would be incredible.

All the evidence does point to it being Orin but which model is the crucial part though -- AGX, NX, Nano, or some custom SoC?

Edit: If I had to pick the most likely suspect, I'd say it would be the 8GB Nano, as its 15W max TDP would mean Nintendo wouldn't have to worry about changing the Switch's battery capacity.

 

[EdmondRC]

If Nintendo stuck with Nvidia, hopefully it will be a custom SoC based off Lovelace and not Orin, based of Ampere. Lovelace could punch a lot higher at 15W than Ampere. Of course, everyone assumes it will be based off Orin since that is the latest SoC from Nvidia on the market.

 

[neeyik]

Of course, everyone assumes it will be based off Orin since that is the latest SoC from Nvidia on the market.

It's the claim about seeing DLSS being used in the presentations to developers that points to it being Orin -- only three Tegras have tensor cores: Xavier, Orin, and Thor. The last one is being designed for use in cars (autopilot stuff) and Xavier was designed for deep learning applications. Neither is targeted for gaming (Xavier is no better than the X1, in that respect). Orin is simply the best fit, bar a custom SoC, if Nintendo is sticking with Nvidia.

 

[EdmondRC]

It's the claim about seeing DLSS being used in the presentations to developers that points to it being Orin -- only three Tegras have tensor cores: Xavier, Orin, and Thor. The last one is being designed for use in cars (autopilot stuff) and Xavier was designed for deep learning applications. Neither is targeted for gaming (Xavier is no better than the X1, in that respect). Orin is simply the best fit, bar a custom SoC, if Nintendo is sticking with Nvidia.

I don't disagree at all, only 'wishful thinking' on my part really that Nintendo and Nvidia might have a custom Lovelace based solution. Orin at 15W would be a very decent upgrade, but Lovelace would likely have the potential to nearly double Orin given its efficiency.

 

[amghwk]

If it’s not called the Nintendo Super Switch, I’ll be brutally disappointed

Or, the overused word "Pro" as in Switch Pro.

 

[neeyik]

I don't disagree at all, only 'wishful thinking' on my part really that Nintendo and Nvidia might have a custom Lovelace based solution. Orin at 15W would be a very decent upgrade, but Lovelace would likely have the potential to nearly double Orin given its efficiency.

Lovelace’s advantage over Ampere comes primarily from the use of TSMC’s N4 (well a custom version of it). Without it, none of the AL GPUs best features (small die, high clock speeds, large cache, low power consumption) would have been possible. Unfortunately, even if there was any availability, Nvidia would doubtless charge Nintendo far too much for its Switch 2 budget limit.

A nice halfway-house-but-still-wishful-thinking option is that it’s Orin NX but respun to be made on TMSC N6. Wouldn’t be as cheap as the original Samsung node but the SoC could have much higher clock speeds for the same power window.

 

[EdmondRC]

Lovelace’s advantage over Ampere comes primarily from the use of TSMC’s N4 (well a custom version of it). Without it, none of the AL GPUs best features (small die, high clock speeds, large cache, low power consumption) would have been possible. Unfortunately, even if there was any availability, Nvidia would doubtless charge Nintendo far too much for its Switch 2 budget limit.

A nice halfway-house-but-still-wishful-thinking option is that it’s Orin NX but respun to be made on TMSC N6. Wouldn’t be as cheap as the original Samsung node but the SoC could have much higher clock speeds for the same power window.

Well, according to a WCCFtech rumor (huge grain of salt), the Switch 2 was running DLSS 3.1, which would suggest that it has better Optical Flow Accelerators than Ampere, or Nvidia is just lying about Ampere not being capable of DLSS 3. Anyway, if the rumor is true (again massive grain of salt), it would definitely suggest a custom SoC. "Ampere +"? Maybe. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Something to think about too, Nvidia could benefit greatly from a console having DLSS and especially DLSS 3.0 capabilities. Just as AMD is benefiting from having its RDNA2 chips XSX and PS5. It might be that Nvidia would see this as an opportunity to partner with Nintendo to show off and get DLSS 3 more widespread, in which case, perhaps they could offer Nintendo some incentives to go with a more advanced chip. Maybe Switch 2 even has "Made possible by Nvidia" screens pop up in games that use the tech, or maybe just having Nvidia branding somewhere on the Switch 2 shell. Just thinking like a marketing department. After all Switch sold over 100M units. If I were Nvidia I would want people to know my chip was in Switch 2.

 

[neeyik]

Well, according to a WCCFtech rumor (huge grain of salt), the Switch 2 was running DLSS 3.1, which would suggest that it has better Optical Flow Accelerators than Ampere, or Nvidia is just lying about Ampere not being capable of DLSS 3. Anyway, if the rumor is true (again massive grain of salt), it would definitely suggest a custom SoC. "Ampere +"? Maybe. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

The absolute performance of the OFA really only matters for Frame Generation, as Super Resolution works on all RTX architectures. So if all of the rumors are true and FG was being used, then it would seem to point toward a custom SoC; if it was just a case of developers being told "DLSS 3.1" but it was nothing more than SR, then Orin is still a good candidate.

Something to think about too, Nvidia could benefit greatly from a console having DLSS and especially DLSS 3.0 capabilities. Just as AMD is benefiting from having its RDNA2 chips XSX and PS5

I'd argue that AMD has really only benefited from having RDNA 2 in consoles by helping to keep overall revenue/margins at a decent level. :

H1FY23 (Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin -- $millions)
Client = 1,737 | -241 | -14%
Data Center = 2,616 | 295 | 11%
Gaming = 3,338 | 539 | 16%
Embedded = 3,021 | 1,555 | 51%

It's not helped them significantly increase its market share with dGPUs nor are we seeing a swathe of games that are massively better on RDNA 2+ GPUs (notable exceptions being Starfield and recent CoD titles). But as a sector, it's AMD's second-best earner, though once the purchase of Xillian has fully been cleared, it'll rake in the cash with its FPGAs.

Nvidia, on the other hand, doesn't really need to rely on having a healthy console presence. It makes oodles of profit all around:

H1FY24 (Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin -- $millions)
Compute & Networking = 14,862 | 8,887 | 60%
Graphics = 5,837 | 2,258 | 39%

Profit margins on console SoCs are typically very small, simply because the final retail price of the complete unit is (relatively) small too. Using the Switch 2 to promote its technologies is unlikely to increase sales of dGPUs anyway, as the typical buyer of Nintendo's hardware isn't a PC gamer.

 

[EdmondRC]

Profit margins on console SoCs are typically very small, simply because the final retail price of the complete unit is (relatively) small too. Using the Switch 2 to promote its technologies is unlikely to increase sales of dGPUs anyway, as the typical buyer of Nintendo's hardware isn't a PC gamer.

Most likely none of this would come to reality anyway. Just some speculation, but the benefit of having DLSS in a console would be to have the technology adoption rate increase and to see more PC games including it by default since it is being ported to Switch 2 anyway. So, it could be an indirect benefit. The biggest problem with that is AAA games usually skip Nintendo hardware, but that's usually because of hardware limitations. Remove those hardware limitations, or at least make it viable for AAA games and Switch 2 would receive more ports.

We have seen some AAA titles run decently on PC handhelds like Steam Deck and ASUS Ally. (I expect Switch 2 to fall somewhere between these two in terms of performance). A chip developed for a Nintendo handheld that utilized Nvidia's latest technologies could find a variant in PC handhelds, with the full suite of Nvidia RTX. So, it's not like such an endeavor would be restricted to just Nintendo hardware.

Most likely of course it's just Orin NX. I'm just in that speculation or what if mood today.

 

[neeyik]

The biggest problem with that is AAA games usually skip Nintendo hardware, but that's usually because of hardware limitations. Remove those hardware limitations, or at least make it viable for AAA games and Switch 2 would receive more ports.

We have seen some AAA titles run decently on PC handhelds like Steam Deck and ASUS Ally. (I expect Switch 2 to fall somewhere between these two in terms of performance).

Agreed -- the success of the Steam Deck and ROG Ally will have almost certainly given Nintendo's chiefs a moment of thought and realize that this is a platform sector that's no mere flash in the pan. It's made plenty of money by avoiding the hardware race for many years, but we're now at the point where the market expects far more from its devices.