Yeah, new hardware clearly burns people out, just look at the Smartphone market.
Nobody buys Phones anymore.
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New Switch model coming in second half of 2019, reports Japanese WSJ
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Yeah, new hardware clearly burns people out, just look at the Smartphone market.
Nobody buys Phones anymore.
with Matt, John Harker, and WSJ reporting on it, it's all but confirmed that the dev kits are in existence. which means select devs would have them by now if it's being reported
Don't listen to them. They're talking about a leaked regular switch dev kit. It's been gone over already in this thread. Dev kits are typically more powerful than the base system in order to perform debugging. Anyone believing that the next switch model is going to be more powerful is deluding themselves. Nothing about the original rumor indicates that. It simply says the specs are not finalized. Specs can mean anything from the screen to the physical dimensions of the device. People on here saw that and ran with it and assumed it meant the power of the device.
Here's the link to the thread:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/theory-the-switch-pro-exists-and-has-for-a-while.72925/
It's possible that Nintendo has informed devs, but not provided kits yet. I think it's reasonable to assume that they are out there though.
No, we've now had two insiders comment that a "pro" model is a real thing. With them working for developers in the industry, the assumption is that devs kits are out there.
Oh, tnx, I thought we had some new info/leak/rumor last few days.
Improved hardware after 3 years will not burn out customers. PS4 Pro sales might not have been huge but it was still worth doing.
Look at his tag
He knows thing and is one of the most reliable sources out there.
No way that they are going to release two new products simultaneously. Only time they've ever done this was with new 3DS and the new 3DS XL and NOA didn't even release the smaller version in NA until later on. With the new Pokemon generation on the horizon and the 3DS family winding down, all common sense would put this new revision more on the handheld side of things. I'd imagine a modest clock boost and more/faster RAM may come along with it (so that hopefully more handheld titles reach actual 720p and more docked versions reach a true 1080p), but it makes more sense for them to slim it down a bit (will be interesting to see how they design this with the Joy Cons, which I expect to remain) and remove the fan. Keep screen resolution the same but make it brighter and with a smaller bezel, as folks have been speculating.
If this thing is releasing next year then kits are definitely already in the hands of developers.
Xbox One X has done great according to Benji? in the monthly console/game sales topics.
That double dip money though.
Edit : So John Harker just had confirmed it ? Ahah, a lot of crow will be eaten next year if it happens. I can't even understand how some people can be "against" a Pro Switch. The current model is flawed and need a successor asap (No proper D-pad, hard to handle for women and children hands, meh specs, bending, sun reflection on screen when outside, the dock scratching the screen...).
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Regardless of specs, I would buy one to keep docked for physical games. The original would be for digital games.
If a new Switch model is coming next year, I very much doubt it will be noticeably more powerful. I'm guessing at similar performance, but more energy efficient and thus better battery times. Basically what the DS Lite was to the DS.
I think some folks are still operating on the old 20% number quoted for the Pro. The split is higher now apprently. Obviously the X is also doing very well, even more so than the Pro.
He, along with Matt, are the most reliable insiders. They have both said a Pro model exists.
No, no pal, The current version is perfect. PERFECT, you hear me? And its selling so well!!! Nintendo would not be stupid!!! They would never do something like that to the early adopters!!!!! There is no revision coming, you are all delusional, desulional.... >.<
/s
Those small joycons are a little too much. Idk why Nintendo hasn't made a Joycon XL yet or even a shell that you can place the joycons in that makes them bigger.
That doesn't necessarily make it so. I think their source of information might be absolutely correct, but I feel the idea that a pro is coming might well be more of a misunderstanding than anything.
This exists disguised an AA battery pack.
edit: ah, yes, it doesn't work in portable mode. But I think there's a skin/case for the Switch that does that job and people swear by.
Yep, Switch FX building up the userbase for a Switch FX2 when they phase out the Switch. The easiest upgrade performance wise for them to do, is bring the docked GPU performance of the current Switch into handheld mode and create a new docked performance that has the performance to hit 1080p, I've mentioned this from the beginning of the rumor, but Foxconn's leak, the model that sat there for 8 days doing some fish demo, had ~2X CPU speed, 2X RAM capacity and a 921mhz GPU clock that is either 20% or 140% faster than the current Switch, given the other specs here, 140% faster would give it 944GFLOPs (512 cuda cores @ 921mhz) giving you exactly what you'd need to bring the current Switch targeting 720p to 1080p when docked.
The mystery behind this device is pretty straight forward IMO, either we are getting a XB1S style revision or a PS4 Pro style revision, but the real key to why they are doing all of this, is because Switch isn't getting a successor like the PS5, it's getting an iterative platform upgrades, so instead of a PS5 like Switch, you'll get a PS4 Pro Pro, just before the current model hits 6 years old. That is how you build a platform that doesn't get thrown away in 5 to 7 years and instead only grows. In 2025 when they have sold well over 100 million units, developers can release across every Switch device if the game isn't too complex for the current Switch, and other developers can launch their games targeting Switch FX2 and FX3 if they need that performance instead. That is a far more consumer and developer friendly platform, it is better for Nintendo as well and I expect Sony and Microsoft to build off of their next consoles in a similar manner.
The mystery behind this device is pretty straight forward IMO, either we are getting a XB1S style revision or a PS4 Pro style revision, but the real key to why they are doing all of this, is because Switch isn't getting a successor like the PS5, it's getting an iterative platform upgrades, so instead of a PS5 like Switch, you'll get a PS4 Pro Pro, just before the current model hits 6 years old. That is how you build a platform that doesn't get thrown away in 5 to 7 years and instead only grows. In 2025 when they have sold well over 100 million units, developers can release across every Switch device if the game isn't too complex for the current Switch, and other developers can launch their games targeting Switch FX2 and FX3 if they need that performance instead. That is a far more consumer and developer friendly platform, it is better for Nintendo as well and I expect Sony and Microsoft to build off of their next consoles in a similar manner.
Xbox One X is partially different since it positioned itself as a massive upgrade over the Xbox one which was a bit underpowered for years.
Mostly referring to the pro which people have mentioned doesn't do amazing though I imagine it's stkll selling fairly well
Articles like this should be worth looking back at for a chuckle in a few years.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/6/28/15880698/nintendo-switch-e3-3ds
https://www.polygon.com/2017/6/28/15880698/nintendo-switch-e3-3ds
Sure, it's not confirmation of anything, but the likelyhood of it being a misunderstanding is pretty low given that they have the potential to have first hand knowledge. Certainly I can't recall them being wrong before.
The Pro has been consistently selling out this year. The sales definitely seem to have picked up a lot of the past year, and based on sales commentary it seems like each big new title(GoW, Spiderman, etc.) really draws in a lot of folks to the Pro model.
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This is something I've been thinking about since back when Iwata talked about having a business model more like Apple's. Apple release new iPhones/iPads on an annual basis, but they keep supporting the older models for at least a few years. If Nintendo were to take a similar approach, what would it look like? Obviously annual updates are just too frequent for games consoles, but updates every 2-3 years could be realistic. In which case what we're getting next year wouldn't be a Switch Pro, but rather a Switch 2, or just a Switch (2019), if they go the iPad route of not explicitly naming/numbering them. Then, in 2021/2022, we'd get another new Switch, and the cycle would continue. If Nintendo guaranteed to keep supporting at least one prior model, then Switch owners could buy the new model and be confident of 4-6 years of game releases, pretty much the same as a traditional console.
If Nintendo were going with a 2 year wait between each iteration we would be looking at a release next March, or with a 3 year wait anywhere until March 2020 (or, if this was planned back when Switch was originally intended to release end of 2016, then a release end of 2019). That being the case, if we do get a significantly more powerful Switch model next year, there's a good chance that this is the route they're going.
If they go this route, then it would be interesting to consider what performance targets they might have for a 2 or 3 year jump, in order to maintain the kind of performance trajectory you might expect in the long run. On a two-year release basis a 2x increase in performance would yield a 8x increase over 6 years, whereas if they plan a release every 3 years then a roughly 3x increase in performance would give them about 9x every 6 years. These would roughly match the performance trajectory of traditional generation jumps (of course whether Nintendo want to do that or not is a different matter).
Let's say they have a two year cycle and release in March 2019. A 2x increase in performance might look something like this:
12nm SoC - CPU: 4x A73 @1.2GHz (for games) & 2x A53 for OS - GPU: 3x SM @ 500MHz Portable/ 1GHz Docked - RAM: 8GB
This isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility, it would still be a relatively small die, and would fit within the TDP to maintain decent battery life and be cooled effectively. RAM is really dependent on how memory prices go over the next 6 months or so, as 8GB of LPDDR4(x) is a lot at the moment, but if prices come down as some people are expecting them to, then it's not completely impossible.
On the other hand, if they were planning a 3 year replacement schedule, and wanted to release a new model at the end of 2019, then they'd need something like this:
7nm SoC - CPU: 6x A76 @1.2GHz (for games) & 2x A55 for OS - GPU: 4x SM @ 600MHz Portable / 1.2GHz Docked - RAM: 12GB
This is obviously much more of a stretch. The 7nm process would be about a year old by that point (and unlike 10nm it will be a fairly widely used node, with AMD & Nvidia using it extensively, alongside the smartphone SoC manufacturers), but it's still been a long time since Nintendo has used such a bleeding-edge manufacturing process. The RAM in particular seems like a lot, and even if Nintendo were to go as gung-ho on CPU/GPU performance, I don't see them breaking the 8GB barrier.
There is another reason that a 2-year/2x performance increase pattern makes sense, though, in that it matches the existing performance differential between portable and docked mode. So, for every new Switch, the portable mode would be about as powerful as the docked mode was on the previous model, and developers would effectively only have to accommodate one more performance target. So, we could see Switch models progress something like this:
2017 - 0.2TF portable, 0.4TF docked
2019 - 0.4TF portable, 0.8TF docked
2021 - 0.8TF portable, 1.6TF docked
2023 - 1.6TF portable, 3.2TF docked
etc.
Retaining support for the most recent two models would then mean covering just three performance targets, and retaining support for the most recent three models would mean supporting only 4 performance targets in this case. Supporting the older hardware still wouldn't be trivial, but it would be easier than having two brand new performance levels with every new device.
Very interesting post, thank you for this! I personally think Nintendo going the Apple route would be interesting and is my own personal dream scenario. It ensures all current software is forwards compatible and doesn't force Nintendo to start a new generation with some new gimmick when they've got something that works and is desireable.
How to handle software compability in general would indeed be the most interesting thing here. How long to support a Switch? How to name them? How to know if your Switch can run a game? Nintendo would really need to get it right from the start if they go this route.
oh yea, I forgot about a hypothetical 3SM (384 cores) model. that would put it at a nice middle ground, and with the die shrink, the 921MHz sounds better as it wouldn't be much of an upgrade over the current docked mode (as the switch is more bandwidth limited than GPU limited right now).
moving off the A57 for next year's model is off the table I think. a 1.5-1.7GHz clock increase would keep the boost reasonable
moving off the A57 for next year's model is off the table I think. a 1.5-1.7GHz clock increase would keep the boost reasonable
I could definitely go for a model like this but Nintendo would really have to nail the messaging around it (older model is 100% forward compatible for the life of the next model) and nailing messaging and communication has not been Nintendo's strong suit ever.
But I guess the smartphone model has probably acclimated people enough to this kind of revision schedule so it could probably work.
This'll have a reason to exists: the exploit.
I understand that and I'm cool with that.
Only problem is that this creates more performance targets and muddles development. a 707GFLOP docked device (or 768GFLOPs in Thraktor's post) would not relate to the 393GFLOPs docked Switch's current performance, while a 384GFLOPs handheld would be just shy of the performance needed, it would also consume a lot of energy in handheld mode to go with 500mhz over 384mhz that it does now. As Thraktor has posted in the past, more cuda cores for a performance target actually uses less energy than a higher clock, and Nintendo is more likely to use a bigger die (the difference here is pretty tiny between 384 cuda cores and 512 cuda cores.
In the end I just think that this doesn't take into account what Nintendo was originally doing with the Switch clocks and performance targets, so while it is absolutely an option for Nintendo, it's a bit of a mess for developers to have 4 performance profiles, than 3, with the devices sharing one.
Nintendo and Nvidia decided to change the GPUs performance for different resolution targets, and this chip was in the works at that time, so there is little reason to think they wouldn't push that goal to a new model, targeting that 2.25x-2.5x performance difference.
Yes, messaging would be very important, but people are already quite used to this model with smartphones, tablets, etc., and the PS4 Pro and XB1X may actually be a blessing for Nintendo in terms of normalising the idea that more powerful console hardware can come out more frequently than once every 5-6 years.
Actually I'd say that moving away from the A57 would be the easiest win for Nintendo. The A73 has been around for a few years, and it takes up less die space, consumes less power, and performs better than the A57 at the same manufacturing process and clock speed. The A75 and A76 are newer again, but I think they trade off a bit more die space/power consumption for increased peak performance, plus probably have higher licensing fees, so the A73 may still be the best option for Nintendo.
Unless of course they simply go with a die shrink of the current SoC at higher clock speeds, in which case it's A57s again. Getting a 2x performance increase would then be a challenge, though.
A quick mooch of Wololo says they used ipatches. Cheers
The problem with 384 cuda cores is that resolution bump that a dock is suppose to give you, if you give the docked performance when portable, so ~400GFLOPs on the go, you can only achieve 768GFLOPs when docked at 1GHz, and that isn't enough to bump up resolution to 1080p.
I agree with A73, except that this chip could have been in development before the A73 core was available, so A72 might still be what we are looking at, still a much better performer and nearly half the size of A57.
Maybe if they can't advertise about a sufficient buff for a noticeable resolution bump they'll focus on another more visible and marketable part, like a better and bigger screen.
Nintendo needs to get down price and increase battery running times fist before pandering to forum "experts".
How will owning two Switches work if they both use the same account? Will the second Switch be useless like the 3DS?
It would be nice if I could keep using both, and have their saves sync like Vita.
It would be nice if I could keep using both, and have their saves sync like Vita.
I still think the switch pro will have exclusive games, but they will be few and far between and likely won't arrive until after next gen begins. I do agree that it is in Nintendo's best interest to have games run on the base switch even if they look and run like crap. Plus, considering how common game comparisons are these days it will only help to further incentivize the people who care about graphics to upgrade. Checkerboard rendering like techniques being used more often will help the base versions as well and hopefully make it a little more tolerable for the more demanding third-party games, and if Nintendo can get access to Nvidia's g-sync tech that will help bridge the gap even more.
the problem is assuming Nintendo is going to try to hit 1080p with every one of their games. I don't think they'll go for that, even with a spec bump. not until they can go for a 7nm SoC design
But the whole point is that the Switch actually needs more power. That's one of its biggest problems, especially has a console. There is no reason to not make it more powerful at least docked.
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