Based on how tech has progressed since the Switch, how powerful could a Switch Pro in early 2021 actually be?

Cow Mengde · Jan 3, 2021

Now that I think about it, if Switch Whateverthefuck has DLSS and upscales to 4K, what kind of screen would they give it for handheld? At it's current size, a 720p screen is still very sharp. That would also mean there's a stupid amount of extra processing power not used. They could up it to 1080p, but the benefits are extremely limited, let alone 1440p. For reference, I was watch the Doom Eternal Switch footage on my 1440p phone (6.4 inches screen I think) and it looks surprisingly sharp. Looks way better than when I watched it on my monitor. I wonder how they'll tackle the big difference in power, or if they care.

Deleted member 37917 · Jan 3, 2021

ShadowFox08 said:
people aren't buying the switch for fortnite.

I'm not really knowledgeable about that, but I had the impression that the fortnite bundles were selling really well.

Deleted member 37917 · Jan 3, 2021

Cow Mengde said:
Now that I think about it, if Switch Whateverthefuck has DLSS and upscales to 4K, what kind of screen would they give it for handheld? At it's current size, a 720p screen is still very sharp. That would also mean there's a stupid amount of extra processing power not used. They could up it to 1080p, but the benefits are extremely limited, let alone 1440p. For reference, I was watch the Doom Eternal Switch footage on my 1440p phone (6.4 inches screen I think) and it looks surprisingly sharp. Looks way better than when I watched it on my monitor. I wonder how they'll tackle the big difference in power, or if they care.

We already discussed it, and someone suggested that if there's a big difference (like 720p/4K), they could go for a longer battery life with all that headroom.
I would prefer 720p with 6 hours of playtime then 1080p with 3 hours.

Cow Mengde · Jan 3, 2021

zakatana said:
We already discussed it, and someone suggested that if there's a big difference (like 720p/4K), they could go for a longer battery life with all that headroom.
I would prefer 720p with 6 hours of playtime then 1080p with 3 hours.

Yeah, I was thinking battery life would be the major benefit, which is music to my ears.

slsk · Jan 3, 2021

ShadowFox08 said:
people aren't buying the switch for fortnite. that game is available in every platform. it's played as much as it is because it's f2p and it's popular among the younger gamers.

and Nintendo won't have that momentum forever. Not a good idea to make the same mistake as the wii.

also, don't forget that Sony was incredibly successful but still came out with the pro. doesn't hurt to have better performance to get xbone/ps4 ports at least, as well as acceptable performance on handheld mode

anyway, another revision is inevitable. we got lite and revision v2 in 2019. this year we can get a pro or 2, or 2022 will more than likely be a 2.

Fortnite Switch bundles are selling really well, even though it's the worst platform for Fortnite from a performance PoV. The actual gaming public (not forum posters) don't care or don't realise that there is a difference.

I agree that there will be a revision this year with better performance, but it will be using whatever SoC that Nintendo can get for < $60 USD per unit.

Thugstas · Jan 3, 2021

zakatana said:
I used to think that this next machine, for which I heard the target date was 2020, had been deleted due to covid; but reading this topic for the past few weeks, I'm starting to think that if a delay happened, it was more due to the surprising recent improvements in the available tech. Delaying to 2021 made sense if they are indeed implementing dlss. It also made sense from a business viewpoint as the switch had a fantastic 2020 (partly due to covid but not only). It could also have made sense of some of the planned software wasn't ready. And finally, it made sense as Nintendo probably didn't know the exact specs of the competing machines in 2018; delaying by one year maybe have them just enough time to adjust their own specs target, which would be critical of they indeed follow an iterative hardware upgrade strategy.
In any case, I hope some journalist will eventually dig in and we'll know more about all that, when it's all said and done.

Not only COVID delay... due to strong switch sales... and finally, improvement cause ninty had no pressure to release it in 2020

Deleted member 56266 · Jan 3, 2021

Is there a consensus in this thread as to the most likely month this would launch if it exists? Haven't kept up. My guess is June.

Thugstas · Jan 3, 2021

Ryuji said:
Is there a consensus in this thread as to the most likely month this would launch if it exists? Haven't kept up. My guess is June.

My guess is 2nd half of 2021😉

Dakhil · Jan 3, 2021

I think if Nintendo's going to use a mini LED touchscreen for the next Nintendo Switch model (which I personally have my doubts about), I think a 1080p touchscreen is more likely than a 720p touchscreen since I think most (if not all) companies are moving away from 720p touchscreens in favour of 1080p touchscreens, especially when it comes to mini LED.

Mercury_Sagit · Jan 3, 2021

slsk said:
Fortnite Switch bundles are selling really well, even though it's the worst platform for Fortnite from a performance PoV. The actual gaming public (not forum posters) don't care or don't realise that there is a difference.

I agree that there will be a revision this year with better performance, but it will be using whatever SoC that Nintendo can get for < $60 USD per unit.

Is the sale performance of the Fornite version due to Fortnite or the Switch? Given that Switches have been selling out everywhere no matter which versio, I would favor the latter to be the driving factor.

Zeroth · Jan 3, 2021

Ryuji said:
Is there a consensus in this thread as to the most likely month this would launch if it exists? Haven't kept up. My guess is June.

Hard to make an estimate when much of what we have is guesses and deductions. Second half of the year is a safe bet as everything is too murky for a launch in the first half of the year.

Dark Cloud · Jan 3, 2021

Thugstas said:
My guess is 2nd half of 2021😉

Yeah second half makes the most sense. You think it would launch with a BotW 2? That's my guess.

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

Dark Cloud said:
Yeah second half makes the most sense. You think it would launch with a BotW 2? That's my guess.

September launch for both BotW 2 and the revision has been my bet for a while.

Dark Cloud · Jan 3, 2021

skittzo0413 said:
September launch for both BotW 2 and the revision has been my bet for a while.

That's a good call.

Lelouch0612 · Jan 3, 2021

skittzo0413 said:
September launch for both BotW 2 and the revision has been my bet for a while.

Yep, mine too.

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

I believe BotW2 will be the holidays title. They don't really need much for it to sell really well in the first few months. The launch title can simply be whatever Zelda collection/remaster/remake they have for the anniversary or the Monolith Soft game which is supposed to come this year.

Dark Cloud · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
I believe BotW2 will be the holidays title. They don't really need much for it to sell really well in the first few months. The launch title can simply be whatever Zelda collection/remaster/remake they have for the anniversary or the Monolith Soft game which is supposed to come this year.

I don't agree, especially if it will have exclusive third party games. You will launch it with BotW 2. You will advertise BotW 2 with the Switch Pro to get the base growing as quickly as possible for third party devs.

AncientReptileBrain · Jan 3, 2021

i have a hard time believing the BOTW team won't want every extra possible second working on the game they can get -- i mean, i don't know, maybe it's mostly in the can already and they've already been given that "gravy-time" while they wait for the hardware revision, but if that isn't the case, i could see them pushing for as late in 2021 as they can if they really are the big holiday game from Nintendo this year

Pokemaniac · Jan 3, 2021

Cow Mengde said:
Now that I think about it, if Switch Whateverthefuck has DLSS and upscales to 4K, what kind of screen would they give it for handheld? At it's current size, a 720p screen is still very sharp. That would also mean there's a stupid amount of extra processing power not used. They could up it to 1080p, but the benefits are extremely limited, let alone 1440p. For reference, I was watch the Doom Eternal Switch footage on my 1440p phone (6.4 inches screen I think) and it looks surprisingly sharp. Looks way better than when I watched it on my monitor. I wonder how they'll tackle the big difference in power, or if they care.

I'm expecting a 1080p screen if Nintendo ends up going down that route. 1080p vs 4k is still a pretty big gap, but is probably more manageable.

oneroom · Jan 3, 2021

Dakhil said:
But then again, Square Enix is infamous for making incredibly baffling decisions here and there.)

This is not surprising if you know what happened between Square and Nintendo in the past.（Memoirs of Yoichi Wada, Former President of Square Enix）
Many of the current upper management of Square Enix are former Square employees, and they make the decisions about Kingdom Hearts and FINAL FANTASY.
Technical reasons are probably just an excuse for the interview.

Modest Dumpster · Jan 3, 2021

Finally got around to listening to the SpawnCast from yesterday evening and of course they touched on Switch Pro. Pretty run of the mill opinions based on precedent that the revision will be small. However, Nate is leaning towards the revision being more substantial and there being 3rd party exclusives, which I can't help but wonder will be related to those miracle games he's been teasing for a while.

Dark Cloud · Jan 3, 2021

oneroom said:
This is not surprising if you know what happened between Square and Nintendo in the past.（Memoirs of Yoichi Wada, Former President of Square Enix）
Many of the current upper management of Square Enix are former Square employees, and they make the decisions about Kingdom Hearts and FINAL FANTASY.
Technical reasons are probably just an excuse for the interview.

Or you know it is technical reasons and not everything is a conspiracy?

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

Dark Cloud said:
I don't agree, especially if it will have exclusive third party games. You will launch it with BotW 2. You will advertise BotW 2 with the Switch Pro to get the base growing as quickly as possible for third party devs.

You can't sell more than you manufacture. If it's a substantial upgrade lik XB1+DLSS, they won't need BotW2 to sell all their stock for months. BotW2 will serve to keep momentum into 2022.

Also, you don't need to launch them at the same time to advertise them together. See Xenoblade 3D, for example.

Lelouch0612 · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
You can't sell more than you manufacture. If it's a substantial upgrade lik XB1+DLSS, they won't need BotW2 to sell all their stock for months. BotW2 will serve to keep momentum into 2022.

Also, you don't need to launch them at the same time to advertise them together. See Xenoblade 3D, for example.

Important revisions launch with the appropriate software for Nintendo. Because software helps hardware but the other way around works too.

They launched the n3DS with Monster Hunter in Japan and the Switch Lite with Link's Awakening.

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

Lelouch0612 said:
Important revisions launch with the appropriate software for Nintendo. Because software helps hardware but the other way around works too.

They launched the n3DS with Monster Hunter in Japan and the Switch Lite with Link's Awakening.

And like I said, they can release the whatever Zelda collection/remaster/remake they have planned for the anniversary or a Monolith Soft game or something else.

Dakhil · Jan 3, 2021

Dark Cloud said:
Or you know it is technical reasons and not everything is a conspiracy?

I can understand Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (specifically Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage) and Kingdom Hearts III not coming to the Nintendo Switch due to technical reasons (because of how demanding Unreal Engine 4 can be).

But I don't buy Square Enix not being able to bring Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix to the Nintendo Switch due to technical reasons since both were originally on PlayStation 3 before coming to PlayStation 4.

Lelouch0612 · Jan 3, 2021

Dakhil said:
I can understand Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (specifically Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage) and Kingdom Hearts III not coming to the Nintendo Switch due to technical reasons (because of how demanding Unreal Engine 4 can be).

But I don't buy Square Enix not being able to bring Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix to the Nintendo Switch due to technical reasons since both were originally on PlayStation 3 before coming to PlayStation 4.

Either you bring everything or nothing. Half steps wouldn't fly by and would damage the sales potential and profitability of the ports.

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

Dakhil said:
But I don't buy Square Enix not being able to bring Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix to the Nintendo Switch due to technical reasons since both were originally on PlayStation 3 before coming to PlayStation 4.

Coincidently, Nintendo everything just posted an interview with Virtuos about porting the BioShock collection.

Even with their experience in down porting to the Switch, it took them 10 months to port a trilogy released on PS360. While it's definitely not impossible, I could see SE devs actually having a lot of issues to iron out and deciding it's not worth to allocate a team for 12+ months on it.

ILikeFeet · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
Coincidently, Nintendo everything just posted an interview with Virtuos about porting the BioShock collection.

Even with their experience in down porting to the Switch, it took them 10 months to port a trilogy released on PS360. While it's definitely not impossible, I could see SE devs actually having a lot of issues to iron out and deciding it's not worth to allocate a team for 12+ months on it.

of all games, KH would definitely be worth it, I think. portable numbered KH has a lot of potential. hell, I still expect them to eventually do it

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
I believe BotW2 will be the holidays title. They don't really need much for it to sell really well in the first few months. The launch title can simply be whatever Zelda collection/remaster/remake they have for the anniversary or the Monolith Soft game which is supposed to come this year.

Pokemon will be launching in November and I don't believe they'll want that and BotW 2 competing for the same sales around the same time.

Dark Cloud said:
I don't agree, especially if it will have exclusive third party games. You will launch it with BotW 2. You will advertise BotW 2 with the Switch Pro to get the base growing as quickly as possible for third party devs.

I don't believe it'll have any exclusive third party games at launch. They'll probably start showing up about a year after launch I bet.

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

skittzo0413 said:
Pokemon will be launching in November and I don't believe they'll want that and BotW 2 competing for the same sales around the same time.

Smash released 2 weeks after Pokemon Let's Go. Animal Crossing was originally planned to release right after Sword/Shield as well, but was delayed.

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
Smash released 2 weeks after Pokemon Let's Go. Animal Crossing was originally planned to release right after Sword/Shield as well, but was delayed.

ACNH was likely delayed strategically partly because of that. Smash was literally launched as soon as it was ready, they didn't have time to worry about placement on the schedule, they needed it to hit the holiday season come hell or high water.

I don't believe BotW2 is gonna need that much more dev time and I believe they do now have much more flexibility with their scheduling this year so they'll try to line it up to release with the revision to maximize the impact of the hardware.

LostCauseUnite! · Jan 3, 2021

2-3 32-bit to 64-bit 4GB LPDDR4X isn't too bad 🤔

I'm just not sure if it is economically ok, and if it is right for a PRo

Does anyone know the price of 64-bit lpddr4x? I can't seem to find it, I think i read lpddr4 was 40-ish bucks in 2017? wonder how it would be 4x...

RennanNT · Jan 3, 2021

skittzo0413 said:
ACNH was likely delayed strategically partly because of that.

If that was really important to Nintendo, AC wouldn't have been scheduled there to begin with. They knew about Pokemon way before they announced AC for December 2019.

Not mention that BotW2 is by fa their biggest title of the year. If we were talking about a new mainline Pokemon being the sole holidays title, that would still make sense, but it's a remake and not on the same caliber.

brainchild · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
Coincidently, Nintendo everything just posted an interview with Virtuos about porting the BioShock collection.

Even with their experience in down porting to the Switch, it took them 10 months to port a trilogy released on PS360. While it's definitely not impossible, I could see SE devs actually having a lot of issues to iron out and deciding it's not worth to allocate a team for 12+ months on it.

A lot of that time was spent on logistics and issues inherent to porting over old games to more modern systems in general:

With BioShock: The Collection, we recognized during the initial stages that some data had been lost, which took time to resolve. Secondly, the engines and middleware used in the original games are most often very old – especially middleware that was originally closed source. For example, BioShock and BioShock 2 use an extremely old version of Havok; it took us months just to contact and sort things out with the vendor. Lastly, players have very high expectations of a ported game's quality. There's almost always videos uploaded to YouTube comparing things like frame-rate, visual quality, load times, and so on. The way we ensure the quality of our games is also a huge challenge for us. Most often, it's tied closely to the timeline and the cost of the project.

It sounds like they just wanted to invest in a quality port. They certainly could've gotten it out sooner if they really wanted to, though the quality definitely would've taken a hit. I wish more devs cared that much about their ports!

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

RennanNT said:
If that was really important to Nintendo, AC wouldn't have been scheduled there to begin with. They knew about Pokemon way before they announced AC for December 2019.

Not mention that BotW2 is by fa their biggest title of the year. If we were talking about a new mainline Pokemon being the sole holidays title, that would still make sense, but it's a remake and not on the same caliber.

ACNH was scheduled for then I believe in February 2019 before Switch sales kinda exploded towards the middle of the year. I believe it was delayed due to a combination of them wanting to get more content ready for it and realizing it wouldn't really be necessary to have for late 2019, while Spring 2020 had very little at that point. I don't think the delay was entirely due to Pokemon but it was probably a strategic delay in general.

As for this year, BotW2 probably is their biggest title but we don't really know for sure if it will retain the heavy sales of the original. Pokemon, even a remake, will likely hit 10-15M+ this year.

Also we might somehow get something on the level of a new Mario Kart this year if we're lucky. Who knows at this stage.

Kyzer · Jan 3, 2021

I think launch with some interesting exclusive like Xenoblade 3D for New 3DS, and it'll be before botw2

ILikeFeet · Jan 3, 2021

brainchild said:
I wish more devs cared that much about their ports!

I'm certain most do, but as we seen from The Outer Worlds (from the same studio, no less), release timing takes precedence

brainchild · Jan 3, 2021

ILikeFeet said:
I'm certain most do, but as we seen from The Outer Worlds (from the same studio, no less), release timing takes precedence

Yeah, maybe "cared" wasn't the best way to put it.

Basically, it'd be nice to see more ports where devs prioritized quality over minimizing development time as much as possible, especially if the latter results in crunch. I do, however, understand that that isn't always feasible.

z0m3le · Jan 3, 2021

LostCauseUnite! said:
If that's the case, theater mode should be download option and opting for a 32GB cart.

I think the issue is the way of pricing it accordingly.

On another note Macronix is supposedly, or rather was going to start 3D NAND in 2020, but I believe it was delayed to 2021 due to the events that happened this year.

But then I found that it wouldn't really be used in the switch game cartridges at all.

I don't know the validity of TweakTown and Anandtech

And I think it drives the cost of cartridges down so 32GB would be more available and thus some third parties would jump on board more willingly.

EDIT: though if they aren't for switch games, they may be for other things related to the switch.

The article is actually just misunderstanding xtrarom technology, they don't understand that xtrarom uses NANDflash, thus Nand 3d will be compatible with the technology.

LostCauseUnite! · Jan 3, 2021

z0m3le said:
The article is actually just misunderstanding xtrarom technology, they don't understand that xtrarom uses NANDflash, thus Nand 3d will be compatible with the technology.

Ah, thank you! That makes it much more clear now, if possible for you to answer, would these be faster than the current cards?

Dakhil · Jan 3, 2021

LostCauseUnite! said:
That makes it much more clear now, if possible for you to answer, would these be faster than the current cards?

Theoretically speaking, yes.

NateDrake · Jan 3, 2021

brainchild said:
Yeah, maybe "cared" wasn't the best way to put it.

Basically, it'd be nice to see more ports where devs prioritized quality over minimizing development time as much as possible, especially if the latter results in crunch. I do, however, understand that that isn't always feasible.

Agreed. Too many companies are falling into the "cash grab" trap of releasing mediocre ports (due to limited resources for the project), simply to take advantage of the Switch base & hope to sell a few copies. They look to maximize RoI and exploit the spending habits of the Switch base.

z0m3le · Jan 3, 2021

LostCauseUnite! said:
Ah, thank you! That makes it much more clear now, if possible for you to answer, would these be faster than the current cards?

Should be able to get around 800MB/s with their first generation 3d nand technology.

brainchild · Jan 3, 2021

NateDrake said:
Agreed. Too many companies are falling into the "cash grab" trap of releasing mediocre ports (due to limited resources for the project), simply to take advantage of the Switch base & hope to sell a few copies. They look to maximize RoI and exploit the spending habits of the Switch base.

On the Switch platform it's getting ridiculous. I haven't seen it this bad since the Wii days.

NateDrake · Jan 3, 2021

brainchild said:
On the Switch platform it's getting ridiculous. I haven't seen it this bad since the Wii days.

Western publishers don't want to miss out & they are willing to insult the consumer base with shoddy ports. On the flip side, we have quality ports but are priced far too high (cough EA cough). It's an ongoing struggle for the Switch platform.

Dakhil · Jan 3, 2021

Lelouch0612 said:
Either you bring everything or nothing. Half steps wouldn't fly by and would damage the sales potential and profitability of the ports.

Then by that logic, releasing Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory on the Nintendo Switch has already damaged the sales potential and profitability of future Kingdom Hearts ports.

Either way, the reason for not bringing Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix to the Nintendo Switch is mostly for marketing reasons, not technical reasons. I think it's a bit disingenuous for Square Enix to say that Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix is not being brought to the Nintendo Switch solely because of technical reasons.

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

NateDrake said:
Western publishers don't want to miss out & they are willing to insult the consumer base with shoddy ports. On the flip side, we have quality ports but are priced far too high (cough EA cough). It's an ongoing struggle for the Switch platform.

I fell for one of those shoddy ports with Pillars of Eternity giving me a game breaking bug that was promised a fix in June of this year but never materialized.

It's frustrating to be basically ignored like that. I sent an email and posted on their forums but I guess it's more profitable to put out a broken game and lie about it being fixed than it is to actually fix it.

z0m3le · Jan 3, 2021

skittzo0413 said:
I fell for one of those shoddy ports with Pillars of Eternity giving me a game breaking bug that was promised a fix in June of this year but never materialized.

It's frustrating to be basically ignored like that. I sent an email and posted on their forums but I guess it's more profitable to put out a broken game and lie about it being fixed than it is to actually fix it.

Were you able to pick it up on epic game store for free last month? That sucks BTW, it's why I'm not opposed to the hacking scene, though I never check it out on current hardware generations.

Skittzo · Jan 3, 2021

z0m3le said:
Were you able to pick it up on epic game store for free last month? That sucks BTW, it's why I'm not opposed to the hacking scene, though I never check it out on current hardware generations.

Nah, can't really dedicate any reasonable amount of time to a game on anything but a portable so it wasn't worth it.

Based on how tech has progressed since the Switch, how powerful could a Switch Pro in early 2021 actually be?

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