Does Nvidia have any chip that we know of that would be ideal for Switch 2 whenever it releases?

[_Jelly_fish]

The gamecube can't run wii games, it doesn't have enough memory.

Yes, the Switch will likely use Nvidia's next Tegra chip, which sounds like a 768 Cuda core Ampere chip on 7nm+. That is likely launching next FY.

Click to shrink...

I'm probably thinking of some dev units that were used before the wii was in its final stages of development, I know at one point modded Gamecube devkits were being used to develop some wii games (I think Metroid Prime 3 was one of the ones we know for sure)

 

[BlueManifest]

The Tegra X1 was 2 years old when Nintendo used it so whatever gpu nvidia is able to release in 2020 is the one they will use if switch releases in 2022

 

[z0m3le]

I'm probably thinking of some dev units that were used before the wii was in its final stages of development, I know at one point modded Gamecube devkits were being used to develop some wii games (I think Metroid Prime 3 was one of the ones we know for sure)

Click to shrink...

The Wiimotes were originally developed as add ons to the Gamecube. Metroid Prime 3 might have started as a Gamecube game early in it's development, but it would use the 64MB of DDR3 ram that the Wii had available, something that can't be done on a Gamecube devkit.

The Tegra X1 was 2 years old when Nintendo used it so whatever gpu nvidia is able to release in 2020 is the one they will use if switch releases in 2022

Click to shrink...

The Switch was designed to release in 2016. The official reason it missed the 2016 lineup is because Nintendo was waiting on software to release along side of it. Tegra X1 was still one of the fastest mobile chips on the market, really only being beat by competitors with the Adreno 640's 500+ GFLOPs of performance in 2018. Nintendo will use Tegra's next chip when Nvidia can produce millions of them.

 

[Griffith]

Nvidia needs to work harder and worry about getting that contract more than Nintendo does. Nintendo has at least a handful of viable options.

I do find it a bit funny that Nvidia has been staying quiet about graphics performance since the Switch launch. Remember their salt when both Sony and Microsoft ditched them?

 

[Green Yoshi]

The GeForce GTX 16 series probably needs too much power for the Switch.

 

[_Jelly_fish]

The Wiimotes were originally developed as add ons to the Gamecube. Metroid Prime 3 might have started as a Gamecube game early in it's development, but it would use the 64MB of DDR3 ram that the Wii had available, something that can't be done on a Gamecube devkit.

Click to shrink...

Looked it up, man only 10 years ago we were playing on consoles with less than 100mbs of RAM, shows how far computers have come

just for reference the switch has 4GBs of RAM

 

[Deleted member 2809]

RTX 2080 Ti super probably.
It's likely imo. 350$. Everything 4K/144fps with ray tracing on.

 

[Gurgelhals]

Consumer-based Tegra development more or less ended after the X2. Nintendo's desires pretty much run that ship. If we see a new consumer tegra device, I think it will largely be dictated by what Nintendo wants for the Switch 2.

Click to shrink...

That's the thing that has me a bit worried, tbh.

Since the X1, Nvidia's Tegra lineup has pretty much morphed into something that's not really made for handheld / gaming use anymore. Nvidia would have to come up with a custom design specifically catering to Nintendo's use case (something that doesn't have whatever dedicated AI/Automation logic is in their current SoC and uses regular ARM cores instead of Nvidia's Denver family).

However, Nintendo isn't known to bankroll expensive custom designs anymore. I mean, they didn't even bother to ask for an optimised X1 and just went for the off-the-shelf part. And Nvidia is rather notorious for not doing these semi-custom deals on the cheap. Remember that they managed to piss off both Microsoft with the original Xbox and Sony with the PS3 for overcharging and underdelivering. And Nintendo also bailed on them during the development of the 3DS when they came to the realisation that Nvidia wouldn't be able to deliver what they needed.

Basically, my worry is that Nvidia might not be willing to devote a significant share of their R&D resources for the development of a custom Switch 2 SoC, as their Switch business is a low-margin business and only accounts for a small share of their total revenue. And Nintendo might not be willing to pay whatever outrageous price Nvidia would ask to do exactly that and develop such a part.

 

[z0m3le]

That's the thing that has me a bit worried, tbh.

Since the X1, Nvidia's Tegra lineup has pretty much morphed into something that's not really made for handheld / gaming use anymore. Nvidia would have to come up with a custom design specifically catering to Nintendo's use case (something that doesn't have whatever dedicated AI/Automation logic is in their current SoC and uses regular ARM cores instead of Nvidia's Denver family).

However, Nintendo isn't known to bankroll expensive custom designs anymore. I mean, they didn't even bother to ask for an optimised X1 and just went for the off-the-shelf part. And Nvidia is rather notorious for not doing these semi-custom deals on the cheap. Remember that they managed to piss off both Microsoft with the original Xbox and Sony with the PS3 for overcharging and underdelivering. And Nintendo also bailed on them during the development of the 3DS when they came to the realisation that Nvidia wouldn't be able to deliver what they needed.

Basically, my worry is that Nvidia might not be willing to devote a significant share of their R&D resources for the development of a custom Switch 2 SoC, as their Switch business is a low-margin business and only accounts for a small share of their total revenue. And Nintendo might not be willing to pay whatever outrageous price Nvidia would ask to do exactly that and develop such a part.

Click to shrink...

Nvidia isn't giving up on the Mobile market. That is simple insanity.

Microsoft is supporting Windows with ARM devices now, and their Windows 10x is being used in their Surface Pro X. Nvidia wants in on that.
Samsung is licensing AMD's GPUs for their hardware. Nvidia wants in on that.
Smart phones are year after year, the largest driver of consumer electronic sales. Nvidia wants in on that.
Nvidia is moving to 7nm+ early next year and has been stuck on TSMC's 16nm process (the 12nm TSMC process is not a new process, but the 16nm process in it's most effective energy mode)

Ampere already has a rumored Tegra chip coming in the next FY. I don't see Nintendo asking for a custom chip from Nvidia, it will likely be that.

 

[Onix555]

Nvidia isn't giving up on the Mobile market. That is simple insanity.

Microsoft is supporting Windows with ARM devices now, and their Windows 10x is being used in their Surface Pro X. Nvidia wants in on that.
Samsung is licensing AMD's GPUs for their hardware. Nvidia wants in on that.
Smart phones are year after year, the largest driver of consumer electronic sales. Nvidia wants in on that.
Nvidia is moving to 7nm+ early next year and has been stuck on TSMC's 16nm process (the 12nm TSMC process is not a new process, but the 16nm process in it's most effective energy mode)

Ampere already has a rumored Tegra chip coming in the next FY. I don't see Nintendo asking for a custom chip from Nvidia, it will likely be that.

Click to shrink...

You keep claiming things like that but all Nvidia have been doing the past few years is pulling resources away from mobile and putting them into cars and datacenters.

Can you even source your Ampere Tegra rumour.

 

[dgrdsv]

If Nintendo will want to use NV's h/w again for its next console they'll have to pay for R&D on a 100% custom APU because NV doesn't have anything suitable for a gaming machine beyond the already old Tegra X2. All newer Tegra chips are made for automotive markets and carry a lot of stuff which isn't needed in a gaming machine.

Nvidia needs to work harder and worry about getting that contract more than Nintendo does.

Click to shrink...

Not really. There's not a lot of profit in such contracts, especially by Nv's standards. Which is why the Switch is based on a rather old X1 with zero customizations.

 

[Deleted member 32106]

Microsoft is supporting Windows with ARM devices now, and their Windows 10x is being used in their Surface Pro X.

Click to shrink...

Pro X use Windows 10 arm. Only Surface Neo that confirmed Windows 10x.

 

[Griffith]

Not really. There's not a lot of profit in such contracts, especially by Nv's standards. Which is why the Switch is based on a rather old X1 with zero customizations.

Click to shrink...

I understand there isn't a lot of profit in those deals and I know what the Switch just uses an old Tegra but Nvidia has been having some trouble growing their business and many are speculating their value to drop considerably. They might need such contracts to stay afloat in the near future.

 

[ShaDowDaNca]

Just give next gen games @1080p/60/HDR and 1440p/30/HDR with a good 4k upscaling chip and we good.

 

[Naga]

There's no "ideal chip" that we know of, no.
The Tegra line was basically put aside given they had no real clients, and the chips they created for cars and such went in a different direction from what they wanted at first.
If Nintendo has been happy with that chip (they likely have), and have already made a revision of it (due to the security flaws), you can bet they're currently making a new chip for them that isn't really based on what we've seen so far (be it X2 or another chip).

It'll be interesting to watch, nvidia are pretty competent.

 

[dgrdsv]

I understand there isn't a lot of profit in those deals and I know what the Switch just uses an old Tegra but Nvidia has been having some trouble growing their business and many are speculating their value to drop considerably. They might need such contracts to stay afloat in the near future.

Click to shrink...

A) They don't have any troubles with growing their business. The value drop was due to GPU mining crash and this wasn't their problem and has already ended.
B) Any console h/w contract will not help them in growing their business in the slightest because they, well, aren't at all attractive as business opportunities. The only reason they may consider going with a very low margin deal here is to retain their presence in console h/w which does bring some benefits over to their main PC gaming revenue stream.

 

[rafiii]

nVidia has been repurposing Tegra X1 recently (jetson nano) as their entry level for autonomous & machine learning.
"Mariko" is present in Linux files so the revised Tegra X1 will arrive on other machines, not just the Switch family.

nVidia doesn't have a chip today for a Switch 2, but they will build one when the time is right to replace Tegra X1.
My money is on 2021, probably in 7nm, with LPDDR5 and a GPU architecture based on something like "Turing Minor" (name by Anandtech).

 

[ILikeFeet]

That's the thing that has me a bit worried, tbh.

Since the X1, Nvidia's Tegra lineup has pretty much morphed into something that's not really made for handheld / gaming use anymore. Nvidia would have to come up with a custom design specifically catering to Nintendo's use case (something that doesn't have whatever dedicated AI/Automation logic is in their current SoC and uses regular ARM cores instead of Nvidia's Denver family).

However, Nintendo isn't known to bankroll expensive custom designs anymore. I mean, they didn't even bother to ask for an optimised X1 and just went for the off-the-shelf part. And Nvidia is rather notorious for not doing these semi-custom deals on the cheap. Remember that they managed to piss off both Microsoft with the original Xbox and Sony with the PS3 for overcharging and underdelivering. And Nintendo also bailed on them during the development of the 3DS when they came to the realisation that Nvidia wouldn't be able to deliver what they needed.

Basically, my worry is that Nvidia might not be willing to devote a significant share of their R&D resources for the development of a custom Switch 2 SoC, as their Switch business is a low-margin business and only accounts for a small share of their total revenue. And Nintendo might not be willing to pay whatever outrageous price Nvidia would ask to do exactly that and develop such a part.

Click to shrink...

it's not gonna be custom. Nvidia isn't gonna make something that can't be used elsewhere. and Nvidia knows that Nintendo is the largest buyer of their tegra chips, consumer or automotive. they're not gonna ditch them by price gouging since that would mean they'd have to shutter all but a few people in the Tegra department (the old rumor was that Tegra was on the verge of dying until Nintendo stepped in).

 

[Griffith]

A) They don't have any troubles with growing their business. The value drop was due to GPU mining crash and this wasn't their problem and has already ended.
B) Any console h/w contract will not help them in growing their business in the slightest because they, well, aren't at all attractive as business opportunities. The only reason they may consider going with a very low margin deal here is to retain their presence in console h/w which does bring some benefits over to their main PC gaming revenue stream.

Click to shrink...

A) I'm not a financial expert by any extent but that's not what their financial results seem to suggest: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-first-quarter-fiscal-2020
B) I don't know enough about the benefits to discuss it, but given how vocal they were about losing the contracts I would sooner believe they were upset they lost them in both Sony and Microsoft's platforms.

 

[Bowl0l]

I understand there isn't a lot of profit in those deals and I know what the Switch just uses an old Tegra but Nvidia has been having some trouble growing their business and many are speculating their value to drop considerably. They might need such contracts to stay afloat in the near future.

Click to shrink...

Nvidia doesn't have to worry about staying afloat when AMD is doing a good job with their GPUs.

 

[fiendcode]

I would imagine Nvidia has baked-in some proprietary crap into their Tegra line that would make backwards compatibility a chore. It's not impossible for Nintendo to go hit up Qualcomm or whoever for a different custom solution in the future, but my guess is the transition wouldn't be a smooth one.

And it sucks for Nintendo, but Nvidia isn't particularly interested in the energy-efficient mobile market when they're off making inroads in the very lucrative connected automobile market.

Click to shrink...

You've got that backwards, the Tegra biz was up 86% the year of Switch's introduction thanks mainly to that contract. It's incredibly lucrative and has likely resurrected Nvidia's future in mobile R&D, actually Tegra gaming (which includes Switch SOC and services) usually roughly triples the revenue from DRIVE (integrated automobile SOC and machine learning).

 

[Gurgelhals]

You've got that backwards, the Tegra biz was up 86% the year of Switch's introduction thanks mainly to that contract. It's incredibly lucrative and has likely resurrected Nvidia's future in mobile R&D, actually Tegra gaming (which includes Switch SOC and services) usually roughly triples the revenue from DRIVE (integrated automobile SOC and machine learning).

Click to shrink...

It's kind of difficult to say though how much of Nvidia's total Tegra revenue is coming from Switch SoC sales, as Nvidia only publishes total Tegra revenue and Automotive revenue (which, I assume, is all Tegra revenue).

If we assume that total Tegra revenue minus Automotive revenue is mostly Switch SoCs, then we end up with roughly $250-300 millions per quarter (there's a noticeable dip in those numbers for the quarters covering winter 2018 and spring 2019, which is probably when Nintendo stopped buying those old X1s and Mariko production hadn't yet ramped up). This is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but still only a small part of their total revenue (roughly 5.5% for the past four quarters and 10% for the four quarters before that). Given how Nvidia's overall strategy seems to favour low(er)-volume/high-margin products, I genuinely wonder how much they're really invested in that whole Switch business. I guess we'll find out when the Switch 2 comes around...

 

[Ganondolf]

I think Nvidia has 2 Tegra lines in development following the success of Switch (Prior is was just automotive focused). I don't think It will be a custom chip paid by Nintendo but a Nvidia chip used in multiple devices built for the needs of the Switch to at its focus (as that's where guaranteed sales will be).

I think we wont see or hear about any new unannounced mobile based Tegra chips till the year before Switch 2 is released.

 

[RPGamer]

It's kind of difficult to say though how much of Nvidia's total Tegra revenue is coming from Switch SoC sales, as Nvidia only publishes total Tegra revenue and Automotive revenue (which, I assume, is all Tegra revenue).

If we assume that total Tegra revenue minus Automotive revenue is mostly Switch SoCs, then we end up with roughly $250-300 millions per quarter (there's a noticeable dip in those numbers for the quarters covering winter 2018 and spring 2019, which is probably when Nintendo stopped buying those old X1s and Mariko production hadn't yet ramped up). This is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but still only a small part of their total revenue (roughly 5.5% for the past four quarters and 10% for the four quarters before that). Given how Nvidia's overall strategy seems to favour low(er)-volume/high-margin products, I genuinely wonder how much they're really invested in that whole Switch business. I guess we'll find out when the Switch 2 comes around...

Click to shrink...

Nvidia doesn't need Switch to stay well and alive, but they wanted that deal too and knew it wasn't some 500 dollar GPU, if they didn't they wouldn't have made it and they didn't even know how successfull Switch would become. Either way it doesn't hurt them, they earn money with it, they have a highly popular device that is powered by Nvidia and they keep a foot in the door for consumer mobile chips. They can keep their Android TV business, they could make a new Shield tablet in the future, they can use the next Chip for robotics again, even Notebooks if they want etc. Probably it has some other benefits too.

It's only a win situation for them as long as they make profit with it. Nintendo would need big reasons to leave Nvidia as well as they normally like backwards compatibility. And i think they would have talked about that with Nvidia as they made the deal.

 

[Gurgelhals]

It's only a win situation for them as long as they make profit with it. Nintendo would need big reasons to leave Nvidia as well as they normally like backwards compatibility. And i think they would have talked about that with Nvidia as they made the deal.

Click to shrink...

You cannot rule out the factor of opportunity costs here though. Yes, the Switch deal is a small but still profitable part of their business. But if Nvidia believes that it would be more profitable to spend the R&D resources they'd have to spend on a custom Switch 2 SoC in other areas, then that's what they're going to do if Nintendo doesn't step in and pays for the whole thing.

Best case would basically be what the user above has already described: The success of the Switch renewing Nvidias interest in the handheld SoC market, them developing a proper general-purpose offshoot of their current Tegra tech and Nintendo using it in the Switch 2 without having to bankroll the entire thing.

Absolute worst case would be Nvidia going, "Well, we're happy that you guys stepped in at the time and bought off all those spare X1s that no one else wanted, but we're still no longer interested in handheld SoCs, so we don't really have anything. If you want a custom chip, we can develop one. But that's going to cost you, because our R&D resources are better spent elsewhere than for those puny-margin type deals" and Nintendo then going, "Fuck you guys, we're a toymaker not a tech company! Specs don't matter to us and we're not paying hundreds of millions of bucks for a tailor-made chipset."

 

[Pokemaniac]

The Tegra (and it will almost certainly be a Tegra, because the original announcements suggested Nvidia was in this for the long haul similar to IBM with the GameCube) that will power the Switch 2 most likely hasn't been made yet. Since it's still a few years off, I'd expect the worst case scenario to be the chip being Turing 1.5, similar to the X1 being sort of a Maxwell 1.5, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be Ampere or newer. I think the likelihood of Nintendo springing for some RT cores is also pretty high, if for no other reason than to match the GPU feature set of PS5 and Xbox Scarlett, similar to how the current Switch matches PS4 and Xbone.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Ampere arrives next year, so the Tegra model is probably reaching the prototype phase sooner or later. Wouldn't shock me if NTD had test units already

 

[Gin]

how much of power jump is there from tegra x1 to tegra x2

 

[mutantmagnet]

I'm more curious about the cpu. If they go arm again they could design it themselves and avoid paying unnecessary royalty fees.

But what if they went amd instead?

 

[MP!]

finally a thread I can sit and speculate in for years... !
I think it's likely sooner if they release a home system but later if they're keeping the hybrid form factor

 

[MP!]

It wouldn't be strange, but i can't see too many games making use for it

Luigi's mansion maybe? The series is all about lighting effects and it was the main selling point of the original (The third installment seems to go full force with it)



Nintendo seems to have preference for water and light effects ever since SNES in the case of light (By using transparencies) and N64 with water

I find it charming tbh. I love Wave Race 64 just for the water effects

And while luigi's mansion is a loveable series overall, its use of lighting makes it one of my favorites

Click to shrink...

zelda could have reflection puzzles
Waverace would look down right gorgeous

 

[twdnewh]

A) They don't have any troubles with growing their business. The value drop was due to GPU mining crash and this wasn't their problem and has already ended.
B) Any console h/w contract will not help them in growing their business in the slightest because they, well, aren't at all attractive as business opportunities. The only reason they may consider going with a very low margin deal here is to retain their presence in console h/w which does bring some benefits over to their main PC gaming revenue stream.

Click to shrink...

Exactly. It's more about having a presence in the market and the benefits associated with that. Also while the margins might not be great, the quantities still make it a decent contract for them. Also remember the Tegra chips didnt take off as well as Nvidia hoped they would, Nintendo's contract pretty much justified the R&D and investment put into it.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I'm more curious about the cpu. If they go arm again they could design it themselves and avoid paying unnecessary royalty fees.

But what if they went amd instead?

Click to shrink...

if they went AMD, they would probably get worse performance than if they went arm. and Nintendo doesn't design their CPUs. designing a cpu is an expensive endeavor they don't have to go through

how much of power jump is there from tegra x1 to tegra x2

Click to shrink...

not that big a jump. Mariko and Parker are practically the same thing

 

[shark97]

Nvidia isn't giving up on the Mobile market. That is simple insanity.

Microsoft is supporting Windows with ARM devices now, and their Windows 10x is being used in their Surface Pro X. Nvidia wants in on that.
Samsung is licensing AMD's GPUs for their hardware. Nvidia wants in on that.
Smart phones are year after year, the largest driver of consumer electronic sales. Nvidia wants in on that.
Nvidia is moving to 7nm+ early next year and has been stuck on TSMC's 16nm process (the 12nm TSMC process is not a new process, but the 16nm process in it's most effective energy mode)

Ampere already has a rumored Tegra chip coming in the next FY. I don't see Nintendo asking for a custom chip from Nvidia, it will likely be that.

Click to shrink...

yeah but, they already wanted in on all that and it didnt work out. it's nice to want things...

the chinese and korean companies are gonna use their own chips and qualcomm seems to have an absolute lock on everything else. part of it seems to be due to american cell frequencies, only qualcomm can seem to integrate them (this is why you dont see any exynos chips in american Samsung phones).

the idea of a high end, or almost any, american android phones releasing without qualcomm on board seems impossible.

 

[Pokemaniac]

yeah but, they already wanted in on all that and it didnt work out. it's nice to want things...

the chinese and korean companies are gonna use their own chips and qualcomm seems to have an absolute lock on everything else. part of it seems to be due to american cell frequencies, only qualcomm can seem to integrate them (this is why you dont see any exynos chips in american Samsung phones).

the idea of a high end, or almost any, american android phones releasing without qualcomm on board seems impossible.

Click to shrink...

Really the market Nvidia should be trying to break into with Tegra is the emerging ARM laptop market. I'm really kind of perplexed why that hasn't happened yet.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Really the market Nvidia should be trying to break into with Tegra is the emerging ARM laptop market. I'm really kind of perplexed why that hasn't happened yet.

Click to shrink...

weirdly enough, with the renewed focus on Windows on ARM, they can do what they originally attempted with their Denver cores, but couldn't get the x86 license

 

[tokkun]

Really the market Nvidia should be trying to break into with Tegra is the emerging ARM laptop market. I'm really kind of perplexed why that hasn't happened yet.

Click to shrink...

Probably because it is unlikely to be a market that will sustain high margins. Too easy for competitors to enter the market.

 

[Spork4000]

They'll probably use a custom chip.

 

[Deleted member 18161]

Whatever it is, I really hope it's custom. Nintendo's own teams have struggled to wow visually as much as they usually do with Switch hardware aswell as sticking to their flawless framerates.

 

[ShadowFox08]

First and foremost, the updated rev 2 switch model is a die shrink of tx1 and they are near identical to TX2, minus Denver cores, more cache, and that 8GB bandwidth with 128 bit bus bandwidth

I think a future sku of an upgraded switch using the ampere at 7nm+ is definitely possible, but hard to believe it would be released even in q1 2021 on a switch pro. The reason I say this is, while ampere is set to release in early to mid 2020 if everything goes well, the thing is that Nintendo has a history of using chips that are about 2 years old to save costs.

But I'm sure Nvidia and Nintendo have something in the works already for the next chip

 

[MajesticSoup]

Mobile gaming chips will probably be dead next gen is my guess. Wifi 6 and all that.
Though I Still think we'll see a half gen pro upgrade.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Whatever it is, I really hope it's custom. Nintendo's own teams have struggled to wow visually as much as they usually do with Switch hardware aswell as sticking to their flawless framerates.

Click to shrink...

going custom isn't gonna get them anything better than what's available. not anymore. unless they dump a shitton on money into CPU design like Apple, Qualcomm, and Samsung did, they're better off with off the shelf CPUs. as for GPUs, I can't see what Nintendo would want that Nvidia doesn't already provide

 

[Deleted member 36708]

Will be interesting. Who the hell knows what we will get.

 

[345]

Nvidia isn't giving up on the Mobile market. That is simple insanity.

Microsoft is supporting Windows with ARM devices now, and their Windows 10x is being used in their Surface Pro X. Nvidia wants in on that.
Samsung is licensing AMD's GPUs for their hardware. Nvidia wants in on that.
Smart phones are year after year, the largest driver of consumer electronic sales. Nvidia wants in on that.
Nvidia is moving to 7nm+ early next year and has been stuck on TSMC's 16nm process (the 12nm TSMC process is not a new process, but the 16nm process in it's most effective energy mode)

Ampere already has a rumored Tegra chip coming in the next FY. I don't see Nintendo asking for a custom chip from Nvidia, it will likely be that.

Click to shrink...

nvidia explicitly stopped dedicated mobile chip development after the x1 — jensen huang said this two years in a row at computex. the switch's success is a happy fluke and nintendo would continue to be their only customer for anything battery-powered/portable.

nintendo got lucky that the x1 existed and failed when it did. switch 2 will have to be custom if it's nvidia at all, unless nvidia coincidentally has some other reason for wanting to get back into mobile, which they really shouldn't because they wouldn't be competitive in other areas.

why do you think there hasn't been a single tegra-powered phone since 2012? it's not like the idea of making smartphone SoCs is only just occurring to them.

 

[UltraMagnus]

nvidia explicitly stopped dedicated mobile chip development after the x1 — jensen huang said this two years in a row at computex. the switch's success is a happy fluke and nintendo would continue to be their only customer for anything battery-powered/portable.

nintendo got lucky that the x1 existed and failed when it did. switch 2 will have to be custom if it's nvidia at all, unless nvidia coincidentally has some other reason for wanting to get back into mobile, which they really shouldn't because they wouldn't be competitive in other areas.

why do you think there hasn't been a single tegra-powered phone since 2012? it's not like the idea of making smartphone SoCs is only just occurring to them.

Click to shrink...

Cash is king at the end of the day. When you have a hit product as globally successful as the Switch, of course there are always "considerations".

And if Nvidia doesn't want to make a Switch 2 chip, lol, I can tell you Nintendo would have 3-4 other mobile vendors that would give them same tier performance and would love to be in business with Nintendo.

Nvidia has also worded their relationship with Nintendo as something that would last for "decades" or whatever that was, which is bizarre wording if they just viewed it as "hey take some of these last few Tegras before we shut down shop".

100-120 million potential hardware units ... there are plenty of vendors that would say "yes please", though Nvidia isn't stupid.

They likely to be honest already have actual prototype hardware for the Switch 2 being shown to Nintendo as we speak ... errr, type, not just conceptual stuff. Nvidia is done with the dream of Tegra based smartphones/tablets ... but game consoles ... probably not by a long shot. They found the product they were looking for in Switch.

 

[Stef]

I would imagine whatever the Switch 2 has will be purpose built at the time, like a custom Tegra

Click to shrink...

This.

Switch 2 is not Ouya 2, it is not like Nintendo goes to Nvdia/AMD and asks "So, what do you have in store for me?".

They'll go for a custom chip.

 

[345]

Cash is king at the end of the day. When you have a hit product as globally successful as the Switch, of course there are always "considerations".

And if Nvidia doesn't want to make a Switch 2 chip, lol, I can tell you Nintendo would have 3-4 other mobile vendors that would give them same tier performance and would love to be in business with Nintendo.

Nvidia has also worded their relationship with Nintendo as something that would last for "decades" or whatever that was, which is bizarre wording if they just viewed it as "hey take some of these last few Tegras before we shut down shop".

100-120 million potential hardware units ... there are plenty of vendors that would say "yes please", though Nvidia isn't stupid.

They likely to be honest already have actual prototype hardware for the Switch 2 being shown to Nintendo as we speak ... errr, type, not just conceptual stuff. Nvidia is done with the dream of Tegra based smartphones/tablets ... but game consoles ... probably not by a long shot. They found the product they were looking for in Switch.

Click to shrink...

sure, i agree, but this thread is about whether nvidia has any existing chips that might happen to be useful for the next switch. they do not, and almost certainly never will. they are out of the mobile SoC business and are now in the gaming handheld business, which consists of a single customer. and that's a good thing!

 

[UltraMagnus]

sure, i agree, but this thread is about whether nvidia has any existing chips that might happen to be useful for the next switch. they do not, and almost certainly never will. they are out of the mobile SoC business and are now in the gaming handheld business.

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I think you are very, very wrong on that, not only do they have a successor chip, I would bet it's not even in the concept stage anymore. It's in the physical form in Nintendo's R&D labs.

They are not in the mobile SoC business for smartphones and tablets, they sure as fuck never said anything about being out of contention for future Nintendo Switch hardware.

 

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I think you are very, very wrong on that, not only do they have a successor chip, I would bet it's not even in the concept stage anymore. It's in the physical form in Nintendo's R&D labs.

They are not in the mobile SoC business for smartphones and tablets, they sure as fuck never said anything about being out of contention for future Nintendo Switch hardware.

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you're not reading what i'm saying (or the OP).

they will make a chip for switch 2, yes. but it won't go into any other device, unless they want to adapt it for another shield TV box for whatever reason. it'll be a custom design built with gaming in mind, unlike the X1 which was intended to be more broadly versatile.

 

[UltraMagnus]

you're not reading what i'm saying (or the OP).

they will make a chip for switch 2, yes. but it won't go into any other device, unless they want to adapt it for another shield TV box for whatever reason. it'll be a custom design built with gaming in mind, unlike the X1 which was intended to be more broadly versatile.

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Even that I don't know. You can't really take any PR statement from any of these companies that seriously, it's not like "gaming chips" are radically exotic technology nowadays anyhow. I don't think Nintendo really wants to pay massive amounts of money for super-custom designs anymore either.

Whatever "Tegra X4" was supposed to be is likely what they'll get.

I would not be so sure either that Switch 2 is the only product the chip will go into.