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Soundwave on 20 March 2017
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Miyamotoo said:
Soundwave said:

Well the other thing is how do you even make a smaller/cheaper Switch with the same 20nm chip? Like how is that supposed to magically work?

The current Switch is likely as small as you can have that chip without overheating, it's a hot chip. And we've seen teardowns now of the Switch, there's very little dead space in that design at all, it's considerably smaller than even the Shield Console.

And where are you saving money from to be able to sell it for any cheaper? The 2DS is cheaper than the standard 3DS because it loses the 3D screen, what exactly would a smaller Switch be losing? Those Joycons really likely don't cost anywhere near what people think they do either, once Nintendo gets past the initial cost of covering their R&D it's likely you're looking at a $2-$3 piece of plastic on both ends.

All other Nintendo revisions have either been the same price or more expensive than their predecessor.

To make a model any smaller you're going to need a chip that generates less heat. And that's really only possibly with the 16nm Tegra ... which likely means Tegra X2, Nvidia has already designed it and fabbed it out, it would be a pointless extra expense spending time on another 16nm design when Nvidia has already made a perfectly good one already.

Easily, smaller screen make smaller device with less and smaller parts. Fact that doesn't need to work in dock mode means they can ditch some things from Switch itself, not to mention ditchable Joy Cons, Dock, cables, also less materials required and smaller package.

I am pretty sure they would make good cooling despite its small form factor. Smaller device means smaller screen and smaller battery.

I already wrote that above, Switch Mini/Pocket will cheaper because it's smaller and doesn't need to work in docked mode. Hardly that teach and parts inside Joy Cons cost $2-3.

You said itself that 2DS is much cheaper than 3DS.

That's not true, I am pretty sure that can easily make smaller Switch with good managed cooling with same X1 chip that's already inside current Switch. We know that current Switch doesnt have any heat issues despite its much smaller than Nvidia Shield.

The only reason the 2DS is cheaper is because it loses the most expensive component of the system -- the 3D LCD screen. 

In all honestly the Joycons and Dock are mostly plastic components with minimal hardware when seriously broken down the actual manufacturing cost of losing both of those would be maybe $20-$25. 

You're not magically going to be able to sell for like a $100 cheaper. 

Screen size doesn't consume that much battery, the chip is what's consuming the majority of your electrical budget, a 20nm Tegra X1 runs hot. There's no way around that, you're not magically going to be able to cool it differently either. 

You can't make a system with a 20nm Tegra X1 much smaller than what the Switch is now. That's basically all Nintendo spent their R&D budget on because basically the main difference is they took a Sheild Console and basically removed all of the dead space to make it as small as possible. 

To be honest, the model you're proposing I don't think would even sell very well. It gimps basically all the things that are popular about the Switch for basically a cheap-o model -- just like 2DS didn't do crap for 3DS sales really ... the point of a revision should be to increase sales in a real way.

It would be maybe $50 cheaper, but for $50 less the vast majority of people would rather just buy the "real" Switch that can play on their TV and use real Joycons (and no doubt there will be new Joycon models as time goes on).