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Soundwave on 04 May 2023
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Wyrdness said:
Soundwave said:

I'm talking about the chip R&D which is done by Nvidia, I don't think Nvidia really cares what Nintendo does or doesn't do with controllers or things like that, the chip is the issue, because

1.) Once the chip is complete likely you have to pay some amount for it (unless Nvidia became charity without telling anyone) for the years of work Nvidia did to develop the chip (which is likely the Tegra 239, we already know what the chip is from leaks from Nvidia). Beyond that, Nintendo likely has to pay Nvidia a certain amount on a yearly basis (royalty fees) too, it's likely not a one sum lump payment. 

2.) Even if you have the chip, I don't think people understand that's only a fraction of the whole issue. Even if you have the competed system ... yeah OK ... and who's going to manufacture it? This is kind of a big deal, you can't just show up to TSMC's front door and say "hey we got this 5nm new Nvidia chip, can you whip us up some?". Production lines for high end chip are limited with many companies wanting access for a range of devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop GPUs, etc. etc. etc. etc.). Those deals have to likely be booked years in advance too and if you just bail out on the deal you're likely subject to penalties because you've screwed TSMC or Samsung out of money they could have made had they booked that production for another vendor. 

This stuff is not as simple as "ho hum, we're just working away on our new hardware like a after school club and it'll be ready when ever we want" ... you have to have an idea years in advance when you're going to need said hardware and you have to have deals worked out that the hardware can even be manufactured in mass quantities (millions upon millions). Especially with modern hardware, yes even Nintendo's, this is a lot more complex when you're talking about hardware that is well beyond like a PS2/GameCube/Wii level. 

There's a lot that goes into hardware chipsets, especially modern level 3D hardware (anything beyond like a PS2/Wii level) and for Switch systems and its successor even doubly so, a Switch 2 chip is going to have to be a fairly modern (thus expensive and harder to secure) production node, probably 5nm because it has to have decent battery life in a portable state. 

You're posting this as if it's news to anyone here, Nintendo and other platform holders have decades of experience knowing this and how to efficiently set up for shifts in their situation this is how the Switch came out two years after Nintendo realized the WiiU was done. The 2025 predictions and such you see people doing are with the knowledge of what you posted, A platform holder can identify a potential new tech now and work with in the framework of what you posted e.g. this tech is good lets work with this and aim for a release window two years from now etc... especially when they have the luxury to do so Nintendo themselves did this in the GB's 14 year run learning the ins and outs the hard way. This is apparent in how rumours from months ago suggested a particular type of chip which when discussed on this site someone highlighted how the new tech would be expensive now to use but it was then pointed out that in a possible 2025 release window such tech would be very much viable.

The irony of what you posted is that it counters the people calling for new stronger tech to be released sooner than those who think they can wait.

I don't think a lot of comments here take any of that into account to be honest. People still act like it's 1998 and you can turn around hardware when ever you feel like. 

That's not how modern chipsets and modern nodes (which Nintendo is basically forced to use because of the portable nature of the Switch ... you can't get good performance from a chip using an ancient design node anymore, this isn't the DS era any longer). 

There's a host of problems with "well just sit around and wait for your sales to decline and then and only then release a new console", there's a bunch of things that make that idea a lot more complex with today's hardware. 

The suggestion too that Nintendo can just wait and chose a different chip now ... like this is also head scratching ... from where? Nvidia doesn't make Tegra chips willy nilly, there's not many vendors for these chips, Nintendo is basically the only major company that uses the Tegra X1. The chip for the Nintendo successor is very likely the Tegra T239 based on the leaks (including leaks direct from Nvidia) we have. It's already been made, it exists now. 

If Nintendo wants to now say "well we'll just wait for an even betterer chip", firstly, they're probably on the hook paying for the Tegra 239 and then will have to pay for the "newer" chip ... like yeah you can say "well that's just common sense" after the fact, but lol, I don't think many people consider any of this stuff when posting here. 

If I paint your house blue and at the end of the process you say "well I'm not really into blue anymore, and I didn't even really need my house painted now, come back next week and paint it green" ... I mean OK, but you sure as fuck are going to pay me full price for the time/paint I already spent painting your house blue, and then on top of that you're paying full price again to have it painted green. Not my problem you can't make up your mind, there's no discount you get for that.

This is nothing like the Game Boy at all it's basically the exact opposite of the Game Boy because Nintendo is using chips now that are basically made mainly for them. The Tegra chips, which are relatively cutting edge, and at this point have to basically be made on demand for Nintendo mostly (because no other major vendor uses these chips) on a modern node in 2023/2024 is a completely different ball game. Nintendo's basically stuck using Tegra/Nvidia too because you can't have backwards compatibility without it, so Nvidia has a lot of leverage now. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 04 May 2023