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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - What elements of next gen could the Switch's successor implement?

CarcharodonKraz on 13 June 2020

I think the better question is what next gen elwments WOULD yhe switch implement. My prediction is "nothing impressive". I dont think the switch 2 will gain more AAA 3rd party games than the switch has and I just dont find that acceptible anymore. I dont have faith nintendo will pony up money for a "home console" experience. I think, after being a nintendo fan since the nes, im finally out. 3 straight disappointing generations has just killed my faith in nintendo systems as a home console. I could go on but ima stop. Im probably a little too off topic.



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IcaroRibeiro on 13 June 2020

More internal memory



Chicho on 13 June 2020
Pemalite said:

Doesn't help that the Switch's ROM cart is actually slower than the Nintendo 64's.



TheMisterManGuy on 13 June 2020
Fight-the-Streets said:
What I don't like about the current and next gen is that development costs for games have become too high and require too big teams to make them. Up to the Nintendo DS/PSP generation it was affordable for the 3rd parties to have dedicated teams for these handhelds. It was great to see them having their own quality games and their own quality versions of beloved IP's. Nowadays, however, it is sad too see that for even the mega successful Nintendo Switch, the 3rd party studios only make some ports but have no dedicated teams to make unique games for that platform. Even if the the graphical discrepancy between Switch/Switch 2 is very big in comparison to PS5/Xbox Series X, the Switch/Switch 2 would remain a very attractive console if it would get unique quality 3rd party support from dedicated Switch/Switch 2 teams. (And in return these unique versions still could come out in 4k to PS5/Xbox Series X/PC - it's a win-win situation).

This isn't true. Development tools and console architecture are far better than the 7th generation. AAA games require massive budgets. But these days, we've got 6 man indie teams doing what would've needed a AAA budget in the 360 days on a fraction of those costs. I wish people would stop using powerful consoles as an exclusive for the lack of "Mid-Teir" games. That's not even remotely true anymore. 

Last edited by TheMisterManGuy - on 13 June 2020

Pemalite on 13 June 2020
Pyro as Bill said:

Running games direct from the current carts isn't ever going to get much faster is it? Gonna have to buy digital or hope for an 'install to disk' option to see load times disappear?

Switch 2 is going to be possible as a home console long before it can be a hybrid. That's fortunate for Nintendo because the only way a home console could beat the (not actually a) hybrid is GPU power, QoL improvements and exclusive games.

Not with the current Nintendo Switch no.

The Nintendo Switch is limited by it's Full-Duplex Serial Peripheral Interface, which is an evolution of the 3DS technology, it's only 8-bit wide... Verses something like the Nintendo 64 which is 16-bit wide.

The main reason for that is to keep power consumption as low as possible... And costs. Carts are expensive.

Soundwave said:

Cartridge speed can be way, way, way faster if Nintendo wants it to be. 

Nintendo is not ditching the hybrid concept any time soon, not a chance. The sales speak loudly. 

There are ways to make a hybrid console more powerful discreetly anyway. 

Can't be made much faster with the current Switch. The memory itself isn't the limitation, the actual bus interface is.

Pyro as Bill said:

They're limited by the carts not the card reader, no? They could make new carts but I don't see that happening.

I'm not saying they'll ditch the hybrid, I'm just pointing out what it takes to beat a hybrid. Even handhelds can't compete so it will take a lot for a home console to beat hybrid sales.

The Cart reader is the limitation.

Soundwave said:

Nintendo could use PCI-e 4.0 express lanes if they really want for a cartridge solution, that would make the cartridge blazing fast. There are new hyper-fast SD Cards that are doing that, Nintendo could likely do something similar for their cartridge slot if they really wanted to. Ironically this is probably something Nintendo of the 90s would prefer. It wasn't really a big deal last gen because many devs are still running games off a Blu-Ray disc at the time and the Switch was faster than that, not much point in going overboard. 

Power Consumption. Nintendo opted for an SPI bus due to that fact.
It's also cheap, much cheaper to implement than PCI-E.

Chicho said:

Doubt all you want. I don't expect much technical discussion with only someone who responds with a meme... But I digress.

The Nintendo 64's Carts had a transfer rate of 264MB/s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_technical_specifications

The Switch's Carts get outperformed by MicroSD cards at around the 80-100MB/s mark.


So there you go. The more you know.

Soundwave said:

That's never going to happen, Nintendo is never making another "big box home console" ever again. 

I don't think anyone can predict what Nintendo will or won't do, they are constantly surprising the entire industry with different approaches and often succeeding.




--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

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TheMisterManGuy on 13 June 2020
Pemalite said:

I don't think anyone can predict what Nintendo will or won't do, they are constantly surprising the entire industry with different approaches and often succeeding.

I think Nintendo's going to stick with the Switch brand for quite a while, possibly forever. I think the Switch name just makes sense as Nintendo's "Gaming Brand" like PlayStation or Xbox, especially since Nintendo is shifting to be more of a character-based entertainment company rather than just a gaming company. So I expect the successor to the Switch to be an evolution of the current system, rather than some radical new concept. 



Chicho on 13 June 2020
Pemalite said:

Doubt all you want. I don't expect much technical discussion with only someone who responds with a meme... But I digress.

The Nintendo 64's Carts had a transfer rate of 264MB/s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_technical_specifications

On that same wikipedia link you provided if you click on nintendo 64 gamepak and scroll to performance it says this:

Specified at 5 to 50 MiB/s,[16]:48 Nintendo cited the ROM cartridges' very fast load times in comparison to disc-based games. Few contemporary CD-ROM drives have speeds above 4×, and the competing consoles Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation have 2× drives running at about 300 kB/s with high latency.

so I'll keep on doubting.

Last edited by Chicho - on 13 June 2020

hinch on 13 June 2020
TheMisterManGuy said:
Pemalite said:

I don't think anyone can predict what Nintendo will or won't do, they are constantly surprising the entire industry with different approaches and often succeeding.

I think Nintendo's going to stick with the Switch brand for quite a while, possibly forever. I think the Switch name just makes sense as Nintendo's "Gaming Brand" like PlayStation or Xbox, especially since Nintendo is shifting to be more of a character-based entertainment company rather than just a gaming company. So I expect the successor to the Switch to be an evolution of the current system, rather than some radical new concept. 

Yeah portable consoles is an easy sell for Nintendo. They have no other competitors in that space so they can bank in on their franchises. It wouldn't be a very goodd idea to go back to traditional home consoles imo.

Just look at the sales below. NS is now at 55m and we are about half way into its life.



Agente42 on 14 June 2020
hinch said:
TheMisterManGuy said:

I think Nintendo's going to stick with the Switch brand for quite a while, possibly forever. I think the Switch name just makes sense as Nintendo's "Gaming Brand" like PlayStation or Xbox, especially since Nintendo is shifting to be more of a character-based entertainment company rather than just a gaming company. So I expect the successor to the Switch to be an evolution of the current system, rather than some radical new concept. 

Yeah portable consoles is an easy sell for Nintendo. They have no other competitors in that space so they can bank in on their franchises. It wouldn't be a very goodd idea to go back to traditional home consoles imo.

Just look at the sales below. NS is now at 55m and we are about half way into its life.

It's not easier. Nintendo never loses in the portable scene. Nintendo steamrolled  Sega, Atari, Pc engine,  Sony, Neo Geo, Bandai. All the major hardware producers try to beat Nintendo in portable space and lost, fair and square. Sony have all major thrids party with PSP and only have half of sales Nintendo has with Ds. 



hinch on 14 June 2020

Well yeah, that's what I said no? lol