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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nvidia employee acknowledges Tegra 239 SoC rumored to be powering Switch 2

Soundwave on 23 October 2022
Pemalite said:
Soundwave said:

Good tech doesn't have to be expensive.

The N64 and GameCube had very powerful hardware for their time and they weren't expensive, the Tegra X1 was available in the Nvidia Shield at launch in 2015 which wasn't expensive either (only $199.99) and in 2015 it most certainly was top of the line mobile chip tech, a T239 should be 8 years newer than the Tegra X1 and certainly a full generation+ leap in performance. Nothing too crazy about that. 

This idea that powerful must = expensive isn't true, it's a load of crap that was pushed primarily during the Wii and DS era as a phony gospel truth, Nintendo has had affordable and powerful hardware before.

Besides, Nintendo doesn't have to position the next Switch as some kind of bargain basement cheap product, that's what the Switch Lite is for. Switch OLED is $350, the next system will almost certainly start at $399.99 and co-exist with cheaper OG Switch models for people who can't afford that initially. 

Actually the Nintendo 64 had very expensive hardware.

Where Nintendo actually managed to save money was ironically by not having an optical disk drive, I think people forget that optical disks drives fetched a premium even on PC back in the 90's.
And having everything as an accessory, even an increase in Ram helped alleviate cost pressures.

The Gamecube also had a cost advantage over Microsoft as well by not including a hard drive and relying more heavily on accessories... Plus due to the lack of DVD playback, they saved money by not having to pay DVD royalties. The IBM+ATI/AMD/ArtX combo definitely commanded less of a premium over Intel+nVidia.

So Nintendo did have expensive hardware, it's just they managed to "cut costs" on other corners rather intelligently.

And if I recall, Nintendo actually lost money on the Gamecube for a fair while, but don't quote me on that as I didn't take the time to double check..

The Switch or any handheld for that matter however has different cost pressures these days that Nintendo can't really work around compared to other home consoles like a battery and display... Internal storage and the dock are potential places for cuts to save a buck or beef up the SoC, we saw that with the Switch Lite.

The Super NES was also reasonable hardware for its day (1990), yes maybe people were miffed they cheaped out on the CPU clock speed, but it was a capable piece of hardware for the time better than most anything else on the market unless you wanted to spend like hundreds of dollars more on a Neo Geo. 

By 1996, Nintendo probably could have put a  CD-ROM in the N64 if they really wanted to and sold it for $250, which was supposed to be the original launch price anyway (Nintendo lowered the price to $199.99 even before the system released). CD drive prices were dropping fast by '96, this is why Playstation was able to cut its price to $199.99 as well in 1996 to match the N64's price tag. 

The Tegra X1 in the Switch while cutting edge for 2015 was never that expensive even in 2015. The Nvidia Shield released in spring 2015 for $199.99. 

Display and batteries are much cheaper today as they're hugely mass produced in so many devices (phones, tablets, etc.) unless Nintendo is planning to use some kind of ridiculously high resolution display, a 720p or even 1080p display is going to be cheap and so will a 4800-6000 MaH battery. These are not expensive components. They could probably really just keep the same 720p OLED panels they use in the Switch OLED model as its probably fairly cheap as Nintendo keeps ordering millions of them by 2023-2024 etc. it will be a dirt cheap component. 

A Tegra made for 2023 should be easily 5-6x more powerful than a Tegra X1 made in 2015 and modern Nvidia architectural features like DLSS via Tensor Cores is not really that big of a deal either, it's part of the package with modern Nvidia processor. There's nothing mind blowing about that. 

Nintendo also doesn't price hardware for the lowest common denominator any more, all the hardware makers have learned that premium pricing tiers are attractive as they yield higher profit margins over time. I don't think the Switch successor is going to be less than $399.99 when it launches and unless Nintendo makes stupid design or software decisions it will likely be sold out for a while. 

Probably 2 years after Super Switch/Switch 2 releases you'll get a cheap model option in the Super Switch Lite or Switch 2 Lite for like $249.99 maybe but by then the component costs will really have shrunk anyway. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 23 October 2022

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DonFerrari on 23 October 2022
Pemalite said:
Soundwave said:

Good tech doesn't have to be expensive.

The N64 and GameCube had very powerful hardware for their time and they weren't expensive, the Tegra X1 was available in the Nvidia Shield at launch in 2015 which wasn't expensive either (only $199.99) and in 2015 it most certainly was top of the line mobile chip tech, a T239 should be 8 years newer than the Tegra X1 and certainly a full generation+ leap in performance. Nothing too crazy about that. 

This idea that powerful must = expensive isn't true, it's a load of crap that was pushed primarily during the Wii and DS era as a phony gospel truth, Nintendo has had affordable and powerful hardware before.

Besides, Nintendo doesn't have to position the next Switch as some kind of bargain basement cheap product, that's what the Switch Lite is for. Switch OLED is $350, the next system will almost certainly start at $399.99 and co-exist with cheaper OG Switch models for people who can't afford that initially. 

Actually the Nintendo 64 had very expensive hardware.

Where Nintendo actually managed to save money was ironically by not having an optical disk drive, I think people forget that optical disks drives fetched a premium even on PC back in the 90's.
And having everything as an accessory, even an increase in Ram helped alleviate cost pressures.

The Gamecube also had a cost advantage over Microsoft as well by not including a hard drive and relying more heavily on accessories... Plus due to the lack of DVD playback, they saved money by not having to pay DVD royalties. The IBM+ATI/AMD/ArtX combo definitely commanded less of a premium over Intel+nVidia.

So Nintendo did have expensive hardware, it's just they managed to "cut costs" on other corners rather intelligently.

And if I recall, Nintendo actually lost money on the Gamecube for a fair while, but don't quote me on that as I didn't take the time to double check..

The Switch or any handheld for that matter however has different cost pressures these days that Nintendo can't really work around compared to other home consoles like a battery and display... Internal storage and the dock are potential places for cuts to save a buck or beef up the SoC, we saw that with the Switch Lite.

I believe Ninty lost money when they cut the price aggressively to compete with PS1 not long after launch.

But there is no magic, performance cost money.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari on 23 October 2022
Soundwave said:
Pemalite said:

Actually the Nintendo 64 had very expensive hardware.

Where Nintendo actually managed to save money was ironically by not having an optical disk drive, I think people forget that optical disks drives fetched a premium even on PC back in the 90's.
And having everything as an accessory, even an increase in Ram helped alleviate cost pressures.

The Gamecube also had a cost advantage over Microsoft as well by not including a hard drive and relying more heavily on accessories... Plus due to the lack of DVD playback, they saved money by not having to pay DVD royalties. The IBM+ATI/AMD/ArtX combo definitely commanded less of a premium over Intel+nVidia.

So Nintendo did have expensive hardware, it's just they managed to "cut costs" on other corners rather intelligently.

And if I recall, Nintendo actually lost money on the Gamecube for a fair while, but don't quote me on that as I didn't take the time to double check..

The Switch or any handheld for that matter however has different cost pressures these days that Nintendo can't really work around compared to other home consoles like a battery and display... Internal storage and the dock are potential places for cuts to save a buck or beef up the SoC, we saw that with the Switch Lite.

The Super NES was also reasonable hardware for its day (1990), yes maybe people were miffed they cheaped out on the CPU clock speed, but it was a capable piece of hardware for the time better than most anything else on the market unless you wanted to spend like hundreds of dollars more on a Neo Geo. 

By 1996, Nintendo probably could have put a  CD-ROM in the N64 if they really wanted to and sold it for $250, which was supposed to be the original launch price anyway (Nintendo lowered the price to $199.99 even before the system released). CD drive prices were dropping fast by '96, this is why Playstation was able to cut its price to $199.99 as well in 1996 to match the N64's price tag. 

The Tegra X1 in the Switch while cutting edge for 2015 was never that expensive even in 2015. The Nvidia Shield released in spring 2015 for $199.99. 

Display and batteries are much cheaper today as they're hugely mass produced in so many devices (phones, tablets, etc.) unless Nintendo is planning to use some kind of ridiculously high resolution display, a 720p or even 1080p display is going to be cheap and so will a 4800-6000 MaH battery. These are not expensive components. They could probably really just keep the same 720p OLED panels they use in the Switch OLED model as its probably fairly cheap as Nintendo keeps ordering millions of them by 2023-2024 etc. it will be a dirt cheap component. 

A Tegra made for 2023 should be easily 5-6x more powerful than a Tegra X1 made in 2015 and modern Nvidia architectural features like DLSS via Tensor Cores is not really that big of a deal either, it's part of the package with modern Nvidia processor. There's nothing mind blowing about that. 

Nintendo also doesn't price hardware for the lowest common denominator any more, all the hardware makers have learned that premium pricing tiers are attractive as they yield higher profit margins over time. I don't think the Switch successor is going to be less than $399.99 when it launches and unless Nintendo makes stupid design or software decisions it will likely be sold out for a while. 

Probably 2 years after Super Switch/Switch 2 releases you'll get a cheap model option in the Super Switch Lite or Switch 2 Lite for like $249.99 maybe but by then the component costs will really have shrunk anyway. 

Not sure what you are calling premium on other manufacturers because both Series X and PS5 with disc lose money for MS and Sony just lose less than Series S and discless PS5.

Also if you want to pay cheaper for the chip yes you have to get things that are far from top tier.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

bowserthedog on 23 October 2022
Chrkeller said:

New hardware in 7 months... not buying it, at least nothing more than a minor upgrade at best.

Would love to hear your rationale. 6 years is a long time for Nintendo to go without any new chipset be it console or handheld.  



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JquK6FGR6O-0O-6L-VAuw

Soundwave on 24 October 2022
DonFerrari said:
Pemalite said:

Actually the Nintendo 64 had very expensive hardware.

Where Nintendo actually managed to save money was ironically by not having an optical disk drive, I think people forget that optical disks drives fetched a premium even on PC back in the 90's.
And having everything as an accessory, even an increase in Ram helped alleviate cost pressures.

The Gamecube also had a cost advantage over Microsoft as well by not including a hard drive and relying more heavily on accessories... Plus due to the lack of DVD playback, they saved money by not having to pay DVD royalties. The IBM+ATI/AMD/ArtX combo definitely commanded less of a premium over Intel+nVidia.

So Nintendo did have expensive hardware, it's just they managed to "cut costs" on other corners rather intelligently.

And if I recall, Nintendo actually lost money on the Gamecube for a fair while, but don't quote me on that as I didn't take the time to double check..

The Switch or any handheld for that matter however has different cost pressures these days that Nintendo can't really work around compared to other home consoles like a battery and display... Internal storage and the dock are potential places for cuts to save a buck or beef up the SoC, we saw that with the Switch Lite.

I believe Ninty lost money when they cut the price aggressively to compete with PS1 not long after launch.

But there is no magic, performance cost money.

This is overstated. Nintendo never lost money on the N64. They lost a small amount of money on the GameCube for short period of time, but even that was put into profit as soon as a person purchased 1 game, so effectively that's not really a loss as what are you going to do with a GameCube but play games? Play DVD movies? Good luck. 

If anything, Nintendo made a large mistake with the N64 in not compromising and including a CD-drive when CD costs where plummeting by 1996. They should have maintained the originally announced $249.99 price but reworked the hardware with a CD drive in (cart port stays too) instead of cutting to $199.99 for no real reason before launch even. The N64 was completely sold out during holiday 1996, it was like the original "can't find it anywhere this holiday!" console launch.

The GameCube and N64 and SNES had great performance for their time for very reasonable cost (SNES came with a free game when games used to cost $60+ and two controllers to boot). 

A Nvidia chip that's EIGHT YEARS newer than the Tegra X1 is going be far, far more powerful, anyone who thinks that's magic is just dumb, frankly. 

The Tegra X1 itself which was cutting edge in 2015 launched in a $199.99 Nvidia Shield. In spring 2015. In 2015, the Apple A9 chip that was going into $800+ iPhones was not as powerful as the Tegra X1, probably not even close. Is $199.99 expensive? 

Frankly if they're not doing the VR thing, Nintendo probably should just re-use the same OLED 720p display they use for the current Switch OLED for Switch 2. It's a very nice display that completely shits on any previous Nintendo portable and is more than good enough for mobile gaming. Probably is dirt cheap at this point given the rate they've been mass produced for a while now. You don't a hybrid machine to push higher than 720p resolution on the go, even the Steam Deck doesn't, it's just a waste of portable performance. 

All of Nintendo's full generational leaps in portables have also been basically a full serving upgrade in hardware

Game Boy/GBC - Sub NES tier to NES tier hardware

GBA - SNES tier hardware

DS - Playstation 1 tier hardware

3DS - Dreamcast/PS2 tier hardware

Switch - Better than PS3/360/Wii U, so more like a 1.5 generation leap here

Last edited by Soundwave - on 24 October 2022

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Chrkeller on 24 October 2022
bowserthedog said:
Chrkeller said:

New hardware in 7 months... not buying it, at least nothing more than a minor upgrade at best.

Would love to hear your rationale. 6 years is a long time for Nintendo to go without any new chipset be it console or handheld.  

Likely we discussed this before and we simply disagree.  If BotW2 were launching with a substantial hardware upgrade, Nintendo via PR would br hyping it by now...  or at least announcing it.  If there is an upgrade, it will.be minor.



i7-13700k

Vengeance 32 gb

RTX 4090 Ventus 3x E OC

Switch OLED

bowserthedog on 24 October 2022

Yeah we simply don't agree on that. Nintendo does not want to affect solid holiday sales by announcing the new system now.



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JquK6FGR6O-0O-6L-VAuw

Jumpin on 24 October 2022
bowserthedog said:
Chrkeller said:

New hardware in 7 months... not buying it, at least nothing more than a minor upgrade at best.

Would love to hear your rationale. 6 years is a long time for Nintendo to go without any new chipset be it console or handheld.  

He’s repeating his earlier points hoping that if he came back to repeat it later people would forget he’d already been refuted.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Soundwave on 24 October 2022
Chrkeller said:
bowserthedog said:

Would love to hear your rationale. 6 years is a long time for Nintendo to go without any new chipset be it console or handheld.  

Likely we discussed this before and we simply disagree.  If BotW2 were launching with a substantial hardware upgrade, Nintendo via PR would br hyping it by now...  or at least announcing it.  If there is an upgrade, it will.be minor.

Not necessarily. 

It would be very stupid for Nintendo to tank their holiday sales for a product that won't be available until 6 months from now or when ever really. They have product to sell in the here and now and a holiday season ahead of them. 

I've said it before but in today's day and age, announcing hardware 6+ months in advance is just stupid unless your existing hardware is basically dead like the Wii U was and even then Nintendo really did not start any actual promotion/product reveal for the Switch until just about 4 months ahead of launch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED were also only announced about 3 months prior to launch. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 24 October 2022

Quailman1342 on 24 October 2022
Soundwave said:
Chrkeller said:

Likely we discussed this before and we simply disagree.  If BotW2 were launching with a substantial hardware upgrade, Nintendo via PR would br hyping it by now...  or at least announcing it.  If there is an upgrade, it will.be minor.

Not necessarily. 

It would be very stupid for Nintendo to tank their holiday sales for a product that won't be available until 6 months from now or when ever really. They have product to sell in the here and now and a holiday season ahead of them. 

I've said it before but in today's day and age, announcing hardware 6+ months in advance is just stupid unless your existing hardware is basically dead like the Wii U was and even then Nintendo really did not start any actual promotion/unveiling for the Switch until just about 4 months ahead of launch, Switch Lite and Switch OLED were also only announced about 3 months prior to launch. 

I agree with soundwave here, the only reason why the Switch was announced 8 months before release...because the Wii U was a dead console. There as no hype in the holidays and hardly any new games released during the holiday 2016. It was better move for Nintendo to prepare and create hype for the switch. Since the Switch has become a huge success, it wouldn't make sense for the switch 2 (there will not be a pro) to be announced before the holiday season. If the Switch 2 was announced...you're effectively killing switch sales.  It would make more sense for an announcement to be during the end of the holiday season like late December or early January. 

People tend to forget we live in a modern day, we don't need announcements years before a launch of a device anymore. Social media has made advertising easier to reach the masses compared to prior methods of advertisement. Things can go viral worldwide within minutes of an announcements. Advertisements, videos, presentations, and so on can reach the masses compared to 20+ years ago when a commercial will take time to even reach syndication or even putting ad in the paper/magazine used to take time. Now all it takes to post an ad on facebook, twitter, youtube or other internet platform is a click of a button (just simplifying the process). This is why we have seen releases of some devices happen within 6months rather than announcing a product that will release in 1 to 1.5 years.