Nintendo Switch

[Osgeld]

 

Nintendo on their site say custom Tegra, makes me think its more than we think

 

every game console has a "custom" chipset in there, xbox uses a customized pentium3 based celeron and a custom geforce 4, likewise the next gen used custom ppc based chips and custom graphics based on the current tech, and likewise today's machines are not just running plain old socket FM whatever AMD chips its all custom

 

when your a customer of such scale you can make (and pay) to streamline the commercial grade tech to be optimized for game content rather than raw math or radio communications or whatever

 

so a custom tegra may be similar to what they used in the sheild, but not the more common ones found in more general use devices

 

for instance an XBOX is horrible at dealing with large spreadsheets and a similar speced PC would out run it in linux, or in this case the switch may run zelda like a bat out of hell but its not tasked with dealing with as much multitasking like keeping tabs on a digital cellular radio

 

get my drift?

Edited February 2, 2017 by Osgeld

[Flojomojo]

Agreed. Plus there's something in this partnership for both Nvidia and Nintendo. NVidia gets even more gaming cred, and likely sells a lot more mobile stuff than they were able to do on their own. Nintendo gets a best in show chip, and probably some kind of volume discount. We will likely never know the details of their deal, of course.

[toptenmaterial]

Side note: was the issue attracting 3rd parties to Wii U was that it used archaic hardware that was difficult to program for?

[Osgeld]

Nintendo gets a best in show chip, and probably some kind of volume discount. We will likely never know the details of their deal, of course.

 

 

 

yes nintendo will get a best in show chip for their custom tailored demands, doesnt mean their special unicorn tailored chip is the best, its just the best for what nintendo specs out due to their specific sizing requirements

 

Side note: was the issue attracting 3rd parties to Wii U was that it used archaic hardware that was difficult to program for?

 

 

partially, being the odd man out with poor sales is hard to convince software developers dedicating time and resources for the odd man with low sales, especially when your the odd man out using screwball hardware, today a dev can make a game and basically point n click it to 2 game consoles, pc and mac

 

the other side of that coin is nintendo is still very controlling of what, when and where 3rd parties do stuff, this is their biggest problem ... what worked in the aftermath of a "crash" doesnt really work when your the guy knocking on the outer shell of the bubble

Edited February 2, 2017 by Osgeld

[D.Daniels]

 

every game console has a "custom" chipset in there, xbox uses a customized pentium3 based celeron and a custom geforce 4, likewise the next gen used custom ppc based chips and custom graphics based on the current tech, and likewise today's machines are not just running plain old socket FM whatever AMD chips its all custom

 

when your a customer of such scale you can make (and pay) to streamline the commercial grade tech to be optimized for game content rather than raw math or radio communications or whatever

 

so a custom tegra may be similar to what they used in the sheild, but not the more common ones found in more general use devices

 

for instance an XBOX is horrible at dealing with large spreadsheets and a similar speced PC would out run it in linux, or in this case the switch may run zelda like a bat out of hell but its not tasked with dealing with as much multitasking like keeping tabs on a digital cellular radio

 

get my drift?

 

yeah that makes sense dude, so custom is more like fine tuning, for an F1 car

you can adjust certain things to get more or less of something

Edited February 2, 2017 by D.Daniels

[Keatah]

Modern microprocessors do well at games when relieved of bulky operating systems.

[Osgeld]

 

yeah that makes sense dude, so custom is more like fine tuning, for an F1 car

you can adjust certain things to get more or less of something

 

exactly, you can get a honda vtech, but its not going to be the same as the one in the atom

 

Modern microprocessors do well at games when relieved of bulky operating systems.

 

 

old ones do the same job, there's a economic vs performance argument in why a 2600 uses a 6507 vs a full featured 6502, its an industry old game

Edited February 2, 2017 by Osgeld

[Tanooki]

Side note: was the issue attracting 3rd parties to Wii U was that it used archaic hardware that was difficult to program for?

The CPU/GPU combo of the system while still rooted in the gamecube had a very distinctly different way about coding the game programming and it was exceptionally difficult, worse than the historically known worst or near worst the Saturn had. The GPU also handled stuff in such a foreign way you could not just pop and drop port stuff from a like style system (ps3/360) so unless a lot of costly recoding and reworking of assets were done you'd have problems, frame rate issues, etc. The system basically was a nightmare to code for and almost as bad if not worse trying to port to as well, costly in sanity, manpower and money to do so. Also when the other systems (PS4/One) were being made, third parties did come to not just those 2 but also Nintendo to give them a similar platform to work from with the promise of games, and Nintendo did their classic 'we are doing it this way, deal with it' type rhetoric and it blew up in their face as such. WiiU sadly was dead on arrival. Third parties this go around were 100% not to blame for the WiiU choking, it was all Nintendo.

[Schizophretard]

double

[Schizophretard]

Yeah Switch is three generations removed from the Ouya's Tegra 3. I wished them to use an X2 chip, but this would have increased the price point by a lot, possibly pushing into the $400-$500 range comparable with the latest name brand tablets.

I don't even think Nvidia has yet to make an X2 that is designed for mobile devices. On their site the X1 is still marketed as "The new Tegra X1 is the most advanced mobile processor we've ever created." with no other more powerful chips to select as products, there are no dev kits for an X2 like they have for the K1 and X1, they have no Shield products or other companies' products with an X2 in it to show off how it does for gaming like they have done before, there is even confusion between rather it is suppose to be named the X2 or P1 because so far it was only revealed with the name Parker, and they first showed it off this last August for autonomous vehicles.

 

So, including it might not just have been more expensive but there may have not been time to put it in since it wasn't even publicly revealed until August which would have made it a last minute change to the Switch. Or maybe since Nvidia has been working with Nintendo for the last year and a half to two years or whatever it actually does have the X2 but Nvidia made the one designed for autonomous vehicles at the same time they made it for the Switch but the one made for the Switch is customized for mobile devices instead of autonomous vehicles and that is what they mean by a highly customized Tegra chip. In other words, maybe it was highly customized from autonomous vehicle use to mobile use and the reason we haven't seen a big announcement yet for some new Shield device with it or it just revealed generally for mobile use like they have in the past is because the Switch itself is that reveal. Or maybe the highly customized Tegra chip being used is some kind of hybrid between the X1 and X2 as a kind of upgraded X1 with things incorporated into it that they learned while making the X2.

 

Anyway, we don't know yet exactly which Tegra chip is in it and in what way it is highly customized. However, even if it is just a plain old X1 then that isn't outdated, underpowered, obsolete, or whatever in a way similar to how when the OUYA launched with a Tegra 3 there was the Tegra 4 already out because the X1 is still currently their top processor for mobile devices and so far the X2 has only been shown for autonomous vehicles. So, I guess I wish that the Switch had self-driving car technology in it but if that wish isn't granted I don't really see it as unfortunate because as long as the Switch isn't a step down like getting a K1 instead of an X1 then the Switch would still have the most powerful Tegra chip Nvidia makes for mobile devices.

 

For what the X1 can do that is good enough for me for what is essentially a handheld console. In some ways, it may have more benefits than the X2. For an example, if Nintendo knows there is already another more powerful Tegra chip but it isn't out on the market yet for mobile devices then Nintendo would be able to better plan out way ahead of time for a Switch 2 because they already know of the next chip to use. I mean, if Nvidia and Nintendo are going to be partners for the next 20 years then it kind of makes sense to me that Nintendo would scratch their backs by showing off the best Tegra chip they currently have for the mobile market to get others to want to put them in their mobile devices and for Nvidia to scratch their backs back by never allowing the mobile market to catch up to Nintendo by always having another chip a generation ahead for Nintendo to get a head start on for planning out a successor. There may also be benefits from the X1 already being out there with all its development tools and developers having some experience with it. For an example, all the Android games already optimized for the Shield may require a relatively small amount of more optimization to port to the Switch. So, Shield games may end up being Switch games and Switch games may end up being Shield games with a kind of Switch/Android cross-platform development that gives the devs(especially indie ones) a bigger install base.

 

 

Based on my calculations, the Switch tablet alone is only worth about $100 USD, comparable to some discount tablets (but thicker, more robust, and more powerful than all but the latest bleeding edge gear).

 

Nintendo Switch: +$300

2x Joycon: - $80

1x Joycon dock: -$30

1x Switch dock: -$90

 

Total remaining: $100 for the Switch tablet, not counting cables and packaging.

I doubt the math really works out that way. On one of the independent Nintendo news sites I saw someone in the comment section talking about the prices of the accessories with a comment something like,"Nintendo is doing a hardware version of microtransactions." I think that is a good point. With everything that is bundled in the box they are probably selling at a lose or at least making just a small profit but they know they can make up the difference when you want to buy a charging grip to replace your non-charging grip, then since you are going to now have two grips you might as well buy another set of Joy-Cons for two player or maybe two new pairs of Joy-Cons to also always have a pair on your console as well as the two grips which you might as well try to collect all the color combinations of the Joy-Cons while you are at it, you will want a pro-controller too, you might want the Joy-Con wheel or another dock, and then after you buy all of that you may prefer to start buying extra licenced third party accessories that Nintendo would still get a cut of. In other words, I doubt you can just subtract out the prices of the accessories when sold separately to get to the price of the handheld because those accessories sold in the bundle likely have a bundled sale price that Nintendo will make up for when you buy more accessories.

 

However, if you are already planning on buying extras of everything that comes in the box your math works well to give you a reason to buy another Switch because for just $100 more than what you already intend on spending you would get another console.

[juansolo]

Switch I was initially excited about. Problem for me is that it's a portable and I just don't use that functionality, and it's cost because of what it can do. Should they do a Switch TV in the future (PSTV style) that just uses a Pro controller, and Nintendo actually didn't take the piss with the price of it, I'd be there in a shot.

 

However the fact they saw fit to create a new pro controller and charge insane money for it when the Wii U Pro Controller already exists and is actually one of the best pads in creation, would hint otherwise. The Wii U was bad enough when it came to additional peripheral and essential (the big battery is scandalous!) accessories' prices. So I don't exactly have a great deal of faith in them at the moment.

 

As it is I simply have my fingers crossed that they actually release Zelda on the Wii U and don't landfill it... The switch, nah, I'll give it a miss.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

However the fact they saw fit to create a new pro controller and charge insane money for it when the Wii U Pro Controller already exists and is actually one of the best pads in creation, would hint otherwise. The Wii U was bad enough when it came to additional peripheral and essential (the big battery is scandalous!) accessories' prices. So I don't exactly have a great deal of faith in them at the moment.

Considering all the extra tech they crammed in there, the extra $20 over Wii-U Pro seems worth it.

[Tanooki]

Schizo: Very nice post. I think I read not all that long ago the custom going on was supposedly basically a X1.5 type thing you alluded to. You have the core X1, and while the X2 is at that autonomous car level, that's it. The X2 has a smaller nm dye for the chip, better instruction perks and whatever else going on that makes it very much better. Supposedly the Switch doesn't have the smaller dye but it does have the pascal instructions which makes it perform better than a stock X1. I'd find that the most buyable argument at least for now. They wouldn't go with a weaker X1, that's what the K1 is there for in my shield tablet. And they're not going to go nuts closer to the X2 either as that would raise prices beyond Nintendo's cheap skating ways so it kind of fits. Your big maybe on the conversion factor(ports from android) is something I was told and then saw backed up in some rumor posts online too around that NintendOS is like a flavor of android, the code is fast and easy to pop and drop into the Switch. It would make sense with an Nvidia alliance they'd have access to their more advanced Tegra only tools that brought up some PS3 era console titles exclusively to the machine (MGS, DOOM3, etc.)

 

Whatever it is we're seeing something that can perform well and appears to have a growing library of decent stuff that doesn't look like watered down garbage like the WiiU dropped with.

[adamchevy]

Maybe they could tap into the existing Android Market. Possibly add their Mario Style Runner and future developments . I could see that happening .

[Tempest]

Switch I was initially excited about. Problem for me is that it's a portable and I just don't use that functionality, and it's cost because of what it can do. Should they do a Switch TV in the future (PSTV style) that just uses a Pro controller, and Nintendo actually didn't take the piss with the price of it, I'd be there in a shot.

 

 

Same here. I detest portables, and the handful I do have I have hooked up to my TV or a monitor where possible. If I got a Switch it wouldn't even leave that dock, so why pay for the portable part?

[BillLoguidice]

Maybe they could tap into the existing Android Market. Possibly add their Mario Style Runner and future developments . I could see that happening .

 

Maybe, but I think probably not. They're already assuming people will have an Android or iOS smartphone for the online functionality, so I wouldn't necessarily see the incentive to double up on the same games from those platforms on the Switch (although it would no doubt be a trivial port from the Android code-base). Frankly, it might give the wrong impression about the Switch to have those same games. Nintendo needs to clearly demonstrate the UNIQUE value proposition a Switch holds, and having straight up smartphone games (which is what the present batch of Nintendo mobile games are), would do it no favors in that regard.

[BillLoguidice]

 

Same here. I detest portables, and the handful I do have I have hooked up to my TV or a monitor where possible. If I got a Switch it wouldn't even leave that dock, so why pay for the portable part?

 

Then you don't want a Switch, simple as that. It's really not a full-time TV console because it does have to make concessions for the portable side of the equation.

 

I'm actually in a similar boat, which I've expressed before. I have tons of portable systems, including the New 3DS, Vita, and Shield Portable, but I have far less interest in playing them over consoles. Sometimes they're convenient, and sometimes I get super into a particular game on one of those systems, but I never think portable first. With that said, I'm willing to let the Switch change my mind. I certainly like the OPTION of going portable without having to worry about streaming performance (like I do with the Vita from the PS4, or the Shield from my PC), or the same room limitation of the Wii (and whose design I never found all that comfortable).

[Flojomojo]

I suppose different people want different things. I'm very interested in the Switch because it's a portable. I spend all day in from of computers, and very little time with TV at home. Mobile is what I want, and I'm excited that Switch seems made for me.

 

[BillLoguidice]

I think the most disturbing statements from today are Nintendo's, in that they may consider doing a 3DS successor at some point in the future: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/02/tatsumi_kimishima_talks_about_a_potential_3ds_successor

 

I'm not sure if they're saying that to help keep hope (and sales) alive for the future of the 3DS or they genuinely believe that, but that seems completely counter-productive to the Switch. Hopefully that's just something taken out of context. If Nintendo wants a replacement for the 3DS once sales fully peter out in another year or two, you would think the Switch could easily fill that role, even if it's a redesigned Switch (say, a compatible model that's designed for better portability).

[adamchevy]

I think the most disturbing statements from today are Nintendo's, in that they may consider doing a 3DS successor at some point in the future: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/02/tatsumi_kimishima_talks_about_a_potential_3ds_successor

 

I'm not sure if they're saying that to help keep hope (and sales) alive for the future of the 3DS or they genuinely believe that, but that seems completely counter-productive to the Switch. Hopefully that's just something taken out of context. If Nintendo wants a replacement for the 3DS once sales fully peter out in another year or two, you would think the Switch could easily fill that role, even if it's a redesigned Switch (say, a compatible model that's designed for better portability).

I have never liked portable systems because they always seem like a waste of time. I could be playing my real console if I want to really get my game on. That's why I'm interested in the Switch. Finally something portable that doesn't make me feel like I'm being underserved by spending time with it. I don't ride the train to work, and my only work breaks are in the bathroom or a half hour lunch. For me having a portable system has always been for the kids.

[Bilnick]

 

Same here. I detest portables, and the handful I do have I have hooked up to my TV or a monitor where possible. If I got a Switch it wouldn't even leave that dock, so why pay for the portable part?

 

I am with you on this. I would like a Switch that doesn't switch and came with a pro controller instead of the joy con. I really don't see me buying many games for this other than the few Nintendo exclusives. The games I would like that are launching with the Switch are all just ports of Wii U games anyway (Zelda, Splatoon, MK8) I will probably buy one for the new Mario game in the fall, but beyond that, there is not a lot to be excited about.

[Osgeld]

my only problem with portables in the past was the horrid screen quality and size, neither of which seem to be an issue with this system

[Flojomojo]

I think the most disturbing statements from today are Nintendo's, in that they may consider doing a 3DS successor at some point in the future

I think they're just hedging. Combine all the weasel words ("may," "consider," "at some point in the future"), and the fact that their next big thing hasn't launched, plus the old 3DS is still in stores, and mix in some wishful thinking and a dash of mistranslation from the Japanese ...they're just doing what they always do, trying to be unpredictable while not alienating the 3DS fans who may not yet want a Switch.

 

I think 3DS is dead like GameBoy was 12 years ago, and that Switch and mobile (and the occasional toys like NES Mini and Amiibo) are the new pillars for Nintendo.

 

Fire Emblem for mobile is out now!

[Andromeda Stardust]

I think the most disturbing statements from today are Nintendo's, in that they may consider doing a 3DS successor at some point in the future: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/02/tatsumi_kimishima_talks_about_a_potential_3ds_successor

 

I'm not sure if they're saying that to help keep hope (and sales) alive for the future of the 3DS or they genuinely believe that, but that seems completely counter-productive to the Switch. Hopefully that's just something taken out of context. If Nintendo wants a replacement for the 3DS once sales fully peter out in another year or two, you would think the Switch could easily fill that role, even if it's a redesigned Switch (say, a compatible model that's designed for better portability).

I wouldn't put much stock into that article. 3DS has some life left in it still but it serves as a successor to 3DS and Wii-U. Maybe new SKUs are a possiblity for Switch, with portable only (smaller screen and permanently attached controls), or TV only units in the future, IDK. I've done the majority of my Wii-U play on the pad, if that tells you anything.

[Tanooki]

If anything Nintendo is itchy after the WiiU imploded years ago. The 3DS kept them out of seriously hot water and the system can put out still some pretty quality level graphics, audio, and overall gaming experience especially with their idiotically minimally tapped upgraded spec New3DS model systems. It could just be them playing the scared game of cover your ass. While looking far less likely to be the case, it still could be the Switch goes up in flames like the WiiU, then what? They shut down their individual R&D and software houses meant to support 2 platforms at once and melded them into one and with that we have the Switch. If it chokes they're hung out to dry, but with the New3DS out there they have a library, a solid base, a good upgraded piece of hardware, it runs all the 3DS and older DS stuff too. They fall back onto that and have something in the pipe that succeeds it so they're not totally screwed. Still not wise admitting as much or just even saying it in general with the other device now 4 weeks out.