There have been many rumors about a more powerful Switch console being in development, but that isn’t happening, according to Digital Foundry’s John Linneman, who claimed in a new episode of Direct Weekly that Nintendo was, in fact, planning an improved revision of the hardware but ultimately decided against it.
“I think at one point internally, from what I can understand from talking to different developers, is that there was some sort of mid-generation Switch update planned at one point, and that seems to be no longer happening,” Linneman said. “And thus, it’s pretty clear that whatever they do next is going to be the actual next-generation hardware.”
Some of the previous stories that suggested a Switch Pro might be on the way include…
- Nintendo Switch Pro Listed at French Retailer for 399 Euros
- Nintendo Switch Pro Reportedly Features USB 3.0 and Ethernet Ports, as Well as a Microsoft Surface-Styled Stand
- Nintendo Switch Pro with OLED Display and 4K Support to Launch as Early as September
- “New Nintendo Switch Pro” Listing Surfaces on Amazon
…but if Linneman is to be believed, Nintendo fans will have to wait for a true successor, one that will presumably try to put a unique spin on gaming like the Switch did with its hybrid concept.
Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst with Ampere Analysis, predicted earlier this year that a Switch update with 4K-capable hardware is unlikely to happen and that Nintendo will release a next-gen console instead in two years.
“I’m not expecting a Switch Pro in 2022,” he said. “We have a next-gen Nintendo console in our forecasts for late 2024, so I’m not convinced a ‘Pro’ model is going to appear at all.”
The Nintendo Switch leverages a custom Tegra processor from NVIDIA, as noted in its system specifications.
Discussion (9 replies)
Join Discussion →I'm actually surprised at this, especially as many different hardware revisions of the Gameboy came out.
I see this as a good thing. Too many hardware related "upgrades" usually offer little value, like when the OLED version of the Switch came out. The Gameboy revisions way back when were a little better offerings that made it worthwhile IMO.
I never reallly believed the rumors simply because nvidia didn't have anything available that could fit a Switch Pro.
Pretty much everything nvidia had available, was much more powerful, power hungry and expensive as it was targeted at AI and self driving, and nvidia is not really known for building custom chips.
Sure they could have gone with anyone else as it would still be based on ARM, but there might be some compatibility issues.
I recall rumors prior the TegraX1+ release that nvidia was working on a "bigger" Tegra derivative with more cpu/gpu cores based on either Maxwell or Pascal. It turned out just being a die shrink.
Im not surprised, doesn't make sense at this point. Question is who is making the chip for the next gen switch. Nvidia? Amd? Samsung -amd? Qualcomm- amd? Qualcomm? With amd it could be crazy enough to be x86 and arm. Loads of ways to go. Also how advanced are they willing to go? We havent heard nothing from.nvidia, could mean 2 things theres really nothing cooking, or their partnership is very deep to the point that nvidia left the kind of chipset game plataform exclusive to the switch, with likely backing of game streaming in the near future also. Or nvidia just killed that segment along with project switch.
My guess is that Nvidia will develop custom apu for next gen switch in a cheap node such as Samsung "8nm" as it is a good opportunity to get console games optimized to DLSS 3 & other Nvidia promoted features etc
I think that's unlikely, nvidia is not known for developing custom SoC.
Edit. I'm aware nvidia did the OG Xbox and PS3 SoCs, but hasn't made any other custom GPUs/SoC since.
I think the CPU base is less significant than the GPU cores that come with a SoC. The current SOC has 256 shader unit Maxwell cores.
That said, supposedly (big rumor) nVidia does have a successor SoC in mind: the SOC used in Orin - Tegra239 - the current revision has up to 12 ARM cores with up to 2048 Ampere RTX GPU cores, and a cut down version with 8 ARM cores and 1792 GPU cores
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/en-zz/Solutions/gtcf21/jetson-orin/nvidia-jetson-agx-orin-technical-brief.pdf[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://twistedvoxel.com/nvidia-confirms-tegra239-nintendo-switch-2-soc/[/URL]
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.hardwaretimes.com/nintendo-switch-likely-to-use-tegra-orin-soc-t239-12x-a78ae-cpu-cores-2048-ampere-gpu-cores/[/URL]
That would be a ~huge~ jump in power, but that almost certainly won't be what Nintendo uses, or at least in it's current configuration. Almost 10x the number of GPU cores alone, not to mention to architecture shift. I don't think a Switch will see all of that, but they did use an off-the-shelf SOC for the Switch in the first place, and Orin would be another off-the-shelf possibility. These Orin SOC's have a minimum TDP of around 15W, whereas the current Tegra in the Switch is only 6W. That doesn't sound like much, but when you are running on a hand-held battery, that's a huge difference. I guess you could always downclock or take an even further cut-down die and get the power down to around where you need it.
For reference, the Steam Deck is around a 15W SoC, and can struggle to make it past 2 hrs of battery life - and it has a much larger chassis for a battery than the current switch does.
Actually the X1+ is a downclocked/downvolted version of the chip used on the Shield TV console.
I'm not convinced the next Nintendo console wil be a switch at all, imo they kind of need to get closer in hardware to the competition in order to maintain some decent third party support. But who knows, Nintendo be Nintendo.