Switch 2 Speculation

[Deleted member 11852]

Well, stuff like ARMS, LABO, Ring Fit Adventure, Astral Chain and of course less high profile stuff like Snipperclips and 1-2-Switch, are new stuff that they’ve introduced in less than three years. (And arguably Breath of the Wild was a completely new game set within the context of existing IP.)

I'll give you Arms, Snipperclips and 1-2 Switch but not the rest. Labo is Nintendo selling cardboard at a 10,000% markup. Astral Chain by Platinum Games really highlights the lack of diversity from Nintendo first party studios by needing to pay a third party to make an exclusive. Snipperclips and 1-2 are more mini/party games. Sure, they have their place but either set the world on fire and 1-2 Switch garnered poor reviews. Ring Fit Adventure is this gen's Wii Fit really aiming to get you buy an expensive accessory. None of this negate's Nintendo's reluctance to let go of Mario, Luigi, Zelda, Link and Metroid and games predicated on these characters (Kart, Tennis etc). They cram Mario into literally everything they can.

Nintendo need to create some fresh interesting IP and not something they've been milking for 20 to 30 to 40 years; they're like Disney 15 years ago. Terrified to let go of ancient IP and unwilling to risk new IP.

 

[Syferz]

I'll give you Arms, Snipperclips and 1-2 Switch but not the rest. Labo is Nintendo selling cardboard at a 10,000% markup. Astral Chain by Platinum Games really highlights the lack of diversity from Nintendo first party studios by needing to pay a third party to make an exclusive. Snipperclips and 1-2 are more mini/party games. Sure, they have their place but either set the world on fire and 1-2 Switch garnered poor reviews. Ring Fit Adventure is this gen's Wii Fit really aiming to get you buy an expensive accessory. None of this negate's Nintendo's reluctance to let go of Mario, Luigi, Zelda, Link and Metroid and games predicated on these characters (Kart, Tennis etc). They cram Mario into literally everything they can.

Nintendo need to create some fresh interesting IP and not something they've been milking for 20 to 30 to 40 years; they're like Disney 15 years ago. Terrified to let go of ancient IP and unwilling to risk new IP.

Nintendo is always making new IPs, and it's the market that wants the next Zelda and Mario, both are the best selling 3D entry into their series, Zelda is about to cross 20 Million for the first time and is more popular than ever. The entire industry is living on sequels, there isn't a major company out there that doesn't have a long running series or two.

Labo isn't a typical gaming product, it's a somewhat failed attempt at a STEM product, honestly if the price of the Switch goes down, it could definitely become a compelling product later, but it's not something they can bundle and put on a toy shelf for $199 yet so it's going to stay a niche product for now.

Nintendo is the only company really trying new things in this industry, your entire post is simply diluted with a heavy bias, one that can't seem to see that your complaints about Nintendo is actually shared with every major game company.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Nintendo is always making new IPs, and it's the market that wants the next Zelda and Mario, both are the best selling 3D entry into their series, Zelda is about to cross 20 Million for the first time and is more popular than ever. The entire industry is living on sequels, there isn't a major company out there that doesn't have a long running series or two.

You talk about Nintendo making new IPs then talk about Zelda. The Zelda IP is 34 years old and Mario is 39 years old. and the list of games with Mario in is absurd.

Sure, there are plenty of sequels/franchises but few are ancient and almost all are Japanese and of those most are Nintendo IP. This gen we're seen new IPs in Watch Dogs, Overwatch, Bloodborne, Fornite, Rocket League, The Division, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghosts of Tsushima is also new. Looking at other successful IP, you have instances where the IP is older but where the games releases are less frequently like GTA, Red Dead, Alan Wake, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc. Introduced last gen and carried over this gen we have Demon Souls, Little Big Planet, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Bioshock, Resistance, Motorstorm, Gears of War, Ni No Kuni, Infamous, Crackdown, the Arkham Trilogy, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed, Saints Row, Dead Rising,

Nintendo is the only company really trying new things in this industry, your entire post is simply diluted with a heavy bias, one that can't seem to see that your complaints about Nintendo is actually shared with every major game company.

Which other major game company is still prolifically deploying IP 30+ years old? Luigi (37 years), Princess Peach (35 years), Princess Daisy (31 years), Bowser (35 years), Yoshi (30 years). Wario is only a spritely 28 years old. Seriously, which other videogame company is routinely deploying a cast of IP this old in its modern games? Name them.

 

[DavidGraham]

I think it's being overthought here.
Just take the Snapdragon 855 performance from Galaxy S10 phones (Spring 2019) and stuff it into Switch 2 via Nvidia's Ampere architecture in 2022.

Yes, I remember NVIDIA stating they are imagining a 20 years relationship with Nintendo, if it comes to it, NVIDIA will design a special SoC for them if they have to.

 

[Ika]

I think Nintendo will just grab whatever (newer then Tegra) cheap soc nvidia have for them, underclock it beyond oblivion again and go with that. And no, it won't be the latest gen for sure. The 99% of their target audience doesn't care about fps or aa quality and whatnot in AAA titles, they just have to make sure their own IPs run well (as always did on every system they had). As sad it is for us, graphics/gametech enthusiast, only gameplay matters (and honestly, I can't even object to that in any way, because it's true).

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I think Nintendo will just grab whatever (newer then Tegra) cheap soc nvidia have for them, underclock it beyond oblivion again and go with that.

Nintendo won't grab any cheap SoC "nvidia have for them" because nvidia hasn't made any cheap SoCs since 2017 with Parker.
All SoCs that followed were big, powerful and not fitting for a handheld.

 

[Ika]

Nintendo won't grab any cheap SoC "nvidia have for them" because nvidia hasn't made any cheap SoCs since 2017 with Parker.
All SoCs that followed were big, powerful and not fitting for a handheld.

By has for them (sorry for that), I meant that I would be surprised if they would develop a new soc. I can definitely see a revised X2 happen, but the smallest (4 core) Xavier with the compute/ai parts cut out would be also an option. Of course, something on turing would be awesome, but I just can't see it happening.

 

[Syferz]

You talk about Nintendo making new IPs then talk about Zelda. The Zelda IP is 34 years old and Mario is 39 years old. and the list of games with Mario in is absurd.

Sure, there are plenty of sequels/franchises but few are ancient and almost all are Japanese and of those most are Nintendo IP. This gen we're seen new IPs in Watch Dogs, Overwatch, Bloodborne, Fornite, Rocket League, The Division, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghosts of Tsushima is also new. Looking at other successful IP, you have instances where the IP is older but where the games releases are less frequently like GTA, Red Dead, Alan Wake, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc. Introduced last gen and carried over this gen we have Demon Souls, Little Big Planet, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Bioshock, Resistance, Motorstorm, Gears of War, Ni No Kuni, Infamous, Crackdown, the Arkham Trilogy, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed, Saints Row, Dead Rising,


Which other major game company is still prolifically deploying IP 30+ years old? Luigi (37 years), Princess Peach (35 years), Princess Daisy (31 years), Bowser (35 years), Yoshi (30 years). Wario is only a spritely 28 years old. Seriously, which other videogame company is routinely deploying a cast of IP this old in its modern games? Name them.

Konami: metal gear, castlevania (heck they are even pushing a Netflix show now), bomberman, contra, Silent Hill and pes.
Capcom: Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Megaman and monster hunter is 16 years old now too.
Square Enix: final fantasy, dragon quest, mana series, a million spin offs for all of these too.
Atlus: SMT and Persona
Sega: Sonic, phantasy star, Yakuza is 15 years old.
Namco: Tekken is 26 years old, soul calibur started with soul edge 25 years ago, tales is also 25 years old.
EA: battlefield is 18 years old, madden is from the 80s, most of EA sports is from the 90s.
Activision: warcraft, starcraft, Diablo are all 90s games, call of duty is 17 years old, is a yearly series.
Bethesda: Doom, Fallout, Quake, Elder Scrolls...
Microsoft: Halo, age of empires
Sony: God of War

Nintendo has introduced a few million sellers this generation with Splatoon, ARMs, Ring Fit Adventure (a full game, unlike wii fit), and Astral Chain (Microsoft and Sony have both published other developer's games this generation for their first party games, so I don't see why you tried to say this was a despirate move earlier).

They also have a new IP coming from Monolith's studio, a medievil fantasy setting game with online and rpg elements.

Yeah Nintendo has some of the oldest and most beloved IPs in the industry, but they are not yearly series releases, and they tend to push the game play in those games much further than other companies.

I think I've said all I can say about this, the industry is pretty easy to just look at and see is running on sequels. This thread is really just about theoretical new Switch hardware and not Nintendo's software output. I think that there was a big change with the Switch being the focus of both their handheld and console teams, that should bring new IPs like ARMs, and we should see the hardware extending the platform rather than starting a new platform like what many think switch 2 will be.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

You talk about Nintendo making new IPs then talk about Zelda. The Zelda IP is 34 years old and Mario is 39 years old. and the list of games with Mario in is absurd.

Sure, there are plenty of sequels/franchises but few are ancient and almost all are Japanese and of those most are Nintendo IP. This gen we're seen new IPs in Watch Dogs, Overwatch, Bloodborne, Fornite, Rocket League, The Division, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghosts of Tsushima is also new. Looking at other successful IP, you have instances where the IP is older but where the games releases are less frequently like GTA, Red Dead, Alan Wake, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc. Introduced last gen and carried over this gen we have Demon Souls, Little Big Planet, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Bioshock, Resistance, Motorstorm, Gears of War, Ni No Kuni, Infamous, Crackdown, the Arkham Trilogy, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed, Saints Row, Dead Rising,


Which other major game company is still prolifically deploying IP 30+ years old? Luigi (37 years), Princess Peach (35 years), Princess Daisy (31 years), Bowser (35 years), Yoshi (30 years). Wario is only a spritely 28 years old. Seriously, which other videogame company is routinely deploying a cast of IP this old in its modern games? Name them.

Can't really agree with this. There is a difference between IP (the character) and the franchise (the game). Nintendo obviously uses their IP a lot, but games in each franchise (3d mario, 3d zelda, 2d mario etc) are usually limited to only one or two releases per generation. Not really that different from lets say GTA. So its funny you mention a game like Assassins Creed which has 10 releases in the main series over 13 years and therefor is almost on a yearly release schedule.

Nintendo has also been around a lot longer than most so it is not surprising their IP has been around for so long. But doesn't the same apply to others? ID was founded in 91, released Doom in 93 and has made Doom games ever since for example. ID also made a lot of games in the same franchise btw and even more in the same genre.

I don't really have a problem with Nintendo not making that much new IP, most devs/pubs don't anyway. I mean, Nintendo could make a new platformer but how is that going to be anything really different from their existing franchises? Donkey Kong and Mario and especially are already set up in such a way that game mechanic and design wise their is a lot they can do. What is the value of a new IP if most rather have the same game skinned in existing IP?

I think that is another problem Nintendo might have. They already have franchise spanning a lot of genres. With their internal main teams busy, is it really worth having them focus on new IP that is covering genres that already have establish franchises? They can obviously do it, Splatoon is a good example.

I'd much rather see 3rd party devs making the games Nintendo won't.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

By has for them (sorry for that), I meant that I would be surprised if they would develop a new soc. I can definitely see a revised X2 happen, but the smallest (4 core) Xavier with the compute/ai parts cut out would be also an option. Of course, something on turing would be awesome, but I just can't see it happening.

Oh I wasn't picking on your verb conjugation as I think you can either consider nvidia as singular (company) or plural (group of people).
I was simply stating that nvidia doesn't have anything for Nintendo at the moment, nor will have in the mid-term at least according to their public roadmaps.
Parker / TX2 is a 2017 chip that would probably be outdated today (even for Nintendo), let alone 2021 which is the earliest Nintendo will ever launch a Switch follow-up. It certainly doesn't offer a generational upgrade over TX1.
Xavier is 350mm^2 big (so they can't really sell it for cheap) and pulls at least 10W even when super underclocked. Orin comes next is set to be a beast with 17 billion transistors, 12 big cores from ARM's next gen architecture and 200GB/s 200 TOPS (10x more than what Xavier achieves at 20W).

The only nvidia SoC Nintendo will have available for a Switch successor will be a semicustom one made specifically for them.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Konami: metal gear, castlevania (heck they are even pushing a Netflix show now), bomberman, contra, Silent Hill and pes. Capcom: Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Megaman and monster hunter is 16 years old now too. Square Enix: final fantasy, dragon quest, mana series, a million spin offs for all of these too. Atlus: SMT and Persona. Sega: Sonic, phantasy star, Yakuza is 15 years old. Namco: Tekken is 26 years old, soul calibur started with soul edge 25 years ago, tales is also 25 years old. EA: battlefield is 18 years old, madden is from the 80s, most of EA sports is from the 90s. Activision: warcraft, starcraft, Diablo are all 90s games, call of duty is 17 years old, is a yearly series. Bethesda: Doom, Fallout, Quake, Elder Scrolls... Microsoft: Halo, age of empires Sony: God of War

These all fall into that category I called out a couple of posts back; IPs that have not been relentlessly used to death dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I bet if you added up all the individual games that these franchises and IPs represent, that they would still trail the collective number of games that Mario and Peach have appeared in.

Nintendo has introduced a few million sellers this generation with Splatoon, ARMs, Ring Fit Adventure (a full game, unlike wii fit), and Astral Chain (Microsoft and Sony have both published other developer's games this generation for their first party games, so I don't see why you tried to say this was a despirate move earlier).

I don't look at Sony and see Crash/Racthet/Jak in 100 games, nor do I see Master Chief in a 100 games. Crash was synonymous with PlayStation four generations back, Sly Cooper, Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank were synonymous with PS2, then it was Nathan Drake and the characters from inFamous and The Last of Us and many more. If I look at Sony's line-up, I'm not looking at third parties to trying lots of new IP.

Can't really agree with this. There is a difference between IP (the character) and the franchise (the game). Nintendo obviously uses their IP a lot, but games in each franchise (3d mario, 3d zelda, 2d mario etc) are usually limited to only one or two releases per generation. Not really that different from lets say GTA.

Have a look at the number of games Mario featured in between 2017 and 2019. Mario features in four Switch games released last year. Can you imagine if Sony kept cramming Nathan Drake into every shooter, brawler and driving game, or Microsoft did this with Master Chief?

Nintendo has also been around a lot longer than most so it is not surprising their IP has been around for so long.

Their IP has been around so long because they never give it a rest . Microsoft and Sony should be at a disadvantage of choice of IP but they're willing to invest in new IP. Look at crazily ambitious things like Quantum Break. That on a new IP.

But doesn't the same apply to others? ID was founded in 91, released Doom in 93 and has made Doom games ever since for example. ID also made a lot of games in the same franchise btw and even more in the same genre.

Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Rage and back in the day, Commander Keen. Yet each of these IPs have been used a fraction as much as the average Nintendo IP.

 

[Ika]

Oh I wasn't picking on your verb conjugation as I think you can either consider nvidia as singular (company) or plural (group of people).
I was simply stating that nvidia doesn't have anything for Nintendo at the moment, nor will have in the mid-term at least according to their public roadmaps.
Parker / TX2 is a 2017 chip that would probably be outdated today (even for Nintendo), let alone 2021 which is the earliest Nintendo will ever launch a Switch follow-up. It certainly doesn't offer a generational upgrade over TX1.
Xavier is 350mm^2 big (so they can't really sell it for cheap) and pulls at least 10W even when super underclocked. Orin comes next is set to be a beast with 17 billion transistors, 12 big cores from ARM's next gen architecture and 200GB/s 200 TOPS (10x more than what Xavier achieves at 20W).

The only nvidia SoC Nintendo will have available for a Switch successor will be a semicustom one made specifically for them.

You may be right. I was thinking about cutting up Xavier, which would be a new chip, but Nvidia could save up a lot on the research/developing costs and make an offer Nintendo could accept. And about Parker... well I was thinking about "Flipper" and "Hollywood" being 5 years apart. If I think about that two chip.... and look at K1 and TX2... well.. I try to think like Nintendo

 

[Silent_Buddha]

These all fall into that category I called out a couple of posts back; IPs that have not been relentlessly used to death dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I bet if you added up all the individual games that these franchises and IPs represent, that they would still trail the collective number of games that Mario and Peach have appeared in.

Relentlessly used to death? I don't see a mainline Mario game every year like we do with say, COD. That I could see earning that moniker. It also takes literally (well maybe not literally) AGES for a new mainline Zelda to come out.

Of course, they do occasionally come out with remastered versions of their games (Zelda again being a good example of them doing this). But that's no different from say LOTU remastered or Shadow of the Colossus remastered.

I think a disconnect comes from giving people what they want and doing it in such a way that they continue to enjoy each iteration (game) in the franchise, versus "relentlessly" using a franchise until franchise fatigue hits (for example, Assassins Creed until they took a break from their aggressive release schedule for it).

If Sony were able to do that with any of their franchises from the PS1, you can bet we'd still be getting games in those franchises with every new console generation.

Rather than denigrate Nintendo for using IPs that people obviously love, I'd instead praise them for continuously raising the bar (in general) with each new entry into a franchise. While there has occasionally been a mainline entry that has stumbled slightly, they've all overall been such good games that they not only retain players that played previous games but bring in new players as well.

It isn't easy to keep making new games in an established franchise without stumbling and potentially ruining it. Just look at the Halo franchise, for example. That one is near death after the last 2 entries. While there were a lot of people wanting a new Halo game, MS royally screwed it up by not delivering a Halo game that most people wanted to play. COD was almost sunk when they released a few lackluster titles in a row starting with COD: Ghosts.

So, I can hardly fault Nintendo for listening to their customers and giving their customers what they want. And it's incredible to me that they've been able to keep it relevant and desirable for this long.

At the same time you do see them constantly exploring new IP. Exploring new IP doesn't have to come at the expense of franchises that people (and A LOT OF PEOPLE at that) enjoy.

Sega continuously trying to push a Sonic game and failing to make a good Sonic game deserves to be looked down on. Nintendo continuing to execute well and releasing good entries into their existing franchises? Not even remotely the same.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Relentlessly used to death? I don't see a mainline Mario game every year like we do with say, COD. That I could see earning that moniker. It also takes literally (well maybe not literally) AGES for a new mainline Zelda to come out.

My first post was focussed on character IP, others introduced franchise IP. But even across many of those franchises, they are differentiate themselves from other games in the series with different protagonists and antagonists: GTA, Elder Scrolls, Call fo Duty, Fallout, Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, Resistance.

As I posted, the true comparison would be like if Nathan Drake and Master Chief were common characters across Sony and Microsoft first party games across multiple generations but this just isn't a thing. Nintendo are like classic Disney when they were afraid to risk new character IP.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Because switching out characters within AAA IPs all focus-tested within an inch of their lives is oh-so risky. Nothing about releasing a new AC, CoD, GTA, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Watch Dogs or Ghost Recon game is risky because all of them follow tried and true blueprints established more than a decade ago. You get your open Ubi-worlds with metric tons of busy work (AC, Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon, Star Link, Infamous), your more open-ended, albeit glitch-riddled Bethesda open worlds (Fallout is almost literally The Elder Scrolls with guns and a lock-on mechanic you could probably mod into Skyrim in a day), and your shallow spectacle shooters with or without cover systems. (Uncharted ows its existence to the success of Gears of war) R* has barely evolved their games outside of presentation either. The mission design in both GTA5 and RDR2 is laughably restrictive to be frank. You could actually be way more creative in the GTA games on the PS2 before a mission failstate was triggered. Heck, even the last God of War game was turned into a shallow and clunky third person slasher with loads of cut-scenes, a somewhat open world, a skill tree and lots of loot. Just like Tomb Raider was.

I'm not saying Nintendo is a huge risk-taker here. I just don't think swapping out one middle-aged guy with a light stubble for a slightly different one warrants a congratulatory fanfare.

The games industry is very much like Hollywood now: the medium scale productions have pretty much vanished. It's either The Avengers or The Lighthouse. There's very little room or money for creative B-tier endeavors. (and when they do happen they tend to bomb or go straight to Netflix because the studios had no faith in them to begin with)

 

[stiftl]

I am really curious what nVidia can bring up for the successor of the Switch. Obviously data management will be a big thing for next-gen and while I don't expect anything close to XBSX/PS5 levels of performance in a hybrid device, Nintendo won't be dismissing these developments completely I am pretty sure. UFS 3.x would be a start.

 

[Kaotik]

I am really curious what nVidia can bring up for the successor of the Switch. Obviously data management will be a big thing for next-gen and while I don't expect anything close to XBSX/PS5 levels of performance in a hybrid device, Nintendo won't be dismissing these developments completely I am pretty sure. UFS 3.x would be a start.

Who's to say NVIDIA is even involved? Their Tegra-line has moved over to fill autonomous cars needs, so there's no obvious "off the shelf" option like last time.

 

[fehu]

Let's start a rumor about a quad core Cortex X1 with amd gpu and smartshift

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Let's start a rumor about a quad core Cortex X1 with amd gpu and smartshift

Aren't smartshift-alike technologies already being used in current low-power and mobile SoCs?

 

[MrFox]

Aren't smartshift-alike technologies already being used in current low-power and mobile SoCs?

It's Wattage and Temperature cap on mobile. Since Nintendo was using off-the-shelf parts, they had to fix a low clock because neither wattage nor temperature limits can create a consistent behaviour.