Switch The Alternative SoC History

[cheapchips]

Thought an alternative history of Switch hardware might be interesting. Maybe!

In retrospect, Nintendo and X1 felt destined for one another. The WiiU had failed, forcing a new console to release a few years earlier than it otherwise might. Tegra was a flop in the mobile market, leaving Nvidia with what I always imagine as the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, but full of unsold, therefore cheap, chips. They could also provide Nintendo with development tools to get the console out of the door in a reasonable timeframe.

What other SoC, custom or otherwise could Nintendo have plumped for at the time? Could an alternative option actually have achieved something with better performance, good dev environment and cheaply enough?

(as a side line, I think the X1 has acquitted itself rather well overall)

 

[ILikeFeet]

AMD's Mullins APU was a popular pick before it was revealed Nvidia got the deal

 

[Rootax]

I always wanted PowerVR/ImgTech in a Switch type device. I bielieve, with an arm cpu, they could build a nice custom SoC.
Buuuut, you won't have the dev environnement from nVidia, which is maybe the best thing in the Switch from what I read here and there.

 

[AmFreak]

Could an alternative option actually have achieved something with better performance, good dev environment and cheaply enough?

Biggest hurdle is probably the dev environment and the future proofness of an nvidia solution. But what they at least could have done would have been a Tegra at a more modern fab process than 20nm. But that would have involved extra work and money and they are highly risk averse and were running alone anyway.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Biggest hurdle is probably the dev environment and the future proofness of an nvidia solution. But what they at least could have done would have been a Tegra at a more modern fab process than 20nm. But that would have involved extra work and money and they are highly risk averse and were running alone anyway.

It's not risk aversion. You don't make the Virtual Boy, 3DS, Wii-U or even the NSW if you are risk averse.

They are cost conscious because key guiding priciples of the company are profitable hardware that is affordable by most families and that games (and gameplay) are far more important than the hardware or graphics that hardware can bring. That's different from being risk averse.

After all, I would considered the NSW a far more risky hardware release than either the PS5 or XBS-X/S. You know a PS5 and/or XBS-X/S console which is the same just more powerful is likely to sell. Look at the pre-release talk for the NSW where a hybrid gaming system hadn't been done before and there were many predicting it would not sell well with it possibly selling even worse than the Wii-U.

Regards,
SB

 

[AmFreak]

It's not risk aversion. You don't make the Virtual Boy, 3DS, Wii-U or even the NSW if you are risk averse.

They are cost conscious because key guiding priciples of the company are profitable hardware that is affordable by most families and that games (and gameplay) are far more important than the hardware or graphics that hardware can bring. That's different from being risk averse.

After all, I would considered the NSW a far more risky hardware release than either the PS5 or XBS-X/S. You know a PS5 and/or XBS-X/S console which is the same just more powerful is likely to sell. Look at the pre-release talk for the NSW where a hybrid gaming system hadn't been done before and there were many predicting it would not sell well with it possibly selling even worse than the Wii-U.

Regards,
SB

The VB is kind of the outlier, it received so little backing from Nintendo that most don't even know it existed though. Wasn't even launched outside NA and JP.
The others i disagree, risk is only risk if you can loose something. To explain the Wii U and the 3DS you have to start with their predecessors.
The Wii was done because Nintendo was forced to do something different, the alternative would have been the 5th standard console selling what the Wii U ended up with. And the Wii itself was done as risk averse as possible then, they basically relaunched the $99€ Gamecube with more memory and the Wii Mote for 2.5x it's price. The DS was basically the same just preemptively before Sony took the market from them. The 3DS was a DS with the "gimmick" of stereoscopic 3D that could just be turned off leaving you with just that, a DS 2.0. The Wii U was a console with another "gimmick", because another Wii would have bombed visible at the Wii sales that just fell of a cliff. They even used the same cpu cores for the 3rd time and when it failed they (wisely) didn't try to save if the Sega way. The Switch then fused their console and handheld business into one, because both businesses contradicted hugely, with the console one basically walking dead. That's also the reason why people who think Nintendo will launch the Switch 2 with stone age tech don't know what they are talking about - companies do what is successful not what they might have done overwhelmingly in the past. The Switch has been the first Nintendo console in ages without low end stone age tech and it has been their most profitable time ever.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The others i disagree, risk is only risk if you can loose something.

Uh, they did lose something. They lost 10's of millions of users with the Wii-U which means billions of USD of potential revenue and profit down the drain. It was a risky hardware launch that wasn't able to capture the imagination of gamers. The Wii was also a risky gamble (motion controls?) but in that case it caught the imagination of 10's of millions of non-gamers and was a hit but unfortunately for them was also just a fad. It didn't lose them money, but it lost them a lot of their core audience.

The NSW if it didn't succeed could potentially have led to them losing the entire company if it failed worse than the Wii-U did. It was most definitely a risky console release.

Hindsight is always 20/20 for armchair gamer "analysts". But Nintendo more than any other console maker has released risky console hardware. Sony, once the PS1 succeeded, played it safe with the rest of their consoles by doing more of the same with some evolution from console to console albeit they did take a bit of a risky gamble with Cell and hoping to move into other markets with it. Likewise, Microsoft did that as well albeit they did take a risky gamble with TV with the XBO.

To use bad food analogies...

Sony made a good pepperoni pizza and people loved it. So, for their next pizza they put better pepperoni (better hardware) on it and maybe added some mushrooms (maybe slightly alter the controller) figuring if people loved pepperoni pizza, they're sure to love a pepperoni pizza with better pepperoni and they'll probably like the mushrooms as well. And if they don't like the mushrooms they can always take them off (not use the new controller features).

Nintendo made a great sausage pizza and people loved it. So, for their next pizza they decide to make a canadian bacon (let's change out regular controllers for motion controllers!) pizza. Are the people that loved sausage pizza going to love their canadian bacon pizza? They won't taste (allow you to play games) the same. So, maybe, maybe not. They do have really good sauce though and some people just can't get enough of the sauce (the games) no matter how much the rest of the pizza changes. Although maybe the anchovy pizza (Wii-U) went a bit too far and even the sauce couldn't save it.

That's the thing, a console isn't only the hardware. Putting better hardware in a console isn't risky. Changing how the console works (how it plays games) from a user standpoint or in other words, how people interact with it, that's extremely risky.

Regards,
SB

 

[WhiningKhan]

They even used the same cpu cores for the 3rd time and when it failed they (wisely) didn't try to save if the Sega way

All were PowerPC based yes, but wasn't the WiiU quite a big step up (like 150% clock and 3 cores instead of single)?

 

[Seanspeed]

Look at the pre-release talk for the NSW where a hybrid gaming system hadn't been done before and there were many predicting it would not sell well with it possibly selling even worse than the Wii-U.

To be fair, all that talk was quite silly, and you can always find naysayers for just about anything online.
I'd say that the Switch's potential was very obvious from the get-go, that it was largely quite hyped by most people upon reveal, and that their lineup for the first year or so looked sufficiently strong to make a very strong case that the thing would sell really well. That's not something I'm just saying in hindsight either, that's exactly how I felt at the time, based on my own impressions and also just observations of buzz surrounding the thing and all.

I'm not saying you're wrong that it wouldn't have been a risky decision, but I think the risk was probably most 'anxiety-inducing' for Nintendo before the thing was ever properly announced. The early days where they had to finalize plans and then just hope things would work out from there.

Also, just to maybe be a little pedantic, but Switch was really just kind of an evolution of the Wii U in terms of any 'hybrid' nature. So I dont think it was actually some giant revolution of a concept, just moreso much better executed.

 

[fehu]

Sony made a good pepperoni pizza and people loved it. So, for their next pizza they put better pepperoni

Pepperoni does not exist, and pepperoni pizza is a farce! You! Monster!

 

[AmFreak]

Uh, they did lose something. They lost 10's of millions of users with the Wii-U which means billions of USD of potential revenue and profit down the drain. It was a risky hardware launch that wasn't able to capture the imagination of gamers. The Wii was also a risky gamble (motion controls?) but in that case it caught the imagination of 10's of millions of non-gamers and was a hit but unfortunately for them was also just a fad. It didn't lose them money, but it lost them a lot of their core audience.

It's not about how the console they released performed, but what they could expect from the alternative. Another standard console after the Gamecube would have sold really bad, probably Wii U numbers, so they had to do something different. What they could loose by doing the Wii weren't 100m customers, but a sure flop. They lost ground with every gen: 62m NES -> 42m SNES -> 33m N64 -> 22m Gamecube. And this was despite selling the GC for $99€ with Mario Kart in a heavily grown console market. There is no risk involved if the alternative is a sure flop. And as mentioned the Wii itself was done with the lowest risk possible, by reselling the $99€ Gamecube for $250€. Even back then i thought this was a mistake, because if it had been powerful enough they might have retained some of the core audience they catched back with the Wii craze at the beginning of the gen.
In contrast to PS360 sales (and every other generation winner) Wii sales fell of a cliff at the end of the gen, motion controls were a fad (something Microsoft learned the hard way) so they couldn't just release a Wii HD. So they tried another "gimmick" with the tablet, basically the DS as a home console. And again they did it as risk averse as possible even reusing the GC cpu core a 3rd time, it was so bad that some devs called them out publicly.

The NSW if it didn't succeed could potentially have led to them losing the entire company if it failed worse than the Wii-U did. It was most definitely a risky console release.

This is just trying to create drama to help your point. They had billions in the bank why would the Switch ever kill them?
It wasn't even sold at a loss. Even if they sold 0 they would just stop and probably go 3rd party. And the Switch selling worse than the Wii U which sold 13.6m is completely unrealistic in itself, for the simple fact that it's the only hand held available, a market that sold 90m devices the gen before. The market doesn't just evaporate over night.

Hindsight is always 20/20 for armchair gamer "analysts". But Nintendo more than any other console maker has released risky console hardware. Sony, once the PS1 succeeded, played it safe with the rest of their consoles by doing more of the same with some evolution from console to console albeit they did take a bit of a risky gamble with Cell and hoping to move into other markets with it. Likewise, Microsoft did that as well albeit they did take a risky gamble with TV with the XBO.

To use bad food analogies...

Sony made a good pepperoni pizza and people loved it. So, for their next pizza they put better pepperoni (better hardware) on it and maybe added some mushrooms (maybe slightly alter the controller) figuring if people loved pepperoni pizza, they're sure to love a pepperoni pizza with better pepperoni and they'll probably like the mushrooms as well. And if they don't like the mushrooms they can always take them off (not use the new controller features).

Nintendo made a great sausage pizza and people loved it. So, for their next pizza they decide to make a canadian bacon (let's change out regular controllers for motion controllers!) pizza. Are the people that loved sausage pizza going to love their canadian bacon pizza? They won't taste (allow you to play games) the same. So, maybe, maybe not. They do have really good sauce though and some people just can't get enough of the sauce (the games) no matter how much the rest of the pizza changes. Although maybe the anchovy pizza (Wii-U) went a bit too far and even the sauce couldn't save it.

That's the thing, a console isn't only the hardware. Putting better hardware in a console isn't risky. Changing how the console works (how it plays games) from a user standpoint or in other words, how people interact with it, that's extremely risky.

Regards,
SB

Nintendo did the exact same as Sony: NES->SNES->N64->GC / GB->GBC->GBA
till Sony opened their shop across the street and Nintendo's sausage pizza sales plummeted heavily.

 

[AmFreak]

All were PowerPC based yes, but wasn't the WiiU quite a big step up (like 150% clock and 3 cores instead of single)?

It's not only PPC based, it's the same core (PPC 750 based) just 3 of them with more cache. And yeah, it is clocked higher due to fab process progress (GC 485, Wii 729, Wii U 1.24), for Wii bc they just downclock one of them.

 

[WhiningKhan]

It's not only PPC based, it's the same core (PPC 750 based) just 3 of them with more cache. And yeah, it is clocked higher due to fab process progress (GC 485, Wii 729, Wii U 1.24), for Wii bc they just downclock one of them.

Nitpicking or not, but it really wasn't the same as the actual PPC 75x family was single core only - it was a custom design for Nintendo. Same version of PPC ISA though, keeping backwards compatibility.

 

[AmFreak]

Nitpicking or not, but it really wasn't the same as the actual PPC 75x family was single core only - it was a custom design for Nintendo. Same version of PPC ISA though, keeping backwards compatibility.

I didn't say it was the same as the 750 (which one actually) i said it had the same cores as the GC/Wii one (which i said were 750 based) with more cache.

 

[Panino Manino]

AMD's Mullins APU was a popular pick before it was revealed Nvidia got the deal

How comparable was it's performance?