Nintendo Demoed Switch 2 To Developers at Gamescom

An anonymous reader shares a report: In Cologne last month, Nintendo's public Gamescom showfloor booth let you play Pikmin 4 and Super Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But behind the scenes, the company had more up its sleeves. Developer presentations for Switch 2 took place behind closed doors, Eurogamer understands, with partners shown tech demos of how well the system is designed to run.

One Switch 2 demo is a souped up version of Switch launch title Zelda: Breath of the Wild, designed to hit the Switch 2's beefier target specs. (To be clear, though - this is just a tech demo. There's no suggestion the game will be re-released.) Nintendo is yet to publicly discuss plans for its inevitable Switch successor, though its new hardware is widely-expected to launch at some point in 2024. Word that it is now being shown to external developers comes as details have begun to emerge around when we may see the system launch.

So "Next Gen" specs or the usual?

[Dru Nemeton]

The Big "N" has a long history of putting out "next gen" consoles that are anything but that in specs. So that begs the question if "S2" is going to be pushing truly "next gen" specifications, or if it'll follow along with history and be behind the others in what specs its users can expect to be playing with in the coming years.

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[unami]

Also, the success proves them right.

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[olmsfam]

debatable. even pokemon struggles with performance and that's a first party. I bought disgea 6 and i had to stop playing as the perf was so bad. Triangle tactics at turn based game even struggles from the big names like EA, i had to wait to play on PC. Kids might not notice (primary audience) but i do and i don't think we should reward a win to people who pander to the lowest common denominator. Its like yeah candy crush is like the biggest game ever but you know some of the world would be better off if tha

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[DarkRookie2]

The thing chugged in BotW and Metroid Dread had some hiccups as well.
It isn't just 2nd and 3rd party games with these issues.

Re:So "Next Gen" specs or the usual?

[njvack]

It's okay if the Switch isn't a platform you like; not everything needs to compete with PC or Xbox or PS. "Success" in this case, I think, means "selling enough systems, and making enough money, that it remains a viable platform."

Third-party titles on Switch struggle a lot. I'm genuinely amazed, though, at what first-party titles can do. TOTK is very big and runs very well, considering it's running on hardware that was "slow" six years ago.

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[DarkRookie2]

TOTK is very big and runs very well, considering it's running on hardware that was "slow" six years ago.

The fuck it does. That is is constantly dropping frames and going under 30fps. I stopped playing because all of the issues.

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[Narcocide]

Regardless of the specs at launch time, we all know two things about it already:
1) You astroturfers are going to spend most of Russia's military budget telling people not to buy it.
2) The specs will have no negative impact on the fun.

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[DarkRookie2]

Unless those specs prevent a game from running at locked 30fps which the Switch can't currently do.

It's not likely to be next gen

[rsilvergun]

since they're probably still going to want the mobile form factor. They own that space so they're not going to surrender it. I'm guessing one of the more powerful cell phone gaming SOCs again. Though I wouldn't completely rule out an AMD APU. e.g. a Steam Deck.

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[Powercntrl]

Battery life is the primary limiting factor in handheld gaming. One of the main reasons the Steam Deck is such a chonker is its massive battery [ifixit.com], and despite that it still dies pretty quickly when you're not tethered to an outlet.

Nintendo likely wants to make something that doesn't require also toting around a Jackery in your backpack, so yeah, they're probably going to stick with some type of ARM CPU.

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[alvinrod]

I'd be surprised if they used a x86 APU. Not that there's any wrong with AMD's chips, but Nintendo is probably going to go with a newer Tegra SoC. AMD could always license their GPU tech to Nintendo, but Nvidia actually has an ARM SoC that uses their graphics tech and everyone other than those two companies is basically an also ran when it comes to graphics prowess.

The biggest reason for Nintendo to stay with Nvidia is DLSS. Although AMD has their own equivalent technology, Nintendo consoles haven't been

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[rsilvergun]

I did see some talk but it was going to support dlss and although I've heard of some mobile chips and arm socs to do that it's usually a feature most commonly associated with x86 and specifically AMD and Nvidia GPUs. Nintendo wasn't all that worried about battery on the switch but the reason I think they're more likely to go with a arm soc is that they're much cheaper relatives to the performance they delivered and Nintendo wants to make money off their hardware sales. I think the GameCube was the only cons

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[DarkRookie2]

Oh yes, lets us switch out the graphics chips for AI chips to get the same level of graphics.

It will likely be a massive increase

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Since the GameCube, they've been skipping a generation before going all in which makes sense because that's how you get power cheaply. The Wii was about 1.5x the power of the GameCube; the Wii U was about 15-16x the power of the Wii, with the Switch being ~1.5x-2.0x IIRC.

The leaks are also saying it was competitively running a demo that stresses current gen hardware. Even if you read between the lines and it was like a PS4/XBone version of the demo, that's a very dangerous upgrade for the competition becaus

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[SuiteSisterMary]

The Switch is a hand-held Xbox 360. So the Switch Again should be about the power of an xbox one or PS4.

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[Bradac_55]

So your saying your not a Nintendo player and have no idea what your talking about, typical /. poster.

If you were you would understand nothing they make needs true next gen hardware so there is absolutely no point to jacking prices up to $1k per device to make there money back like an apple device in fact they never release loss leader hardware, ever.

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[tlhIngan]

The Big "N" has a long history of putting out "next gen" consoles that are anything but that in specs. So that begs the question if "S2" is going to be pushing truly "next gen" specifications, or if it'll follow along with history and be behind the others in what specs its users can expect to be playing with in the coming years.

It won't be "next gen" as in supporting 4K60. It will be "next gen" as it likely will be able to go 1080P30 reliably.

You have to remember that Nintendo goes after what people who pla

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[Can'tNot]

Of course it'll be next gen, it's the next gen. What a silly question.

What you probably meant to ask was something like: "Is Nintendo going to start competing with other console manufacturers on performance?" And, given that they haven't done this since the N64: No. They're not.

In fact, the fact that they've ported over Breath of the Wild for the sake of nothing more than a demo implies a very similar system architecture. I think we can look at this as confirmation that the Switch 2 will be backwards

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[DarkRookie2]

They can only complete because of Zelda. Take that away from them, and their consoles would be complete trash instead of trash that runs Zelda.

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[codebase7]

So "Next Gen" specs or the usual?

Betteridge's law of headlines: No.

To put it another way: Nintendo makes it's money by selling cheap hardware that's mandatory to play their wholly owned IP. There is no real competition for that IP, so they can mandate whatever hardware specs they want and people will shell out for it. (No your homebrew and favorite independent developer is no actual threat to the big N's juggernauts. Especially, if that juggernaut is the world's highest grossing media franchise.)

Nintendo owns the content, and they con

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[Artemis3]

Think of it as upgrading your smartphone. They are using the very same architecture: arm/nvidia. Gone are the days of custom hardware, what you enjoy from them now is their OS/shop and games. Valve's Deck is the same concept but x86_64 running Arch Linux. Maybe the time is near when we will see RISC-V instead.

Meh

[DarkRookie2]

The Switch 2 is not going to worth buying unless it is like $150.
The only good thing about the Switch currently are the few game exclusive too it that cant even keep a steady 30 fps.