Digital Foundry: Nintendo Switch CPU and GPU clock speeds revealed

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I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?

Why do you assume Nintendo cares about it running 2017 to 2020 third party games?

The low end here is a system that runs on-par with the Wii U in handheld mode and gets upped to a native 1080p when docked. The Wii U allows for pretty much spot on recreation of Nintendo's artistic vision into interactive game form, so why do they need way more power than that?

If the choice was between a $400.00 hybrid that runs like an XB1 in handheld mode and a PS4 when docked or a $250.00 hybrid that runs like a Wii U in handheld mode and a Wii U Pro (where everything is 1080p instead of attempting 4K) sign me up for saving $150.00 I can spend on more games, thanks.

That's my only concern with the Switch. I have a Wii U. I'm not upgrading to play Breath of the Wild in 1080p instead of 720p or for one new Mario game. Everything else of interest so far is a Wii U port, will be out on PS4 first, etc.. It's all about the games, as it has always been for Nintendo.

I'll say this though. A full in-series Pokemon game that looks like Pokken Tournament on a portable system is going to sell systems.
 
Technically anything is possible in software development. You just need to make sacrifices and really want to put money behind it.

They sold the WiiU for a lose.

Iwata specifically mentioned this was one of the reasons why Wii U failed. That and its confusing marketing.
 

While 20nm that the X1 normally is is rather uncommon which would cost more, 16nm is fairly prevalent now which shouldn't cost that much. I can't imagine the costs of a 28nm vs 16nm is low enough to offset the other costs of a fan and whatever increases in device size and weight that will incur resulting in increased shipping/packaging costs.

Plus other stuff like being less efficient in heat/battery which is not characteristic of Nintendo, along with introducing moving parts that make their system much more vulnerable to failure. That would be such a backwards move, even for Nintendo, as it would pretty much go against the core concepts that generally cause them to make the moves people often balk at.

Nintendo are cheap, but they are cheap for practical reasons most times beyond just saving a penny or two.
 
Nintendo. They don't sell for a loss.

$250 seems like the magic number.


Nah. It's a brand new "home console" with a new gimmick that will likely be popular, and will do great with the Fallon crowd. And there's a lot of tech in there besides the chipset.

It's $299/$349 all day long, and nothing about 28nm or lower clocks is going to change that. Also, Nintendo. Shit, they could get ballsy and try for a higher price, and it'd probably still sell out. Don't get your hopes up.
 
I really liked what Ben Thompson wrote about Switch on his site, Stratechery, and this part is definitely true to me:

I would happily pay the difference between a Switch with year-old-best-in-class internals and a Switch with right-now-best-in-class internals.
A bad article. He made very weird opservations and missed many facts, like the Switch having a touchpad.
The worst part, he misses the point of the Switch being a toy. Like all gaming-consoles. If you have a fun gimmick, people still will play with something, since it is fun. Being different helps in their regard.
 
Why do you assume Nintendo cares about it running 2017 to 2020 third party games.

Yup, Nintendo isn't aiming for stuff like Witcher 4 or whatever.

People familiar with Nintendo's plans (via MCV) state that Nintendo is looking to "upgrade" smartphone gamers, and it's a device that sits in between the mobile market and the big budget console market.

MCV UK said:
Game graphics will be ‘somewhere between a PS3 and PS4’, with Nintendo targeting an audience that sits between smartphone gamers and the more hardcore users of PS4 and Xbox One.

“It’s a nice bit of kit, a bit of a novelty, but a good one,” said one exec that has got hands on with the machine. “It won’t appeal to PS4 fans. Nintendo seems set on trying to upgrade smartphone gamers. That’s going to be a big job for the marketing department.”

Still, I do think a device like this will mostly thrive by either its exclusive games like 3DS and handhelds before it, or the overall quality of its games library. And the market has changed considerably since 3DS was introduced in 2010 with a huge amount of bespoke exclusive handheld support put behind it. It's going to be harder for publishers to justify exclusive games for Switch alone when the hardware itself not only 1) is a much more unproven quantity compared with 3DS and 2) Switch's hardware is conforming like Wii U and Vita, not bespoke like 3DS or DS.
 
$250 might be pushing it... I really didn't think I'd be saying that even a week ago...

Edit:

That's no benefit for consumers though. We'd literally getting the worst combination possible.
250$ is the most realistic bet.
 
Lol

Nintendo's messaging for the switch has been great

Nintendo's goof has been letting leaks direct the conversation online. Hopefully all that ends in January.

I believe Schnozberry said what I was trying to get across a little better. The messaging has been bad because 90% of it has been dictated by leaks. Their initial marketing looks great but thats for a wide audience, the core audience is getting leaks and that shoukd have been better controlled. It really isn't hard to placate the "core gamer" audience like this board. Give them the news good or bad they want and then walk away because it will have minimal impact on your sales in the long run.

It does nip the leaks in the bud and gets any bad news out of the way early so that you can focus on your marketing strategy. These leaks lead to all kinds of misinformation or poor information that can lead to potential issues.
 
Technically anything is possible in software development. You just need to make sacrifices and really want to put money behind it.

They sold the WiiU for a lose.

I think Kimishima-san specifically said they won't sell Switch at a loss.

Nah. It's a brand new "home console" with a new gimmick that will likely be popular, and will do great with the Fallon crowd. And there's a lot of tech in there besides the chipset.

It's $299/$349 all day long, and nothing about 28nm or lower clocks is going to change that. Also, Nintendo. Shit, they could get ballsy and try for a higher price, and it'd probably still sell out. Don't get your hopes up.

I think $299 is entirely possible but $50 mode than that seems like it's pushing it after what happened with Wii U and for those who will see or want this primarily as a HH.
 
Come on, he apologized for it.

Didn't see it. But seriously just because he's upset about these specs doesn't give him the right to act childishly insulting repeatedly telling people to shut up and posting "ignore". If you're that upset over a gaming system and can't "chat" then stay away from forums until you're ready. Silly, childish behavior.
 
I would really love cheap upgrades like this.

It would be weird if the new model no follows scability and portability. Different versions from Switch is very likely to happen, but what will be interesting will be new Switchs that can play any former game from previous iterations. I like the implication on this.
 
Franz Brötchen;226902253 said:
Lol, might as well call laptops bullshit because they typically need to sacrifice GPU power just so you can work on the go.
You simply don't get that there is a non-vanishing handheld market of which you just aren't a part.
This device will still easily outsell Xbox One + Xbox Scorpio in 2017 and on-ward.
Many people don't need a powerful GPU in their computer. If you were buying a computer strictly for high-end graphics gaming, then yeah I would say buying a laptop isn't a good idea.

And are you being sarcastic or are you this oblivious to the shrinking handheld gaming market? People buy smartphones and tablets for portable electronics now, not gaming handheld devices.
 
I fully expect the Apple model of upgrades to be adopted here. That's where the SCD patent is going to come in and allow a cheap purchase to upgrade the dock every two years or so.
The burden this would put in the shoulder of developers, the market segmentation this would create... I don't see this happening.
 
It would be weird if the new model no follows scability and portability. Different versions from Switch is very likely to happen, but what will be interesting will be new Switchs that can play any former game from previous iterations. I like the implication on this.
It would make sense how come the my Nintendo programs going into effect.
 
It might be but it doesn't make it a good price if the device is both underpowered and has shot battery life.

It would honestly make it one of the worst designed systems of all time.
Latest romours were 5 to8 hour battery life, which is a lot easier to believe if the specs are what we think.
 
That would be garbage. Less power and less battery life... Is there any upside at all?

Cheaper to manufacture due to that the equipment for the process are readily available, hence higher profit margins for nvidia and cheaper price for Nintendo.
 
With the ancient slow hardware making up the Switch it needs to be $199. Nintendo might find a market at that price. Even at $250 I think it would be too expensive. These internals are going to kill third parties abilities to port to this machine, so one year of third party games like usual on a Nintendo home console.
 
The burden this would put in the shoulder of developers, the market segmentation this would create... I don't see this happening.

it's the new norm. It's been ongoing for phones now for almost 10 years. It's just starting on consuls with the PS4 and PS pro. Not continuing would be absurd. Consoles market has to be competitive but not doing this they would not be.
 
250$ is the most realistic bet.

It is unfortunately. It better have a pack in game for that price though. It will probably be Splatoon that I don't really care about (unless they really add a ton with new modes etc.) as I played plenty of that game--but that would be a good seller to people who didn't get a Wii U, only had a 3DS etc.
 
Latest romours were 5 to8 hour battery life, which is a lot easier to believe if the specs are what we think.

That rumour was from some who said it was going to be Pascal. Nate isn't exactly looking reliable right now, no offence to him.

Cheaper to manufacture due to that the equipment for the process are readily available, hence higher profit margins for nvidia and cheaper price for Nintendo.

Right but for consumers it's still crap.
 
A bad article. He made very weird opservations and missed many facts, like the Switch having a touchpad.
The worst part, he misses the point of the Switch being a toy. Like all gaming-consoles. If you have a fun gimmick, people still will play with something, since it is fun. Being different helps in their regard.

I think it's good, the whole point of the piece is to show that there's still a market for systems which do things differently, the Switch is using the best of mobile tech (er, outside of Apple's own ARM CPU designs) and doing something different with it. Which is exactly what Iwata was saying was possible back in 2013: he mentioned how handhelds and consoles would be "brothers" because the architecture now exists that both systems don't need to have wildly differing specs.

The point I quoted about how Switch can be too cheap rings true as well we're talking about saving anything from a few pennies/cents to twenty dollars or pounds per unit. I think most customers - if they knew and could see the differences - may opt for a less compromised device in terms of the Nvidia SoC (if it's the worst case scenario as some have feared).
 
I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

Besides my avatar I don't consider myself a diehard Nintendo fan. Currently I own PS4 and XB1, and never acquired a Wii U. Still, I'm totally interested in it, as long as they price it accordingly (wich is 200~250).
 
That rumour was from some who said it was going to be Pascal. Nate isn't exactly looking reliable right now, no offence to him.

This article would actually lead credence to what Nate said, it has (as they believe) absorbed Pascal changes to its custom chip. Its just not an outright 16nm fab, but a Maxwell with Pascal tweaks... making it a big Pascal.
 
With the ancient slow hardware making up the Switch it needs to be $199. Nintendo might find a market at that price. Even at $250 I think it would be too expensive. These internals are going to kill third parties abilities to port to this machine, so one year of third party games like usual on a Nintendo home console.

But nobody buys Nintendo consoles for third-party games anyhow. Also though this is a portable like device too so expect things to be viewed a little bit differently than in the past.
 
Is the Switch : Scorpio disparity the same difference in graphical power between Wii U : PS4 OG when the Wii U launched? By which I mean, is the weakest home console to the strongest that big a gulf?

If Nintendo can release a cheap home console with a clean aesthetic, I don't mind having a 720p XBox One OG portably and a 1080p XBox One OG docked.

Where I start to mind is rebuying my Wii U library.
 
Is this going to end up being a handheld with a TV mode on it? If its "just a handheld" that contradicts everything Nintendo have said.
 
This article would actually lead credence to what Nate said, it has (as they believe) absorbed Pascal changes to its custom chip. Its just not an outright 16nm fab, but a Maxwell with Pascal tweaks... making it a big Pascal.

That's not at all confirmed or even what he/his sources implied. They were surprised it was Maxwell in the final Dev kit.
 
With the ancient slow hardware making up the Switch it needs to be $199. Nintendo might find a market at that price. Even at $250 I think it would be too expensive. These internals are going to kill third parties abilities to port to this machine, so one year of third party games like usual on a Nintendo home console.

I don't think $250 is too expensive, but $199 would be glorious. I've been Team $199 all throughout this thread.
 
Is this going to end up being a handheld with a TV mode on it? If its "just a handheld" that contradicts everything Nintendo have said.

Yea it's just a relatively powerful handheld with a TV mode for displaying games in 1080p that's the best way to look at it. And the only way to look at it without being dissapointed.
 
But nobody buys Nintendo consoles for third-party games anyhow. Also though this is a portable like device too so expect things to be viewed a little bit differently than in the past.

I don't think that's true of 3DS, but Wii U definitely.

Worldwide, 3DS wouldn't have survived its mismanaged launch window if people didn't know an exclusive Resident Evil, Ridge Racer, Layton, Layton Vs AA, Time Travellers, Ace Combat, E.X. Troopers, Monster Hunter, Dead or Alive, etc, were on the way, as Nintendo's plan for that system was to let third parties carry it primarily. But moving 3DS's launch forwards meant the best third party content wasn't even ready yet...

In Japan, 3DS's strongest market, 3DS is definitely not carried by Nintendo software alone.
 
With the ancient slow hardware making up the Switch it needs to be $199. Nintendo might find a market at that price. Even at $250 I think it would be too expensive. These internals are going to kill third parties abilities to port to this machine, so one year of third party games like usual on a Nintendo home console.

You do realize this is still far newer than anything in the PS4/XB1, despite being clocked insanely low? There is absolutely nothing ancient about Maxwell or Tegra X1.
 
I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

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There's an easy 4M units in one country regardless of chipset and frequencies.
 
Is the Switch : Scorpio disparity the same difference in graphical power between Wii U : PS4 OG when the Wii U launched? By which I mean, is the weakest home console to the strongest that big a gulf?

If Nintendo can release a cheap home console with a clean aesthetic, I don't mind having a 720p XBox One OG portably and a 1080p XBox One OG docked.

Where I start to mind is rebuying my Wii U library.

Even when docked it's going to be significantly less powerful than a XO.

It's definitely the games that will make the system, I mean, I wanted to buy an XO for Christmas and bought Killer Instinct and Rare Replay during Black Friday.

Then I took a second and realized it was the only two games I wanted for the system, thus not making it worth spending 300 quids on it. Yet the Xbox One HAS power. :P
 
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