Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@PikminMarioKirby Legends Arceus did get an event. In general the themes leant towards new releases though some older releases did get a theme like Xenoblade Chronicles, Miitopia and Super Mario RPG (do note the 3D World theme was solely focused on the brand new Bowser's Fury expansion).

Considering this pattern and the timing of when additional themes started, the most notable omissions were Splatoon 3, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and TotK. I'd guess Splatoon 3 gets one around the time of FinalFest considering that's what happened with Splatoon 2. Meanwhile Scarlet/Violet isn't exactly in a good state, it's the game which really drove discussions about people wanting more powerful hardware.

@Grumblevolcano Oh wow I forgot there was a Legends Arceus event.

I feel like the reason these games don't have events is that Tetris 99 has been slowing down the past couple years.

I find it weird that Scarlet/Violet made people want better hardware. It wasn't consoles fault, Scarlet/Violet was just rushed and unfinished.

@skywake
Nope. I'm just spewing out the same old redundant Switch 2 'wish list' dribble as always. Lets just blame it on the caffeine.

IGN posted a rumor claiming handheld mode for Switch 2 will be severely underclocked, in order to maximize battery life.

I really hope this is wrong. I understand some people want battery life before anything else, but I want the option to customize how handheld mode performs. Short of overheating the circuitry, I want the option to choose between maximum output and energy conservation. I'm tired of handheld mode feeling like a neutered play style for performance. Let me choose to go all-out even if it drains the battery in 100 minutes, if I want to. Sometimes on busy days I only have an hour or less between activities, so I don't care if I hook it back up to the wall after a good hour of game time.

I fully understand why the factory settings may be geared toward casual or younger users who just want a simple breezy experience right out of the box, but Nintendo needs to understand that the older gamers want more options to customize how they play.

@Ulysses No way you are going to be able to alter and cutomise performance. 1) It drives away the blue ocean who can't be arsed with all that (all they are bothered about is having fun and specs don't matter. 2) It's deigned for kids too. (i.e everyone.) It's hard to be disappointed with low clock speeds in handheld before even seeing the games. My eyes are my judge...not spec sheets.

Edit: Now actually,wouldn't it be nice to have a 'Pro' version that let you do it! I mean, I can't think of a better use of the word pro (as opposed to Sony who use it as a monicker for people with money to burn.) Hmm...I'm sold on this tbh!

Edit: the podcast actually claims they have Nvidia employees as sources, so I might as well post the video just for fun:

@GrailUK I understand your opinion, and I already addressed your points farther down in my comment. Understandably the default settings are designed for the blue ocean user base who just want a convenient experience out of the box. But as you say, a Pro model would be perfect to give the more hardcore enthusiasts more options to tinker with.

@Ulysses Yeah, I like your idea as a possible other SKU.

@PikminMarioKirby It's about Pokemon's release schedule. So far the only years with no mainline release (game or DLC) since Pokemon went simultaneous worldwide release in 2013 are 2015 and 2024 (even then, 2024 isn't confirmed as TPC have announced remakes and 3rd versions in May/June before). This caused problems when moving to a HD console (the Switch).

The chance of TPC slowing down the release schedule to allow studios the time to release a polished is unlikely so people hope that more powerful hardware would brute force fix the problems.

They don't have any nvidia sources, they just found out about the Lapsu$ Ransom attack everyone who actually knows anything has known for 2 years now, and are making up goofy stories because they have no idea what they are talking about.

800mhz is fairly high for a mobile ampere. Ampere isn't a super narrow high clocked arch with nothing in it but raster like rdna, its wide and slow, not narrow and fast, look at rx 6000 clock speeds vs rtx 3000 series clock speeds, they are typically pushing close to roughly double the ampere clocks. At 800 Mhz the 12 sm GA10f would be pushing 2.5 Tflops. Double that for docked and you are looking at 5 Tflops. That's asking for cache miss trouble with 102 gbps unified memory bandwidth unless ga10f has custom caches bigger than typical ampere.

Ampere also has twice the schedulers and 50% more active warps per sm than rdna does per cu. That's not even getting into tensor and rt cores

It's within the realm of possibility, but pushing the upper clocks of that range, definitely not 'crazy low'.

This is a bit of a nothing burger. Don't even need to get into the technical capabilities of the SoC to explain why. It'll be underclocked compared to what the chip is capable of because you're going to be thermal and power constrained due to it being a mobile device. Both docked and undocked. But undocked you'll be even more constrained, even before you consider battery life, because you'll be holding it and won't be connected to mains power

But this isn't really an issue because docked you'll potentially be connected to a large screen that's potentially capable of 4K/120Hz. While in portable mode the rumours would suggest it's an 8" 1080p display and, more likely than not, only 60Hz. Even games that stretch themselves to reach 1080p docked I would imagine are going to look fine in portable mode rendered sub 1080p

So this NES Championship definitely feels like a last minute, thrown together quickly “oh my god we need games to release until Switch 2 in 2025”, right?

@NarwhalKing Nintendo has a habit of holding off on finished games until they have a gap in the release schedule they need to plug. Fire Emblem Engage and Metroid Prime Remastered were both finished in 2021 - the former was rated in that year in a few countries and had all its DLC release in just a few months, supporting the idea that it was already completed and just spaced out, while the latter was known to be finished in September 2021 thanks to LinkedIn listings tied to Retro saying a project wrapped up then. Both came out in 2023 alongside the delayed Advance Wars remakes, making for a fairly loaded first half of the year. Without them, we may have only had Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, Tears of the Kingdom, basic Pikmin 1+2 ports, Everybody's 1-2-Switch, and technically Bayonetta Origins, for those first 6 months - and it's entirely possible that a couple of those had been completed for some time too.
Based on the description of the game, the NES Championship game appears to be a successor of sorts to NES Remix. Those games were developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo in conjunction with indieszero; the former, as EPD Tokyo, has not released anything since Bowser's Fury, while the latter's last Nintendo project was co-developing Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain. Both games launched in 2021. It is entirely feasible that Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition has been in the works since early 2022, and also very unrealistic that it'd be thrown together in a short period of time to pad out the lineup.
There are quite a few other games we could see happen this year. It's been reported that Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD ports have been specifically held off on to plug a gap in the release schedule. A remake of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War has been rumored for some time, and notably, Engage's internal codename skips to Iron19 after Three Houses was Iron17, indicating Iron18 might exist. (I believe there was also a spot-on Engage leak that mentioned this remake as well.) Bandai Namco is known to be remastering a 3D action game for Nintendo, and it's unlikely the project is going to be for the Switch successor by nature of it being a remaster. Metroid Prime 4 is still on the way, and some sources have said it's looking like it is slated for a Switch release and not a cross-gen one with the successor console. And that's just what seems pretty feasible. There's evidence that a new Star Fox is in development, which could potentially be for the Switch or its successor (Nintendo's been applying for new trademarks for the series, and Switch Sports of all games has some Star Fox strings buried within its code, but they've been going on for some time about needing a new hook for future entries, and new hardware might be what brings that to the table). Nintendo EPD Tokyo has been known to be working on a 2D action project through job listings that is believed to be their long-rumored Donkey Kong game, and it's entirely likely it materializes this year to synergize with the Donkey Kong Country expansion at Super Nintendo World. Metroid Prime 2 and 3 remasters have been rumored. It's not impossible that Pokemon still has a game releasing for Switch this year, whether it's a remake of mainline entries or some sort of spinoff. Even F-Zero GX returning has come up a few times here and there, though it's probably the most pipe dream candidate in this batch. And there was some evidence a while back that a new Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games was in the works for Paris 2024, though the lack of an announcement by now makes me think that it may have been quietly canned.
Personally, I think it might even be possible that Nintendo has had some games they intended to reserve for a Switch release in 2025 or later, but that they'll bring out earlier. If they were cross-generation releases, they could simply position them as being upgraded on the new hardware once that's out.

@NarwhalKing
I'm not reading too much into that tweet, it's pretty vague. For all we know it could be that the NWC itself is happening again. Who knows

As for the general sentiment of your post outside of this rumour? I think yes and no. I think yes without question they're going to be pulling stuff that's been sitting on the shelf for a while and jamming it into the release schedule. Endless Ocean feels like one of those titles, there will be more. Stuff that's basically ready to go without much additional effort but isn't really something that'll move Switch 2. A retro compilation title definitely fits that bill

....... but I don't think they're in a panic to find anything and everything to send out the door. I do expect the stuff we'll see this year will generally be "lower budget" stuff. But it won't be because they're in a rush. It'll be because that's the kind of title that is more likely to be ready sooner, something they thought they didn't need to release in previous years or something that won't impress on Switch 2. And probably more than one

NES Championship is apparently $30 (according to Pyoro) so it feels a little like it is taking the release spot Everybody 1-2-Switch had last year. Makes me wonder if there will be another late June direct with this game dropping nearby.

The game has been rated. Plus Pyoro said it is just a game. And not a port. Plus the price. tbh, Pyoro is being pretty detailed about this random game; must be a slow week.

@NarwhalKing No, I get the feeling Nintendo wants to bring back the actual Nintendo World Championships but they need a game to act as a qualifier. Back in 2015, the qualifier was Championship Mode in Ultimate NES Remix.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/nintendo_world_cham...

Maybe there's online qualifiers using the new game, a certain number of people at the top of the leaderboards get free tickets and travel expenses to Nintendo Live where the Nintendo World Championships are hosted. The final round ends up being a brand new look at the next 3D Mario game (2015 had a brand new look at Mario Maker, 2017 had a brand new look at Mario Odyssey).

@FishyS
Ahh, fair. I hadn't seen that. And if it's $30 that's interesting, sounds like it's going to be more than a little throw away title or something on NSO or something. Loved NES Remix, more of that would be great. Much hype!

But yeah, I don't think this one game speaks to some kind of panic from Nintendo to rush out titles and fill out the release. I think at the absolute most we can say about it and Nintendo's strategy for this year is that it's the sort of title that can fit anywhere. And this year is a "fits anywhere" kind of year

A new shareholders meeting seems to have been announced. 'The 84th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders' takes place on June 27th, 2024, which for some reason is the same day Luigi's Mansion 2 HD releases (?).
Does anyone know why Nintendo would do this? Out of all days to do it, I don't understand why they'd choose the same day as a game releasing. I don't recall these meetings releasing the same day as one of their major games before, but I could be wrong.

@PikminMarioKirby They happen the same time every year. It's just now Nintendo drops games on Thursdays.

@Haruki_NLI Oh I didn't notice that. The one that dropped today is a Tuesday though, is this different?

@PikminMarioKirby There's 1 for each quarter (early May, early August, early November, early February) and there's an annual one in late June. Usually the one which reveals the most future info is the one in early May considering it's the first one of the fiscal year.