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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Gaming
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Most definitely. Zelda TotK is the late-in-lifetime masterpiece — we are ready for the next generation.
One problem Nintendo faces here is that last time they had Nvidia Tegra, a chip that didn’t really find any other use at scale so Nintendo could source it for pennies. AMD owns the console grade SoC market, and won’t be selling Ryzen 8000 series for cheap — maybe Nintendo could again source something from the previous generation to keep the BOM down?
I think the more severe issue here is that an architecture change would make the new device incompatible with the Switch. So they should preferably stay with something arm-based that can ideally mimic the original SOC closely.
Plus Nintendo usually has long partnerships with hardware partners. From GameCube to Wii U they used IBM's PowerPC processors, and it was a long period of time. In 2016 Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang praised the partnership with Nintendo, expecting it to last "last two decades". Nintendo also wants the next-gen transition to be as smooth as possible, retaining Switch's massive user base. Therefore the company's next console is likely having an ARM SOC made by Nvidia; anything else would be a suicide mission for them.
Yeah, agreed that this remains by far the most likely scenario. I guess Switch sales alone are enough for Nvidia to keep going with Tegra, despite finding little use elsewhere.
It’s just been a long time since the first news about T234 (Orin) & T239 came out (mid 2021), with a rumoured & cancelled chip based on Lovelace after that — most likely it was too expensive for Nintendo.
That cancellation left me wondering whether there could be other plans in play. It’s an old chip by now, but that too tracks with Nintendo.
Nintendo's solution to backwards compatibility has been interesting but straightforward in the past. All they've done before, with a few exceptions, is slap the old processor in the new device to make it backwards compatible. I'm curious what they would do this time.