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[Raploz]

According to Trusted Reviews, Alex Katouzian, Senior Vice President at Qualcomm, said during a media roundtable event at Computex 2023 that both Sony and Nintendo have talked to them about future portable devices. Quoting:

“Those are companies [PlayStation and Nintendo] that are interested in having handheld gaming capabilities. So obviously they would reach out and talk to us,” Alex Katouzian (Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile, Compute and XR) said. “I think they, in general, will reach out to someone like Qualcomm because they know how big we are in Android gaming.”

What could that mean? There's no way of really knowing, but we can speculate.

Project Q is already confirmed, but why would they choose Qualcomm if they could get cheaper chips from companies like MediaTek and UniSOC? As far as we know it's only for streaming, so it wouldn't need a very powerful chip. Maybe they are interested in Qualcomm's modems? Or maybe they have another portable device beyond Project Q?

Also, with Digital Foundry's allegation that the Switch Pro was canceled, plus another leaker saying the 8nm Tegra chip that was meant to be used with Switch 2 was also canceled, and with the Tegra T239 reportedly made for Switch Pro/2 and rumored since 2021 likely being an 8nm chip just like its Orin siblings, there's a possibility that Nintendo had problems with NVIDIA and is switching to another vendor. This wouldn't be the first time a company had problems with Nvidia, we all know how the partnership between Microsoft and Nvidia with the original Xbox and Sony and Nvidia with the PS3 turned out. It would also explain why it's taking so long for the Switch 2 to be released and why new leaks and rumors are so scarce (assuming the Switch 2 would release in 2024).

What do you think? Let's speculate.

 

[killatopak]

I won’t count Nintendo out of switching. They somehow hate BC. It’s all about margin of profit for them.

 

[diffusionx]

Nintendo would be foolish not to shop around.

 

[Silver Wattle]

The switch is easy to emulate with modern hardware.

 

[GigaBowser]

Lotsa cruddy bums probably reached out to thems

That don't means squat

 

[Buggy Loop]

They had a nice deal with the Tegra because the chipsets were basically gathering dust.

They probably got a slap in the face when they saw the new Nvidia chipset price
Wouldn't surprise me they asked the engineers to look around.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 gen 2 that will be mass produced for the quest 3 and many other products is 2.4 TFlops with ML & RT, is one of the most efficient mobile chipset around and is CHEAP, those Quest 3 @ $499 with the optics it has, is a strong case for seeing a Switch 2 packed with all the features, a good screen and for a cheap price.

I wouldn't count Intel out either. If there's one player that needs this kind of deal to be relevant in console business it's them. Their upcoming APUs with tiling (MCM) would be perfect for Switch handheld / dock mode.

 

[Unknown?]

Lotsa cruddy bums probably reached out to thems

That don't means squat

You're saying Nintendo is a cruddy bum?

 

[01011001]

I mean Sony's Project Q thingy does need an ARM chip to handle the streaming.
but honestly any cheap mobile SOC should be good lol

 

[Portugeezer]

The switch is easy to emulate with modern hardware.

Steam deck emulation isn't that great and it is probably more powerful than the next Switch.

 

[Raploz]

If Nintendo abandons NVIDIA that would mean no DLSS. I guess they could still use Intel's XESS with whatever Qualcomm AI cores they would have since they have a generic version compatible with multiple vendors, but that wouldn't be as tightly integrated or be used in every game. It's also true that XESS doesn't look or perform as well on other hardware compared to when it's run with Intel's specialized XMX cores, because the version that runs on Intel hardware is specialized.

 

[Fake]

Hope so. IMO snapdragon would be much better with a gaming API than Nvidia old shield tech.

 

[GigaBowser]

You're saying Nintendo is a cruddy bum?

Qualcomm says this because they wants be in the news clickbait

They will nots work with Nintendos or Sony

Oh yeah "Qualcoms chip in the new Sony handheld"

 

[lh032]

Sony!!!???

PSP REVIVAL!!???

 

[GigaBowser]

Sony!!!???

PSP REVIVAL!!???

This would be incredibubble buts we are knows about the new Sony "handheld"

Release Vita 2 Sony getting tired of waitsing around

 

[Crispy Gamer]

Nvidia is just too damn expensive probably and the margins might not be there it's not like Nintendo is looking for bleeding edge tech they can shop around for a better deal

 

[DKPOWPOW]

Hope not, at least for Nintendo. I think NVIDIA and Nintendo worked well together and leaving behind BC for Switch 2 would be a shit show. Backhanding 125+ million people is a bad move, and before fools say "Well it's Nintendo" ....


Every single Nintendo Handheld I can think of has had backwards compatibility with the previous gen.

It would be a bad move, unless they do the frankenstein effort again of including the OG into the Switch 2, kinda like what Wii U did.

Even then... Just seems like a bad idea. I would worry if the ease of development for Switch would not carry over to Switch 2.

 

[THE DUCK]

So much there. I'm at a loss almost, it's kind of mind blowing if Nintendo hasn't settled on the Switch 2 hardware. Sony was no doubt considering a true handheld but also was likely considering something like the logitech streaming portable but settled on local only.

At this point I'd rather a fresh new amd chip for the switch 2 vs a crap old one from nvidia. And Qualcomm, would it even come close to either?

 

[Unknown?]

This would be incredibubble buts we are knows about the new Sony "handheld"

Release Vita 2 Sony getting tired of waitsing around

I remember with PSP people complained about having games that were the same as console and that was a reason why it "sucked" because they thought, for some reason, that handheld games should be all original.

Now we have Steam Deck to play PC games portably.

 

[01011001]

Steam deck emulation isn't that great and it is probably more powerful than the next Switch.

there's no way the next Switch won't be more powerful than the Deck.
also an ARM based system will have an easier time emulating another ARM based system

 

[Catherine]

It's interesting to see this development. Some sort of backwards compatibility is a make it or break it feature for a Switch successor for sure. But even if they stay with NVIDIA, old games will probably have to release patches to update the pre-compiled shaders, as others have pointed out before.

 

[Robb]

Shouldn’t be surprising. Nintendo will probably have sold +140M by the time Switch dies off.

Would be stupid not hear all the offers they can get for the next system and leverage that incredible success.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Nintendo should go AMD route. Keep a weaker handheld 1 TF and a more powerful desktop variant at 3-4 TF. Both will play same games but hand held will be at lower resolution.

No need to make a single device that will be a compromise in either situations.

And get backwards compatibility somehow. You cannot keep charging for same game again and again.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

They will talk with everyone that has something to offer. No?

 

[Woopah]

Switch 2 will be out in the next 18 months. Nintendo probably were shopping around at some point, but we can be pretty confident they went with Nvidia.

 

[Panajev2001a]

there's no way the next Switch won't be more powerful than the Deck.
also an ARM based system will have an easier time emulating another ARM based system

True but as PS Vita showed with PSP titles, you can switch architecture (custom MIPS to ARM) and still have excellent BC.

 

[onnextflix5]

if Nintendo still has not settled on a chip, it’s coming out winter 24 earliest, most likely they are talking to others to get nvidia to lower their price. They should have never gone with never nvidia as they have all but abandoned mobile chips, so competitors chips will be better and much cheaper.

 

[justiceiro]

If they don't use Nvidia, expect a very disappointing "upgrade", if at all. Nvidia GPUs architecture are just miles everyone else. That's the sole reason current gen games could run on the machine as well as they did.

 

[winjer]

Nintendo should go AMD route. Keep a weaker handheld 1 TF and a more powerful desktop variant at 3-4 TF. Both will play same games but hand held will be at lower resolution.

No need to make a single device that will be a compromise in either situations.

And get backwards compatibility somehow. You cannot keep charging for same game again and again.

This.
If Nintendo were to use X86 and RDNA, it would make porting games to their next console, a lot easier.
And this could boost the amount of ports into the platform, by a big quantity.

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

Nintendo should go AMD route. Keep a weaker handheld 1 TF and a more powerful desktop variant at 3-4 TF. Both will play same games but hand held will be at lower resolution.

No need to make a single device that will be a compromise in either situations.

And get backwards compatibility somehow. You cannot keep charging for same game again and again.

That could work or the handheld could use the apu that's in the asus rog ally that's sufficient for a 1080p to 1440p handheld and a powerful cpu in dockmode apu rdna 3 for 4k

 

[FunkMiller]

Given that anyone who supplies Nintendo with chips for the next Switch is pretty much guaranteed a massive profit, it's no surprise to see Nintendo casting its net out to see where they can secure the best deal.

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

If there is Another way they could get a powerful Dock mode that could do 4k 60fps is once the handheld is Dock mode the apu that's in the handheld is connected to the apu that's in dockmode giving it a performance boost of the extra ram , cpu and gpu is that possible?

 

[tkscz]

If the rumor is true that the switch 2 was supposed to use Atlan but because Samsung can't get good yields, nVidia dropped them along with Ampere+, then I can see them being impatient with nVidia. Tegra Thor is straight up not ready and even Nintendo knows at this point they can't wait.

However, they also could be reaching out to Qualcomm just for the CPU and Nvidia is still on the GPU. Or even had reached out to them during the chip shortage when there weren't enough Ampere chips to make putting out a Switch Pro worth it. The quote doesn't say much other than they called. We don't know when and we don't know why. It's not really a leak, more of a brag.

 

[McRazzle]

From wikipedia's Quick Charge entry:

Quick Charge - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quick Charge (QC) is a proprietary battery charging protocol developed by Qualcomm, used for managing power delivered over USB, mainly by communicating to the power supply and negotiating a voltage.

Quick Charge 5 was announced on July 27, 2020.[9] With up to 100 W of power, on a mobile phone with a 4500 mAh battery, Qualcomm claims 50% charge in just 5 minutes. Qualcomm announced that this standard is cross-compatible with USB PD PPS programmable power supply, and that its technology can communicate with the charger when charging double cells and double the voltage and current out. For instance, a single battery requests 8.8 supply at V; the dual cell can then ask the PPS charger to output 17.6 volts and split it in half to the two separate batteries, providing 5.6 amps total to achieve 100 watts. The first phone supporting this technology was the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra.

 

[Belthazar]

I can see Nintendo doing that just to use it as an excuse for no Backwards compatibility.

 

[E-Cat]

I won’t count Nintendo out of switching. They somehow hate BC. It’s all about margin of profit for them.

no pun intended