Nintendo Briefed Activision Blizzard on Switch 2 Last Year - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 October 2023 / 3,528 Views
There have been rumors of a Nintendo Switch 2 in recent months and we now know Activision was briefed on the next-generation Switch last year, according to internal emails from the FTC v. Microsoft case.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and other executives at the company met with Nintendo executives in December 2022 to discuss the next-generation Switch.
The document, which is heavily redacted, does show the performance of the Switch 2 will be similar to that of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
"Given the closer alignment to Gen8 platforms in terms of performance and our previous offerings on PS4 / Xbox One, it is reasonable to assume we could make something compelling for the NG Switch as well," reads the document. "It would be helpful to secure early access to development hardware prototypes and prove that out nice and early."
There was a rumor in July claiming a developer in Spain has received a development kit for the Nintendo Switch successor.
Kotick did recently say "it was a bad decision" to not release Call of Duty on the Switch and the company should have supported the platform more.
Kotick thought the Switch wouldn't be the success that it was and the hybrid console is "probably the second biggest video game system of all time."
If Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is approved Microsoft will be releasing Call of Duty games on Nintendo's platforms. Microsoft in February signed a "binding 10-year legal agreement" to bring Call of Duty games to Nintendo platforms.
Thanks, The Verge.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I think what they mean is that it's between PS4/XB1 and PS5/Xbox Series, but closer to the PS4/XB1 end of that spectrum, not that it is weaker than PS4/XB1 just like Switch 1, but closer to PS4/XB1 this time around. A safe bet for Switch 2 would be something like 70% of Series S specs when docked, and between XB1/PS4 in handheld mode.
I hear its more Series S. Rumour says 2000 Cuda Cores which is more than Series S, less than Series X.
That seems unlikely to me. We know that Switch 2 is using an Nvidia Tegra Orin chip, because one of the Nvidia devs leaked it on his LinkedIn or something like that a few years back. The biggest Orin chipset does have just over 2000 cores, but full Orin was designed as car infotainment center chip and uses up to 60 watts as a result, no way you could get a 60 watt chip into a handheld with anything even remotely resembling good battery life. Far more likely that it's closer to the Orin NX, which is a 1.8 tflop chip using 10-25 watts of power.
CUDA cores are NOT 1:1 with RDNA cores.
I am only basing this off the rumour going around that it offers 2000
The most reliable leakers have shared two likely specs. 1 has the GPU having 1536 CUDA cores. That would equate to a full GPU cluster in Nvidias architecture so it makes sense. The 2nd has it having 1280 CUDA cores, which again is a number that makes sense given the structure of Nvidias GPU architecture. It would mean that instead of having all 1536 cores of the single cluster active, it has 256 cores disabled.
1280 is still a significant leap in CUDA cores over the Switch which just has 256.
2000 is 100% false as it doesnt align with Nvidia GPU architecture.
They are rumors until they can be substantiated.
Remember the "controller leak" during the NX days that people went spastic for? Turned out it was 3D printed in a randoms back yard.
Either way. Tegra Orin is fully equipped with 2048 Cuda cores.
1536 and 1280 Cuda core variants do not exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra#Orin
I am not sure what "architecture" you are referring to either.
And Cuda cores doesn't tell the entire story. 128 Cuda cores can give BETTER performance than 256 Cuda cores.
Yeah, based purely on those TDP figures it feels like Orin NX 16 GB tier performance is the best we can realistically hope if Nintendo wants a halfway decent battery life. They could go with more than Orin NX's 1024 cores for better docked performance, and then downclock quite alot in handheld mode for better battery life I suppose.
Orin NX 16GB should provide better overall performance than the Xbox One anyway.
You also have the Orin NX 8GB, 2 less CPU cores should mean more TDP for the GPU, they will need more than 8GB of ram though, so clamshell DRAM layout might be the go for 10-12-14GB or double density chips for 16GB.
Either way, 100GB/s of bandwidth should provide enough fillrate for very fluid and quality visuals for 720P-1080P gaming, which was the Achilles heel of the current Switch.
you completely missed the point. The way the architecture is set doesn't allow for a variant of exactly 2000 CUDA cores. So I corrected the poster to say that was 100% incorrect whilst also highlighting the most prevalent rumours and how their rumoured CUDA core counts were feasible given the architecture.
You sharing a link about how current applications of Orin don't have the CUDA core amounts i mentioned is irrelevant. The crux of the matter is the architecture allows for said numbers in a customised implementation because of the amount of cores per cluster.
It will be a hybrid console that will probably cost 300 euro and needs to be profitable day one. Since Nintendo isn't willing to make a loss on hatdware. So expecting a handheld series S is too optimistic anyway. Especially since a console is more than only it's GPU.
maaan if this is true, that'll be the worst news related to the nintendo switch 2, almost everyone is expecting a machine with similar specs to a series s, Nintendo is gonna fck it up real hard if it turns out to be just a step up from the switch hardware, dlss is not gonna save it for sure
Activision put COD games on Wii and DS.
A Switch 2 released in 2024-2025 with PS4-like specs would not be new territory in underpowered hardware for their games.
Activision jumped ship on Wii U less than a few years (mostly) because the writing was on the wall. Honestly, the Switch's weak online is a bigger problem for COD than the specs.
Considering they are building the Switch as a Portable first, they sadly have technological limitations in terms of size, power and heat dissipation.
However, just like the current Switch it will have a hardware feature set a generation ahead of the last-gen consoles which will drive efficiency and visuals.
And last gen consoles had terrible CPU's... So unless the next-gen Switch runs with A53 cores, it should beat them handily there.
