Nintendo planning Switch upgrade with 4K

[Jet_ski]

Summary
The introduction of a more affordable Switch Lite variant in late 2019 helped broaden the machine’s potential audience and Nintendo is making preparations for an upgraded Switch model and a beefed-up games lineup for 2021, Bloomberg News has reported. Several outside game developers, speaking anonymously as the issue is private, said that Nintendo has asked them to make their games 4K-ready, suggesting a resolution upgrade is on its way.

 

The article is about Nintendo increasingly the Switch production by 20% more because they can’t sell enough of it.

 

Quote

Quote

Several outside game developers, speaking anonymously as the issue is private, said that Nintendo has asked them to make their games 4K-ready, suggesting a resolution upgrade is on its way.

 

My thoughts

With new gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles launching soon, it’s not surprising that Nintendo wants to maintain their winning streak by making a new Switch. I wonder how they are going to time the upgraded console.

 

Sources

http://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-09-09/nintendo-said-to-boost-switch-production-by-another-20

[JoostinOnline]

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

but big number = better!!!

[The_russian]

9 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details. 

Yeah but you can’t put a number on something looking better like you can with resolution, and they know people will think it is falling behind other consoles if they don’t support 4K.

[Drama Lama]

There is a reason why companies don’t make 4K phones 

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, The_russian said:

Yeah but you can’t put a number on something looking better like you can with resolution, and they know people will think it is falling behind other consoles if they don’t support 4K.

I know that.  I'm mostly just venting.  I feel like people's ignorance is hindering progress. 

[Athan Immortal]

1 minute ago, The_russian said:

Yeah but you can’t put a number on something looking better like you can with resolution, and they know people will think it is falling behind other consoles if they don’t support 4K.

 

14 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

I'm also on board with the theory that Sony having their hand in the TV market is one of the reasons the PS4 Pro was made. It so clearly cannot handle 4k, but it can do 1800p and upscale just enough, but it lets them slap 4k as a sales number which in turn helps them sell TVs.

 

I cannot imagine for the life of me, any Nintendo title that would benefit from 4k. Their party piece is that this is a viable gaming console in your hands.

[X-System]

7 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

There is a reason why companies don’t make 4K phones 

SONY Xperia ZX Premium, ZX2 Premium and Z5 Premium ?

[Arika]

22 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

agreed.

 

i still just large stutters and hangs in BotW while docked, just get it locked at 1080p@30 (or 60 if possible) and i'd be very happy...i dont need anything on the switch to run at 4k. hell even normal PC games i'm happy with 1080p

[Drama Lama]

1 minute ago, X-System said:

SONY Xperia ZX Premium, ZX2 Premium and Z5 Premium ?

Other companies than Sony?

[BobVonBob]

7 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

Other companies than Sony?

They all realized 4K phones are dumb. Hell even QHD phones are pretty dumb.

 

inb4 the only thing that runs at 4K is VVVVVV.

[Spindel]

2 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

There is a reason why companies don’t make 4K phones 

I still meet people with their main argument against an iPhone is that it doesn't have a 4K display.

[Lord Vile]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

The Xbone X can easily handle 1080p...

[Vector0102]

I mean, if there's a 4k version of a switch, cant people just dock it to a TV and play at 4k? or can the existing version do that too? Im sure 4k will be a massive upgrade over 720p/1080p (whatever the switch runs at)

 

[X-System]

11 minutes ago, Spindel said:

I still meet people with their main argument against an iPhone is that it doesn't have a 4K display.

Because no 4K = no premium

 

iPhone is a premium, so they want it to be 100% premium.

[Trik'Stari]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

You forget, they rely on the ignorance of their customers to sell their product.

 

Hard to blame them, Apple became the most valuable company on the planet using that marketing tactic.

[CephDigital]

I highly doubt they'd put a 4K screen on the actual switch itself. Support for 4K when docked? Sure. But not the Switch's screen. It'd eat into the battery life HEAVILY. At most, they'd replace the screen with a 1440p screen.

[Aereldor]

3 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

These fake resolution upgrades are really stupid to me.  Things would look better if they'd stop trying to cram more identical pixels at the expense of actual details.  The Switch can't handle 1080p, the latest Xbox and PS4 Pro can just barely handle 1080p.  Focus on 1080p instead of going after marketing numbers.

Yeah Dave Lee made a video about why he doesn't like consoles targeting higher resolutions and they'd do better to focus on 1080p with better framerates instead.

 

I'd pick 1080p at a locked 144 fps over 4k at a shaky 40 any day.

[JoostinOnline]

1 hour ago, Lord Vile said:

The Xbone X can easily handle 1080p...

 

It's manageable, usually at the expense of lowering the frame rate to 30.  Even then, games like Fallen Order can't always maintain 1080p@30fps.  60fps should be way more important than resolution.

[GoodBytes]

And with what SoC they can achieve 4K?

If anything, if anything at all, it would be DLSS 2.0 with some custom Nvidia SoC chip.

 

Already, games barely fit on the Nintendo Switch cartridges. 32GB chips are still too expensive.

And I don't see Nintendo putting 512 storage GB chip inside their $300 console, let alone 16GB of RAM

[LAwLz]

I wonder if this means they will update the SoC or if they will just update the dock to support 4K output (if it doesn't already).

If they change SoC, which one will they upgrade to? They use the Tegra X1 right now but later chips from Nvidia have mostly been focused on automotive applications.

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I wonder if this means they will update the SoC or if they will just update the dock to support 4K output (if it doesn't already).

If they change SoC, which one will they upgrade to? They use the Tegra X1 right now but later chips from Nvidia have mostly been focused on automotive applications.

 

With Switch sales being this good though, you have to imagine Nvidia would be more than happy to make a new one for Nintendo. Not like they don't have 3 full generation newer GPU hardware and turnkey upgrades in ARM CPUs available as well.

[TetraSky]

So this will result in the game cartridge increasing in price a little to accommodate larger capacity games, isn't it.

 

In any case, I've sold my switch last week for almost the same price I paid to buy it brand new.

[MyName13]

5 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

I know that.  I'm mostly just venting.  I feel like people's ignorance is hindering progress. 

When did you start to feel that?

[Dreeda]

Higher FPS (120/144) is cool and all but what % of current gen TV's in people home's are actually able to output over 60 fps without 40 ms latency? 95% of the console buyers don't even care about that, and probably never will.