Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#151

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

karel-3d wrote: post #119

loudmax wrote: post #97

How do Switch users feel about the joycons? I'm not a gamer, but the original Switch joycons always struck me as overly complicated and expensive. It should be cheaper to manufacture and sell Switches with the controllers attached. Indeed, this is what they did with the Switch Lite. For games that take advantage of joycon functionality, Nintendo could have sold something like an updated Switch version of the Wiimote…

They are fine but they break very easily; after a while they start to "drift" and the games become unplayable. I needed to repair one pair last year because the drift was unbearable; the repair costs almost as much as a new one. (And one started drifting again.) I am not a heavy player at all and I got the drift.

I wish you could just turn off the sticks in the system software — it's a trivial fix that would make the problem a whole lot more bearable.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#152

Post by eloisant » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

sigmoid10 wrote: post #139

nkjoep wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the other side, it could be a big plus for new comers into the Nintendo Switch platform

I really wonder how big that market can be. I mean, for people who still haven't gotten a switch or steam deck or anything similar until now, how likely is this going to change their mind?

People who started to look when the Switch was already 3-4 years old, and passed because it's underpowered.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#153

Post by atemerev » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

Bright-colored controllers were so much better. Also the way they were attached before is much better.

Switch 1 was the work of art. This one looks like the work of A/B testing and “we are losing customers as they choose Steam Deck over us, so let’s make it look like Steam Deck”

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#154

Post by Dansvidania » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

ErneX wrote: post #133

sigmoid10 wrote: post #123

Huh. I guess updated ergonomics / QoL stuff and confirmation of backwards compatibility counts as enough of an update over the last hardware refresh. But zero info on anything that could actually make this worth a buy. Granted, this feels like Nintendo who will do anything to not get dragged into PS/XBOX flops discussions. But without any real upgrade or even games announcements, I suppose most people will keep holdi…

They supposedly had this console ready to ship a year or even two ago. Rumor is the reason they are releasing it this year is to have a decent catalogue of games lined up for launch and launch window.

which makes complete sense, no?

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#155

Post by bhouston » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

systems wrote: post #137

So I can only guess the reason why they didn't mention how much more powerful NS2 is compared to NS1, is because it is not that much more powerful? I would guess only 30 to 50% more powerful

The leaks specs are [1]:

- ARM 8 Arm Cortex-A78C

- GPU: Nvidia T239 Ampere, 12 SM/1534 Cores

- 12 GB of ram.

Compared to Switch 1 [2]:

- ARM 4 Cortex-A57 cores @ 1.02 GHz

- GPU: NVIDIA Maxwell 256 cores

- 4 GB of ram.

It should like it should be a major boost in performance from those specs, like maybe 4x improvement overall?

Of course there are more pixels on this screen, so the amount of GPU per pixel may stay roughly the same.

[1] https://thegamepost.com/nintendo-switch-2-full-specs-appears... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#156

Post by bsimpson » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

ta988 wrote: post #141

Did they finally fix the early dying joysticks? Because that's the main issue of the switch.

The last time I tried to use my Switch, I realized that the joy cons are no longer usable separately. Seems the connection to the internal shoulder buttons is broken, and you can't reorient the controllers unless you can hold them both down.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#157

Post by iammiles » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

My number one wish for this iteration is more reliability out of the joycons.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#158

Post by richrichardsson » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

systems wrote: post #137

So I can only guess the reason why they didn't mention how much more powerful NS2 is compared to NS1, is because it is not that much more powerful? I would guess only 30 to 50% more powerful

If you believe the leakers [1]:

    Full specs:
    
    CPU: Arm Cortex-A78C
    8 cores
    Unknown L1/L2/L3 cache sizes
    GPU: Nvidia T239 Ampere
    1 Graphics Processing Cluster (GPC)
    12 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM)
    1534 CUDA cores
    6 Texture Processing Clusters (TPC)
    48 Gen 3 Tensor cores
    2 RTX ray-tracing cores
    RAM: 12 GB LPDDR5

    Handheld Mode:
    
    CPU: 998.4 MHz
    GPU: 561 MHz (~1.72 TFLOPS)
    Memory Frequency: 4266 MHz
    Memory Bandwidth: 68.256 GB/s

    Docked Mode:
    
    CPU: 1100.8 MHz
    GPU: 1007.25 MHz (~3.09 TFLOPS)
    Memory Frequency: 6400 MHz
    Memory Bandwidth: 102.4 GB/s

Switch 2 in comparison with the original Nintendo Switch:

    Category    Nintendo Switch 2    Nintendo Switch
    CUDA Cores  1536                 256
    Bus Width   128-bit              64-bit
    Memory Size 12 GB                4 GB
    Memory Type LPDDR5X              LPDDR4
    SM Count    12                   2
    Bandwidth   120 GB/s             25.6GB/s
    Dimensions  206 x 115 x 14       173 x 102 x 13.9
    (LWD mm)

[1] https://thegamepost.com/nintendo-switch-2-full-specs-appears...

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#159

Post by LorenDB » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

_imnothere wrote: post #45

Absolute friendly reminder: this is a device from the company which they do C&D and abuse DMCA to community devs

Indeed. Unfortunately, even if all of HN boycotts the Switch 2 it won't have an effect on Nintendo, but their behavior is entirely unacceptable and is boycott-worthy.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#160

Post by eloisant » Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #146

Looks like a new controller attachment system, maybe magnetic, except that doesn't seem robust enough for excited play. I wonder what that means for spare controllers. It's a waste to make people go buy new extra controllers for multiplayer games. Maybe you can use your old Switch as a charger and pair via BT? Not nearly as nice as just sliding it on to pair, but hopefully reduces e-waste.

I would be surprised if older joycons can't be paired via BT.

There are already alternative ways to charge them, either charging stations or charging grip.