1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,200 Nintendo spends a shocking amount of time and energy antagonizing the gaming community. 2 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:11,120 And yet, I bought a Wii, I bought a Wii U, I bought a Switch, I bought an OLED Switch, 3 00:00:11,120 --> 00:00:14,240 and I'm gonna buy a Switch too. Why? 4 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:22,320 Because nobody does what Nintendo. I mean, who else could tease an upcoming console with the performance of a generation 5 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:26,520 and a half old competing machine, and yet have the community say, 6 00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:30,960 sounds great, because the games for it are going to rock. 7 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:36,600 Speaking of community scuttle butt, this may be the most leaked Nintendo hardware ever, 8 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:41,680 and on top of the official announcement, there is a lot more that we know, or at least 9 00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:45,640 mostly know, that makes us pretty excited about the Switch too. 10 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:50,680 Let's begin the adventure of sorting through it all. It's dangerous to go alone, take this. 11 00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:53,720 No way. Did we get a Switch too early? 12 00:00:53,720 --> 00:01:07,760 Of course. Here's our sponsor. 13 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:13,000 Always masters of the roostertees, Nintendo gave us a mere 2 minute 22 second tour of 14 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:20,360 their attempt number two at a hybrid console. But while at first glance, you might think it was pretty light on the details, the keen 15 00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:25,240 eyed have been gleaning a ton of info. Let's start with the good news. 16 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:29,120 In Nintendo's track record of following up their most successful launches with hyper 17 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:34,120 confusingly named successors, a simple two on the end of the name feels like a pretty 18 00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:39,160 smart move, especially given that the vision for the Switch too seems to be remarkably similar 19 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:45,920 to the original, just in a substantially larger package that actually looks a lot like the 20 00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:50,440 handheld gaming PCs that seem to have prodded Nintendo into action here. 21 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:56,880 But don't kid yourself, the plain black exterior is packed with subtle Nintendo charm and refinements, 22 00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:02,480 like a better kickstand, a new dock and two USB-C ports, meaning better ergonomics while 23 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:08,240 charging and better support for multiple accessories without needing a dongle. 24 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:13,200 All without sacrificing the headphone jack. Now that is courage. 25 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,960 The new Joy-Cons also look great, the magnetic mounting mechanism looks way less finicky 26 00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:22,840 than the previous sliding one, and thank goodness they're slightly larger for those 27 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:27,080 of us who aren't literal children, but still enjoy Mario Party. 28 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:31,320 Both Joy-Cons appear to have infrared sensors this time, and we've seen speculation that 29 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:38,360 this strange hole on the controller rail may actually be for a laser, for mouse functionality? 30 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:44,360 For a brief moment, the Joy-Cons were moving all mouse-like here, which maybe confirms 31 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:50,960 the leaks from a few weeks ago. I don't know, personally, I think it's more likely that it'll slot into like a cardboard 32 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:55,120 cheese grater for a minigame or something, but who knows with Nintendo. 33 00:02:55,120 --> 00:02:59,800 Now exclusive to the right Joy-Con is the mysterious C button. 34 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:03,800 Its exclusion from the left Joy-Con leads us to believe that it controls some kind of 35 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:12,120 function in handheld mode. On past Nintendo controllers, C often meant camera, but it could also be chat, or capture, 36 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:17,480 or connect button for wirelessly streaming games to your dock, like the Wii U. 37 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:22,040 Okay, that one is speculation on our part, and besides, the only C that I care about 38 00:03:22,040 --> 00:03:26,200 is backwards compatibility. That's right, baby! 39 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:32,680 You get to play your OG Switch games, both physical and digital, on your brand new machine. 40 00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:37,400 Now there will be some exceptions, probably the ones with the weird peripheral requirements, 41 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:43,800 but even so, this is fantastic news because there is a ginormous library of amazing Switch games, 42 00:03:43,800 --> 00:03:49,400 many of which performed like absolute dog s*** on the underpowered original console. 43 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:52,920 The only question is, how is Nintendo going to roll this out? 44 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:57,560 Personally, I'd probably just settle for more consistent framerates. 45 00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:03,000 But I'd also be surprised, given recent industry trends, if we didn't also see 46 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:08,360 next-gen visual updates. But will they be free for Nintendo online subscribers? 47 00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,640 Will Nintendo and other devs provide them as paid patches? 48 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:17,960 Or will Nintendo pull a Nintendo and lock these patches behind a full-price remaster, 49 00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,880 forcing us to rebuy Donkey Kong Country Returns for the fifth time? 50 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,320 The last of the good news is that this video unintentionally added credibility 51 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:32,200 to some of the leakers who showed off not only the new shape in Joy-Cons, but also the specs. 52 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:37,240 That's right, while you should always take leaks with at least one grain of salt, 53 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:43,400 we're feeling pretty confident that this list will closely reflect the guts of the Switch 2. 54 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:47,400 Let's start with the GMLX30-R-A1 processor. 55 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:57,000 The GMLX30 is an SOC, or system-on-a-chip, that contains the CPU, GPU, memory controller, and the IO. 56 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:07,400 It's the beating heart of the Switch 2, and from what we know, it appears to be a semi-custom 5-nanometer variant of the originally 8-nanometer NVIDIA Tegra T239 57 00:05:07,400 --> 00:05:12,680 from a couple of years ago. And if that's true, it is going to be a big upgrade. 58 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:19,720 I'm talking 8 tiered ARM cores instead of just 3, and a shockingly potent-sounding GPU 59 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:27,080 that uses NVIDIA's ampere architecture, like the GeForce 3000 series, with 1,536 CUDA cores, 60 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:32,120 12 streaming multiprocessors, and maybe even other features, such as an optical flow accelerator 61 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:37,960 for frame generation, and 8th gen NVENC video encoding. Which could add some weight to our 62 00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:44,040 hypothesis about the wireless video streaming. Now, as for other big NVIDIA features, there is no 63 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:49,800 official confirmation that Nintendo will implement support for DLSS AI-accelerated upscaling. But 64 00:05:50,840 --> 00:05:55,640 you bark my words here, guys. If the Switch 2 doesn't have some form of AI upscaling, 65 00:05:55,640 --> 00:06:01,960 I will buy and eat an entire box of this Super Mario serial with Mountain Dew as the milk live 66 00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:07,800 on WAN Show. It's going to happen. Rumors also point to the presence of 48 Gen 3 tensor cores 67 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:11,560 and 2 ray tracing ones, but I'm not eating anything if I'm wrong on those ones. 68 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:16,200 We were a lot more certain, though, about the RAM. It looks like we're going to get 12 gigs of 69 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:22,200 LPDDR5X memory clocked at 7500 megatransfer per second. That is a big upgrade from the 4 gigs 70 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:29,640 we had before at up to 1600 megatransfer per second. It comes with 256 gigs of UFS 3.1 flash 71 00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:36,120 storage rated at 2100 megabytes per second. Not sure if that's reads or writes. And it looks 72 00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:42,920 like it will be expandable using MicroSD Express, which is fantastic. It also has support for HDMI 73 00:06:42,920 --> 00:06:49,080 2.1. Although, truthfully, on Nintendo console, I'm a little less interested in high resolutions 74 00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:54,440 and framerates, and I'm a little more interested in support for variable refresh rate, which goes 75 00:06:54,440 --> 00:07:00,680 a long way towards smoothing out games that are running at sub 60 FPS. And it should also help 76 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:06,040 improve power consumption in handheld mode. And I hear what you're thinking, guys. Cool specs, bro, 77 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:11,320 like your cool, well-fitting, blank t-shirts on Hiltodstore.com. But what do the specs mean? 78 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:16,760 Well, when Digital Foundry did their performance projection based on the T239, 79 00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:22,600 what they projected was base PS4 graphics performance augmented with modern GPU features 80 00:07:22,600 --> 00:07:28,120 and solid ray tracing support. And given that that lines up well with claims from Bobby Coddick, 81 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:32,360 former CEO of Activision Blizzard, who honestly, I wish we didn't have to mention it all, 82 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:37,640 we're fairly confident that that's where we're going to land. Not mind blowing for our home console, 83 00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:43,480 but pretty exciting for a handheld console, especially one from Nintendo. Especially if you 84 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:48,920 look at Nintendo's track record of delivering exceptional visuals on extremely limited hardware. 85 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:55,000 Like, I can't wait to see what they can pull off on this thing. Speaking of games, the only game 86 00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:02,280 shown was presumably a new Mario Kart with possibly support for 24 players, if the starting 87 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:08,280 lines are anything to go by. And all I can say about that is, it's about bloody time. I mean, 88 00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:13,640 last time Nintendo released a new numbered Mario Kart, Luke still lived in the basement 89 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:19,000 at our Langley House studio. Outside of the video, we have three other games confirmed for 90 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:24,760 next-gen Nintendo platform releases, but after that, we are deep into Speculationsville. The last 91 00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:29,080 new 3D Mario game was eight years ago, so we may see one of those. The new Pokemon Legends and 92 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:33,480 Xenoblade are due this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if they lined up with console launch. 93 00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:39,960 Metroid Prime 4 is supposed to come out at some point, so switch two. For any degree of certainty, 94 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:45,000 though, we'll need to wait until April. But seeing as the Switch One had arguably the best launch 95 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:50,680 window in console history, and given that Nintendo clearly hasn't rushed this launch, 96 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:55,560 I'm hopeful that Nintendo can deliver another explosive start to the new generation. 97 00:08:56,200 --> 00:09:00,120 As excited as we all are about the first-party titles, though, only time's going to tell if 98 00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:06,280 Nintendo's ecosystem will continue to attract third-party developers. The Switch relied heavily 99 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:11,880 on its enormous install base to incentivize high-effort ports, and there's no guarantee that, 100 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:16,920 especially given that some games are clearly going to be cross-compatible, the Switch Two is going 101 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:21,480 to sell in such quantities. But on the other hand, developers probably won't need to run 102 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:27,480 their games at sub-540p resolutions anymore, and Microsoft has made no secret of their 103 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:32,360 ambitions to grow their software share on other platforms. And for that matter, we've seen hints 104 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:38,680 from Square Enix that former Sony exclusives like Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth could find a new 105 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:44,520 home at Big Red. In spite of all this, however, I doubt the Switch Two will see the same kind of 106 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:49,480 historic success as the original. First up, it remains to be seen if the performance jump will 107 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:55,480 be big enough to entice the masses. Second, many people bought multiple switches for their households, 108 00:09:55,480 --> 00:10:01,160 sometimes one for the kids and one for the TV. And as long as the games are also being released 109 00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:05,800 on the original Switch, and trust me, with an install base of over 145 million units, 110 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:10,760 that's going to be for a while. I'm not sure that those parents are going to feel the need to 111 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:15,800 upgrade consoles number two or number three in the house, at least not in the current economy. 112 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:21,800 And finally, the Switch Two has a lot more competition than the original. The original 113 00:10:21,800 --> 00:10:27,400 landed in a completely barren handheld gaming world. It proved there was an appetite for 114 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:34,440 dedicated handheld gaming devices, but in doing so, since its release, we have seen a flood 115 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:40,600 of excellent options from other parties like the Steam Deck from Valve and the Ally X from ASUS, 116 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:48,120 both of which can run Switch games better than the original Switch can, which as long as the game 117 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:53,000 libraries overlap is kind of what the Switch Two does. At the end of the day, though, as someone 118 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:57,560 who pays for my games, I can't wait to get my hands on the Switch Two when it comes out later 119 00:10:57,560 --> 00:11:02,280 this year, just like I can't wait to tell you about our sponsor. If you like Nintendo consoles, 120 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:07,320 you should check out our gaming console tier list. We have no we don't have that many controversial 121 00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:11,160 takes, David. I think they're good takes.