Rumor: Nintendo Working On A New Chip, “Next Switch” Dev Kits Are Out

A new rumor is spreading around about the Nintendo Switch’s successor.

According to OreXda on Twitter, the dev kits for the next Nintendo console are already going around to developers. In their words:

“According to my source, Next Gen of Nintendo Switch DevKit have been just send to developers.”

Does that name sound familiar to you? If you follow this site for news regularly, you just might remember it.

That’s right, this is the same OreXda who goes by the name Connor / 코너 / コナー, and shared an earlier rumor about the next Nintendo Switch.

OreXda claimed that the Switch would be getting a 5LPP Tegra chip manufactured by Samsung’s foundry. Unfortunately for us, OreXda took back that rumor later. He did confirm that those 5LPP orders are for chips for cars and not Nintendo.

Still, OreXda certainly came onto everyone’s radar as it became clear that they had some insider sources in the industry.

Since it seems those sources are closer to the manufacturing side than within Nintendo, we have to guess that OreXda’s source for this is the same source for the first rumor, or possibly someone who works in the same department, or has similar connections.

Of course, OreXda was asked if they knew what the chip this Switch successor is using this time. Their response:

“Nah. Let me just taste the new “Tegra” Chip first.”

That was funny, but if you were disappointed that OreXda had nothing solid to share on this end, there actually is something.

A few days earlier, somewhat unnoticed, OreXda shared this:

“Btw, I just checked some rumors with Nintendo employee currently.

But yes. They are currently seems working on new SoC. And they have been dropped Samsung Foundry 8nm Tegra too.”

Since OreXda uses Hangul, and their focus seems to be Samsung and chips, OreXda and this Nintendo employee they are in contact with, are both probably Koreans. Their access to this information is likely because they have some connection to the manufacturing side.

These rumors are honestly more credible than the first one OreXda shared. It would have been exciting if this hypothetical Switch 2 had a 5nm node, based on currently existing spec. But it’s more likely that Nintendo had commissioned a new spec entirely.

That’s because they aren’t likely to spend top dollar on the most expensive chips, as they do try to sell consoles at a profit. Subsequently, they would be smarter to balance out the price to performance ratio of those chips, since they would value other things as well.

For example, a chip that will run for 20 hours is more valuable for them than the AMD Ryzen 6800U. The Ryzen 6800U is the main chip used in many Windows based gaming handhelds today, like the Aya Neo 2 and GPD Win 4. However, most of these devices can barely run their games at their highest settings for one hour.

In so many ways, the Nintendo Switch as it exists now is still a better deal than those devices, especially the Nintendo Switch Lite.

Nintendo would be looking for a similar value for their next device, even as it definitely needs to see a power upgrade.

With these small details leaking out, it certainly feels like a potential announcement for that next Nintendo Switch is inching closer and closer.