We have new bombastic rumors about Nintendo’s next hardware, from a popular source who has also earned their reputation.
Necro Felipe, webmaster for Portuguese fansite Universo Nintendo, has shared the most details he has ever revealed about this upcoming device. He was one of several leakers who started using the name Switch 2, although of course, Nintendo has yet to give the device a real name.
He also shared an earlier specs rumor that the device would have DLSS 3.1, ray tracing, and 12 GB RAM. These rumors, while unsubstantiated, naturally excited fans, because they were reasonable moves to bring Nintendo’s platform up to date with its competitors.
But now we have to reckon with the big one, as Felipe has shared a bigger spec leak for the device. As shared on reddit by user RexVandham, who we will trust for the translation, this is what the Switch 2’s specs are now rumored to have:
- “T239 SoC
- TSMC N4 node process (4 nanometre?)
- 8-core A78C CPU, clock rates unknown, don’t know what’s meant by GA10F (this could be the GPU line)
- 12 stream multiprocessor GPU, performance ranging from 3.5 to 4.5 TFLOPs docked and 1.7 to 2.0 TFLOPs handheld
- 12 or 16GB RAM, LPDDR5 DRAM
- 100GB/s memory bandwidth docked and 88GB/s handheld
- Memory cache specifics uncertain, Tegra GPU cores may be able to access CPU cache
- Display is 8″ screen with 1080p and 60hz refresh rate
- Internal storage either 256 or 512GB
- Cartridge specifics unknown, but 3D-NAND may provide a cost-effective way to significantly increase storage
- Expanded/external(?) storage and battery details remain unknown
Additional details referring to DLSS, Reflex and Ray Tracing with favourable comparisons to RTX 3000 graphic cards, full HD (1080p) on handheld mode, a 512GB internal storage ceiling and 500GB storage potential on cartridges utilising 3D-NAND technology”
That’s a lot to swallow, but the main takeaways here would be the promise of legitimately powerful specs, that we can believe can take ports of games that were released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, in the same way that the Switch could take ports of games from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Of course, you are also likely to remember that the Nintendo Switch was able to punch well above its weight thanks to specialist port studios. They did make compromises on these newer games, but as Switch users cheerily pointed out, ports of games like Doom Eternal, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Nier: Automata The End Of Yorha Edition are highly satisfactory.
Regardless of how you process these rumors, Nintendo is now in a strange situation. Even though the company, theoretically, stays one generation behind their competitors in terms of technology, they take just as long to make games as these other studios do. Splatoon 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom both took a solid five years to make, which isn’t overly long for the industry, but unfortunately, the norm.
Nintendo certainly has to keep up to date, but alongside that comes the challenges of getting caught up in the same bind PlayStation and Microsoft deal with; having to make expensive games, that may not sell enough to justify their production costs, making the whole enterprise fruitless. How will Nintendo escape such a trap? It’s these mysteries that will take longer than a console launch to fully unravel, as it’s possible not even Nintendo knows.
