There’s a surprising new rumor about Intel working with Nintendo for the Switch 3.
That was not a typo. This rumor is not about the Switch 2 that is set to release this year. It really is about the Switch 3, the handheld gaming console we expect Nintendo to make after this console, sometime five to ten years from now. As reported by WCCFTech, this comes from KeyBanc analyst John Vinh. Vinh is analyzing the situation between Intel and AMD, and we have to discuss that to understand this rumor.
Because of the changing geopolitics around technology, there’s speculation that Intel, which is based in the US, will be partnering with one of its big rivals, TSMC, which is based in Taiwan. TSMC also works with an Intel rival, AMD, by making the semiconductors AMD designs in their foundries.
Because TSMC is expected to lose business as a non-American company, it’s believed that the Intel-TSMC joint venture will allow them to combine their foundry businesses together. Intel designs semiconductors, just like AMD, and they also have their own foundries which can manufacture these semiconductors and other chips.
Vinh’s analysis builds on this speculation, by pointing out that Intel is set to dominate AMD because of their 18A process technology. You can watch a small video explanation of what 18A is here. What’s important to know is that 18A puts Intel at a technological advantage over AMD. But then, Vinh also drops this bombshell:
“We believe INTC [Intel] has won the GPU gaming socket for the Nintendo Switch 3 on 18A.”
Based on datamining, we know that Samsung, whose best known for their Galaxy smartphones, has a foundry contract with Nintendo on the Switch 2. They are presumably mass manufacturing the SOC that Nvidia designed for Nintendo. Vinh isn’t saying that Intel will replace Nvidia in designing the Switch 3’s CPU.
What he’s saying is regardless if Nvidia will stay with Nintendo for the Switch 3 or not, Intel will be mass manufacturing the GPU for the upcoming console. That may sound like it’s projecting too far ahead, but if you didn’t know, game companies do start planning what they’ll do for the next generation of their consoles on or after they launch their latest generation. Sony themselves admitted that they planned and designed the PlayStation 5 Pro at the same time as the PlayStation 5 itself.
While this rumor may be true, it’s obviously very early to make these plans. They can easily change later, depending if things turn out favorably or unfavorably for Intel, AMD, TSMC, etc. We don’t even know what 18A can do to be properly excited about this. The fact that this rumor exists at all speaks to how big a player Nintendo is in the tech industry.
