Jensen Huang was featured in the latest Creator’s Voice for the Nintendo Switch 2, and he has some interesting, even surprisingly heartfelt things to say about the console and Nintendo.
Nvidia is in an interesting place right now. Two weeks after facing a YouTuber blackballing controversy, the company’s stock price leapfrogged to make it once again the most valuable company in the world.
Nvidia’s connection with Nintendo and the Switch 2 is a strange oasis from all this noise and controversy for the company. As we have seen with the original Switch, Nvidia worked closely with Nintendo to make a platform capable of running full console games at low power.
It certainly seems strange to imagine this now, but that vision didn’t seem possible before the Switch. One need only compare Borderlands 2 on the PlayStation Vita to the Borderlands Legendary Collection on the Switch to recognize the paradigm shift that Nintendo’s console created.
In this Creator’s Voice, Huang surprised everyone by talking about former Nintendo CEO, President, and game developer Satoru Iwata. Iwata remains well-loved in the industry and by gamers for multiple reasons. It wasn’t just that he had a great fun-loving persona to fans, or that he brought Nintendo back to blockbuster success. He created revolution in the video game industry by making new, in many times unlikely, connections in and outside the business. And as you may have heard many times, he’s made close friendships and made strong impressions to peers along the way.
Huang gave Iwata the full credit for the groundbreaking vision behind the original Nintendo Switch. While this was a short video, he hinted on what must have been immense work to make an Nvidia SOC that met Nintendo’s high and unusual standards.
Huang would go on to tout some of the things that Nvidia added to the Switch 2. We think these details were noteworthy enough to transcribe below:
The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device. Full hardware ray tracing, high dynamic range for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an architecture that supports backwards compatibility.
Dedicated AI processors to sharpen, animate and enhance gameplay in real time, and it’s ultra low power. We optimize the semiconductor process technology for high performance in a handheld device, so it can go where you go. This chip is a technical marvel. It delivers performance, intelligence, and beauty in the palm of your hand.
Some viewers may have assumed that this was technobabble, but Huang simply rephrased some things that Nvidia already shared about the Switch 2. For example, the “Dedicated AI processors” he mentions refer to tensor cores, and Huang described how those cores function for DLSS.
It’s an oddly fascinating little clip in this way, but we would definitely love it if Huang, or perhaps Nvidia’s engineers, share more technical knowledge behind the development of this console. This could be the subject of a future Ask The Developer feature for sure.
In the meantime, you can watch the Creator’s Voice video below.
