The Nintendo Switch successor, dubbed Switch 2, is expected to feature a custom chip rather than an existing NVIDIA design.
According to Reuters‘ sources, the Nintendo Switch 2 is expected to launch this year in 2024, and is likely to include a NVIDIA custom design. This would be in contrast to the Nintendo Switch, which featured NVIDIA’s existing Tegra X1 chip design.
While it may be a custom design, the SoC featured in the Nintendo Switch 2 is likely to be based on one of NVIDIA’s upcoming Tegra chips. Earlier in September, 2022, we reported an NVIDIA employee’s statement, in which he said that the GPU manufacturer had added support for the Tegra239 SoC, which features cores in a single cluster. The claim made by reliable NVIDIA leaker kopite7kimi that Nvidia will use a modified version of its T234 Orin chip (T239) for the next-generation Switch is further supported by this revelation.
More recently, in October, 2023, known insider Nate the Hate stated that one of the features that he believes is being omitted from the Nintendo Switch successor is frame generation, which was introduced with DLSS 3.1. He clarified that the console will use a custom feature set. He further mentioned that, with the aid of DLSS features, the Nintendo Switch 2 will to be able to perform well for the foreseeable future.
In January, 2024, it was reported by Taiwain’s Economic Daily that the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware will be equipped with the NVIDIA T239 chip, 8 GB RAM, 64GB internal storage space, and a battery with greatly improved life. Additionally, the handheld’s display will have a refresh rate of 120Hz, leading to the possibility of certain games targeting a frame rate of 120fps. It’s currently unknown whether the display will also support Variable Refresh Rate, but it would certainly make sense for it to do so. Additionally, it was stated that the console will retail for a $100 more than the Nintendo Switch, bringing its price to 400 US Dollars.
