Dean Takehashi has made a detailed report on the Nintendo Switch on Venturebeat. He has pointed out that the Switch, which is due in 2017, will not be more powerful than the PlayStation 4, which is now three years old as the device uses an Nvidia Maxwell architecture chip, rather than the more recent Pascal chips. The custom Maxwell Tegra uses a 20nm chip. The report said that Nintendo could not wait for a Pascal-based Tegra chip.
“If Nintendo gets traction with this, we forecast they will ship 5 million Switches by the end of 2017,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, analyst at market researcher Jon Peddie Research and a long-time graphics expert. “I don’t see Nintendo’s strategy as a risk,” Peddie told Gamebeat. “Too many pundits and fan boys and investors make a serious mistake when they try to compare and contrast Nintendo with Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo has a niche in the affordable, accessible product, and performance is never a leading criteria for them. It is gameplay and immersion. They are never a technology pioneer. Trying to compare Nintendo to Sony is like comparing a Volkswagen to a Corvette. It’s a facetious and fallacious analogy and a discredit to fans who love Nintendo.”
More information is expected in a presentation by Nintendo on Jan 12th although it was revealed in a US TV presentation that it has a USB Type-C connector.
