It’s only the seventh day of the year and we’ve already got some wild Nintendo rumours circulating online, so grab some salt and read on.
According to an article over on Wccftech, well-known dataminer and console hacker SciresM has uncovered “new information” about the rumoured Switch ‘Pro’ model by sifting through firmware code – although the source says these details may not necessarily be accurate and there is a fair bit of speculation, too.
With this in mind, the revised system could apparently be codenamed “Aula” and utilise a Mariko SoC. In addition to this, it’s believed it will feature both docked and handheld play, 4K support in some way or form and could potentially include an OLED screen. The Realtek chip might also be in the dock, rather than the system.
Here’s exactly what SciresM had to say, via ResetEra:
Nintendo actually is working on a new model with upgraded display stuff and has been for ~1.5-2 years. I personally believe it’s 4K given the signs I’m seeing in the firmware, but that’s not confirmed yet and could be wrong.
The new hardware is codenamed Aula, it’s using a Mariko SoC. There’s a bunch of references to it in code (atmosphere supports the new display already in theory).
The tablet itself definitely has an upgraded display, I don’t know if it’s 4K.
Aula has firmware support some Realtek chip that advertises itself as a “4K UHD multimedia SoC”, too, hence my belief it’s 4K. That chip might be inside a new dock and not inside the tablet, though, there’s no way to tell from the firmware code yet.
Aula explicitly supports handheld mode. It is not docked only; that’s calcio, which seems like it’s for internal only/never releasing since Calcio has no gamecard slot and no battery.
You can check boot sysmodule display code if you’re curious. The new display doesn’t support power management pwm, it has its own vendor specific bs I had to reverse engineer and implement a month or two ago.
Mariko has *substantially* better cooling and battery life. It’s a bona fide die shrink over the original generation.
I best guess (pure speculation, no firmware indication this is the case) is that if they need extra performance, they’ll push it to higher clock rates across the board.
But yeah, I speculate games will be like “DSi enhanced” games were, or like how some games benefited from PS4 Pro despite working on PS4.
Checked my previous discussions with hexkyz, the upgraded tablet display is an OLED screen. Probably not higher resolution on tablet itself, so I guess the 4k realtek chip is more likely to be new dock than I thought it was.
Vanilla probably won’t.
We’re in the realm of speculation. Aula has new GPIO that redbox doesn’t related to support for this, so I would tentatively guess that redbox units won’t support the new thing.
Switch ‘Pro’ rumours have been circulating for a few years now, and a number of industry analysts are still confident it will show up at some point this year. You can catch up on all the previous developments in our comprehensive guide.
What are your own thoughts about all of this? Do you think any of this could come true or is it as unlikely as that fake Nintendo Direct leak? Tell us down in the comments below.
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