One of the problems with the Nintendo Switch is its lack of performance, especially when not connected to the Dock, where you can see how many games are lowering their resolution to disturbing levels. Along with the 3DS and the DS, we’ve seen improved versions of both in the form of New 3DS and DSi respectively, which has led NVIDIA to get to work developing a new chip for the future iteration of the console, however, for those in Santa Clara, things did not go as planned.
Nintendo and NVIDIA divorce
Let’s be honest, the Switch Pro doesn’t exist as a commercial product, but it has been heralded with great fanfare thanks to Bloomberg’s prestige all this time so that in the end it all sums up in a version of the current Switch, but with an OLED screen, a disappointment for those who expected a more powerful console.
The reality is that the high sales of the hybrid console have made Nintendo very comfortable with the current model and doesn’t want to know anything about an improved iteration of its system despite the fact that there are games in its catalog with really poor performance. However, NVIDIA has been developing an SoC all this time for said laptop.
From Santa Clara they named the said SoC Diana and it is a variant of the Tegra Orin T239, however, it lacks the units for the automotive industry and has the same configuration as the GeForce MX570, as it is made up of 2,048 CUDA cores. organized in 16 SMs coming from the RTX 30 architecture. Therefore, this SoC supports DLSS and Ray Tracing. As for the CPU, it will come with 8 Cortex A78 cores.
NVIDIA goes its own way
The end of the relationship between NVIDIA and Nintendo and the interest of the former in the promotion of games based on ARM as well as the appearance of the Steam Deck were enough to encourage them to pursue new horizons by creating their own video game console. portable. they baptized NVIDIA Play Now
This is a hybrid system just like the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, with the ability to connect the console to the TV via a dock. However, it has some improvements such as a full hd pants It would lack a slot for the game cards, since it would have an NVMe SSD to store them.
In terms of peripheral support, the console will be compatible with external control buttons be able to play from TV, as well as with mice and keyboards.
NVIDIA Play Now will have its own titles
NVIDIA’s Play Now strategy has two fronts, the first of which is convincing developers to switch from x86 to ARM, so we’re going to see a lot of conversions from PC games to the new ARM-based ARM platform. As for the second front, it has to do with GeForce Now and it will help console users to play games that have not yet been ported or those who do not have possession of them through Cloud Gaming.
The console operating system will be based on Linux, but with a proprietary interface reminiscent of the current GeForce Experience and GeForce Now. From there we can load the games, either the cloud or console native versions. Facing the game in the cloud the console will benefit from DLSS for higher performance and lower latency when rendering at a lower resolution on the server and scaling on the user console.
Ya para terminar Play now will not allow installation of other operating systems and its price should be between 799 and 999 dollars. Its launch? Next year, it will be shown at CES 2022 on January 4.
Clarification: While it is not impossible for NVIDIA to launch its own portable console, this news is innocent.
