Nintendo Switch 2 is FINALLY "confirmed"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itpcsQQvgAQ

So, here are my initial thoughts. When I woke up this morning, and I saw this trailer on social-media, at first I thought it was just a fan-made trailer. Then I went over to Nintendo.com and saw that it was a legit trailer. So, I watched it there. THE NAME - Nintendo has decided to make the Switch a "brand" at least for the short-term if not long-term by doing something that they have never done before and that is "numbering" a console in succession. It's probably the best course of action, and is one of many signs of a change in strategy by the new management-structure in Nintendo of Japan. While the historical rule of Nintendo of always naming a console after what the "hook" of the console is still loosely applies, it's not really applicable here. This is more in-line with successful consumer products such as the iPhone, or in-line with what Sony has done with the PlayStation brand. It also suggests that Nintendo plans to stick with the hybrid-design from now on, or at least until the form factor is no longer viable in the marketplace, which is a sound business strategy in my opinion. THE LOOK - Well, let's just keep it a buck. We've SEEN this already. Literally EVERY SINGLE THING we saw in this trailer has been leaked already. I'll touch more on that in a bit. It looks nice. Very smooth and sleek. The orange and blue accents underneath the thumb sticks really pop out and give a nice charm to the design. However, like I said, we've already seen this. THE GAME?? - Well, the leaked rumor that this trailer would not focus on software was true because it did not. They showed Mario Kart..........

I hope for THEIR sake that this was just a placeholder video and not indicative of what Mario Kart 9 will look like on the Switch 2 because this didn't not look better than the Wii U Mario Kart 8 in any way, shape, or form. That BETTER not be a representation of what it is........... OVERALL PRESENTATION - Pretty good. Still had the Nintendo charm without the cheese and the corn while giving a more modern-feel to it making the Switch 2 feel less like a toy, and more like a major consumer electronic-device. This video was purposefully left to be ambiguous so that nothing they want to reveal later could be easily extrapolated from it. Giving a firm date on when the full blow-out of the Nintendo Switch 2 will be released which is April 2nd, 2025, was something that was long overdue and Nintendo should have done in the first place. There was NO REASON to make us wait this long. NO REASON.....but, at least they finally did it. This video will at the very least put to rest the rumors of what the console looks like, and maybe quiet down the fan base for awhile which had gotten pretty obnoxious and overbearing the past few months. So, here are my final thoughts. Either Nintendo is embarking on an incredibly unorthodox strategy of allowing many facets of the Switch 2 to leak out into the media as a way of gauging interest and free advertising as was suggested by LeveledHead from LeveledHeadGamer on YouTube... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4A_vUXWU ....OR...this is the most amateurish, irresponsible, unprofessional, and totally dilapidated roll out of a video game console in the genre's history. I mean, how can anyone POSSIBLY be this stupid? We saw the WHOLE FREAKING THING already! MONTHS AGO! Not only that, supposedly Nintendo makes a statement that the prototypes shown by accessory manufacturer Genki, were NOT based on the final design, which clearly is a false statement or just semantics because maybe they got only little thing incorrect somewhere, and Nintendo just used that to say it was not based on the final design, which if true, is extremely petty and childish. If you messed up, or you were too lazy and stuff leaked out, own up to that. Don't make excuses. If you did leak this stuff out on purpose, but more leaked out than what you WANTED to leak out, or BEFORE you wanted it to leak out, just leave it alone. Accept the consequences for your actions. It didn't hurt anything. Obviously, this trailer doesn't do much for anyone that has been following this story other than to give everyone a little breather and take the edge off. This was more of a "confirmation" than a "reveal." This is just Nintendo in a video format saying to us, "Yes, everything that you have seen in the leaks thus far in terms of design is correct." That's all they really did. I know some of the more overzealous people out there will try to look deeper into certain aspects of the trailer to create their own narrative to fuel their content on their chosen platforms up until April, but there really isn't much, nor is it necessary. You have a firm date on when you will next hear more about the Switch 2. Just cool out and relax until then. However, still keeping it a buck..........Nintendo could have gave us this trailer in September 2024. Just sayin'........

Arrogance or Confidence?

Whatever reasoning that Nintendo Of Japan has or had regarding the rollout of OFFICIAL information regarding the Nintendo Switch successor obviously only they know, but I think it's gone too far now. The sad part about all this is that it doesn't even matter if the leaks are "real" or "fake." It's one thing when some random person on the internet makes statements on social-media or in columns of news journals regarding what they have heard or saw, but now you have 3rd-party accessory companies giving full blow-outs of the console showing the entire world what the Switch successor looks like. Sure, it is possible that the final design could be different, but you are not going to have multiple companies running around spending time, money, and other resources to make prototypes of accessories for a non-finalized design. You certainly would not have them showing it off at an event as huge as CES. I could be wrong, but I think that what we have seen is the final design of the Switch successor. The question is, why is everyone BUT Nintendo showing us this? Nintendo has remained quiet with zero commentary on all these leaks on THEIR device. I've never seen anything like this before. As I see it, there are two schools of thought on this. 1. Complete incompetence. 2. Unabashed arrogance. It doesn't seem to me that Nintendo would all of a sudden become this incompetent to let all this information leak by accident. My bet is on the latter. I think that they are just so arrogant that they can reveal it whenever they want to, however they want to. Under normal circumstances that would be true. Especially if all information about the device was still under wraps. Now, the cat is out of the bag, the horse is out of the barn, and the rats are off the ship. The only things we don't know at this point are, what the games look like, what the games are, the price of the system and games, and release date. That's basically it in terms of information that the consumer needs to know to make an informed purchase. The Bible says, "Pride goes before the fall." Nintendo is being super prideful right now. Legally, they are treading on thin ice as well. Nintendo has an investors meeting schedule for the beginning of February. I'm pretty sure that shareholders are not happy about all these leaks from outside sources but no information from Nintendo themselves. They are not going to be able to stand there and say... "We don't have any information regrading the Switch successor at this time. Please understand." That ain't gonna cut it. If I were a shareholder with Nintendo I would be like, "Naw, ya'll can miss me with that. I want to know what you are doing with MY money NOW." As a shareholder of any stock, it is Federal-law that you are REQUIRED to be informed about activities within the company that are directly linked to your shareholdings. For a company to withhold information in this regard and to engage in any activity that involves shareholder's money without their knowledge and consent, that is Securities Fraud which is a FEDERAL OFFENSE punishable of 5-years in prison per-offense in the United States. Now, I know that Nintendo is a Japanese company, but they have many shareholders in the United States as well as other nations. Plus, Japan has similar laws and consequences with their government. I say all that to say that Nintendo cannot get out of January with announcing the Switch successor. At this point, it is out of their hands and if all we have seen is what we are gonna get, a 3-minute trailer isn't going to do anything for you now. You might as well just scrap that and give us a regular Nintendo Direct showcasing the games and price information. There is no sense of anticipation anymore from a "surprise" standpoint unless everything we have seen thus far is wrong (which is still possible.) It's basically like you peaked in and saw your Christmas present ahead of time. You were initially excited when you saw it first, but when it came time to open the gift it wasn't that exciting because you knew you were getting it already. That happened to me in 1985. My mother came in from shopping and I could see through the bag as she walked past me that the Monopoly board game was in there.

Another time, when she wasn't at home, I peaked into her bedroom closet and saw on the top shelf that she had bought me Omega Supreme, which was one of my favorite Transformers. Sure, I was happy that I finally got to play with it on Christmas day, but I had to "fake" surprise and excitement because I already knew I was getting it.

Now, if ANY portion of what was leaked in the recent patent-filing by Nintendo regarding it's new variant of DLSS finds it's way into the Switch successor, I think the games could blow us away and MAYBE.....................that is the hook in all of this. Maybe the games look so incredible in comparison to what we have come to expect from Nintendo that they feel that will be enough to silence the masses. I guess we won't have long to wait to find out.

New Nintendo Patent Filed For AI Upscaling

Before I get started, I just want to put this disclaimer out there that patent filings don't necessarily mean that a company is planning to use these patents anytime soon, or at all. https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadBasicPdf/12182966?requestToken=eyJzdWIiOiJhZTNlMDM2OS02M2RjLTQ0MWItOTdkNy1mMWVhMjg0MzIwNTEiLCJ2ZXIiOiIzNjdiZmZhZC0zMDI4LTQwYjctYjM5Ni05YzNhYzJjNDNkZjciLCJleHAiOjB9

This is what I want to talk about today. Some ACTUAL, TANGIBLE, REALISTIC INFORMATION, based on a REAL PATENT filed by Nintendo themselves. This is the short-description of the patent filed on July 13th, 2023 and was released to the public on December 31st, 2024. "A computer system is provided for converting images through use of a trained neural network. A source image is divided into blocks and context data is added to each pixel block. The context blocks are split into channels and each channel from the same context block is added to the same activation matrix. The action matrix is then executed against a trained neural network to produce a changed activation matrix. The changed activation matrix is then used to generate a converted image." What all this technical jargon means is that this patent will allow for Nintendo to use some type of AI to upscale images. It doesn't say when, where, or why. It just discusses what it does. Presumably, this would be the vaunted DLSS upscaling technology that we have heard about ad-nausea to this point. You ever notice how crisp images look on small screens sometimes even on low-powered machines, but when you take that image as it is and make it larger, the image loses visual integrity? It's because only so much information is there in the smaller image. If the image is smaller, you cannot see the holes where there is no information because everything is compacted down. When you blow it up, now you can see those holes. It's just like when you take a low resolution picture and it looks worse when you try to blow it up. While this is not precisely what it is doing, in Layman's terms what the system is doing is cutting the image into small pieces, adding more visual information there to fill those holes and making each piece more dense with data, and then the AI puts the image back together again. Now, when the image is upscaled to a higher resolution, it retains the visual fidelity it did at a lower resolution.

Now, in this image here it shows how the process works in simple terms. Obviously 1080p is NOT the desired output for the Switch successor (it better NOT be.) Patents are made to be ambiguous on purpose so that people cannot get the total context on what they are planning. You'll see patents that are clearly talking about the Switch successor but they show schematics of the current Switch because they don't want you to know what the new one looks like. It could also be why Nintendo hasn't said or done anything regarding all these supposed "leaks" to the Switch successor. Maybe it doesn't matter to them because what has been "leaked" is not to hook of the system and is self-explanatory e.g. magnetic Joy-Cons, Hall-effect thumbsticks, microphone, etc. Or, what has been shown is so far off the beam that they are just letting people make complete and utter fools of themselves. They've done it before.... Getting back to the point, this technology seems to be able to double the output resolution. So, for example, if a 1080p image is fed into the system, the output image would be at 2160p which is 4K.

This image really intrigues me. Obviously the neural network is referring to machine-learning AI, but how it is being implement in this diagram is interesting. I admit that I don't fully understand what is going on here, but it seems like some type of cloud-computing. This can mean a lot of things. 1. The raw-horsepower of the Switch successor and the leaked-specs are more about "portable" mode than "docked" mode. 2. Nintendo has a habit of taking failed projects from others and making it work for them. The nVidia Shield was a failed product (more or less) from nVidia, but Nintendo used that same Tegra X1 chip for the Nintendo Switch. The motion-control mechanism in the WiiMote was turned down by numerous vendors (including Sony,) before Nintendo bought the technology and used it for the Nintendo Wii. 3. Nintendo may have a partner in this to help them cloud computing. It was kind of strange that Activision boldly proclaimed that Call of Duty games would be coming to Nintendo platforms for the next 10 years. Those are games that require a LOT of power and a LOT of storage. There would have to be some level of confidence that their games would be feasible on future Nintendo hardware to commit for that long. At the end of the day, the RUMORED codename of the console which is "Oz" I've said is possibly a reference to The Wizard of Oz film in which a scientist used his technology to make himself look larger and more powerful than he actually was. These patents seem to go along with that idea, but, when it comes to Nintendo, the only thing for sure is that nothing's for sure.