The evidence points to another hardware revision of the switch to the horizon

Wednesday's announcement of Switch Lite ended credible rumors that a miniature Switch, wearable, was on the horizon. But Nintendo has still not confirmed the content of some of these rumors: suggestions that the company plans to upgrade the Switch's internal hardware in the near future.

Nintendo CEO Doug Bowser recently told CNET that no other update of the switch's original hardware would be available this year. But that did not stop Nintendo's observers from trying to glean information about Nintendo's future material plans from various tea leaves.

Following the proof

The most concrete of these indications is a request from the FCC (noted by The Verge) that Nintendo filed on July 2, requesting a "Class II Change of Authorization" for the original Switch model. The request indicates that the new hardware revision will include a "SoC type change", a "NAND memory type change" and a new CPU card to accommodate these changes.

What will these material changes look like? To understand this, some observers of Switch recall in March 2018 suggestive hardware references appeared in the underlying code of the 5.0.0 Switch firmware. This firmware was the first to include internal references to the original hardware configuration of Switch. – Running on Nvidia Tegra chips X1 "T210" of origin, bearing the code name "Logan" – and two new configurations with a chip "Tegra X1" T214 "with the code name" Mariko ". "Mariko" configuration apparently include space for the recently announced Switch Lite as well as another revision of switch hardware, such as referenced in the FCC repository.
When they were originally discovered, many speculated that this upcoming chip review would be a "hidden" change to the switch's internal hardware, focused on protecting the new switch units from the vulnerabilities of security otherwise impossible to correct in the X1 chip. These types of stealth configuration changes are quite common in the console world; Microsoft had a similar result when it replaced the original internal components of the Xbox 360 with a new model less likely to overheat, for example.

But Digital Foundry has plunged into some Nvidia public documents that suggest that the new chip "Mariko" could be a more important upgrade.

Better battery life or better performance?

There have been rumors that Nintendo could upgrade the Switch with Nvidia's improved Tegra X2 chip. It would be a real generational improvement of the processor compared to the current X1 of the Switch and lend itself to a real update of the mid-generation style "Switch Pro", similar to the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.

But to use an X2 chip in a "Switch Pro", it would probably be necessary for Nintendo to file with the FCC a brand new Switch model, rather than the simpler "change of permission" sought for the existing model. Digital Foundry's evidence suggests that Mariko's "T214" chip is rather a renamed version of the revised "T210b01" X1 chip that will soon be found in a revision of Nvidia's Android Shield TV (just as the original switch was fame of the chip in the original Android TV shield).

Although the details are still unclear, the evidence suggests that the Mariko revision could use a new production process in 10 nm (Down from the original X1's 20nm process.) In addition to reducing production costs, a smaller overall SoC would consume less power, which would improve battery life. the battery life is actually one of the major improvements announced for the upcoming Switch Lite.

But a smaller chip could also allow a Mariko-based switch to operate at a higher clock speed, which could potentially allow performance improvements in games designed specifically for a "new" switch revision. It would not be unprecedented. The new Nintendo 3DS lineup featured a similar upgrade on internal chip that allowed for some exclusive / upgraded games that took advantage of the faster clock speed of the new system.

Although some speculation is still involved, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Nintendo plans to update the internal hardware of the standard switch in the future, possibly using revised chips similar to those in Switch Lite. . However, the question remains whether this revision will be a "hidden" upgrade of standard hardware to reduce costs, or a "New Switch" public line that supports slight performance improvements in some games.