Another leak from the FTC vs. Microsoft case has spilled a couple of beans. This time, they’re Nintendo-related.
We’ve been hearing quite a few rumours on the Nintendo Switch 2 over the past few months, most recently hearing about some developers getting a demo on the hardware at Gamescom in August.
Rumours also suggested that a version of The Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 tech demo was displayed on the demo hardware. This means the next generation Switch could feature things like Nvidias DLSS, but in a now public document from the FTC vs. Microsoft case from an internal email, it seems like the next generation Nintendo console will be closer to the performance of a PS4 or an Xbox One.
The email chain between Activision executives shows that they were already in chats with Nintendo on the next generation Switch as early as December of last year.
The PDF, while heavily redacted, stated:
Given the closer alignment to Gen8 platforms in terms of performance and our previous offerings on PS4 / Xbox One, it is reasonable to assume we could make something compelling for the NG Switch as well,” Activision Blizzard said in the documentation reviewed by The Verge. “It would be helpful to secure early access to development hardware prototypes and prove that out nice and early.”
It has been almost a year since these initial discussions were had, and that means changes could have been made. While a handheld PS4 console does sound quite nice in terms of performance specs, I do hope that we do get something beefy, like the Matrix demo suggests, out of Nintendo next year when the “NG Switch” is said to launch.