Rumor mill: Rumors and supposed leaks surrounding the successor to the Nintendo Swap have intensified over the previous few months as Nintendo stays silent on its plans. The skepticism surrounding the latest leak, which purports to disclose the upcoming handheld console’s casing, is not stunning, however shut examination means that it might be respectable.
A number of photos presumably depicting the design of Nintendo’s subsequent handheld not too long ago started circulating on social media. Though the pictures are unverified, they’re according to inside info on the upcoming machine’s {hardware} and have withstood scrutiny.
The data dump contains computer-aided design (CAD) screenshots, images of a disassembled unit, and {a partially} obscured take a look at a motherboard design with out the chips mounted onto it. The photographs recommend that the Swap 2 intently resembles its predecessor, with just a few essential variations.
A abstract of right this moment’s alleged Swap 2 photos ‘leak’. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/Z4rfSGz4WQ
– Andy Robinson (@Andy_VGC) September 18, 2024
Two CAD photos present the unique Swap for comparability, revealing that the revised design is significantly bigger. Though the joy-con button layouts are almost an identical to the outdated Swap, the brand new design replaces the rail attachments with magnets. Moreover, the central unit contains two USB-C ports, one on the highest and the opposite on the underside.
A person posted the photographs to Reddit through Chinese language social media. A supply allegedly acquired a chassis mannequin from an organization creating equipment for the upcoming machine and reverse-engineered it to create the CAD renders.
Theoretically, anybody may have mocked up a hoax design and 3D printed the shell based mostly on earlier leaks. Nonetheless, a supply aware of inner briefs that Nintendo despatched to third-party builders instructed VGC that the leaked design aligns with them.
Moreover, an evaluation of the motherboard photograph from Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry suggests it could have been too troublesome to faux. Slots for the beforehand reported two 6GB LPDDR5X RAM modules are seen, and the reminiscence interface is perhaps 128-bit, probably enabling bandwidth of as much as 102 GB/s.
Earlier leaks indicated that the Swap 2 will embody 256 GB of UFS 3.1 inner storage, an eight-inch display screen, help for 4K whereas docked, and Nvidia DLSS. The SoC is probably going a customized Nvidia chip known as the T239, based mostly on the Ampere structure featured within the GeForce RTX 3000 graphics playing cards. Samsung’s 8nm course of is the probably suspect, however 6nm can be attainable.
One of many few issues identified for sure concerning the upcoming handheld is that Nintendo plans to unveil it earlier than the present fiscal yr ends on April 1, 2025. The corporate would possibly launch the machine quickly after or later within the yr.
