Wednesday, June 4th 2025
Jensen Huang on Switch 2's Custom NVIDIA SoC: "Unlike Anything We've Ever Built Before"
Nintendo's Switch 2 hybrid console is due to arrive at retail tomorrow (June 5), and pre-launch marketing campaigns are in full swing. The Japanese gaming giant has called in a high profile partner—Jensen Huang—to add some surprisingly technical heft during hype festivities. At this stage in time, NVIDIA's Tegra "T239" chipset is a well known quantity—thanks to years of leaked "internal info," and disabled examples turning up for close analysis in China. Industry experts did not anticipate Nintendo's fairly frank discussions that covered Switch 2's hardware capabilities. The Nintendo "Creator's Voice" video series has featured a number of high-profile third-party software development buddies (including CD Projekt RED), but yesterday's Team Green CEO contribution received widespread press attention.
Jensen paid tribute to Satoru Iwata, a former and much missed Nintendo president. Their collaboration started during the era of OG Switch development: "he wanted to create something no one had seen before. A console powerful enough for big, cinematic games—but small enough to take anywhere. It sounded impossible. But that vision became the original Nintendo Switch. We lost Iwata-san before the launch, but his clarity, his purpose, it still inspires our work every day. Together, we poured everything into that system." As mentioned back in April, NVIDIA dedicated significant resources into making their latest "technical marvel."
Jensen outlined key features: "to take (that) original vision further, (we) had to reinvent everything...The chip inside Nintendo Switch 2 is unlike anything we've built before. The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device. Full hardware ray tracing. High dynamic range (HDR) for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an architecture that supports backward compatibility. Dedicated AI processors to sharpen, animate and enhance gameplay in real time. (The chip) is ultra-low power; we optimized the semiconductor process technology for high performance in a handheld device, so we can go wherever you go...Switch 2 is more than a new console; it's a new chapter, worthy of Iwata-san's vision."
Nintendo's video description: "in this special edition of Creator's Voice, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang shares some insights into the creation of Nintendo Switch 2's custom processor."
Sources:
Polygon News, NintendoLife, Tech Radar
Jensen paid tribute to Satoru Iwata, a former and much missed Nintendo president. Their collaboration started during the era of OG Switch development: "he wanted to create something no one had seen before. A console powerful enough for big, cinematic games—but small enough to take anywhere. It sounded impossible. But that vision became the original Nintendo Switch. We lost Iwata-san before the launch, but his clarity, his purpose, it still inspires our work every day. Together, we poured everything into that system." As mentioned back in April, NVIDIA dedicated significant resources into making their latest "technical marvel."
Nintendo's video description: "in this special edition of Creator's Voice, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang shares some insights into the creation of Nintendo Switch 2's custom processor."
30 Comments on Jensen Huang on Switch 2's Custom NVIDIA SoC: "Unlike Anything We've Ever Built Before"
Other than that, hopefully it should do the job fine for what it is, with time and with Nintendo improving SDKs, reducing system memory footprint etc it should be better
Anyway. Wanna bet how long it takes for this to be hacked? I'm guessing a month or so.
But it's funny to see Jensen talk about the switch 2 SoC more than he did about anything with Geforce during the Computex keynote.
Consoles and PC are not handhelds and are not comparable, so many people have some weird hangups here. First party games will look and run great, which is 99% of the reason to own or buy a nintendo console.
The price is steep, but that’s the world we live in now.
"Unlike Anything We've Ever Built Before"
*Apart from the fact that this is just a spin off or their tegra orin lineup from 2~3 years ago.[URL='https://www.techpowerup.com/337652/jensen-huang-on-switch-2s-custom-nvidia-soc-unlike-anything-weve-ever-built-before']Jensen Huang on Switch 2's Custom NVIDIA SoC: "Unlike Anything We've Ever Built Before 2020"[/URL]
Fixed the title for ya.or else he'll have his AI-powered firmware bots track down your machine & install some boomwarez on it, hahahahahahahaha.. :D
It is likely we will see more in-depth third party analyses in the upcoming weeks after teardown specialists get a closer look at the hardware.
Also, I don't think it will be simply just Ampere GPU. It's likely a slightly better custom revisioned Ampere SoC.
NV was also doing this:
where they were releasing more 30 series cards after the first year of cards. And releasing versions w/ more VRAM.