For lighter cartridges
The patent in question is not new. Nintendo registered it in July 2023 according to information relayed by VGC, but it was only recently that it was made public. Here Nintendo is working on a process which makes it possible to improve the rendering and fluidity of the image and textures of a game via artificial intelligence without increasing the necessary configurationa bit like Nvidia’s basic DLSS technology. PlayStation now uses quite similar technology with its PSSR on its PS5 Pro.
Journalist Laura Kate Date notes that this patent is mainly intended to make certain games less heavy. Using upscaling via AI would allow studios to avoid overloading their games with heavy textureswith the aim that they can fit into a cartridge:
« The example given is that a game with native 4K textures might require a 60GB download, but a native 1080p version might only need 20GB (which would allow it to fit on a 32GB Switch cartridge , the current maximum size produced by Nintendo for the Switch 1). The idea being to do 4X scaling on the device in real time. »
Perhaps the most interesting piece of this, after a lengthy read, is that one example use case given is explicitly to reduce overall game sizes, to fit a modern game onto “smaller capacity physical media”, e.g. Switch carts, which get exponentially more expensive for larger cart capacities.
— Laura Kate Dale – LauraKBuzz (@laurakbuzz.bsky.social) 2025-01-01T13:41:57.130Z
Apart from leaks which are not always reliable and these patents which can be used or left aside (nothing says that the Switch 2 will include this), the architecture of the Switch 2 still remains a mystery. But not for much longer.
