NINTENDO SWITCH / 15 DEC 2016
NEW NINTENDO SWITCH PATENTS SHOW VR HEADSET ACCESSORY

World 20-20.

BY JOE SKREBELS

A new set of Nintendo patents for its upcoming home-handheld hybrid Switch console show what appears to be an accessory allowing for virtual reality play.

Spotted by NeoGAF user Rösti, the accessory is referred to as an "HMD (head mounted display)", and appears to work similarly to Google and Samsung's smartphone VR solutions - the core Switch tablet is placed into a headset, which features lenses to create the 3D effect.

The patent also describes being able to use the detachable Joycon controllers while using the headset, although does not say whether they would utilise motion controls while doing so.

The patent description notes that in the "present embodiment" of the Switch, it will use acceleration and angular velocity sensors to perform head tracking. However, the patent also indicates that the Switch console may not contain those sensors, meaning the headset itself will perform the tracking. The patents were published today, December 15, but were filed on June 10, meaning the choice will almost certainly have been finialised in the interim.

As with all patents, this filing does not necessarily mean the accessory will be released, simply that Nintendo considers it a possibility and wants to safeguard its work in researching it.

Nintendo president, Tatsumi Kimishima did recently reveal that the Switch would feature more accessories than we had so far been shown, and Nintendo has previously confirmed that it has researched VR.

That said, maybe don't hold out hope for that seemingly new Mario game to take advantage of it - Shigeru Miyamoto has already said it "doesn't really fit" the classic series.

Clock-speeds are a crucial piece of information required to get some idea of Switch's capabilities beyond the physical make-up of the Tegra processor. As many have speculated, the new Nintendo hardware does indeed feature two performance configurations - and the console is categorically not as capable in mobile form, compared to its prowess when docked and attached to an HDTV. And we can confirm that there is no second GPU or additional hardware in the dock itself regardless of the intriguing patents that Nintendo has filed suggesting that there might be. With battery life and power throughput no longer an issue, the docked Switch simply allows the GPU to run much faster. And to put it simply, there is a night and day difference here.

Where Switch remains consistent is in CPU power - the cores run at 1020MHz regardless of whether the machine is docked or undocked. This ensures that running game logic won't be compromised while gaming on the go: the game simulation itself will remain entirely consistent. The machine's embedded memory controller runs at 1600MHz while docked (on par with a standard Tegra X1), but the default power mode undocked sees this drop to 1331MHz. However, developers can opt to retain full memory bandwidth in their titles should they choose to do so.

As things stand, CPU clocks are halved compared to the standard Tegra X1, but it's the GPU aspect of the equation that will prove more controversial. Even while docked, Switch doesn't run at Tegra X1's full potential. Clock-speeds are locked here at 768MHz, considerably lower than the 1GHz found in Shield Android TV, but the big surprise from our perspective was the extent to which Nintendo has down-clocked the GPU to hit its thermal and battery life targets. That's not a typo: it really is 307.2MHz - meaning that in portable mode, Switch runs at exactly 40 per cent of the clock-speed of the fully docked device. And yes, the table below does indeed confirm that developers can choose to hobble Switch performance when plugged in to match the handheld profile should they so choose.

But perhaps the biggest takeaway from this is that those hoping for Switch to bring Nintendo back into contention with Microsoft and Sony's hardware should temper expectations. While there will be multi-platform projects (a point Nintendo made in its reveal with the Skyrim footage), we should not expect to see Switch versions of cutting-edge blockbusters. That should be fairly obvious when we consider that Xbox One S uses 16nm FinFET technology with gaming power draw in the region of 75-80W. Nvidia's GPU technology is more power-efficient, but it stands to reason that a mobile device (which typically operate with a 5-10W power budget) won't be in the same league.