A newly published patent is now causing a new rumor about the upcoming Switch 2, which suggests a modern upscaling technology for the new hardware.
Maybe it suits usinto the house - and then at the latest we should know which of the numerous leaks and speculations actually confirm it. New to this group is a modern upscaling technology, which thanks toof a recently published patentnow became known.
Accordingly, Nintendo registered a patent with the American Patent and Trademark Office in July 2023, which only became public on December 31, 2024. This is about a potential feature of the Switch 2 that might seem familiar to you from other platforms. This is supposed to make both higher visual graphics quality and better performance possible on the new Nintendo hardware.
Specifically, it is about “systems and methods for image conversions based on machine learning”. Behind this is a similar technology to NVIDIA's DLSS or Sony's PSSR on the PS5 Pro - i.e. an upscaling technology. The method allows the hardware to generate better images that are displayed in higher resolutions.
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)January 1, 2025 at 2:41 p.m
The example given is that a game witth native 4K textures might need a 60GB download, but a 1080 native version might only need 20GB (which would allow it to fit on a 32GB Switch Cart, the current max size Nintendo produces for Switch 1). The idea being to do a 4X upscale on the device in realtime.
— Laura Kate Dale - LauraKBuzz (@laurakbuzz.bsky.social)January 1, 2025 at 2:43 p.m
Despite the upscaling to a higher resolution or better image quality, the whole thing should not come at the expense of performance - which is what you would normally expect with such processes. In addition, all of this would have another positive side effect for the Switch successor, as Laura Kate Dale emphasizes via BlueSky: The technology mentioned in the patent could make it possible for Nintendo to reduce the storage requirements of games so that they can be played better on physical media with smaller sizes "capacity". This refers to the cartridges as a storage medium, which on the previous switch have a maximum capacity of 32 GB.
Thanks to the machine learning upscaling technology, more modern and larger games could also be brought natively onto such cartridges, because the display in a higher resolution with more details would then be carried out on the hardware itself using the patented technology.
There are two Tetris classics available for you on Switch Online in December.
