 Today we need to talk about the Nintendo Switch 2 because some new clarifying information has come to light. Some of this coming directly from a now former Nintendo employee, but somebody who was working directly on Nintendo Switch 2 related stuff and how we know why that's what they were working on is quite fascinating. But beyond that, we also have some additional information from Nintendo's 17.00 update Along with the software development kit SDK being updated behind the scenes for developers, a lot of stuff setting up for the Nintendo Switch 2. Oh boy, this is pretty cool, not really a rumor, not really a leak, kinda just information. So what are we going to do guys, well I'm going to hope that you want to subscribe to the channel. We're on our road to 150,000 subscribers so I'd appreciate it if you drop a like, subscribe to the channel and you know what, maybe hit that bell icon to be notified of all future uploads and videos and livestreams and hey, we're hoping to be one of your number one sources on the internet for all things next generation Nintendo until it comes out and then we'll be talking about everything to do with that system and the games and everything in between. Alright guys, so the first thing we got to get into is something that a fellow YouTuber put up a few days ago and you know what, we got to give them credit because what it do though, DocTray Nintendo, yeah that's right, DocTray81 is what we're talking about and he put up a post coming from a former Nintendo employee over on LinkedIn with a bunch of information so let's go over this. So he discovered a Nintendo employee who is now former who is working at Nintendo from February 2021 through August of 2023 as a senior software engineer at Redbin Washington. In describing the job they did for Nintendo it says the following, took ownership of an existing project and redesigned to reduce complexity, vastly increase performance and introduced new features while maintaining all existing functionality, quickly adopted to new technologies and domains such as graphics and machine learning to produce high performance interactive experiences for research and development purposes. They analyzed machine code for security, performance and debugging purposes, developed low level platform security solutions. Then it says in the skills he used on the job were TensorRT, ray tracing everyone, OpenGL shading language, machine learning, CUDA, TensorFlow, debugging, C++, C-sharp, ARM assembly, computer graphics and IDA Pro and when you glance at what he did for each of those skills he was a senior software engineer at all of them. This is really the first internal indication from a now former Nintendo employee of the work being put into Nintendo Switch 2. We know this because TensorRT is something NVIDIA directly related to ray tracing, something current Nintendo Switch cannot do. Also almost all of his work was related to research and development and it talks about machine learning and machine code. All about producing high performance in games with interactive experiences. He was basically a senior level programmer helping Nintendo experiment with DLSS and ray tracing behind the scenes in preparation for their new system. Now this does go from a simple NVIDIA leak and reports on a games con to something much more tangible and something that can be listened to. While you can follow all of the leaks and all of the rumors, nothing here is necessarily groundbreaking from this hiring post but what it is is essentially confirmation of some of the key features that we've been talking about. Specifically the use of the case for DLSS to improve performance in ray tracing, which many devs love because it does speed up development time. Now this is really really fascinating stuff and honestly, look it's not new information, it's more so clarification. We always are looking out there for actual information and confirmation of things we hear from leaks and rumors and you know what, here it is. We got some confirmation that yeah, the machine learning, DLSS, ray tracing, this is all stuff Nintendo is actually putting money, time and resources into developing. I think that is absolutely fascinating. But here's the thing, Nintendo this weird thing earlier this week where they released a brand new main version of the Nintendo Switch OS known as 17.0.0. And whenever they do this, it tends to also be accompanied by an update to the SDK. What's the SDK? Well that's the software development kit that is a specialized version of basically Nintendo Switch OS that will have software development tools, so you can make video games and stuff like that debug and all of that jazz. So there's a lot of really cool and interesting stuff in that, but the updates always happen at the same time and through these updates, it looks like we have some more information on Nintendo Switch 2 and huge credit goes out to old puck over on the family boards. He seems to have pretty direct developer connections for this information. So because the operating system code is actually shared and developed by the same team and Nintendo isn't shutting down Switch support, so what he's noting here is that the operating system code is actually going to be shared between the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2. Quite fascinating. Consider the Nintendo Switch online app. It needs basic services in the operating system to function. Nintendo doesn't want to have two NSO apps and have to maintain them for two different consoles. So as long as they want to update the NSO app on the Switch, the Switch OS will need to have services that the NSO demands, which will in turn have been updated for the next generation Switch. You'll notice there are no explicit references to the next generation hardware in the 17.0 update or the SDK. That's actually really easy to trim out. It's the implicit references. And this comes up because NX was trimmed out of 17.0. All references to NX were trimmed out, so they're no longer referencing the code name of Switch anymore. So did they put the new code name in? No, they're actually not using code names at the moment. And this is probably because, again, they're trying to prevent this stuff from getting out public because they know data mines happen. Now, it's the implicit references. The places where the code has been made more generic, even though the Switch doesn't need it to be, that we see sort of a ghost of the hardware left behind. Yeah, they're kind of going really generic in areas Switch doesn't need it to be. Why would they be doing that? Well, because they're moving on to the next thing, but they can't explicitly put that in there just yet. Now, behind the scenes, the Nintendo SDK has begun to get updated to support the next generation as well, which means supporting two operating systems slash hardware targets, all the more reason to keep the operating systems in sync. So what he's saying is, well, they're going to have the same base, the same core for the operating system. There's obviously going to be massive differences with Nintendo Switch's two operating system, and they do have to maintain both of them. But what's really important with both of those OSes is that they are in sync with each other and work together. This is very similar to PlayStation 3 to 4 to 5, where they want to make sure that the account systems and the operating systems are all inter-functional. They could basically work together because now people are paying subscription fees. Nintendo's sort of doing the same thing here. Well, yeah, it's obviously going to be a much more hopefully robust operating system on the Nintendo Switch too, but it does need to sync up with the old operating system. There needs to be some interoperability between them, especially when you're carrying things like NSO on forward, and it doesn't say this, but potentially backwards compatibility. All right, let's get right back into what Old Puck had to say. Again, the SDK has a skeletal support for building out more than one platform. So basically, the SDK is massively referencing a new platform with how it's built, but it's not all in there yet. Much like there was support for alternate hardware in the operating system, I've also heard that there are some redacted bits of the documentation, but I haven't seen it myself yet, so I can't confirm. His sources were basically saying, hey, when we're looking at the SDK right now, there's actually bits in it that are blacked out. We can't read it. It looks like something they're going to release later. And this is just for the Switch SDK, by the way. We're not talking about the next generation SDK here. So again, this is just references in the Switch one, and not everyone who has a Switch dev kit is supposed to know everything about the next generation Switch. Now, get into what else you have to say. Regardless, Nintendo is doing what it needs to hide details, but no more than what it needs to. If the NVIDIA hack hadn't happened, this would actually be probably hearing a lot more stuff coming out. But because it happened, we already know what the chip's going to be and possible specs and all that. Now, learning the next device shares an API, an operating system, an SDK, a package manager, submission tools, and build chain as the Switch would be a big deal. So he's basically saying, they're sharing all these things. The next generation Switch is sharing an API. It's sharing an operating system. It's sharing an SDK, package manager, submission. Basically, the next generation Switch is sharing all of this with the current Switch. It would be a much bigger deal, but obviously because we know some of this information already, it was pretty much assumed that some of this stuff would be happening because of the NVIDIA leak. But again, just a reminder, guys, this is all stuff that none of us were really able to verify other than some NVIDIA stuff. This is confirmation, I suppose. You could throw it out there. He was asked about how this stuff being put into the Switch SDK and 17.0.0, does this mean that we're suddenly going to be getting this system out sooner than later? And he says it does make it feel more imminent, especially since hardware details are starting to show up in the SDK. Implying that Nintendo cares more about getting tools into the developer hands than keeping all this stuff secret, which is true. Once they unleash the hounds, this stuff's going to become public anyways, right? But I also thought the same thing after former 16.0 came out, which had some similar hints. Obviously it didn't have all the exact same hints, but it had some hints that Nintendo was starting to set up things for the Nintendo Switch too. I find this to just be really, really, really, really interesting. And you know what's also interesting? Nintendo is doing something that Shintaro Furukawa wanted to do and promised to do, and it's happening before our very eyes. And we need to talk about this because the Switch is sold more in Japan this year than it did last year, showing an increase in sales primarily on the back of Zelda and Mario as this nifty chart provided by Takahashi Machizuki shows. And yes, Switch did sell 110,000 units last week. Furukawa has spoken about wanting to have a smoother transition in the past to the next system and maintaining a semblance of momentum certainly can help this cause. Of course, sales being up in Japan doesn't mean they're up worldwide. Still, what is clear is the combo of Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Wonder, even before the game is out, just the Mario Wonder Switch, is helping carry Switch's momentum into 2024 where the lineup thus far is significantly lighter in terms of big releases and this is likely due to a certain new console that's probably coming. It's just nice to see Nintendo with a strategy working since the transition and losing momentum is something they've had a problem with in the past and they wanted to avoid this time around. Maintain momentum to create a smooth transition. So look, all this really adds up to is the sort of breakdown is this, right? So look, we have confirmation of DLSS ray tracing, all that stuff being worked on by Nintendo, boom, body being done. We also have confirmation that software development tools are now out there, are starting to get out there for the Nintendo Switch 2 and leaking into the current Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch dev updates and because of this, we're starting to learn things from current Nintendo Switch developers about how certain functionalities are actually going to be cross-generational. So operating systems and project managers and all that stuff are going to also be brought forward, which does mean a level of interoperability between Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch that likely might make you feel really good about NSO being forwards compatible along with things like backwards compatibility. Again, this doesn't confirm backwards compatibility, but interoperability certainly is going to help that be a thing. So hey guys, you guys, let me know what you think about this all down in the comments below. Oh, and by the way, we also learned the Switch is absolutely dominating in Japan. What a shocker. All right guys, I'm Nathan and RoboDance from the Tenor Prime. Whew, that was a lot of information and I'll catch you in the next video.