Details about the long time mysterious console from Nintendo, the Switch, were revealed with a preview trailer last month. While there have been a number of prominent features to discuss about this device, one thing that may have surprised the people was the fact that it is being powered by Nvidia. While this tech company has had its hand in the gaming world before, there was no evidence of this for the current generation of consoles. What could have made them change their mind for the Nintendo Switch?
In and interview with VentureBeat, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang discussed what attracted them to working with Nintendo on the Switch and other plans they have for the future. When considering other consoles of the current generation, it seemed like they were out of the loop. “We weren’t in contention for any of those,” Huang stated. “If a particular game console doesn’t require our special skills, what we can uniquely bring, then it’s a commodity business that may not be suited for us.”
Obviously the Nintendo Switch is not very similar to most consoles out today. Nvidia saw this immediately and was able to jump on board. “In the case of Switch, it was such a ground-breaking design,” Huang said. “Performance matters because games are built on great performance, but form factor and energy efficiency matter incredibly because they want to build something that’s portable and transformable. The type of gameplay they want to enable is like nothing the world has so far.”
Fans of Nintendo love hearing stories like this. It gives great hope for the future. Nvidia also talked about their hard work in the field of A.I. Could this play a factor in some new and advanced gameplay on the Switch? We’ll have to wait until January to find out more.