Everybody's desperate for Switch 2 news, and the leaks and rumors that have been percolating for years feel like they're about to boil over. Now, all the focus is on a patent Nintendo filed for an AI-based upscaling technology, and so many people are trying to take a look that they're crashing the page on the US Patent and Trademark Office website.
The patent concerns "systems and methods for machine learned image conversion," and while it was initially filed on July 13, 2023, it was only just published on December 31, 2024, brought to the gaming world's attention by consultant Laura Kate Dale on Bluesky. (It's worth noting as well that Nintendo's been looking to file similar patents since at least 2020.)
The patent filing is 39 pages of dry technical talk and diagrams, but that hasn't stopped desperate Nintendo fans from piling in to take their own look at it. Now that the link to the patent is all over the internet, it's occasionally returning a "too many requests" error, suggesting that the Patent and Trademark Office wasn't prepared for the level of interest a Nintendo filing might generate.
There's no mention of Nintendo's next console by name in this document, but it describes a technology that's easy to imagine being a major part of something like a Switch 2. The machine learning upscale technique can take a low-resolution image generated by a game console and essentially add more detail so that it appears similar to a much higher-res version of that same image.
In other words, a game console could run a game in 1080p at 60 FPS, and the upscaling tech would make it appear like it was running at 4K at that same frame rate. This is essentially the same technique we've seen in Nvidia's DLSS tech and the PSSR upscaling at the heart of the PS5 Pro. DLSS has had fantastic results on PC, and PSSR has given an impressive uplift to many PS5 games, too - though the new console's upscale technique has also introduced its share of visual issues to certain titles.
Whatever features Nintendo's new console supports, we shouldn't have to wait much longer to hear about them. The company's one official word about the new console is that it will be revealed within the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2025. Take heart, folks: we'll finally be done with all the rumors and speculation sometime within the next three months.
These are the upcoming Switch games that'll be seeing the console out in 2025.
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