It’s not out of the question that the Japanese company’s yet-to-be-announced (and thus officially unnamed) console could support the latest features of Epic Games’ engine.

We’ve already heard many rumors about the Nintendo Switch’s successor, including one that the big N’s next-generation hardware won’t even match the Xbox Series S. However, it might not be far behind in terms of Unreal Engine 5 support. Digital Foundry editors talk about this in the video embedded below.

It’s believed that Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps will all be supported on the Nintendo Switch 2 thanks to the system’s architecture. Perhaps even the MegaLights feature coming with version 5.5 could be supported if performance allows. The editors say that the technology could be console-specific, so all features will be supported on Nintendo’s new hardware, with some understandable memory loss if they are not memory-intensive. Even hardware Lumen can be solved with the appropriate tweaks.

The Nintendo Switch got more third-party support because the hardware supported Unreal Engine, and if developers are moving to UE5, it would be logical for the Switch’s successor to keep up with the technology. Not all games will scale properly, so there will be tradeoffs, but the result may not be a significant disappointment in all cases.

The Digital Foundry team also touched on how much of an impact the weaker technology will have in handheld mode compared to the Steam Deck, and they don’t think it will be too bad, as Valve’s handheld PC is a bit clunky to use, and understandably Nintendo games aren’t available on it. Developers are not planning with the Steam Deck in mind, while games designed for the Switch’s successor will be optimized for the platform, allowing them to use Nvidia’s DLSS upscaler. The only reasonable scenario in the performance gap will be when multiplatform games have to fill the void left by internally developed (first-party) titles.

But when will Nintendo announce the platform?

Source: WCCFTech