I think maybe good reasoning for a boosted Nintendo Switch would be around something different than just beefier CPU or GPU or whatever we usually talk about (though if Nintendo could squash controller drift, that would be a godsend...) That'd be all good, but with PS5 and Xbox Series X, the hot talk has centered around storage, and how a revolution in data accessing is a big deal for next-gen.
Could the Nintendo Switch use a boost from next-gen storage as well?
Maybe. If a new Nintendo Switch could make use of new storage/delivery technology, it could benefit in some similarly significant ways that the next-gen consoles are promising. Switch has some basic problems in just taking too long to load (an extra burden for gamers running on a battery in Portable mode), and some advanced problems of texture loading might also be tackled with faster storage. Whether you're running 4K/120 or just playing 720-subnative on a 5" screen... squelch loading, and gaming is just
better.
(*I'm not a tech guy, so please excuse/refute any stupidity in my post here...)
Portable storage apparently is said to be on the verge of a revolution similar to what Sony and MS are exploring with their consoles. I'm not sure what improvements are in the works for the eMMC-type storage system that Switch uses in its base, but there are high-speed MicroSD Express Memory Cards coming soon that take advantage of faster lanes (NVMe/PCIe) of data transfer. Those M.2 expansion cards that PS5 will use for high-speed expansion? These MicroSD Express cards are kind of the baby version of that.
Speed of data transfer with MicroSD Express goes up to almost 1GB/s (500MB/s write); today's Extreme SD cards do like 160MB/s. In real-world tests, they were getting 4.5-5X improvements over the fastest cards on the market with the new Express cards. That's not the "100X" that PS5 is claiming, but it's a big deal. And that's for expansion memory; I'm assuming the onboard memory and even Game Cards (while remaining compatible with original models) could be improved as well with an overhaul of the data bus/protocol.
(In addition to adopting MicroSD Express readers, there's activity with mobile device makers going towards PCIe 3.1 bus / NVMe v1.3 protocol, and
Samsung's eUFS 3.1 breaks the 1GB/s barrier. So things are going that way, with or without Nintendo keeping up.)
MicroSD Express, supported by NVMe and PCIe, is opening a whole new world of data opportunities for mobile device computing capabilities and experiences.
blog.westerndigital.com
Nintendo Switch will never be able to compete graphically with PS5/XSX, but most Nintendo fans aren't focused on being bleeding-edge; they just want the games they get to be as good as possible. And with faster loadtimes and less annoyance of graphical aberrations in texture availability, an improved Nintendo Switch would keep up with demand where it counts.
There are two problems (at least...) with getting excited about the portable memory speed increase. One is that MicroSD Express still isn't out (or even priced) despite being announced in Feb 2019, and it's unclear what's going on with that format. Second is, Nintendo doesn't even support UHS-3 memory card features with Switch (it's a UHS-I device), so unless the price and the benefit is clear for a new product, will the traditionally-conservative Nintendo be ready to jump to the next-next-next generation of storage?
The reverse of that, though, is that the next PS and Xbox are on that high-speed storage lane, and the benefits are said to be prominent in ways that even Nintendo gamers could not ignore. 'Zero loadtimes' is not just a bulletpoint; it's the way games should be enjoyed wherever possible. We only accepted the impact of loadtimes when discs stomped cartridges because the games could be so much richer with all that storage data, but now we're looking at the best of both worlds in massive data stores and quick injection, and nobody's going to want to look back once it hits. A future Nintendo Switch should not only look better and run faster, it should load way quicker if it wants to keep up with the expectations of gamers.