Nintendo, one generation behind once again.
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If Nintendo being “one generation behind once again” means I get more games like Breath of the Wilds, Mario Odyssey, Metroid Dread, and Tears of the Kingdom (just to name a few of the incredible first-party games this generation), then I’m fine with that!
Again it ain’t the hardware, it’s the software.
These aren’t mutually exclusive options though. You could have great hardware AND great software.
That’s true, but using older, less expensive hardware had almost always been part of Nintendo’s business model. A cheaper console allows them to invest in game development–time, talent, and just money. If they used cutting-edge tech, they would have thinner margins (or even lose money on the console at first as Sony and Microsoft have done in the past), which would give them less to invest into game development. Nintendo spent an entire (extra) year just tweaking and polishing TotK; if they had thinner margins from the Switch, there would probably have been more pressure to release it earlier, which would have given us a less refined game.
I’d love it if we could have both great games and cutting-edge graphics, but at the end of the day, I’ll still take good games every time.
But do we need to?
Frankly, comparing the PS5/XSX exclusives to the Switch’s latest releases I think Nintendo is doing better than the others. We are hitting diminishing returns as far as gaming hardware advancement goes. The PS4 was already capable of outputting great visuals in large screens, and even as far as 2023 very few games really needed more than that. The Switch as it is can even handle most indie and double-A games.
This is not even bringing up that higher definition games necessitate additional work and therefore have longer development times.
To me, a new Switch that is as capable as the PS4 sounds pretty good.
Not with a handheld
Anyone who thought the Switch 2 was going to match up to the PS5 or Series was lying to themselves.
that’s because Nintendo knows that the games matter more than the hardware
It’s because Nintendo knows that portables sell massively higher than consoles for them, and that’s the reality of making a portable. Nintendo cares massively about the hardware and put a lot of effort into making something that fits their ambitions and audience.
Are people seriously bitching that a handhelds performance doesn’t match current PlayStation or Xbox specs which are ten times it’s size?
If the switch 2 is a handheld, it has so many more physical, power, and heat constraints and I am impressed that it even matches the previous gens consoles.
After seeing the various forms of black magic Nintendo devs have pulled off with what is essentially decade-old tablet hardware… yeah, fine by me.
I‘m legit happy as long as it can do 720p60fps for stuff like TotK in portable without any upsampling and whatnot.
I‘m not playing Nintendo cause of cutting edge graphics but because of cutting edge gameplay and entertainment. Doesn‘t matter how realistic a game looks when Mario Odyssey runs laps around it in terms of the fun it provides.
Just… provide backwards compatability, please. And as a bonus I‘d love a way for „old“ games to get better resolution and fps ideally without patches (cause we know the majority of games would never get patched).
The thing I always thought would be in the Switch’s benefit is if the dock itself also contained hardware. On the small handheld screen, the quality looks fine enough at lower resolutions, but then looks pretty bad when blown up on a 4K TV. If the dock had additional expandable hardware to boost performance when docked, that could go a long way to help it keep up.
A simplified Legion Go looks like something we can probably expect the next device to be then. Most people have compared the Rog Ally power with the Z1 extreme as being similar to PS4/X1 .
What they could do is a true “docked” mode where it can connect to a GPU to have it output 4K. Highly doubt as the cost would become exorbitant.
Fucking yikes.
If it’s built on Nvidia tech and they take advantage of DLSS 3 it’ll out perform PS5 and XBO in many cases.
