i know conventional gamer wisdom says otherwise but i think this just goes to show how more horsepower just leads to diminishing returns at this point. people call the switch underpowered but it’s best selling game is a wii u port! gone are the days of each generation looking infinitely better than the last
Design > Specs
Eh, I think this is more indicative of the power of Nintendo IPs. My wife has been playing a lot of Pokemon Scarlett lately and it visibly struggles and has crashed or frozen at least a couple of times. This isn’t the only switch game to do this either (none of them ports too).
People are just willing to put up with a lot of jank in order to play Nintendo games. If Nintendo didn’t have such strong titles and only released those titles on Nintendo hardware, the switch hardware probably would’ve failed. The winning move was to heavily invest in strong games and then lock those games into their walled garden.
Nintendo got ripped apart for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
They still sold like hotcakes though
Its sales have probably dropped off so it may not beat Sword and Shield but 25 million is nothing to sniff at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games
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Pokémon games aren’t developed by Nintendo.
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Bad performance isn’t always caused by lack of resources. It’s more often bad optimisation / resource management.
Even Zelda is stuttering. Or Mario Kart 8 when you play with multiple people.
Not everything can be saved by optimization. Even if it could, throwing more horsepower at the game is cheaper than having every game-developer write assembly code. Switch hardware is tragically slow and it shows in 3d games even with optimization.
Optimisation has its limits, yes. The difference is that Nintendo is satisfied with targeting 30fps for a lot of games, and not caring as much about framedrops as long as the core gameplay is solid and works relatively bug-free.
They spent 12 months optimising Tears of the Kingdom, and it still has areas where there are slowdowns. It was not unfixable, they just decided it was good enough.
Its hard to compare games directly as each has their own constraints and dependencies. BotW for example was also released on Wii U, and that was a limiting factor. I don’t remember stuttering in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but they did make it run at 30fps when playing with 3-4 players, if you mean that?
I think a more egregious example would be Hyrule Warriors in co-op, but again this is Koei Tecmo and not in-housed developed so they didn’t have access to the same resources and tricks that Nintendo has.
They could have spent 12 months getting those 10-20fps moments smoothened out, but it was probably not worth the investment as 99% of players don’t care or don’t even notice when a game slows down a bit.
It’s an exclusive to Nintendo hardware. They only make these games for switch. If you want to play Pokemon, you have to buy a switch. My point was that people love games like Pokemon so much that they’re more than willing to buy sub standard hardware to play it, even when the experience of playing is obviously hindered by that hardware. The IP overcomes any negatives from the poor console hardware.
If The Pokémon Company decided to put some polish into those games instead of pumping out 3 within 15 months, I’m pretty sure most performance issues could have been solved or alleviated.
In the same vein, better hardware would not have automatically meant that the game would run without such issues.
I mean they could. But just as Nintendo doesn’t need to offer better hardware due to how much people want to play their games, Pokemon doesn’t need to do better optimization because people play them anyway. It’s honestly unlikely that a better optimized game would have significantly affected their sales numbers.
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I play switch just because it’s fun. It’s portable, got the cute little remotes. Have no interest in Nintendo games.
I play Switch because its version of DOAX3 is uncensored
Lmao had no idea. Switch weirdly seems to have alot of hentai games too.
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This was already established with the PSP vs 3DS.
This was already established with the gameboy vs… everything else.
Ancient hardware. Complete market dominance.
Turns out battery life is incredibly important in the handeld market.
The switch does struggle running higher resolution graphics; I can emulate BotW/TotK to look much better on PC simply due to having access to a stronger GPU.
4k gaming on PCs is still hard to accomplish without a high end machine, so I still think we will be seeing improvements with generations; at least until 4k gaming can be done on mid level hardware.
But you don’t need 4k resolution to have a great game. That’s what OP is getting at. When making a game for beefier hardware, you can use the better graphics as a crutch instead of focusing on better gameplay and story.
Thats why SNES rpgs stories were so great. And the rpgs today are just long winded slogs.
Data limits forced writers to cut the fat out of their scripts for the games, and get to the point.
I don’t need 35 hours to say “thats the bad guy”.
Lol don’t stress they are literally talking about 4k on a 720p handheld, clearly brain damaged.
I was gonna mention that. The Switch is first and foremost a handheld device. You’d get no benefit from squeezing 4k onto a 7" display. The only thing it would do is decrease the battery life, which would be made even worse with a more powerful GPU.
I understand, I have a deck hd screen and I don’t believe it would matter. I don’t know why so many downvotes on an objectively factual statement, like a retina display at 7 inches isn’t 4k, and idk who would seriously hookup a steamdeck to a 4k display where it obviously would never keep up at native. Literally only an idiot would downvote me, but here we are on social media.
i see comparisons of switch games on hardware and in emulators all the time and can never tell the difference, and same for all these recent 4k remasters. i am glad that there are options for people who can tell and do care but it’s nowhere near as noticable to your average joe compared to the jump from snes to n64 or n64 to gamecube. or perhaps i am just a spectacularly below average joe haha
I mean if the WiiU taught Nintendo anything it was probably not to rush the next big upgrade until you’re positive it’ll actually be a worthy following act.
They should have learned that from Virtual Boy. I STILL say virtual boy could have been really really cool…if it were in more than just red. Which was the plan, but it got rushed to come out in 1995 at the cost of development time. All so people wouldn’t feel conflicted in 1996 over which to buy. The N64, or the Virtual Boy.
Don’t worry Nintendo. Nobody was conflicted about that…good job!
Also Switch doesn’t need an upgrade. It’s not competing with PS or XBox, they have a younger target audience and that means you don’t meed 5000 horse powers of PS. Ot’s for families not Dads. I have mine for 5 years and I love it!
It’s really impressive how long it lasted considering the chip they use was already outdated when it came out.
As long as the hardware is relatively close to the target level defined by Nintendo, it really doesn’t matter if the chip was “already old”. The developers know what hardware to expect, if they want their game to run on that console, they’d be on the hook to optimize for it.
In a lot of ways, it being an old known chip probably helped optimization and porting efforts.
Well, it ended up a pretty solid console, after all. It’s only real downside is the horrible performance. When the Switch “2” comes out, my only wish for it is to not have a SoC that’s already a year outdated, at the time of release
my only wish for it is to not have a SoC that’s already a year outdated
Nintendo: We don’t do that here
Nintendo stopped trying to push elite hardware after getting burned by the N64. They released a 64 bit console in an era of 32 bit consoles and didn’t dominate is sales like they expected.
They did with the GameCube.
The GameCube absolutely spanked the Dreamcast and PS2 in terms of performance, and wasn’t far off the original Xbox.
The GameCube absolutely spanked the Dreamcast and PS2 in terms of performance
But the PS2 demolished the GameCube in sales. Thet outsold them about 8 to 1. So that just makes it another example of the high end hardware NOT helping their sales like the comment you replied to was saying.
Yeah, that’s true. I was only replying to the N64 being the last of that era for Nintendo aspect of their comment.
Wasn’t the GameCube the last one? Considering Wii was the first console they released that wasn’t graphically on-par with the competition.
The Game Cube was limited compared to the rest of the generation as well, but I think it was due to the smaller storage space on the dumb tiny discs.
GameCube could render more polys than PS2 though. RE4 Leon model was 2x as many polys on GameCube than PS2.
It had more powerful hardware, but the decision to use smaller discs unfortunately still held it back in asset quality. Textures and audio had to be more compressed in order to fit into the 1.5GB discs as opposed to the PS2’s 4.7GB. The Tony Hawk games for example looked and sounded worse on the GameCube, but they also ran better on it.
It’s even worse, PS2 supported dual layer with up to 8.5GB.
Consoles in general, not just Nintendo
i’ve never cared about graphics in nintendo games, they don’t need to be amazing like the steam deck. that’s not the reason you buy a nintendo console.
however, i was was playing totk yesterday, and it was so clear that the switch is underpowered. so much stuttering, and the lack of an antialiasing filter in that game is so obvious.
The steam deck apu isn’t even top of the line.
Could not play TotK on my switch for more than an hour. I got fed up and ended up emulating it at 1440p 60fps.
I never cared about specs on a Nintendo console until I played a lagging, garbage mess. Totk, Arceus, FE3H, etc. Basically everything you said in your second paragraph.
Playing Dead by Daylight on the Switch is a slog. Desperately waiting for cross progression.
it will 100% be on a node thats outdated by the time of release. Nintendo goes out of their way wanting to make profit off hardware console sales. basically the last device they took a loss on hardware cost wise was the WiiU, and I shouldnt need to say how well that sold (and I know, I owned one)
rumors suggest Ampere based(2020) GPU with a few feature backports from Lovelace(2022) on Samsung 8nm (2018) for cost reasons.
Blackwell for nvidia will likely be out before the switch 2, making the switch 2 by the time of release, on a gpu 2 generations older than the current generation.
I think Valve is about to pull a Nintendo on Nintendo. While they have been playing 3d chess against Sony and Microsoft, by focusing on the pure gaming aspects of gaming. The one blind spot they have always maintained was modding, emulation, and hardware communities. That plus shift how Xbox live wasn’t just a phase, but a elevation of the gaming experience.
Valve has stayed constant following the gamers and answering their calls and concerns. Stayed true to gamers and the developers.
As a life long Nintendo fan, this makes me happy and sad. picks up steamdeck
Valve is in a very unique position here. They’re clearly not making very much money on the Deck itself, and that’s okay, because they both got an endless library of games behind them, and on top of that, they’re actively putting money back into the ecosystem of developers, to further utilize what people already have. Historically, that’s never been the case with any console, let alone a handheld, because every one of them either had bespoke architecture, or only ran software that was specifically designed for that machine
It’s like gamers grew tired of filling their storage with last generations games (maybe not last, but definitely 2 generations prior) media because we were told they wouldn’t run on the next system.
Xbox S has actually brought me back to console gaming a bit because 1) my Internet is shit, and 2) I don’t have to buy it rent physical media (2.5 I can play the games on my laptop as well, but I rarely use it since I’ve gotten the deck).
Valve, and to a lesser extent their deck, has filled that (niche is too small of a word) void nearly perfectly, valve and emulation has brought a dump truck and back hoe to the big 3’s garden party.
I have to say. I love playing on the switch. I love how portable and practical it is. I hate the ergonomics in handheld mode though. I have to use an accessory. And yeah, the performance is pretty mediocre when games have advanced graphics or bad programming.
But as time goes by, with emulation, and access to every PC game title and all the ways you can plug stuff and hack the thing, the Steam Deck is looking more and more like a really good alternative and it’s kind of making me regret ever getting the switch, which I originally got because of Zelda, really.
Steam Deck is looking more and more like a really good alternative and it’s kind of making me regret ever getting the switch, which I originally got because of Zelda, really.
Nothing that has come out since, or that could come out in the future, will ever make me regret hitting 360 hours in BotW, reflecting, “Was that worth a dollar an hour? Yes, yes it was.” And then playing for another 600 hours.
When the sw0i0tch 0came out I was working 3rd shift at a shitty hotel. I told them I wasn’t coming i0n for a week.
I literally took a week off for that game.
And when my boss tried saying “your request for time off has been denied” I replied with “Your opinion has been disregarded. I will not be in during these dates. Do with that information what you will.”
I didn’t give a shit if they fired me. I was making $8.00 an hour. If I still had a job a week later, alright. If not, alright.
Turns out they realized it would be harder to replace me than deal with me being gone a week. Either wQqay, I played that game NONSTOP for a week. Actually 8 days. On the 8th day I called and asked if they wanted me to come in. They said they’d get back to me…but then they had issues contacting the manager. She was sleeping so she could stay awake all night. By the time they talked to her she was already on her way in. And by the time my shift was to start she was just now calling me. I was like “PSSSSHHHHH!!! I called 4 hours ago. In order to be on time, I’d have had to start getting ready 3 hours ago. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And played 1 more bonus day of game time.
I bought TotK collectors edition and could not play it on the switch. Ripped my copy, played it on PC emulated at 1440p 60 fps, regret nothing. The Switch has great games, the hardware just sucks. I don’t even play mine anymore because I’d rather play the games on PC.
How do you rip switch games without a hacked switch?
Why would you assume they did it without a hacked switch?
Otherwise, the Mig Switch cartridge maker released a dumper as well.
Because I was bad at reading comprehension and didn’t notice he mentioned he had a switch on the first pass.
I frigging love my Steam Deck. It’s not about the fact that it’s a more powerful machine, but rather the ergonomics.
I never played my Switch in handheld mode without instant hand pain until I got the Satisfye hand grip. I’ll sound like an infomercial for that thing but it’s true. It increased my handheld playtime but a thousand fold. Xenoblade, Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime - anything that uses the shoulder buttons basically - only able to play handheld due to that stupid grip.
I’ve got a Steam Deck as well, which is great, but that grip made it possible to use my Switch again without having to take over the living room TV.
Same. I bought that thing too. Real life changer.
While great and all, I think that this generation has been heavily impacted by COVID and chip shortages, so I think it’s only fair for all manufacturers to basically add two years onto the lifespan of their consoles.
I’ve often been a critic of Nintendo, but the Switch is a fantastic device with a solid library of games behind it. Not only that, but for indie titles it’s great. It probably gets more use than my PS4 and PS5 combined. For little kids, being able to take the console anywhere is a huge plus.
I heard that the SWOLED was going to be a hardware upgrade too but they pared it back due to covid. Apparently the screen cost nintendo an extra $10 to manufacture.
I graduated college 3 months before the Switch came out. It really doesn’t seem like that long ago…
Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming…
It’s a really great console. I love playing it while in bed, it’s just a vibe of its own with so many great games!
As long as Switch 2 or whatever it may be called is backwards compatible. I hate that my Wii/Wii U collection is stuck on the Wii U.
I can play all my switch games and all my wiiU games on my steam deck.
I thought every Wii U game that was worth playing got a Switch port?
Or is this more of a “I don’t want to pay for the same game twice” kind of a thing? Buying the same game over and over again has been the norm for Nintendo for many years now.
Still no Twilight Princess
Pretty much, but yeah it’s more for those that never got the chance to play those WiiU games as content-wise the changes were nonexistent or minimal. I also refused to double dip, apart from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe when they announced DLC tracks would be released, so there was like 8 years between purchasing moments.
Switch is the first to re-release a bunch of games from the generation just before, though. This is mostly due to the previous 2 home consoles being backwards compatible, so there was no need (market).
Xenoblade X is still stuck on the switch
“Worth playing” according to whom?
…and I still have so much cool games to play on it…
I still need to play Skyrim on it.
Haven’t played half of the things I have bought.
I’m gonna play on my switch 1 until a revised switch 2 slim comes out. No need to rush.
Switch 2 OLED most likely. Rumors are, switch 2 will arrive with an LCD panel
No, you’ve got to be kidding me.
I wish! Lets hope the rumors aren’t true
