Topic: Is The Switch 2 Worth It???

My point is that you're judging the library selectively and in a deliberately skewed way to suit your argument. You dismiss entirely releases on Switch 2 as "not counting" for one reason or another. Then you arbitrarily use "first year" as the time window knowing full well that the Switch launched a full quarter earlier

Six months in we've had Mario Kart World, DK Bananza, Hyrule Warriors and Air Riders. Noteworthy performance improvements for both BotW and TotK plus various updates to existing titles, some performance and some content. Then in the middle of that they fit a new Pokemon and Metroid Prime 4, which are also on Switch but are still releases they had to fit into the schedule. Literally something noteworthy every month since launch. It's not stopping either, next month Mario Tennis, then Pokopia in March. And this is ignoring third parties and indies

I really don't buy this narrative that there's nothing happening

Ok, but did you buy every single game on the Switch? Did everyone who is looking at the Switch 2 buy every game on the Switch? I still don't see how the existence of cross-gen releases and a deep back catalogue via backwards compatibility, some of which is enhanced, hurts the appeal of the Switch 2

Yes, the Switch did inherently benefit in a library sense from the fact that Wii U development had stopped entirely and nobody had played these games. So people who had a Wii U were forced to upgrade for all of the new games and there were more people out there who skipped the Wii U than there are people who skipped the Switch. But you surely must realise how strange, temporary and slow to rollout that was. Right?

Your argument here, while having some merit, has a very short shelf life

I would note that the person I was replying to earlier was claiming that the Switch 2 was Nintendo doing the equivalent of "calling the PS5 Pro a PS6". While gushing over the PS5 and its status as a "gamers console". I think it's fair to assume that they don't agree with your argument here

And @OmnitronVariant here is now claiming that only Digital Foundry cares about the gap between Switch and Switch 2. Which is interesting. Because I seem to recall them waxing lyrically about how great the Steam Deck was and how they purchased it when they were dissatisfied with the fidelity of the Switch. And have repeatedly complained about how poor the image quality of Switch 2 titles are

I would put to you that regardless of your views if we are to accept these two views then, logically, we can't also hold the view that the Switch 2's improved fidelity over the Switch is not notable. Even moreso if we are arguing that there are diminishing returns the higher fidelity we go. If the PS5 is the best console to buy currently and was also a worthy upgrade over the PS4? If the Steam Deck is significantly better than the Switch largely due to its improved performance? Then Switch 2 must also be a significant upgrade for its graphical lead over Switch

It's basic logic, one can't be true while the other isn't

You can't please everybody, ever. That's a given. What's your point?

The latter point isn't disingenous. The console's only selling point is its improved visuals and performance. So far the improvements aren't visible to the lay person, and you need to show zoomed in comparisons shots and side-by-side framerate comparisons to tell, in most cases.

I have no doubt at some point Nintendo (or more likely, Monolithsoft) will make something for it that really shows us why it's worth a $700 "upgrade" (in my currency), but so far I haven't seen it personally. I own it, I've bought Bananza and MKW, I wanted to be at least mildly impressed, but I'm not.

@OmnitronVariant PS3 to PS4 was a similar jump in graphical fidelity, with an arguably much worse first party lineup (and no backwards compatibility), yet PS4 went on to sell very well. PS5 similarly sold itself on little more than a graphical boost and - lo and behold - is doing well. Some would argue that PS5 five years on still doesn’t have any compelling exclusives, but here we are.

And let’s assume for a sec that people don’t find that Nintendo’s games showcase the hardware. What about third parties? More than ever there’s parity with the dedicated home consoles. We never would’ve got something like RE Requiem day-and-date on the Switch. And we’ve already seen games that were notably compromised for Switch (e.g. Hogwarts Legacy) look much more in line with other consoles in their Switch 2 versions. “Diminishing returns” are working in Nintendo’s favour. The Switch 2 is the biggest graphical upgrade a console line has seen in near 15 years, and the Switch 2 is much closer to current consoles than the Switch was to its contemporaries.

Just to reply to one last point here:

The cost-of-living crisis is often a scapegoat in these arguments and I can get behind the sentiment. But also I posted a video from LTT on the last page for a reason. It probably expresses what I've been trying to say on this better than I have been

All this negativity and doom is just tiring. I think people just need to step back and realise that, all things considered, there are a lot of good things here. Gaming as a hobby has never really been as cheap or as accessible as it is now, even with the recent price inflation. You're here arguing that you don't need to upgrade to the Switch 2 to get a satisfying gaming experience. Both with the existing library of software and also new releases that are still coming to Switch. And sure, this is true. But that being a viable option is a good thing

But even with that being the case, the Switch 2 does have a clear value. Some of that value is in new content only on Switch 2, which like with any new platform launch starts with 0 and grows over time. I will always say you're a bit of an idiot if you buy a console on day 1, that still stands. But in this case some of that value comes in the form of improvements to existing titles. Some free, some with an upgrade free. This makes Switch 2 a more appealing piece of hardware than it otherwise would be. This is a good thing

But honestly, the thing that irks me about this thread in particular and posters such as @OmnitronVariant is the constant whine. The constant warring and battling over stuff which, ultimately, doesn't really matter. Rather than just enjoying the games. And the Switch 2 does already have some pretty great games, as I'm sure it will continue to get over the next several years

Worthiness of video game machine is very subjective to each people.
For those who consider as worthy, they might like a lot from the upgrade feature and the games line up.
But for those who don't think Switch 2 is worthy, it might be from various issue such as disliking certain games or disappointed by certain franchise, game key card, overpriced, etc.
Whichever answer from anyone here, worthy or not is not something to be fight for.
Kudos for whoever think is worthy, kudos for whoever think is not worthy.
One thing can be loved or hated by different people.
My answer right now is still not worthy, because of game key card issue.

Yeah, I must agree, one great thing about the Switch 2 is that... though some people may not agree... there really is a fair amount of first party games already. And the third party side of things (minus the cancelation of niche Japanese fanservice game releases in the US and EU branches of Ninendo) is looking really good. I really don't know what people are expecting. Now, if we get to the 10th anniversary of Mario Odyssey and there is still no news about the next 3D Mario, that would be kind of concerning. But I really do think some people raise their expectations a little too high. Also, it's a more technologically advanced console, with more technologically advanced games. If course it's all going to be more expensive. I personally think that the Switch 2, with the way it is currently going and its current pricing, is almost the perfect console of all time. The only things holding it back for me are Game Key Cards and Nintendo of America's cancelation of Japanese fanservice game releases like Hyperdimension Neptunia. But those can be discussed another time.

Taking that statement away from the context of the avove arguments... those are not actually totally inconsistent since it was primarily talking about seeing graphical differences. Being under-powered means it can't even play many games and loading times are poor. To me those make a big difference. But for games which already ran reasonably well... 30fps versus 60fps is something I personally am rarely able to differentiate and my TV doesn't even have 4K. So I am definitely one of those people who simultaneously thinks Switch 1 was under-powered but also thinks most (even updated) games look the same on both consoles. Actual Switch 1 games that is, obviously something like Bananza or FF7 couldn't exist on Switch 1.

I realize some of the people above were discussing this a bit disengenuoisly to back an argument, but I thought it was an interesting dichotomy to think about.

@FishyS Yes to elaborate I did mean actual Switch 2 games vs Switch 1 games.

As much as I love my switch 2 I do find the enhancements on Switch 1 games can be hit or miss. I wish more developers would go back to their games and patch in 1080p / 60 fps + where it wasn’t available as the Switch 2 is clearly powerful enough. In some cases it might encourage people to buy games they were putting off before due to performance issues.

@Buizel
I wish more devs would do this too, but I take what I can get (there are a fair few with enhancements, mostly 1st party but I imagine most 1st party Switch games will get free updates or $5-10 upgrades).

There are a number of games that naturally just get 60 now like Ni No Kuni 2, MH Stories 1 and 2, Bayonetta 3, Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Tales of Vesperia, etc.

But I honestly think the majority of NS1 games won't get updated, which is why paying $100 for a hardmod is such a must imo. Not all games can overclock to 60, but outputting docked image in handheld with a stable framerate is still a better way to play for titles capped at 30, since you're getting better graphical quality in handheld.

Like, Doom Eternal, Xenoblade 2 and Immortals Fenyx Rising. Sure, you can play on NS2 and they look better thanks to dynamic res not dropping and framerate being stable, but they look better on a chipped Switch in handheld mode outputting docked. In fact they look spectacular.

Plus you get benefits if you're a Fire Emblem or Trails fan like Cold Steel 1 and 2 in Englisb 60fps, and FE4, FE5, FE6, FE11, FE12 in English (FE11 was already localized but it's not normally playable on NS). Or if you're a Pokemon fan, Yokai Watch remake and Yokai Watch 4 in English.

So to me, having a combination of chipped NS OLED and NS2 is the way to go. But I do think by the time this generation is over, it's going to be incredible how many NS2 games there are, both upgraded releases that were on NS1 and new games.

@Bolt_Strike I thought that the key staff that weren't on Bananza were on Wonder? Someone did a comparison between Wonder's credits and Bananza's credits- and the missing staff were apparently on Wonder.

For a community that's generally quick to cry that things are anti-consumer the fact that cross-gen and multiplatform games are "divisive" says to me people don't actually care about what's consumer friendly. Especially given that whenever you mention it people like @Bolt_Strike bleat "yeah, but I don't care, I already have those games, I don't want to play them again"

Speaking for myself, the Switch 2 has opened up the Switch library by making more games run well. There's stuff in here I was skipping or buying elsewhere which now runs acceptably on Nintendo's platform. And there are games with upgrades making them worth revisiting, in the same way that some of those Wii U ports were worth revisiting when they came across. It's just that this time the paywall is much smaller, sometimes even not there at all

The idea that this is controversial or a net-negative for the platform is, frankly, absurd. As absurd as the idea that the Switch 2 itself is "just a Switch Pro"

@Buizel You might think that, with the Switch 2 being "ten times" more powerful than the Switch 1, getting all games to run at 1080p@60 would be easy. Unfortunately, the devil is in the details.

Much of that extra power is in terms of the Switch 2 having six times as many compute units, so it needs to be able to parallelize the workload to reap the full benefit of it. Some game engines can do that easily, others can't, and you're left with a much smaller boost to performance in the latter case.

This can be particularly acute in handheld mode, where the clock speeds aren't as high, hence we've got games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 that manages 1440@60 docked but you've got to drop to 1080@30 for handheld. They could perhaps have improved on that if they'd took the time to optimize the game more, but it's certainly not as simple as just loading the game into a Switch 2 Dev Kit and hitting build.

Then, you've got other games that are just hard coded to run at 30fps and would need a top to bottom re-write to hit 60. You might have seen videos of Animal Crossing New Horizons running at 60 on emulators, for instance, but that's typically using frame generation from something like Lossless Scaling, which needs a lot of processing power and slightly adds to the latency. For the kind of game it is, 4K@30 seems a better choice to me, even if it won't please the frame rate purists.

That said, there are heck of a lot more Switch 2 Editions that I've played that can offer a 60fps upgrade, or in a couple of cases 120, so these are just the outliers.

@VoidofLight I haven't really seen anything on this topic at all, but as near as I know Wonder was developed by the usual 2D Mario team that developed the NSMB and Mario Maker games.

Did you not read my previous response about it not being a negative, just a minor positive? You're misrepresenting my argument.

So tell me, what is the difference then? A Switch Pro would have a specs increase. It would be able to play Switch games. It would probably have game enhancements to utilize the higher specs. And they have dabbled with exclusives on mid-gen refreshes even if they haven't gone all in yet (see Xenoblade Chronicles 3D which was a New 3DS exclusive). What else is the Switch 2 doing that a Switch Pro would not have? Mouse Mode which is mainly used as an additional control option? This really feels like something that could've been a Switch Pro with a more PC/mobile-esque incremental upgrade rather than a full generational reset.

@Bolt_Strike
It's only "like a Switch Pro" in the sense that it's NOT a full generational reset. In every other sense it's a new generation of hardware. And, frankly, the generational reset is the most anti-consumer thing about console gaming and we should be celebrating its death

@skywake And what is the "every other sense"? Again, when you strip away all of these things a Switch Pro could've done, there's little to nothing left that could distinguish a new generation from a Pro revision.

@Bolt_Strike
In the common usage of the terms a "Pro" console is a console that is built in such a way as to avoid breaking compatibility wherever possible. It maintains legacy architectures rather than adopting new features and is limited by what is possible on that architecture

So it's usually just more RAM, a higher clock speed, maybe some more cores. Games can run better and it can have exclusives but fundamentally it's delivering the same content. Think PS4/5 Pro but also New 3DS, DSi, GBC or even the memory pack on N64 and enhancement chips on the SNES and NES. I would personally even argue that the Wii was more of a GC Pro with an alternative controller than a new platform. It was certainly closer to GC in terms of what it could do than Switch 2 is to Switch, at least in games not called Wii Sports

A successor ignores this and rebuilds from whatever architecture makes the most sense. There may be compatibility with the previous generation, and this is a good thing if it happens, but this is secondary. And in doing so they open up features and options that were straight up not possible on the previous platform

And obviously because the architecture changes dramatically you often see things improve by an order of magnitude. Whether you like it or not, this is what the Switch 2 is. There will be and already are games on the Switch 2 that the Switch could not run