Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

Ive heard the Digimon game is decent- not great but decent, but hyped up by the anti-Pokemon crowd.

There are some things I really like about Digimon but I just can't stand the monster designs. Super buff masculine monsters exuding some weird vibes lol. But if you're into it dont let me rain on your parade. Enjoy it.

I'm now on mission 5 or 6 in Pokemon Legends Z-A and the game keeps getting better and better. But I did take a break and play some Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter now that it got performance mode patched in. It holds a stable 60 frames and feels wonderful on NSW2 now.

Also started playing more Mario Kart World. Barely played it for the first 4 months after launch but have been doing several Grand Prix cups in handheld mode lately, and I'm blown away with how fun this game is. It's absolutely fantastic! I was having a field day with picture mode on the final track I got 1st place in, barely winning me the Gold Cup

Just watched this Switch 2/ Ally X comparison video, and to my eyes, games look better on Switch 2. The Ally X can do higher framerates but the image quality on demanding games like Cyberpunk, Outlaws, Hogwarts... looks nicer on Switch 2. Cyberpunk especially. Perhaps he's intentionally not using optimal settings with the Ally X, to make the Switch 2 look better in comparison, I don't know. Considering the price difference between the 2, the Switch 2 comes out of this comparison video as the overall winner, battery life and ergonomics aside.

@OorWullie Probably default settings. Cyberpunk was optimized for Switch 2 but presumably not for ROG. Having to mess tons with settings is both a huge disadvantage and arguably also an advantage of the more PC-like devices.

@OorWullie
Thing is, these PC handhelds only achieve high end performance by pulling 35W and then on top of that activating "Turbo Mode", which isnt a viable method of playing games unless you don't mind staying plugged into an outlet. For ROG Ally X specifically, the 17W mode is the one that's truly viable imo, with solid battery life and still runs games well enough. Anything that requires more watts than that isnt worth playing imo.

And ya, when you compare to Switch 2, by and large that $1000 system is going to outclass it. But it wont be a night and day difference. At most you'll squeeze 60fps on some games that run 30fps on NSW2, which dont get me wrong- that's great, but at least personally, the heavy weight of the system, the headache of dealing with Windows, and not just Windows but Windows on a small screen using touch and buttons and on-screen keyboards to navigate, isn't worth it imo. Maybe it is to others, and if so, enjoy. If you have the money and dont mind swinging $1000 on it and have the patience to deal with the tinkering and constant updates, have fun.

I dont think its a bad system. In fact I really like it, for a Windows PC handheld. I'm just over my PC handheld phase. Certainly over my Windows PC handheld phase, anyways. But in the end, if you have a NSW2 that's super fast and responsive and easy to navigate, I dont see much value in dropping $1000 to get 60fps on a few multiplats. But maybe youre a diehard 60fps purist- in that case it might be worth it, ya know? That's definitely not me though.

All that and I haven't said what I originally meant to say- law of diminishing returns works against systems like that. You pay exponentially more money for exponentially less perceived visual quality. The only real gain is getting 60fps for some games, but even then, if you wanna play modern AAA games you best be ok with 30fps unless you plan to run 35W with Turbo Mode all the time and don't value battery life.

Which, if I had one, I'd run every game at 30fps locked just like I do on Steamdeck. Doesn't bother me. But, I can already do that on NSW2 (the library of 3rd party will fill out over the generation). And theres no need to worry about whether there's gyro aiming on NSW2. On PC its always a gamble whether mouse maps to gyro properly.

Yeah, the XBox Ally X is what you get when you try to make a handheld with all the bleeding edge tech that you can get your hands on. Still, even at that price, it's not capable of running most modern games at 60fps and a good chunk of the extra performance is getting eaten up by the inefficiencies of running software that's not fully optimized for it. Even with the huge library of Windows games that I've got, I'm not in the least bit tempted by it. Maybe if Microsoft hadn't just completely gutted Game Pass, it'd be a better proposition, but that ship has sailed now.

The Switch 2, in contrast, is designed to a price. It might be a somewhat higher price than some of us would like, but they've struck a balance with features and performance and it'll probably manage about as well so long as you're getting games that have been thoroughly optimized for what it has to offer.

Its crazy how a few months ago the narrative was that $450 was way too expensive. Now we have $600-800 consoles with $600-1,000 handhelds, and suddenly the $450 hybrid that offers both console and handheld functionality seems like a bargain by comparison. I had a feeling that was going to happen though.

It's wild that both Xbox and PS have consoles that cost $800+ ($830 for PS5 Pro accounting for the disc drive, unless you want digital only for $750), and it's become normalized to the point we dont really think much of it anymore. I remember when $500 was the absolute max a console would cost. Which, theres still the Series S and base PS5 digital as options, but those are less powerful, digital only options I suspect most wont opt for, in the same way most opted for the $350 Switch OLED rather than the $200 Lite or $300 model.

@JaxonH it's wild how quickly "value" perception can change. I felt the price was fair from day 1, but now it really feels like a good deal. I'm more surprised how these aging consoles have increased their price so much, especially XBOX falling so far behind.

@Lazz
I did too. I never thought the console was priced unreasonably, especially the $500 bundle with Mario Kart.

I also thought PS5 and XS were priced reasonably, before they increased price not once but twice. Heck, even the NSW1 got a price increase lol. $230 for a Lite isnt bad, but given the Switch is in its 9th year its crazy to think all models cost $30-50 more than in 2017. Then again, it's at 154 million units sold and continues to sell. Nintendo was probably like "Crap... we gotta do something to funnel sales more toward NSW2. Econ 101- increase prices of all NSW1 models across the board to disincentivise purchases of Switch and incentivise purchases of NSW2."

And in fairness, it's a good plan. Really, it's the only one that makes sense to me as its a tactic to encourage Switch 2 sales. If you're gonna drop $400 on an OLED, may as well spend that extra $50 and get a Switch 2 with backward compatibility and be covered for the next 8 years or so.

What's really crazy though is even after the price increases, NSW1 still continues to truck along like nothing ever changed lol.

Switch2 is absolutely reasonably priced IMO, and as others have said - the MKW bundle was very competitive. My only bone of contention was the software price of MKW when purchased separately, which definitely felt fairly inflated.

When you consider also that the Switch2 price includes the dock & HMDI cable, the pricepoint is really quite decent I feel

And Resident Evil 9 joins the club of the game key-cards. Well, I was not expecting anything else but still when I saw it today in my local retailer for pre-order it hurt a little

In this case I am getting it on PS5.

Got my Switch Lite OLED with touchscreen support (Super5 Takai Udon hardware mod) today!

@Zuljaras
Every non-1st party game will be a key card, with rare exception. Certainly the big AAA.

Thats why Im so glad I switched to digital. I don't have to worry about sacrificing my hybrid play for physical. I recently sold 400 of my Switch games, all my remaining PS4, PS5, X1, XS and DS games since I ran out of room and own all the NSW games digitally anyways (at least the ones I really care about).

@JaxonH Good for you

As for me when I switch to all digital, I am also switching to not paying for games like in the good old days

@Zuljaras
...uh what? lol

@rallydefault

@Zuljaras
Ah, lol

But Horizon is a Sony property...

I have both a Steam Deck LCD and a MSI Claw A1M both I purchased at around £200 secondhand. I say £200 but the Steam Deck was £230 but came with a high speed Samsung Plus 512GB micro SD card so I valued that at £30 as a secondhand purchase. The MSI was about £202 and just came as it would normally with its own case and psu. It's the faster model with 1TB storage.

However I'm loving the Steam Deck, absolutely fantastic with Steam OS but the MSI Claw is a bit rubbish because of Windows so I'm gradually getting my head around converting it to Steam OS too. Windows is awful on these devices. The Steam Deck has brilliant battery life really and peaks at 15W TDP but is mostly below that. I get an easy 4 hours on the games I've been playing but I haven't been pushing the Steam Deck at all. The MSI claw is very poor but you can only really control TDP with Steam OS it seems. The MSI Claw has a ridiculous 28,000 passmark CPU score, about 3x the performance of the Steam Deck. Once I get the MSI Claw nicely setup it should be an amazing emulation device as well as for pc gaming but for the moment its not great. It feels like Windows is creating problems all the time but maybe Steam OS will as well on that device. It's clear that Steam OS and Steam Deck is a match made in heaven.

Despite the weaker performance I feel like the Steam Deck is the better portable device. It's on a more advanced fabrication process and uses less power. It feels like 15W TDP max is where you want to be.

However I feel once I've configured the MSI Claw correctly maybe it will be the better device. I have to say I don't really care about the higher resolution of 1080p and have not played anything yet at 120Hz. I keep intending to spend more time configuring it but end up just playing on the Steam Deck.

I also have to configure the Steam Deck for emudeck and heroic game launcher. A lot of the simpler games that seem better for portable use are on my epic account due to the free weekly games. Those are smaller, more pick up and play and use much less power.

Elden Ring for Switch 2 has apparently been delayed to 2026 so they can optimize the game more. Good call probably, I respect it.

I'd like to take back any implication I might have had that Switch 2 might underperform in the long term compared to Switch 1, since that was when I thought there was a chance that Xbox had any future at all. I'm now fairly certain it will sell Switch 1 numbers, more or less.

My concerns that Nintendo are being stupid and limiting how many people will buy their B-tier games because of their borderline "full price or nothing" policy with bare minimum sales are going to hurt their B-tier games for no good reason, I still maintain tho.

It's certainly hard to justify the "Switch 2 is a bad value platform" arguments once you add any kind of medium term thinking or awareness of the landscape. A couple of years from now it'll be Switch 2, a more expensive PlayStation or an entirely unsubsidised platform either from XBox/Valve/whoever. And Switch 2 is going to look, relatively speaking, very affordable