Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@Bolt_Strike Third parties need to develop for the Switch 2 so it gets the best version it could possibly have, then build up for more powerful hardware. Everyone would be happy. Catering to Sony and the making cuts is backwards, they don't make everyone happy and are chasing a model that is unsustainable.

Again, Nintendo may be upgrading tech- but the system is still going to be underpowered compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It'll be powerful enough to run some next gen games if they're downscaled, but for the most part it'll be PS4 PRO power at most. This means a lot of games releasing on PS5 and Series X will be able to run, but it's moreso just the games that are actually last-gen anyways.

What you seem to gloss over is that Nintendo will still be a full generation behind PS5/Xbox Series, meaning they will get all the 3rd party ports from the last generation and a half, on top of their own first party games, as well as any current indie and esports titles.

This will stand them in good stead for at least the next 3-4 years, by which time more third party titles will inevitably be available to port over. This is the best of all possible worlds and I strongly believe is a clear and deliberate strategy by Nintendo to avoid the droughts so often seen on cutting edge hardware as a result of the long development times of AAA titles.

As long as they remain at least five years behind the technology curve and continue to develop and release attractive first party content, I really don't see any issue or reason for concern. A steady stream of games, on top of a more reliable, powerful and attractively priced version of the current Switch will mean success is almost guaranteed.

Nintendo's first party titles should not take significantly longer to develop, due to the nature of the titles they produce. Slightly more detailed textures, better frame rates and higher fidelity are all easily obtained without significant cost due to the feature set of the new hardware. Hardware that will be very familiar to developers working on last gen consoles and PC. The style and arguably excessive lengths of the games have generally dictated the longer development times on other consoles but for the Switch 2, these are unlikely to change too much for Nintendo.

As for the specifications being discussed, these are incredibly tame compared to the likes of Xbox Series X and PS5, so should be relatively cheap to produce over time and just as importantly, easy to develop for. IMHO, this, along with backwards compatibility and the transferring of Switch user accounts should allow the Switch 2 to have a very bright and successful 5+ years on the market.

How we measure that success next to the phenomenon that is the Switch will vary from person to person but personally, I see no reason why the next console can't amass 70m+ sales, assuming it ticks all the boxes outlined above.

There's tremendous defensive value in ensuring the Switch 2 is powerful enough to get the new AAA ports, as cpmh1234 said. It's not about being more powerful than the competition, it's about keeping up just enough not to get left out of the party.

AAA games are not going away soon. With revenue comparable to a blockbuster movie, but with a longer tail, it remains a very lucrative business. Hogwarts Legacy (as pointed out) is still doing gangbusters. In fact, its current sales is dominated by the Switch, which proves that Nintendo's market is also the AAA market. AAA games like HL far outsell anything Nintendo has ever put out. You do not want to be in a situation where the casual user is told "the 5 most popular games in the world cannot be played on the Switch 2". This is the defensive value of having just enough power.

@VoidofLight Switch 2 is actually going to have more going for it with regards to 3rd-party games. Firstly, the gap between Switch 2 and PS5/XSX is set to be smaller than the gap between Switch and PS4/XB1, especially in terms of the CPU. Switch not only had a lower-clocked CPU than those, but also half the cores. Switch 2 will still have a lower clock, but it will have matching core counts. One can downscale a game graphically, whether by resolution, frame rate, or details like foliage, particles, etc. But downscaling a game's "logic" done on the CPU is far harder.

Besides this smaller gap, Switch 2 also has an advantage all thanks to Microsoft. The Series S. In order to get a game on Series X, they also have to have to have that game on Series S.

@Discostew Ahh so realistically the Switch 2 might be more on par to the Xbox Series S for developers.

@Bolt_Strike To be fair, the gap between games releasing has always been a pretty big thing. With 3D Mario, we've historically only had one 3D Mario per generation- with the exception of Mario Galaxy 2. With Zelda, the games came out faster sure- but the scope of the series is to the point where the big 3D entries take more time due to the open world nature. Zelda is still going on strong though. We've gotten an entry about once a year or so. We're about to get a brand new one right now.

While these larger scale entries take time, Nintendo has already off-set the void periods that Sony and Microsoft find themselves in at the current. Multiple games in a series are being worked on at all times. Echoes of Wisdom probably started development around the mid-point or late point of TotK's development for example.

Turn-around times are going to be a bit longer due to the shifting in scope, but even outside of graphical fidelity, it was always going to be like this. Open world games are going to take a long time to produce, regardless of the graphical qualities of those games. Ideas are going to take time to be implemented. The result of not caring about the assets or graphical stylings of a game ends up making the game feel or look cheaper as a result. Either that- or end up becoming something like modern Pokemon.

The industry is stagnating, that much is true- but Nintendo still has a lot of room to grow given how they've been generations behind for a while now. Games are going to have a massive night and day difference due to the new architecture of the successor. Games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (a game that pushes the switch to it's limits) will look generations behind compared to what they'll be able to do on something as powerful as this new console.

With Zelda you really have to wonder, is there a reason for the game world to be that incomprehensibly huge? It seems excessive. If they cut down on the game world size I think they could release them faster.

Only through remakes and spinoffs. Remove those and the gaps are huge. 6 years each for BotW and TotK. They would've released 3 or 4 new, original 3D Zelda games in that 12 year span before.

That's because Nintendo actually invests in their first party studios and Microsoft and Sony don't.

It only looks cheaper because a past generation increased the graphical fidelity and we got used to a higher standard. I am questioning if that increase was ever really needed. I struggle to think of any game concept since the jump to HD (or maybe even 5th or 6th gen) where I would think "Gee, this is a fun new idea for a game that I want to do, but I can't because the graphical fidelity isn't high enough?". It feels superfluous.

Now at this point? The standard is the standard and we can't go back. Aside from retro nostalgia no one's going to accept anything less than HD assets. But we can hold off from pushing further forward.

I'm not familiar with XC3, what about that game pushes the Switch to its limits? Again, I'm skeptical that the extra power will facilitate any growth beyond graphical fidelity. Yes, XC3 will LOOK generations behind compared to Switch 2, but will it PLAY generations behind? Without a gimmick, I highly doubt it. Nintendo's gimmicks are just about the only thing pushing this industry forward, new control styles are where the real growth lies right now.

@Bolt_Strike Presentation is a big part of a game. It always has been. By your logic, devs shouldn't strive for better graphics and should just stick to making very simplistic looking games. The reason why graphics got better over time was because developers kept pushing for better graphical capabilities. A lot of them had ideas in their head which couldn't be done justice if things stayed as they were before the jump to HD. Graphical innovation and pushing the boundaries of system limitations has always been a thing.

If you look at Final Fantasy for example, you can see how limited the original games were compared to what the series eventually became. Final Fantasy 1 in particular had a lot of cut ideas that were never implemented- all because of system limitations for the console they were making the game for. The Warrior of Light's actual design wasn't implemented in a Final Fantasy game until Dissidia came around. There were concepts for enemies that couldn't be added to the game because of how taxing they were for current hardware. The Cloud Sea Djinn for example, was an enemy that was cut from the actual game because the NES couldn't handle a giant enemy like that.

Another example would be Monster Hunter Wilds. A game living up to the concept that the series originally wanted to end up being, but couldn't due to hardware limitations. It took them Seven generations of the series to get to the point where they can actually utilize some of the concepts they were sitting on. the ecology, the amount of animals able to be present on the screen, the ability to render the world without having loading screens. Ideas like the Sekrets being able to actually function and exist (coming a long way from their concept art for Monster Hunter 1).

Now, games are able to actually showcase grandiose scenes and massive enemies that are able to be traversed as if they were mountains. Games are able to have mechanics and ideas show through that weren't possible before. All thanks to the processing power increasing generation by generation. All thanks to the ability to actually render in HD and create without as many limits hindering the artistic and mechanical aspects of game design.

As for Xenoblade 3, the graphics are what push the system to it's limits, along with other things like the amount of characters on-screen and having the entire party out in every single battle without having to pick or choose who you want to be fight with. The scenes and field areas are able to actually display more in terms of scope as well.

Whatever the case may be for XC3 hitting Switch's limits, it is doing it nonetheless, both in graphical (GPU) and game logic (CPU). Each Xenoblade game makes changes to the gameplay to freshen things up, so it certainly means there's going to be something changed up for any further entries, just like how Mario, Zelda, and various other franchises do it.

The gameplay of a game is about fun. There's no real "generations" about it. A game could be exceedingly simple in gameplay that a console some generations back could have done it. So what does generations ahead in gameplay matter if it's not fun?

The whole gameplay angle is less what I've been getting at. Saying "we don't need better graphics for games," is ignoring that the whole visual aspect is basically what was being chased ever since games were first being developed. The ability to actually represent scenes in the developer's heads without having to compromise. That's why I feel like graphics are important. To be able to showcase more of what the devs actually intended.

Another thing that bugs me is the whole "Well Zelda doesn't have to have massive open worlds." Sure, the games don't have to have them. But the developers want to do them. They're excited about them and enjoy making open world games.

Presentation is fluff. It's meaningless flashiness that doesn't actually make the game better.

There's this thing with graphics called diminishing returns where the improvements become less noticeable over time. Yes, the Final Fantasy games were much different from the NES, but the jump from the NES to the SNES was much more significant than it is now. Most of those kinds of improvements have been frontloaded in the first several console generations but you mostly stopped seeing them around 6th or 7th gen. This is why the industry is stagnating. We've reached the end of what graphics can provide for gaming from a mechanics standpoint. Further improvements are just fluff at this point.

Not really a Monster Hunter fan, but looking at the trailers and gameplay mechanics I see nothing here that needed the current hardware to actually exist. In fact, it basically just looks like a nicer looking Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. Games have been able to get rid of loading screens as far back as the PS2. We've had mounts before. And having detailed environments and more characters on screen is just more graphical fluff. They could've done something like this on a previous console if they wanted. It just sounds like they didn't want to do this without this level of graphical fidelity.

Oh hi there Shadow of the Colossus. I had no idea it was still 2005.

Which mechanics and ideas? Name them. Because every "mechanic" you've said couldn't be done without current gen hardware... has been. You haven't presented one single idea yet that actually needs the current gen hardware, the only thing that seems to need the current gen hardware is the presentation fluff you keep obsessing over.

What that is matters though because if it's something superfluous, they can simply cut that aspect of the game to avoid unnecessary jumps to expensive hardware.

This is a logical fallacy. Just because they have come up with new ideas doesn't mean they will continue to do so. Developers run out of ideas sometimes and end up recycling ideas. We saw this a lot in the 3DS/Wii U era. This is not something we can count on.

Because fun suffers diminishing returns too. The more an idea is repeated the less fun it gets. That's what we ACTUALLY need new generations for is to facilitate new gameplay ideas that couldn't be done before, and therefore haven't been done to death.

And that's great, but again, just because they've always done it doesn't mean they need to keep doing it. Their ideas are running into a very different limit right now and that's a limit of time and money, until they can find a way to push that limit in a sustainable way, they're going to need to stick to those limits or their ambitions are going to run them out of business.

There's a difference between an open world game and an open world game the size of freaking Texas. I love open world games myself, but some of these can be a bit too overwhelming. I feel like the size of the worlds could be trimmed down a bit to keep it from being cumbersome and stale.

You're kind of being a jerk about this. You're also talking about games you have no idea about. A lot of what Monster Hunter Wilds is doing is stuff that's only possible on current gen consoles due to technical leaps made. Mostly due to the higher processing power. To you they may look like things that can be done on any platform, but that's further from the truth. This couldn't have existed on the PS3 or Xbox 360. Nor any Nintendo platform. Not a game with animals that have genuine life-like ai.

Also you saying "Presentation is fluff" also feels like you're looking at games solely from a mechanical standpoint and ignoring the fact that games are an art form. Final Fantasy XVI is a game that couldn't have existed in it's current state on PS4. It's a game that takes full advantage of the processing power of current gen systems. Otherwise it would've launched on both PS4 and PS5, and would look much more like a PS4 title.

Also that's good on you for not wanting an open world the size of Texas. But it isn't up to you to decide what developers want to do or don't want to do. They had a vision for the game and are realizing that vision thanks to the hardware on the console. A console which is ancient at this point and can barely run their visions without compromise. This is why more power is needed for Nintendo titles.

You're living in a fantasy world. It's not about the competition, it's about how technology in general advances over time. It's been 8 years since the Switch was revealed, a lot has changed since then

Storage has become significantly faster and cheaper. Plus for whatever reason it has become reasonable to start including hardware acceleration for file decompression. Both of these when combined will allow the storage subsystem to be an order of magnitude faster than they are on Switch currently. But neither are possible without a new generation of hardware. As it requires a new cartridge and taking full advantage of the improved performance requires specific programming

RAM has become cheaper to the point where the cost of doubling or even tripling the Switch's 4GB isn't going to make a huge difference on the price. Sure it'll impact the BOM but to the end user the relative difference in price would be small relative to the otherwise stable costs of other components. But the benefit of additional memory would be a significant improvement in asset quality and potentially a reduction in traversal stutter as the developer could make more open world games load more of the world in at once. But because it requires different programming and new asset creation it means a different version of the game. So we need a new generation of console

Displays haven't remained the same either. When the Switch launched HDMI 2.1 was barely out and I would argue that most people's TVs were still SDR, 1080p, 60Hz. Since then we've seen HDR and 4K become commonplace. We've seen VRR go from this cool trick PC gaming has to a standard feature on most modern sets. And we're at the point now where you can pickup even discount TVs and they'll do 4K, 120Hz, HDR, VRR. But developing games for these modes requires you to consider them when developing. Probably more importantly it requires more power. Both require a new console

And finally NVidia hasn't been sitting on their hands for the last several years. They've been pushing significant advances in their GPU feature set. Specifically hardware acceleration for Ray Tracing and AI accelerated upscaling via DLSS. Obviously new GPU features require releasing new hardware. But it also requires developers to specifically develop their game for these features. Which means we need a new generation

And this is before you consider the advancements in semiconductor manufacturing which will allow higher performance out of the SoC generally at a (relative to performance) lower power draw and (relative to performance) lower cost. Literally they are able to use the same amount of silicon for more components. That's how that works. But again, if they have that extra headroom available to them..... it's a complete waste to not use it. And extracting the full value out of the smaller process requires, you guessed it, a new generation of console

And now you may say, and almost certainly will to be contrarian, that these are things we don't need. And to an extent you're right. We don't. But all of them undoubtedly make for an improved experience. And given these features are available to take advantage of it seems a bit silly to just go on pretending that they don't exist. Especially when supporting them doesn't have a significant cost other than requiring a a division in software support between two generations of hardware

edit:
And in any case, you're of the opinion that it's too similar looking to the existing hardware and people won't notice the difference. That seems a bit contradictory to me. On the one hand you're complaining that this offers nothing new and on the other hand you're saying that they shouldn't change the spec and potentially offer something new. Which is it?

Mira is Nintendo's biggest open world, even bigger than BotW/TotK Hyrule so I'd imagine that Monolith Soft with more hardware power would result in a XCX trilogy.

Well if I had all the time in the world to look up gameplay for a game I have no interest in, I'd do so, but you brought this one up and you're struggling to explain what in the game's mechanics is utilizing that higher processing power.

Okay now we're getting somewhere. Lifelike AI would be more of a legit mechanical improvement, but I still remain skeptical it affects gameplay.

It's an art form but it's a very unique type of art form defined by its interactivity. That's why I'm emphasizing the mechanics. If I wanted to look at pretty visuals I could look at a picture or watch a video, if I wanted a good story I could read a book or watch TV, if I wanted to hear pleasant sounds I could listen to music. But if I want to play around in a fictional world I can only do that through a video game. The artistic stuff is nice, I'm not trying to say it's bad and you shouldn't like it, it's just an expendable luxury. And with the time and money issues with the jump to HD, we are in an environment where developers need to make cuts, so this seems like the best part of the game to cut while still making it fun.

Here's a hot news flash for you: developers are not going to run ANY vision without compromise. They're always going to have to make compromise somewhere. If you take Econ 101, they tell you the first law of economics is that everything is subject to shortages. You can't have infinite resources that are infinitely powerful to create your vision, nor do you have infinite time and money to use them. If they haven't learned that by now they're not going to make it much longer in this industry (and I have no idea how they could've even gotten this far without knowing that). None of this is up to me but that was never the point, the point is that the level of graphical fidelity they want to realize is financially unsustainable. So if they're smart, they'd be adults, realize that there's only so much they can do, and rein in their visions to something more sustainable rather than overzealously chasing the maximum possible capabilities that technology allows. They'll win themselves a Darwin Award with the latter kind of behavior. Very disappointing that Nintendo seems to be following the latter philosophy, I thought they were better than that.

@Grumblevolcano Ehhh. I hope not. Really don’t want to see any other Xenoblade X games. Rather them focus on new IPs and mainline Xenoblade.

@Bolt_Strike If you don’t have the time to learn what you’re talking about then I just suggest not talking about it in the first place.

Also- the ai is going to change a lot of monster hunter outright. The hunts are far more dynamic and unpredictable than they once were. The game world is more immersive now due to it as well. It creates a greater sense of world building which is extremely important for a game like Monster Hunter in the first place.

Also I fully understand that gameplay is important, but to me- visuals are equally important as gameplay. If a game plays well but looks visually unappealing, I tend to have a harder time getting into it (by this I mean art styles being awful and nothing mixing together well at all).

Personally I don’t mind having to wait 7 years for the next 3D Zelda. I can wait. Long dev times for games that are visually interesting and feel good to play isn’t an issue for me. Also- fun fact: the visuals in BotW and TotK aren’t why the games took so long to come out. It was due to the physics engine in the game. It took them very little time to actually get the world together along with the visual side of things. Took about the last year of development I believe to make the game world itself.

Also I understand that there will be compromises made, but with better graphics and processors, they’re able to reach a vision of the game they want to make without as many compromises. Sure it won’t be the perfect game- given that companies will rush their devs and a product has to come out. A work is never finished and usually tends to get abandoned and all that. It’s just that less restrictions in terms of hardware helps developers get closer to what they want to actually create.