Topic: The Super Nintendo Switch Launch Games Speculation Thread

@FishyS It'd be funny if one day, Microsoft randomly released Windows 9 as an April Fool's joke
Edit: Just realised I'm very late to that😂

@MarioBrickLayer You are right about F-ZERO and Mario Kart in the same year, but we don't know anything about what's going on behind closed doors. Can you remember, a while ago there were Mario Kart 9 rumors swirling around, but since MK8 is selling so well, we got tracks and characters instead to breathe some fresh content into MK8. Now, if there actually are plans for reviving F-Zero, they will have started working on it years ago, same as with MK9. We don't know how far development is, but since MK9 obviously has been pushed back as to not cannibalize sales of MK8 and basically compete with itself, who knows maybe we get F-Zero as a gap-filler? Or F-Zero has been pushed back. MK9 as system seller in launch week and F-Zero the next year (2025) to fill up the spring-drought?

Who knows! Love to speculate though!

@FishyS I don't get removing 99-games. Or Mario35. Forced, timed exclusivity with no clear benefit for anyone seems a bit like kicking yourself in the stomach to me.

@Bolt_Strike I can easily see them going "Splatoon 3 DX" with enhanced graphics and a few exclusive feaures but otherwise matchmaking with Switch 1 base game.

@FragRed
It will definitely have the ability to do hardware accelerated ray tracing. The question is whether or not the level of acceleration it will have will mean much in terms of delivering "ray tracing". Again, probably depends on how developers choose to use the hardware

DLSS is going to matter certainly. I think we'll also see some games take advantage of the new display options opened up by jumping to HDMI 2.0/2.1. 4K, 120Hz, HDR, VRR etc. Those two things will definitely matter. Ray tracing will happen..... but it'll be a VERY distant third. I think we'll see more games running at 4K than we do games with Ray Tracing

edit: BTW the video I linked shows what hardware that's very similar to what we're potentially looking at here can do. It is about twice the size and with far less power restrictions but more or less the same architecture. And with that more capable hardware nothing was breaking 60fps at 1080p with RT turned on. So I'm not convinced RT will be something we see a whole lot. And, as you said, certainly not undocked

Maybe we get a Ray Traced Ocarina of Time or something though

@Kermit1 Oh, most certainly better Bluetooth. I forgot to add that and 120Hz to my predictions
They’ll probably most definitely keep the headphone-jack, a game system ≠ phone so I don’t see why they would exclude it

@skywake 128GB of storage is atleast better then apples 64GB minimum 🤷‍♂️
I genuinely don’t expect Nintendo to do 512GB, the most they’d do is probably 256GB, it’s just not in-character for them
I also dismissed 4k because simply Nintendo doesn’t need it, 1440p will do the trick just fine and they are trying to keep system costs down so the average consumer will buy it i think anyways

@DiamondCore
When this thing launches late next year NAND flash will be around about 17x cheaper per GB than it was when the Switch launched. Which in turn was something like 5x cheaper per GB than it was when the Wii U launched and something like 17x again when the Wii launched. 512GB would be par, that'd be them effectively spending the same amount on storage as they did on the Switch, on the basic 8GB Wii U SKU or the 512MB of internal storage on the Wii

I see no reason for them to be that cheap that they'd launch with 128GB, the savings per unit going from 256GB to 128GB would be insignificant. And with games being comfortably in the 50GB range for that spec I don't think people would put up with 128GB. Also for an upper bounds I would say 2TB (yes, 2TB) is probably about as far as they could reasonably push. I would put the possible amount of storage to be anywhere from 256GB to 2TB with 512GB being the sweet spot

And again with 4K, 4K doesn't cost them anything. You get the ability to output a 4K signal just by having a modern HDMI port. That's basically a given. Whether or not games render at that resolution? I mean, depends on the game. For some games it'll be well and truly achievable and for others it won't. As I said, I wouldn't be at all shocked if we saw some classic games, remasters, camera restricted or 2D titles rendering at full 4K. Just probably not stuff like Metroid Prime 4

I think the position of Mario Kart in the lineup will solely depend on what happens regarding this reaching its 10th anniversary:

The Mercedes collaboration for MK8 released on August 27th 2014. If it reaching 10 years results in delistings then MK9 would be a launch title for the next system and the system would probably launch around early September.

If delistings don't happen however, I think Nintendo would wait until holiday 2025 to release the next Mario Kart especially if it has less than 96 tracks. This is to do with the proximity to wave 6, the handling of the Japan physical version gives me the impression wave 6 will release in December 2023.

@skywake Hm, alright then! I agree with you now

@Scollurio Splatoon 3 probably isn't a good candidate for a DX version, especially if the next gen system is BC then they can just buy the original copy, I think Nintendo is just going to want 4 out as soon as possible. I don't think they're terribly worried about Splatoon not having a next gen entry so early if the OG Switch and 3 are still popular during the first few years, they'll just ride those out until the fanbase loses interest and just come out with 4 when it's ready.

If Nintendo thinks Splatoon is that popular that they can't go a year or two without a new game/significant DLC then I think it's time to start thinking spinoffs developed by another team. The EPD5 team probably doesn't have the capacity to release Splatoon games as often as you guys expect, especially when they're also working on Animal Crossing as well. To make Splatoon a yearly or near-yearly IP they'll need to get another team involved, and it should probably be a completely different style of game to avoid cannibalizing the core entries. So either a spinoff or a new branch of mainline entries in a different style (something like what the sandbox Mario games, Metroid Prime games, or Legends Arceus are to those respective IPs). Will that happen now? I'm skeptical. I'm not sure who's available to make such a game. Nintendo is in the process of expanding their internal teams so perhaps over the next 5-10 years we will see a new internal team that can work on a new type of Splatoon game alongside the core entries, I'm just not sure that's something we're going to see happen in 2024/2025.

@Stamina_Wheel That does sound like a really easy thing to predict with a new console launching next year, although I’d expect to hear games coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Switch 2 before 12 months time as it’s gonna be announced a good few months earlier and games will start getting revealed by third parties from day one onwards you’d feel.

@skywake Ah okay that is understandable given the hardware it’s dealing with. Also current generation requires games having to do a performance mode and graphics mode which says a lot given the hardware under the hood. So yeah I can see the problems a handheld, even in docked, would have as well.

I watched the video. It’s pretty impressive what low cost tech can do, though that laptop has added benefits of space for larger fans and ways to deal with the heat etc. but it’s a great idea for the kind of spec the NG Switch is aiming for.

as always, I feel you people vastly overestimate the amount of games that come out that actually take advantage of modern gaming hardware.

With the quantity of notable successful games on Switch by comparison, it is not a league. It is a squad. It is a small crowd. It is the 1%. I'm pretty certain there are more Megaman games on Switch than new games Capcom actually made since the Switch's debut, and its likely not even close, and that sums up most AAA gaming companies now.

@Stamina_Wheel @kkslider5552000 I don't think you're necessarily saying different things. On the one hand, there are literally thousands of third party games on Switch which work fine on the hardware, including many quite popular ones. On the other hand, the majority of the recent few dozen games that are often thought about as 'game of the year' type games can't run on current Switch hardware. So, yeah, it's the 1% which can't run on Switch, but it's a pretty popular/famous 1%.

You named less games across 5 or so years than that one 2K montage that started that one direct once that had 3 Borderlands, 3 Bioshocks and (I think) 2 X-Com games. That was a single announcement across 2 minutes, once. That is another sum up of how minor it is. Also, the only Ps4/Xbox One Bioshock release was that same collection, even though it is a collection of games all from the same, singular, previous generation of consoles.

Also there's been more FF releases of games never previously released on Nintendo than PS4 era new Final Fantasy releases, remake included.

Also Capcom put the resources into making an original MonHun game for Switch anyway and it sold better than I think literally every other 3rd party game on the system.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna get back to that limited trial of Eastward, which I assume is on such an
official Nintendo service to continue to sell people on NSO partially because a moderately successful, charming indie game is of the exact same relevance to the Nintendo sphere of things as your average 3rd party AAA video game.

I think people are getting their hopes too high for Switch 2. Switch came out and it was essentially like having a portable PS3 while PS4 was out (just using PS as a comparison). Which was fine and still is, I'm not slamming that. But realistically, I expect it to be a PS4 while PS5 is out, with that same amount of power difference. And that's if they stay with the Switch model.
But this is Nintendo, who is obsessed with gimmicks. They haven't launched a console without some gimmick since the Gamecube. Wii, Wii U, Switch, DS/3DS, all consoles with gimmicks prioritized over raw power.
I expect no less from whatever succeeds Switch.

Both of you are right. Honestly I would argue that this next piece of hardware is going to be the least restrictive hardware compared to the competition of any Nintendo console since the SNES, with the possible exception of the GC

The N64 was infamously different because of the decision to go with cartridges. The Wii was an SD console at the start of the HD era, also the 512MB of flash storage meant even games like Super Meat Boy skipped it. The Wii U was a sort of XBox 360 clone so it had spec parity.... for about year... and the Switch is basically a more efficient portable Wii U

This thing? I mean sure, in terms of raw performance it'll be about as far behind the PS5 as the Switch is behind the PS4. But throw in some DLSS and VRR? People aren't really going to perceive it as that far behind. Especially when most of the time developers are using that additional power above and beyond the "PS4 spec" to increase the framerate and resolution

You can play No Man's Sky on a Switch and its not a disaster and has even been patched since to improve it more since then. Meanwhile Sonic Colors was a disaster upon release, a Wii game.

Point is, power discussion is overrated, more emphasis should be put into what power difference means for porting efforts, because its...effort. It is money and time spent. It is less and less about Nintendo's system being a barrier to more advanced games and more if the cost to do a competent port down to it is considered to be worth it. Power is part of that, but audience and general success and support from Nintendo, and ability or desire of the company to spend X time and money etc are equally important.

@kkslider5552000
Bit of a chicken and egg scenario though. Of course the question of third party support from a publisher perspective is purely a cost/benefit equation. And a large part of that cost is how much development effort is required to make the port happen, not the raw spec directly. But we can say that as much as we want, it doesn't change the fact that probably the most impactful thing in terms of what reduces development effort is the raw spec

On paper this new hardware will probably have something like 4x the memory bandwidth, 4x the number of shaders, an additional 2 CPU cores, ~3x the raw compute. Then additionally DLSS which could give the illusion of 1.5-2x the performance again and even VRR which can make a slightly unstable 60fps look butter smooth. That's a hell of a lot more headroom to hide under

Now of course, there will still be reasons why games don't come across. Corporate politics being the main one. But generally having more power is going to grease the wheels a bit I would think. It's the difference between the game being in a shippable state with little effort vs either shipping in a poor state (reducing sales) or having to spend additional development effort optimising performance (increasing costs)

.... with that said I would say a lot of the time the bad ports are not because of hardware limitations. Hardware limitations certainly make poor ports more visible but it's not the underlying cause. I would strongly suspect that most poor performance in ports is because of rushed or outsourced development. Case and point, GTA Online famously has (had) a VERY slow loading screen on PC. The reason? It uses a single thread to process a 10MB text file... repeatedly.... for minutes on end....

but again, much easier to hide bad code like that when you have MORE POWAR! The above GTA example, the load times are much more palatable for users who had CPUs that had very high single threaded performance. Of course that's a dumb solution but, that higher spec did help hide the problem. If the same issue had existed on the 360 or PS3 versions it probably would've been bad enough to impact the release

Thinking about this some more, everyone is asking "well what are they going to do to pad out the lineup if they don't have as many ports/remakes for next gen?" and ... I think branching out with their popular IPs is probably the next safest bet. New styles of gameplay for existing IPs, spinoffs starring popular secondary characters, those are the next most likely games to sell. Nintendo needs more IPs to have a steady output of games coming out, they do NOT have the portfolio to come anywhere close to the 1 game per month metric (more like 1 every 1 1/2-2 months right now), so they could probably use them (and they are trying to expand their internal development teams, maybe we might see new teams form to accommodate a higher output of games).

We may be already starting to see this with Princess Peach Showtime, Princess Peach is pretty much gaming's First Lady, so I think they really want her to have a successful long running series. But I don't think it's just Peach, I think this might be the beginning of a trend and more new IPs are on the way, possibly more than usual this gen.

@Bolt_Strike Nintendo have said they are more open to others using their ip (obviously they aren't going to open the flood gates) but I reckon lesser ip and anyone with a new take will become more of a regular occurence. And they are building another office block, so they are clearly expanding.