Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@KaiserGX Battery tech hasnt evolved in a very long time but interestingly we see what happens if you out too much in a small space. It just...explodes.

More juice needs more space and more space means less of a hybrid.

@Anti-Matter This real?! Yes! I knew it was going to be based on the new Shadow Yokai designs!

@skywake When people talk about a portable PS4, how is that going to work? x86 architecture in a portable device? Change to RAM? But at that point it's a different system and won't run any of the PS4 games anymore. Digital only too? It's a neat idea on paper, but I think there are too many hurdles for it to become reality.

@KaiserGX Batteries won't really improve. The materials are different, but the concept is over 200 years old. Sure, they can maybe improve efficiency a bit more or performance, but we've basically hit the ceiling in terms of what is possible with the technology, unless you want people to carry around miniature explosives. The fact that lithium-ion batteries have to be built with a fail-safe in case it leaks says enough.

It's either technology that needs to improve and become more efficient (and we're looking at a ceiling here as well), or we need a true breakthrough in either of those areas. Which could be quantum computers, but that's a can of worms you don't want to open yet, or some new kind of technology that allows you to store energy safely and efficiently.

The only thing I miss is the old Whisper design.

Was a good video by DF. When you hear someone say the switch should have matched the PS4 please always direct them to that video. It's simply not possible and what Nintendo have achieved with the switch is a technical marvel. The power consumption is so low.

Glad DF explained that battery technology is not ready for PS4 power hybrid as some people still don't understand this concept.

As for Sony and MS going down the hybrid route.. nah not a chance.

Like I have said before. Sony doubling down on power hands the console market back to MS. Sony know exactly where they are successful and that is by winning the home console power race.

Nintendo have created a market which won't have any direct competitors.

Yeah, I see all 3 going down different paths. Nintendo's focus being hybrid, Sony's focus being VR and Microsoft's focus being services (e.g. Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass).

I'm talking about 5 years+ from now so it would be a generational shift. A lot of the above wouldn't matter too much. And yes it wouldn't be able to use optical discs but if you're starting a new console generation that won't be a barrier. Optical media for games has a limited future anyways as do HDDs and mechanical components in general. It's going to be all cartridges and flash sooner than people think.

x86? Well sure, that's a bit of a hurdle. They'd be far better off with a more power efficient architecture if they were going to take portable play seriously. Having said that the PS4/XBOne both already use fairly low spec mobile CPUs so it's less of an issue than you might think. The real power draw is the GPU but the "PS4 spec" requires less and less power every year.

Do I think Sony will do this? Well no, and certainly not that soon. Sony has a tendency to stick to what worked for them in the previous console generation despite the trends. But I see no technical reason why they couldn't and, in the long run, I think this is where they will all end up. VR I think it's a bit of a dead end and there's only so much people are going to continue to care about better visuals. All the while the hybrid approach will continue to gain ground in terms of spec. So yeah, in the long run it's inevitable.

And in 2010 you would have said that battery technology wasn't ready for a portable PS3. What makes you think such a console would still draw what the PS4 draws today? Because if you mentioned the Switch 2010 you would point to the PS3 slim that draws ~100W from the wall and the launch PS3 that drew ~200W and would argue the same thing. You're misunderstanding the argument if you are applying 2013 hardware limitations to 2023 theoretical products

Without the system being built ground up for portability, it'll never work. The power consumption alone is the most valid barrier to the argument. It might be low in a relative sense, but getting that PS4 down to 10 watts... I don't think so. And if you don't you're going to need a battery the size of a Switch console just to power it.

Optical disc is also not an option. Even Switch is about as large as you can feasibly get before treading on bulky laptop territory as far as size is concerned. Optical drive alone would be is big as Switch. That will never work. Mini discs are one thing- full fat Blu-ray discs are another. Not to mention the problems with durability that would introduce in a portable system. We've already explored this route once with PSP. It would be far worse with full-size discs.

Download only would be the only real, viable option. But with games averaging 3-4x the size of Switch games, storage then becomes an issue. Even Switch is pushing the limits of storage in a portable device. A PS4 with 50, 60, 70, even 80gb games wouldn't work. Not without a genuine hard drive. And that, yet again, would be half the size of a Switch in and of itself. Unless they went with a solid-state drive but that would cost as much as a Switch.

It's just not feasible. It certainly could be feasible in the future, with a future system, but it would have to be designed with this capability in mind from the start. I imagine at some point in the future, technology will advance to the point you could run x86 PS4 with a 500gb SSD, and battery to power it for several hours, all for consumer friendly price point. But that's not in the cards anytime soon.

Right now, for x86 desktop PC tech in a handheld device, GPD Win 2 is where we're at. 128gb SSD (which would never fly for a collection of PS4 games), Switch level of power (which simply isn't enough to run PS4 games), and a $650 price point (which is 2-3x what a Portable PS4 would need to sell at). So yea, we're a ways away from that yet.

@JaxonH
"Without the system being built ground up for portability, it'll never work"
Sure but what makes you think that can't be done? They've all pushed the reset button at the start of literally every console generation. What makes the PS4 so special that you think they'll keep it going forever?

"The power consumption alone is the most valid barrier to the argument"
And yet the Switch is able to exceed the last-gen spec in 10W. Don't make predictions on what will be possible down the road based on how much power things currently consume. And in any case a "portable PS4" could get away with being technically less than the PS4 spec in portable mode in the same way the Switch does. 720p.

"Optical disc is also not an option"
And? Optical media has only ever had capacity at reasonable cost as an advantage since the start. It's rapidly losing that advantage. I said in a Wii U ("Project Cafe") speculation thread years ago that the way things are going this will be the last generation to use discs. The Switch has come out a little bit earlier than I thought but has kinda proven my point. I stand by that prediction.

"But with games averaging 3-4x the size of Switch storage becomes an issue"
Except that the $/GB halves every 18 months or so. You'd have to bring this out pretty soon for storage to still be the primary issue. If you've waited long enough for the GPU spec to be power efficient enough storage won't be a problem anymore.

"It's just not feasible. It certainly could be feasible in the future"
Even the DF video above was arguing the case from three years in the future. The PS4 is at the peak of its console cycle and doing well. It will be a good few years before Sony will need to shake things up. Most of the reasonable debate about this is from people looking into the medium to long term. I don't expect a surprise announcement at this year's or even next year's E3.

I'd also add that you should also consider what else someone like Sony could do with a super low power consumption gaming console. What if TV manufacturers started to build low power consumption consoles into their TVs? What if Microsoft releases a gaming version of the Surface bundled with controller and dock? The Switch is the first of a new wave of consoles which will eventually replace entirely what we are currently used to.

@skywake
1 I never said I thought they would keep the PS4 going forever. But we are talking about making a portable PS4. And PS4 is not built ground up for portability. Simple as that. 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 100 years from now, it's still not built for portability. It would take a new system to be built for portability. You can't just go changing the architecture of the system and expect it to run the same games.

2 A portable PS4 absolutely could not get away with running lower spec. Switch gets away with it because it was like that from the start and every single game released for the system from the start was programmed to run in the lower spec mode. A thousand developers aren't going to retroactively update 5,000 already released games to run in the lower spec mode.

Furthermore, making predictions of what is possible down the road is exactly what everyone here is doing. You included.

3 Not sure what you're arguing with optical discs. I said an optical disc in a portable PS4 would not work. Are you are agreeing with me or are you not?

4 No. The limits of storage are being approached. SSD are indeed coming down in cost, but the decreasing cost is slowing exponentially. A 500 GB solid-state hard drive will not reach the price of a current mechanical hard drive for 10+ years, and even then 500 GB for PS4 sized games isn't really enough unless you're a casual gamer.

5 They were arguing the case 3-4 years in the future...

And definitively stated it would not be possible.

@JaxonH
1. Sure a literal portable "PS4" would by its very nature never be compatible with PS4 games as they are. Even well into the future it'll still need the ODD for full compatibility. But I think you're taking it way too literally because you could say the same thing about the Wii U or even the NES. Even in the DF video they were talking about the Switch as a "portable Wii U", I'm talking about a "Portable PS4" in the same way. A reset of Playstation, as Nintendo did with the Wii U, could close a lot of that gap.

2. I didn't say don't make predictions. I said don't make predictions about the future based on what is technically possible today. As I said the PS3 Slim consumed 100W under load and today the Switch largely matches that spec at <10W. All I'm saying is that you could have released that DF video 5 years ago and said the same things about the PS3. This PS4 equivalent be equally as wrong in 5 years time.

3. I made the point about optical media because you were going on a rant about optical media as if it was a requirement here. It isn't. Frankly even if Sony doesn't go portable with the PS4's successor the only reason they would need to keep the ODD would be for BluRay playback and backwards compatibility.

4. A 500 GB solid-state hard drive will not reach the price of a current mechanical hard drive
This will be wrong in under 5 years

5. Most of the video was arguing the point from a perspective of what is possible today. At one point they talked about 1-2 years and I agree with them with what they're saying here. My issue with it is that weren't projecting very far at all. I am because I don't think Sony has any desire to push the reset button just yet even if they were to go down this path. A "portable PS4" would come out after everything in the above video is no-longer current.

@skywake
1 Switch is not a portable Wii U. It's a Switch. Wii U games do not natively play on Switch. We are talking about a literal PS4 portable. Not some future new device. Obviously a future new device at some point could if it was built properly. But even that's a ways down the road

2 I don't make predictions based on what is technically possible today either. I make them based on long term trends of advancement in technology over a historical range of data.

And had they said that about PS3 they would be absolutely correct. Because a PS3 does use 100 W or so. Switch is not a PS3. It's a Switch. It's a completely separate device built with mobile tech. It's built with tech specifically to be a portable device. If you build a device with mobile tech you're going to get a portable device.

3 I never said optical media was a requirement. I specifically eliminated it as a possibility ( which is the opposite of saying it's a requirement) and then logically concluded that since you cannot use it you would need to do downloads. And I then logically explored what downloads would require

4 completely disagree. You will not find a 500 GB solid-state drive for $50 in 5 years. Not happening.

5 Obviously in 5-10 years it would be possible to make a device as powerful as the PS4 as a portable. But that's not the topic of discussion. Because that would be a completely separate device specifically built as a portable and it would require its own games, there by defeating the entire purpose of a portable PS4 that would have a library ready to go, that Sony would not have to support with an entirely separate line of games, which we all know they would support half heartedly and it would end up failing like the Vita.

Everyone knows Sony isn't going to make their next system less powerful than the current one. Therefore everyone knows they're not going to make their next system portable. Therefore the topic of discussion is making a separate additional device. And since we all know they are not going to support a separate portable device, we can therefore limit the scope of this conversation to a literal PS4 that's portable. Would be their only viable option because it would not require them to separately support it with different games

Except that it is the topic of discussion and it was the idea that the DF video was exploring. The only difference between what I am saying and what they are saying is that they were pretty much exclusively talking about the state of things as of today. At one point they were talking 1-2 years into the future but it was never any further down the road than that.

And they were most definitely talking about both the Switch as a "Portable Wii U" and a "Portable PS4" as an entirely different system with mobile components. I agree that this would be the only way such a device would make sense even if purely because of the size of the ODD. I've said that a few times already and don't need to repeat that point I don't think. Really, I'm talking in the same terms as the DF video which is what sparked this discussion. If anything you're the one being a bit tricky with the terms in order to remain correct

And in 2004 everyone knew that the "Nintendo Revolution" was going to be a power house. Everyone in 2006 knew that the PS3 was going to seriously undercut the 360 on price. Everyone in 2015 knew that the NX was going to be a high spec home console to rival the PS4. I'm not talking about what everyone knows because everyone is horrible at predicting change.

The idea is purely hypothetical anyways. In reality they're not going to go that route for business reasons. They're well on their way to passing 100 million PS4 consoles sold. It's clear their strength is in dominating the dedicated home console market. Their consumers expect a console that can support relatively high end graphics, the big AAA games from third parties, and to be an adequate home entertainment hub.

Sony would have to abandon that paradigm - handing said market right over to Microsoft - to even have a chance of making it work. The Switch works for Nintendo because it's not a secondary platform for them. It's their handheld and their home console all rolled into one.

I think it's pretty clear that Sony's next hardware is a PS5 that will most likely launch in Holiday 2020.

On gaming sites maybe but I don't think consumers are quite as loyal to a particular kind of console. They're barely loyal to particular brands. So I don't think you can necessarily rule out one idea or another especially when projecting for the medium term.

With that said I don't think Sony will be the one to do it. Not because it doesn't make technical or business sense or because the market doesn't want it. I don't think they'll do it because Sony tends to be a little bit conservative when it comes to this sort of thing. They've often been a bit tone deaf when it comes to changing technology and changing consumer interests.

I think it's more likely we'll see something along the lines of a "Portable PS4" from someone like Microsoft who needs to take a bit of a risk. Or even from well out of left field with another hardware manufacturer like Samsung stirring things up. As I said in the sea of text on the other page, why not build this into your TV or Tablet? I'd argue that a "portable PS4" doesn't necessarily have to be the exact same thing as the Switch

Okay I came into the Nintendo Switch thread to read about the Nintendo Switch info. But now it is all about the competitors. I read a lot of 'facts', 'Sony is not going to ...' 'Microsoft is focussing on ...'. Nothing is known about new generations so I want to talk about real facts and this generation.

I think that we can say the Switch is a real succes but honestly I don't have a good feeling about their online plans. Okay, we still don't know all of it when it releases in September but imo they need to improve a lot!
Next week i'm going to pick up Hyrule Warriors somewhere here in South-America. Mario Tennis will be a day one purchase for me and then it is already E3. Hopefully with Pokemon! I know the discussions about the generations. I am from 1992 and I grew up with red/blue/yellow. Also silver and gold but if I look in my environment around my age, a lot of people played Pokemon Go and loved the first generationS. I think (and hope) it will be a lot of the first generations in the first Pokemon on the Switch.

Let's wait (till next week?).

@skywake Honestly in Microsoft's case I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to think that they'd start putting their games on the Switch itself. Perhaps not Halo/Gears/Forza, but rather their smaller stuff like Cuphead/Ori/Rare Replay.

@IceClimbers
True. But even if they don't also there's not much stopping someone from making a portable Windows 10 machine in the form factor of the Switch. You can buy small form factor PCs that are a similar spec to the PS4, are physically smaller than the Wii and consume <20W idle and ~100W under full synthetic loads (and some pretty insane specs if you jump to 200W) . If Microsoft goes all out turning XBox into a service for windows rather than an actual console? A GPD Win v3 or v4 will become your "Portable PS4" even if the big three don't make a move.

So it's going to happen one way or another. I just think it'll be a bit more than that. I think they're all going to have to follow the path Nintendo is creating with Switch eventually. In 10 years we'll look back at the PS4 and XBOne in the same way that we look back at dedicated MP3 players and compact digital cameras today.

@Snadertjuh welcome to the switch general discussion, off topic since post 5!

@skywake Samsung entering the console market would be interesting. They could really push gaming into TVs. Add a couple of NotWiiMotes (or use your phone) and they could steal a big chunk of 'casuals'*.

I think things like just dance, NotWiiSports and normal sport games could really thrive. And on top of that, no extra boxes littering the area around the TV.

Samsung has enough hold on Androids and TVs to pull something like that off if they want to.

• I really dislike the terms casual and hardcore gamer. It is more like gamers and snobs really.

@NaviAndMii

I do think DF has missed a truck there. It seems pretty certain that the port on the bottom of the Switch is standard USB-C which simply doesn't have the throughput to utilise extra processing in the dock. Otherwise I thought the stuff about power draw compared to the tethered consoles was very interesting.