Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I see the Steam Deck compared to Switch as being much like the various Google/Microsoft phones compared to the iPhone. They exist to advertise an ecosystem and push adaptation of standards to blaze a trail - partly by selling well below cost to highlight how “poor value” the market leader is - but without ever really being intended to be a multi million seller in and of itself.

Is it great value? Clearly. Could/would Valve be willing to subsidise such a low price over 10-20 million units? Probably not.

I’d also say that it’s interesting how when the Switch was first announced the gaming bubble jumped in to declare that battery life would be terrible but this isn’t even part of the conversation with Valves device. People tend to compare the stats they want to make the point they want to make. “This is just £50 more expensive than Switch OLED but far more powerful!” could easily become “This is just £50 cheaper that Steam Deck but has a battery life that lasts 5 times as long!”.

@StuTwo People were also complaining about the screen quality and resolution, but not here.

And this is even a 7inch screen with bezels, same quality as a basic Switch with odd aspect ratios that will add black bars to some games that can't do 1280*800.

But nah, that's fine.

Umm, what? You think Android devices sell well bellow cost just to push the Android ecosystem as a standard? And that this is some kind of "out of spite" thing to push back against the iPhone? Well ok then. I mean the comparison doesn't even really make that much sense because Apple generally puts relatively premium silicon in their flagship phones. Very strange take....

I think it's a pretty large part of the discussion from what I've seen. Every second naysayer is talking about this 2-8 hours of battery life. This despite the fact that Nintendo's stated battery life for the original Switch was 2.5-6.5hours and yet somehow we lived with that. And the Wii U GamePad which had a battery life of 3-5 hours which was the same as the rated battery life of the original 3DS.

Yet you know, this Valve device is somehow completely unusable because it lists 2-8hours expected battery life. I mean, I don't know about you but I never really hit the limit of the Wii U GamePad's battery and only occasionally hit the limit of the 3DS. The Switch I don't think I've ever hit it. So I don't see an issue with 2-8hours.

..... and the people who complained about the Switch only having a 720p display were equally as wrong as anyone complaining about the resolution of this device now. Bit of a double standard you guys have I think. Nobody can fault the Switch for these things, and I agree, but somehow they should be complaining about the Steam Deck for the same things? At least be consistent guys.

Also 16:10, most games accommodate this aspect ratio on PC. There are occasional console ports that don't but generally it's not at all an issue and when it is at most it's just some black bars in cutscenes. source: I used a 16:10 aspect ratio monitor for years

@skywake I don’t think that Android devices sell below cost “out of spite” or any such thing.

Devices like the Google Nexus line though (and the Pixel line to an extent) were different though - they were never intended to sell more than the iPhone (or more than the Galaxy line from Samsung) or anything like that - they were deliberate attempts to say “hey - this is what an Android phone can be” and Google did take a hit doing that (in the sense that they were selling a product without a profit margin relative to that which Apple was reaping).

The great success of that approach was that it got a number of enthusiast “influencers” (ambassadors might be a better term!) using Android who might not otherwise have been swayed from iPhone. It set a standard for other manufacturers to follow.

I see the Steam Deck as being a similar marketing proposition.

I also don’t see battery life as an issue here (having never had a problem with the Switch either) - although I do think that it’s not been a major part of the early discussion with the Deck so far. That discussion at this point is focused much more firmly on how much more powerful and how much more of a great deal it is versus the Switch OLED (which in many ways it clearly is).

I was just pointing out that there are other possible takes. The market at large might not see things in the same way as the echo chamber on gaming websites - important though these are.

@StuTwo
I think we'll have to agree to disagree in terms of battery life not being part of the discussion for the Steam Deck. It's literally all over the discussion, every thread I've been in for this on multiple forums has someone complaining about the minimum 2 hours battery. But in any case, the battery life isn't all that bad when you really think about it.

As I said the original Switch was rated for 2.5-6.5 hours battery with that 2.5 hours being for games like Breath of the Wild. This thing is being rated for 2-8 hours with them making a point of saying Portal 2 will hit around 4 hours but if you limit it to 30fps you'll get 6 hours out of it. Which to me reads as the kinds of games that will demand enough of this to fall bellow the Switch's battery life could not run on Switch. Lighter games will likely last longer than they would have on the OG Switch.

This is SO true. With the internet and social media these days, I feel like a lot of products died early deaths that perhaps wouldn't have happened in the decades prior. I think Wii U was a casualty of this, and I think if the Gamecube launched during the time of social media, it too would have met an untimely fate.

But it's not just Nintendo consoles. Plenty of other consoles have come and (quickly) gone (Ouya? Stadia? lol), many times, I believe, because it just never catches hold with the internet/social media crowd and becomes a pariah to millions of gamers simply because of some forums and message boards and such.

So far, from what I'm seeing, the Steam Deck has a push behind it on the internet that I haven't seen with other recent failed hardware.

@DomGC Pretty sure the situation is that Europe has laws such that RRP is literally just a recommendation so retailers which aren't Nintendo's own stores can price games below RRP. NA doesn't have that so Nintendo can force retailers in NA to price them at a certain price.

But that is a fraction of the expected battery life of the same games on the OLED edition or even the 2.0 Switch - more pertinent points of comparison because you can’t buy a new OG Switch in the shops anymore and haven’t been able to for some time.

In general I do agree with you - anything over 2 hours between charges is “good enough” for a device like this. I don’t think I’ve ever personally run up against my Switch battery running out.

I do however continue to differ with you in that think that it’s very marked that articles on the Steam Deck so far have glanced over the issue of battery life whilst articles on the Switch prior to launch (let alone forum discussions!) quickly focused heavily on it as a reason the console would fail. Some of that is just good marketing from Valve and the different nature of the specific market they are targeting, the types of specs they’ve already publicly released etc.

I think they’ll have a lot of success with the Steam Deck because it looks like a great device.

Ultimately though I think that success will look like Microsoft’s success with the Surface in that the real success will be lower spec third party devices following in its wake. Some of those will be awful - or at best OK (and few professional reviewers or enthusiasts will ever use those over the high end flagship from Valve themselves) but those are the devices that could sell hundreds of millions of units.

Ok, let's talk battery life.

Wii U gamepad was a massive problem for me. Constantly having to plug it in, so I bought the extended life battery that pushed it to 6 hrs.

Original Switch wasn't great, and it did die on me a number of times, but it was usable. Most heavy games could push 3 hrs (like Zelda) which isn't ideal but, it worked.

As soon as v2 Switch released I was on it, as were many others. 4.5 to 5 hrs as a baseline minimum for even the heaviest games on max brightness? That is more like it.

2 hrs, on the other hand, is much different than 3 or even 2.5. I own a GPD Win 2. Getting 120 minutes on a game isn't fun. And I'll be the first to say, 2 hrs doesn't cut it for me. That's one of the main reasons I don't use my Win 2 anymore (that and no gyro).

Thankfully, because this is a more powerful system that gets low battery life on higher settings, you can optimize here to push that to 3 hrs for heavy games. Instead of 720p, run 600p. Go 30fps locked instead of 60fps. And keep settings on low. Maybe dim brightness a tick or two. You learn the tricks of the trade being a low spec gamer. The Win 2 didn't have much room to optimize because games were already running at the lowest framerate and settings. Steam Deck has some room to negotiate, even if it's just to squeeze an extra 45 minutes.

If Portal 2 gets about 4 hrs at 60fps, then many of the more demanding games will be in the 2-3 hr range. But that's just the reality of handheld PCs. These games are not designed to run in low power state like Switch. You're lugging a literal PC around as a handheld and the power draw will be exactly what you'd expect.

So while it can run anything for the most part, if you pick and choose games with settings optimized for low spec systems that at least maximize battery life consumption, you'll probably get more mileage. That's how I did it with Win 2 (though it’s lack of gyro really led to me sticking with Switch in the end, it’s still a great clamshell machine for Dolphin emulator- a portable GameCube and Wii).

@JaxonH Speaking of battery life, I'm assuming this thing has to run on X86 right? Doesn't that usually mean 3-10x the power draw of a game that's running on ARM?

I've got two Nintendo Switch Game Vouchers sat on my account and I'm toying with the idea of Skyward Sword HD despite hating OoT/MM/TP, but enjoying Wind Waker a bit.

It's that or Mario Golf and everyone seems to say that's crap too 😂

@Haruki_NLI
Mario Golf is fun. The course designs are more realistic like Wii Sports but it's great fun.

Skyward Sword is better though, imo. It's a must-own. Watch the Digital Foundry review for all the improvements.

@link3710
I don't know the ratio, but games built for PC have high power draw. On my Win 2, stock power is 7 Watts, similar to Switch handheld. You can increase it to whatever you want- I made profiles for 8W, 10W, 12W and 15W. And many games on that device, like Fallout 4, needed 15W to run, even at low settings. And that destroyed battery life and it got super hot, so I never used those high power settings.

But this device is using new architecture that's much more efficient, and, it runs up to 15 Watts. Which means it can actually run those big AAA games and still get 2-3 hrs without burning your hands (in fact, IGN says the handle area where you hold it doesn't get hot at all, which is amazing).

So ya, to run modern AAA games you need 20 watts or more on Win Max, but 15 should be ok with lower settings and resolution. Which for most APUs isn't feasible without insane battery use and heat output. But thanks to newer Zen architecture here it's actually able to do 15 Watts and actually get more than 70 minutes playtime.

@JaxonH I assume you meant titles that would take 15W on other systems? Power draw is power draw, you're not going to be able to reduce battery usage without drawing less power.

Still... we shall see. I'm not buying that this thing won't have abysmal battery life (or you know, randomly explode on planes) quite yet, at least until we see how it performs out in the wild.

@JaxonH I got Skyward Sword. Didn't know DF did a look at it. They've not touched Switch games since...blimey. DOOM Eternal a few months late?

@link3710
A lot of power can be wasted based on design of the architecture or motherboard as it travels around to the various components. Drawing 15W won't necessarily result in the same performance across devices. A more modern chip design can result in better performance at the same power draw, or similar performance at a lower power draw. And certain power draws can maximize efficiency.

Deck should get much better bang for buck, meaning comparable results to my Win 2 without drawing as much power, meaning longer battery life and less heat.

But there's no getting around that modern games still require a lot of power. And I'm not expecting more than 3 hrs for any AAA game, even at 600p 30fps low settings.

But not all games are modern AAA, and many should see 4-5 hrs battery life, maybe more for some. Specifically focusing on those not on Switch or those that see unsatisfactory performance on Switch, games like Tales of Symphonia HD, Trails of Cold Steel 1/2, Ys VIII and Ys IX, Persona 4 Golden, Portal, Portal 2, Half Life 2, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (which is KB/M but totally playable with Steam Controller, and thus the Deck), Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II, Wolfenstein New Order, Dark Souls 2, Vanquish, Ultra Street Fighter IV, DmC, DQ Heroes 1/2, Alan Wake, Dishonored, Batman Arkham Asylum/City/Origins, Fallout New Vegas and 3, Star Wars KotOR, Rayman Origins, etc)

Games I expect to see 2-3 hrs battery life (hopefully closer to 3 using tricks of the trade), including those on Switch that would benefit greatly from more powerful hardware, would be The Witcher 3, Monster Hunter World, Trials Rising, Cyberpunk 2077, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, Doom, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein 2, The Outer Worlds, Death Stranding, Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Red Dead Redemption 2, Halo Master Chief Collection, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Borderlands 3, Metro Exodus, Titanfall 2, Batman Arkham Knight, Code Vein, Scarlet Nexus, Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, Resident Evil VII, Resident Evil VIII, DMC 5, Dragon Age Inquisition, Control, Sekiro, Nioh 1/2, Tomb Raider Trilogy, Bioshock Trilogy (no gyro on Switch), Dark Souls 3, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Yakuza Like a Dragon, Street Fighter V, Nier Automata and Replicant, Forza Horizon 4 and 5, Final Fantasy XV, Darksiders 3, Hellblade, etc.

Games I would likely play on Switch given the performance to battery life ratio being more appealing would include MH Stories 2, Ori Blind Forest, Ori Will of the Wisps, Hades, Dragon’s Dogma, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil Revelations, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Sniper Elite v2, Sniper Elite 3, Sniper Elite 4, Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands The Pre-Sequel, Assassins Creed 3, Assassins Creed 4, Assassins Creed Rogue, Wonderful 101, Civilization VI, Life Is Strange Collection, Life Is Strange True Colors, Trails of Cold Steel III, Trails of Cold Steel IV, SMT3 Nocturne, Persona 5 Strikers, Darksiders, Ni No Kuni, Ni No Kuni 2, Dark Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Pillars of Eternity, Burnout Paradise, Need For Speed, Cuphead, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Final Fantasy XII, XCOM 2, Dragon Quest XI S, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Bayonetta, Okami HD, Catherine Full Body (only Classic is on Steam anyways), Divinity Original Sin 2 (better controller controls), God Eater 3, Daemon X Machina, Metro 2033, Metro Last Light, Skyrim, etc.

Walmart just randomly sent me an email saying they dropped the price of my Switch OLED pre-order by $50

This was a backup order for the neon unit before I secured the white from Target. But now I may have to go with this one

@JaxonH That is some luck right there lol

I remember Walmart also randomly upgrading some orders for the PS5 Digital Edition to the disc consoles for no reason and they didn't get charged the extra money

I can't stop playing Zelda Skyward Sword. This game is incredible!

Mind you, I'm smack dab in the middle of my Monster Hunter Stories 2 playthrough, a game I feel is every bit as good as Rise, and Rise is among my favorite games ever.

So it says a lot that Skyward Sword has gripped me so hard I struggle to go back to MH Stories 2 right now. It has some older design, but holy cow, it's just so good! It's SO GOOD.

I waited 10 years to play this game properly, and it feels like the wait was worth it. I love Breath of the Wild, and I'm not sorry they updated for formula. But man do I love the older Zelda approach.

I'm flabbergasted at how much fun I'm having with this, using motion controls, split joycon. It took a bit to acclimate. Once I got to the Deep Woods past Faron Woods, that's when I noticed I had really gotten the hang of it and wasn't struggling with wrong inputs nearly as often.

Play Zelda Skyward Sword. And play Monster Hunter Stories 2. These games are just so gosh dang addicting.

@TheFrenchiestFry
Walmart... holdin it down for us gamers 😎

Okay, I posted about this in the TWEWY thread but like... this game is so freaking good. Y'all really should check out the demo if you haven't yet. Difficulty settings unlock immediately after the end of the demo (which is good because the game on normal is too easy), and there's been a pick up in enemy difficulty too. I'm starting to have to observe their behavior and attack during openings, instead of just mashing.

...I'm also expecting for certain things to happen that'll jack up the difficulty shortly, but I'm gonna keep that sort of spoiler to myself, even if it's just a theory.

(For anyone who didn't hear, Squeenix accidentally leaked full retail digital copies of the game today to people who preordered on their website, so I've been busy playing that).

@link3710
That's what I've been saying!

Neo: The World Ends With You is excellent. And there's a free demo alongside the Monster Hunter Stories 2 demo. Both incredibly good games- there is no excuse for not sampling these delectable morsels of gaming goodness 😀