Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

lol people still be talking about Bayo 3 with Pokemon legit breaking.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I'm going to upload some short videos on my YT channel in a bit... Get the popcorn ready!

@JaxonH good to know the franchise will continue with Bayonetta as it protagonist and @IceClimbers as a longtime Pokémon fan i sad to witness one of my favorite franchise reaching Fallout 76, Bugsoft level of quality, it deeply hurt me to see the state the franchise has because, since gen 8 i have take the hard decision to not never ever again buy a game of the franchise, because i know they will never make a game with the quality of gen 4/5.

@Giancarlothomaz
Indeed.

I'm not a big Pokemon fan so I'm not that affected, but I'd be crushed if I was heavily into the series. Not because of bugs or polish or assets clipping. Even Monster Hunter World and Rise has clipping assets. That stuff can easily be brushed aside. What kills me is the framerate taking a jog all throughout the 20's. They have Nintendo in their corner, who knows how to optimize better than any other development studio out there (save perhaps Rebellion). All it would take is swallowing their pride and asking for a small assist team to help oversee development.

Ah well. I'm just glad we got Arceus. Given the state of Pokemon it feels like a miracle Arceus doesn't have severe performance issues.

@Giancarlothomaz
I don't think VR is a direction they'll go. I mean it certainly makes more sense now than it did 5 years ago. But fundamentally it's a pretty limiting technology and the cost is still high enough that it can't really be a side feature.

The only way I see it happening is if they released a VR product in addition to a new Switch. i.e. two entirely different devices. And even that I think is a bit unlikely given Nintendo's strategy lately has been all about consolidating hardware to reduce development overheads. Releasing a VR product would be a step backwards

I think @StuTwo is pretty much on the money. I think we get something that's more or less the Switch but with updated internals and maybe a few I/O bells and whistles. Eg a camera, 3D, near field gesture sensor, more input specific haptics i.e. resistance on the stick or analogue trigger. They could do something like add capacitance to the face buttons making "resting on the face button" an additional input. Lots of things they could add to it

But fundamentally? I think it's a fairly safe bet it'll still land somewhere where we can pretty confidently call it "Switch 2", "Switch Pro", "New Switch", "Super Switch" or whatever

@JaxonH
I'm a pretty big fan of the series, this release definitely crossed that line in the sand for me in terms of performance. I don't want to reward this level of unpolished release so I'm skipping it. Hugely disappointing. I've said elsewhere that a lot of this could have been papered over with new hardware and I think it's fair to say that would've helped a fair bit. But it's also definitely a case of there being a release date and higher ups demanding they hit it.

The game wasn't ready, clearly, and I think that does more damage than any delay might have.Well, more damage in the minds of people like me. It seems gamers be gamers and still buy the game regardless. Which is exactly why this sort of thing keeps happening.... I guess at least until they've tarnished the IP enough that they stop generating new fans

......... with that said, I say this as someone who has nostalgia for the poor performance of some titles. Stunt Race FX comes to mind. Also in high school I played a lot of Vice City and C&C Generals on an AMD Duron with a TNT2. When I revisited these games fairly recently I realised it wasn't the same without being able to drive faster than the textures load or having the framerate turn into a slideshow when you drop a couple of nukes. So maybe in 10-20 years time there will be people on this forum talking fondly about how broken Scarlett/Violet were

@skywake
Ya, I don't disagree more powerful hardware would help in a vacuum. But the root cause is shoddy development. If they had access to more powerful hardware, they wouldn't have made the same game with the same textures and resolution to ensure it ran well, they would have instead pushed the boundary to its max just like they did here with Switch, and it would have been the same result.

Because X/Y also had framerate issues that could have been solved with more powerful hardware in a vacuum. Which they now have that more powerful hardware with Switch. But as we see, they didn't just release an X/Y quality game that ran perfectly. Instead, they pushed the envelope once again to the point the game struggled on the more powerful hardware. If they had Switch 2, it would likely be the same exact thing. Until they learn how to code properly I don't see this issue going away next generation.

TheDreamCastGuy in the last SpawnWave brought up a good idea for the next Switches.

Switch HOME and Switch GO

Switch HOME: a $500 non portable Switch with all the next gen fun.

Switch GO: a Switch but more.

@JaxonH
There's a subtle difference between pushing the hardware to its limits because your scope is too big and pushing the hardware to its limits because you were rushed and had no time to polish. I think the 3DS games and to a degree Arceus suffered from performance issues due to scope creep. These games I think it's a bit more lack of polish

The thing about software is that it's super easy for a first cut to be 2x, 10x, 100x slower. For example recently at work we were re-writing some legacy code, not game dev but same principle. There were some paths where performance went from minutes to seconds (yay, outsourced code!). Of course new hardware means you can get away with more, if you can do a thing 4x faster that 10x slower code will only be 2.5x slower on newer hardware. But when you see things like the massive hitching? Those seem more like one of those 100x type poor optimisations.....

I think this video probably shows this idea off a bit better than I can explain. Extremely well optimised N64 code is still N64 code and lives within the limits of the N64. But, there are still gains to be had even with a (relatively) well polished title like Mario 64

@Kermit1Pineapple
Everything old is new again. That's literally what I said on page 2 of this thread. I think that ship has sailed, I don't see why they would bother with a non-portable console. They'd still want to be Tegra so the only thing they'd gain would be potentially more storage expansion options and a bit more thermal headroom. I don't think that's enough to justify it

I do think it's well within the realms of possibility, it could make some sense. But I suspect it'd be more along the lines of a cut-down model than a higher performance offering. Because a non-portable Switch is basically a Switch minus the battery and screen and the major selling point of being portable. So you start that equation a solid $100 cheaper in BOM

If it was to happen I see it as a way to maybe keep selling X1 tier Switches for a super budget price. Alongside maybe the Switch Lite continuing to exist. Then separately having a premium model being portable with a newer SoC

@skywake I just want it to be black.

Just elaborating on that last point. A non-portable Switch would more or less be just a Shield TV in terms of raw hardware, those sell for around $300AU give or take. In comparison they're selling the Switch Lite for $330AU, OG Switch for $450AU and OLED for $550AU. Bundle it with Switch Sports or Ring Fit Adventure. Not a product for people who lurk on these forums but potentially a quick late v1 Switch gateway into the ecosystem or like a "second TV" Switch

What I don't think would make sense would be a $550AU TV only Switch with something like a higher clocked Tegra Orin SoC that has more thermal headroom. Because at that price point you'd just, you know, put a screen on it anyways......

The biggest thing causing the Scarlet/Violet problems is probably the 3 year new Pokemon generation cycle (gap is too small) and that you sometimes see multiple new games per Pokemon generation (e.g. Gen 8 had Sword/Shield and Legends Arceus). If you look at other Nintendo franchises, the Switch era has mostly seen 5+ year gaps.

Combine that with the situation where we probably would've seen new hardware release this year if TotK was still a 2022 game and you can see how things ended up with Scarlet/Violet's performance issues.

I think it's good to show what a downright shame it is compared to the standard of what we should be getting for one of the biggest IP in gaming

Pfft, I was complaining about Pokemon long before it was cool and everyone is just jumping on the bandwagon.

@jump
Practically everyone complains about Pokemon. Not a single game has gone without controversy.

Difference now is, the game allows open world exploring and the framerate is unacceptable, so it's a massive hindrance to the experience. That crosses a line that past issues have not.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika
I think it's important to compare to other games built ground up for Switch, to demonstrate its not a hardware issue and absolutely has been done by other developers.

I'm not a fan of the franchise, but can objectively appreciate it & respect why it has the fanbase it does.

I feel deeply sorry for the fans out there, as the recent output seems pretty lacklustre... especially in an age of 'miracle ports' eg. W3 / No Man's Sky / Nier Autonoma / Doom Eternal.

I know that the Switch is not the 'ideal' platform for the aforementioned games, but it blows my mind that we live in a world where Witcher 3 and NMS can function pretty well on the Switch.... but in 2022 we are getting a Pokemon game with Cyberpunk levels of day#1 bugginess.

I'm sure most of the issues will get patched out eventually, but like I say - I feel very sorry for the fans, and especially those who would have pre-ordered and wanted to play from release-day (And why shouldn't they have this right, of course you would want to play from day 1!)

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Have you ever liked Pokemon?

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika What's the last one u played?

After the terribly, awfully, dreadfully boring Pokemon Scarlet I am playing Ultra Street Fighter 2. Man, this remake oozes with quality and love, its so good. Hope people still play this online.

So do we think Pokemon might take more time on the next one seeing how people are blowing this one up.

They buy cardboard for hundreds of dollars... Honestly only time will tell what the next games look like.