Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@old-dad the notion that Nintendo will not do backward compartibly on it next hardware is just asinine, Nintendo know that everyone will be furious if they next hardware dont feature backward compartibly, most Nintendo hardware feature this, with the exception of Switch e Game Cube due to the chance of physical media used on they games(since N64 used cartdridge and Wii U used disk)

I've been playing the Link's Awakening remake. Not sure it was seeing the DX version on the NSO GBC app that made me finally take the plunge but I'm having a great time with it.

Everything that's ever been said about the game is clearly true - it's incredibly faithful to the original (which I've completed several times) and looks gorgeous. The technical difficulties are obvious and a bit annoying (even if they don't actually impact gameplay in any meaningful way at any point). The extra buttons really allow the game to be its best self - I can't imagine playing the "inventory shuffle" version again.

What's really striking is just how strong the original design was. The world is so dense.

I'm guessing that the Oracles games coming to NSO likely means that we're not getting similar remakes which is a shame. They're not as strong IMO as Link's Awakening but they're still very good and I'd particularly like to have seen Ages given a coat of polish (I thought it was weaker all round than Seasons but some minor quality of life improvements and a little nip tuck here and there would have really made the difference to that game).

It is fun to speculate, all the buzz about a new console and I enjoy reading about the tech that it might use. I'm hoping Nintendo/Nvidia started designing the switch successor with backwards compatible in mind. Then again I could see Nintendo stick with tegra soc and just upgrade the ram and clock speeds.

@StuTwo
I love the seasons games from the gbc. The only handheld version of Links many adventures I ever played. I have the sound track on my phone lol.

This will be 👌 even though I also wonder what it will mean for game development ? Will it take 5+ years to get a new Xenoblade, Zelda or Mario ? Just so many question's while also pretty exciting

@old-dad Nintendo will need to find a balance between power and battery life, so even when the Switch sucessor is downcloked to have a better battery life as @JaxonH stated, Nintendo developers/third parties partners could make much more ambitous games they coundt on the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo must be thinking of the pro/cons of making a console that have a PS4 graphical/techinal power, with also keeping a good battery life on the console, ambitous games such of the Legend of Zelda/Xenoblade, Mario e Metroid franchise take more time to develop, look how long Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is in development(6 years), Nintendo is preparing to make more ambitous games and to on more powerful hardware, by increasing the development capacity of it studios, they are building a new development center to work.

@Giancarlothomaz @TheBigBlue

I would imagine we're still going to be in the 15 watt kind of range. Many tiny pc use 10 to 15 watt setups and they can game pretty good.

@TheBigBlue
They don't need to hit 4k- I do agree with that. But 1080p on the TV will be expected for the next Switch as a baseline. One or two games running at 900p isn't a big deal, but consumers will expect at least 1080p for 99% of games released, and the standard 720p in handheld.

The difference will be, many Switch games had to run 720p docked and 540p handheld. Not all. There are a number of games running 900-1080p docked and 600-700p handheld. But it's by no means standard. The next Switch will make it standard. And while they don't need to hit 4k, I do suspect they'll be leveraging DLSS 2.2 to upscale to higher resolutions.

After all, not everyone even has a 4k TV in 2023. But it's becoming much more widespread (I think over 90% of TVs being sold nowadays are 4k?). If the system releases in 2024 and lasts until 2031, they have to think about what expectations will be then, too. Not just now.

So ya, I expect a 1080p baseline, but I also expect 1440p to 2160p upscale of that baseline with DLSS.

@JaxonH well cant Nintendo use DSLL to output 4K resolution on docked mode? 1080p in handheld mode is a given, all TV that is sold here in Brazil have 4K/8K resolution due to the Xbox Series X/S e PS5, e most TV channels having this resolution.

If Nintendo are planning on boosting performance on TV via DLSS or FSR then does the next Switch need a dock?

@Colonel_Mustache a dongle in the TV or something? (I have no idea, I was just wondering.) I dunno, I suppose it still needs a charging cradle thing.

@Colonel_Mustache Good ol' Skywake. Mr Bowser knows more than I do

@Giancarlothomaz
No, 1080p handheld is not a given. Handheld will be 720p, just like Switch and Steamdeck. It's hard enough squeezing battery life out at 720p. You think they're gonna do 1080p??? Not a chance.

But yes, I mentioned I think they'll leverage DLSS for higher resolutions. But the base resolution rendered will be 1080p

be careful when playing Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, if you do this, it can corrupt your save life permently

@JaxonH even if the next Nintendo hardware have a OLED display? that disapointing

@Giancarlothomaz
It's not disappointing. It's expected. And even if it wasn't expected, it's still not disappointing because it provides little to no benefit on a screen that size. In fact, it would be disappointing if it was 1080p as that would mean we're essentially flushing half our battery life down the toilet for a 2-5% gain in visual sharpness. That's a horrible tradeoff.

As has been explained many times, handheld gaming systems are extremely difficult to tune with regard to having enough power to run the game with decent visuals and fidelity, having a high enough resolution so it looks sharp, maintaining performance and extending battery life as long as possible.

On a 7" screen, OLED or not, 720p has a high enough pixel density that improvements beyond that are essentially flushing gains down the toilet.. just flushing them down the toilet. Gains that could have been used to increase framerate to 60fps, or ensure battery life is longer than just 120 minutes. The perceived improvement of 1080p over 720p on a 7" screen is negligible at best, while the battery life that would need to be sacrificed to attain it would be in the 30-50% range.

You don't go sacrificing 30-50% battery life for 2-5% more sharpness. I doubt very many (if any at all) would make that tradeoff. There's a reason Steamdeck is also 720p. It's the perfect sweet spot for 7" handheld resolution.

@JaxonH i see,

Gamefreak, Gamefreak, Gamefreak.

Myself not a pokemon player but danget guys and gals ! I would be salty for spending 120 dollars on that mess.

100% agree with this but I would add an additional way in which they could use these gains. I would argue that the ideal portable gaming device screen would be around the 5-7" range, 720p, OLED. But I would also want said screen to be a relatively high refresh rate, 90Hz would be good start

But then additionally the ideal screen would also be a VRR screen with a range that goes down to ~20Hz. That way you could have a lower clocked portable mode that maybe causes some games to struggle to hit 60fps and maybe dip into the mid 20s. But because the screen waits for the display? The frame timings would still feel relatively smooth despite the game not hitting its targets

I'd take any of HDR, high contrast, VRR, high refresh rate or solid battery life over 1080p for a portable. Without any hesitation. If it has all of those things? Well then we can talk about 1080p

I guess I better explain it then

It basically comes down to two things, bandwidth and screen size. The dock as it stands is basically just a glorified a Display Port (I forget the revision) to HDMI 1.4 dongle. HDMI 1.4 is has ~8Gbps of usable bandwidth. That's enough for uncompressed 4K @ 30Hz or 1080p @ 120Hz. Probably a revised dock would be HDMI 2.1 which is ~40Gbps for 1080p @ 500Hz, 4K @ 120Hz or 8K @ 30Hz. Because you're basically hooking up the panel to the raw digital output? There's (effectively) zero latency and (generally) no compression

If you were to do this wirelessly? You'd have significantly less bandwidth to play with. As it stands the highest spec WiFi (WiFi 6e) has just recently broken the 1Gbps barrier, sitting at ~1.5Gbps for a single client in fairly ideal conditions. Which is a LOT of bandwidth but well short of even HDMI 1.4, so you'd need compression. Now you can still get a great image within that cap, BluRays are only ~30Mbps for example, but any compression adds latency which is fine for a game stream but not so great for playing games. Could burn through pages on this point but lets move on

The Wii U worked because you were streaming to a 6.2" 480p screen from a device plugged into mains. Admittedly it was 10 years ago now and compression, compute and WiFi have all advanced since then. But even so, a "reverse Wii U" would basically be asking a mobile, battery powered device to stream to a large TV that's potentially also high refresh rate, 4K and HDR. Probably better to plug the TV directly into HDMI, allowing you to actually use things like DLSS to push it further and have portable play untethered I would think

With that said.... Nintendo could literally release software right now on existing Switch hardware that allows a second Switch to be used like a Wii U GamePad. Or alternatively create an accessory that behaves in that way. In some sense they technically kinda already did it with Mario Kart Live

@skywake
VRR is crucial. But Idk if Nintendo would pay for a VRR screen. It would be much more expensive, and they'll be trying to keep costs down since the newer chip is already expensive. I hear VRR doesn't work well with lower framerates though. And while I'd certainly be in favor of a higher Hz screen, I don't expect that to happen. Again, costs vs return. It would be very unlikely to make any difference in overall demand, and unless price is increased to compensate, would decrease profits. And increased price would impact demand, also lessening revenue and thus profits.

VRR though, that could legitimately impact demand. If games don't have framerate issues thanks to a VRR screen, that could definitely help increase sales. Question is, how much would it cost them to go with a VRR screen (if even SteamDeck opted not to go with VRR, then I expect it's priced out of consideration for Nintendo as well).