Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@JaxonH @skywake Only expecting the FE remake out of those. That's been rumored/ leaked enough that it's pretty much a known quantity at this point. Just a matter of when.

Also weren't Prime 2 and 3 rumored to be HD ports in the vein of Pikmin 1&2 rather than a full blown remaster?

Is there a general Nintendo thread? To discuss the business and people?

Koji Kondo is being honored with as a Hall of Fame Inductee by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS).

https://nintendoeverything.com/koji-kondo-to-be-inducted-into...

Btw, I have the Gulikit King Kong 3 Max on the way. I'll be giving my thoughts as a Pro Controller in comparison to the Mobapad M9 HD, since this is the only pro controller that can rival it and perhaps top it, since the KK3 Max supposedly also has HD rumble, gyro, HALL Effect analogs, no mechanical buttons but does have 4 rear paddles instead of 2 rear buttons. Will likely come down to the d-pad. But we'll see when it gets here.

@NintendoByNature
Ya he can play your games as long as he's playing with your account, and it does an internet check before starting a game to ensure you're not playing it on your primary Switch.

Can't speak on AC. Except I've heard you have to specifically transfer your island so if you haven't done that, he'll be able to start his own.

@JaxonH yea thanks. I actually called nintendo and got the whole thing situated. He'll be able to start his own island on his lite now.

I'll put some of my digital games on his switch that I don't see myself playing anytime soon.

Don't think it shows it in this video but IGN confirms Hitmam gets Switch exclusive gyro aiming as a new feature.

Consider me sold.

Ya know... Switch 2 will likely be the very last time a new console's better graphics will be genuinely exciting.

Switch to Switch 2 will see a massive jump and iron out performance. But as we saw with PS4/X1 to PS5/XS, the difference is barely noticeable. Sure, it's there, but it's incredibly subtle. Most of the improvement is just higher resolution and framerate.

And the jump from Switch 2 to Switch 3 will be equally unexciting. I mean, it's always exciting even if the differences are negligible. I'm not saying Switch 3 won't be hype. But the excitement won't be coming from a massive generational leap in graphics.

This is it. This is the last time, for the rest of our lives, we'll be able to relish in the hype of a massive leap in graphics with the release of a new console. Just realized I've been enjoying that excitement like clockwork ever since I was 5 years old. From NES to SNES to N64 to GameCube... and then when Wii U released and seeing Nintendo games in HD for the first time, that was really special. Switch wasn't really much different graphically from Wii U, but it was from 3DS, and being a handheld, it was a seismic leap over the previous portable generation.

But ya. Soak it up cause once we're at PS4/Pro level graphics on a handheld, there's really not much room to impress beyond that. It's gonna be all incremental improvements with higher resolutions and framerates after this. We'll still see a small graphical leap with Switch 3, but after that, I doubt we'll ever be able to tell the difference again without side by side analyses.

End of an era.

@JaxonH
You're certainly right that we're getting smaller and smaller jumps in perceived fidelity. The Switch spec as a home console is probably around 15 years behind when it could have launched. Of course the Switch spec certainly feels somewhat out of place but when you think about it there isn't really any other time when a 15 year old spec would have held up this well. I mean, the Wii was 10 years behind by the end and it certainly didn't hold up as well as the Switch does now. I mean, imagine a SNES tier spec trying to compete in 2005, people would have been put in a straight jacket if they tried to defend Stunt Race FX against Gears of War in the same way they defend the Switch spec now

But yeah, I think Switch 2 is going to be the first console from Nintendo where the fidelity/performance limit is going to be more down to how much money they had for development rather than the hardware. For most titles, and especially on the portable screen. There will still be titles that will have enough budget that they could have pushed beyond the spec, especially Nintendo's first party efforts, but it won't be every other game

I think the biggest change with Switch 2 will be the significant reduction in the number of games that ship with poor performance. Optimising for Switch is a huge effort, a lot of studios don't have the time for it and even when they do there's only so far you can go. Even the best "impossible ports" are seriously compromised. Obviously with Switch 2 will live in the "PS5" rather than the "PS4->PS5" era. We're going to start seeing less "porting down to PS4 spec" going forward. But even so.... right now this is the state of things for the "PS4 tier" spec when there's largely zero incentive for optimisation:

I think Switch 2, being a platform that people will actually be buying for, will hold up pretty well

@skywake
Considering the system will likely be more in line with PS4 (more capable than X1) in handheld and only needing to hit 720p, and PS4 Pro docked while only needing to hit 1080p, with DLSS, it'll definitely keep up.

But ya, biggest change will be the fact most games will look decent and run well. Switch is just in that awkward power range that PS3/360 were in where, it can barely pull off AAA games designed ground up for that power profile at 30fps. Any lack of optimization, any higher fidelity geometry or assets, and performance suffers. 7th gen HD twins were plagued with similar performance issues (actually more than Switch, ppl have just forgotten how nearly every AAA game dropped frames into the teens that generation, be it Dark Souls or Skyrim or Resident Evil 5 and 6, or they ran at resolutions sub-720p on the TV in some cases. Sometimes both. It's just enough power to do some amazing things but not quite enough to accommodate most developers' skill and time allocated.

That'll be nice. I mean, there's a TON of great games on Switch that look good and run fantastic. If you curate your library to only those and disregard the rest, it's actually pretty impressive given the power. But there's just as many that struggle or are downright abominations (Outer Worlds, and Wolfenstein 2 resolution comes to mind).

It'll be nice not having to wait for videos to see how games look and run before pre-ordering. That's the biggest thing I'm looking forward to.

But really, let's enjoy this excitement for the leap Switch 2 will bring graphically. Portable systems have always been around 10 years behind power wise. So it makes sense the last portable is the only system left that still has a sizeable graphics leap to look forward to. After that, we enter the Hyper HD era where all games are always 720p min handheld, 1080p min on the TV. The days of the 240p 3DS and the 360p handheld resolution of Switch ports will be over.

@JaxonH
Yeah, I mean the thing about tech in general is that the barriers are constantly shifting. If you look at that DF video above it's obvious that the main limitation of the OG XBOne hardware is memory/disk bandwidth. Mostly because there's been such a huge jump in that space in the last decade. Switch 2 will outclass the XBOne there significantly

But yeah, it's a bit like that. I think back to like the mid 2000s when I was pouring over PC magazines. I've always been a bit of a media-hoarder so back then I'd look at stuff like file compression and .mp3 encode benchmarks because that's what mattered. Fast forward to the mid 2010s and what I probably care about more than anything is h.264 compression performance. Because I want my BluRay/DVD collection on my NAS but 1-2TB only goes so far. These days it's like.... what limit? I just straight up copy full UHD rips to my NAS as is. I guess faster networking? More storage? There's always something else. But really, for all practical purposes this is end of the line

I don't quite think Switch 2 will be "end-game" in the same way and the end goal for rendering is a much higher bar than "copying music/movies". But still, we're getting close.

Also worth repeating again because I see people constantly put forward this argument. Better hardware LOWERS development costs. Since the start of gaming we've seen game development budgets just keep going up and up as the fidelity of games continues to improve. Which is naturally tied to the ever improving hardware specs. So naturally people just skip the middle bit and think "better hardware => higher development costs". But that's not really how it works

Yes, the higher hardware spec allows for higher fidelity games, which in turn cost more. That much is true. But allowing higher fidelity games is only one side of that equation. The other part of the equation is optimisation. As it stands it costs significantly more to release "current gen" games on Switch. The same would be true for Switch native titles.

As it stands there will be developers making their first cut of a Switch release, running it and.... oops there's some dodgy code in the loop that's takes the Switch's CPU 30ms to complete. Causing some stuttering. Lets refactor that. Oh, in some areas the GPU can't keep up. Lets do some dynamic resolution scaling. Maybe if we drop the resolution of these assets we can get a bit more out of it. Maybe those assets render every other frame..... etc, etc... next thing you know the Switch version comes out 18 months later....

Give that same developer ~4X the power and sure, maybe they spend more time improving asset resolution. Maybe the scope of the game gets larger as a result. I mean sure. But also, maybe they just ship it as it is. Either way, it certainly doesn't make their job harder. I certainly think we need more middle-tier games and less low-risk high budget releases and developers chasing graphics is part of the issue there. But this isn't the fault of better hardware, the problem is the at the corporate level. Better hardware only improves things for developers and consumers

@skywake
That's a good point on a complex topic.

As you said, there's definitely correlation between power and budgets, as more power can produce finer granularity which requires more detail. The jump to HD development was likely a huge increase in cost across the board. More man hours needed to produce HD games.

But, now that we're here in the HD era, the only continued increase in cost is a result from an increase in scope and detail, which is an optional goal not every development studio will prioritize.

In many ways costs do come down. No longer need to spend all that time optimizing to get a game that was at 9 fps up to a stable 30. And engines continue to improve, which makes development more streamlined and of higher quality despite less work involved.

Some studios will hold down the status quo and develop for cheaper. Others will Continue to chase the moon with graphical fidelity. Nintendo games will be in the former group, with the exception of Zelda, Xenoblade Chronicles and perhaps Fire Emblem. All the other stuff- Mario, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Kirby, Luigi's Mansion, Mario Kart, Smash, etc etc will probably look the same as they did on Switch, just a little more detailed and sharper.

Companies like Falcom who's games largely look the same spanning decades of HD development, they'll just make games for less. Switch 2 versions will be much easier and can be done in a shorter amount of time.

Developing for a system that requires massive optimization probably takes 2-3x longer than usual, which means 2-3x the expense. Just having a system where they don't have to invest all that time and expertise into squeezing every last frame, should result in a lot more games coming over.

Switch games sell incredibly well, oftentimes outselling the PS versions which have been the leading sales platform for 3rd party games for over a decade. And even when they don't, they still sell a ton. At this point, I can't imagine any studio not wanting their game on Switch, but many of them decide not to because of power constraints. Switch 2 should see 80%+ of 3rd party games making their way over once they can port them easily. It's impressive how, despite Nintendo platforms being largely irrelevant for 3rd party sales for decades, in one generation is now rivaling PS in 3rd party software sales. The vast majority of the time a game is coming to Switch and PS5, if I check Amazon sales rankings, Switch is handily beating it. Of course a higher percentage buy digital on PS but the difference isn't that much anymore. And it's just a rough estimate anyways. But point being, Switch is a monster for 3rd party sales. Once they have a system powerful enough that it's no longer a pain to port, I think we're gonna see a paradigm shift where Switch 2 gets most of the same games as the other platforms.

Between this, Walmart pulling physical copies of Starfield, Hellblade II being digital only, and that all digital Series X in the FTC leaks, it's quite clear where Xbox is heading.

Wonder how long it will be before Sony and Nintendo follow suit

@IceClimbers
Don't think Xbox would do that unless their data showed physical was no longer accounting for a large enough portion to be worth it. I think digital sales on Xbox were well above 80% last I heard and it's probably only gone up since then.

Of the 20% physical sales, maybe 5% just refuse to buy games if they can't get physical but if the other 15% then buy digital since it's the only choice, that increased revenue (100% instead of 70% which is nearly a 50% increase) more than makes up for it. They've probably done the math and know this will result in higher revenue.

Sony will likely do it when a high enough percentage are buying digital that such a move would increase revenue rather than decrease it. Nintendo, I suspect the same. But there's a stalwart group of physical diehards on Nintendo that'll likely prevent that happening in our lifetimes.

But hey, Steam is all digital and nobody cares. In fact it's almost always seen as a plus. Xbox is most PC centric console, with highest digital sales ratio, so it was only a matter of time. If there was enough demand for physical they wouldn't be doing it. The fact they are just emphasizes the demand is gone on that platform.

512gb micro sd $35

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Adapter-microSDXC-MB-ME512KA-A...

1tb micro sd $74

https://www.newegg.com/agi-1tb-microsdxc/p/0DF-0846-00003?ite...

I just paid a visit to the eShop, what do you think of my new look?

Hi everyone, I got a microSD card for my Switch OLED as a birthday gift, but I haven't opened it from its packaging yet... I think I recall hearing that you have to format it first before you insert it into the Switch? Do I have to do that, or can I just insert it into my Switch OLED first thing and then format it there?

Also I was thinking of transferring everything from my V1 Switch to the OLED, but I couldn't do that when I got it for Christmas, so I just put my Nintendo account on my OLED and called it a day. Can I still do the system transfer now that I have a microSD card? I kinda wanna do that because the OLED thinks it's my first time playing the games I've been having before I got the OLED, so my play activity isn't too accurate. Thank you for your help!

@MarioLover92 I'm fairly certain you can just format it on the switch iirc. Maybe check system settings prior to see if there's an option for that. Its been a while so I'm not 100% positive. I'll be doing the same for my son in 2 days actually.

@NintendoByNature All righty, I looked it up on Nintendo's support site and it does say you can format microSD cards on the Switch itself. I'll take a look on my Switch before turning it off, too... thanks!

Edit: Ok, I went ahead and inserted my microSD card. Made sure the Switch was fully turned off before doing so. It did ask for a system update, so I did that, and then formatted the card. It does indeed mention that formatting the card will make it usable on the Switch console itself.

@WaveBoy
Yes. Best middle grip is the official joycon charge grip disassembled to remove the wings from the back, leaving just the middle slab.

You'll need quality triwing and Phillips head. Take 4 screws out back to remove front cover, revealing screws to remove the wings. Gotta take backside wing off to remove the 4 Philips heads that keep the wing fastened to the grip. It's not hard. Just be careful to not strip. And put screws back in once wings are off to secure grip together.

edit
I've found gyro to be perfect. I played Hitman Blood Money with gyro and it felt like official joycon to me. No complaints.