Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

There's something so incredibly foreboding about seeing the Xbox Future Podcast pop up on the homepage here XD

@JaxonH I agree. It's fascinating to think how different this generation could have been if the Switch's VRAM spec had been just a fraction better than what we actually received. Given developers have struggled to work with the Series S and its 10GB VRAM, I really hope Nintendo offers up at least 12GB for the new system, thereby allowing third parties to take full advantage of the system's capabilities for its first couple of years.

For me and it seems many others, the lack of VRAM in the Switch was a serious oversight and of course, history shows it's not the first time Nintendo have fallen short in this regard. Indeed, the Wii U only offered a derisory 2GB compared to the PS4's 8GB just a year later.

When it comes to XBox One/PS4 games Switch missed out on, as well as some early games from this generation, there shouldn't be any issues for the next console, particularly as the resolutions are likely to be around 1080P docked/720P portable or HD upscaled via DLSS to 1440P/4K for certain titles. Expecting much smoother framerates than last gen thanks to a greatly improved chipset and the many other technology advances in the proceeding years like DLSS/frame gen seems entirely reasonable, yet beyond many people’s wildest imaginings it seems.

Games like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, Death Stranding and Red Dead Redemption 2 should all run comfortably. Spec pushing titles such as these were perfectly playable on last gen consoles once developers had properly patched and updated them in the months following their release, so it's surely just a matter of which publishers would be willing to port them to a Nintendo system.

Rockstar are of course the traditional outliers in this regard but other AAA titles from this era seem like real bankers. It makes me believe that if Nintendo can reach or surpass that 12GB VRAM threshold whilst offering the equivalent performance of a T239 chip or better, then pretty much no game is off the cards in its first few years. This all makes for a pretty enticing release schedule, assuming all goes well at Nintendo HQ and they keep up the momentum they worked so hard to maintain with the current Switch.

What happened at the Xbox thing?

@GalaxicGlobe Apparently, it's just the four Xbox games coming to other systems and it's a one off, so not quite the game changing new strategy that people were anticipating from Phil & co. I guess time will tell whether this will be a regular thing but it's certainly not being sold as such right now.

@GalaxicGlobe For how long they talked it sure didn't feel like they said much to note especially from a Nintendo perspective. Four games are going cross-platform soon, all of them at least a year old I believe, two somewhat larger and the other two smaller ones that don't necessarily need to be exclusives. Those are the only games they have planned. (Also I think Diablo 4 is coming to Game Pass)

@Jalex_64 @chiiizu Wow, it seems that everyone overreacted quite a bit.

The irony is we also once again have no real confirmed plan for Xbox. They have new hardware this holiday. Great. But your hardware is down compared to even the Xbox One. They have said Next-Gen will be the biggest leap ever, right when they've also just basically admitted they hit the glass ceiling and budgets are too big to recoup and the industry isnt growing anymore, so lets make that problem worse with even more horsepower that will sell at an even greater loss.

And then in a seperate damn interview Phil Spencer said he couldnt actually rule out more games going multi-platform in the future.

Pick a lane and stick to it dear lord.

@GalaxicGlobe Yeah it was a lot of hype for nearly 20 minutes of jargon that essentially just told us that they more or less plan to do exactly what they've been doing

Careful saying stuff like this too loudly 🤣

No disrespect meant to you, this is all on me, I fully acknowledge, but I noticed while browsing the few Xbox podcast-related articles' comments that I seem to get disproportionately triggered by the sight of 'X-Box'.

Like... is there some regional disparity about how they write it? As far as I'm concerned, it's just four letters, all one word, and has and always will be 'Xbox' (unless capitalized). Can we not just all agree and conform to this one thing? For the love of Blinx!

Forgive me.

@gcunit @Jalex_64
Dirext3D, DirectDraw, DirectSound etc -> DirectX -> (Direct)XBox

XBox, no dash

I'm surprised how tempted the reaction to the Xbox news is, Hi-Fi Rush is an amazeballs game. Day one buy for me!

@jump I think the fact they didn't announce Hi-Fi Rush (or any of the other games) is a slight factor in it.

It seems accepted by all that the 4 games include Hi-Fi Rush, but until it's official, and preferably promoted in a trailer, muted reactions don't surprise me. I for one have never seen the game so only have the hype to inform me at this stage. Once it's confirmed and we get the assurance that it's a good port, I'll begin revving my engine.

acording to the journalist/insider PH Brazil, Nintendo will launch the Nintendo Switch sucessor in march of 2025

https://mynintendonews.com/2024/02/16/brazilian-journalist-sa...

@Giancarlothomaz II can see that purely from the perspective of having software ready. The hardware kinda looks after itself, but they need to keep the game a month going.

@GrailUK Yes, take whatever time is needed to have a very strong 1st party lineup.

@Grumblevolcano Indeed. I've said before that software was the only thing making me scratch my head as to how on Earth Nintendo get the time to be so productive! Still, it is just a rumour and so nothing has really changed for me. If it comes out this year, fab! If it's next year, well, I won't be surprised and may as well root for it to become the best selling console ever (lord knows it deserves it!)

They could wait till 2026 for the successor and I would be fine. New hardware is fine and all but games are what excite me.

What's everyone's thoughts on unicorn overlord? I kind of forgot about this game and just realized the release date is coming up. I'm a big strategy rpg fan so I'm definitely interested. I didn't plan on buying any day 1 games for a bit but I might make an exception.

@NintendoByNature I have the CE preordered as I love vanillaware (even though I feel they snub Nintendo systems a bit) it has been getting good impressions and I am hoping that I will enjoy it more than FE Engage (standard complaints: shallow characters, terrible story, great gameplay). I want the OST anyway and hate hunting them down later.