Video: Digital Foundry Investigates Switch's Lowest Resolution Games

The logistics of having increased output requiring more power but staying portable is going to be a logistical nightmare. Seth from IGN proposed a upgraded dock with increased power in the base station and I think that's the best solution

If Super Switch is on the horizon I hope it's as light and portable as the current OLED.

They should investigate where the Star Fox game is! ☺️

Lower?
240p = PS1 & NDS resolution
144p = worst resolution on handphone

I would rather get a reasonable resolution and otherwise compromised visual settings than get a muddy and blurry image. A clean yet simplistic game will look pretty nice even in the future, but a blurry game doesn't look great even now.

I have no doubt in my mind that the Switch is bound to get some kind of follow-up, whether it be a revision or a successor. The Switch's concept has worked very effectively so far, and the only thing slowing it down is supply issues.

That being said, with a company like Nintendo who seems to really like min-maxing the heck out of everything they do, such revision or successor might not come out for another year, especially due to supply issues.

Nintendo likes increasing demand over scarcity, but only when they are in the ones in control of that scarcity. I doubt it would do them any good to try and run in very soon with the supply chain being messed up.

For me the worst was Xenoblade 2 in handheld, pretty much had to play that docked for 95% of the time.

@Abes3 I would rather wait a few years for this reason…. Hopefully the longer the wait, the more powerful the system…

@Scrubicius Hello, I'd like to report a murder. 😂

@KoopaTheGamer Definitely. I'd accept some less details if that means that the image itself is sharp
Also detailed graphics + low resolution is an aweful combination imo anyway

The quote "We're nearing the end of the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle" is baffling considering Nintendo literally said earlier this year that the Switch was at a midpoint in it's lifecycle. Anyone expecting an entirely new Nintendo console to even be announced next year is just setting themselves up for dissapointment.

Hell, at this point, I don't even see a Switch Pro coming. Given chip shortages and cost of living increases I just don't think Nintendo would see it as profitable. Had these things not been a factor maybe we would already have seen a Pro model by now.

Ignoring cost & supply chain issues, the Switch is on a 16-20nm manufacturing process, whereas new mobile chips are 3-8nm. Moore’s Law isn’t dead. That’s potentially a massive power savings. Add in newer hardware-supported software techniques like DLSS/FSR 2 and new Switch could be a real thing. I am doubtful though given the pandemic that anything is actually happening next year. My bet is 2024-2025. There is no market incentive to rush it.

Back-compat on "Switch 2" could improve resolution on "Switch 1" games but it wouldn't be automatic. Resolutions are set programmatically, and switched based on deck/handheld mode recognition, meaning devs (like us) would have to patch in this new compatibility with the "Switch 2" and determine what new resolution to use there. Which would also mean said devs need to update the SDK, potentially even the game engine, leading to time intensive QA & capped off with lotcheck procedures. A lot of manual work, basically, just to temper expectations! (That being said, upscaling is totally possible but not quite the same!)

Crash Team Racing looks shockingly good in handheld mode, considering.

TW3 looks pretty rough at times, but that's more of a "lol I can't believe this version is real" sorta deal. Perfectly playable, though I stopped going back and forth so much between PC and Switch because going from ultra-low settings with dips below 30fps to Ultra graphics and 60fps and back is jarring. Either version is enjoyable when you adapt to it, but the crosssave highlights the downgrades more.

@Fabraz If the games uses dynamic resolution scaling then no one has to do anything.

@Abes3 Yes and No, an upgraded dock would mean still limiting your games to run on the older portable mode. For improving an already existing game like witcher, sure, for mario kart 9 or splatoon 4 that would be the actual nightmare but for developers.

Imagine you'd want to develop a battle-royale 16 players mode in Splatoon 4 (I don't want that but imagine), that mode would work on the docked mode, not on the portable mode...so it won't exist, therefore a dock-only spec bump will most certainly wreck the ambition of developers for the next coming years. The current option to have a lower clock for the portable 720p screen + higher clock for 1080p is the best. Adding a chipset to the dock for me would be a big mistake.

Focus should be on improving the switch itself, it's no logistics nightmare: it currently has a 2015 14nm Tegra X1+ SoC. Nvidia has FAR more powerful options to offer. A 2019/2020 7nm Ampere Tegra SoC with DLSS being one.

Sure there are shortages but for a dock with an integrated SoC too you'd still need chipsets

@Abes3 Well, as technology prgoresses, naturally it's possible to produce more powerful machines without making them bigger or more power hungry.

When it comes to the poweful dock idea, I still don't know if this is even possible in a way that makes sense.
I mean that on a purely technical level, I mean you would need a second GPU working together with the first one in the Switch itself.
We do know that just putting two GPUs in a PC is already not efficient (their capabilities aren't just added to each other) and in a PC we actually have a direct and very fast connection through the board. On a Switch, these GPUs would have to be connected through a much much much worse USB port.

I am not saying it's impossible, maybe there is some trick Nintendo could use, maybe in terms of what exactly the GPUs do, to avoid as much communication as possible... But when people at places like IGN casually say stuff like that, I would really like to know how exactly they think that could work.

@Glrd Nintendo have been saying that for the last few years at this point though. We're a few months away from the 6th anniversary of the Switch, definitely not the halfway point. A new console is 3 years away at maximum.

The limitations of the Switch are so blown out of proportion. Yes, there are some games that need a higher and more stable framerate (like Age of Calamity) and yes, when the Switch is your only console and you want to play demanding third party-ports like the Witcher you get the least beautiful and worst performing version. But when I look at Odyssey or Party Superstars or play BOTW I never think: This needs 120fps to be enjoyable or ray tracing to be beautiful. These games look absolutely beautiful because of the art design and run fine enough to be enjoyable. We will get prettier graphics with the next Switch, but it is not like we desperately need it because all Switch games look ugly and run at 10fps.

@wicktus
I think you are essentially talking about a different topic.
An upgraded Switch, or the "powerfull dock" idea are just there for existing games to maybe run at higher resolutions, not to enable new games.

If you want games that have not been possible on the regular Switch, then naturally you wouldn't want a "Switch Pro", but a "Switch 2" so to say.
These would be two different things.

In a new Super Nintendo Switch, do people want 4k gaming in handheld mode or docked? What I definitely want from the new hardware, besides the regular updates, is what the other consoles have, the ability to play last gen games at a better resolution and framerate. It would be bad pr if the new console left last gen games in the dust.

I don't know where those Digital Foundry nerds are getting their information, because Furukawa himself stated the Switch is in the middle of its life cycle, not the end, earlier this year.

@TheBigK That is subjective at Nintendo and typical PR spin, mostly he meant Nintendo will support the switch for up to so long even if another system comes out. Let’s not forget Nintendo have denied a new system before only for them to reveal it the next day

@TheBigK
Tbf. Furukawa is just about the last person I would trust in that aspect.
He will say what he needs to say to sell more products.
"Yeah, the Switch is near the end of its lifecycle" would, if anything, make some people wait for the next console instead of buying a Switch.

And "middle" can also mean a lot of different things to different people.

I actually forget that the switch has a handheld mode. I've tried it out a few times but nothing serious as it is horrendous.

@TheBigK if the switch is in the middle of it's life cycle then the current switch will have 5 more years left and that is not going to happen. next year a new switch will be at least talked about ..i am 100% of that.

@Abes3 Ruddy hell, I hope it's lighter than that! The Oled is already a heavy-set lassy. I'd hope we can have an improved experience but with the weight closer to the Lite.

@wicktus

Yeah. Some portable with some dock ++ attachment breaks the whole thing N is going for imo. At that point just make a home console with all the power you can and re-send the portable side back to game boy type stuff (limited type portable games).

The Switch needs a follow up and that follow up could upscale old games (MS does it and adds HDR). I don't think it can ever be on par with what is plugged in under a tv of course unless science makes a huge breakthrough in either CPU tech or battery tech. It's still going to be 'slow' compared to something that can eat 500W from a wall jack.

Of course it could. Anyone who has used an emulator to play XC3 in 60FPS could tell you that.

@Glrd Nintendo said that middle life cycle crap back in 2020. Don’t always believe what Nintendo says at face value. They did this for the 3ds model saying it’s not coming out but then it comes out a couple of weeks later. Plus middle of the life cycle can mean something else like it’s at the end of the middle of the life cycle. That’s being said there is no certainty that a new switch will come next year but I highly doubt it Nintendo will wait until like 2027 to release a switch successor. That’s nuts 😂. Also Nintendo can just release a switch 2 and still keep the switch 1. It’s called cross gen. Sony and Microsoft are doing this and Nintendo did this to a certain extent. Having a switch 2 doesn’t automatically mean the switch 1 dies right then and there. People will still games for it for a while since it has such a huge install base

It's also worth considering that console life-spans are going to (have to) increase to accommodate how much more time it takes simply to develop new games each generation.

@WallyWest That was horrible and part of the reason I ended up ditching the game. Should’ve really been included in this video, it doesn’t get as low as some of the games here but for a Nintendo published game it’s really bad.

I’m 36 hours into XC3 since getting it just after launch (which is a lot for me to put into a game in this amount of time) and that’s just mainly down to it looking fine in handheld and so I’ve been actively playing it wherever I get a chance. I wouldn’t do that with XC2 because of how poor it looks, I hope that when a Switch upgrade or straight successor happens they patch it to look nicer in handheld

I Put:

Plants vs Zombies Battle for Neighborville (Switch handheld / switch TV)

and

Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 (Steam Deck / Steam on TV)

and the graphics different is brutal....like "Playstation 1 versus Playstation 5".

Two different universes.

How Switch was the only handheld option here..i used play strategy games....not graphics heavy...but buying Steam Deck....i don´t know the future of my switch.... the only 2 games i want = Mario + Rabbids 2 (i won´t pay $60 for it) and Advance Wars 1 + 2 (this game disappeared and i won´t pay $60 for it).

I use to buy on Steam now...the prices are (MUCH) cheaper for the same games i want.

I wouldn’t even want a new system now… just more first party games, graphics are perfectly fine for me.
And I’m pretty sure Nintendo is not in a hurry yet, either.

@Glrd the PS4 is currently still in its life cycle. A life cycle doesn't end the second a new console comes out. If you're not counting on a successor coming out for another 6 years then I don't think you've been around the hobby for very long.

"We're nearing the end of the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle and a successor is hotly anticipated to arrive in 2023"

Nearing the end? I thought it was in the middle of its lifecycle. I think it'll be still 3 years without successor in the market.

@Glrd Nintendo isn’t honest about these things. If they aren’t ready to announce it, they will deny it.

I think we're getting a little ridiculous with these videos and articles. Since you asked, NL.

I think the best idea could be to have a new dock with a bit of extra processing power to help out on games that need a bit more power to them. Not a full system, but like an extra RAM or a co-GPU to help games run better on full screen. Of course, that does run into issues of how seemless the Switch dock is, eaily could cause glitches at best and crashes/corruptions at worst.

@Crono1973 Nearly all companies know, there's a reason it has a name. The "Osborne Effect"

What would we really want from a Switch successor? The working principle of the Switch is super successful and in demand. So at this point the successor would not be drastically different anyway. What would be the incentive then? Better graphics. They can’t be much better because the system needs to remain power efficient.

All in all, why should Nintendo bother? Components are scarce, it’s hard to keep prices down, the current system is still selling well (and might get another boost from another round of big titles). I think it’s still a few years off.

Honestly if Nintendo just gave us the option to change the chipsets clock speed to it's original speed without hacking it that would make a world of difference. Just put a warning like "this will probably half your battery life". I'd be okay with it for some games

With whatever hardware Nintendo chooses to adopt next-gen, if they don't do backwards compatibility with current Switch titles, that would be a HUGE slap in the face to customers.

We aren't talking about NES to SNES and so-on, where the cartridges and such created complexities for BC. Current-gen systems are so sophisticated that there's no excuse not to include backwards compatibility as a standard, especially moving forward. This would be especially true if Nintendo eschewed physical hardware and went pure digital.

Still, even with current cartridge sizes, they could make it happen if they really wanted to. The REAL question is, will they do a customer-friendly next-gen system with BC, or cave in to the fear that nobody will buy the newer games on the new system if they include BC?

Just play these titles on PS4/5 Xbox or PC and use Nintendo switch for nintendo exclusives who works just fine

@BloodNinja I surely wont buy next Nintendo system if they decide to cut backward compatibilty.

@A7ibaba Yeah, that would be insane. And the sad thing is, there are many people who would buy their next console and buy just as many games, regardless of the feature. I'm hoping (for you guys, I'm not buying anymore consoles as long as I live) that they make the right decision, moving forward.

Nintendo: "The Switch is in the middle of it's lifecycle"
Everyone else: i THiNk iT's tImE fOr tHe SwiTcH pRo gUyS

😐

'We're nearing the end of the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle and a successor is hotly anticipated to arrive in 2023' didn't Nintendo say it was only half way through its life cycle not long ago lol

@PhhhCough wouldn't surprise me if they don't make it BC they had every opportunity to make the switch BC with atleast the Wii U (fair enough they went for cartridges over disks but they could've still allowed them to be available digitally) but of course they wanted to resell alot of those games at full retail price lol

i love all the PS5 steam deck people on here. If you have them so happy with them why you care about the switch., But biggest elephant in the room are energy costs. With current situation drough war ukraine energy costs are going rise by 30% in most countries this coming year. thats a massive cost and put gaming pc against a switch.

I dont want it to be 4k but i want switch pro to be 1440p
i think it may have similar specs to steam deck as long it was made by nvidia

@Scrubicius Yes! Crazy that there is not a game on the Switch. I know porting the Wii U version could have been difficult, but they’ve had 5 years+ to do it.
It felt for a while Star Fox was one of those series you got with a new Nintendo console

@Abes3
I say Nintendo releases a giant hulk of a system like the steam deck and they can fit all sorts of power in there

@Scrubicius
The embarrassment of Star Fox Zero has put that franchise on ice, right along F-Zero and Earthbound

Im really wondering if they could just release a new Dock with its own specialized chip set and graphics card that could upscale everything when you play docked.

@Williamfuchs420
Or they could get cozier with Microsoft and sign a special partnership where if people want to play Nintendo games at the best possible resolution they would come exclusively to the Xbox Series X/S but for those who want the hybrid system idea can also play all of nintendo's titles still on the Switch

Is a switch 2 is not 100% backwards compatible, then I don’t care about graphics, our family has too much invested to think about getting another console. But I hope that Nintendo has learned from apple and steam and my music I bought 20+ years ago is still on my iPhone today, or my pc has steam games from as far back. Then I do hope for a bit better performance on some older games. Graphics don’t matter if the go back and increase resolution of doom 10 years later.

Yall living under a rock ? Current switch especially the 16nm post 2019 ones CAN improve these games by leaps and bounds , not just getting a stable fps or res upgrade I'm talking overclocking the GPU from 300-700 to 1200-1300 and either running games with dynamic res at full quality or straight up removing the 30fps cap and running at 60FPS. It's insanebhow much nintendo is gimping the SOC .

Whatever the next Switch is, I just want backwards compatibility.

@Glrd I could be wrong, but didn't Nintendo deny the existence of the Switch just weeks before they revealed, in December of 2016, that it actually did exist with the codename "NX" followed by the actual name reveal in January which was then followed by the release in March?

Switch 2 son!! Yeah

Every Tech enthusiast and their grandma has been saying some form of “a Switch revision with more power for more demanding games will be coming Next Year” for the last 4 years and 100M+ units later. I’m telling you, we have 5 more years left, wether you like it or not; that’s the fact.

Ah, interesting to see this. I have been thinking about how the Switch has such an awesome library, but I feel like half the games suffer from lower resolutions/subpar performance. I recently got a PS5, and am playing Dragon Quest XI S in 4K at 60fps. It feels like a completely different game compared to the Switch version. Until a Switch successor with a performance boost for the current library gets announced I think I am done buying games for Switch. I won't want to play them a few years from now, just like I can't stand to look at Wii games.

@Glrd Nintendo is stating Switch in his half lifecycle since 2019, we cant even believe on Nintendo statment, Nintendo consoles have a 5/6 year lifecycle, Switch is nearing it

@Would_you_kindly Nintendo is stating Switch in his half lifecycle since 2019

@Would_you_kindly
Wii U backwards compatibility with Switch would have been impossible because they don't share the same hardware architecture (IBM Power PC CPU + AMD Radeon GPU for Wii U vs ARM Cortex CPU + Nvidia Maxwell GPU for Switch).

I wish there could be a discussion about the technical possibilities of a revision without the usual whine from the usual suspects. Also let it be known that gamers and gaming journalists almost universally know jack about tech and most shouldn't give an opinion on the topic

@Abes3
The fact that the power-increasing Switch "super dock" idea has gained so much traction over the years is quite remarkable, despite the fact that it would never work.

I find it interesting how some people don't even want a new Nintendo console.

I understand not caring too much about graphics, but the Switch is really stretching it at this point imho.

@steventonysmith it wasn’t that embarrassing considering what other games where released in the past.

Besides with a different developer on hand it can only get better, right, right? 🙈

Maybe Star Fox will be Nintendos Free to play battle Royal game. 🤷‍♂️

@skywake Happy to. Former tech journalist, current technology product manager. And the Digital Foundry guys 100% know their stuff.

Nintendo is never going to admit they're working on a new console until they announce it. So the "middle of lifecycle" is absolute crap, nobody in this industry announces their next big thing until the last possible second to build the most marketing hype because announcing too early will dampen sales. This is Marketing 101. It's logical to assume Nintendo is developing a new console, Switch or otherwise.

When Nintendo chose the Tegra X1, it was a massively path-of-least-resistance option and I think demonstrated Nintendo's recognition that they needed to support third party developers better, something that has been borne out over the life cycle of the system. Tegra X1 was a known quantity; bog standard ARM CPU cores, understood Maxwell GPU cores, and the chip itself had already been in the wild long enough for developers to get a feel for it.

So what can Nintendo do?

Nintendo never sells a console at a loss, so expecting them to ship something with 5nm chips is probably not in the cards. 7nm may be more feasible. They also haven't shipped bleeding edge since the Nintendo 64, maybe the GameCube. But never in mobile hardware. They've always gone for best power/price/performance.

Honestly, if you want to get a good idea of what kind of performance you can get on 7nm and in a low power envelope, the Steam Deck is a great example. Relatively modern but still cost effective technologies can get you double the memory bandwidth, double or better CPU performance, double or better on the GPU...Tegra X1 was never a particularly good chip, but it's not specialized either, and it's cheap, and that made it a killer fit for Nintendo. Tegra X1 is looooonnnng in the tooth.

I think the problem you run into is that NVIDIA doesn't seem to have anything announced that would do the job Tegra X1 does, and certainly doesn't have the feature set. So you either have NVIDIA custom engineering an SoC - which isn't unheard of but isn't a space they enjoy playing in the way AMD does and Nintendo has a history of not wanting bespoke hardware - or picking up something else off the shelf. God's honest truth they could literally just decide they want the Van Gogh chip used in Steam Deck and run an emulation layer on it and call it a day.

@Raikohsphere The Mariko Tegra X1 revision is "gimped" because cranking up performance could cause stability issues and corner cases. If you crank the clocks up on that, 90% of games will probably work fine, but other weird ones that might use bizarre timing tricks could misbehave.

a new chip that uses DLSS:
https://www.nvidia.com/nl-nl/geforce/technologies/dlss/

more & new RAM (DDR5)

faster and somewhat lager storage (NVME drive 128GB)

Oled screen with faster refresh rates.

lets call is a SWITCH DELUXE

@HefHughner
I agree, and raytracing isnt all that.
And looking at at some games, mario zelda xenoblade etc they look amazing for a weaker hybrid console.
And thats from someone playing on high end gaming pc.
And not to forget smash.
Nintendo always finds a way to make their games look amazing.

A Short Hike resolution was a style decision. I'm sure the same game is low Rez on other platforms.

I am perfectly fine playing games on my Switch for at least another two years. Most demanding games seem to be full of violence and dark stuff anyways so I do not play them.

@westman98 they could've taken it into consideration when they were designing the switch

@rockodoodle Next-gen Switch specs are aready set on stone. Hope its not as outdated as original Switch was. It will probably be close to Playstation 4. Steam Deck is 800p and i think it don't need higher resolution. in portable mode.

@Would_you_kindly
I'm sure Nintendo did, but then figured that designing a hybrid that was backwards compatible with the Wii U's CPU + GPU architecture was impossible, so they cut their losses and worked with Nvidia/ARM to create something new and feasible.

The same reason (plus the lack of dual screens) is also why the Switch isn't backwards compatible with the 3DS.

@DTheSleepless
I mean in terms of "custom silicon" it may well be the case that the X1 spec was in part directed by discussions Nintendo had with Nvidia. Remembering that the first public discussion about new hardware from Nintendo was in March 2015 which was before any products with X1 were out. Presumably Nintendo was talking with Nvidia in 2013/14. The equivalent for this cycle would've been around 2018/19

The general speculation around this has been that some paired back Tegra Orin SoC would be the best fit. Which would be an 8nm SoC. And given it's a revision that's 7 years newer than X1 the gap in performance between it and the current Switch is... significant...

I think mostly though I just get a bit annoyed with the mentality around this topic. For some reason there's a very, very vocal group of Nintendo fans who are somehow offended by Moore's Law. And they always exist.

I bet if you went on archive.org you could find some Nintendo fanboy ranting on these pages during the DS era about how we don't need a DS successor because the DS fine as it is. Take any post in this comment section, replace Switch with DS. That's how stupid these comments will sound in a shockingly short amount of time

@skywake
The was a big data hack at Nvidia earlier this year where a lot of their company data was stolen. Among the stolen data was information about "NVN2", which is almost certainly the graphics API for the next Switch device (NVN is the graphics API for the current Switch). Through all this information about NVN2, we can ascertain certain details about the GPU of the next Switch:
> Codenamed T239, nicknamed "Drake"
> Runs on Nvidia's Ampere GPU architecture
> Based off of Nvidia's Orin SoC
> Has 1536 CUDA cores (the Switch's Maxwell GPU has 256 CUDA cores)
> Includes tensor cores for DLSS
> Includes RT cores for ray-tracing

Beyond this, everything else about the next Switch is still largely shrouded in mystery. If it is releasing within the next 6-12 months, we should be getting a lot of leaks soon (or more accurately, we should have already gotten leaks about it already).

@westman98
Interesting, I hadn't heard that level of detail from the leak in terms of core config/codename. My comment above was going off my memory some earlier speculation from bits and pieces of "leaks" from last year. Probably says something that all of these leaks have been on largely the same page for well over a year now

Also you say everything else is a mystery but if you know the SoC and the core config that's pretty much everything short of a date. I mean obviously you can underclock/overclock and there are thermal/power considerations. And it doesn't really tell us about stuff like the screentype or other IO. But for the "how does the game run" bit, pretty much gives you a fairly accurate blueprint of what this is

@westman98 Good lord I had no idea that much data had leaked. I'm usually wary of leaks but it's pretty tough to refute that given its provenance. Orin's gotta be a pretty decent sized chip, would be curious to see how they pare it back. Unusual for Nintendo to go for bespoke hardware (Tegra X1 released in 2015, so it would've been specced in 2013 at the latest, which makes me skeptical it had been co-developed with Nintendo), but I guess not altogether unheard of.

If you're looking at an Orin derivative, let's assume they stick with Samsung 8nm for fabrication. There's a die map of Orin here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/NVIDIA_Orin_press_-die-annotated.jpg/1280px-NVIDIA_Orin_press-die-_annotated.jpg

For reference, GA107 (3050 Ti mobile) is ~200mm2 and has 2560 shaders. Cut two of the shader clusters and you're at 1536. Replace those with...probably eight cores instead of the twelve in Orin, though those ARM cores don't take up much real estate.

Yeah, you could probably do a sub-200mm2 SoC fairly easily if you make some additional cuts to Orin. Curious to see how it handles running in the power bands the X1 runs in, since those are probably going to be your hard limits.

@skywake
We don't know anything about the CPU, RAM, or clock speeds, so a lot is still a mystery.

@DTheSleepless
NVN2 mentions GA10F as the name/nickname of the SoC. Very much points to "Drake" being some kind of Orin derivative.

@Raikohsphere doing that would draw a ton more power wouldn’t it? Gotta remember its a portable overclocking would make the battery life drop to nothing

@dimi I would be pretty excited if it were Ps4 quality in hand held mode…,

For the Switch successor, I'm in the camp that says put all the upgraded tech and hardware horsepower in the dock that does the hard work for the Switch. That way it's still a hybrid system, provides a variety of consumer options and price-points/costs depending on what they value it in terms of SKU's, as well as limits the segmentation of the user base. I mostly play docked anyhow so I'd definitely support this approach. I'd also get a new upgraded dock in a heartbeat, but a whole new Switch at this moment doesn't intrigue me as I'm still content with the current system.

... Wun can only hope.

OG Switch could very much be half-way its life cicle, that doesn't mean Nintendo won't launch a new console next year. In fact, this is the fisrt time they have had just one console for what i seem to recall.

@westman98 we know it can emulate NES/SNES/N64/GameCube & Wii

@Would_you_kindly
Switch is not powerful enough to emulate the Wii U.

At best, the next Switch will be powerful enough to emulate the Wii U, but the next Switch will most likely be backwards compatible with the current Switch, which already has ports of most of the biggest Wii U titles, so developing Wii U emulation will be a largely useless endeavor.

If their idea to “improve” is to make a docked only super Switch then it’s gonna backfire hard.

There is a reason why the Lite and OLED dropped that mainly benefitted portable gamers. A giant chunk of their fanbase is portable gamers.

They either will have to upgrade the portable experience or don’t bother at all realistically. The Switch brand has long since cemented itself as BOTH a docked and portable gaming experience.

Also laughing at the people actually thinking they will announce new Nintendo console next year [like they do every year along with the “Switch Pro” bull predictions/“leaks”] when there is ZERO market incentive to do so when Switch is still selling amazing and supply are constrained