Or you know you could watch videos of Doom Eternal, Witcher 3 and every other third party port (with a few exceptions) and see how much of the actual graphical effects are missing, the piss poor framerates, the shit tier resolutions and character models that look like they took a bath in vaseline, missing textures, etc. You guys don't like my opinion, that's fine but it's absolutely silly to pretend that Switch games come anywhere close to the visuals of a PS4 let alone more modern consoles.
(Note from future me: I originally meant to post this about 10 hours ago, but i didn't get around to finishing up the wall of text you're about to read until now. I hope what i wrote here is even comprehensible lmao, being non-native in english is making it difficult for me and i've read through it like 10 times or so now and i finally want to be done with it. lol
Also sorry for stirring the pot when all has settled, but i got so carried away writing this that i would hate myself if i'll just delete my long-a$$ draft and act like nothing happened. So i'll be posting it anyway and bring you the joy of reading through it all. Keep in mind none of this is meant in a hostile way towards @Kevin It's just food for thought!)
Ignoring architectural differences the Switch is literally a beefed up Wii U in terms of raw power, just on a handheld. To me it's kind of amazing that despite being a handheld, they still managed to surpass their previous home console power-wise. It only gets better when you were coming from the 3DS like i was and comparing the Switch in 2017 with what the 3DS offered in the same year, it was truly Nintendo's biggest leap ever in the handheld space.
When looking at the Switch as a home console though, things are starting to look familiar:
What i mean by this is that the Switch is to the PS4/XBO what the Wii was to the XB360/PS3.
Or you could look at it this way: It's the barely more powerful successor to a previous failed console with a unique gimmick & sells like hot cakes because of it.
(This one sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
What helps the Switch in its situation however is that unlike the Wii's home console nature the Switch is still a portable device at heart, thus differentiating itself greatly from the competition and downgrades were just generally accepted since you couldn't possibly fit PS4 specs on such a small system at the time.
Given all this, in my opinion the Switch is doing leagues better in every way than the Wii despite both sharing a similar situation with being the way less powerful but cheaper and more popular option than the competition.
Looking back, the 3rd party support for the Wii was very limited, as nearly all of the big releases on XB360/PS3 simply asked for too much to run on essentially 2 Gamecubes duct-taped together.
A straight 1:1 downport of a XB360/PS3 game to Wii with only visual cutbacks and nothing else just wasn't feasible in 99% of the cases since the hardware didn't support anything the big brothers were doing or the difference in power simply was too big.
Instead developers made either less impressive exclusives just on Wii to capitalize on its motion control gimmick and large install base, or they made a new game from scratch (most often by a different dev team entirely) that is simply based on the same concept, ideas, content and name as the main HD version on the big consoles but is far simpler and basic so it can run on Wii.
Just look at Dead Rising or Sonic Unleashed. The Wii versions clearly are not the same games as their HD counterparts despite sharing names and such.
The Switch is the exact opposite in that regard. The fact it got as many ports of PS4/XBO games as it did compared to the Wii really speaks volume to how well engineered the hardware was for a portable device of its time, and how its modern hardware supporting all currently used processing and rendering techniques from PS4/XBO allowed the system to punch well above its weight.
There were obvious cutbacks at times but simply running the big games themselves was actually possible this time, something the Wii couldn't dream of!
I mean yeah, there were some real stinkers here and there, but overall the quality for most of the ports were good enough to be played on a small 6.2" screen. And this really is the biggest factor to consider when it comes to these "impossible ports". Developers were willing to downgrade as much as they had to because the novelty of playing home console games on a handheld was a big incentive. Though also having no real competition in the handheld space definitely did help Nintendo to get this many supporting devs wanting to port their games in the first place.
I do understand where some of the complaints are coming from, but if you're someone playing these "impossible ports" almost exclusively in docked mode knowing full well you can get a better experience elsewhere, that's on you. They look and run fine in portable mode and that's what matters most. If the Switch is all you have, then sucks to be you i guess. It was no different for people like me who only ever had a Wii which more often than not got treated even worse!
You get a Switch for its incredible library of exclusives, same as the Wii, only this time you get 3rd party ports on a handheld as a neat bonus this time around.
The Steam Deck, however great a piece of hardware it is, in my opinion is not the be-all & end-all solution. There are no native ports for it and instead just runs standard PC versions with its compatibility layer Proton. Its on the consumer to tinker with it until they get the experience they want. It's simply not plug & play and therefore no real competitor to the Switch. And not to mention it's a heavy brick that barely qualifies as being portable, but that's just my opinion.
It's a device meant for enthusiasts and enthusiasts only, something the Switch and other consoles just aren't. Given its PC-like nature, at some point there's no going any lower with the graphic settings and getting the newer games to run at an acceptable level, which a native port could likely solve with direct influence from developers optimizing the code to run on that specific hardware better. It's why i see the Steam Deck having a much shorter lifespan than a Switch because PC hardware and minimum specs evolve faster there.
With the Switch 2 we will see history repeat itself (ignoring how well or bad it could sell) when looking at just the known leaked hardware specs of T239 alone.
The Cortex A78C CPU will exceed last gens horrible Jaguar CPUs easily and even at its worst the GPU will match PS4 but natively supporting new tech like RT and upscaling will make it able to punch above its weight. You will get 540p DLSS'ed to 1080p at 30fps on the heavy 3rd party ports of PS5/XSX games, but the fact you can play them easily on the go plug & play style at acceptable levels is still a novelty which the Steam Deck and other PC handhelds can't and will never replicate, and i say this as a Steam Deck owner.
Phew that was a lot but man does it feel good to finally post this.
Anyway, i'm getting tired and going to bed now. (Don't worry about me, i didn't stay up late to post this.)