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Hardware We need a Switch successor pronto

Eh. I didnt think SMTV was that bad. And of the games you posted, with the exception of xenoblade, those devs have put out games with poor performance on non-Nintendo consoles.

I think the switch is getting up there in age though.
 
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I've mentioned it before a few times, but the thought of Metroid Prime 4 running on the current, dated hardware fills me with more dread than the Metroid game by that name. I mean, I know Retro Studios has the talent to pull off something magical, even despite imposed constraints, but after all these years of waiting, it's unfortunate to consider the possibility of the game being held back by a console on its way out.
Yeah... MP was one of the top looking games of its generation for what it tried to do.
it being barely okay for current graphics kinda hurts. It will probably still be a great game.
If it comes out before the switch 2, i will probably wait for that... MP is not a series that i want to have a "stylized comic artstyle".
I hate how funny I found this to be lol.
...because it is =D
I played V for over 180 hours and while it is true its performance is rough in many areas, I'm not sure if I can't relate to the sentiment that it struggles that much. Xenoblade 3 is actually worse, I feel. Cadensia is choppy all around and Kilocorn Grandeps is the worst superboss in the entire series because the game severely tanks during the fight, to the point that button prompts delays start appearing.
Yeah, it was pretty rough (performance/resolution) but far from unplayable, mainly because there are no aspects where it needs twitch input. And the motion blur did help a lot...
So brave.

But also yes.

But also also Pokémon isn’t the game I’d use to make this point. The rest? Fair.
Yeah. pokemon is not the right example...
 
Yeah if there was going to launch next year, they would have told us by now.
It's obviously 2024 and hopefully a more than worthy jump to stand out from the first Switch.
Don’t be so sure. While I’m expecting 2024 myself, the Switch was announced in late 2016 and launched early 2017. Nintendo kinda does its own thing with announcements and timing.
 
Don’t be so sure. While I’m expecting 2024 myself, the Switch was announced in late 2016 and launched early 2017. Nintendo kinda does its own thing with announcements and timing.
If it's a "refresh" like it's been thrown around for years now, they'll be even more quiet.
 
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Don’t be so sure. While I’m expecting 2024 myself, the Switch was announced in late 2016 and launched early 2017. Nintendo kinda does its own thing with announcements and timing.

March was a winning formula for them and most likely what they are aiming for (lets be honest, holiday would be a chaos for many reasons). And october- november pre hype announcement like before would do them favors. They just need another strong launch and they are golden.
 
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why 3? could also be later. With how apple does it now, 1-2 months would work as well.
(if you're talking leaks, yeah, that i can see starting then)
Nah I'm pretty confident it'll be announced in either late January or early February and released on May 12th.
 
nintendo-switch-2.jpg


it's been six years. The Switch is officially old hardware, and that is increasingly begin to show its age

While the Switch is a more modern chipset than most consoles on the market, functionally, its hardware spec is equivalent to the PS3 and Xbox 360 - 2005 era hardware, and the last generation where games felt constrained by their hardware. The Switch managed to extend the life of that spec level by a few years, but as of right now, games are increasingly running into the limits the hardware imposes on them, and I think it is time we get something better. Soon.

Within the last year, Shin Megami Tensei V, Pokemon Legends, and then Xenoblade 3 all increasingly showed us the Switch hardware was no longer able to keep up with the ambitions of the developers working on it. Even before then, we had started to see the Switch hardware start to falter, in games such as Age of Calamity. Then Bayonetta 3 was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, a game that is so utterly beyond the hardware it is running on it would be hilarious if it wasn't constantly and pervasively noticeable how much the game's ambition is being curtailed as a result.

Look, the Switch is almost 6 years old. For every system ever, at this point, we start either hearing about the successor, or we get the successor outright. This is no longer a controversial point, even if you yourself are absolutely fine with the Switch hardware, we are objectively at a point where it needs a successor, where the games running on it are making that clear, and where it is increasingly clear that third parties, who have found so much success on the system, are not going to be willing to lower their base spec to what is now two generations and 20 year old levels to keep things going. 50% of all software sales on the Switch were third party, which means that what those third parties want is something Nintendo will absolutely consider too – before someone tries to tell me they won't.

I don't know how many of you, like me, are finally feeling the Switch hardware is long in the tooth now. Perhaps you've felt this way for a long time. Perhaps you never notice any of these technical deficiencies in any of these games, and having played Hyrule Warriors, SMTV, Pokemon Legends, Xenoblade 3, Bayonetta 3, and Sonic Frontiers, you are wondering what the hell I am talking about.

That's totally fine! But like I said, this is now beyond opinion. We are objectively entering this system's seventh year on the market in a few weeks. Nintendo needs to have a successor ready to go, and soon. Or a lot of what they achieved with the Switch will be in needless jeopardy.
Switch is 5 years and 7 months. Not 6.

Tell that to the police officer when you don’t have 21 and wanna have a drink…
 
Nah I'm pretty confident it'll be announced in either late January or early February and released on May 12th.
This is about where I’m at, too. Announced early 2023, out same day as Zelda.
I’ve got my $600 Canadian ready to go the moment pre-orders are open.
 
The real reason I want a successor pronto is so we can stop getting "We need a successor pronto" threads and posts
Not happening. The second they announce a successor the discussion pivots to about a successor to the successor. People will be already bemoaning the successor as out of date and in need of a refresh within a year of its launch. Just wait.
 
Hm, I dunno. I like the Switch right now and I've been having plenty of fun playing its games. A few technical imperfections here and there, but nothing's perfect. I can live with that, and I can certainly live without expensive new hardware!

I say we wait another six years, and then you can check in with me again.
 
I dunno, I'm still racking up the hours on my launch Switch without issue or complaint.
Of course, I'm the kind of person who didn't want to put the XBOX360 to bed...
 
I mean, sure. It's an old system by this point. Then again, we know a successor is being worked on and it's supposedly being announced SOON™, so it's only a matter of having a little patience.
The real reason I want a successor pronto is so we can stop getting "We need a successor pronto" threads and posts
I honestly wouldn't count on that happening. Some people started pining for a "Switch Pro" ever since day one, when some areas in Breath of the Wild suffered from an unstable frame rate.
 
Boy do I wish we'd all stop using hardware to hand-wave devs' incompetence. Like it's so obvious that a lot use uber hardware to hide their poor optimization skills (see Compile Heart as one prime example). Meaning the second they have to TRY to optimize for a system like Switch, they quiver.

If Game Freak were making a Pokemon game specifically for PS5-grade hardware, they'd STILL be horrifically under par. Other devs would still try to overachieve and get poor performance. It's never going to end. As I always say; it's not the hardware, it's the devs. It's not the tools, it's how you use them.
The tools are definitely a substantial factor, though. Like, being real, the Switch hardware is effectively two generations out of date now, considering it's below what the PS4 and XBO offered, from a technical standpoint. Sure, certain developers are more capable than others (which will obviously always be the case), but I don't think it's fair to go the route of "only a bad carpenter blames their tools". If two basketball players of equal skill level are competing one-on-one, but one of them is wearing cardboard shoes, he'll be at a clear and objective disadvantage, and there's no way around that. Former Retro Studios developers (talented as they are, with Metroid Prime being one of the best looking games of its era) have gone on record expressing disappointment with the meager leap in power the Wii offered over the GameCube. Power matters, and a console with more current, up-to-date hardware just makes things easier on the devs, all around.
 
New hardware is only going to give you a short serotonin boost until you remember the trajectory of this hobby. (y)

It depends on what we want out of better hardware.

I'm pretty satisfied with basically every title I've played on Series X performance wise as they hit 1080p-1440p/60fps or 2160p/30fps most of the time. Switch-like hardware that bumps the new lower bound to be in that range for all first party or games built for the platform (e.g. MH Rise) is all I could ask for for quite some time tbh.
 
It depends on what we want out of better hardware.

I'm pretty satisfied with basically every title I've played on Series X performance wise as they hit 1080p-1440p/60fps or 2160p/30fps most of the time. Switch-like hardware that bumps the new lower bound to be in that range for all first party or games built for the platform like MH RIse is all I could ask for for quite some time tbh.
I was talking about Raccoon specifically.

edit: I'd personally be happy if I can play Tears of the Kingdom-level software at 1080p/60fps, which seems fairly reasonable given the leaked hardware. Everything better than that is a nice extra.
 
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Honestly, I'm having a bit of gaming fatigue where everything feels like a product and not so much like a experience anymore. It probably didn't help when I attempted to broaden my palette with mobile MMO'S.

I'd end up buying yet another new device and feel sad, what is a new device if there are no new kind of experiences to be had? That's the same reason that made me sell my PS5 after its first year.

Everything right now feels like a copy, I understand the games before even playing them, even the stories are formulaic. Bleh... So no, thanks. Show me a compelling reason my I should need a new device first.

Sell me an experience.
 
I don't think this will be as relevant, because development costs are plateauing for a number of studios. Most of the developers that have the funds to keep pushing the graphical capabilities of their games don't really have a particularly large presence on Nintendo consoles in the first place.

Once Nintendo can run PS4ish level AA games at a consistent rate, then they'll have open access to most of what their consumer base will want. They don't really need to worry about consistently pushing hardware capabilities like PlayStation or Xbox, because that's not what their consumer base is looking for.
I get your point, but I disagree with the part of "what their consumer base wants": software sales shows the consumer base is getting what they want, or at least that they're not bothered enough by the technical issues to not buy the games. These games would surely sell better if they were more technically solid, but Pokémon is probably going to break franchise records this week, going by preorder numbers. The ship sailed ages ago, the publishers aren't going to be bothered unless shit starts bombing.

Besides that, I don't think most of these devs will adopt UE5 because they want to push the envelope graphically, but due to it being a well-documented engine that (down the line) will facilitate turning out projects quickly. I might be misremembering, but I recall Atlus reps mentioning they went with UE4 for SMTV for ease of development, despite the game being a Switch exclusive and UE4 being finicky on Switch. Had they gone for a different engine, they could probably have extracted more juice out of the thing, but they ran the numbers and decided it was not worth it. Idk, my impression is that exclusive games are strange picks to support this line of thinking when downports fit the argument so much better.
 
What I find most delusional about these kinds of threads is the idea that more powerful hardware would fix the issues people have. All it would do is port the same problems but to better looking games as we already see on PS5 and XS. Developers don't use more power for more stable frame rates or less pop in, they use it to go even bigger with graphics that further push the envelope.
 
Absolutely agreed. The hardware is fucking ancient at this point, even mobile phones are outclassing it now.

We've been stuck at roughly Wii U level power for an entire decade at this point. It's beyond a joke now.
 
What I find most delusional about these kinds of threads is the idea that more powerful hardware would fix the issues people have. All it would do is port the same problems but to better looking games as we already see on PS5 and XS. Developers don't use more power for more stable frame rates or less pop in, they use it to go even bigger with graphics that further push the envelope.
"Delusional" is far too strong a word to describe this. If the problem is that somebody is misinformed, just inform them.
 
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What I find most delusional about these kinds of threads is the idea that more powerful hardware would fix the issues people have. All it would do is port the same problems but to better looking games as we already see on PS5 and XS. Developers don't use more power for more stable frame rates or less pop in, they use it to go even bigger with graphics that further push the envelope.
Is it really only a problem on the developers side though? Not every team has the high-end capabilities and knowledge for the platform that Nintendo EPD has. Current 3rd party releases show that most studios don’t. I don‘t think you can give all the responsibility to the devs, in the end this leads to the “lazy dev” or “bad management“ rhetoric. I think there are boundaries, and the Switch is definitely at the brink of being too weak for most game production.
 
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Nah I'm pretty confident it'll be announced in either late January or early February and released on May 12th.
oh, Zelda. shure, i belive that to. Still think they could wait till march to reveale it.
The tools are definitely a substantial factor, though. Like, being real, the Switch hardware is effectively two generations out of date now, considering it's below what the PS4 and XBO offered, from a technical standpoint. Sure, certain developers are more capable than others (which will obviously always be the case), but I don't think it's fair to go the route of "only a bad carpenter blames their tools". If two basketball players of equal skill level are competing one-on-one, but one of them is wearing cardboard shoes, he'll be at a clear and objective disadvantage, and there's no way around that. Former Retro Studios developers (talented as they are, with Metroid Prime being one of the best looking games of its era) have gone on record expressing disappointment with the meager leap in power the Wii offered over the GameCube. Power matters, and a console with more current, up-to-date hardware just makes things easier on the devs, all around.
Its not 2 generations. It has weaker hardware in regards to computepower, but more modern architecture then last gen.
Its more a ...sidestep to last gen.
What I find most delusional about these kinds of threads is the idea that more powerful hardware would fix the issues people have. All it would do is port the same problems but to better looking games as we already see on PS5 and XS. Developers don't use more power for more stable frame rates or less pop in, they use it to go even bigger with graphics that further push the envelope.
...i honestly dont see it that way. We have modes for everyone on sonys first party games, they even started doing 40fps modes.

Shure, some developers that do multy platform releases or ports from other platforms will aim for highest fidelity and have wonky performance.
But what we are talking is nintendos developers. First party stuff. Even they are strugling to keep their imagination and everything at bay. Something like SMT5 had a vision, and they compromised for performance.
Zelda? Pokemon? its not that they would start moving to realistic graphics, but the increase in world size kinda ate up all of the performance they needed for their artstyles. Now they need to have new hardware that is fast enough for that vision.
 
We've been stuck at roughly Wii U level power for an entire decade at this point. It's beyond a joke now.

I don't know if I'd say it's "beyond" a joke yet. I'm still finding it pretty funny
 
If Nintendo thinks they can wait till 2024 they will have a wiiu 2 in their hands.

The switch is basically guaranteed that it's going to sell more units this year than the ps4 ever did in any year during its lifetime. They absolutely can.

The Wii u's failure had very, very little to do with timing. Even if they'd gotten it out two years earlier and nothing else changed, it would have still been an unmitigated disaster because the fundamental idea behind the console was bad.
 
Gotham Knights show we need PS5/Xbox Series X successors pronto
There's like 5 games that run like shit and look like ass on Switch for every Gotham Knights on the PS5/XSX. I want a succesor if only because MP4 or whatever is going to be wasted on Switch hardware.
 
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oh, Zelda. shure, i belive that to. Still think they could wait till march to reveale it.

Its not 2 generations. It has weaker hardware in regards to computepower, but more modern architecture then last gen.
Its more a ...sidestep to last gen.

...i honestly dont see it that way. We have modes for everyone on sonys first party games, they even started doing 40fps modes.

Shure, some developers that do multy platform releases or ports from other platforms will aim for highest fidelity and have wonky performance.
But what we are talking is nintendos developers. First party stuff. Even they are strugling to keep their imagination and everything at bay. Something like SMT5 had a vision, and they compromised for performance.
Zelda? Pokemon? its not that they would start moving to realistic graphics, but the increase in world size kinda ate up all of the performance they needed for their artstyles. Now they need to have new hardware that is fast enough for that vision.

Semi-shitposting aside it's obviously more nuanced than that. Already mentioned it but Soul Hackers 2 is a game from the same division that developed Shin Megami Tensei 5, and it's less ambitious from both a gameplay and visual perspective and has performance issues on machines much more powerful than Switch.

Star Ocean 6 is another example of a mid tier game with performance struggles on hardware much more powerful than Switch, with the image quality on PS4/XBO arguably being worse than Xenoblade 3 on Switch. One of the key criticisms in reviews was its poor production values too.
 
I get your point, but I disagree with the part of "what their consumer base wants": software sales shows the consumer base is getting what they want, or at least that they're not bothered enough by the technical issues to not buy the games. These games would surely sell better if they were more technically solid, but Pokémon is probably going to break franchise records this week, going by preorder numbers. The ship sailed ages ago, the publishers aren't going to be bothered unless shit starts bombing.
That's where I disagree, because there's plenty of demand for 3rd party titles that just simply can't run on Switch, or run fairly middling if they do get ported. Outside of modern Final Fantasy and I suppose NieR, most JRPGs would sell way better on Switch than Xbox/PlayStation, but the console simply can't run them. Same for most platformers. And even the games that do eventually make their way over require special ports that are often much later than the initial launch.

From a 1st party perspective, Nintendo could literally just sit on the Switch for another 5+ years and they'd still be perfectly fine, as I said earlier in this thread. The rub lies with the 3rd party support; Nintendo's consumer base is never going to be asking for the graphical showcase games, but better hardware would give them ready access to most of the 3rd party games that their consumer base is likely interested in.

What I find most delusional about these kinds of threads is the idea that more powerful hardware would fix the issues people have. All it would do is port the same problems but to better looking games as we already see on PS5 and XS. Developers don't use more power for more stable frame rates or less pop in, they use it to go even bigger with graphics that further push the envelope.
I'm honestly not so sure. Nintendo isn't really known for being a graphics powerhouse; they seem pretty content to focus on artstyle over graphical fidelity. I don't really see this being an issue for Nintendo, because their art direction doesn't really need anything more than what last-gen had, maybe with a bit more power. That's a far cry from Xbox/PlayStation, which need that extra power a whole lot more.
 
After the success* of Dread, Metroid Prime 4 can only benefit from being on the Switch

*Dread being the best-selling Metroid game despite not selling mind-blowing numbers
 


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