Boredom kicking in right now so ignore this post if you don’t want to read fanfiction:
I know that this will probably result in crapshot guesses but…
Assuming Nintendo sticks to the Switch format for future consoles. Approximately what raw performance do you reckon we can expect from a Switch 3 and past that do you reckon that the appeal for a home console such as a PlayStation or Xbox will diminish given that graphical fidelity will see diminishing returns. After all if the game looks and feels the same on my portable Switch as it does on my PlayStation then I’d rather have it on the go?
I’m thinking we might start to see parity with other consoles become a (welcome) trend going forward. That isn’t to say that developers won’t make games that will push the hardware of current/upcoming console generations but that the cutbacks and downsizing between ports will simply be about getting rid of the excesses with little compromise to the experience. I think this will be the case as once every console Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft reaches a certain performance baseline games will begin to look good despite any potential cutbacks. I think an example is that even though Fortnite is trimmed heavily on the Switch it still looks graphically better than most if not all Wii games from a decade prior and probably a lot of the PS3 and Xbox 360 games. (Probably not the best example so feel free to replace Fortnite with your game of choice) So 10 years from now, we can expect the worst looking games from future consoles to look better than the best looking games do today and past that the differences will be so minute that turning down a few settings will still produce amazing fidelity but great performance because you decided to not animated every blade of grass on a future switch as opposed to doing so on a future PlayStation.
I also wonder if we will see a NG Switch Pro this time around because the Switch’s lifecycle was unusual and I don’t believe Nintendo will assume the Switch 2 will have as much longevity. If so maybe we can expect a performance increase that places it solidly above an Xbox Series S and makes it far more comparable to a PS5 or XSX. I do believe that if this does happen then we could maybe see some AAA third party games land on said system. Though maybe they’d make it available only via eshop as Nintendo would want to avoid Timmy’s mum going to the store and buying Timmy the new popular third party game on his regular switch and then it doesn’t work because it’s only meant for the switch Pro. Then maybe we could see a storage increase on a switch pro to accommodate this.
To be honest just throwing around empty thoughts but discussing non-existent potential plans is a fun thought experiment at least for me.