- Pronouns
- He/Him
The R&D for this SoC is exponentially higher than it would be for something like Mariko or OLED; this isn’t up for debate: a die shrink and an OLED screen are frankly cheap compared to engineering an SoC that’s designed on a completely new architecture (and all its requisite engineering advances) than the one in use that was designed 7 years ago. So it needs an exponentially larger ROI than either of those pieces of hardware did.What you just argued, is probably very close to the argument Nintendo gave themselves to dismiss the idea of a Wii HD upgrade console ~2010.
Something they now lament and suggest they won’t make any such similar mistakes in the future.
The proof is in the pudding. Engagement in Switch software and services is the entire goal.
If this is the midpoint of the Switch lifecycle, as Nintendo thinks, the entire goal is to keep engagement in the Switch ecosystem high for another 4-5 years.
The money put into the R&D of this new model will accomplish that goal. The return on investments will justify its exsistence. It doesn’t have to sell more than the ps4 pro to do this.
The mistake would be to ignore the usefulness of this upgrade, and ride out the current switch as is, and watch its latter life cycle drop like a stone in its engagement…ala the Wii.
The other mistake would be to release something now that represents a generational break from an incredibly popular system that’s currently in momentum and growth…and cutting it off at the knees.
So they won’t do either of those things.
Nintendo doesn’t really care if you are playing Mario Switch 2025 on your 2019 Lite, your 2021 OLED, or your 2022 4K Switch. They really don’t.
Also, saying Nintendo regrets not releasing a Wii HD console makes you sound like Michael Pachter, all without having any evidence to suggest a Wii HD would have made a difference in the outcome there; the Wii audience didn’t walk away because they wanted better graphics, this is pretty well-documented to not be the case.
And lastly, as no one seems to remember, Switches will not explode upon the release of new hardware; it will be up to Nintendo and the consumer to determine if the Switch as retail hardware still has value upon the release of newer hardware and what that value might be. But the software? So long as they keep buying, Nintendo and 3rd-parties will almost certainly keep selling on that platform. Evergreens will continue selling regardless until new games in their respective series on new hardware, especially if the new hardware plays Switch games seamlessly, so the only thing that will be lacking is new software releases after a cross-gen period has concluded sometime in 2025/2026.
Is the GPU the only thing being updated here? No? Then there’s gameplay differences to be had with new hardware. Just to name some things that the SoC coupled with other hardware advances will allow beyond image quality off the top of my head:Again, GBC launched with Nintendo exclusives. Having colors in games is a huge gameplay difference between previous monochrome. Better resolution graphics iq bump? Not so much. Not enough of a difference to start fragmenting your development between two different systems.
- Faster load times (better CPU + potentially faster storage)
- Higher volume of enemies/objects on screen without greatly diminishing image quality or frame rate to achieve it
- Significantly improved AI (far more performant CPU + GPU Tensor cores), meaning...
- far easier implementation of rollback netcode
- smarter computer enemy/NPC activity
- hardware much more suitable for simulation games
- Faster internet connectivity (currently bottlenecked/artificially capped by RAM and write speed on storage, as I understand it)
- Bluetooth 5 functionality, which means…
- Diminished input lag
- Longer battery life for controllers without requiring larger batteries