Goodbye NX, hello Switch

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cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
All I keep my switch for now is because they technically announced Metroid Metroid Prime and a new Zelda, and I expect there to be one new Mario title before support drops. Nintendo simply takes too long.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
All I keep my switch for now is because they technically announced Metroid Metroid Prime and a new Zelda, and I expect there to be one new Mario title before support drops. Nintendo simply takes too long.

In some ways, is it arguable that Nintendo has a similar problem that they did on the Wii where the console has good first-party games, but lacks good third-party support? Fortunately, since indie games are typically not graphically demanding, running them on the Switch is possible. So, the Switch does get plenty of good indie titles.
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com
In some ways, is it arguable that Nintendo has a similar problem that they did on the Wii where the console has good first-party games, but lacks good third-party support? Fortunately, since indie games are typically not graphically demanding, running them on the Switch is possible. So, the Switch does get plenty of good indie titles.

For me it's that with the PS5/Series X there is no way I am playing any non-exclusive on the Switch. The difference in quality of life and graphics is just too much, it was a lot closer a year ago. The instant gratification of resuming on the Switch is no longer so special.

My kids appreciate the mobility (even within the house) the Switch gives them, but that doesn't add that much value for me. I just bought a second dock so we can easily move it between two TVs. COVID also killed a lot of our reason to be carrying it around. I am sure that will resume soon, however.

If you said I could buy a $400 Switch Cube tomorrow with Series S specs and BC for current titles I'd buy it.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
In some ways, is it arguable that Nintendo has a similar problem that they did on the Wii where the console has good first-party games, but lacks good third-party support? Fortunately, since indie games are typically not graphically demanding, running them on the Switch is possible. So, the Switch does get plenty of good indie titles.

Yeah but there is no reason for me to get anything on switch if it’s also on Xbox or pc. Especially so when a lot of titles come to gamepass. Thing is, the only reason I buy Nintendo systems is for the first party lineup that isn’t smash bros or some Mario spinoff(tennis, kart, golf, party etc). The paper Mario games are the exception there. So they always end up sitting until something releases. I tried buying a few titles for switch that weren’t on other systems or were cheap but there isn’t enough for me in that regard. It’s been that way for me since the GameCube really (I never bought a N64 when it was still at retail).
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,881
4,877
136
I can't believe Nintendo is demanding $60 for Skyward Sword considering how much of a lazy port it is. They didn't improve the textures for HD at all, they literally just toggled the resolution setting higher and slapped on a new control scheme. I could give a pass for such a lazy port if it were $20. I could even give it a pass at $60 if it had equally lazy ports of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess packed in like what they did for Mario last year. But charging $60 for this alone is just insane.

They at least could have rebuilt the character models and assets like with Xenoblade Chronicles HD. Such as it is, Skyward only cost $50 when it was new if bought without the wii mote bundle so by asking for $60, Nintendo is actually asking for more money for a port than when it was new and they needed to recoup their investment. As a hardcore Zelda fan, I'm going to pass. I don't like the direction of my favorite company. Their greed is getting rediculous and I'm beginning to feel like I'm being taken for a ride.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I can't believe Nintendo is demanding $60 for Skyward Sword considering how much of a lazy port it is. They didn't improve the textures for HD at all, they literally just toggled the resolution setting higher and slapped on a new control scheme. I could give a pass for such a lazy port if it were $20. I could even give it a pass at $60 if it had equally lazy ports of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess packed in like what they did for Mario last year. But charging $60 for this alone is just insane.

They at least could have rebuilt the character models and assets like with Xenoblade Chronicles HD. Such as it is, Skyward only cost $50 when it was new if bought without the wii mote bundle so by asking for $60, Nintendo is actually asking for more money for a port than when it was new and they needed to recoup their investment. As a hardcore Zelda fan, I'm going to pass. I don't like the direction of my favorite company. Their greed is getting rediculous and I'm beginning to feel like I'm being taken for a ride.

Yep Nintendo always artificially inflated the value of their titles way past the “new and exciting” phase.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
I can't believe Nintendo is demanding $60 for Skyward Sword considering how much of a lazy port it is. They didn't improve the textures for HD at all, they literally just toggled the resolution setting higher and slapped on a new control scheme. I could give a pass for such a lazy port if it were $20. I could even give it a pass at $60 if it had equally lazy ports of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess packed in like what they did for Mario last year. But charging $60 for this alone is just insane.

They at least could have rebuilt the character models and assets like with Xenoblade Chronicles HD. Such as it is, Skyward only cost $50 when it was new if bought without the wii mote bundle so by asking for $60, Nintendo is actually asking for more money for a port than when it was new and they needed to recoup their investment. As a hardcore Zelda fan, I'm going to pass. I don't like the direction of my favorite company. Their greed is getting rediculous and I'm beginning to feel like I'm being taken for a ride.

Nintendo can be kind of awkward when it comes to this stuff. For every Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, which was an arguably good port, we end up getting something like this. There are also instances where you see a sense of greed. For example, we got Super Mario Run on mobile, which was a simple paid game (that had some free levels). That game didn't "perform up to expectations" (sounds like something you'd expect to hear from EA/Ubisoft/Activision), and they ended up giving us the Mario Kart mobile game.

Apart from that, when I saw the reveal and the non-waggle method of control, all I could think is that I would have to unlearn a lot of muscle memory not to treat the right stick as a camera control.
 
Last edited:

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,537
6,365
126
After disliking Twilight Princess, I had no interest in Skyward Sword.

If the new non-motion controls were more traditional, I would maybe get it on Switch but their new control scheme is a deal breaker for me and I'll definitely be passing on it.

And yeah, Nintendo does this and sells them at $60 because they can. No one bats an eye at Nintendo brand first party products being $60. I mean even games like Breath of the Wild, a launch title, still have a retail price of $60. I got Smash Brothers for my son around Black Friday for $45 and I think that was the first time it's been that low. You can find some of the games for $50 here and there but their retail prices for the most part stay at $60 well after they have been released,

On another note, I put some more time into Bowser's Fury yesterday with my son and I have to say I am really enjoying it. I could do without the random bowser coming out every 10 or whatever minutes and think that's kind of dumb, but the main part of the game and the different little lighthouses have some great level designs. We just did the "invisible" lighthouse yesterday and I thought that was such an amazing design.
 
Reactions: blckgrffn

Dranoche

Senior member
Jul 6, 2009
302
68
101
And yeah, Nintendo does this and sells them at $60 because they can. No one bats an eye at Nintendo brand first party products being $60. I mean even games like Breath of the Wild, a launch title, still have a retail price of $60. I got Smash Brothers for my son around Black Friday for $45 and I think that was the first time it's been that low. You can find some of the games for $50 here and there but their retail prices for the most part stay at $60 well after they have been released,
Nintendo doesn't bat an eye but I think most people are grumbling more and more about it, particularly with how lazy and expensive the ports seem to be getting. They got roasted pretty good over the Mario 3D All-Stars collection due to the barebones ports, lack of Galaxy 2, the artificial scarcity through the limited purchase window, and the $60 price when considering all the shortfalls. You would hope that following a Mario collection we would have gotten a Zelda collection or at least a pairing of Skyward Sword and maybe Twilight Princess, but Nintendo is slow to react and this was probably set in stone well before the Mario release.
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com
After disliking Twilight Princess, I had no interest in Skyward Sword.

If the new non-motion controls were more traditional, I would maybe get it on Switch but their new control scheme is a deal breaker for me and I'll definitely be passing on it.

And yeah, Nintendo does this and sells them at $60 because they can. No one bats an eye at Nintendo brand first party products being $60. I mean even games like Breath of the Wild, a launch title, still have a retail price of $60. I got Smash Brothers for my son around Black Friday for $45 and I think that was the first time it's been that low. You can find some of the games for $50 here and there but their retail prices for the most part stay at $60 well after they have been released,

On another note, I put some more time into Bowser's Fury yesterday with my son and I have to say I am really enjoying it. I could do without the random bowser coming out every 10 or whatever minutes and think that's kind of dumb, but the main part of the game and the different little lighthouses have some great level designs. We just did the "invisible" lighthouse yesterday and I thought that was such an amazing design.

I personally won't play waggle Zelda with waggle controls, remapped controls that still require "precision stick swipes" seems meh. My kid is stoked for it so we'll likely get it when it has some sort of discount or we're able to get some discount Nintendo gift cards. I made it maybe 2/3rds through twilight princess but just couldn't finish it.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,537
6,365
126
Nintendo doesn't bat an eye but I think most people are grumbling more and more about it, particularly with how lazy and expensive the ports seem to be getting. They got roasted pretty good over the Mario 3D All-Stars collection due to the barebones ports, lack of Galaxy 2, the artificial scarcity through the limited purchase window, and the $60 price when considering all the shortfalls. You would hope that following a Mario collection we would have gotten a Zelda collection or at least a pairing of Skyward Sword and maybe Twilight Princess, but Nintendo is slow to react and this was probably set in stone well before the Mario release.
I mean you can say they got roasted for Mario 3D Allstars all you want, but the game has sold more than Super Mario Maker 2 and would be deemed a huge success.

Getting roasted by a vocal minority on the internet doesn't mean anything if a game still sells over 8 million copies.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,537
6,365
126
I personally won't play waggle Zelda with waggle controls, remapped controls that still require "precision stick swipes" seems meh. My kid is stoked for it so we'll likely get it when it has some sort of discount or we're able to get some discount Nintendo gift cards. I made it maybe 2/3rds through twilight princess but just couldn't finish it.
You made it further than me. I only got like 6 hours into it and was bored to death so I got rid of it.
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com
You made it further than me. I only got like 6 hours into it and was bored to death so I got rid of it.

But... everyone said it was awesome! Must play!

My guy started playing it on the WiiU but I had misplaced the sensor bar so he was really frustrated playing it on the just the screen that had IR tracking (the WiiU was so weird/great/terrible). I told him that I never finished Wind Waker until the WiiU port of it and that there was no way that there wasn't going to be a remaster that smoothed out all that garbage. Not sure how right I was now
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com

That would be interesting if Nintendo does stick with nVidia and uses Lovelace on Samsung 5 nm for the Switch Pro.

I think this is all complete BS for the record.

This is Nintendo we are talking about.

They are going to take the easiest way to get to "4K" - as I understand it, the HDMI capabilities on the switch have along along been software limited to 1080p output. They simply update the software to allow a native 4k output scale the 1080p (or lower) game renders to 4K for the TV.

Boom. 4K.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,537
6,365
126
I mean a 4K version of Switch has been coming "this year" since like 2018.

I'll believe it when I see it, and I won't care about it either.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
8,708
7,325
136
I don't know why anyone would be surprised by a major update to the Switch, Nintendo does this with all their handhelds. Gameboy went from fat with a green and white screen to skinny with a black and white screen to skinny with a color screen, GameBoy Advance went looking like a flying wing with a kind of crap screen to a flip phone look with a nice backlit screen, DS went from bulky and dim to compact and bright with the DS Lite, and 3DS went from a dual core that was impossible to keep the 3D effect in focus to a quadcore with a face-tracking camera that made it much easier to maintain the 3D effect when playing, not to mention the 2D variants. A New Switch with DLSS to smooth out the frame drops that characterize a lot of Switch games the last couple of years would be completely in character for Nintendo.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Problem for me is Nintendo doesn’t release enough games. Hardware means crap if it’s gonna be 3 years before we see Metroid Prime. There is no reason for me to buy any 3rd party game on the switch since it will always be the lower performance system.

As was mentioned a “switch pro” has been rumored for years and never came. This is just more rumor mongering.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
8,708
7,325
136
Problem for me is Nintendo doesn’t release enough games. Hardware means crap if it’s gonna be 3 years before we see Metroid Prime. There is no reason for me to buy any 3rd party game on the switch since it will always be the lower performance system.

As was mentioned a “switch pro” has been rumored for years and never came. This is just more rumor mongering.

Switch Pro is always rumored because it's inevitable it will come out based on past history with Nintendo and with the current Switch hardware being unable to keep pace. For instance, Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is a mess with its framerate. I wanted to get that game too until I saw how terrible the performance was. Even Link's Adventure had an all over the map framerate, and looking at the game you'd think it would be one of the easier ones to run based on its art style and simplistic graphics. I wonder how much of a mess BOTW 2 will be performance wise, because Switch hardware is not holding up too well lately.
 

purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,537
6,365
126
Switch Pro is always rumored because it's inevitable it will come out based on past history with Nintendo and with the current Switch hardware being unable to keep pace. For instance, Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is a mess with its framerate. I wanted to get that game too until I saw how terrible the performance was. Even Link's Adventure had an all over the map framerate, and looking at the game you'd think it would be one of the easier ones to run based on its art style and simplistic graphics. I wonder how much of a mess BOTW 2 will be performance wise, because Switch hardware is not holding up too well lately.
Depends if you consider Switch a console or handheld.

They have no track history of "pro" consoles coming out. But they do with handhelds.

And Switch is the console I have the most games for out of PS4/5, XSX/X1, and Switch. There is not a "games" problem on Switch.
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com
Nvidia doesn't have an announced SoC that would be suitable for jack.

The only thing they have is an old (newer than the ancient current version, but old) SoC that is using their custom ARM cores from several years ago.

A Switch Pro that is the size of the larger version now but comes with a gorgeous OLED, OK. Maybe even some increased clockspeeds when docked from the current hardware? I mean, the CPU alone is severely underclocked so perhaps they feel like we can get some juice there, which would likely help smooth some struggling framerates in current games with minimal invasiveness and risk.

But Nintendo getting a brand new, unannounced custom SoC that has DLSS support (ie, enough tensor cores to make it happen) in a portable when the latest nVidia uArch has undesirable efficiency? And Nintendo jumping on a expensive near leading edge node that has notable power usage issues during a global silicon shortage is both risky and out of character.

On top of that, somehow this new SoC has perfect backwards compatibility to so you aren't wiping out the Switch catalog and games can be sold for both the Switch and Switch Pro.

This sounds more and more like a fanboys wet dream posted to a forum than anything resembling reality to me.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
16,460
6,924
136
But Nintendo getting a brand new, unannounced custom SoC that has DLSS support (ie, enough tensor cores to make it happen) in a portable when the latest nVidia uArch has undesirable efficiency? And Nintendo jumping on a expensive near leading edge node that has notable power usage issues during a global silicon shortage is both risky and out of character.

They are also supposedly charging more for it (ie: it's going to be more than $299) so the cost issues might be okay. Especially if the screen is still 720p. It also sounds like the existing SoCs are sticking around too even if the existing models get some tweaks to them.

Ampere's real problem is that SS 8 is garbage. The 5 nm node is definitely an improvement even if it's lacking compared to TSMC.
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,669
4,300
136
www.teamjuchems.com
They are also supposedly charging more for it (ie: it's going to be more than $299) so the cost issues might be okay. Especially if the screen is still 720p. It also sounds like the existing SoCs are sticking around too even if the existing models get some tweaks to them.

Ampere's real problem is that SS 8 is garbage. The 5 nm node is definitely an improvement even if it's lacking compared to TSMC.

It's not just cost so much as availability - leading edge silicon is just under high demand. Ampere desktop parts have two problems - SS8 isn't great and they clocked/volted it to high heaven to hold off AMD (or some other reason?).

AFAIK, SS5 is an evolution of SS8 so until we are talking SS3 I wouldn't expect any miracles even if they move to a better version of the same process. I would think if SS5 is available in quantity nvidia would be one of the first to buy massive quantities of it.

It might be better but it's still going to be super weak compared to PS5/SX to stay within it's power envelope, and dedicating power/space to DLSS (presumably unused when in portable mode - where the stats say most people use it? ha!) when they could use that die space for straight raster performance in both modes.

But yeah, let's say they stay with the current SoC with some uplift and a nice screen - it'd be worth a higher price and give og launch unit buyers a new toy to consider. I'd love for a real console to finish Astral Chain on but I am not holding my breath. I am betting the next big Nintendo refresh also will not be backwards compatible.
 
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