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[Donniewahlberg]

More powerful than previous hardware? Check. Built to give Nintendo the canvas they need to build the games they want to make? Check. Not sure what folks expected, but personally these were the only two things that ever mattered to me in terms of hardware with Nintendo's next console. The Nintendo experience for me is very much driven by the games and the input relationship with the games, and not raw specs. I have other devices for that other stuff. I don't want something from Nintendo they'd do badly or doesn't play to their strengths.

 

[TrueBlue]

Ah well.

Roll on January.

 

[Oblivion]

To be fair, this is mostly a problem on Wii U if you buy anything other than Nintendo games on it. Most of those look quite nice, and some (like Kirby Rainbow Curse) are actually beautiful.

Holy shit, what the hell is this game?

 

[Oddish1]

Really waiting to hear from the likes of Matt or John Harker on this, Emily Rogers and especially Laura Kale chiming in would be awesome too.

In the meantime, even if a bit disappointed myself if true, the meltdowns here are something to behold.

I remember Emily Rogers at least was always adamant that the system was between Wii U and Xbox One. I think she did say that it was closer to Xbox than Wii U but that was a while ago and she isn't a tech person so

 

[Vic]

This is shitty, but probably the shittier thing is it's even below my already low expectations. I figured we'd be lucky if the GPU clock speed was 800 Mhz, and looks like I was right. I knew from the moment that this stupid thing was supposed to work additionally as a handheld it was going to be gimped to hell. That is, unless y'all were thinking Nintenddo was planning on selling it for $900.

There were a lot of people that shredded me for thinking Nintendo would go with a mere marginal increase once again, insisting that the Wii situation was a once in a lifetime rarity. Why on Earth would one think that Nintendo would never attempt such a thing a second time when it was so successful the first round is beyond me.


Also, you wanna be really depressed? The jump between the WIi-U and Switch GPUs is actually even smaller than the jump from the GC to Wii GPUs (40% to 50%).

Yeah, I thought that the requirement to run this system as an handheld would hold back the specs, seems like that passing thought was on point after all.

 

[Übermatik]

If this costs more than £199, forget it.
The promise of BotW and murmurs of Dark Souls had me excited, but eh... Now I'm less hyped and I'm not so keen to part with my money.

 

[Kssio_Aug]

You guys really happy with first party support? Another boring Monolith game, another dull textile 2D platformer? Let's face it, Nintendo first party output was worst on Wii U and that's going to get any better. All those Wii U remasters are suggesting this.

Fixed.

You're overreacting.

I'm pretty sure that are MANY people really happy with Nintendo 1st party support. 3DS is a pretty damn good system and Wii U biggest issue is the lack of 3rd party support.... I don't see people complaining about Wii U exclusives, much the contrary.

Yeah, Switch may still suffers lack of 3rd part support, but if the price is good they may put together their portable (3DS) and home console (Wii U) consumers together, as well as calling new players if people adhere their play anywhere ideas. Their mobile games (Mario Run and Pokemon Go) may help a bit as well.

 

[KingSnake]

Oh I get it, the joke it that the new Nvidia Shield releasing at the same time will be stronger and cheaper than the Switch.

This is now very likely, yeah.

 

[Graphics Horse]

The 40% of TV mode is about what I expected.
I never wanted to guess overall speed but the GPU should be significantly faster than handheld mode if you want to go from 720p to 1080.

 

[ggx2ac]

Hahaha

Oh... This is amazing.

 

[ViciousDS]

its lower than my shield TV......that I will have owned for almost 2 years now.........what in the fuck

 

[CmdBash]

On the bright side you'll be getting the full output of nintendo's developers on one system instead of having to buy two. Other than that I wish nintendo could just take on sony and microsoft directly without having to resort to gimmicks which ultimately make their consoles pricier without being able to even touch the graphics performance of the other consoles.

 

[kraspkibble]

Pretty bad news for 3rd party AAA games.

As a PC player the switch will be a 1st party Nintendo machine which I guess I'm ok with.

Still lol Nintendo.

same here. I'll buy a Switch just for the Nintendo games like Zelda, Mario, Pokemon. I have my PS4/PC for everything else.

 

[sfedai0]

This is good news in that it will accelerate Nintendo as as software only company. I'll be happy with Mario on a Sony system.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I heard that Nintendo allegedly told developers that Switch's power is comparable to 1.6 times Wii U. Would that description fit these clocks?

In the weaker portable mode, maybe.

Not my point, it was overpriced for what it was inside: an overclocked Gamecube.

The market was willing to pay a lot more.

Maybe they should've upped the Wii's price, and been less anti-consumer.

 

[Mr Swine]

So isn't Laura and Nate big fakers since they said Switch would be closer to XB1 than Wii U?

Either way I'mm not disappointed by the specs since we are getting Wii U + visuals in a handheld

 

[LordKano]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

 

[Aostia]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

there is only one explanation to this: they once again backpedaled from their initial targets (as already happened with the 3DS, for some reasons, and for the Wii U, for other reasons).
the absence of comments from Matt and NateDrake or even from Laura/Emily is telling.

very disappointed, especially because NOW their utopya of positioning the Switch as a home console is ridicolous.

we'll discover it ASAP, because the supposed third party games from western markets will disappear, as they did with the Wii U after the initial ones already developed.

 

[Persona7]

Lmao @ people being shocked by that. Why would anyone in their right mind expect something more. This is Nintendo. The Wii was close to the GC in power and they were selling it until 2012 or so.

Most people were expecting this to exceed the Tegra X1 which became available in 2015 because it is a "custom chip". It doesn't.

 

[FF Seraphim]

It's supposed to be 250 and 300 with splatoon. Rumored at least.
Now Nintendo has an history of changing prices at the last moment according to the hype or lack of it.

The hell? $300 with splatoon? Man... if I didn't love Mario Kart so much...

 

[OrbitalBeard]

On the brightside you'll be getting the full output of nintendo's developers on one system instead of having to buy two.

This is why I'm not upset at all.

 

[antyk]

It actually makes sense - they probably checked what sort of CPU & GPU power they can afford taking into account battery life & thermals while on the go and then increased it accordingly to facilitate resolution bump from 720p to 1080p.

Too bad they didn't go further while docked, because while simpler graphics might look good on small screen, when stretched out on a TV it might be lacking. They should have gone for higher clocks for the TV mode, to allow for better AA, AF or maybe even for some down-sampling for less demanding games?

Still, I'm very excited for it and will very likely be purchasing one, primarily for Nintendo exclusive software

 

[Easy_D]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

Better to just accept this now. It's Eurogamer, I trust that they have proper sources.

 

[Tertullian]

It is pretty funny to look back on some of the earlier discussions of the Switch specs. There's a whole lot of optimism there. It will be at least 3-4x as powerful as a Wii U, even at the lowest possible estimate. It will easily hit 500 GFlops. Close to Xbox One power? Duh, without breaking a sweat!

Lol. How many generations is it gonna take before people realize that Nintendo is always gonna Nintendo?

 

[Oblivion]

There's only one, tiny possible saving grace left.

Since the Switch's GPU is made by Nvidia, it's not going to have the same architecture and features that the Wii-U's GPU, made by AMD, is. Because of that, we "may" get a decent bump that should at the very least, be better than the mere overclocking of the GC chips that were present in the Wii.

 

[Ombala]

Did we even get it confirmed that Skyrim is coming to Switch? Finding it hard to Believe with these speccs in handels mode.

 

[Jolkien]

I guess once again most high profile multi plat won't come on the Switch since there'd be such a performance disparity between Xbox One/Ps4/Ps4 Pro and the Switch.

Now I wonder how different Zelda will look on Wii U and Switch.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

That is worst than even what some people were thinking was low .

 

[TheJoRu]

The numbers are disappointing, but I'm not saying this or that until they show me in January what it can do.

 

[oti]

This weak hardware implies (to me at least) that there will be more gimmicks to sell this thing on. More hardware gimmicky stuff we haven't seen yet.

 

[Nightbird]

That makes me feel less bad about switching (hah!) to the PS4 for the rest of this Generation

 

[chico]

The specs are so disappointing. I dont need or want a portable system. Why cant they just release a console thats spec wise is on par with the existing consoles. How often do they have to fail until they learn? They were lucky with the wii and since then they think they need a gimmick instead of good specs. So fucking disappointing.

 

[killercow]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

there is only one explanation to this: they once again backpedaled from their initial targets (as already happened with the 3DS, for some reasons, and for the Wii U, for other reasons).
the absence of comments from Matt and NateDrake or even from Laura/Emily is telling.

very disappointed, especially because NOW their utopya of positioning the Switch as a home console is ridicolous.

we'll discover it ASAP, because the supposed third party games from western markets will disappear, as they did with the Wii U after the initial ones already developed.

Laura K confirmed it:
https://twitter.com/LaurakBuzz/status/810834313721868288

 

[Xater]

So isn't Laura and Nate big fakers since they said Switch would be closer to XB1 than Wii U?

Either way I'mm not disappointed by the specs since we are getting Wii U + visuals in a handheld

Laura just tweeted that she has one source telling her the same, but that is not enough to write a story. Eurogamer has separate sources from her.

 

[Persona7]

Gamecube emulation...or straight ports?

 

[Weltall Zero]

I really don't think what people expected. My only gripe is that this seems to hint at low framerates if devs don't downscale their visuals in portable mode. Otherwise I'm fine with this, but I'm also fine with the Vita's performance, so don't mind me.

 

[Tertullian]

So a Wii U with one GameCube duct-taped to it?

 

[MuchoMalo]

Alright so, to be fair I think I should mention this: After doing some calculations, VentureBeat's article would turn out to be spot-on if this chip has 3SMs, and it would make a lot more sense. I'm not hopeful though. I think they just wanted to make a Wii U Pro.

As I originally predicted

Portable - Wii U
Docked - Slightly better than Wii U

Price - $250/£200

Erm, do you consider PS4 Pro "slightly better" than PS4? Because that's a 2.3x jump and this is a 2.5x jump going from portable to docked. It's already really shit, so don't make it seem even worse.

 

[GhostTrick]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

Wht rumors ? It's slow, case closed. It's crazy that even when they have the right hardware, Nintendo manages to disappoint in a way or another. And you can bet it's just to put a cheaper battery.

 

[Loris146]

If this is true is way beyond my personal worst case scenario.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

If this is sold at the 199$/€ price point, everything is good.
If more expensive, Nintendo can rot in hell.

That's it basically in a nutshell.


For everybody who expected PS4 like graphics on the go with a handheld pricepoint.. -> dream on...

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

That seems pretty low.

Although I'm not a tech savvy guy. Nintendo will no doubt release great looking games with flawless performance as always.

If i were worried about specs I think id game on PC only. I bought and Xbox One in 2014 so clearly power and specs aren't my thing.

Just hope this doesn't hamstring Nintendo into getting bad ports.

 

[PR_rambo]

Wii U all over again, like how did anyone even think it was going to compete with PS4 or Xbone graphically? Whilst being a machine that you can take with you? That would have to come at a price that would be unattractive to consumers.

I've long since given up hope on a Nintendo product being able to house big third party multiplats, I'm content for it to be my Smash Bros/Zelda/3D Mario machine. However, just like with the Wii U, it puts them at a software disadvantage. As great as their first party input is, you're going to miss out on just as many great games from Third party developers.

 

[Trago]

The specs are so disappointing. I dont need or want a portable system. Why cant they just release a console thats spec wise is on par with the existing consoles. How often do they have to fail until they learn? They were lucky with the wii and since then they think they need a gimmick instead of good specs. So fucking disappointing.

They would flop. Hard.

No one is gonna make the jump from their Xbox, PS4, or PC to make a Nintendo console with comparable specs their main platform of choice in significant numbers.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Not even matching the current Nvidia Shield on the market when going with the exact same manufacturer is some hilarious "only Nintendo" shit.

Really trying to hit some battery life impossibility while saving money and not stumping up for a thicker heavier device with a more expensive battery. Shame because the idea of a hybrid is sound, its just Nintendo is so anti tech it's not gonna be what it could. Until maybe.... Revision 3!

If you wanted PS4/Xbox One/PC third party games, you know where you'll continue to find them.

 

[The_Lump]

It's going to be a WiiU+ in portable mode. This is fine.

It's going to be a WiiU++ when docked. This is fine as long as you listened to the people saying "This is a handheld that you can plug into the TV".

 

[KAL2006]

I guess a FIFA game that uses the same engine and physics as PS4 and Xbox One version is out of the question.

 

[TwilightPrincess]

Only great at that price tag though and latest rumor pricing has been higher than that which would be preposterous by Nintendo.



You can probably expect a lot of games looking blurry running at less than native res. Nintendo will probably make sure to always hit the target but third parries not so much...

It's a portable Wii U in Handheldmode, with more Ram and better CPU. Wii U has 180gflops but isn't that modern. In fact Switch should be stronger a little bit in handheld mode. Thats if there are 256 cudacores, it could be more, but i wouldn#t bet on it.

But yes, there will be games that are running in lower resolution if they opt for better graphics.

 

[Skittzo0413]

I'll wait for Matt or John Harker posts about this. These specs contradicts every rumor that are more reliable than this, so I have my doubt. Or there is something missing in the picture.

Again this article says SM count is as of yet unconfirmed. But it would be odd to increase that yet decrease clock speeds, unless they care about battery life far more than price.

And we have the reports of a fan in portable mode from both leaks and the patent, which make no sense with these clock speed and 2 SMs. Even a fan in docked mode makes no sense here.

That said I doubt DF would publish this if they weren't very confident. Very strange decision from Nintendo and Nvidia if true.

 

[Manoko]

Did we even get it confirmed that Skyrim is coming to Switch? Finding it hard to Believe with these speccs in handels mode.

Did we watch the same reveal trailer ?