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[chrislowe]

So all 3rd party multis will look way worse on switch and it will sell less than wii u.

 

[bomblord1]

You're right, but the issue is that the baseline for Switch games is forced at the 1Ghz CPU clocks and 300Mhz GPU Clock, which those benchmarks you posted aren't representative of.

If Nintendo made two separate devices - and handheld with a custom Maxwell "X1"-like CPU downclocked to 300Mhz for GPU, no active cooling and thinner form factor - and a home console Shield TV2-like device, then you might see some console-only games which target the "home console "profile as a baseline. Likewise, in 4 years' time when there's a revised version of the hardware with, say, Volta onboard, the handheld might be able to run games that targeted the console's profile.

Also: The iPhone 7's CPU runs rings around the Switch.

Yes but the person I was responding to said those phones outperform the Shield TV

 

[Steph_E.]

So how did Nvidia spend all those reported man hours designing the chips in this thing ??????

 

[EventHorizon]

nintendo ocer prices their stuff. $200 would be major surprise

Why not just advertise it as a handheld? This was made with Japan in mind. Calling it a console I was expecting xbox 1 level of performance and handheld mode would be close to it.

There's already many phones and tablets that outperform this one on the alleged specs

That's been my point all along. The 'switch' feature is nice but it should be promoted as an extra bonus feature of a mobile device, not as a way to make console games portable. The expectations here are all wrong.

My guess as to why Nintendo is promoting it this way is to save face as it gives up the console space. At this point they are a mobile-only company.

 

[Ricky Ricardo]

This is pretty much the successor to the 3DS. It'll be an absolutely brilliant one as well as its a huge update over that system.

I believe NoA called it a 'home console' just to disguise the fact they won't really be in that market anymore. Headlines of 'Nintendo pulls out of the home console market' aren't good for business or mindset.

It's a handheld which can be played on the TV via a dock. There isn't a market for them to be successful with a dedicated home console anymore.

I'm not too concerned about the size compared to the 3DS. Barely anyone walks around with a 3DS in their pocket. Mines always in my bag if I take it away and people are used to taking tablets around with them these days.

Well said, succinctly put. Good perspective to have on this as someone who is interested in coming into the Nintendo party with Switch.

Pricing is definitely going to be key here. I think people can stomach these specs if it's priced accordingly. If they're going to charge a PS4 price, they're in for a hard time.

This is also a very good point. At anything more than $199, they're running the risk of going up against discounted Xbox One S and Playstation 4 Slims.

I'd even posit that a $179 option would do wonders to help differentiate the Switch in the market. Even more excited for Ninty's presentation next month, just to see how they play this.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

How does this compare to the Vita power wise?

More or less 10x better.

 

[eaise]

Why are we believing this over all the other rumors that say the complete opposite?

No one actually knows anything concrete about the system. Except what Nintendo has shown. It's not like this website has the Switch. No one does yet.

 

[DragonSworne]

So.... 10 hours battery life?

Maybe if you are just watching videos.

Don't expect more than 3-4 hours gameplay on battery.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

There's been a sea of rumors regarding the NX, but the funniest one now in hindsight is that Sony and Microsoft were making the PS4 Pro and Scorpio mainly because they learned of the NX's specs and they were worried it would make the PS4 and XB1 look too weak, it was that powerful.

PS4 Pro is basically a defense strategy against the PC. Andrew House even confirmed it in an interview (with the FT, I believe), where he mentioned that users tend to migrate to PC mid-gen and they didn't want that happening with PS4. Which makes sense more than ever this gen when there are so few bespoke games for console compared with last-gen.

Nintendo went with mobile-class hardware for Switch, so I'm not even sure I'd consider it in the same family as PC/PS4/XBO. It's more in the same family as smartphones/iPad/Apple TV.

 

[Pastry]

Where are these "well at least the price will be low" comments coming from?

I thought the pricing rumor we had is $250 base and $300 for a bundle. That's not low. This thing isn't going to be $200.

 

[Charcoal]

So my shield tv is the more powerful box, it's just lacking Mario?

 

[RobotVM]

The Shield is $199. This should be $99. Well, add $50 for the screen and whatever, $149.

If Nintendo sells this thing at 149.99 it will sell as much at the Wii and developers would flock to it. This would be the best case scenario but knowing Nintendo I doubt it.

 

[phanphare]

Unless I missed something the recent patent info said otherwise and only the device has a fan. But even then the Dock technically does help with cooling as the fan runs at low RPMs when undocked but can run at much faster speeds, and thus cooler, when docked.

There is only one fan and it's in the main unit itself. The dock is literally a dock. The unit itself will know when it's docked and increase rpm of fan + clockspeed and that's it.

There isn't. The dock just lets the fan in the handheld spin faster. The vent in the dock is there for air intake and the air is expelled from the Switch's top vents.

I was going off of this rumor

Plugging the system into the dock will also activate a small additional fan to help with cooling when run at that higher clock speed. This fan is in the rear of the dock, and there is a gap in the back of the dock to allow the system’s inbuilt fans to vent when docked.

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/

 

[forknknife]

Exactly what i said, Nintendo would be targeting Wii U level of graphics and that's why all the games they've shown are almost identical to the Wii U versions. Same strategy the followed going from GameCube to Wii. So many people were so convinced this was going to be so much better than that. Oh well. In any case Wii U graphics on a handheld is pretty cool.

 

[TwilightPrincess]

Welp. I was wrong. It really is just a portable Wii U and bumped-up one when docked. Can we officially call NateDrake a fake now? This really is just where the successor to the Vita would land. Skyrim will chug on this. It's weaker than the PS3 by a huge margin when portable. This is not a current-generation machine.

I'm sorry to all of the naysayers I argued with. You were right. I'll never be optimistic about Nintendo again.

It's not weaker than a ps3, you can't compare flops here 1:1 with Maxwell vs. Legacy Nvidia Chips.

 

[bomblord1]

So how did Nvidia spend all those reported man hours designing the chips in this thing ??????

It takes 500 man years to downlock a chip didn't you know?

It's probably featuring several customization we don't know what any of them are though. I'm still not convinced its using 256 CUDA cores.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Why are we believing this over all the other rumors that say the complete opposite?

Digital Foundry is a solid source.

 

[Dekuboy]

Eurogamer has been rock solid with their information. And PS4's RAM was correct, but changed at the last minute. Even developers didn't know it had 8GB of RAM until Sony revealed it.

Rock solid...oh yeah that´s right! Brb playing the localized mother 3...

 

[Xater]

So how did Nvidia spend all those reported man hours designing the chips in this thing ??????

You can spend all kinds of dumb time on making crap.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Yes but the person I was responding to said those phones outperform the Shield TV

Oh okay, thought you meant the Switch. The iPhone 7 runs rings around the Shield TV for CPU performance, though, while matching X1 for GPU performance (GPU in the same ballpark as last year's 12" iPad Pro, which handed in very similar GPU results as X1).

 

[Kssio_Aug]

So all 3rd party multis will look way worse on switch and it will sell less than wii u.

Not that I don't imagine Switch won't be receiving a good 3rd party support, giving how things are since quite long ago, but if how a game looks defined something PC would be selling way more software than PS4 and PS2 wouldn't have been that much successful, neither Wii. There's way more than graphics in the formula of a successful console.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

So this is going to be another first party machine?

Yes, but at least you'll be getting Nintendo's full console and handheld output all in one, so they should be able to provide a more steady stream of releases.

I look at buying video game hardware as a gateway cost. I want access to play these games, I pay the cost of the hardware. I don't measure specs per dollar like I'm pricing out Blu Ray players or even PC upgrades, because at the end of the day, that doesn't matter since these games can only be played on that hardware.

 

[Vashetti]

Why are we believing this over all the other rumors that say the complete opposite?

No one actually knows anything concrete about the system. Except what Nintendo has shown. It's not like this website has the Switch. No one does yet.

Eurogamer/Digital Foundry rumours are 99.9% of the time legit. They don't post unless their sources are verified.

They released the 100% accurate specs and documentation for the PS4 Pro months before announcement.

 

[Chindogg]

This is exactly what people feared about a hybrid. Crippling your home console for portability. As Microsoft releases a 6TF box this year I'm sure down porting games to last gen console power in the switch is going to be easy Lol. Standard one to two years of third party support on a Nintendo console then a wasteland incoming.

You can play DOOM on a toaster practically. Porting has nothing to do with power but tools support.

 

[Chamber]

Welp, at least we might get that $199 price point after all.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

Rock solid...oh yeah that´s right! Brb playing the localized mother 3...

That wasn't Eurogamer lol

 

[TwilightPrincess]

I was going off of this rumor



http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/

Laura said she was probably wrong on that. There is no aditional fan in the dock, at least not in the patent for switch.

 

[Markoman]

I'd even posit that a $179 option would do wonders.

I hear ya, but prepare for the next huge dissapointment. I'm all in on this: the price rumour will become reality 220/250$

 

[Meffer]

OutrageGAF in full force today. Anyone who was expecting more from a Tegra X1 was either delusional or think Nintendo has magic pixy dust they can apply to the Switch to make it super powerful in that form factor.

So yeah, still delusional.

Exactly. "It's in excusable." No they're being realistic. Unless you want the battery life to be shit. "Should've been a console." Then you miss the point why the Switch was made in the first place.

 

[Rolf NB]

Please have G-Sync at least in portable mode please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync.

 

[Leatherface]

I gotta say this configuration doesn't make porting sound like a dream to me. Sounds like another layer to deal with to run the game in two modes. I see a lot of lazy developers utilizing the mobile mode for games and not even bothering with the higher clock speeds of docked mode.

 

[Zombie James]

Why are we believing this over all the other rumors that say the complete opposite?

No one actually knows anything concrete about the system. Except what Nintendo has shown. It's not like this website has the Switch. No one does yet.

You should watch the video, they explain their criteria for going public with information like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzS4LbH5nmA&t=0s

Please have G-Sync at least in portable mode please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync please have G-Sync.

Does anyone even make 720p G-Sync displays?

 

[NaDannMaGoGo]

Underwhelming hardware from Nintendo is expected but that's not to say that it isn't disappointing at the same time.

I'll see if the software lineup is eventually attractive enough for me to get it anyways. They damn better have a solid operating system and online functionality this time around.

 

[Peltz]

This is exactly what people feared about a hybrid. Crippling your home console for portability. As Microsoft releases a 6TF box this year I'm sure down porting games to last gen console power in the switch is going to be easy Lol. Standard one to two years of third party support on a Nintendo console then a wasteland incoming.

We will not get western games on this thing outside Indies. But to be fair, 3DS had decent third party support regardless.

Nintendo says this isn't a successor to the 3DS and is marketing it as a console. But this is the same type of marketing spin as their "3rd Pillar" language used to describe the original DS. It succeeded the GBA and this will clearly succeed the 3DS. There is no actual successor to the Wii U.

Nintendo has effectively bowed out of the console market (and rather gracefully might I add).

 

[888]

Nintendo gonna Nintendo.

Not really surprised about another low spec console.

 

[Oregano]

So a Vita successor would do magic? Look at how lowclocked the vita was. It has to be stable, not like the smarphones with their "peak performance" which doesn't say anything when you are playing demanding games.

This is still a generational leap over Vita.

Vita was a leap over PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. A Vita 2 would be over PS3 and 360. This isn't(when undocked).

 

[Anth0ny]

Where are these "we'll at least the price will be low" comments coming from?

I thought the pricing rumor we had is $250 base and $300 for a bundle. That's not low.

while I do think $199 is the magic price point, Nintendo DID find success with the Wii at $250, so I bet that's THEIR magic price point that they're happy with.


Wii didn't have competition at the same/close to the same price, though. PS4 is going to be $250 with a game or two by holiday 2017. good fucking luck to nintendo at that point.

 

[valkillmore]

Nintendo gonna Nintendo.

Not really surprised about another low spec console.

Exactly.

 

[Marmelade]

5.5 times as powerful undocked, 14 times docked.

Edit: assuming it has the exact same innards as a Tegra X1 chip.

You can't just compare GFLOPS.
Maxwell is far more advanced than the the sgx543mp4+ in the VITA

 

[Soi-Fong]

Welp, at least we might get that $199 price point after all.

Why are people thinking this? Nintendo always sells at a profit. Expect $250 to $300.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

Being a Nintendo fan is basically the equivalent of being an Arsenal one. Every time a new system is announced I hear how it won't be too far behind and they won't make the same mistakes again, but in the end, it's disappointingly weak and we're forced to accept it. Just like Arsenal, I hear how it's always gonna be our season and then the same mistakes happen again and we're forced to accept it.

god damn it, lol. as a gunner i understood you 100%.

i was expecting low specs specially when they said they will get at least 5-6 hours of battery but i didnt expect it to be this slow. that said, i like that they wont lock power profiles or at least i hope devs dont choose to when the game is on mobile mode.

i wish they price it right but i dont have high hopes on that if they do i could see myself owning one next BF

 

[Serenitynow]

I was going off of this rumor



http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/

LKD admitted on Twitter that she got that wrong. I don't feel like digging up the tweet, so please believe me lol

 

[ekim]

Laura said she was probably wrong on that. There is no aditional fan in the dock, at least not in the patent for switch.

So, playing with charger attached but not in dock will net me the same results as playing in docked mode hopefully.

 

[Tripy73]

To make conclusions on the real power of a CPU/GPU based only on frequencies is a total nonsense...

 

[KingSnake]

You know unless it's a custom chip not featuring the same CUDA core count as a standard X1 or with other optimizations.

You don't know either if it has a different CUDA and core count and until we get a confirmation of that it's just a nice wish. Especially being Maxwell based. If it's on 20nm fab node there's not too much place to put there more cores and/or 3 SM.

 

[shark sandwich]

TIL people are disappointed that a handheld system is weaker than a dedicated console. What?

Don't do this straw man shit. People are disapppinted because it's weaker than Nvidia's X1 chip that came out a year and a half ago.

 

[Omega Kirby]

So my shield tv is the more powerful box, it's just lacking Mario?

Nintendo + Nvidia Pact.

Spoiler

Nintendo make the software and release it only on Nvidia Hardware

 

[SumptuousLemur]

Maybe we will see developers make "home only" games that require the Switch to be connected and utilize the full "power" of the Switch?

I would be fine with this.

 

[TLZ]

If Nintendo sells this thing at 149.99 it will sell as much at the Wii and developers would flock to it. This would be the best case scenario but knowing Nintendo I doubt it.

I hope they do because I can't see myself buying this at $199 with these specs and in Australian that's ~AU$350 (It's less but they'll jack it up here). Considering I cant get an Xbox One S with games for less than AU$300, Ugh.

 

[Interface_2037]

Underwhelming hardware from Nintendo is expected

There's 'underwhelming' and then there's downright insulting.

Spec's as revealed make this console the latter.