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[takriel]

January is going to be interesting. Nintendo is going to get slain if games don't look noticeably better on the Switch.

Zelda better be 1080p, stable 30 fps and have other visual upgrades. Otherwise this might get really ugly.

 

[GhostTrick]

It's exactly like the Wii U in that they doubled down on the "move your game off the TV" aspect. In utility, it is a Wii U with vastly extended (infinite) working range measured from the base unit. In design approach, it is an inversion of the Wii U, moving the processing hardware and storage responsibilities from the base unit into the controller.
Price and good 1st party exclusive beget install base begets exclusive 3rd party support begets ongoing hardware sales.
The sales split between 3DS and 3DS XL still demonstrates quite clearly that consumers are more than willing to pay for a premium experience. So do the sales splits of the hilariously single-digit number of day-and-date multiplatform Vita+3DS releases. If there is a better way to experience the same game, consumers will pay for it.

3DS and Wii peculiarities (dual screens, controller) led to many de-facto exclusive designs simply because they were too difficult to transfer to other platforms. The Switch does not have any built-in advantage of this sort. EO, Layton, Ace Attorney are either dead already or, if they do get reworked to a single wide-screen setup, are no longer self-shackled to a Nintendo design. The Switch will, completely unlike the Wii, completely unlike the 3DS, have to compete on the quality of the experience it delivers, and performance is a factor in this, always has been.

The new advantage it has is making every game a portable game, if the consumers wishes it. There is no longer a developer-imposed "portable game" vs "console game" dichotomy.

Actually I see this as Nintendo's best shot at receiving and retaining 3rd party multiplatform releases, simply because the option to go portable on anything and everything might outweigh the performance drawbacks.

It's just a handheld that can connect to a TV. Now depends on how Nintendo will want to market it. It seems they decided to go for reverse Wii U.

 

[User123456]

In an alternate reality, the Nintendo 6DS released to actually shitty specs while the Sony Playstation Vita 2 released exactly as the Switch is releasing now.

The Vita 2 releases to thunderous acclaim from GAF, for being a "proper, powerful handheld" unlike that gimmicky Nintendo toy.

 

[Aldric]

Who actually expected PS4 performance, though? I feel like that gets thrown around a lot and there certainly have been a handful of pie-in-the-sky dreams about the maximum that could be done with Switch's hardware profile, but most people have been fairly realistic about it within a realistic range of optimistic and pessimistic estimates.

However, there's a pretty wide middle ground between "as powerful as a PS4" and "1/10 as powerful as a PS4" which is more likely to be where the Switch sits, somewhere.

Yeah the strawman is getting annoying now. No one thought this would be a PS4 level system, people simply had the audacity to expect a decent bump compared to Wii U, instead we get the old ducktaped joke.

lt's like Nintendo goes out of its way to create the shittiest hardware possible, and honestly if you couple these underwhelming specs with rumors about the first year lineup being full of remasters you can't shake off the feeling they're trying to sell you a repackaged Wii U for 300 bucks.

 

[cyberheater]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

 

[Joeshabadoo]

Zelda better be 1080p, stable 30 fps and have other visual upgrades. Otherwise this might get really ugly.

first two are almost a given, but that third... maybe improved draw distances, but I wouldnt hope for much more.

on an unrelated note: @those who are comparing these (still incomplete and not concrete) Switch horsepower numbers to WiiU numbers, are we overlooking the fact that the WiiU has to be constantly rendering two images?

 

[Vic]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

...ehh people who don't care much about the specs but who are in rather for the experience.

 

[Rolf NB]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

Japanese commuters.

 

[mocolostrocolos]

first two are almost a given, but that third... maybe improved draw distances, but I wouldnt hope for much more.

on an unrelated note: @those who are comparing these (still incomplete and not concrete) Switch horsepower numbers to WiiU numbers, are we overlooking the fact that the WiiU has to be constantly rendering two images?

Same as 3DS. So...?

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

first two are almost a given, but that third... maybe improved draw distances, but I wouldnt hope for much more.

on an unrelated note: @those who are comparing these (still incomplete and not concrete) Switch horsepower numbers to WiiU numbers, are we overlooking the fact that the WiiU has to be constantly rendering two images?

Let's not pretend that the second screen ever rendered something of high detail.

 

[Vic]

first two are almost a given, but that third... maybe improved draw distances, but I wouldnt hope for much more.

on an unrelated note: @those who are comparing these (still incomplete and not concrete) Switch horsepower numbers to WiiU numbers, are we overlooking the fact that the WiiU has to be constantly rendering two images?

Thought it was a video stream? Not sure how it works tbh.

 

[cyberheater]

Japanese commuters.

Yeah. I could understand that but what about in the Western world?

 

[blu]

I just realised that it has 25 GB/s memory bandwidth that's also shared with the CPU. I just kept on laughing for a while. The X360 actually has more effective bandwidth than this and we saw how many sub HD games were on it. This thing will struggle with 720p let alone 1080p.

You kept laughing for a while because Switch (as suggested in the DF article) has a very similar memory setup to the xb360 (which also had a UMA setup with 22.4GB/s to main ram and Xenos had its fb in eDRAM which had to be resolved to main RAM for RTT, similarly to how Switch has its fb in local memory of unspecified high BW, which has to resolve to main ram, only that Switch Maxwell's uses generations-newer compression tech)?

 

[Toadthemushroom]

From Nintendo? It's going to be horrible, their screens are always horrible.

No they aren't.

DS Lite: Better display than PSP and most phones at the time.

DSi XL: First affordable mass consumer device (to my collection) to ship with an IPS display with unfaltering viewing angles.

3DS XL: Best-in-class anti-reflectance for the time

N3DS/XL: Uses Sharp's IGZO tech for low power consumption. Best-in-class anti-reflectance coating. Some devices shipped with IPS screen tech.

3DS wasn't as good as DS for a variety of reasons, most of them probably linked to the need to make the product more affordable and actually profitable. Every 3DS requires Nintendo to pack-in three screens: Two for the upper 3D display and one lower screen. The Yen was strong at the start of the generation and Nintendo had to cut the price of the 3DS while launching the original XL at a more affordable price. Something had to give.

Switch is a single-screen device that also doubles as a kickstand-supported tablet. Nintendo knows viewing angles are going to be important on this, like they were the DSi XL (a device made for sharing and viewing on a table), and as shown in the Zelda Switch demo, they have at the very least opted for IPS tech with the display. Now we know it's 720p, which is a decent ppi given the size and resolution, but what I'm interested in is colour accuracy and calibration. I'm hoping the screen at least covers the sRGB gamut for consumer content, and is well calibrated with a whitepoint close to 6500K. The N3DS XL's screen is too blue (closer to 8000K).

 

[TheMagician]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

You could say that about a Nintendo home console with a standard pad which was the same at the Xbone in power.

Nintendo have to role the dice here.

 

[HandsomeCharles]

Let's not pretend that the second screen ever rendered something of high detail.

Mario kart 8, 2-player off screen

Hyrule Warriors, 2-player off screen.

 

[Panajev2001a]

If Nintendo first party developers wanted a machine like that to develop for, they'd have it. By all accounts the company's hardware and software teams collaborate fairly closely.

I am not sure game software developers are the ones deciding the focus of the console, the power consumption, the console size, and all factors which limit your architecture/performance choice. Sure they will ask for the best hardware that Nintendo can give them given the other constraints. Wii U was not a poorly engineered console, its design is a function of the company goals and self imposed requirements.

I still think it's selling Switch short to just call it a "portable with TV out" without having more information than this story provides.

Why? It is not an insult... It describes how it presents itself as a single HW profile to developers while being able to best serve the display resolution of both modes (higher resolution and possibly smoother frame rate in TV docked mode).

 

[Rubixcuba]

January is going to be interesting. Nintendo is going to get slain if games don't look noticeably better on the Switch.

Zelda better be 1080p, stable 30 fps and have other visual upgrades. Otherwise this might get really ugly.

It'll be fine. A vocal minority will be grumpy, wider populace won't be that concerned.

 

[cyberheater]

You could say that about a Nintendo home console with a standard pad which was the same at the Xbone in power.

Nintendo have to role the dice here.

But from a Western point of view that has a lot more appeal and of course the chance of 3rd party support.

 

[zoukka]

lt's like Nintendo goes out of its way to create the shittiest hardware possible, and honestly if you couple these underwhelming specs with rumors about the first year lineup being full of remasters you can't shake off the feeling they're trying to sell you a repackaged Wii U for 300 bucks.

And that's not a secret. The specs are almost the same and the devs cobtinue where they left with the Wii U. Expect similar graphics and expect lots of remasters.

 

[SpokkX]

So a docked Switch is more powerful than WiiU?

400GLOP (Switch docked) vs 352GFLOP (WiiU)

But a portable is less than half of WiiU GPU wise?
160GLOP (Switch portable)

 

[Panajev2001a]

You could say that about a Nintendo home console with a standard pad which was the same at the Xbone in power.

Nintendo have to role the dice here.

I thinknthe former is a very defeatist attitude... the last time they tried a better performance target they were 1.5 years late to the market, the console limited itself to small game discs (half the storage of PS2's DVD), it and a clear kids targeted look and feel, and beyond buying exclusives out of Capcom the company still had a lot of work to do in terms of third party outreach. Wii did not win because it targeted lower specs either.

 

[GhostTrick]

So a docked Switch is more powerful than WiiU?

400GLOP (Switch docked) vs 352GFLOP (WiiU)

But a portable is less than half of WiiU GPU wise?
160GLOP (Switch portable)

Wii UI is 176Gflops.

 

[Franz Brötchen]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

To be fair, you also cannot comprehend how anyone buys a handheld or how the PS4 will take that long to overtake the 3DS

 

[mocolostrocolos]

I'll be surprised if the Switch sells for anything lower than £230 come release.

I will happily pay £250.

You can already pay 198.50 quid with price-guarantee.

http://www.gameseek.co.uk/nintendo-switch

 

[Icekeep9]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

Vita Owners, 3ds owners, Wii U owners(who don't feel burned), xbox one and PS4 owners who want a second console. They need to price it in the $199-250 tops range.

Yeah the strawman is getting annoying now. No one thought this would be a PS4 level system, people simply had the audacity to expect a decent bump compared to Wii U, instead we get the old ducktaped joke.

lt's like Nintendo goes out of its way to create the shittiest hardware possible, and honestly if you couple these underwhelming specs with rumors about the first year lineup being full of remasters you can't shake off the feeling they're trying to sell you a repackaged Wii U for 300 bucks.

Which is scary because will all Wii U owners, who buy a Switch, all buy these games again for the full price of $60?

In an alternate reality, the Nintendo 6DS released to actually shitty specs while the Sony Playstation Vita 2 released exactly as the Switch is releasing now.

The Vita 2 releases to thunderous acclaim from GAF, for being a "proper, powerful handheld" unlike that gimmicky Nintendo toy.

The Switch is consider a console too and these do not play up to Xbox One, PS4 specs and will get left in the dust from the Pro and Scorpio. Plus, the Vita island crowed doesn't matter because not enough people bought the console and it became a very niche product.

It will come down to price point. If Nintendo says 300 dollars, it will be Wii U 2. If they say $199, enough people might roll the dice with the combo of handheld and console crowed together. A blowout of games in the first year could help too but year 2 could become vacant like other Nintendo systems had with a drought, if Third party companies bounce again like they did with Wii U.

 

[Hermii]

Let's not pretend that the second screen ever rendered something of high detail.

Starfox haha

 

[GhostTrick]

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy this apart from die hard Nintendo fans.

This isn't a given. As for who might buy this, I guess 3DS and Wii U owners.

 

[AgeEighty]

Yeah the strawman is getting annoying now. No one thought this would be a PS4 level system, people simply had the audacity to expect a decent bump compared to Wii U, instead we get the old ducktaped joke.

lt's like Nintendo goes out of its way to create the shittiest hardware possible, and honestly if you couple these underwhelming specs with rumors about the first year lineup being full of remasters you can't shake off the feeling they're trying to sell you a repackaged Wii U for 300 bucks.

There's still room for Switch to be a decent bump compared with Wii U and still conform to the specs in the Eurogamer article. Their info isn't the whole picture. It may not be at that level, but we just don't have all the data.

I don't see this as a repackaged Wii U so much as what the Wii U should have been. But like I said earlier, even if you think Nintendo makes shitty hardware, you surely can't think Nvidia does. They no doubt had certain performance targets Nintendo gave them to meet in terms of power consumption and capabilities as well as cost, and Nvidia turned over to them the best possible machine that could hit those targets.

I am not sure game software developers are the ones deciding the focus of the console, the power consumption, the console size, and all factors which limit your architecture/performance choice. Sure they will ask for the best hardware that Nintendo can give them given the other constraints. Wii U was not a poorly engineered console, its design is a function of the company goals and self imposed requirements.

No, I'm not saying their collaboration reaches that extent, I'm only saying that if Nintendo's developers were clamoring for significantly higher powered hardware, that would carry a great deal of weight.

 

[cyberheater]

So a docked Switch is more powerful than WiiU?

400GLOP (Switch docked) vs 352GFLOP (WiiU)

But a portable is less than half of WiiU GPU wise?
160GLOP (Switch portable)

Isn't the WiiU around 176GFLOPS?

 

[Franz Brötchen]

Wii did not win because it targeted lower specs either.

Meh, being able to sell for half the PS3's price certainly played a non-negligible part.

 

[KrawlMan]

It'll be fine. A vocal minority will be grumpy, wider populace won't be that concerned.

Thing is, Nintendo (or at least Kimishima) has emphasized the importance in grabbing the hardcore audience first:

So would you say the video was made for hardcore gamers?

Our core philosophy is that we want to increase the number of gamers at all ages, and there's no change to that. So we have no intention to lean just towards core gamers. But to communicate our new idea, when you think about who will understand it first, naturally it will be people who really understand games. To communicate that as quickly as possible, we focused on those folks who really understand games.

Source

The so called "vocal minority" that you speak of, make up a lot of the hardcore gaming audience. Nintendo fans might be impressed with the machine, but they need more than just last gen's Wii U owners to propagate the name.

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

Yeah the strawman is getting annoying now. No one thought this would be a PS4 level system, people simply had the audacity to expect a decent bump compared to Wii U, instead we get the old ducktaped joke.

lt's like Nintendo goes out of its way to create the shittiest hardware possible, and honestly if you couple these underwhelming specs with rumors about the first year lineup being full of remasters you can't shake off the feeling they're trying to sell you a repackaged Wii U for 300 bucks.

I don't imagine there being a compelling difference in graphics either. The enormous hardware gap between PS3 and PS4 hasn't translated into collosal upgrades for remasters this generation in the way that newly developed games have: see UNDC vs. Uncharted 4 - it's night and day.

 

[Panajev2001a]

No they aren't.

DS Lite: Better display than PSP and most phones at the time.

DSi XL: First affordable mass consumer device (to my collection) to ship with an IPS display with unfaltering viewing angles.

3DS XL: Best-in-class anti-reflectance for the time

N3DS/XL: Uses Sharp's IGZO tech for low power consumption. Best-in-class anti-reflectance coating. Some devices shipped with IPS screen tech.

3DS wasn't as good as DS for a variety of reasons, most of them probably linked to the need to make the product more affordable and actually profitable. Every 3DS requires Nintendo to pack-in three screens: Two for the upper 3D display and one lower screen. The Yen was strong at the start of the generation and Nintendo had to cut the price of the 3DS while launching the original XL at a more affordable price. Something had to give.

Switch is a single-screen device that also doubles as a kickstand-supported tablet. Nintendo knows viewing angles are going to be important on this, like they were the DSi XL (a device made for sharing and viewing on a table), and as shown in the Zelda Switch demo, they have at the very least opted for IPS tech with the display. Now we know it's 720p, which is a decent ppi given the size and resolution, but what I'm interested in is colour accuracy and calibration. I'm hoping the screen at least covers the sRGB gamut for consumer content, and is well calibrated with a whitepoint close to 6500K. The N3DS XL's screen is too blue (closer to 8000K).

Even from that review, interesting how he could rate color reproduction of a 6 bit per color panel higher than a 8 bit per color one, but for all intents and purposes between the higher DPI, higher resolution (the latter also matter to reduce the visible aliasing on the overall image), and the contrast ratio difference the categories people normally buy a gaming screen for were all clearly in favour of the PSP (the original one compared there to a DS revision) and handheld wise that did not change with PSVita compared against the 3DS.

 

[MUnited83]

Seems the crazy dream people had of it being "close" to a Xbox One isn't too real. Of course, anyone with a bit of common sense would be able to tell you that. You can't put that kind of power in a 299$ handheld.

 

[FF Seraphim]

Japanese commuters.

Lol oh god i doubt I would be able to use the switch on the trains I get on in the mornings. So so crowded.

 

[Panajev2001a]

There's still room for Switch to be a decent bump compared with Wii U and still conform to the specs in the Eurogamer article. Their info isn't the whole picture. It may not be at that level, but we just don't have all the data.

I don't see this as a repackaged Wii U so much as what the Wii U should have been. But like I said earlier, even if you think Nintendo makes shitty hardware, you surely can't think Nvidia does. They no doubt had certain performance targets Nintendo gave them to meet in terms of power consumption and capabilities as well as cost, and Nvidia turned over to them the best possible machine that could hit those targets.



No, I'm not saying their collaboration reaches that extent, I'm only saying that if Nintendo's developers were clamoring for significantly higher powered hardware, that would carry a great deal of weight.

I do not think you would look at a classsic style Japanese company like Nintendo for first party game software developers strongly disagreeing openly with the company direction and push for that much of a departure from the holistic company choice.

 

[Shogmaster]

What did I tell you guys. That enclosure size just won't allow for crazy power output.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

The people who will buy a switch are people who will want to play video games on the switch.

Let's wait to see what those games are huh guys?

 

[ecosse_011172]

I have a crazy idea, let's wait until we have full information, e.g. customisation, no. of SMs etc. as well as some new game visuals before deciding that it's an underpowered pile of shit.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Wii UI is 176Gflops.

Also an Nvidia FLOP not directly comparable to an AMD FLOP. Which (as I mildly understand it) would favour the Switch more.

As countless others have mentioned as well, the Nvidia hardware is far more modern than what Wii U's GPU was based off.

 

[AgeEighty]

I do not think you would look at a classsic style Japanese company like Nintendo for first party game software developers strongly disagreeing openly with the company direction and push for that much of a departure from the holistic company choice.

When software guys like Miyamoto are as highly placed in the company as they are, I absolutely would think that software concerns take precedence. Iwata's background was also in software.

I certainly don't think the situation is one in which the hardware department develops whatever hardware catches their fancy and they hand it over to the developers and say, "Here's what you get; you'll make games for this and you'll like it."

 

[Hermii]

About the fan, it might not have been strictly needed for portable mode but if they needed it anyway for docked mode is there a major reason they woudnt use it portably as well? Maybe it runs at a really low frequency.

 

[Panajev2001a]

When software guys like Miyamoto are as highly placed in the company as they are, I absolutely would. Iwata's background was also in software.

I certainly don't think the situation is one in which the hardware department develops whatever hardware catches their fancy and they hand it over to the developers and say, "Here's what you get; you'll make games for this and you'll like it."

I think both of them, from different angles as siesta was much more of a coder than Miyamoto has ever been from what we know, moved into a more business mindset where rightfully hardware performance is just one of the parts of the equation in making a console and also in developing games.

No, but they may say "this is the vision, this is what makes Nintendo great, this is the budget available and these are the constraints we have for the machine... in that framework how should we move? Can you make that sing?".

 

[Franz Brötchen]

As someone stated before, if this were in fact the PS Vita 2, Sony GAF would be nothing but hype, citing the docked mode as ultimate destruction of the Wii U.
Instead, only by Nintendo having the audacity to market it as a home console first, we have 80+ pages of mostly Nintendo ridiculing.

If this sells for 250$/€, I am very interested to hear how a more powerful system that has to also run everything in portable mode should've been accomplished while still turning a profit on each console?

 

[takriel]

So, Skyrim PS3 port confirmed?

 

[Panajev2001a]

As someone stated before, if this were in fact the PS Vita 2, Sony GAF would be nothing but hype, citing the docked mode as ultimate destruction of the Wii U.
Instead, only by Nintendo having the audacity to market it as a home console first, we have 80+ pages of mostly Nintendo ridiculing.

If this sells for 250$/€, I am very interested to hear how a more powerful system that has to also run everything in portable mode should've been accomplished while still turning a profit on each console?

This is not a home console first and foremost...

 

[Dremorak]

So a docked Switch is more powerful than WiiU?

400GLOP (Switch docked) vs 352GFLOP (WiiU)

But a portable is less than half of WiiU GPU wise?
160GLOP (Switch portable)

I find it hard to believe that the handheld running spec would be close to or less than wiiu, considering that it ran noticeably smoother on Jimmy Fallon.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Even from that review, interesting how he could rate color reproduction of a 6 bit per color panel higher than a 8 bit per color one, but for all intents and purposes between the higher DPI, higher resolution (the latter also matter to reduce the visible aliasing on the overall image), and the contrast ratio difference the categories people normally buy a gaming screen for were all clearly in favour of the PSP (the original one compared there to a DS revision) and handheld wise that did not change with PSVita compared against the 3DS.

The contrast ratio differences are apples to apples in that matter. Firstly the difference isn't huge, and the much, much brighter DS Lite screens give a better real-world perception of contrast between colours anyway. The DS Lite screens also display 74% of the sRGB colour gamut for consumer content, which is super impressive for 2006. That's already what makes the DS Lite look more saturated than the washed-out PSP-1000 (56% of sRGB) and original DS displays.

Higher resolution is debateable given 1) the DS Lite had two screens of 256 x 192 anyway 2) the screens were smaller, so pixel count wasn't a huge deal, 3) the DS Lite's dual screen setup was better for the 2D-pixel art-type games DS became known for anyway.

You're also forgetting the PSP-1000's absolutely horrendous refresh rate - DS Lite didn't suffer from horrible trailing/ghosting artifacts when games were in motion. And very few PSP games actually ran at full colour depth - games which exhibited obvious dithering were displaying less maximum colours than a DS Lite could anyway.

DisplayMate's conclusions weren't based off those factors, but realworld performance of the DS Lite's display is more impressive than the PSP-1000's, whose only real perceivable benefit at the time was size and resolution.

Today, I find the PSP-1000 absolutely unbearable to go back to (really heavy ghosting, unacceptably low brightness, undersaturated colour), compared with the DS Lite. I actually tracked down a brand new PSP-3000 earlier this year because of this. While it has the interlacing problem I find it more tolerable than the extreme ghosting and the screen itself displays close to 100% of sRGB when set to the high gamut mode. Good for modern PSP games that were designed with that colour space in mind (older stuff looks oversaturated)

 

[takriel]

This is not a home console first and foremost...

Yes it is. Nintendo are marketing it this way. In fact, the Switch will co-exist alongside the 3DS next year, whereas Wii U is dead in the water.