I’m curious to see how this goes. Nintendo really is the only company I’d consider buying a console from anymore. Sure, they’re hardware isn’t very powerful, but it’s pretty hard to justify an Xbox or Playstation when a good gaming PC is a better long-term investment. Nintendo, for all if its faults, is constantly innovating what a system can be, while it’s competitors just release the same product with upgraded graphics.
That being said, the Switch 2 sounds like exactly that: a slightly upgraded switch without any real innovation. Usually, even Nintendo’s failures are interesting, like the Virtual Boy or the Wii U. They almost never release a slightly upgraded product (the only exception being the Game Boy Pocket, which they only made because the Virtual Boy flopped)
No matter what you think of Nintendo as a company, the industry does better when they’re pushing the envelope. For all the (well deserved) praise the Steam Deck gets, it wouldn’t exist if the Switch hadn’t laid the groundwork for it. I’d much rather see Nintendo take a big swing, like integrating AR or VR, into a less powerful system than see them push out a next gen Switch every 5 years. Hopefully there’s more to the Switch 2 than just a hardware upgrade, or else Nintendo (and maybe even consoles in general) might be in trouble.
I think you’re forgetting the Nintendo DS family.
One of them was literally just named “New Nintendo 3DS”.
Fair enough, I didn’t realize how much repetition there was in that line, although I would say that the 3DS was a pretty big innovation over the DS. It’s also a testament to their willingness to take big swings that the would go back to the concept of a 3D handheld after the Virtual Boy debacle.
There is one device missing. The original 3ds xl. Yes there is the new 3ds xl but there is also the regular 3ds xl
I don’t need it.
I don’t need it.
I don’t need it.
I can’t wait to see Nintendo’s new underpowered console. I’m sure they won’t completely miss the mark again.
1080p?! We’re living in the future, guys!
I love the Switch form factor, specifically the detachable controllers. I thought it was idiotic when I first saw the commercials but I love it. I don’t care about AAA graphics on a portable, it is a little baby screen anyway. Cel shading, let’s go, IDGAF.
Unfortunately they are making shitty Zeldas now so I’ll probably not buy this one. If someone makes decent Linux hardware with detachable controllers I’d consider that.
deleted by creator
I wish Steam actually sold those in the real world. I only hear about them on the internet from Americans. I’ve never seen one in real life. It would be really cool if they were real.
Genuinely considering it! If it had some dumb detachable controllers I’d have one already.
That first reveal commercial, where a guy is on his couch playing BotW, and then he realizes it’s time go go, breaks his controller up, slides the joycons onto the side of the console and then lifts it out of the dock to keep playing on the train? Great.
…Then there’s two solid minutes of what I call “yeah yeah and.” You can put down the kickstand and put it on an airline tray table (which is a lie; the kickstand is extremely far to the side and the universe does not contain a surface the Switch will balance on. Bring your Ryobi 18V hot glue gun I guess). Yeah, yeah, and each joycon can be turned sideways and each becomes its own shitty tiny controller so you can try to play 2 player split screen on a display the size of my tongue. Yeah yeah and you can put the tablet down and play like, chess or some shit across the table from someone. Yeah Yeah And.
Botw and sequel are critically acclaimed across the board.
Even the soundtrack is not up to par. It’s just a dull game.
I’m sure you and the five other people who agree with you can have a riveting conversation about how wrong the millions of fans are.
We are having a pretty good time in the comments. Maybe you could go hang out with the other people who like dull games instead of being upset here.
Have you tried the new Zelda games.
Yes, BotW. Extremely dull. I want my hookshot back. It would be nice to have larger, more challenging dungeons with unique bosses instead of solving a few puzzles and then beating the shit out of roughly the exact same ghost. Most the quests are “get me 10 items” fetch quests. How much wood did I collect to build that town? That’s not fun. Majority of the content is wandering through scenery with nothing in it, or climbing for several minutes at a time.
Faire enough. Judging by the reception most do like them though.
Yeah, they do seem to like it. It’s nice to chill but definitely not anywhere near the best Zelda like some people rate it. IDGI.
I think there’s three kinds of Zelda fans:
- New to series with BotW and love open world games
- Like the Zelda brand
- Like the dungeon gameplay loop
The first two seem to like the game, whereas the third… don’t. I’m part of the third. The Zelda gameplay loop has typically been:
- Explore world to find dungeon
- Explore dungeon to find the items - new tool, compass, and map
- Use new tool to solve puzzles, along with some puzzles using older items
- Fight dungeon boss, using the new tool
- Use new tool to find secrets in the overworld
- Go to 1 until item slots are full
- Fight main boss (a form of ganon), which is the most difficult fight in the game
BotW dumbed all of that down and added a lot of grindy mechanics:
- korok seeds
- shrine orbs
- fairy upgrades
- cooking
It’s a completely different game and has just enough overlap with the established formula to disappoint. The older Zelda games don’t have any grindy bits unless you really want some piece of equipment early.
So that’s my take. BotW is a decent game, but it’s my least favorite Zelda game. If it wasn’t branded “Zelda” and hyped so much, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it. My kids love it though, so there’s that.
Oh, and I finished BotW just before TotK launched (kinda late, I know), and instead of buying TotK, I bought Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening and absolutely loved them. If Switch 2 has more games with the classic formula, I’ll buy it, otherwise I’ll probably pass.
Botw and totk are my favorite games of all time!!!
I loved BoTW and ToTK, but your criticisms are pretty much on point. I’m hoping a future game can combine the sense of exploration of the newer games with the traditional dungeons and bosses of the older games, with Majora’s Mask level side quests please!
Did you like Skyrim?
I didn’t play it. I like the memes tho.
Isn’t that more of a leveling RPG? If I got progressively stronger in BotW instead of just picking up slightly larger weapons I might like it more.
Another problem are that there are like, what, 7 kinds of enemies? Every encampment a small flock of keese, some bokoblins, some lizalfos, a moblin or two. Every situation I just use the same swords and arrows. Surely Skyrim has more varied enemies? If Nintendo are trying to make an expansive game they should put content in it.
That was an issue with Breath of the Wild; the scope of the world is way larger than the scope of the game, so there’s lots of big open empty fields with the occasional collection of slight variations of the same half dozen monsters, and the only thing you will encounter during your adventures are a korok “puzzle” or a shrine. maybe a memory.
I will give Nintendo this: they listened to their fans. Zelda players sometime around Twilight Princess started bemoaning how linear Zelda games have become and the inability to sequence break and wanted more non-linear Zelda games. So they made a non-linear game. And Nintendo, being Japanese and thus congenitally incapable of doing anything halfway, made a game so aggressively open world that it will hold you down, squat over your face and non-linear in your mouth and nose.
They went through so much trouble to make the game as non-linear as possible that - whenever a character lists the four divine beasts, the old or new champions, their races, villages, or biomes therein - it’s never done in the same order twice so as not to suggest a canon completion order.
This prevented them from doing big sweeping stories like the one in Twilight Princess because events could happen out of order or not at all, so the story takes place 100 years in the past and you find out details of it out of order.
Tears of the Kingdom is simply not as good. The story is even thinner on the ground to the point of feeling lazy; the champions plagiarized each other’s cut scenes. It’s outright inconsistent with previous lore, so that’s just a big fuck you to long-term fans of the series. And even if there is a slightly bigger variety in monster types and whatnot, it’s spread across a MUCH larger play area and the sky and depths are full of…mostly nothing.
It feels like every idea anyone suggested during development ended up in the game. There’s not one but two new crafting systems along with the new rune mechanics, and none of it gets a change to breathe. They had enough ideas here to make two games, one that explores the vehicle/robot building mechanics, and one that explores the weapon fusing. Maybe have one feature the sky, and one that features the depths. But no, TotK is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Screen size plays a role
Even if you can put an 8k screen in your 15cm profile. There isn’t any reason to do it
Considering all of the PC handhelds being released, 1080p is the best you can really do on a handheld screen with modernish games. Steam Deck is the most successful and it is only 800p. Having a 1440 or 2160 screen would decimate battery with little to no benefit.
That’s my point. Nintendo only about to have a 1080p screen does not seem like as big of a selling point as it would have been say, 7 years ago.
If that’s how the console turns out then I expect them to make up that difference in the cost. I’ll be happy with a modest console as long as it has full backwards compatible and it’s not priced at the steam deck
I too like to buy my hardware solely based on a spec sheet.
Switch going to be conservative, meanwhile the deck clones are going all out. Wonder how those will run switch 2 emulators.
Wonder how those will run switch 2 emulators.
Well, considering Nintendo is on a war path and legally threatening emulator devs, I doubt anyone will even attempt a Switch 2 emulator.
You underestimate how masochistic Nintendo fans are.
They will be working, Ninjas be damned.
Yuzu is still going. Shit got forked thousands of times the whole week leading up to the takedown. If the Nintendorks think that shit is dead, they have missed the entire point of open source.
They just made working on Yuzu more annoying, even discord was taking stuff down. But it’s not like discord alternatives like matrix don’t exist. Version control even more so.
I forked it on GitHub, GitLab, two private git servers, and Google Drive lmao. Shit isn’t going anywhere.
I’d put everything I own and my literal life betting someone will make one. It’s happened for literally everything else, the switch 2 won’t be different.
Would be hard going after devs that don’t blatantly make money off it like Yuzu did. Would also be pretty hard going after anonymous devs not using US based version control or just private. Lot of countries don’t care about DMCA either. Yuzu was just very stupid but Nintendo in the worst case isn’t all powerful either.
Cemu doesn’t seem to have a problem with profitability. The litigation was about circumvention of encryption and blatant piracy advocation.
I regularly emulate Switch games on my RoG Ally Z1E, and it pulls it off so fucking well, I haven’t touched my Switch since I got the thing (it easily runs every title I’ve thrown at it at 60fps+higher res, plus I have the ability to mod games if I need to.)
I can’t imagine it’ll be too difficult for them to emulate Switch 2 games, assuming Nintendo don’t catch on to emulation developers too early.
Honestly I’ll “take” a low power switch 2 with the expectation of eventually emulating it with enhancements.
Kind of tangential, but can you do local multiplayer when emulating the switch on a steam deck. Like can you have a 4 player Mario kart game?
I don’t see why you couldn’t. Just connect multiple controllers and configure accordingly.
Sure. Just need to use some external controllers obviously.
It probably won’t work to do local multiplayer with multiple consoles easily.
Ryujinx has an LDN build for that.
They’ve had LDN in the main build for a while now, I wouldn’t advise using that dedicated LDN build, it’s quite old and hasn’t been updated. The standard one has LDN in the settings under the network tab.
Image of said page
They will probably use some version of DLSS that’s hard to emulate.
Then we just disable it, and run the DLSS natively.
If it’s possible, it might be some proprietary version that games can’t run without.
Emulators will just run at higher resolutions instead of blurry upscaling anyway.
I think that’s what we expected? I don’t think anything else would make sense. Although I miss small handhelds like GBA or 3DS.
I wonder of “conservative hardware evolution” in this context just means that it’ll still be a switch, just with upgraded internals.
The fact that the built-in screen might be 1080p implies a decent leap in performance. That’s twice as many pixels as a 720p/800p screen.
Marketing for “the hardware will be outdated sh1t”.
They planned and designed switch 2 a few years ago and are only releasing it now. The hardware will be less powerful than a mid-range smartphone. But it will be better than switch 1. So, evolution, right?
They really need to give it more powerful processors. It felt like a shame that Tears of the Kingdom ran so poorly that it was uncomfortable to play.
Nintendo’s games deserve better hardware.
On a related note, why don’t they put a GPU in the dock so that the games can run much better when connected to a TV?
And bigger lawsuits. This time against anyone remotely looking like any of the characters… Think twice before wearing a Mario red hat!.. looking at you red hat Linux and you MAGA, an Mr. Johnson with his running bandana and Mike too, always wearing a red hat of some sort which makes him look like Mario. Yeah Mike, we know what you’re doing and we’re coming after you and your blog!
Honestly, i wouldn’t have expect anything different. Any lack of back-compatibility would have been a suicide move.
I hope games will be able to hit 60fps stable or offer some type of 40hz minimums for the higher refresh rate TVs.
Resolution is important, but if the games still perform like they do now, I’d be disappointed.
I think Nintendo will probably try to hit a great pricepoint for parents instead of high performance. The last powerful Nintendo console that I’m aware of was the Gamecube.
The Wii U was technically the most powerful console on the market for a year until the XB1 and PS4 came out.
And I’ll just hold my breath until it comes.
Is it me or do they always promise backwards compatibility and then find some cockamamie horseshit at the last minute on why it just wasn’t possible. I might be a little scarred from previous promises (not specific to Nintendo).
Wii had backwards compatibility, same with Wii U. Switch couldn’t use disk so it couldn’t be. All the Gameboys had it. Super Nintendo as well. 3Ds and DS had it. Nintendo often do it.
The DS even had backwards compatibility with the GBA. I think it didn’t work with GB/C games though for some reason.
Someone else already pointed out that the Super Nintendo wasn’t backwards compatible. The SNES’ competitor was backwards compatible though – an optional accessory for the Mega Drive/Genesis allowed you to play Master System games!
I think it didn’t work with GB/C games though for some reason.
GBC cartridges require an extra notch that wasn’t included on GBA cartridges. You physically can’t fit a GBC cartridge into a DS without a dremel tool
Would they work if you managed to get them plugged in?
Personally, I’ve never felt the urge to try because it’d ruin a GBC cartridge and my GBA SP still works fine to this day
Super Nintendo was not backward compatible.
It “kind of” was with the Super Gameboy allowing for Gameboy games to run on the SNES. Buy yeah, more like a sideways compatibility
The Super Game Boy was just a Game Boy in a different form factor, it did all the work. All the SNES did was provide inputs and output.
And the GameCube compatibility of the Wii was just original GameCube hardware inside of the Wii doing all the work. Same with PS2 hardware inside the PS3.
Having dedicated hardware inside for compatibility is not uncommon
But in the Wii and PS3’s case the hardware was included with the console itself. The Super Game Boy was a separate purchase.
Well, and the Gameboy is not the ancestor to the SNES so backwards compatibility is out of the window completely. Yes, I know that the Super Gameboy is only a unfitting contender, that’s why I said “kind of” in my post.
The wii is a Gamecube repackaged with some upgrades.
Yes and no. The latest released Wii (the Wii mini) lost GameCube compatibility due to hardware changes.
That’s not the case. GB > GBC > GBA > GBA SP. GC > Wii > Wii U.
I don’t think the SP was a different console though
Replace SP with DS. (:
The GBA DS wasn’t a console! /s Haha
Yup, just different form factor with a backlight IIRC.
Also: GBA > DS (early models), and DS > 3DS
You’re quite right!
Don’t count your hens I remember when all the consoles had backwards compatibility, until they didn’t.
Every PlayStation generation had backwards compatibility followed quickly by a cheaper “slim” version without it.
The PS2 and PS5 slim versions didn’t mess with backwards compatibility, just the PS3
and PS4.What backwards compatibility did the original PS4 have?
I just double checked, and it didn’t have any, it looks like. So it’s just the PS3 Slim that cut backwards compatibility.
As for why the PS4 wasn’t backwards compatible with PS3 games, the PS3’s architecture was hard to emulate and too expensive to include wholesale without ballooning the price beyond the target.
Thanks for the correction. I typically avoided the slim versions myself.
Probably why they’re going after the emulators. Sounds like this thing is still well within reach of emulation, probably in the first couple of months of release.
I think up until the 3DS, console hardware was still somewhat specialised, to the point where you can’t 100% accurately emulate old cobsoles. But at the level we currently are, consoles a little more than all-purpose computers. Emulating then is only down to having enough computational power.
A lot of old consoles are actually based on standard CPUs for the most part. Look at the history of the 6502 for example. Emulating the hardware can be done if time is taken to reverse engineer all the layers into an emulator.
Part of the issue, to me, can be if all the work is done and then copyright disputes arise- all work has to be removed from the public.
deleted by creator
This gets done with FPGA systems like the MiSTer and there are N64 and PSX Cores for the MiSTer, a Saturn Core is in development.
If you go old enough, the problem often falls in the imperfections of the tech. When you simulate the whole console perfectly, you are idealizing a system that was far from perfect, and you might miss real features that depended on that.
Last time they tried a slight upgrade to not rock the boat and maintain backward compatibility was the WiiU.
That was the Wii actually. It being a slightly up clocked Gamecube. The WiiU was a massive hardware upgrade from the Wii at the time. The WiiU just had a host of other problems.
The WiiU was one of my favourite consoles.
Eh yes but they really rocked the boat with the Wii going to motion wands and those Wii characters.
The article is “Conservative Hardware Evolution”. Emphasis mine. The Switch2 will also be a conservative hardware evolution, exactly like the Wii. The Wii’s hardware was extremely conservative, already ancient upon release. Rocked 0 boats.
Controllers are hardware too
Nope. Peripherals.
Peripherals are hardware. Hardware literally means “the physical components of an electronic system” and last I checked, you can touch a controller.
The Wii: Two GameCube glued together with funky remote controllers
The Wii U: Two Wii glued together with a funky remote controller… With a screen!
You can play GameCube games on the Wii U via USB by hacking the Wii part of the console, Nintendo just had a little bit more work to do to make it natively compatible…
Nah, the Wii wasn’t even two GC glued together. It was really just an overlocked GC. When you play GC games on Wii, the hardware clocks down and the Wii becomes a gamecube.
The reason why the Wii U can do that as well, is because in adition to it’s own hardware, all the necessary Wii hardware is also on board. It’s less a Wii mode than a built in Wii.
The problem to me isn’t so much that their hardware has been underpowered, that’s been a thing for like 20 years at this point, since the release of the gamecube or therabouts. The problem to me is that they’ve been incredibly unambitious this generation in terms of making their console something that has an appealing form factor compared to it’s potential competitors, not just in the ps5 and whatever the new xbox is, but with the mobile gaming handhelds like the steam deck, which can apparently pretty easily emulate most of the switch’s library and also serve a bunch of other functions.
I know that the hardcore gaming audience really disliked the motion controls as a central gimmick of the wii, but I really thought it was fun, pretty decent, and that now, with the switch, the technology has actually become good and not a flickery unstable half-mess. The only motion control stuff I can think of is mario party, 1-2 switch, which is old and nobody played, and some aiming mechanics in other games like splatoon or the new zeldas. For a console that is as easily positioned for casual multiplayer as it is, they’ve been consistently very iffy with their output on that front. Combine this with a a resurgence of shitty management practices like their litigiousness, charging more for subscription based access to their older games library, charging for online play, and it’s kind of made me reticent to engage with the switch that I have and reluctant to engage with any new console they might put out.
I’m also going to keep banging the drum that the switch is the most optimally positioned console for playing all of nintendo’s library. If they had wireless connectivity to the dock, probably the hardware wouldn’t be good enough to run it, but you could theoretically run both DS games and Wii U games. Obviously, the console’s already suited well for Wii games, and the rest of their backcatalogue before that. With only their recent library they could provide a pretty good alternative to actual emulation alternatives, but instead it seems they’d rather take a much less effective route.
Also they could probably make it a pretty easy VR experience as they’ve shown with the cardboard shit they had, but fuck that I guess, easier just to do absolutely nothing.
The very first sentence of your post is wrong. The GameCube was more powerful than the PS2, making it the second most powerful console of that generation, just behind the Xbox.
… the rest of your post is pretty decent though…
