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If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does

If the switch proves anything it's that you don't have to pay $1600 for a GPU to enjoy amazing games. Or the other way round, if you pay $1600 for a gpu it does not mean that you'll be able to play any good games.

afterburner 4y ago
I mean that's always been Nintendo's thing, hasn't it? Cheaper, less powerful consoles, but focus on iconic gameplay
- ProfessorLayton 4y ago
  Not always, the N64 was more powerful and more expensive (Game carts) than the competition. So was the GameCube (It was more powerful than the PS2).
  - mejutoco 4y ago
    Maybe the cpu was more powerful (honestly idk) but the low memory of the N64 limited the textures and video features (never saw any video in an N64 game) in the games (see how flat texture-wise the textures of Mario64 are).
- hbn 4y ago
  I'd say that only really started in the 7th console generation (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) Gamecube and prior was roughly comparable to the competition, but after that the other companies were trying to outperform each other in graphical fidelity while Nintendo released basically another Gamecube but with motion controls. And it was a hit!
  - stryan 4y ago
    > I'd say that only really started in the 7th console generation (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) I think that's when they really started leaning into it again, but Gunpei Yokoi (Gameboy inventor) was a big proponent of the idea, which he called "Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology". So it's been a part of Nintendos design process for a while before that.
  - deergomoo 4y ago
    > Gamecube and prior was roughly comparable to the competition It gets forgotten about because it didn’t sell all that well and because the tiny little 1.8GB discs kept most of the multi-platform blockbusters off it, but the GameCube was significantly more powerful than the PS2 (though not as powerful as the Xbox).
    - antifa 4y ago
      There was an amazing effort post back when G4TV forums existed explaining why GC was on par or better than xbox using examples like Rogue Squadron and technical details. The main issue was that third party games didn't exist or were low effort ports to GC. I wish I knew how to find the text of that post. The G4TV forums seem erased from history.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    Certainly the N64 (immediately prior to Gamecube) was supposed to be super high tech. They actually stressed the partnership with SGI in the marketing, and literally named the console after the word size of its CPU. In retrospect the former was pretty weird, since the public would not have known that name or anything. Folks can quibble about the Gamecube if they like, but step back one generation and they were definitely trying to push the technology.
    - hbn 4y ago
      The 90s console wars were all about bits, even though no one knew what it meant other than "more bits = better". It was really Sega that started the bit-wars, releasing the Genesis while Nintendo was still selling the NES. They were very successful with getting kids to compare how powerful their console was to Nintendo's by slapping a giant "16-BIT" front-and-center on the top of the console and mentioning it in all the advertising. And that kinda stuck around for years. Most of those kids didn't know what 64-bit meant, but they knew it must be better than their old 16-bit piece of junk. That's 4x the amount of bits, therefore the console was 4x better!
      - philistine 4y ago
        It was NEC that started the bit wars with the PC Engine in Japan. They heavily marketed its graphics as 16-bits, to have a quick way to explain the quality improvements over the Famicom.
  - vikingerik 4y ago
    It was fairly true for the NES and SNES generations as well. Each used a CPU five years old by then and a RAM size that was common in computers eight years prior. Really, for only the N64 console generation did Nintendo ever try to outdo its competitors on hardware specs.
    - hbn 4y ago
      What was the competition though? The NES pretty much single-handedly revitalized the home console market after the video game crash of 1983 by marketing it as a toy that happened to hook into a TV (R.O.B. the Robot, the light gun, all sold together), so it didn't really have any competition. Sega ended up slipping a 16-bit machine to market before Nintendo by a couple years with the Genesis, but the Genesis and SNES were directly competing for each of their respective lifespans, and both were fairly comparable, each having their own advantages in different areas. I suppose you could compare to the Neo Geo which was far superior technically, but it was at such a high price point that it never made much of a dent in the market. That generation was pretty much defined by the SNES and Genesis.
      - vikingerik 4y ago
        There were also the Atari consoles. The 7800 was contemporary with the NES with slightly better specs, there was also the XEGS, and the Panther was in development at the same time as the SNES before it was cancelled for the Jaguar instead. They all flopped in the market, of course, but Nintendo didn't know that would happen while developing theirs, but they kept their hardware simple rather than ultimately overreaching like the Jaguar.
    - DerekL 4y ago
      It doesn't matter how the NES compared to computers, because computers cost much more. Also, less RAM is required if the program is on a cartridge.
  - highwind 4y ago
    I'd argue that first time Nintendo exhibited that mentality was with GameBoy.
    - mattl 4y ago
      I think their Game and Watch systems show it too.
- fennecfoxy 4y ago
  Iconic meaning no new IP, just nostalgia hacking.
pdntspa 4y ago
Depends entirely on what you play. Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K with DLSS and raytracing is exquisite...
- petesergeant 4y ago
  I looked up what this meant, and I think it means this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8Id06dcAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8Id06dcAQ
  - jaimehrubiks 4y ago
    The level of detail is impressive
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  ... as long as you ignore the places where CDPR didn't actually finish debugging the game and errors abound, from innocent things like a pathing error in a pre-rendered character animation causing them to steamroll through movable objects in a scene to arguable game-breakers like a mission neither being succeed-able or failable because some key internal flag is in the wrong state, with the only solution being to roll back to a save before the error occurred.
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    I've beaten the game and NEVER had any issues like that, other than right after launch. You should consider leaving the faction of people who are irrationally bitter at that game because it is a position that is becoming more comical over time. The game is really quite good now and has been for some time. > actually finish debugging the game and errors abound Literally EVERY software developer is guilty of this. I cannot count how many games have come out in this state and there wasn't an ridiculous backlash, just CP2077. NOTHING comes out bug free nowadays, because we as an industry have this idiotic policy of shipping things ASAP
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
gbasp 4y ago
I think the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch makes for more interesting games in general. Most of the games on my Xbox and PC tend to be FPS/Action games with very boring, brown and green "realistic" environments whereas games on my Switch tend to be bright and colorful with lots of 2D and pixel graphics and games in the vein of simulators, adventures, roguelikes etc.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Most of those are hardly Switch exclusive. I like the Switch, but it definitely chugs, and I suspect had we not had the supply chain meltdown over the pandemic we would‘ve gotten a more significant hardware refresh. As far as simulators go, I‘m playing Two Point Campus, and it definitely chugs and crashes occasionally.
- throwaway675309 4y ago
  A lot of the best 3rd party switch games are ports from PC games or games available on other consoles: spelunky, shovel knight, cup head. I think the technical imitations can definitely hamstring their games, even the first party ones. breath of the wild comes to mind, and frequently dips into sub 30 fps which breaks the immersion factor.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  It would be true if Nintendo still had support of a beast like Rare. Alas, there are very few if any companies that are willing to work with these limitations and create games specifically for Switch. And the main reason the games are colorful on Switch is that Nintendo still, to this day, has a reputation of kids-only console. And Switch also pushed it towards "casual one-off gaming" which invites bright colors (think Candy Crush).
- Semaphor 4y ago
  But that's your choice. Almost all of my PC games are 4X and turn based RPGs. All of them make heavy use of a mouse and keyboard. And in addition, you don't need stupid 4 slot cards to play them.
- misterprime 4y ago
izacus 4y ago
Sadly, pretty much all of the games I want to enjoy run terribly on the Switch to the point where I had to go back to my 800$ GPU to play them. Pretty much every strategy / tactics game (outside a single one: Fire Emblem) runs terribly, below 30 fps, looks very burry and... the killing blow... has crazy long loading times. You can go grab coffee while Civ6 is loading and still won't be done by the time. Quality control of games from Nintendo is very very poor. There are several games that came out which were unfinishable or unplayable and they just happily certified them.
- mackatap 4y ago
  I only use Nintendo hardware for Nintendo software and I'm never disappointed!
- chillfox 4y ago
  Interestingly Civ runs fine for me and looks good handheld, but it all falls apart when docked.
ekianjo 4y ago
you dont have to pay 1600 usd for a gpu on PC to enjoy Switch like indie games. even integrated graphics will let you enjoy thousands of non AAA games these days. what is your point? Btw Factorio runs on any kind of PC well before it was on the Switch.
MisterSandman 4y ago
Switch software is incredibly expensive. if anything, PC Gaming proves that much more easily. My $300 laptop can run Factorial better than a Switch can.

afterburner 4y ago

I mean that's always been Nintendo's thing, hasn't it? Cheaper, less powerful consoles, but focus on iconic gameplay

ProfessorLayton 4y ago
Not always, the N64 was more powerful and more expensive (Game carts) than the competition. So was the GameCube (It was more powerful than the PS2).
- mejutoco 4y ago
  Maybe the cpu was more powerful (honestly idk) but the low memory of the N64 limited the textures and video features (never saw any video in an N64 game) in the games (see how flat texture-wise the textures of Mario64 are).
hbn 4y ago
I'd say that only really started in the 7th console generation (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) Gamecube and prior was roughly comparable to the competition, but after that the other companies were trying to outperform each other in graphical fidelity while Nintendo released basically another Gamecube but with motion controls. And it was a hit!
- stryan 4y ago
  > I'd say that only really started in the 7th console generation (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360) I think that's when they really started leaning into it again, but Gunpei Yokoi (Gameboy inventor) was a big proponent of the idea, which he called "Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology". So it's been a part of Nintendos design process for a while before that.
- deergomoo 4y ago
  > Gamecube and prior was roughly comparable to the competition It gets forgotten about because it didn’t sell all that well and because the tiny little 1.8GB discs kept most of the multi-platform blockbusters off it, but the GameCube was significantly more powerful than the PS2 (though not as powerful as the Xbox).
  - antifa 4y ago
    There was an amazing effort post back when G4TV forums existed explaining why GC was on par or better than xbox using examples like Rogue Squadron and technical details. The main issue was that third party games didn't exist or were low effort ports to GC. I wish I knew how to find the text of that post. The G4TV forums seem erased from history.
- amalcon 4y ago
  Certainly the N64 (immediately prior to Gamecube) was supposed to be super high tech. They actually stressed the partnership with SGI in the marketing, and literally named the console after the word size of its CPU. In retrospect the former was pretty weird, since the public would not have known that name or anything. Folks can quibble about the Gamecube if they like, but step back one generation and they were definitely trying to push the technology.
  - hbn 4y ago
    The 90s console wars were all about bits, even though no one knew what it meant other than "more bits = better". It was really Sega that started the bit-wars, releasing the Genesis while Nintendo was still selling the NES. They were very successful with getting kids to compare how powerful their console was to Nintendo's by slapping a giant "16-BIT" front-and-center on the top of the console and mentioning it in all the advertising. And that kinda stuck around for years. Most of those kids didn't know what 64-bit meant, but they knew it must be better than their old 16-bit piece of junk. That's 4x the amount of bits, therefore the console was 4x better!
    - philistine 4y ago
      It was NEC that started the bit wars with the PC Engine in Japan. They heavily marketed its graphics as 16-bits, to have a quick way to explain the quality improvements over the Famicom.
- vikingerik 4y ago
  It was fairly true for the NES and SNES generations as well. Each used a CPU five years old by then and a RAM size that was common in computers eight years prior. Really, for only the N64 console generation did Nintendo ever try to outdo its competitors on hardware specs.
  - hbn 4y ago
    What was the competition though? The NES pretty much single-handedly revitalized the home console market after the video game crash of 1983 by marketing it as a toy that happened to hook into a TV (R.O.B. the Robot, the light gun, all sold together), so it didn't really have any competition. Sega ended up slipping a 16-bit machine to market before Nintendo by a couple years with the Genesis, but the Genesis and SNES were directly competing for each of their respective lifespans, and both were fairly comparable, each having their own advantages in different areas. I suppose you could compare to the Neo Geo which was far superior technically, but it was at such a high price point that it never made much of a dent in the market. That generation was pretty much defined by the SNES and Genesis.
    - vikingerik 4y ago
      There were also the Atari consoles. The 7800 was contemporary with the NES with slightly better specs, there was also the XEGS, and the Panther was in development at the same time as the SNES before it was cancelled for the Jaguar instead. They all flopped in the market, of course, but Nintendo didn't know that would happen while developing theirs, but they kept their hardware simple rather than ultimately overreaching like the Jaguar.
  - DerekL 4y ago
    It doesn't matter how the NES compared to computers, because computers cost much more. Also, less RAM is required if the program is on a cartridge.
- highwind 4y ago
  I'd argue that first time Nintendo exhibited that mentality was with GameBoy.
  - mattl 4y ago
    I think their Game and Watch systems show it too.
fennecfoxy 4y ago
Iconic meaning no new IP, just nostalgia hacking.

pdntspa 4y ago

Depends entirely on what you play. Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K with DLSS and raytracing is exquisite...

petesergeant 4y ago
I looked up what this meant, and I think it means this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8Id06dcAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk8Id06dcAQ
- jaimehrubiks 4y ago
  The level of detail is impressive
shadowgovt 4y ago
... as long as you ignore the places where CDPR didn't actually finish debugging the game and errors abound, from innocent things like a pathing error in a pre-rendered character animation causing them to steamroll through movable objects in a scene to arguable game-breakers like a mission neither being succeed-able or failable because some key internal flag is in the wrong state, with the only solution being to roll back to a save before the error occurred.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  I've beaten the game and NEVER had any issues like that, other than right after launch. You should consider leaving the faction of people who are irrationally bitter at that game because it is a position that is becoming more comical over time. The game is really quite good now and has been for some time. > actually finish debugging the game and errors abound Literally EVERY software developer is guilty of this. I cannot count how many games have come out in this state and there wasn't an ridiculous backlash, just CP2077. NOTHING comes out bug free nowadays, because we as an industry have this idiotic policy of shipping things ASAP
  - shadowgovt 4y ago

gbasp 4y ago

I think the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch makes for more interesting games in general. Most of the games on my Xbox and PC tend to be FPS/Action games with very boring, brown and green "realistic" environments whereas games on my Switch tend to be bright and colorful with lots of 2D and pixel graphics and games in the vein of simulators, adventures, roguelikes etc.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Most of those are hardly Switch exclusive. I like the Switch, but it definitely chugs, and I suspect had we not had the supply chain meltdown over the pandemic we would‘ve gotten a more significant hardware refresh. As far as simulators go, I‘m playing Two Point Campus, and it definitely chugs and crashes occasionally.
throwaway675309 4y ago
A lot of the best 3rd party switch games are ports from PC games or games available on other consoles: spelunky, shovel knight, cup head. I think the technical imitations can definitely hamstring their games, even the first party ones. breath of the wild comes to mind, and frequently dips into sub 30 fps which breaks the immersion factor.
dmitriid 4y ago
It would be true if Nintendo still had support of a beast like Rare. Alas, there are very few if any companies that are willing to work with these limitations and create games specifically for Switch. And the main reason the games are colorful on Switch is that Nintendo still, to this day, has a reputation of kids-only console. And Switch also pushed it towards "casual one-off gaming" which invites bright colors (think Candy Crush).
Semaphor 4y ago
But that's your choice. Almost all of my PC games are 4X and turn based RPGs. All of them make heavy use of a mouse and keyboard. And in addition, you don't need stupid 4 slot cards to play them.
misterprime 4y ago

izacus 4y ago

Sadly, pretty much all of the games I want to enjoy run terribly on the Switch to the point where I had to go back to my 800$ GPU to play them. Pretty much every strategy / tactics game (outside a single one: Fire Emblem) runs terribly, below 30 fps, looks very burry and... the killing blow... has crazy long loading times. You can go grab coffee while Civ6 is loading and still won't be done by the time. Quality control of games from Nintendo is very very poor. There are several games that came out which were unfinishable or unplayable and they just happily certified them.

mackatap 4y ago
I only use Nintendo hardware for Nintendo software and I'm never disappointed!
chillfox 4y ago
Interestingly Civ runs fine for me and looks good handheld, but it all falls apart when docked.

ekianjo 4y ago

you dont have to pay 1600 usd for a gpu on PC to enjoy Switch like indie games. even integrated graphics will let you enjoy thousands of non AAA games these days. what is your point? Btw Factorio runs on any kind of PC well before it was on the Switch.

MisterSandman 4y ago

Switch software is incredibly expensive. if anything, PC Gaming proves that much more easily. My $300 laptop can run Factorial better than a Switch can.