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I agree with your general point but I don't think Tears of the Kingdom is a good example of it. They have clearly poured a mountain of design and engineering e

I agree with your general point but I don't think Tears of the Kingdom is a good example of it. They have clearly poured a mountain of design and engineering effort into squeezing every last drop of graphic fidelity and art out of the Switch. It looks really really good. Some of that is having the wisdom to choose an art style that works well on the Switch—a little cel-shaded, not a ton of texture detail. But, also, they really are getting as much detail and graphic complexity as they possibly can out of that little machine. This isn't some cheap 2D pixel art game that spent their whole budget on game mechanics. It's a AAA game that maxed out their budget along every single axis. They just happened to target hardware with lower specs.

ianlevesque 3y ago
Yeah honestly they’ve exceeded what the Switch can do at this point and areas of the game drop to 20 fps. The game wouldn’t be worse at 60. 30 is widely viewed as the bare minimum.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
  Nintendo is a deeply Japanese company, and in Japanese animation, frame rate can be heavily deprioritized. If they have a limited budget, and have to choose between better art/design, or better frame rate, they'll choose the art every time. Nintendo also clings closely to its roots as a toy manufacturer - their primary goal is to build games that are fun to play. It shouldn't be surprising that their focus on creating beautiful, fun games resonates deeply with the wider populace. I do notice the framerate occasionally dip during complex scenes, but it's such a wonderfully designed game that I don't really care.
  - ianlevesque 3y ago
    The sales agree with you, but none of the art or design choices get worse by having hardware that won't drop frames to that degree. I realize they do this every console generation, but since they're no longer passing along the savings to the consumer, I'm not going to keep apologizing for them.
    - etempleton 3y ago
      I expect new hardware from Nintendo in 2024 or 2025. The immense sales of the Switch and the pandemic have kept it around longer than it probably was originally planned for. It just keeps selling though. Sales have dipped, but not so much that Nintendo is in any hurry.
      - highwaylights 3y ago
        I expect new hardware in 2023, not because of how powerful the current chipset is or is not, but because Nintendo is very likely losing a massive percentage of sales to emulators now. How many units would the game have sold if Yuzu/Ryujinx didn’t exist? It’s even more jarring when you’re a paying consumer running the game at 720p20 and someone else can quite easily download switch games for “free” and play a much better 4K60 unofficial PC version. Those videos are all over YouTube and have been for a couple of years now. I’d always assumed Nintendo was just trying to get TOTK out the door, give it time to sell, then announce the new system with a new Mario later in the year.
        ymolodtsov 3y ago
        Emulators are for a very small niche audience of players, most of whom simply wouldn't buy the Switch. Also, their own quarterly reports and expectations confirm they aren't launching new hardware anytime soon.
    - fennecfoxy 3y ago
      Sales are probably because they've sold so many switches and people don't have a choice. What could be considered a AAA game come out rarely on the switch Nintendo's biggest win was allowing indie games on the platform, without them people would realise how few games Nintendo actually makes. They sold so many switches because of nostalgia and convenience/form factor reasons - switch is the only console in that form factor
  - ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
    They also squeeze every single drop from the switch. Look at the new cloud particle system for example, missing in botw but adding gorgeous atmosphere in this one. That is coded by people who deeply care about performance and memory usage. Not the ones slinging about electron and building apps like Slack.
  - ymolodtsov 3y ago
    Games aren't anime. Having a lower framerate means you will be making more mistakes, especially in combat. Besides, a sudden drop in frames just looks bad.
  - orloffm 3y ago
    No. Mario Kart, Splatoon, Yoshi, Smash, Metroid Dread etc. are optimized for 60FPS. It's just they can't do the same with an open world game, so it stops becoming a priority.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
But that's literally just the lifecycle of every console pretty much ever. Gets released and devs don't focus on optimising since it has more power than previous generation. Then by the end of the gen, devs know the console inside out and are using all sorts of crazy tricks to improve performance. Devs build on top of what we've built before.

ianlevesque 3y ago

Yeah honestly they’ve exceeded what the Switch can do at this point and areas of the game drop to 20 fps. The game wouldn’t be worse at 60. 30 is widely viewed as the bare minimum.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y ago
Nintendo is a deeply Japanese company, and in Japanese animation, frame rate can be heavily deprioritized. If they have a limited budget, and have to choose between better art/design, or better frame rate, they'll choose the art every time. Nintendo also clings closely to its roots as a toy manufacturer - their primary goal is to build games that are fun to play. It shouldn't be surprising that their focus on creating beautiful, fun games resonates deeply with the wider populace. I do notice the framerate occasionally dip during complex scenes, but it's such a wonderfully designed game that I don't really care.
- ianlevesque 3y ago
  The sales agree with you, but none of the art or design choices get worse by having hardware that won't drop frames to that degree. I realize they do this every console generation, but since they're no longer passing along the savings to the consumer, I'm not going to keep apologizing for them.
  - etempleton 3y ago
    I expect new hardware from Nintendo in 2024 or 2025. The immense sales of the Switch and the pandemic have kept it around longer than it probably was originally planned for. It just keeps selling though. Sales have dipped, but not so much that Nintendo is in any hurry.
    - highwaylights 3y ago
      I expect new hardware in 2023, not because of how powerful the current chipset is or is not, but because Nintendo is very likely losing a massive percentage of sales to emulators now. How many units would the game have sold if Yuzu/Ryujinx didn’t exist? It’s even more jarring when you’re a paying consumer running the game at 720p20 and someone else can quite easily download switch games for “free” and play a much better 4K60 unofficial PC version. Those videos are all over YouTube and have been for a couple of years now. I’d always assumed Nintendo was just trying to get TOTK out the door, give it time to sell, then announce the new system with a new Mario later in the year.
      - ymolodtsov 3y ago
        Emulators are for a very small niche audience of players, most of whom simply wouldn't buy the Switch. Also, their own quarterly reports and expectations confirm they aren't launching new hardware anytime soon.
  - fennecfoxy 3y ago
    Sales are probably because they've sold so many switches and people don't have a choice. What could be considered a AAA game come out rarely on the switch Nintendo's biggest win was allowing indie games on the platform, without them people would realise how few games Nintendo actually makes. They sold so many switches because of nostalgia and convenience/form factor reasons - switch is the only console in that form factor
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  They also squeeze every single drop from the switch. Look at the new cloud particle system for example, missing in botw but adding gorgeous atmosphere in this one. That is coded by people who deeply care about performance and memory usage. Not the ones slinging about electron and building apps like Slack.
- ymolodtsov 3y ago
  Games aren't anime. Having a lower framerate means you will be making more mistakes, especially in combat. Besides, a sudden drop in frames just looks bad.
- orloffm 3y ago
  No. Mario Kart, Splatoon, Yoshi, Smash, Metroid Dread etc. are optimized for 60FPS. It's just they can't do the same with an open world game, so it stops becoming a priority.

fennecfoxy 3y ago

But that's literally just the lifecycle of every console pretty much ever. Gets released and devs don't focus on optimising since it has more power than previous generation. Then by the end of the gen, devs know the console inside out and are using all sorts of crazy tricks to improve performance. Devs build on top of what we've built before.