Where does Nintendo go from here?

bxsonic · Jun 16, 2020

LumberPanda said:
The CPU difference between the PS5 whatever they can get for the Switch 2 will likely be massive. The PS4 CPU was based on a not-great laptop CPU, the PS5 CPU is based on a really good desktop CPU. While developers can reduce the graphics for games on the Switch 2, any CPU-intensive game will be off the table unless they gut the gameplay.

Yeah. CPU will likely be a bigger gap. But I'm not sure how important CPU would be for many games. Would all games suddenly require desktop class CPU to be able to run well? Would all current PC owners have to upgrade their CPUs to at least 8 cores? I'm honestly very skeptical about CPU usage in games.

For the Switch 2, I'm sure that even if Nvidia just use standard ARM designs for the CPU, the single core performance would be pretty close to whatever CPU is in the next gen consoles. We're still at least 2 years away from the final chip design for the Switch 2. Looking at current mobile chips, I'm somewhat optimistic.

Multievolution · Jun 16, 2020

The switch has done well, it's not as talked about as the wii was perhaps but they've hit the ball with it, Nintendo for me has never been about having the best specs it's fundamentally about accessibility and as such they likely won't be making any successor to the switch a couple of years at least as there's no real advantage for them.

I expect a new version at some point in the same vain as the other portable versions have done but Nintendo will just do what they do best let the other two focus on delivering high end graphics and instead focus on whatever they want to do.

QuixoticNeutral · Jun 16, 2020

DeuceGamer said:
I'd make the argument that the Wii U had several orders of magnitude better 3rd Party Support at launch and shortly after compared to the Switch launch and yet we saw one tank and one skyrocket out of the gate.

I don't think all the 3rd Party Support in the world would have saved Wii U.

Edit: I say this as a huge fan of the Wii U btw

This is correct. The software was there, but the Wii U made absolutely no case for choosing to play that software there and not on some other platform. GamePad features couldn't pull that weight by themselves. You're not going to choose to play ME3 there when you can't carry over all your progress in ME1 and ME2. You're not going to play the Arkham games there just for the GamePad mapping when the DLC support doesn't make parity and when you might played City a year earlier already. You could make a case for Deus Ex: HR putting its best foot forward as a port (with most of its revisions eventually making their way back to PC), but even so, that's just one game that was a known quantity already in its base form.

If the Switch's third-party situation depended entirely on all the high-profile AAA ports that have shown up—Skyrim, Assassin's Creed (which tanked like crazy on Wii U), The Witcher III, Doom, Borderlands, and the rest—I actually don't think Nintendo would have been any better off than usual, not even with the killer feature of portability (which finally answers the question, "why would you trade performance to play on Nintendo?"). These are ports that presuppose a platform that is already able to stand on its own two feet.

The difference this generation is that the third-party strategy is no longer chasing the staid old console mentality. It's chasing the Steam mentality. So much of the discourse in this forum is still locked into PS2/Xbox/GameCube-era systems war thinking that it's missing the shift in priorities here. The third parties that matter are here. With the vast majority of those titles, there is little to no performance trade-off at all; the Switch ports are pure convenience, and the answer to the question, "why choose to play on Nintendo?" is straightforward and easy.

When it comes to third parties on Nintendo, you always have to ask that question, and assume that Nintendo will never win on two things: horsepower and online. It turns out the answer is to court different third parties. People can't read this picture accurately if they persist in thinking of indies and small-studio games as a sideshow to the AAA market. Here, as on PC, they are the market.

NineTailSage · Jun 16, 2020

bxsonic said:
Yeah. CPU will likely be a bigger gap. But I'm not sure how important CPU would be for many games. Would all games suddenly require desktop class CPU to be able to run well? Would all current PC owners have to upgrade their CPUs to at least 8 cores? I'm honestly very skeptical about CPU usage in games.

For the Switch 2, I'm sure that even if Nvidia just use standard ARM designs for the CPU, the single core performance would be pretty close to whatever CPU is in the next gen consoles. We're still at least 2 years away from the final chip design for the Switch 2. Looking at current mobile chips, I'm somewhat optimistic.

CPU's will continue to be important and it's one of the major reasons many Switch games have frame rate issues, or any gaming system for that matter. But going forward PS5 and Series X are targeting different native resolutions, so even if Switch 2 has 8-A78 cores in contrast to the Switch successor targeting much lower resolutions can bring things much closer.

9-Volt · Jun 16, 2020

DeuceGamer said:
I don't think all the 3rd Party Support in the world would have saved Wii U.

It wouldn't save it but it also wouldn't allow it to get stuck at an abysmal number like 15m. With Dark Souls, Skyrim, GTA, Far Cry, Wii U easily hit 30-35 million units. Still failure, but not as bad as reality.

Third party still very crucial to the consoles success. What Wii U proved is Mario is not Nintendo's main draws, it only sells if hardware sells. Nintendo's hardware sellers are Pokémon, Animal Crossing and Zelda, even they alone can carry the console to certain number, it still needs healthy third party support to go beyond Nintendo's usual crowd. This is what Switch did.

Guaraná · Jun 16, 2020

NineTailSage said:
CPU's will continue to be important and it's one of the major reasons many Switch games have frame rate issues, or any gaming system for that matter. But going forward PS5 and Series X are targeting different native resolutions, so even if Switch 2 has 8-A78 cores in contrast to the Switch successor targeting much lower resolutions can bring things much closer.

Resolution changes VGA usage, not cpu.

jetsetrez · Jun 16, 2020

Honestly I really hope Nintendo doesn't go off in some new wacky direction. I am absolutely loving where Nintendo is at right now; an amazing system that can function as a great TV console and a great handheld, with all of their first party effort dedicated to the single platform. This is the dream for me with Nintendo stuff.

The only things I honestly want from Nintendo are more powerful hardware, maybe smaller handheld/bezels, higher resolution handheld screen, and backwards compatibility. Also I really want Nintendo to be better about purchases being tied to account, like I'm hoping the next system lets us take all of our purchases forward and there is just a "library" section that shows everything we own with easy install.

NineTailSage · Jun 16, 2020

QuixoticNeutral said:
This is correct. The software was there, but the Wii U made absolutely no case for choosing to play that software there and not on some other platform. GamePad features couldn't pull that weight by themselves. You're not going to choose to play ME3 there when you can't carry over all your progress in ME1 and ME2. You're not going to play the Arkham games there just for the GamePad mapping when the DLC support doesn't make parity and when you might played City a year earlier already. You could make a case for Deus Ex: HR putting its best foot forward as a port (with most of its revisions eventually making their way back to PC), but even so, that's just one game that was a known quantity already in its base form.

If the Switch's third-party situation depended entirely on all the high-profile AAA ports that have shown up—Skyrim, Assassin's Creed (which tanked like crazy on Wii U), The Witcher III, Doom, Borderlands, and the rest—I actually don't think Nintendo would have been any better off than usual, not even with the killer feature of portability (which finally answers the question, "why would you trade performance to play on Nintendo?"). These are ports that presuppose a platform that is already able to stand on its own two feet.

The difference this generation is that the third-party strategy is no longer chasing the staid old console mentality. It's chasing the Steam mentality. So much of the discourse in this forum is still locked into PS2/Xbox/GameCube-era systems war thinking that it's missing the shift in priorities here. The third parties that matter are here. With the vast majority of those titles, there is little to no performance trade-off at all; the Switch ports pure convenience, and the answer to the question, "why choose to play on Nintendo?" is straightforward and easy.

When it comes to third parties on Nintendo, you always have to ask that question, and assume that Nintendo will never win on two things: horsepower and online. It turns out the answer is to court different third parties. People can't read this picture accurately if they persist in thinking of indies and small-studio games as a sideshow to the AAA market. Here, as on PC, they are the market.

This is a great take on what makes the Switch so popular and the more Nintendo continues to embrace things like croos-play/cross-saves with Microsoft and PC games. It gives more of an incentive to pick up a future Switch system because it may not be a persons primary gaming platform. Allowing gamers to continue playing their save files on the go, which instantly gave so much more value to The Witcher 3 on Switch when that was implemented.

2ndTuXx · Jun 16, 2020

Switch 4KS.

bxsonic · Jun 16, 2020

NineTailSage said:
CPU's will continue to be important and it's one of the major reasons many Switch games have frame rate issues, or any gaming system for that matter. But going forward PS5 and Series X are targeting different native resolutions, so even if Switch 2 has 8-A78 cores in contrast to the Switch successor targeting much lower resolutions can bring things much closer.

I hope so. I personally think that no one should buy Switch 2 for third party AAA games. But I won't be surprised if the Switch 2 get more third party support than the Switch. Assuming that Nintendo does not completely cheap out though. Lol. A proper Tegra X1 style of chip from Nvidia should be plenty impressive even next to next gen consoles.

Ozzie666 · Jun 16, 2020

Nintendo may be able to make the system a bit more chunky feeling, more like the Vita. Maybe not worry so much about sleek, worry about the inside. I wouldn't mind something a bit more beefy and more sturdy feeling. Maybe embrace the lite style more, fixed controllers but still with a tv out and support for proper controllers. Join the Thicc club nintendo.

RedSwirl · Jun 16, 2020

bxsonic said:
Would all current PC owners have to upgrade their CPUs to at least 8 cores?

Red Dead 2 already reportedly runs like shit on 4-core, 4-thread CPUs, and in my personal experience Modern Warfare PC is already choking all four of my cores.

QuixoticNeutral said:
This is correct. The software was there, but the Wii U made absolutely no case for choosing to play that software there and not on some other platform. GamePad features couldn't pull that weight by themselves. You're not going to choose to play ME3 there when you can't carry over all your progress in ME1 and ME2. You're not going to play the Arkham games there just for the GamePad mapping when the DLC support doesn't make parity and when you might played City a year earlier already. You could make a case for Deus Ex: HR putting its best foot forward as a port (with most of its revisions eventually making their way back to PC), but even so, that's just one game that was a known quantity already in its base form.

If the Switch's third-party situation depended entirely on all the high-profile AAA ports that have shown up—Skyrim, Assassin's Creed (which tanked like crazy on Wii U), The Witcher III, Doom, Borderlands, and the rest—I actually don't think Nintendo would have been any better off than usual, not even with the killer feature of portability (which finally answers the question, "why would you trade performance to play on Nintendo?"). These are ports that presuppose a platform that is already able to stand on its own two feet.

The difference this generation is that the third-party strategy is no longer chasing the staid old console mentality. It's chasing the Steam mentality. So much of the discourse in this forum is still locked into PS2/Xbox/GameCube-era systems war thinking that it's missing the shift in priorities here. The third parties that matter are here. With the vast majority of those titles, there is little to no performance trade-off at all; the Switch ports pure convenience, and the answer to the question, "why choose to play on Nintendo?" is straightforward and easy.

When it comes to third parties on Nintendo, you always have to ask that question, and assume that Nintendo will never win on two things: horsepower and online. It turns out the answer is to court different third parties. People can't read this picture accurately if they persist in thinking of indies and small-studio games as a sideshow to the AAA market. Here, as on PC, they are the market.

It's not even just indie and small-dev third party support that's bringing so much value to the Switch, it's Japanese devs too. The Switch works not just because of the western games, but also because it manages to simultaneously be the successor to Nintendo consoles, the 3DS, and the Vita.

Nintendo handhelds never had the 3rd party support problems their consoles did. With Sony handhelds out of the picture, Nintendo glomped whatever "core" non-AAA Japanese gaming was left. I think that market is secure as long as Nintendo maintains a handheld and Japan doesn't completely fall into mobile gaming. Switch is gonna remain the lowest-common-denominator for a lot of Japanese developers for a good while.

Admiral Woofington · Jun 16, 2020

Hear me out. Switch games. On motorcycles

Deleted member 36708 · Jun 16, 2020

bxsonic said:
I hope so. I personally think that no one should buy Switch 2 for third party AAA games. But I won't be surprised if the Switch 2 get more third party support than the Switch. Assuming that Nintendo does not completely cheap out though. Lol. A proper Tegra X1 style of chip from Nvidia should be plenty impressive even next to next gen consoles.

Just more Ram, Bandwith, and higher clocks.

Dakhil · Jun 17, 2020

Cyanity said:
Nintendo needs to get their shit together because at this rate, they're not even gonna catch up to the PS4, let alone next gen consoles. I would looove for them to actually push graphics for once, to even attempt to play ball with the other players on this stage, but Nintendo will do what they always do, and it will be disappointing, as usual.

Assuming that Nintendo releases the "Nintendo Switch 2" on 2023 that runs on a Tegra SoC with Cortex-A78 CPU cores and an Ampere GPU, I think the "Nintendo Switch 2" can be around the PlayStation 4 Pro when raw performance is concerned without too much trouble. And assuming that the "Nintendo Switch 2" supports and takes advantage of DLSS, I think the performance between the "Nintendo Switch 2" and the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X can potentially be smaller than the performance gap between the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4/Xbox One.

plan9 said:
Switch Pro/2 in late 2021 or 2022 with DLSS 2.0 and performance level around OG Ps4 (undocked) & Ps4 Pro (docked, with some extra HW possibly in dock) will go a long way towards continued AAA 3rd party support. I also expect some advances in cloud gaming for the next one. I'd say Nintendo is in a pretty good place right now.

I don't think the "Nintendo Switch Pro" is going to support DLSS if the "Nintendo Switch Pro" is going to be released around 2021. But I think there's a good chance the "Nintendo Switch 2" can support DLSS.

Eamon · Jun 17, 2020

If the past several years have shown us anything, it is that we are seeing the Platform holders drifting further and further apart from eachother - Xbox has its' eyes set on establishing a hardware agnostic platform, while Nintendo has built a dominant handheld/console hybrid that succeeds off the backs of its exclusive IP and indie support. I think Nintendo will likely try to expand the Switch into other hardware styles/niches while retaining software compatibility - similar to the 3DS.

Moist_Owlet · Jun 17, 2020

Online that isn't shit, an OS with actual features that were standard in 2007, hardware that can output games at native resolution, controllers that aren't expensive pieces of chintzy garbage. Nintendo has plenty of work to do

NineTailSage · Jun 17, 2020

*Guaraná said:
Resolution changes VGA usage, not cpu.

Yes I get that the gpu handles the visual output, but these next-gen systems are striving for more things happening on screen than previous generations and that takes balance to have both high image quality with great performance as well...
Xbox Lockhart(Series S) is the better metric of where Nintendo should target Switch's successor spec wise and I could see both of these systems sharing many ports in the future.

NineTailSage · Jun 17, 2020

bxsonic said:
I hope so. I personally think that no one should buy Switch 2 for third party AAA games. But I won't be surprised if the Switch 2 get more third party support than the Switch. Assuming that Nintendo does not completely cheap out though. Lol. A proper Tegra X1 style of chip from Nvidia should be plenty impressive even next to next gen consoles.

See I think it's the opposite, a Switch 2 will be just as successful as the current model if Nintendo continues to embrace things like cross-play and cross-saves but in having much better specs. The ability to continue your games on the go from your PC or Series X and then back again is a bigger reason to have Switch as a companion system and if the successor can get more Series-S ports of next-gen games this grow even further.

Cyanity · Jun 17, 2020

Dakhil said:
Assuming that Nintendo releases the "Nintendo Switch 2" on 2023 that runs on a Tegra SoC with Cortex-A78 CPU cores and an Ampere GPU, I think the "Nintendo Switch 2" can be around the PlayStation 4 Pro when raw performance is concerned without too much trouble. And assuming that the "Nintendo Switch 2" supports and takes advantage of DLSS, I think the performance between the "Nintendo Switch 2" and the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X can potentially be smaller than the performance gap between the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 4/Xbox One.

I don't think the "Nintendo Switch Pro" is going to support DLSS if the "Nintendo Switch Pro" is going to be released around 2021. But I think there's a good chance the "Nintendo Switch 2" can support DLSS.

Fingers crossed that you're right!

bxsonic · Jun 17, 2020

NineTailSage said:
See I think it's the opposite, a Switch 2 will be just as successful as the current model if Nintendo continues to embrace things like croos-play and cross-saves but in having much better specs. The ability to continue your games on the go from your PC or Series X and then back again is a bigger reason to have Switch as a companion system and if the successor can get more Series-S ports of next-gen games this grow even further.

Yeah. I think Nintendo can just iterate on the Switch and make it be successful. But who knows how willing third parties are to port games to Switch or what technical issues there might be due to the power gap. I personally would love more third party ports, but I wouldn't purchase a Switch 2 with that expectation.

Marmoka · Jun 17, 2020

DeuceGamer said:
I don't think all the 3rd Party Support in the world would have saved Wii U.

Agree. The pad was expensive, not attractive, developers did not know what to do with it, horrible to use,... The concept did not work. And the console itself had an architecture that made very difficult to develop games, and so most multiplatform games looked worse than in PS3/360.

Smash and Mario Kart did not make the console sell well, more third party games like GTA V wouldn't either.

I had a Wii U, the console had great first party games and the pro controller was amazing, but overall the existence of the console was a complete disaster. I do not regret buying it, but still I consider it an abomination. It weird that without the Wii U, the Switch wouldn't have existed, and least something great came from it, not everything was bad.

nikatapi · Jun 17, 2020

Definitely hoping they continue on the Switch path. I think people have proved they're willing to buy even older games, just to have them on the go. If the eventual successor is able to handle most popular online multiplayer games (like fortnite etc) and handle some more high-profile games, it will be a hit i think.

I mean i would never have thought that Witcher 3 or Wolfenstein or Doom would be possible on a portable, and yet i played all of these games on Switch because of the convenience, despite owning them on PS4 as well.

It's a concept that works and works well, if the games are still playable even with sacrifices. And with DLSS and similar tech we could see an even more potent docked experience.

I also hope that Nintendo will improve their retro offerings, i mean Switch is missing N64-GC-Wii games and i'm pretty sure the successor would handle these games perfectly.

So a better display (i don't mind 720p as long as the games are native res), better joycons (in terms of ergonomics and durability), better connectivity (bluetooth headphone support pls) and hopefully good battery life, seems like a hit for me.

T002 Tyrant · Jun 17, 2020

1) Give us a minor upgrade that allows better resolutions and more stable frame rates on some games (1080p BOTW, slightly higher average resolutions and FR stability on Witcher 3 or XC:DE for example), essentially a more pleasent experience all round (not that I have too many complaints)

2) Give us a Switch 2 with enough power to run PS5 games at a dynamic 720p with additional DLSS 2.0 perhaps powerful enough for a cheap to mid range VR experience.

3) I'd personally like something separate from the Switch which could run the same games just with a brand new home console experience, I dunno control games with your mind or something insane. I know people want a GameCube 2 but I really doubt that Nintendo will ever go traditional ever again.

Aether · Jun 17, 2020

Iceman83 said:
Isnt the Switch right at 1TF?

People cited nvidias pres stuff, the mag of what the x1 could do (1TF at half precision), since game development doesnt use half precision all the time (and depending on optimization some games probably dont use it) and since the switch cant use the full processing power (termal/power ceiling) its far removed from the theoretical 1TF.

Switch 2: probably a tf, maybe even 1.5, a lot of improvements, hopefully great upscaling, a better bandwidth, and a faster ssd. And hopefully they dont skimp on the cpu. If they manage a good balance, well be able to get next gen games @ ~900-1080 with less effects, no raytracing etc, and upskale it to 4k.

Ser_Kafka · Jun 17, 2020

They don't need to compete with Microsoft and/or Sony. They're not in that race.

DeuceGamer · Jun 17, 2020

QuixoticNeutral said:
This is correct. The software was there, but the Wii U made absolutely no case for choosing to play that software there and not on some other platform. GamePad features couldn't pull that weight by themselves. You're not going to choose to play ME3 there when you can't carry over all your progress in ME1 and ME2. You're not going to play the Arkham games there just for the GamePad mapping when the DLC support doesn't make parity and when you might played City a year earlier already. You could make a case for Deus Ex: HR putting its best foot forward as a port (with most of its revisions eventually making their way back to PC), but even so, that's just one game that was a known quantity already in its base form.

If the Switch's third-party situation depended entirely on all the high-profile AAA ports that have shown up—Skyrim, Assassin's Creed (which tanked like crazy on Wii U), The Witcher III, Doom, Borderlands, and the rest—I actually don't think Nintendo would have been any better off than usual, not even with the killer feature of portability (which finally answers the question, "why would you trade performance to play on Nintendo?"). These are ports that presuppose a platform that is already able to stand on its own two feet.

The difference this generation is that the third-party strategy is no longer chasing the staid old console mentality. It's chasing the Steam mentality. So much of the discourse in this forum is still locked into PS2/Xbox/GameCube-era systems war thinking that it's missing the shift in priorities here. The third parties that matter are here. With the vast majority of those titles, there is little to no performance trade-off at all; the Switch ports pure convenience, and the answer to the question, "why choose to play on Nintendo?" is straightforward and easy.

When it comes to third parties on Nintendo, you always have to ask that question, and assume that Nintendo will never win on two things: horsepower and online. It turns out the answer is to court different third parties. People can't read this picture accurately if they persist in thinking of indies and small-studio games as a sideshow to the AAA market. Here, as on PC, they are the market.

Pretty much fully agree. Not only does the Switch make it clear why to choose Nintendo, it also provides Nintendo an obvious path forward to continue to answer that question as I do not see any other console manufacturers going the hybrid, or handheld, path in the future.

Ushay · Jun 17, 2020

I just wanna see HD+ Zelda at some point in my life. Doubt that will happen in the next 5 years now. Even the next iteration may not be able to do that.

DLSS has given me some hope at least.

Advance.Wars.Sgt. · Jun 17, 2020

coldplayer87 said:
We are talking now about new era of Nintendo Switch family system, according to Furukawa stated that "the Switch being a hybrid console does make the situation a bit different compared to the company's home systems of the past". Hence Nintendo will obviously focusing on the switch family as he confirmed " the Switch's lifecycle will "follow a course that is different from our previous Nintendo home consoles."

Of course it will be different - it's half handheld and the legacy of Nintendo handhelds has always been prolonged support even after market relevance.

Instro said:
Well the Switch Lite has been outsold by the normal Switch by a wide margin since it launched, so I don't think there is any danger of them ever going handheld only.

Sol Spartan said:
It's tough to imagine Nintendo ever returning to a dedicated home console at this point. Their competition has run away with the concept.

Sticking with the hybrid concept would be ideal, Nintendo's unique art direction and design philosophies fill in so many shortcomings with the hardware.

Though I could eventually see Nintendo shift into handheld-only hardware, a market they've more-or-less owned for the last 30 years.

I think the focus should be less concerned on the prospects of a handheld-only Nintendo, and more realizing (especially among the stationary console biased members of this forum) that Nintendo has already undergone a corporate slant towards handhelds/portables.

Nevermind the Lite which is 100% handheld, the base Switch model is at least 50% handheld, and since the failure of the Wii U Nintendo has increased their investments in non-Nintendo mobile platforms. Nintendo essentially downsized/neutered stationary console manufacturing and leaned significantly into their handheld brand prowess, precisely because their home consoles devolved to the point of being negatively impactful.

Basically Nintendo wouldn't gain any more ground than they already have by going handheld-only, since they're not that far off from being that as they currently operate anyway.

Where does Nintendo go from here?

Prophet of Truth