torok said:
You are correct. The Shield tablet launched at 300 bucks just a bit after the Tegra K1 was launched. So it was top-notch tech by then. It was relaunched a year latter, with a 199 price point. As Switch will pack the X1 and it is already 1 year old tech right now, I think we can assume that it is in a similar pricing as the older SoC was in 2015. So I still think Nintendo could go for 199.
It isn't really packing a lot of stuff. Just the controllers and the dock (probably a more expensive SKU). It also cuts some costs by decreasing the screen resolution, so it can even be the same here. The 3DS is selling at decent numbers for sure, but it has a big library to push it forward. While the XL version is more expensive, people still have cheaper alternatives on the regular New 3DS and the 2DS, so it isn't really selling always at a 200 dollars pricing. As a portable, it has to be cheap to be used as second console. As it is launching mid gen, this is even more important. As for performance, it won't be that easy to run current PS4 games even at 720p. X1 normally does it going from 720p to 900p and switch has pretty much less than half its GPU power and half the RAM. The CPU is probably way weaker since it's an ARM. Anyway, having AAA ports isn't a matter of power. It's a question of sales. PS2 was significantly weaker than both competitors and a hard to develop for machine. If 3rd party software sells well on the Switch, they will be ported. What made Wii U lose 3rd party support wasn't it's limited power. The reason was the low sales of 3rd party games, such as the brilliant port of NFS: Most Wanted. People usually try to justify it with the "60 dollar late port" excuse, but look at what all those remaster are doing on PS4 and X1. If games sell well, 3rd parties will port them to Switch even if they have to almost rebuild the game from scratch. |
Switch, dock and controller that includes Joy Grip and Joy Cons will be part of every SKU, most likly more expansive SKU ($299) will come with game and more storage. Screen today isnt expansive at all, but Switch is packed with lotsa techs and functions (look at that Switch patent thread), and ofcourse dock and controller that includes Joy Grip and Joy Cons. 3DS has 240p screen. :D Actually XL version is best selling version of 3DS from moment appeared on market, despite there are cheaper version of 3DS and 2DS, and actualy 2DS is worst selling version.
Thats a point, Switch isn't just a handheld, it's also home console, its basicly 2 in 1, home console and handheld out of box and out of box ready for local multiplayer without any need to pay for another controller.
Definitely can run evre PS4 ports at 720p with maybe some other smaller downgrades, XB1 has games at 1080p and 900p, and actualy smallest number of 720p games. Point that Switch CPU is ARM doesn't mean it's weak, modern ARM CPU can easily outperform mobile AMD CPU from 2012 (PS4/XB1 CPU is notebook CPU and actualy bottlneck for XB1/PS4), and actually sources saying that Switch CPU will be with power close to XB1/PS4 CPU. I agree that is most for 3rd parties platforms most important is actually popularity of platform, but its also important that Switch tech/hardware is very modern and easy to work with it.
What made Wii U 3rd party are terrible sales of Wii U after launch and fact that was very early clear that Wii U is fail and don't have future, that's why 3rd party totally abandoned Wii U in its 1st year.
mutantsushi said:
But that is bonkers. |
Well this article saying that Pascal's couldn't be done on time for Switch, and maybe Nintendo only wanted Maxwell on time but at 16nm, Tegra at 10nm also couldn't be done on time in any case. And like I wrote, maybe. ;)
