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Soundwave on 08 May 2020
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curl-6 said:
Soundwave said:

There really is no development separation between Switch 1 and 2 though, that's kind of the beauty of sticking with Nvidia and using mobile components. 

There is no Switch 1 game you can make that won't be on Switch 2, those will just be then cross platform titles available for both. It'll be easy enough to make the game run at higher resolution on the better hardware, just as PC games do. 

If you're making like a Kirby platformer on Switch 1 in 2024 ... there's no reason to not have that game run on the Switch 2 at 1080p/4K as well. It would be a title for both systems. That dynamic has never really occurred widely on Nintendo systems ever before, but the Switch will be able to do it. 

So your development resources really aren't split. 

Cross-gen development between hardware of very different power levels isn't that simple though, unless you take the lowest common denominator approach of only boosting resolution, and in that scenario Switch 1 and 2 would cannibalize each other as the cheaper older system would be too viable a cheap alternative with many of the same games.

Yes it is that simple for lower end projects like a 2D Kirby or something. 

PC developers make games for like 10 different profiles with no fuss, virtually all modern games are designed to scale to different hardware and wildly so ... look at games like Monster Hunter World and Resident Evil 2 Remake are able to run on hardware as low as GPD Win which is weaker than a Switch with no developer optimization. 

The lower rung games would be the ones that play on the new Switch. Switch 2 can have specific games that only run on it, but the point is the Switch 1 games will all run on Switch 2. This wasn't doable on the 3DS ... games like Metroid II Remake were 3DS only because it's a completely different architecture. But lets say in 2024, Nintendo decides to do a Super Metroid remake on Switch ... hell yes that will be able to run on Switch 2 and likely enhanced to higher resolution without a fuss. That will be a difference for sure. 

It's more like making a game for PS4 and PS4 Pro in that sense. FF7 Remake runs just fine on the PS4 Pro, it just runs the same game at a higher resolution, it's not as if they had to rebuild a second version of the game to have it run on PS4 Pro.

Switch 2 owners in its first 1-2 years are predominantly going to come from existing Switch 1 owners who were early adopters to that system (buyers in 2017, 2018). There's not going to be that much overlap between a $350 system and a $200/$149.99 Lite version. The people who buy a system in year 6/7 are completely different from early console adopters, they're not buying a system for $300-$350 no matter what.