By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
curl-6 on 16 July 2021
Edit Thread
tsogud said:
curl-6 said:

After the Pro and X came out last gen lower resolutions became more common on the base models, and look no further than Cyberpunk for a game that clearly wasn't optimized for the 2013 consoles, or Hyrule Warriors on 3DS were the base model was 20fps and it only ran okay on the New model. And the New 3DS did have games not on the base model at all; Xenoblade, FE Warriors, Minecraft, Binding of Isaac, even the SNES virtual console.

Just as you're free to "carry on" about the current Switch's performance level, I'm free to "carry on" here and now that it's satisfactory to me personally. I'm playing through Astral Chain on it now for instance and it looks and runs just fine. Clearly most folks are happy with the current model given its flying off shelves at $300 more than four years after its release.

There's no actual hard evidence to attribute lower resolution, poor performance, and/or poor optimization on some games to the Pro/X's mere existence as you previously suggested. Different hardware profiles will provide different user experiences, a more powerful machine will provide a more stable experience with the exact same game. The more powerful hardware isn't the cause of poor performance of software on the lower spec hardware, just that it can run the software more efficiently than the lower spec hardware can.

Hyrule Warriors ran meh on both models, though as mentioned it was better on New 3ds purely because it was more powerful, but both suffered due to limitations. Even though the New 3ds had exclusives it was very few (about 10) and didn't fracture the userbase as an overwhelming majority of 3ds games were developed for the OG model as a base throughout the 3ds lifespan. Kinda off topic but the New 3ds is an example of a useless hardware "upgrade" honestly. The OG model could handle and run the newer 3ds games released at that time at stable/acceptable performances and the hardware was improved very minimally to a point where only like 5 games outside the exclusives benefited from it and even then the benefits were small. Also you can pay for something and later not be happy about it or wish the product you paid for was at least somewhat more polished. Sales don't translate 1:1 with customer satisfaction as the latter isn't so cut and dry.

If a pro comes to fruition there is no gaurantee that there will be exclusives. If it does happen and there's no exclusives like with the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, and the only big difference from OLED Switch would be improved hardware that significantly improves the performance and resolution of a lot of games would you buy it? Or at least would you consider it?

In cases where optimization is lacking on the base machines and better on the revisions, and the existence of the latter doubles the number of performance profiles that need to be optimized for, I'm not convinced the games didn't suffer on base machines as a result of the revisions.

And if general consumers were unhappy with the Switch's power level, they wouldn't still be buying it in droves, it's well known by now what you're getting from it in terms of graphics so its not like people only realize when they get it home that its less powerful than an Xbox One.

To answer your question, no, I personally wouldn't consider buying a Switch Pro, I have no interest in an enhanced Switch, I want a next gen Switch successor in 2024 and until then I just want my base Switch to be well catered for.