What if the next Nintendo console is not the "Switch 2"?

[Pemalite]

JRPGfan said:

Software developement costs are riseing (even for nintendo).
(not nearly as much for nintendo, as their games dont chase hyper realism to the same degree as other platform holders)

Keep in mind most publishers are constantly posting record revenues and profits, making this ultimately irrelevant.
I'm not going to loose any sleep because EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft have higher-development costs when they keep announcing record revenues/profits/sales... And neither should you.

Nintendo doesn't really get to use the "cost of development" excuse when some of it's best-selling games (I.E. Mario Kart 8, Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3, Breath of the Wild, ) are just WiiU ports anyway... As far as I know, the original releases were profitable to a degree, the Switch variants just print free money.

Plus Nintendo balks at the idea of lowering prices on it's games to make them more affordable to lower-income families/individuals anyway, could you imagine the increase in volume sales if they did?

JRPGfan said:

It makes it so haveing 2 systems ( a handheld and a home console, that each require their own software, or ports) less attractive.
Ei. its costly, timely, and limits the amount of great games, you can then have on both.

Solution? do a system that can funktion as both.

Tada! the Switch is born.  (the oppersite route, they went with the Wii U (a homeconsole that could work abit like a handheld)).

a Handheld that can dock, and draw abit more power, and act like a home console.
A hybrid if you will.

I think it was a natural progression for Nintendo to consolidate it's developers and platforms eventually anyway... Even if they had two co-existing platforms (Handheld/Fixed Home console) the idea of having a single game running on both was the ultimate end goal.

I mean, Nintendo *tried* to do that during the Wii/DS and WiiU/3DS era by releasing Wii and WiiU games on DS/3DS with most of the concessions being on the visual front, it was just very difficult due to the hardware differences.

The Switch though, isn't a hybrid, it's a handheld first. It's just that *some* models got a convenient feature to output to an external display, something that Notebooks, Tablets, Phones have been able to do for many years prior.

I mean... For example, here is a Display dock for Windows Phone back in 2015, a few years before the Switch released:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Display_Dock

Not a new technology.

Either way I think at some point Nintendo would have used the same exact hardware between it's fixed console and handhelds at some point, even if the Switch never happened, they gave up chasing graphics and performance, so it was only natural for it to reach that point... That way they could release the exact same developed game on everything.

Ironically... Microsoft has been trying to reach that same goal but using a different approach with it's Smart Delivery system with one game on multiple SKU's of hardware.
It's just a natural goal for console manufacturers I guess.

Nintendo just made it a feature that is extremely seamless and convenient.

JRPGfan said:

The Steamdock is like 7-8 times more powerfull than the Switch, docked.
Thats with x86.... (slightly more power hungry than Arm)

x86 isn't slightly more power hungry than ARM. That is a very broad, arbitrary claim to make.

JRPGfan said:

New Arm CPUs and nvidia GPU, and you could easily do a Switch 2, thats like 10 times the power of the current Switch.
More than enough reason to do a new gen, on graphics and capabilities it would bring to Nintendo gameing alone.
Then factor in new things to tech since.... like DLSS 2,0.

nVidia will own ARM very soon, it will be able to offer a Switch 2 with a massive leap in hardware capabilities by leveraging Denver or the latest Cortex X2 CPU cores with the latest Geforce technology.

I mean... The Switch wasn't even using the best mobile hardware on it's release anyway... Add years of hardware refinement and improvements on top of that and the jump should look impressive.

JRPGfan said:

Switch 2, with DLSS upscale to 1400p1800p for 4K TVs.
A 1080p handheld.

I think we should aim for 1080P first.

JRPGfan said:

Market it as the "4k Switch".

It will get torn apart by the media and community if it cannot achieve 4k though.

Last edited by Pemalite - on 18 August 2021