(Rumor) Nintendo discarded "Switch Pro"

[Pemalite]

curl-6 said:

Pemalite said:

Indeed they do, yet... Many games are held back because of the hardware.

I think it's been established over the years, most notably with the Wii, that performance and graphics aren't important for a device to sell well.

But by that same extension... Just because a device sells well, doesn't mean it's perfect by an means.

Case in point... Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is certainly held back by the hardware, an overclocked Switch resolves most of the performance issues.


And because of such, a higher performing Switch would offer a far better experience to a Switch owner than the current hardware models... It may/may not increase sales of hardware, but that is irrelevant... It's about maintaining a degree of quality and playability in games.

Chrkeller said:

This exactly.  The switch clearly doesn't "need" much of anything.  It was a wild success and has a superb software library.

It needs better hardware, there are those who don't care if a game looks crap or runs at 15fps...
For someone like myself, I do care... And I want Nintendo to do better and offer us more to keep driving innovation and competition.

The game Library is definitely a strong point of the Switch, even if a chunk of it's best selling titles are ports from an older console, many newer games I am passing over or returning (Pokemon) because they are unplayable. - But there are millions who still rushed out and played the title to death despite it's technical shortcomings and issues.

There are always going to be a subset of consumers who expect a degree of quality out of their games, I'm one of them.

Pokemon feels to me like more an example of horrible optimization given that other open world titles on Switch like Xenoblade 3, Dying Light, and Breath of the Wild look and run vastly better, even despite the last being made for weaker hardware.

It should never have been allowed to release in the state that it's in, but I think even if the Switch was much more powerful it would still be a technical mess as it just seems like an incredibly rushed product. Gamefreak have been churning out so many Pokemon games they just seem to thrust them out the door before they're finished in order to stick to their unworkable release schedule.

An overclocked Switch runs the game much much much better. It's actually playable IMHO. Not 60fps playable, but definitely playable.

This is generally the benefit of a "Pro" console, where those older games that struggle on base hardware, run far better on superior hardware, even without optimization or tweaks.

The other thing is, many Switch games employ dynamic resolution scaling, all of the games you mention... Aka. Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Breath of the Wild and Dying Light would run at a higher resolution, without being optimized for a newer device... Naturally.

Xenoblade is most often running at 540P on the handheld panel, which is passable, but an overclocked Switch? 720P, which definitely removes much of the images softness... But adding to that, things like the cloud rendering is done at quarter resolution... That would make it 540x270 when the output is 540P. Rather than the potential of 640x360 if it was running at 720P.

Xenoblade 3 is a far far less blurry game than Xenoblade 2, but it's still not pixel perfect with the display, yet... And during fast action sequences the temporal upscaling technique does falter.