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HoloDust on 25 March 2024
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Soundwave said:

I don't think Vita level hardware would look very good on a TV either circa 2012, even Miyamoto said HD is important, by 2011/12 everyone and their grandma (literally) had a HDTV ... to have a "console" that only outputs at like 540p (sub HD resolution) would be another blow against it.

The concept just wasn't ready for prime time in 2011/2012. Mobile chip tech just wasn't there yet. The console side experience especially would've been quite underwhelming.

The other thing is it would have likely cost $250-$300 with mostly the 3DS library ... and take a gander at how the 3DS was selling at $250.

It basically would be a more powerful version of the 3DS with TV output, but I suppose minus the 3D screen quite probably. The Tegra 3 was still a very new chip circa November 2011. 

Well, Vita level hardware would probably be just barely able to pull it off - default Vita resolution was 960x544. So let's take Borderlands 2, as the example of the game I remember that was ported from home consoles - it runs in this resolution, but not terribly good. Once you lower resolution to 720x408 (like a lot of other games used) it runs with locked 30fps on non-overclocked Vita. If you had Vita dock, that lets Vita overclock quite a bit while docked and additionally cooled, it's just might be possible it would hit 1280x720, which would be enough for TVs of PS360 era (not that even all the games on PS360 ran in 720p, especially later in the cycle).

But yeah, overall, I don't think tech was quite there yet, for all 3rd party support Switch got. On the other hand, if they cared just for their own games and some of the 3rd party support (especially indie games), I'd say, technologically, it was quite feasible.

Last edited by HoloDust - on 25 March 2024