| h2ohno said: From what I understand based on the specs that have come out, the Switch 2 is overperforming relative to its actual specs, and this comes down most of all to DLSS being a true game-changer, but also to games not truly pushing current-gen consoles like they should and third-parties doing a much better job at optimising games for Switch 2 than they've done for the last 3 generations. |
I don't think its overperforming at this stage because its new hardware although accept its been in development a long time. I think we can state its CPU performance is a massive upgrade on the original Switch and even PS4 so it has the CPU performance to run much more sophisticated game engines plus there is a lot more memory. In GPU terms I think its relying heavily on upscaling and I don't think it's performance is that high. I remember so many times with Nintendo hardware that before launch people were hoping and even expecting high performance but reality hit home after launch. I remember the wii u and at the beginning it was claimed to be 700 Gflops or more and then we got a technical breakdown of the hardware and it could either be 352 Gflops or 176 Gflops and in the end it was confirmed as 176 Gflops below that of both Xbox 360 and PS3. In fact many games on those systems ran better than wii u, higher resolutions, higher frame rates, much better sound etc despite the wii u launching much later. At this point I don't see how the portable performance figures given can be true based on the fabrication process and small capacity battery so I'm expecting a reset on those figures at some point. I'm expecting them to be well under 1 Teraflop in real terms.
The recent DF video on Hogwarts shows the Switch 2 is mainly using PS4 quality assets and in actual size the game is half that of the PS4 version. Of course optimising size is not something the PS4 has to do in many ways as its an optical drive but still the installed size is twice as big. I remember the wii u having far inferior sound to PS3 which often had amazing soundtracks in 7.1 surround. In that DF video a few bits and pieces were better on PS4 than Switch 2 and the upscaling quality of Switch 2 was a bit poor in places however in other places the assets were more of Xbox series S quality. It felt like the Switch 2 was sitting in between PS4 and maybe PS4 Pro but of course if you eliminated the DLSS upscaling from the console it would be well below PS4 in portable terms.
Overall I think Switch 2 is a huge upgrade on Switch 1 and brings a new level of performance on proprietary portable gaming hardware. I don't think we would want it too powerful anyway and end up with only a battery runtime of 1 hour or less. It's been pegged in the middle with regards battery runtime and performance which is probably the best place to be commercially. Remember the fabrication process is not great, it's dated so its a bit power hungry anyway.
I can see the later version of the Switch 2 addressing many issues with perhaps use of a better fabrication process and a OLED screen so battery runtime will improve massively and you will have a better quality screen to boot.
Lowering the performance and going for cheaper components means Nintendo have wiggle room if the Switch 2 doesn't perform as well commercially as they hoped, it means they could lower pricing in many markets in order to increase demand and get the platform to more people. I think there is a chunk of people that bought the original Switch at the pricing there that won't be buying the Switch 2. Parents who have 2 or more children to buy a console for may opt out of Switch 2 because of pricing.
I think the biggest competition for Switch 2 is the original Switch and can see it outselling it for sometime due to price advantage. The Switch Lite is amazing value nowadays and much more portable with much better battery runtime. You could say its a far superior portable platform. I saw a video on youtube of a modded Switch Lite and it was amazing how much they could overclock it to run games to a much better standard too. Zelda BOTW etc at 60fps and running Gamecube games emulated like Zelda Windwaker. Even with the overclocking it still got much better battery runtime than Switch 2. They even had it running PS1, PS2, PSP and Vita games which I thought was super impressive. Also both Linux and Android operating systems were available. In it's overclocked state they even had it emulating itself which I thought was quite funny but pointless of course.
Personally I'm the sort of gamer that isn't obsessed with new games, most of which I don't find that good. I prefer playing the best games and those are on multiple platforms and across a long period of time.
If it wasn't for the new Mario Kart game it would feel like a bit of a poor launch. I think that game will sell more Switch 2s than any other reason.
