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Vodacixi on 25 August 2025
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Soundwave said:
Vodacixi said:

I think the reason that we have the performance profiles we have for both dock and handheld boils down to two factors: battery life and parity between handheld and docked modes.

These are difficult things to balance and I don't think Nintendo has as much room for overclocking and such without compromising these two aspects as some people think. The fact that it can be done doesn't mean it should be done. We are already getting like 2h of battery life while playing Cyberpunk or MKW. That number is barely acceptable for a portable device so I think increasing the clock speeds wouldn't be acceptable for the majority of customers.

If the reality of the world was we lived in say 1998 where mobile battery packs weren't common and trains/planes/airports/coffee shops/malls all didn't have plug in sources every where, I'd say fine limit it. 

But we don't live in that world any more. We live in a world built around the smartphone, as such it's simple and cheap to add additional battery life to your system and it's easy to find plug in sources even on transport these days. 

I think they should allow it to overclock legally. People are going to do it anyway, they might as well allow it in a controlled fashion. Especially with the top USB port, the system is kinda designed now to be plugged in even on the go if you want it to be. It would also deter people from seeking out hacks and overclocking the system in a way Nintendo doesn't want them to. 

The whole "it's only 90 minutes or 2 hours of battery!" stuff just isn't that much of a non-starter anymore (as evident by the fact that sales of the Switch 1 OG and Switch 2 are both through the roof). It's just simple, cheap, and easy to get a longer battery life if that's something you're really concerned with nowadays. Even in the past, the PSP could overclock itself if you plugged it in, that was the way I played my PSP a lot of the time actually. 

If you want your Switch 2 to have like 4-5 hours of play time on the go (say you somehow have a 90 minute train commute both ways or something crazy like that), it's not hard or even expensive to add that functionality. 

Maybe the 2nd fan in the dock is for overclocking, I'm not sure but I haven't noticed it ever turn on while playing currently, which leads to the question of why is it there. Maybe it's there for future performance profiles. 

I don't think Nintendo nor most consumers would be happy with, say, getting DB Sparking Zero at 1080p/60FPS if the price is getting like 1h of battery life or less (I'm just assuming here based on the game's profiles on docked and handheld modes). What you gain in performance you lose it in convinience (and you lose big). Besides, by draining the battery faster you have to charge it faster (and more times), which makes its total lifespan shorter. 

And let's not forget that your average battery bank or some average train USB charging port will charge your Switch 2 VERY slowly and will probably won't even allow you to play while charging... because the battery will drain faster than whathever charge you are getting from that. I don't see that as an actual solution to be honest. If you want to get a decent charging experience, you need to either plug your Switch 2 to an actual socket (which depending on where you are may not be available, specially if we are talking public transportation) with your official or a similar charger or get a battery pack with at least 65w (and those are not that common either: the average battery pack is usually 25w or something like that).

I don't know, I just don't see it as convinient as you do I guess.