Was Nintendo right to opt out of the graphics arms race?

[Soundwave]

Pemalite said:

curl-6 said:

I mean I'd argue the system was "good enough" for most folks, just maybe not so much for some enthusiasts.

While the lack of HDMI was a shame, with a set of component cables I'd argue it's better-made games actually looked fine for the time, obviously a generation behind PS3/360 but still acceptable enough.

Stuff like Mario Galaxy 1/2, Metroid Prime 3, or Monster Hunter Tri looked satisfactory to me, and I had a PS3 and 360 too.

I would also argue the system would have exhibited a longer life if it had the extra horsepower to run with the HD twins, it would have been more appealing to the more hardcore userbase.

I am not saying Wii games looked atrocious at the time, just that they could have been better... Especially when it came to multiplats like Call of Duty.

I do enjoy running my Wii games on the Wii U though, that HDMI output just cleans things up nicely, but would have been even better if Wii games were a 720P output which a more powerful system could have enabled. (I.E. An 8-pipeline GPU)

Soundwave said:

The Switch 2 is not much like the Wii or DS at all, it's a premium product with really high end graphics capability for a mobile device, it holds its own and even in some cases surpasses like $600+ PC handhelds and can run modern versions of modern games. You couldn't run the PS3 version of like Madden NFL or Call of Duty natively on the Wii or DS, no way, the Switch 2 can do that for PS5 games. 

The Wii had to have its own versions of things like Call of Duty and Ghostbusters made for it. 

The Switch 2 is not a product with "High-end graphics" for a mobile device. The Switch 2 is competent, but it's not high-end, it's more mid-range, with a severely cut back CPU. It's a price-sensitive part on a fabrication process which has plenty of capacity.
The Samsung-fabricated 8nm-class Tegra chip just can't hold a candle to modern 3nm/2nm TSMC-class mobile chips, the laws of physics is literally coming into play here.

The Samsung Xclipse 950 GPU uses RDNA3 is arguably a more powerful mobile chip... Even that gets beaten by Adreno 830.
Xclipse 960 isn't far away from releasing either, which is supposed to offer upwards of 50% better performance and should give Adreno and Mali a run for their money.

And Apple has been dominating for years in the performance stakes.

I would also argue that the Switch 2 is not a "premium" product either, not with that ostensibly offensive, garbage LCD display which can't even do real HDR, let alone switch the pixels fast enough to reduce blur.

The Switch 2 is a price-sensitive part that aims to be a good gaming platform, but the rest of the industry hasn't exactly sat on it's laurels while nVidia exited the mobile space to focus on A.I, Industrial and Cars with Tegra Orin.

You can say that for any console, PS5 could have used a better GPU and had a better CPU, mainstream consoles have to be sold at a reasonable price point and generally even at a profit these days because stock investors have more sway over CEOs today (it you don't hit revenue/profit targets for a quarter or two, you're fucked). Switch 2 is performing on par with some $600+ portable PC devices and very clearly just from looking at the device and holding it, it's not some cheap toy. It's a heavy, premium feeling product with a giant ass screen. They skimped a bit on the power draw the main display can have to save on battery life, but otherwise in terms of performance you're not getting much of anything on the market for $450 as good as that. 

It outperforms the Steam Deck significantly, it can run PS5 games even heavy ones like Star Wars Outlaws respectably even in its launch window, that's an impressive level of performance for a mobile device. Never in the 3D era has a portable device from any of Sony/Nintendo/MS been able to run more or less current gen games without too much fuss. The PSP definitely wasn't pumping out PS2 level visuals, nor was the Vita able to run PS3 games, and the Switch could kinda/sorta run PS4 tier games but often at significant compromise. The Switch 2 is better at running the present day modern games than things like the PSP and Vita which were impressive for their time. 

Nvidia also dwarfs every other chipset manufacturer, lol, so it's not like any of them have anything to teach Nvidia. Nvidia has one of the largest market caps in the world, they could buy all of Sony and shit them out for breakfast if they wanted to. There's nothing a Samsung is going to teach them, they have the best engineers on the planet. 

And even as is, I think if Nintendo knew all the tarrif/RAM price increases that were coming in the future, this may not have been the chip design they chose, they may have opted for something cheaper, because I bet right now they're probably not too happy with things like RAM prices. But too late to cut anything now, we got a very nice piece of kit.