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

[Norion]

Chrkeller said:

Norion said:

The reason is it confirmed that those games were developed with the limitations of the PS4's hardware in mind so had to run ok on that very weak CPU and a hard drive so no taking advantage of way faster modern CPUs and SSD storage speeds. Though with big games getting insanely expensive and taking extremely long to make now PS5 level hardware will be plenty for almost all developers for a long time still considering that GTA 6 will run ok on that level of hardware. With a decent CPU and really fast SSD when it launched the PS5 is in a good place for longevity. The one major thing missing for that is good upscaling though big games will still run on it without that, they'll just increasingly often have awful image quality.

That is where I disagree.  For starters Forbidden West takes a minute+ to load, the ps5 version, handful of seconds.  The ps4 version is locked at 30 fps, while the ps5 offers 60 fps + higher resolution + better draw distance + better volumetric + better textures + better particles.  Games scale, I don't think a game working on weaker hardware holds it back, not with today's modern engines.  

By taking advantage I'm referring to being able to do things that are just not possible on a CPU that weak or a hard drive. For the former one example is Act 3 in Baldur's Gate 3 being really CPU demanding to where the most demanding area can drop into the 30's on the PS5 even after the optimization work they've done and for the latter you have Rachet & Clank: Rift Apart where you get transported instantly to completely different areas where with a hard drive it takes way longer and destroys the creative intent.

On the GPU side ray tracing and DX12 Ultimate features like mesh shaders are things that don't work at all on hardware that wasn't built to support them which is why games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom the Dark Ages can run on a 3050 but not a 1080ti. Generations are for sure way less of a thing than before but they're not fully dead yet since there will be games that come out next decade that would not be able to run on gen 9 consoles, there will just be less of them than before compared to this gen and gen 8.

Last edited by Norion - on 12 January 2026