Looks like a sharpening filter on the Switch side.

These You Tube comparisons don't really work with the compression smoothing out upscaling noise. But looks good on You Tube.

The "small" gap between Switch 2 and home consoles/PC is the result of diminishing returns and game engines/developers failing to make meaningful use (visually and design wise) of the extra hardware resources.

Portable devices beating home consoles as the mainstream gaming platforms is an inevitability and a matter of time. The more interesting question is whether hybrids (Switch, portable PC's, future Playstation handhelds) will momentarily lead traditional gaming (in most/all metrics) or will mobile phones, tablets, and smart TV's take over before that happens.

No wonder. It ain't a native PS5 version... neither a PS4 Pro version. Just the basic PS4 version with its limitations.

Yes, mobile technology is impressive - one look at Galaxy S25, a mobile phone with GPU that performs better than Switch 2 docked, is enough to be in awe - let alone looking at high end dedicated PC gaming handhelds.

Yet, even those high end PC gaming handhelds don't compare to consoles and are order of magnitude slower than high end PCs - it's simple physics, there is no greater mystery behind it. And there will always be people that don't care about portability and just want something sitting next to TV/monitor and doing its thing as best as possible for the price point.

Portables will be on the same level as dedicated home consoles/PCs only when there is no dedicated hardware on offer to begin with and everything is streamed - then it's matter of your internet connection/subscriber plan how good your game is delivered to you, on whichever device you demand it - and that's not in (so) near future.

To be honest even the PS3 had some benchmarks that showed it more powerful than the PS4. The PS4's jaguar cores were a bit rubbish and pre-ryzen when AMD was struggling to keep up with Intel. Obviously the PS4 is still far more powerful than the original Switch in CPU performance and similar to the original Xbox One but generally its very weak even when launched. I have a Athlon 5350 based PC which is just 4 Jaguar cores running at just over 2Ghz. It's in a small form factor PC case. Uncompetitive performance for its time but extremely cheap. I certainly don't have any complaints about Switch 2 CPU performance however the Switch 2 does seem to have a lot of resources used by gamechat and the operating system plus there is a CPU element to DLSS.

Considering the game is a default 60fps on Series S that makes a great contender for the Switch 2. And honestly any game that has a 60fps Series S mode is in a good position to be ported over.

I think some games are running at 360p native when under load on Switch 2 DLSS upscaled to 1080p on portable. When you look at how DLSS works upscaling on PC it is quite impressive but on Switch 2 being a fixed platform the graphics can be optimised so  they give better upscaling results. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wh9eZUpolE

We also know Switch 2 conversions will be optimised to run on the level of hardware so some graphics will be scaled back and then you have the fixed platform optimisations squeezing out the maximum frame rates. I personally don't think its unfair to accept the Switch 2 is powerful based on the fact it can render at much lower resolutions but have good quality higher resolutions thanks to DLSS. It's part of its spec, a more advanced feature and something the PS4 didn't have. I don't think its cheating so personally I don't agree with the Switch 2 is not that powerful as relies on upscaling but I do think in classic terms the Switch 2 is not that powerful and relies on upscaling. I just think DLSS upscaling is amazing in what I've seen of it.

Nintendo are refusing to supply Switch 2 consoles to journalists until the day of release so I'm guessing there is a big negative about part of the spec and they don't want Journalists spoiling the launch. It probably is the poor compatibility with original Switch games and issues there but there is a possibility that it will be related to the spec of the console, maybe not as powerful as expected or poor battery runtime. We have seen development units demonstrated but not final retail units so this will be interesting. As ever even when I do buy consoles close to launch I usually wait a month or two just so the hardware can be improved and initial problems of launch hardware solved. 

Even though I'm not planning on buying a Switch 2 I still love a new console launch. 

I just tried Yakuza 0 in "ultra settings" on the Steam deck.

Rock solid 90 fps in 1280x800, 60 - 90 fps in 1920x1200 (great supersampling antialiasing), 40 - 60 fps in 2560x1440 and 20 - 35 fps in native 4K UHD.

They probably used a lower texture resolution for the PS4 version (which is also used on PS5) due to only 8 GB RAM (4,5 - 5,0 GB available to games).

The Switch 2 has a RAM advantage compared to PS4 and even PS4 Pro, so it can use better textures.

It's a lot easier to make something look good on a you tube video or small portable screen.

And yep it's simple physics. Just as streaming can never beat local computing for input lag, portables can never beat a bigger box that's more thermal efficient. A 15 watt device simply cannot deliver the same as a 300 watt device.

Switch 2 has 5 year newer hardware than PS5, 12 year on PS4. It should look better than PS4 at least.

How does it stack up to Quest 3 and what will Quest 4 bring in 2026?

How does DLSS from 360p/540p to 1080p/1440p look on a 83" 4K HDR OLED? (without you tube smoothing everything over)

This generation has been a slow one, most games can still run on last gen hardware. For that Switch 2 is perfectly positioned. But I doubt it will get people to abandon their boxes and stick a tablet next to the TV instead. It's comparable to PS5/Series X, not better. There's no upgrade to Switch 2, it's a compromise for portability. Just like the Switch is for PS4.

We've been here before

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.