I'm Glad the Wii what it was. Low cost to develop for. It gave us some games companies would not have done otherwise. Stood out Wii but would be lost in the crowd on PS2. Madworld. Zak & Wiki. Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Red Steel 2. No More Heroes. Deblob. 

For me No More Heroes and Madworld stand out. While there was a HD port to PS3, it was not done by Suda and co. He was not a fan and modern HD versions of the game are the Wii version. That PS3 game is inferior anyway except for visuals. Killer is Dead. Anarchy Reigns. Lolipop Chainsaw. Similar kinds of games on HD consoles got lost in the shuffle. I think fewer bought them there than games like that on Wii.  HD console crowd was too busy hating Asia at the time. 

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)

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.

Yeah I also really loved the Wii for what it was; it had a ton of quirky AA titles that may have been costly to make at HD levels of production, in addition to those ones I'd also mention House of the Dead Overkill, Little King's Story, Deadly Creatures, etc. Great and underrated console.

Yeah in hindsight it could have been stronger, but I do understand Nintendo's reasoning at the time, they were taking a big risk and coming off two underperforming consoles, they needed to be prudent.

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.

Correct. Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X are both mid-range, Xbox Series S is low-end... For fixed hardware.
Switch 2 is low-end if compared to fixed hardware, but mid-range when an apples to apple comparison is made to mobile hardware.

Also correct. Price is more important than power when trying to sell in volume to mass consumers, I fall in the top 5% of income earners on Earth, but that's not the majority... You have high and low-socio economic regions across the planet that these devices need to sell into.

In regards to the CPU, portable PC's dominate the Switch 2.
Most portable PC's also have more RAM, they all start at 16GB with many trending towards 24GB-32GB.

It's the GPU where things even out, mostly that is because AMD's mobile graphics is technologically behind, they are still running RDNA2 and RDNA3 solutions rather than the more competent and flexible RDNA4 platform with better upscaling.

But even when AMD handhelds are running RDNA2, they are still returning results that are often ahead of the Switch 2, especially in rasterization.

By comparison, the Switch 2 is cheaper, it is an electronics toy... And that's not a bad thing as like you alluded prior, price is an important facet.

No. The display is just garbage... There isn't any excuse you can formulate on Earth that makes it an acceptable panel.
And implementing overdrive, whilst it would have resolved some of the ghosting issues especially in G2G response times, it's still a garbage display.
I still prefer to pick up my Switch 1 OLED to play in handheld, even for new releases like Metroid Prime 4 over my Switch 2 console, it just looks and performs better because of that display... Colours are vivid, contrasts are top notch, something that the Switch 2 LCD display will never have even if Nintendo implemented Overdrive to fix the ghosting issues.

And whilst the display size increased over the Switch 1 (7.9" vs 6.2"), it's still smaller than PC handhelds like the Legion Go (8.8"), OneXPlayer Mini (8.8"), Ayaneo Kun (8.4"), MSI Claw 8 (8")
So if a large display is an important facet, then there are better options available than the Switch 1 or Switch 2 consoles.

And obviously, PC handhelds have the option of OLED.

The "It sits at this price, nothing can match it for the hardware" is actually a shit argument.

The Switch 2 can't match the Switch 1 OLED price point and offer a better display... We can keep shifting that goal post every day.

Fact of the matter is, you get what you pay for.
PC handhelds offer more, so they cost more... Just like the Switch 2 offers more than the Switch 1 in many areas, thus the Switch 2 costs more.
But neither the Switch 2 or PC handhelds can match the Switch 1 in terms of price/features/performance.


However during Black Friday the Lenovo Legion Go S dropped to $450 AUD, Switch 2 starts at $699 AUD.
The Lenovo Legion Go S also have more than a quarter of a century worth of games it can draw from.

Again, you get what you pay for... But let's not pretend the Switch 2 is the best and cheapest handheld on the market, it simply isn't.

Considering the Steamdeck released 3 years before the Switch 2. I would hope the Switch 2 is faster.

The Steamdeck can also play PC ported, PS5 games, making this a non-argument really.

How the Vita or PSP performs is irrelevant, the difference between today and 22 years ago when the PSP released is that... Mobile hardware outsold fixed hardware like consoles and PC, thus the corresponding R&D investment in mobile technology increased by orders of magnitude...

And because of all of that, mobile hardware tends to be on the leading edge fabrication nodes from TSMC and Samsung whilst AMD, Intel and nVidia tend to run on older and cheaper nodes.

There is absolutely no freaking way that comparing the market from 20+ years ago and using that as an argument for competent technology today makes any sense at all. Things have changed. The market has changed.

Market cap doesn't determine the size of a company. It's not representative of the price of assets, it's not representative of revenues, it's not representative of profit margins, it's not representative of size of the workforce even.
...It's the same trap people fall into when discussing Teraflops or Bits, there is more nuance to these things than a single denominator can showcase.

Market cap is based on the number of shares a company has at a certain price which shareholders can buy into... Thus a company that is getting all the media attention, normally tends to sit into peoples mind-share and attention, which has a flow-on effect to share price.
There is also the "future prospects" that play a role into this as well.

nVidia is currently ranked 50th in terms of revenue (Far below the likes of Apple, Microsoft or Alphabet) and is currently ranked 15th in terms of profit (Again, behind Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple).
nVidia whilst they have done well, aren't the biggest company in the world, they are the company with the largest market capitalization based on the number of shares they have issued at the current price.

Does nVidia even make the most chipsets? Also no.

Intel sold 100~ million chips in 2025. That doesn't include motherboard chipsets, audio chips, networking chips etc'.
Total GPU shipments from nVidia, Intel and AMD was at 75~ million.

Intel sells more chips, but make less profit from each chip sold, plus they run their own fabs which is another additional cost burden, hence why they are struggling financially.

Things are more nuanced than people realize.

Actually, Nintendo is in an enviable position.

Only having 12GB of LPDDRX memory and a paltry 256GB of NAND is playing in their pricing favor whilst we undergo the DRAM and NAND price crunch.

I still would have liked to have seen the Switch 2 come with 16GB of LPDDR5X Ram to let the console breathe for the next 7 years, especially as Ray Tracing, DLSS and Frame-generation are all fighting over a tiny pool of memory... And Nintendo opting to include a large percentage of memory for the OS/Background tasks so it wasn't as clunky and terrible as the Switch 1.

With the Switch 2 the biggest criticism I have is that terrible display and the short battery life and the garbage anti-consumer E-waste Game Key Cards.

The 12GB of Ram instead of 16GB is a small gripe... And mandating SD Express was a very very smart decision.
And I am actually okay with them using a Tegra Orin chip with significantly reduced CPU clocks... Having it on Samsungs 8nm process is definitely a smart cost-cutting decision whilst remaining competent.

The Switch 2 performs on par and better than a lot of those PC handhelds and is in many cases cheaper than them. Sure you can cherry pick limited sales events here and there (largely because no one buys those PC handhelds, their sales volume is pathetically low compared to a mass market device like a Switch 2 that a retail chain doesn't care if they if have to eat a loss on those PC handhelds collecting dust on their shelf, because their total inventory on something like that might be like 20 units total). 

That's fair to give Nintendo some credit for that and that certainly was not the case for the Wii/DS/3DS/Wii U ... this is more in line with the NES/Famicom, Super NES/Super Famicom, N64, GameCube era, all of which provided solid hardware for their time period, ability to run most/all of the modern 3rd party games of their time, and each of which was a tremendous upgrade for its previous hardware iteration. 

The Switch 2 can do all of that too, it's power is beyond what basically 99% of this board predicted, even I who was probably the most optimistic poster on the Switch 2 here while many people were being negative and saying it would top off at PS4 power only ... the final product exceeds my own expectations. I was not expecting things like Star Wars Outlaws with ray tracing intact to run that well at all, and that's basically a launch window game. I thought if you had miracle ports like that maybe that might happen when the system is 2-3 years old. 

The system is solid hardware, some concessions had to be made on the display to keep it at a $450 price range instead of $500 or $600 standard. You conveniently always leave out that OLED devices tend to start at a much higher price point, an 8 inch OLED panel Switch 2 would likely be $600+. $450 is already pushing it to the maximum for a device like this, a lot of people can't afford that, and I'm in the top 1%, I would happily buy a $2000 Switch 2 no questions asked, but that's not the reality for most consumers. Lots of people are hurting these days just at the grocery store, things like $500+ (lets face it everyone and their grandma will buy the Mario Kart bundle) to spend on new video games when the old ones work fine is a luxury for a lot of people post COVID era. 

Again with this silly argument?
The Switch 2 is more expensive than the Switch 1.

By your argument the Switch Lite is the best console on the market based on price alone, coming in at half the price of a Switch 2.
Are you going to tell me the Switch Lite is better than the Switch 2? Are you? It's your pricing argument.

You get what you pay for.

And if you are going to shift the goal post to number of sales of hardware.. That just means you lost any argument you had.
Remember that PC handhelds don't need to sell 60~ million hardware units to get games, they have games before they even release and will get games even after the hardware manufacturer stops supporting the device.
Device manufacturers also sell direct to consumers, they don't need Gamestop/EB Games.

Keep in mind that potentially this year Microsoft may kickstart the next console generation, which will require a pivoting of developers to target newer hardware platforms, which may mean the Switch 2 will fall into the same position as the Switch 1 relative to it's competition.

Actually my prediction for the hardware was pretty bang on.
I had HOPED for 16GB of Ram, but expected 12GB. - Tegra Orin was expected, which (If you do a search back when the Switch 1 first launched) I argued was going to be the chipset of choice for the successor. (Others argued against it as it was meant for nVidia's Driving platform with high TDP's.)
It's hard being right so often when it comes to hardware predictions.

And the games also fall in line with my expectations. I sold my ARC Intel Notebook and bought an nVidia RTX 2050 notebook for my work/firefighter video editing machine while ago... And the RTX 2050 is roughly equivalent to what the Switch 2's GPU is capable of... And the Switch 2 has provided results that are consistent with that.
Only difference with my laptop is that I have 64GB of Ram and a 10-Core processor which was the reason for the purchase for editing reasons.

Games like Cyberpunk, StarWars etc' are all pretty similar in expectation to what I see on my notebook. - Obviously I can run more Physics and better Texturing due to a vastly superior CPU and Memory subsystem.

Parts of the system has solid hardware. I wouldn't say the entire console is solid, not with the offensive display, short battery life, Joycon drift still being an issue.. And it even struggles with overheating in the Australian summer... Not to mention a lack of VRR support whilst docked and no true HDR on the mobile display.

Again the display is the shittiest part of it. And it's a big shitty part. The ghosting and blur, the lack of true HDR, poor colours and contrast... It was a poopy smear on what would have otherwise been a perfectly competent system in almost every aspect... And this didn't need to cost a lot of money to implement either...
The Switch 1 LCD panel is better than the Switch 2 LCD Panel and THAT is a much cheaper console on release.

OLED displays are also found in low-end phones these days like the Samsung A25 which includes a Super AMOLED display at a price lower than the Switch 2.

But you know what would have been a solution?

Release two devices at the same time.

An LCD model.
An OLED model at a higher price.

And then #profit.

Microsoft has proven you can release multiple SKU's with different hardware at once without issue.
Heck, Nintendo even attempted to do it with the Switch 2 with different bundles to hit different price points.

If Nintendo wasn't going to include an OLED display, then they needed to include a competent LCD display... One that is actually able to do HDR at the very least... They failed spectacularly on that front and they deserve criticism and ridicule in the hopes they will resolve the sticking point... Either via a software update (I.E. Overdrive) or a revision with a better LCD (VA?) or OLED.

The display is the absolute most important aspect of any mobile device, it's what you spend time looking at, it's what you spend time engaging with, it's what provides the first impression... And Nintendo failed in that aspect.
And no amount of mental gymnastics will change the fact that the Switch 2 display is atrocious.

And some people would've liked to have the PS5 Pro day 1 too ... they had to wait and pay a lot more. A $600+ Switch 2 model really wouldn't be selling well in this economy, $450-$500 as is is pushing it for a lot of people. Holding off on OLED was the correct move, they can release an OLED model with a die-shrink 1-2 years down the line and get a sales boost then, if they had it now it would just be a $600-$650 device with a very niche audience. 

For $450 there has to be some compromises to get a system in at that price point, which is already quite high for a lot of folks. Everyone knows an OLED model Switch 2 will happen eventually and Nintendo is saving it for a future sales bump (just as Sony saves things like Pro models for down the line). 

The most important thing is it can run PS5 tier multiplatform games, that matters far more than what the numbers of anything are. That means its the first Nintendo game console since the GameCube that can plausibly run modern gen titles and as a result it's going to get games like Star Wars Outlaws, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Call of Duty, Monster Hunter Wilds, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Resident Evil Requiem, Indiana Jones & The Great Circle, 007: First Light, modern engine NBA 2K, FC Soccer, Madden NFL, etc. etc. maybe even GTA VI at this rate. The window is definitely open, whereas a year ago would some people have scoffed at the idea of many of these games being possible on the Switch 2 at all. 

That matters way more than anything else hardware wise. 

This is the first time in the history of 3D gaming hardware too that a mainstream portable console is able to run basically the current gen games of its time. The PSP and Vita could not and obviously the DS and 3DS weren't even close. The Switch had a spotty track record, the Switch 2 is really the coming of a new era of visual performance mainstream audiences can expect on the go, they can play essentially all/most of their home console games in a portable form factor. That's definitely a notable gaming evolution. 

If back in the day with the Playstation 1 or N64, there was a portable device that could basically run games like Final Fantasy VII or Super Mario 64, most people's heads would've exploded. Today's kids get to play Star Wars Outlaws even with ray tracing effects on a relative affordable and portable device, that's fucking bonkers. 

Switch 2 is the first Nintendo system I have been content with the specs since Gamecube.

Yep, me too. 

Honestly back in the day I listened to too much bullshit on internet forums and couldn't even appreciate the GameCube because people were saying "24MB of RAM only!!! It should have more than the PS2!!!! XBox has 64MB!". 

But the thing is the GameCube was considerably better hardware than the PS2. You look at something Resident Evil 4 and it looks light years better on the GameCube over PS2. I never appreciated it really at the time and people never gave the hardware its due at the time either. It was remarkably powerful for $200 (quickly discounted below that) piece of hardware. 

You can just get so caught up in all the bullshit that you don't appreciate what you have at the time. After going through the Wii/Wii U era ... boy oh boy do I ever appreciate the GameCube hardware and what it was for its time period and price range, never got the love it deserved as a hardware unit in its time but now I think people appreciate it more. Amazing piece of kit, a lot of its top games still look good even to this day. 

Switch 2 is a welcome return to that kind of philosophy. Good hardware performance for a reasonable cost. I think they did some crazy ass optimization between Nvidia and Nintendo to get this kind of performance from an 8nm chip too. I'm quite happy with this result, it's beyond expectation and I had high expectations.