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

Tagged games:

 

Was it the right decision?

Yes 74 88.10%
 
No 10 11.90%
 
Total:84
xMetroid on 12 January 2026

People saying no are crazy as this was the only possible outcome now. Playstation and Microsoft are both struggling to support even 1 system, Nintendo couldn't have done 2. Also, them being a little behind gives them and technology time to evolve as they can learn from other's mistakes.

All that aside, the only negative aspect nowadays is not being able to have all the ports, cause even for the experience i feel like Switch 2 is achieving something amazing visually. On top of that, i doubt a new generation will come soon as both Sony and MS are struggling to even find footing on this current one. GTA 6 being delayed will make the console ride the success for a while too. I also think devs aren't ready for another upgrade and consumers haven't felt like the current gen is satisfying in the very least. Switch 2 will probably be able to co-exist with PS5/XB for longer than we think.



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Soundwave on 12 January 2026
Wyrdness said:
Soundwave said:

It's easy to say after the fact "oh yeah that was always going to happen". 

The fact is people should probably avoid making sweeping generalizations about things they frankly aren't very clued in on. 

I have no idea what Microsoft's game division is doing with the next XBox. I know someone named Sarah Bond I think is running the division (is that even correct?) but I'm not going to make sweeping statements about what they're doing, I don't know who the fuck is in charge of their hardware division or what their priorities are at all and I'm not going to sit here and pretend I would know what their philosophy. 

Nintendo's business model is to make money, period. How they accommodate that radically changes from decade to decade, if you told people here 15 years ago that movies and theme parks would be a core pillar of Nintendo's business and Miyamoto would be working more on movies than games, most people would say "no chance in hell". If you said they'll have a paid online network, people would always "no way, never". Well shit changes, Nintendo has completely different leadership that grew up in a completely different time period of time with completely different ways of looking at things today and the market conditions are completely different from what the market was 10 years ago, let alone 20. 

MS don't even know what they're doing tbh where as Nintendo do as the latter have a core identity and philosophy that they stick to in all their eras of being, nothing has radically changed at Nintendo they've just found a modern way to execute their usual approach, movies have always been a thing it's just until now where they could be executed well unlike the 1993 Mario attempt, media was always a thing with SMB animated series along with Zelda, Pikmin shorts, Kirby etc... People never dismissed them having paid online if anything people said they'd pay for better online I remember that sentiment from the Wii days, Nintendo's current President said in an interview a few days ago that the films, media and theme park are to introduce and increase exposure for their IPs in other words divert more people to their platforms to buy games which is their core philosophy as licenses on the platform are their main income.

BraLoD said:

GBC is a separate system with BC, not a "pro" model of the GB, it has many exclusives, as many games as the Nintendo 64 had in Japan, if I recall it right. It just had a crossgen period which was new back then, but it's like other systems have since some time now.

Devs wanted to support the old system with games because of its existing userbase, just the same as they want now. It's even the same with Switch 2 where Switch 2 games carts that are crossgen can be used on Switch 1 physically, as were the black carts for Gameboy Color back then.

Even the best game on GBC, Pokémon Crystal, can't run on a GB, people that say both are the same say because Nintendo combined both system sales, but they are definitely two separate systems, like the Switch 1 and 2 are now.

GBC is a pro model hence why its sales are counted together with the GB it was just handled as a separate platform to fill a massive void as the Atlantis project which was the GB2 was too expensive to proceed with, rumoured that it would have cost more than even consoles if released.

I've followed Nintendo for decades so I've heard it all. 

"Nintendo will never allow blood/violence on their console"

12 months later: Mortal Kombat 2 is allowed on the SNES will all the blood and fatalities and even more than we're even making our own violent fighter with blood called Killer Instinct out in arcades in a few months time. Turns out we never cared if kids were exposed to violence. 

Nintendo says CD-ROM is the future. Then they say CD-ROM is not the future. So then Nintendo will never use discs ... until they then used discs for 3 consoles in a row. 

32-bit is dinky technology, 64-bit bleeding edge Jurassic Park graphics babeee! Wait for the Nintendo 64! Graphics matter!

Wait! Graphics don't matter!

Nintendo doesn't support cinematic games with cutscenes, you'll never see them doing anything about that, they have no interest in the movies! Separate art form. Fast forward to today when Miyamoto is primarily working on and overseeing ... Hollywood movies (lmao). 

Nintendo will never make a controller based console with only a minimal tech leap, no way, no previous Nintendo console has done that (Wrong ... Wii). 

Nintendo is a champion of traditional gaming and will never do DLC!!! Games should arrive 100% on the cartridge/disk day 1!!!!

OK so Nintendo is doing DLC, but they'll never charge money for it like Sony and MS do (okey dokey). 

Smartphone games are the plague on gaming! Nintendo will never, ever make smartphone games (hold my beer). 

Nintendo will never make a portable will less than 6 hours battery life! OK, never less than 5! 4? 3? (runs)

Nintendo will never make a hybrid console!! NX is a separate console and handheld, just like they've always done!! (uh huh)

Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. there's a ton of other variations of this. Nintendo varies wildly depending on who is actually the president/board of directors and what is happening in the modern market. What applies to 2006 doesn't apply to 2016 or 2026 or 1996 or 1986. Nintendo does whatever they think is advantageous for them in the moment and that changes radically over time. 

The other funny thing is you would think Nintendo's current president must have grown up a Nintendo fanboy with the Famicom, but while he says he had a Super Famicom, he generally didn't play Nintendo games on it, just third party stuff lol.  

Last edited by Soundwave - on 12 January 2026

Norion on 12 January 2026
Chrkeller said:
Norion said:

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.

Fair points.  I suppose cross gen might hold back some developments  but it seems somewhat negligible at this point.  Plenty of games have optional RT, so the ps5 could push RT on cross gen ports.  Heck isn't spiderman one of those examples?

And all hardware eventually will be obsolete, that is a good point, the window is just much larger.  

RT is something that will become a proper standard next decade, the current consoles are bad at it so this generation is a transitional period for that technology. In the next 5-10 years the huge wild card with this is AI since how quickly world models advance will matter massively. It's something that could potentially make the PS6 become outdated fast depending on how things go.

Last edited by Norion - on 12 January 2026

Soundwave on 12 January 2026
Norion said:
Chrkeller said:

Fair points.  I suppose cross gen might hold back some developments  but it seems somewhat negligible at this point.  Plenty of games have optional RT, so the ps5 could push RT on cross gen ports.  Heck isn't spiderman one of those examples?

And all hardware eventually will be obsolete, that is a good point, the window is just much larger.  

RT is something that will gonna become a proper standard next decade, the current consoles are bad at it so this generation is a transitional period for that technology. In the next 5-10 years the huge wild card with this is AI since how quickly world models advance will matter massively. It's something that could potentially make the PS6 become outdated fast depending on how things go.

I have my doubts. Real deal traditional ray tracing with real accurate light bounces as in what's done in Hollywood movies for CGI still requires hours to render even single frames with entire warehouses of top end workstations. 

More likely you'll just get more watered down ray tracing for a while and then eventually AI will just replace the entire visual pipeline completely and throw polygons, textures, lighting algos out the window entirely and just base things on photographic and video reference. 



Leynos on 12 January 2026

I just can't wait to see what Monolith will do with Xenoblade on it. Their huge worlds always impress on limited hardware.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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curl-6 on 12 January 2026
Leynos said:

I just can't wait to see what Monolith will do with Xenoblade on it. Their huge worlds always impress on limited hardware.

Amen; Xenoblade 1 and X were mind-blowing stuff on Wii/Wii U, and while 2 and 3 did feel a bit constrained by their hardware they still pushed some ambitious tech; I feel like switch 2 should allow Monolith to really spread their wings as it always felt like of all Nintendo's studios they would benefit the most from more powerful hardware.



Norion on 12 January 2026
Soundwave said:
Norion said:

RT is something that will gonna become a proper standard next decade, the current consoles are bad at it so this generation is a transitional period for that technology. In the next 5-10 years the huge wild card with this is AI since how quickly world models advance will matter massively. It's something that could potentially make the PS6 become outdated fast depending on how things go.

I have my doubts. Real deal traditional ray tracing with real accurate light bounces as in what's done in Hollywood movies for CGI still requires hours to render even single frames with entire warehouses of top end workstations. 

More likely you'll just get more watered down ray tracing for a while and then eventually AI will just replace the entire visual pipeline completely and throw polygons, textures, lighting algos out the window entirely and just base things on photographic and video reference. 

Current top of the line ray tracing on PC found in games like Cyberpunk is what I'm referring to since that's still way better than the basic kind that the PS5 can handle. The PS6 should be capable of running that level level of RT no issue. Neural rendering is something that's around the corner though games fully built with it in mind are still a while away.



Pemalite on 12 January 2026
Soundwave said:

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. 

I would have been one of them.

A die shrink is still years away. Nintendo actually did the Die-shrink several years before the OLED variant released.
Thus the Die-Shrink and OLED panel are not tied to the same release.

Soundwave said:

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). 

Great. So you recognize it's not a perfect, premium, flawless machine, that it is actually full of compromises.

Soundwave said:

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. 

Agreed. And that is what I wanted out of a Switch 2... The ability to play at a technical level, PS5-graphical featured games.

Just like what I wanted out of the Switch 1, that it could play the same games using Xbox One/Playstation 4 graphical features.

And it worked... So I wouldn't say the Switch 2 is any different in placement relative to it's competition than the Switch 1.


Soundwave said:

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. 

Switch 1 could run the-then current gen games. (Xbox One)

Switch 2's placement in the market is the same relative to it's competition... That-is, from a hardware feature set, it meets or exceeds the competition in every area. (I.E. Ray Tracing)
Which is the same as the Switch 1, where it was able to meet and exceed the Xbox One in every area feature-wise. (I.E. Tessellation)

It's just performance level of the Switch 1 and Switch 2 is a fraction of the fixed home consoles, but raw spec-sheet numbers never tell an entire story.
So it's definitely not the first time.


Soundwave said:

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. 

Er. The PC existed. And could run Final Fantasy 7 natively on a portable device. (Laptop)

Ray Tracing has existed for many many years. Ray Tracing was even on the Original Xbox with games like Shrek which used a single light bounce to simulate sunlight... Xbox 360 took things a bit further with Halo 4 using Ray Tracing for the subsurface scattering of light underneath skin for character faces.

Hardware Ray Tracing is what has been a game changer in recent times... But having an RTX 2050 and a Switch 2 on hand, it's easy to see where the RT capabilities fall short, still impressive for the TDP/Formfactor however.

Soundwave said:

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!". 

Gamecube had 43MB of total memory.
24MB of Main System Ram.
3MB of Embedded RAM in the GPU for the Framebuffer/Texture Cache. (An evolution of the N64 layout)
16MB for Audio, DVD Drive and I/O buffering.

Playstation 2 had 38MB of total memory.
32MB of Main System Ram.
4MB of VRAM.
2MB of I/O memory.

Xbox had 64MB of total memory.
64MB of Main System Ram. Used for everything.

But like everyone seems to fall for... There is more to hardware than the simple black and white specs imply.

The Gamecube could do full S3 Texture compression with ratios of up-to 6:1, where the PS2 often relied on a software approach or A1B5G5R5 which topped out at 2:1 ratios.

So even if the Gamecube had hypothetically less RAM than the PS2 (It didn't), it could still make better use of it.
The TEV also had other intrinsic advantages related to texturing... 

Which is why the Gamecube could pull ahead of the PS2 by a significant margin.

The Original Xbox however was in another league entirely, with compression ratios upwards of 8:1 and could also do Alpha compression via DXT5... But also just simply had more memory available in total sheer volume.

Soundwave said:

You said FF7 Remake Intergrade wouldn't be possible on the system at first and basically no PS5 tier games would be possible. 

Then it moved to "well things like Ratchet & Clank on PS5 will clearly be beyond the system" or some such thing and that also today looks very, very wrong. 

When the Matrix demo rumors were out there you also scoffed at that notion, today most people would probably admit that Matrix demo likely can run on the Switch 2. 

You moved the goalposts about 50 different ways and also said 8nm would cripple the system's performance and this, that, and the other. 

Literally anything that runs on the PS5 can run on the Switch 2.

Just like anything that can run on the PS4 can run on the Switch 1.
We had some incredible ports on the Switch like The Witcher 3, Doom, Hogwarts Legacy, Borderlands, Red Dead, Dark Souls, Hellblade Sensuas Sacrifice and more.

It's simply about where to scale things to meet the hardware and the developer competency.

Soundwave said:

False, the Switch is not getting "bespoke" versions of any of these ports. Star Wars Outlaws even has the ray tracing intact because they weren't about to go back and create a custom version. 

Considering the biggest advantage of nVidia's hardware has been Ray Tracing over AMD Radeon that powers the Series X/S/Playstation 5... Games shouldn't need to scale back RT unless they are hitting the RAM wall on the Switch 2. (Which can happen pretty quickly!)

BraLoD said:

I played 1 single Switch 2 exclusive up until now, Donkey Kong Bananza, which generally runs great but have already experienced massive slowdown with it in very few cases, the last boss fight, for example, so even a 2025 proper Switch 2 exclusive is not being ran with ease...

I have experienced this as well, what I can tell it's the CPU struggling to keep up, which is unfortunate.

I am hoping Nintendo adds a few extra profiles to the Switch 2 that will allow the CPU to boost higher and resolve some of this, they did it with with the OG Switch, obviously the DK developer will need to go back to enable that though via a Patch.


Chrkeller said:

Agreed.  And a lot of this is because game engines have come a long way in regards to scalability.  

On a semi related note, this is also why I do not personally believe in generations anymore.  A generation meant new engines that required new hardware.  Today, not so much.  Plenty of people are still using 8 year old GPUs, like a 2070.  That is three cycles behind what Nvidia sells today, but it plays the same games as a 5090.

IMO, exclusives are dead and so are generations.  

Generations are definitely still a thing, there tends to be a clear break-away in hardware capabilities of GPU and CPU hardware that we can see from one generation to the next.
How that looks on-screen in games however is another matter entirely which are making people feel that generations aren't a thing anymore. (That and a very elongated cross-generation period!)

Hardware RT and Upscaling are clearly the pivotal technologies of this generation... Last Generation with the Switch 1, Playstation 4, Xbox One it was all about Tessellation.

Generation 7 was all about the Shader Model 3 effects.

Generation 6 was all about the TnL effects.

Generation 5 was about Point Lights and 3D graphics.

Soundwave said:

Watt for watt what the Switch 2 can produce at even just under 10 watts when even PC handhelds need like double, triple that just to stretch their legs is fucking crazy actually. The ROG Ally can't do shit with 10 watts even with a much better node and a larger battery and a far larger body size.

Steamdeck at 10w can return similar results to the Switch 2 in Raster... And often with better texturing.
Obviously being several years older than the Switch 2, means it's missed out on AMD's improvements in RT and Upscaling that having taken a front and center role with modern games that the Switch 2 can better manage, Steamdeck is clearly a device stuck between a transition of hardware generations.

The GPD Win 5 however running Strix Halo AI Max+ 395 will absolutely make a mockery of the Switch 2's hardware in modern games, even at 10w... Having almost 3x the Ram, 3x the Ram bandwidth, twice the CPU cores at 5x the clockspeed is a generational leap in improvement.
...And you can push the TDP up for better visuals in docked play on the GPD.

Obviously it comes at a cost. But you get what you pay for.

At 10w TDP the GDRP will get more than double the battery life of the Switch 2. And its display whilst only being a 7" IPS, is actually not offensive like the Switch 2 with better G2G response times, latency, colour and contrasts.

Wyrdness said:

Upgrades are not cross gen titles a cross gen title is something like Prime 4, Pokemon Z/A and Tomodachi where the game is actively developed for both platforms at the same time, TOTK and such aren't they're just given updates to unlock a higher performance, these games most likely already had the ability for these performance settings and were adjusted down to be able to run on S1. This is far from a cross gen approach it's just a more efficient version of porting up it would be like calling Pikmin 3 or Luigi's Mansion 2 a cross gen title, the few actual cross gen titles are cross gen because they were already going to be released post S2.

Cross gen approach is what you see with PS4 and PS5 where the former still gets new releases even this late on if S2 was doing the same DKB would have still had a S1 version.

Technically Breath of the Wild is a 3-generation-cross title, starting life on the WiiU.
It's done a GTA5. (And it's not a bad thing with how amazing BOTW is.)

BraLoD said:

GBC is a separate system with BC, not a "pro" model of the GB, it has many exclusives, as many games as the Nintendo 64 had in Japan, if I recall it right. It just had a crossgen period which was new back then, but it's like other systems have since some time now.

Devs wanted to support the old system with games because of its existing userbase, just the same as they want now. It's even the same with Switch 2 where Switch 2 games carts that are crossgen can be used on Switch 1 physically, as were the black carts for Gameboy Color back then.

Even the best game on GBC, Pokémon Crystal, can't run on a GB, people that say both are the same say because Nintendo combined both system sales, but they are definitely two separate systems, like the Switch 1 and 2 are now.

Pro devices having "exclusives" isn't a new thing.

There were DSi-only games, there were New 3DS-only games.

Xbox One X and Playstation 4 Pro didn't feature exclusives for the hardware, due to policy mandates, not because developers didn't wish to do it, they simply weren't allowed.

curl-6 said:

Amen; Xenoblade 1 and X were mind-blowing stuff on Wii/Wii U, and while 2 and 3 did feel a bit constrained by their hardware they still pushed some ambitious tech; I feel like switch 2 should allow Monolith to really spread their wings as it always felt like of all Nintendo's studios they would benefit the most from more powerful hardware.

It makes you wonder what could have been achieved on WiiU if it garnered better and longer support for the VLIW GPU architecture, which no other console has ever had, it was unique enough to possibly return some truly interesting results. (More so than what we saw with Xeno 1 and 2.)

 




www.youtube.com/@Pemalite

Chrkeller on 13 January 2026
Pemalite said:
Soundwave said:

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. 

I would have been one of them.

A die shrink is still years away. Nintendo actually did the Die-shrink several years before the OLED variant released.
Thus the Die-Shrink and OLED panel are not tied to the same release.

Soundwave said:

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). 

Great. So you recognize it's not a perfect, premium, flawless machine, that it is actually full of compromises.

Soundwave said:

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. 

Agreed. And that is what I wanted out of a Switch 2... The ability to play at a technical level, PS5-graphical featured games.

Just like what I wanted out of the Switch 1, that it could play the same games using Xbox One/Playstation 4 graphical features.

And it worked... So I wouldn't say the Switch 2 is any different in placement relative to it's competition than the Switch 1.


Soundwave said:

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. 

Switch 1 could run the-then current gen games. (Xbox One)

Switch 2's placement in the market is the same relative to it's competition... That-is, from a hardware feature set, it meets or exceeds the competition in every area. (I.E. Ray Tracing)
Which is the same as the Switch 1, where it was able to meet and exceed the Xbox One in every area feature-wise. (I.E. Tessellation)

It's just performance level of the Switch 1 and Switch 2 is a fraction of the fixed home consoles, but raw spec-sheet numbers never tell an entire story.
So it's definitely not the first time.


Soundwave said:

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. 

Er. The PC existed. And could run Final Fantasy 7 natively on a portable device. (Laptop)

Ray Tracing has existed for many many years. Ray Tracing was even on the Original Xbox with games like Shrek which used a single light bounce to simulate sunlight... Xbox 360 took things a bit further with Halo 4 using Ray Tracing for the subsurface scattering of light underneath skin for character faces.

Hardware Ray Tracing is what has been a game changer in recent times... But having an RTX 2050 and a Switch 2 on hand, it's easy to see where the RT capabilities fall short, still impressive for the TDP/Formfactor however.

Soundwave said:

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!". 

Gamecube had 43MB of total memory.
24MB of Main System Ram.
3MB of Embedded RAM in the GPU for the Framebuffer/Texture Cache. (An evolution of the N64 layout)
16MB for Audio, DVD Drive and I/O buffering.

Playstation 2 had 38MB of total memory.
32MB of Main System Ram.
4MB of VRAM.
2MB of I/O memory.

Xbox had 64MB of total memory.
64MB of Main System Ram. Used for everything.

But like everyone seems to fall for... There is more to hardware than the simple black and white specs imply.

The Gamecube could do full S3 Texture compression with ratios of up-to 6:1, where the PS2 often relied on a software approach or A1B5G5R5 which topped out at 2:1 ratios.

So even if the Gamecube had hypothetically less RAM than the PS2 (It didn't), it could still make better use of it.
The TEV also had other intrinsic advantages related to texturing... 

Which is why the Gamecube could pull ahead of the PS2 by a significant margin.

The Original Xbox however was in another league entirely, with compression ratios upwards of 8:1 and could also do Alpha compression via DXT5... But also just simply had more memory available in total sheer volume.

Soundwave said:

You said FF7 Remake Intergrade wouldn't be possible on the system at first and basically no PS5 tier games would be possible. 

Then it moved to "well things like Ratchet & Clank on PS5 will clearly be beyond the system" or some such thing and that also today looks very, very wrong. 

When the Matrix demo rumors were out there you also scoffed at that notion, today most people would probably admit that Matrix demo likely can run on the Switch 2. 

You moved the goalposts about 50 different ways and also said 8nm would cripple the system's performance and this, that, and the other. 

Literally anything that runs on the PS5 can run on the Switch 2.

Just like anything that can run on the PS4 can run on the Switch 1.
We had some incredible ports on the Switch like The Witcher 3, Doom, Hogwarts Legacy, Borderlands, Red Dead, Dark Souls, Hellblade Sensuas Sacrifice and more.

It's simply about where to scale things to meet the hardware and the developer competency.

Soundwave said:

False, the Switch is not getting "bespoke" versions of any of these ports. Star Wars Outlaws even has the ray tracing intact because they weren't about to go back and create a custom version. 

Considering the biggest advantage of nVidia's hardware has been Ray Tracing over AMD Radeon that powers the Series X/S/Playstation 5... Games shouldn't need to scale back RT unless they are hitting the RAM wall on the Switch 2. (Which can happen pretty quickly!)

BraLoD said:

I played 1 single Switch 2 exclusive up until now, Donkey Kong Bananza, which generally runs great but have already experienced massive slowdown with it in very few cases, the last boss fight, for example, so even a 2025 proper Switch 2 exclusive is not being ran with ease...

I have experienced this as well, what I can tell it's the CPU struggling to keep up, which is unfortunate.

I am hoping Nintendo adds a few extra profiles to the Switch 2 that will allow the CPU to boost higher and resolve some of this, they did it with with the OG Switch, obviously the DK developer will need to go back to enable that though via a Patch.


Chrkeller said:

Agreed.  And a lot of this is because game engines have come a long way in regards to scalability.  

On a semi related note, this is also why I do not personally believe in generations anymore.  A generation meant new engines that required new hardware.  Today, not so much.  Plenty of people are still using 8 year old GPUs, like a 2070.  That is three cycles behind what Nvidia sells today, but it plays the same games as a 5090.

IMO, exclusives are dead and so are generations.  

Generations are definitely still a thing, there tends to be a clear break-away in hardware capabilities of GPU and CPU hardware that we can see from one generation to the next.
How that looks on-screen in games however is another matter entirely which are making people feel that generations aren't a thing anymore. (That and a very elongated cross-generation period!)

Hardware RT and Upscaling are clearly the pivotal technologies of this generation... Last Generation with the Switch 1, Playstation 4, Xbox One it was all about Tessellation.

Generation 7 was all about the Shader Model 3 effects.

Generation 6 was all about the TnL effects.

Generation 5 was about Point Lights and 3D graphics.

Soundwave said:

Watt for watt what the Switch 2 can produce at even just under 10 watts when even PC handhelds need like double, triple that just to stretch their legs is fucking crazy actually. The ROG Ally can't do shit with 10 watts even with a much better node and a larger battery and a far larger body size.

Steamdeck at 10w can return similar results to the Switch 2 in Raster... And often with better texturing.
Obviously being several years older than the Switch 2, means it's missed out on AMD's improvements in RT and Upscaling that having taken a front and center role with modern games that the Switch 2 can better manage, Steamdeck is clearly a device stuck between a transition of hardware generations.

The GPD Win 5 however running Strix Halo AI Max+ 395 will absolutely make a mockery of the Switch 2's hardware in modern games, even at 10w... Having almost 3x the Ram, 3x the Ram bandwidth, twice the CPU cores at 5x the clockspeed is a generational leap in improvement.
...And you can push the TDP up for better visuals in docked play on the GPD.

Obviously it comes at a cost. But you get what you pay for.

At 10w TDP the GDRP will get more than double the battery life of the Switch 2. And its display whilst only being a 7" IPS, is actually not offensive like the Switch 2 with better G2G response times, latency, colour and contrasts.

Wyrdness said:

Upgrades are not cross gen titles a cross gen title is something like Prime 4, Pokemon Z/A and Tomodachi where the game is actively developed for both platforms at the same time, TOTK and such aren't they're just given updates to unlock a higher performance, these games most likely already had the ability for these performance settings and were adjusted down to be able to run on S1. This is far from a cross gen approach it's just a more efficient version of porting up it would be like calling Pikmin 3 or Luigi's Mansion 2 a cross gen title, the few actual cross gen titles are cross gen because they were already going to be released post S2.

Cross gen approach is what you see with PS4 and PS5 where the former still gets new releases even this late on if S2 was doing the same DKB would have still had a S1 version.

Technically Breath of the Wild is a 3-generation-cross title, starting life on the WiiU.
It's done a GTA5. (And it's not a bad thing with how amazing BOTW is.)

BraLoD said:

GBC is a separate system with BC, not a "pro" model of the GB, it has many exclusives, as many games as the Nintendo 64 had in Japan, if I recall it right. It just had a crossgen period which was new back then, but it's like other systems have since some time now.

Devs wanted to support the old system with games because of its existing userbase, just the same as they want now. It's even the same with Switch 2 where Switch 2 games carts that are crossgen can be used on Switch 1 physically, as were the black carts for Gameboy Color back then.

Even the best game on GBC, Pokémon Crystal, can't run on a GB, people that say both are the same say because Nintendo combined both system sales, but they are definitely two separate systems, like the Switch 1 and 2 are now.

Pro devices having "exclusives" isn't a new thing.

There were DSi-only games, there were New 3DS-only games.

Xbox One X and Playstation 4 Pro didn't feature exclusives for the hardware, due to policy mandates, not because developers didn't wish to do it, they simply weren't allowed.

curl-6 said:

Amen; Xenoblade 1 and X were mind-blowing stuff on Wii/Wii U, and while 2 and 3 did feel a bit constrained by their hardware they still pushed some ambitious tech; I feel like switch 2 should allow Monolith to really spread their wings as it always felt like of all Nintendo's studios they would benefit the most from more powerful hardware.

It makes you wonder what could have been achieved on WiiU if it garnered better and longer support for the VLIW GPU architecture, which no other console has ever had, it was unique enough to possibly return some truly interesting results. (More so than what we saw with Xeno 1 and 2.)

 

This, regarding the bolded part.  That is a premium chipset but will also (at least) double the cost compared to the Switch 2.  Nintendo sacrificed power in favor of price point, which btw is the smart move.  Nintendo was never going to go premium at $600+.  Nintendo does not sell niche products; they sell wide appeal mass market products.  My house has two units, one for me and one for my daughter.  At $600+ we wouldn't own two of them, and my daughter would be buying a lot less software.  

Personally, I don't think premium should ever be used in reference to a console, even the ps5 Pro isn't premium.  Premium is a 4080, 4090, 5080 and 5090; all of which are significantly above the ps5 pro.  

At the end of the day Nintendo did a great job at balancing performance and price.  Great system, I am very pleased with it.  DK in particular looked great and played 95% well, only some slow down here and there.  



“Consoles are great… if you like paying extra for features PCs had in 2005.”
Soundwave on 13 January 2026

No one cares about premium, premium is a niche, tiny ass market.

Mainstream consoles have to have reasonable concessions, that goes for Sony and MS too.

And in the big picture those concessions are fine, I don't look back at the Super NES and say "oh fuck, I wish it was $700 like the Neo Geo so I could have a few extra sprites on screen so that only I and two other people could afford it". No ... that would be stupid, as a matter of fact part of the appeal of consoles is that regular people buy them en masse in the millions creating cultural touch points. Like I can talk to lots of people about what NES or SNES or Playstation 1 or PS2 or GameCube or whatever they grew up with and we all have great memories about that. That means more than technology. I can't talk to many people about a Neo Geo or 3DO because 99.999999999% of people never had one of those consoles because they priced at a ridiculous price point. 

It's not about "well dur hur, I must have XYZ tech features or this game isn't fun" in the long run. It's only about having enough hardware power to run the games of your time well enough to get the experience across. That's *all*. When I think about playing Street Fighter 2 for hours on end with friends on my Super Nintendo I don't think "it didn't have equal graphics to the arcade, my life was ruined and I couldn't enjoy the game". That's just stupid.

You have to live in a really detached bubble to not get that. Of course game consoles have compromises, they have to in order to be mass market. It's like listening to a person drone on and on about a popular hamburger place not being a 5 star michelin restaurant with a high end wine list ... it's like "shut the fuck up buddy, you know full well this is not that kind of place".

And lol at people lecturing me now about "any game can run on any platform", lmao I was saying scalability was a big reason Switch 2 would run tons of PS5 games years ago and get attacked constantly in threads for it and now I need to be lectured about that. LOL, I was saying that before and getting dumb shit thrown in my face like Switch 2 won't be able to run Final Fantasy VII Integrade (yes THAT one, not even Rebirth lol). So you'll excuse me if I kindly laugh at that shit now. This board wasn't able to reasonably discuss this console in a mature way for years because of stupid ass biases they had about "Nintendo doesn't get top end games", every thread about it would devolve into doomerism from the same idiots. Those people have learned their lesson most likely now and probably understand this era Nintendo is not 2006 era Nintendo and there are significant differences, decades have actually moved on (believe it or not). 

"Nintendo" is not one singular thing either, they change radically decade to decade, early 90s Nintendo is even different from mid-90s Nintendo, mid-90s Nintendo is different from mid-2000s Nintendo (massively). Current Nintendo is very different from Nintendo of even 10-15 years ago. Like the fact that some people cannot even grasp that concept creates a lot uninformed takes. Don't act like you're an expert on something if you don't know really what you're talking about. If you don't even know who the current president is or hardware designers and you're discussing things as is the company has the same people running it from 20 years ago it's like trying to have conversation with someone who thinks the NBA or NFL or NHL still has to same players from 20 years ago. If you're trying to talk like basketball while still operating under the assumption that Yao Ming still plays for the Houston Rockets, like I hate to break this to you, but you don't have a clue what you're talking about. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 13 January 2026