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

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Was it the right decision?

Yes 74 88.10%
 
No 10 11.90%
 
Total:84
Soundwave on 14 January 2026
Pemalite said:
Soundwave said:

And literally every console could have used a better chip. The PS5 could have had a better chip. The Gamecube could have had a better chip. The PS2 could have had a better chip. The XBox Series S/X, there were better chips available, why is it for this one console we need to act like Nintendo has committed some kind of mortal sin? The chip they chose performs very well and I have no problem giving them props for that.

No shit. They could always be worst as well.

I place the Switch 2 on the same pedal stool as all the other console, they have all drawn criticism and praise for various aspects from me, the Switch 2 doesn't get to exist in a vacuum where it doesn't get criticized in areas where it has fallen short.

The Switch 2 has several aspects where it is a regression over the Switch 1 OLED... And those aspects are relevant to criticize.



Soundwave said:

The Nvidia leak has been proven to be correct, unless you think they just randomly guessed the CUDA core number and other facts from out of thin air (in which case maybe they should buy a lottery ticket), so yes the onus then lies on you to disprove that and show where it is incorrect if you have a problem with those conclusions. 

Leaks can only be proven correct in fucking hindsight. They can be wrong, they can be wrong, they are NOT reliable. JFC.

I made many educational guesses on what the Switch 2 hardware was going to be early on in the Switch 1's lifecycle.
I.E. Tegra Orin. - Many people refuted that based on how old the chipset would be at the time of an expected Switch 2's launch.

It was an educational guess. I could have been wrong. I could have been right, it's irrelevant. 

People who believe in leaks and rumors are actually being foolish.


Soundwave said:

The Orin chip is not suitable to be 1:1 put into a portable game console it had a lot of shit in it that's useless for a game console and is a massive chip for a portable. It has a 455 mm die size, that's larger than a freaking launch PS5, there's no way it would get even an hour of battery life unless Nintendo completely changed the design and made a bulkier, more expensive, heavier system for little gain. 

Size is an absolute shit excuse I am afraid.

Samsung has half a dozen nodes available to shrink a full-fat Tegra Orin 64GB AGX down to a fraction of it's size.

You will also need to list the "irrelevant shit" inside of Orin, otherwise that claim can and will be discarded.

Soundwave said:

This is Switch 2 versus a $1000 portable (is that premium, or what do you want to call that? $1000 is budget friendly?). I would say this level of performance is significantly better than just "OK", this is holding its own fairly well against an extremely expensive gaming device. This comparison is also I believe without the early release performance patch for the Switch 2 and likely there will be other patches coming which will improve the performance of the Switch 2 version

I can can cherry pick videos as well.

The Rog Ally X has longer battery life than the Switch, older games that don't rely on upscaling or Ray Tracing tends to look and run better on the Rog Ally X as it's better suited to AMD's 4 year old GPU technology in the Rog.

The Steamdeck runs legacy games like Crysis better than the Switch 2 and has longer battery life and a far better screen. 

The GPD Win 5 decimates all other handhelds on the market. THAT is a premium device that has opted for the best hardware available... It's essentially a portable PS5.




Soundwave said:

Nintendo could easily have charged $600 for this hardware if they really wanted to, sure the ROG Ally X is better in some respects, but this is also a lot closer than it has any business being, the ROG Ally X is over 2x the cost of a Switch 2. It's just hilarious how many pretzels some people want to twist into to avoid acknowledging that this is probably a very different era of Nintendo hardware. This result is much more in line with systems like the GameCube and N64 which did have impressive hardware performance for their day. And this isn't likely even the best the Switch 2 can ever do, there likely will be better ports as the system is still early and Nintendo sent out dev kits late, there will be better examples of the Switch 2's hardware than this as time goes on. That is undocked only for the Switch 2 also obviously, docked mode may have better results in some areas.

Nintendo cannot charge anything they like. They need to appeal to the mass market in order to build a sizable population in order to sell software.

The Rog Ally X doesn't. It's profitable regardless of how many units it sells... Nor is Asus' entire company tied to a single device or platform.

The Switch 2 is not positioned in a similar position in the market like the Gamecube or Nintendo 64 was.
It's mid-range in the handheld space... It's low-end when compared to other consoles, falling roughly in line with the low-end Xbox Series S.

Soundwave said:

To get this result too while the Switch 2 only runs at about 9-10 watts undocked from 8nm whereas the ROG Ally X there is using 20+ watts is also fairly impressive. The new hardware team at Nintendo and Nvidia did some impressive work in getting this level of performance from that low of a power draw (am I allowed to say that? Or is that not allowed here?). Watt for watt I don't think there's anything on the market that gets this performance at 10 watts. 

The ROG Ally X operating at 20w still gets longer battery life than the Switch 2 at 9w.

So the higher power draw is actually irrelevant.

Is the Tegra Orin chip good for the size of it's chip and power consumption? Absolutely. But let's not pretend the Switch beats the Rog Ally X in every single metric... Because it simply doesn't.
There are many games that run and look better on the Rog Ally X and you get longer battery life and a far better display... And a bigger games library.
The games are also cheaper on the Rog Ally X, you also don't need to pay a stupid subscription to play online.


Chrkeller said:

Bang for buck, S2 kills portable PC, imo. The S2 holds it own for half the price.

Bang for buck, the Switch Lite kills the Switch 2. The Switch lite is half the price and has a huge (and amazing) games library.

Horses for courses.

Chrkeller said:

On a side note, the S2 pro controller is my new favorite controller.  

Is it actually worth upgrading from the S1 Pro controller? Been thinking of upgrading but trying to find justification.


Chrkeller said:

Largely agree.  I mean I can see a difference between medium and ultra but have gotten to the point where it just doesn't have a punch that I care about.  In fact, I find myself using medium/high settings on PC just for the increased fps.  for me it feels like fps is the next big jump.  I absolutely loved Prime 4's 120 fps mode.  the one thing I love about nintendo, when possible, they prioritize fps. 

I actually preferred to run Prime 4 on my Switch OLED over my Switch 2.
Whilst 120hz is nice, it's just not a great experience on that terrible panel.

The OLED contrast just made the game "pop" visually, plus the response time of OLED was simply superior... Not to mention the longer battery life... And I can use my Switch 2 cart in both systems.

I think it's a testament really to how well they optimized the game not just for the Switch 1, but enabling higher options on Switch 2, it's a lean game engine with great art assets.


curl-6 said:

It's technically correct to say that it's multiple GPU generations (not console generations) ahead of last gen in terms of feature set thanks to DLSS/hardware raytracing/etc, but it does need to be stressed that power also matters and in that regard it's also correct to say it's closer to PS4 in raw power simply due to the physical limits of fitting in a tiny case and running off a battery.

Switch 1 was based on Maxwell...

So you had: Pascal (GTX 10xx), Turing (GTX 16xx - RTX 20xx) and finally Ampere (RTX 30xx).

However in PC terms... There is a clear split between Non-RT hardware and RT-Hardware, which was a generational leap.

Arguably I would place the Switch 2 as just a little above the PS4, it's got a better CPU, it's got comparative memory bandwidth (Once you account for Delta Colour Compression, Tiled Based Rendering, Culling etc') and has extra resources to perform new and more advanced rendering tricks that allows the hardware to punch above it's paper specifications.

You made an educated guess on the exact number of CUDA cores, RAM, storage, and other details of the Switch 2 which then turned out to be true? Really? That leak was legitimate, as a matter of fact a lot of the fucking leaks, including the Christmas Day 2024 leaker were spot on correct and the people doubting in them were wrong looking back at it now. 

Virtually any Ampere chip can run PS5 tier games, hell probably any Turing based chips too.

As for the rest of it, I'm going to just say I don't agree with you and leave it that. 

You want to gatekeep what defines hardware categories and say everyone has to adhere to what you think, no thanks I don't agree with your assessments or conclusions. Switch 2 keeping pace even with things like $1000 portables tells me what I need to know, already having a lot of high end next-gen games confirmed for the system also tell me what kind of hardware it is.

This level of power in the Switch 2 isn't an accident either IMO, they chose this design and worked on a custom chip on this design knowing it would be able to run PS5/XSS level software. I would bet they tested this shit out years ago and knew it would be able to run this tier of games. I doubt it's an accident or just somehow worked out this way. If they wanted just around PS4 level results they could have done so with a lesser chip than this, they wanted better than that and got it. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 14 January 2026

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Chrkeller on 14 January 2026
Pemalite said:
Soundwave said:

And literally every console could have used a better chip. The PS5 could have had a better chip. The Gamecube could have had a better chip. The PS2 could have had a better chip. The XBox Series S/X, there were better chips available, why is it for this one console we need to act like Nintendo has committed some kind of mortal sin? The chip they chose performs very well and I have no problem giving them props for that.

No shit. They could always be worst as well.

I place the Switch 2 on the same pedal stool as all the other console, they have all drawn criticism and praise for various aspects from me, the Switch 2 doesn't get to exist in a vacuum where it doesn't get criticized in areas where it has fallen short.

The Switch 2 has several aspects where it is a regression over the Switch 1 OLED... And those aspects are relevant to criticize.



Soundwave said:

The Nvidia leak has been proven to be correct, unless you think they just randomly guessed the CUDA core number and other facts from out of thin air (in which case maybe they should buy a lottery ticket), so yes the onus then lies on you to disprove that and show where it is incorrect if you have a problem with those conclusions. 

Leaks can only be proven correct in fucking hindsight. They can be wrong, they can be wrong, they are NOT reliable. JFC.

I made many educational guesses on what the Switch 2 hardware was going to be early on in the Switch 1's lifecycle.
I.E. Tegra Orin. - Many people refuted that based on how old the chipset would be at the time of an expected Switch 2's launch.

It was an educational guess. I could have been wrong. I could have been right, it's irrelevant. 

People who believe in leaks and rumors are actually being foolish.


Soundwave said:

The Orin chip is not suitable to be 1:1 put into a portable game console it had a lot of shit in it that's useless for a game console and is a massive chip for a portable. It has a 455 mm die size, that's larger than a freaking launch PS5, there's no way it would get even an hour of battery life unless Nintendo completely changed the design and made a bulkier, more expensive, heavier system for little gain. 

Size is an absolute shit excuse I am afraid.

Samsung has half a dozen nodes available to shrink a full-fat Tegra Orin 64GB AGX down to a fraction of it's size.

You will also need to list the "irrelevant shit" inside of Orin, otherwise that claim can and will be discarded.

Soundwave said:

This is Switch 2 versus a $1000 portable (is that premium, or what do you want to call that? $1000 is budget friendly?). I would say this level of performance is significantly better than just "OK", this is holding its own fairly well against an extremely expensive gaming device. This comparison is also I believe without the early release performance patch for the Switch 2 and likely there will be other patches coming which will improve the performance of the Switch 2 version

I can can cherry pick videos as well.

The Rog Ally X has longer battery life than the Switch, older games that don't rely on upscaling or Ray Tracing tends to look and run better on the Rog Ally X as it's better suited to AMD's 4 year old GPU technology in the Rog.

The Steamdeck runs legacy games like Crysis better than the Switch 2 and has longer battery life and a far better screen. 

The GPD Win 5 decimates all other handhelds on the market. THAT is a premium device that has opted for the best hardware available... It's essentially a portable PS5.




Soundwave said:

Nintendo could easily have charged $600 for this hardware if they really wanted to, sure the ROG Ally X is better in some respects, but this is also a lot closer than it has any business being, the ROG Ally X is over 2x the cost of a Switch 2. It's just hilarious how many pretzels some people want to twist into to avoid acknowledging that this is probably a very different era of Nintendo hardware. This result is much more in line with systems like the GameCube and N64 which did have impressive hardware performance for their day. And this isn't likely even the best the Switch 2 can ever do, there likely will be better ports as the system is still early and Nintendo sent out dev kits late, there will be better examples of the Switch 2's hardware than this as time goes on. That is undocked only for the Switch 2 also obviously, docked mode may have better results in some areas.

Nintendo cannot charge anything they like. They need to appeal to the mass market in order to build a sizable population in order to sell software.

The Rog Ally X doesn't. It's profitable regardless of how many units it sells... Nor is Asus' entire company tied to a single device or platform.

The Switch 2 is not positioned in a similar position in the market like the Gamecube or Nintendo 64 was.
It's mid-range in the handheld space... It's low-end when compared to other consoles, falling roughly in line with the low-end Xbox Series S.

Soundwave said:

To get this result too while the Switch 2 only runs at about 9-10 watts undocked from 8nm whereas the ROG Ally X there is using 20+ watts is also fairly impressive. The new hardware team at Nintendo and Nvidia did some impressive work in getting this level of performance from that low of a power draw (am I allowed to say that? Or is that not allowed here?). Watt for watt I don't think there's anything on the market that gets this performance at 10 watts. 

The ROG Ally X operating at 20w still gets longer battery life than the Switch 2 at 9w.

So the higher power draw is actually irrelevant.

Is the Tegra Orin chip good for the size of it's chip and power consumption? Absolutely. But let's not pretend the Switch beats the Rog Ally X in every single metric... Because it simply doesn't.
There are many games that run and look better on the Rog Ally X and you get longer battery life and a far better display... And a bigger games library.
The games are also cheaper on the Rog Ally X, you also don't need to pay a stupid subscription to play online.


Chrkeller said:

Bang for buck, S2 kills portable PC, imo. The S2 holds it own for half the price.

Bang for buck, the Switch Lite kills the Switch 2. The Switch lite is half the price and has a huge (and amazing) games library.

Horses for courses.

Chrkeller said:

On a side note, the S2 pro controller is my new favorite controller.  

Is it actually worth upgrading from the S1 Pro controller? Been thinking of upgrading but trying to find justification.


Chrkeller said:

Largely agree.  I mean I can see a difference between medium and ultra but have gotten to the point where it just doesn't have a punch that I care about.  In fact, I find myself using medium/high settings on PC just for the increased fps.  for me it feels like fps is the next big jump.  I absolutely loved Prime 4's 120 fps mode.  the one thing I love about nintendo, when possible, they prioritize fps. 

I actually preferred to run Prime 4 on my Switch OLED over my Switch 2.
Whilst 120hz is nice, it's just not a great experience on that terrible panel.

The OLED contrast just made the game "pop" visually, plus the response time of OLED was simply superior... Not to mention the longer battery life... And I can use my Switch 2 cart in both systems.

I think it's a testament really to how well they optimized the game not just for the Switch 1, but enabling higher options on Switch 2, it's a lean game engine with great art assets.


curl-6 said:

It's technically correct to say that it's multiple GPU generations (not console generations) ahead of last gen in terms of feature set thanks to DLSS/hardware raytracing/etc, but it does need to be stressed that power also matters and in that regard it's also correct to say it's closer to PS4 in raw power simply due to the physical limits of fitting in a tiny case and running off a battery.

Switch 1 was based on Maxwell...

So you had: Pascal (GTX 10xx), Turing (GTX 16xx - RTX 20xx) and finally Ampere (RTX 30xx).

However in PC terms... There is a clear split between Non-RT hardware and RT-Hardware, which was a generational leap.

Arguably I would place the Switch 2 as just a little above the PS4, it's got a better CPU, it's got comparative memory bandwidth (Once you account for Delta Colour Compression, Tiled Based Rendering, Culling etc') and has extra resources to perform new and more advanced rendering tricks that allows the hardware to punch above it's paper specifications.

I really love it.  Analogs feel much tighter, so more precise aiming/controls.  The button re-mapping is super easy, helped a lot for prime 4, and the back buttons (for my hand) are perfectly located.  I am a fan. 

Regarding prime 4, I played it at 120 fps on an oled TV.  I don't like playing handheld.  But yes, the bit i have tried, the S2 screen is garbage.

Last edited by Chrkeller - on 14 January 2026

“Consoles are great… if you like paying extra for features PCs had in 2005.”
PAOerfulone on 14 January 2026

Jesus, could you guys give it a rest already?

We get it, Switch 2 is far more impressive than the critics give it credit for but not as impressive as the fans give it credit for.

Moving on.



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Pemalite on 14 January 2026
Soundwave said:

You made an educated guess on the exact number of CUDA cores, RAM, storage, and other details of the Switch 2 which then turned out to be true? Really? That leak was legitimate, as a matter of fact a lot of the fucking leaks, including the Christmas Day 2024 leaker were spot on correct and the people doubting in them were wrong looking back at it now. 

I did make a correct educated guess on the number of CUDA cores, what SoC architecture (Tegra Orin over Thor or Xavier) and RAM and it's target TDP of 10w.

I had actually said in the early Switch 1 days that I hoped that Switch 2 would come with 16GB of Ram to let the SoC breathe with RT and DLSS without sacrificing the OS/background tasks. Instead... Nintendo reserved the DRAM for the OS at the expense of RT and DLSS, but realistically expected 12GB for cost reasons.

I never made any assertions on storage (As I don't care, I run physical) or display (I just wanted 8" or larger).

And again... Leaks and rumors and educated guessed are pretty pointless, they have been proven to be wrong in the past, they will be wrong in the future... You can only ascertain their legitimacy after the fact with hindsight.

If you try and pass rumor/leaks/educated guesses off as fact, you are simply an idiot.
I could have been wrong with my guesses. But I wasn't.


Soundwave said:

Virtually any Ampere chip can run PS5 tier games, hell probably any Turing based chips too.

You are not running it like the GPD Win 5.

The Ampere chip in the Switch 2 is not like higher tiered Ampere chips.


Soundwave said:

As for the rest of it, I'm going to just say I don't agree with you and leave it that. 

Good admission that you don't have a relevant rebuttal. I'll take the win.

Soundwave said:

You want to gatekeep what defines hardware categories and say everyone has to adhere to what you think, no thanks I don't agree with your assessments or conclusions. Switch 2 keeping pace even with things like $1000 portables tells me what I need to know, already having a lot of high end next-gen games confirmed for the system also tell me what kind of hardware it is.

False.
Switch 2 performs like a low-end console like the Xbox Series S.

It performs like a mid-range handheld... The GPD Win 5 is a high-end handheld and it obliterates all other handhelds in the handheld space.
It's almost a generation ahead of the Switch 2 in performance and graphics.

Soundwave said:

This level of power in the Switch 2 isn't an accident either IMO, they chose this design and worked on a custom chip on this design knowing it would be able to run PS5/XSS level software. I would bet they tested this shit out years ago and knew it would be able to run this tier of games. I doubt it's an accident or just somehow worked out this way. If they wanted just around PS4 level results they could have done so with a lesser chip than this, they wanted better than that and got it. 

It's not really a custom chip. It's semi-custom. The ISA and everything was done for nVidia DRIVE/IoT/Professional/Developer/Signage and Edge platforms.

It definitely punches above a PS4, Cyberpunk 2077 is all the evidence you need for that.







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Leynos on 15 January 2026

Soundwave brought this topic into the shitter.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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Cassiel on 15 January 2026

The answer is obvious. Nintendomination every gen. What else is there to say? Also, when 99,9% of all industry releases even run properly on Switch 1, why should it crave to release a more expensive more powerful console for that other 0,1%. Not to mention with Switch 2 it doesn't even have that problem anymore at all and can't be considered as "having opted out of the graphics race" anymore.




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BraLoD on 15 January 2026

Another funny poster came back to the thread.



Link: www.facebook.com/FernandoGuadixartworks/

Chrkeller on 15 January 2026
burninmylight said:
OdinHades said:

For me pesonally, yes, absolutely. I stopped caring about graphics about ten years ago. Because I can't see a friggin' difference anymore between low and ultra details. Sure, I can watch some digital foundry video that shows me a still image with 16x zoom to show me some detail that looks slightly better than in last gen or something. But I prefer to spend my time with actually playing games. Graphics have gotten good enough for me to not care about small details anymore. I used to be impressed by something like Crysis or Killzone 2 when those games initially released. But today when I see something like AC: Shadows or whatever the hell might be the shiniest game right now, I just think "looks nice", and that's it. Graphics just don't impress anymore as the jumps have gotten too small to really make a huge difference. That also applies to Pathtracing and stuff. Yes, the lightin in pathtraced Half-Life 2 looks gorgeous. But it's still Half-Life 2 and I kinda forget about the lighting or other stuff when I'm 30 minutes or so into a game.

Nintendos route lead to a portable system, which is absolutely fantastic for someone like me who travels a lot. Because in a train, on a plane or in a hotel room, my Switch 2 is indeed infinitely more powerful than my PS5 Pro that is sitting at home doing nothing. Yes, I know the PS Portal is a thing, but I don't like streaming with all the compression, lost connections, delay and stuff.

I prefer to get games on Switch 2 when they are available, although I do have a PS5 Pro. Portability beats the slight graphics upgrade any day of the week for me.

I'm a firm believer that most people will never notice the difference between 1080p and 4K images/video until you tell them that there is a difference. Or the difference between a game running on PS4 vs. PS5 unless there is an obvious contrast in lighting and FPS. Graphics have advanced so far now that generational leaps just aren't what they used to be, and untrained (or uncaring) eyes have to really squint to make out fine details. I'll readily admit that I'm one of those people.

So many times I'll read message boards or comment sections on how much better a game on Switch runs on other platforms and have reservations about a game. Then when I go watch gameplay in motion or a DF comparison, I come out afterward thinking it's good enough for me; if a resolution downgrade and some extra slowdown and pop-in here and there means I don't have to pay an extra $400 and make room for an extra box, so be it.

I largely agree.  1440p vs 4k, at least on a 65 inch tv, no difference for me.  

I can tell the difference between 90, 60 and 30 fps.  Anything above 90 fps doesn't have much impact.  

And likely I am more sensitive to the above things than an average gamer.  

So no doubt going price above power was the right move for Nintendo.  

DLSS has really helped significantly and that tech just keeps getting better.

Only reason I do not go S2 for third party is the 30 fps limit on most games.  Too slow and too much latency.  I love Nintendo push 60 fps (so far) on their first party titles.  



“Consoles are great… if you like paying extra for features PCs had in 2005.”
Zippy6 on 15 January 2026
Cassiel said:

when 99,9% of all industry releases even run properly on Switch 1, why should it crave to release a more expensive more powerful console for that other 0,1%.



Chrkeller on 15 January 2026

I do think we need to move away from 1990s view on hardware. I get for generations software designated a change in hardware, but that isn't applicable today. Games scale, thus two pieces of hardware running the same game doesn't mean they are same tier.

Nobody in their right mind would put a 2060 at the same tier as a 5090, despite there isn't a game that 2060 can't play (other than half a dozen exceptions):

Cuda Cores: 1,920 vs 21,760
Texture Fill Rate: 201.6 vs 1,636.8
Floating Point: 6.451 TFLOPS vs 104.8 TFLOPS
RT Cores: 30 vs 170

Hardware tier should be based on performance (textures, resolution, fps, RT, draw distance, volumetric, particle, etc.)



“Consoles are great… if you like paying extra for features PCs had in 2005.”