When you throw no-effort indie slop and retro releases from decades old consoles into the equation, that figure makes a little more sense, lol.

Does anyone miss the days where a game can have the same title, same box art and same overall gameplay on three different consoles (say SNES, Genesis and Game Boy), but yet be three different games once you power them on?

Like Aladdin on the SNES versus Genesis?  Uh, never thought about it, kind of fun.

Could be fun, could be a bummer when you'd play a game somewhere like a friend's house or a demo unit on one console and have a blast, beg Mom for the game for Christmas or your birthday, get the game on the console you have at home, and BAM! Nothing like what you remembered or expected.

Happened to me as a kid.  I wanted Ninja Gaiden for the NES, expecting the arcade version (or close proximity).  Luckily, once the shock of difference wore off, I was still pleased with the game.  

I would say in on-screen game performance the Switch 2 performs like a $600 portable device or better (like a ROG Ally, definitely better than the $550 Steam Deck) from what we have already seen, likely we will get examples of game performance possibly better than that as time goes on, docked I would say it's actually better than a ROG Ally. I don't see anything on the market that gets that performance at $450 in that form factor. 

To get tangibly better performance than a Switch 2 in that kind of a form factor right now you probably have to go spend like $800+ and accept a chunkier, bulkier device. I'm not even sure $800 would do it, you might have to go up to the $1000 XBox branded ROG Ally X and the Switch 2 can even hold its own against that.  

For Joe/Jane Average buying a Switch 2, they should feel very happy with the hardware they're getting for that price, you're getting to play games anywhere you want at a level of performance that would cost you significantly more elsewhere and that certainly hasn't been the case for Nintendo hardware for a while (Switch 1 could kind of pull it off, but Switch 2 is already showing itself to be far better at running next-gen games).  And for the size of the Switch 2 ... those portable PCs would need likely several die shrinks to match that size/thinness that Nintendo/Nvidia were able to get that performance from 8nm. 

It is a custom chip, the x-ray of the chip showed it to be very different from the Tegra T234. 

A GPD Win 5 is $1500-$2000 device, and requires the battery to be external (so like a fat brick sitting outside the machine), good for the 5 people in the world who will own one, you might as well get a gaming laptop if you're going to spend in that price range, that thing is pointless. For $2000 it still doesn't even have an OLED display either.

Brought?  Or continues to bring?  

Please. Shut up. This is beyond off topic. Not even sure why a mod has fed into this for so long. 

lol, talk to your fellow mod then, I'm only responding to points they are bringing up that they feel needs to be discussed apparently. 

This forum has like 15 regular posters, it's not like it's rife with discussion to begin with, but discussion of Switch 2's hardware philosophy is actually relevant to the topic Switch 2 is a different hardware philosophy from other Nintendo system's like the Wii, which is a totally different hardware philosophy. 

Really you can't compress almost 50 years of Nintendo hardware into just 2 categories, it's more like this (focusing mainly on consoles):

1st Age Of Nintendo Hardware (1983-1992 Good Tech Era): Famicom (NES), Super Famicom (SNES), Yamauchi was president, Genyo Takeda head of hardware, Masayuki Uemura lead architect. Hardware was good for this time, Famicom for 1983 was quite good hardware, Sega's SG-1000 launched the same day in Japan and was almost a generation behind. For American consumers who wouldn't get the system until really 1986 (wide release), the NES represented a big step above the Atari 2600 that was the most popular console of the first half of the 80s. Super Famicom/SNES was another good hardware, outclassing the Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 (PC Engine), especially in arcade ports like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat 2.

2nd Age Of Nintendo Hardware (1993-2003 More Cutting Edge Era): This era would see Nintendo working more with American tech companies to push tech. Devs like Argonaut Games who would bring 3D polygons to the SNES (Star Fox, Super FX chip). 1993 would mark also the year president Yamauchi signed a deal with Silicon Graphics of Jurassic Park/T2 fame, the big name is graphics processing of the time, to create the Ultra 64/Nintendo 64. In '94 Rareware and Nintendo would bring CG rendered graphics to the SNES with Donkey Kong Country rendered on SGI workstations. 1996 would see the launch of the Nintendo 64 with the ground breaking Super Mario 64. Nintendo would be developing a high end 32-bit handheld at this time also (Atlantis) but it would never release. GameCube is released in 2001 with terrific performance for an affordable $199.99, games like Resident Evil 4 and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II still look good today.

3rd Age of Nintendo Hardware (2004-2015 Blue Ocean/Low Tech Era): Launch of the Nintendo DS in 2004 sees Nintendo pivot towards more casual gamers as the first consoles under Iwata alone. Uemura, "father" of the NES/SNES retires. Things don't ramp up until 2005 with Brain Training/Nintendogs and then the launch of the Wii in 2006 with Wii Sports. Sales explode for a time, things are great. 3DS launch shows problems and a panic price cut, Wii U is a general flop, era kind of fizzles out as other devices like Kinect, iPhone, iPad, Android gaming turn that blue ocean red. Iwata under the gun as Nintendo posts financial losses in fiscal years for the first time in the video game era.

4th Age of Nintendo Hardware (2016-2024 Choppy Transition to Hybrid Era): Nintendo is in a transition period, Iwata passes away sadly in 2015. NX is their attempt to unify home console and handheld. Data breaches from Nintendo show the NX initially was supposed to be less powerful and have more of the design language of the 3DS/Wii U with only a 480p resolution touchscreen that has no buttons (more casual centric design likely aimed at smartphone users who ditched Nintendo after the DS/Wii) and only 1GB of system RAM (chipset was supposed to be from AT-Ericsson):



New interim Nintendo president Kimishima takes over. Design of the NX alters at some point and is now using the off the shelf Tegra X1 SoC with a 720p display, removable controllers (Joycons), no touch only. It looks to me like they kind of chose the Tegra X1 as a plan B, likely getting it at a great price but had no input really in the design of said chip. That said this chip was way better with HD capability and 4GB of RAM. Genyo Takeda, head of Nintendo hardware retires in 2017 after the launch of Switch.

5th Age Of Nintendo (Switch 2, Better Hardware): First hardware since GameCube made without Iwata's involvement, first new Nintendo hardware made without Genyo Takeda involved at all. Miyamoto semi-retired from games. New president Furukawa fully in control. New younger Nintendo hardware heads begin development on Switch 2 in 2020 in earnest amid the COVID pandemic which likely impacted the release window. First Nintendo system probably since the GameCube in 2001 that can plausibly run modern 3rd party games without it being a big deal, performs above its $450-$500 (bundle) price point.

If Nintendo had released that earlier design of the NX/Switch ... I think they honestly might be a 3rd party right now. That system would not have done well, 480p, 1GB RAM only ... yikes. Iwata was a likable person but he would have led Nintendo out of the hardware business with another flop, thank goodness they chose the Tegra X1 and Nvidia and abandoned the touchscreen buttons idea (another attempt at aiming for casuals that wouldn't have worked).