Damn good point on loading, I always forget how bad loading was back in the day, since I emulate.  But yeah, that was an advantage.  I do think Nintendo alienated 3rd party with cartridges and effectively repeated with mini disks, but ironically (for me) it doesn't matter.  Their first party output makes their systems worth owning.  

I miss the DC, Skies of Arcadia is still one of my favorite games.  the music is awful on the GC, is that because of mini disks versus GD Rom?  I am not sure I know what GD rom is.  

GD Rom was the disc format used for Dreamcast and NAOMI Arcade boards. NAOMI was a suped up DC. Gigabyte Disc. Proprietary disc. With a capacity of 1GB. More than CD Rom less than DVD and even Gamecube discs by about 400MB. Supposed to combat piracy but was so easily cracked and it was found DC can read CR-Rs the 90 min versions only. Skies on Gamecube even shaved a couple seconds off each cutscene.

Thanks Leynos, never knew any of that.  Pretty interesting.  And makes sense, DC emulation is probably the easiest there is, out of the disk based system.  

The mini-DVD didn't really prevent any game from coming to the system. If you ran out of disk space you could just press a second disk for 10 cents, no big deal. It's not like if they had used full sized disks suddenly they'd have sold double the amount of Gamecubes. Now if the N64 had used any kind of cheap optical disk media, it would have sold way more, the cartridges were far more restrictive, expensive, and far more of a problem that held the N64 back.

The GameCube "failed" because of Microsoft primarily and because it didn't have a trifecta of system sellers that the N64 did.

Microsoft overcrowded the market with the XBox and effectively split the 2nd place standing between GameCube and XBox. Otherwise the GameCube probably could have sold 40+ million units, Nintendo's goal was in that range.

Super Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007 along with Mario Kart 64 primarily sold the N64, but the top games on the GameCube didn't stack up. Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Wind Waker, Metroid Prime and Mario Kart: Double Dash were no where near as popular, though Super Smash Bros. Melee did take off. That wasn't enough though. They needed basically what was Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and a more mainstream FPS shooter to match what GoldenEye was for the N64.

MS never should have made their own console, they just overcrowded the market and wasted a bunch of their own money for no good reason. They had some worries about Sony, they could have just staked Nintendo and become a Nintendo exclusive publisher, bringing games like Halo on console only to GameCube (while being free to have it on Windows PC) and gotten more or less the same benefit. In exchange I think Nintendo could have accepted to use whatever Windows OS for their dev kits. That would have worked out better for the both of them. 

Gamecube was a great piece of hardware tech wise, but the software and look wasn't where it needed to be, and it failed to capture the zeitgeist in the way that even the N64 did with the likes of Mario 64, Goldeneye 007, Ocarina of Time, etc.

Graphically it surpassed the PS2, but nobody really cared as it was seen as the uncool "kiddy" console.

So it would seem that people overwhelmingly think it was the right move for them to opt out, with nearly 90% of voters saying so.

Hard to argue with results I guess, with over 150 million Switches sold and over 250 million of Wii/DS in single gen.

Again, I have already provided evidence for this...

The Switch 2 has performance advantages over PC devices like the Rog Ally X.
However... The Rog Ally X also has performance, battery and display advantages over the Switch 2.

They are both mid-range handhelds.

It's not:  "The Switch 2 is equivalent" to the Rog Ally X. It's not. - The Switch 2 has it's strengths and weaknesses like every piece of hardware.
Again, evidence has been presented for this, thus removing the need for personal opinions.

Stop spreading such bullshit. Again, the evidence has been provided for this.

The GPD Win 5 exists. It's a generation ahead of all other handhelds, including the Switch 2. 

If price is your argument (Which is again bullshit), the Switch Lite is the better option.
The Switch Lite is half the price of a Switch 2.

If Size/Thickness is your argument... (Which again, is bullshit, you are not putting a Switch 2 into your pocket) the Switch Lite is again... The better option.

Switch 2 carts like Metroid Prime 4, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom and more run fine on the Switch Lite.
The Switch Lite has access to such an extensive games library of some of the best games in recent memory, that it's a brilliant device for budget gamers.

It's a semi-custom chip. It's using a modified Tegra Orin chipset.

It's not a ground-up unique design running with a bespoke ISA.

Considering how shit the Switch 2 battery life is... Having an external battery on the GPD Win 5 is actually a good feature, not a bad one.
It allows you to hot swap batteries so you can extent your gaming time.

But if bulk is your issue, the Switch Lite is a better device than the Switch 2.

But even ignoring the existence of the Switch Lite...

You have the Ayaneo AIR 1S. Which is not only capable from a performance perspective... But has dimensions comparable to the Switch Lite... Thus more petite than the Switch 2.



The PC handheld space is huge... There are more devices than just the GPD Win 5, Rog Ally X and Switch 2.

There is literally a handheld for every single kind of performance profile, size, power and chipset and price point.
I.E. MSI Claw 7 I can get cheaper than the Switch 2 right now in Aus.

There is actually some discussion relevancy here... On whether Nintendo has opted out of the "Graphics Arms Race".
And the issue is whether the Switch 2's hardware is competitive with other hardware on the market. (It is.)
And whether it is regarded as high-end. (It's not.)

And thus comparing the current Switch 2 hardware/graphics capability to other potential options available on the market and whether they are still competing in the "Graphics arms race".

However... I suggest if you don't feel like reading the discussion, to simply peruse elsewhere on the forum.

Patents aren't a guarantee of a product... Many patents don't result in a functional or real product.

Patents do protect "ideas" however from being pilfered by competitors... And is actually a good source of protection from competitor litigation as whoever has the most patents, has the potential to dictate the direction of a court case with a counter-filing.

As for the WiiU... We can compare it to consoles at the time of it's release... I.E. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, which it existed alongside for a few years.
Compared to those consoles the WiiU actually had several key hardware/performance advantages and that showed in many games, many of which got ported to Switch and still standup today.

Unfortunately the Xbox One and Playstation 4 dropped roughly a year later... Which are the devices the WiiU got compared to for most of it's life, but many cross-gen games like Call of Duty Ghosts still managed to hold up visually. (But was also a game arguably held back by 7th gen hardware as well.)

Mini DVD definitely had it's advantages, you get higher transfer rates and lower seek times, the closer the laser is to the center point of a disk.

I don't think it curbed piracy though, Mini DVD has pretty much been compatible with all PC DVD drives anyway.

Capacity was the only issue... And like another commenter alluded to, they can just stamp a second disk.
But we also need to remember that the Gamecube had better compression than the PS2 as well and could do better decompression with it's vastly more powerful hardware.

Hi there,

This is my first post on the forum even though I've been following discussions for multiple years. I felt a strong need to add some personal insight here. I think the key design decisions Nintendo made with Switch 2 hardware are spot on. If only they could have moved SOC to 5nm process while increasing price by $50, then a lot of people opinions would have been a bit more positive. Other than that there's no handheld that can play games like Switch 2 in this price bracket.

Also, I had to chime in since I believe Tegra T239 is a custom chipset as stated by Nvidia. Also it doesn't seem to be based on Orin, as GPU has ray tracing cores and it's shader clusters resemble Ada Lovelace more than a typical Ampere. Also those clusters seem to be bigger than those of Ampere GPUs based on 8nm process. CPU also seems to be a different model. It's definitely not a cut and paste design. In case if you work at Nvidia then you're closer than the truth than the majority of people ;)

This generation I can only hope that Nintendo release a vastly improved Pro model instead of typical OLED model. They could charge $600 for that easily with 2nm Samsung SOC and overclock it. Some people like me would buy it immediately. There's no way there will be any competition this gen when it comes to performance/price. With manufacturing processes getting much more expensive and high memory prices, Switch 2 is set to dominate in my humble opinion. One thing Nintendo can do while other handheld manufacturers cannot is to sell at break even or slight loss. They can still make money through software. Steam Deck is a loss cause imo, due to what's happening with prices.

Lol