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Comment by dralley | Hacker News Reader

Well, there's motivation on AMD's part, but they also have a value proposition that nobody else could have matched. They can provide both the CPU and GPU on one chip, which simplifies the console designs pretty dramatically. More compact, easier to cool, etc.

Intel graphics solutions were (and remain) sub-par, and Nvidia has no x86 solutions (and their ARM chips would have been underpowered).

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I don't know if an ARM chip really would be underpowered - remember the consoles are using the ultra-low-power jaguar cores. Probably not a million miles away from an A57, or whatever denver-based core NVidia could pull out of the bag.

It definitely wasn't underpowered for the Switch. And they managed to get Skyrim and Doom running on that. I'd imagine they could do even better performance wise in a traditional console rather than kind of a portable hybrid.

The Switch is definitely underpowered compared to the other games consoles though (and certainly compared to PCs). Reviews consistently mention that it's underperforming its competitors in frame rates, graphics quality, etc. Heck, it doesn't even do 1080p in all modes of play.

A lot of that has to do with it being a handheld hybrid, as you point out, but these compromises would have been a lot harder to stomach if it had been a dedicated set-top console like its direct competitors.

The Switch has sold almost half as many units in the last 10 months as the Xbox One has in the last five years.

If the only concern is resolution and not quality or gameplay, then the Switch doesn't stack up, but I think the sales numbers point to the Switch being a smash hit with consumers so those compromises seem stomachable from my perspective.

(Anecdotally: I wish the graphics in BotW were better, at least in terms of draw distance, but then I take the Switch out of the dock and take it to work to play Mario Kart with my coworkers and it seems like a fine tradeoff to me.)

They're not debating the competitiveness of the console. The OP suggested a modern ARM core is comparable in performance to the Jaguar cores used in the AMD chips in the PS4 and Xbox One.

The ARM core is garbage even compared to modern ARM cores, it’s not only an old GPU and CPU it’s also quite underclocked compared to other products with the same SoC.

That just sounds like a Wii 2.0 situation to me. The Wii sold like crazy thanks to the motion controls gimmick but due to the console being so vastly underpowered there was no real third party support and as a result, most of the Wii game releases boiled down to shovelware.

And while this time the Nintendo gimmick seems aimed more at the core gamer crowd (Take your console game anywhere!) I'm still not convinced this won't be turning out the same way like the Wii did.

Btw: If you want BotW with better graphics you can play it using a Wii U emulator, all the 4k BotW your eyes can handle.

can i transfer my saves?!?!

Well, Skyrim is from late 2011, so I'm not sure it's necessarily a good indicator that a modern game system processor is up to snuff. Doom is considerably more recent, but then again, I'd be willing to bet Carmack's legacy at Id is strong, and there's lots of people there that could (and possibly did) tweak the engine for good performance given the Switch's limitations. Actually, I think they demoed Rage on mobile, so they probably already had it highly optimized for ARM.

That said, I love the switch, and BotW has quickly become one of my all time favorite games. My only problem is resisting the urge to kick the kids off the switch so I can play. ;)

I know it was part of the appeal for some (most?), but I hated the breaking weapons. My method of playing was to use the crap weapons, hoard the nicer ones and try not to use them. But the unfortunate side effect is the crap weapons had poor durability so you'd be mid-fight and break.

Well, the benefit is that they do double damage (I think) when they break, so it's not as bad as it could be, but yes, they do seem to break too often. Then again, it depends on your play style. I'm a completionist and item hoarder, so I'm running around with almost an entire full inventory screen of high-end weapons and using the crappiest I have (which is still pretty good now) to fight with. Having to choose to drop a great thunderblabe with extra durability because there's a chest with something better and I'm full with better weapons is excruciating. I would agree they break too quickly through, as going through multiple in a battle is sort of ridiculous. Lasting maybe 2x to 3x as long might be good (or having a difficulty level that affected it).

> they managed to get Skyrim and Doom running on that

Original Doom was already running on the SNES like 25 years ago.

Getting something to run is not really that big of a hurdle as you can always scale down resolution/graphical fidelity/frames per second. The question after that rather being: Who would want to play an obviously inferior version of the game? Because that's exactly what these Switch versions of Skyrim and Doom are, inferior.

Inferior, except for the fact I can take them with me.

The value proposition is also developer ergonomics on x86 systems . I think I failed to mention that sorry .

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