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Comment by The_rationalist | Hacker News Reader

Asking the real question here: will Nintendo use those Grace CPUs for the Switch successor?

Grace is a very big Tegra, it's just not intended for that.

NVIDIA has small Tegra chips too, with the Jetson Nano next coming next year. That might use the same SoC as an upcoming Switch.

(and Orin/Atlan as more medium-sized Tegra)

Considering this Grace CPU is competing with large scale server compute processors like AMD’s Epyc Rome chips, I would have to say that it is VERY unlikely we’ll see this in a switch (or successor) of any kind.

These Grace CPU’s are not architected or designed for low power mobile or consoles in any way.

The doesn't seem very rational, Nintendo doesn't aim for prettiest graphics or best hardware, they aim for best family friendly game experience, without focusing on graphics or hardware. The Switch prove that their strategy works out as well, so they are unlikely to suddenly change tactics.

PlayStation and Xbox do aim for best graphics with the best hardware though, so they are more likely to go with this than anyone else.

Yes that was their strategy up to now, but they are increasingly obscolete. Nintendo is stuck in the past, the Switch (2017) has games with lower visuals than the PS3 (2006). (I believe the switch CPU to be on par or superior but the GPU to be noticeably inferior) People are tasting the incredible graphics of the PS5 and in contrast the switch is irrelevant. I agree that games can be fun without needing realistic graphisms however for maximizing fun a PS4 level performance is the bare minimum.

Not really seeing it, the switch is targeting and reaching a lot of people who won't buy Playstations. A next-gen Switch with better performance wouldn't need to compete head-to-head with the Playstation on visuals either to be successful. (Given you rank Switch below PS3, if visuals were so important, shouldn't Switch have been handily beaten even by the PS4?)

There are significantly more sales of PS4 than switch, also nintendo live on its laurels but people will become tired of the stagnation eventually

PS4: ~117M sold in 9 years Switch: ~104M sold in 5 years

Switch is averaging 20M units/year and PS4 is averaging 13M units/year.

PS4 has sold 117m units (around 1m in the past year) and Switch has sold 104m so far (around 20m in the past year). You can bet Switch will overtake it very soon...

Why are you assuming that Nintendo is stagnating in comparison? Yes, in the meantime new generations of other consoles have come out, but after equally long gaps on their side. (PS4->PS5 was 9 years, and Switch will outsell PS4 over its lifetime easily)

And the Switch users I know generally don't care about PS5 graphics at all. It's not really the same market.

> There are significantly more sales of PS4 than switch

With a 4 year head start, the PS4 has 116.9m, the Switch has 103.5m[1]. Averaged over the years, the PS4 is lagging the Switch by nearly half - 14.6m/y vs 25.9m/y, no?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

Right

That's exactly what the parent is talking about. Nintendo is focusing on fun, not graphics. And it's working, they have a huge market of users.

And it seems you're not the target if you cannot enjoy a game without good graphisms.

PC / xbox+playstation / switch are almost completely separate markets. It has never entered my mind that "I should buy an xbox/playstation", not once. I have had NES, (original) game boy, SNES, gamecube, wii, and now a switch. It's not about the switch being cheaper than current-gen high-end consoles, it's that the games that are exclusives for those consoles just don't appeal to me.

Please tell me the switch games that you enjoyed the most. I am able to properly emulate the switch on yuzu but I just can't find enjoyable games, contrary to on my PS3 emulator.

The entire first party library of Nintendo Games have been great, many of which are ports from the WiiU.

My personal favorites: Mario Odyssey, Mario 3D World, Luigi's Mansion 3, Breath of the Wild, Pikmin3, and Captain Toad.

My son is really into Splatoon 2, Minecraft Dungeons, and Mario Maker.

My wife plays all the Pokémon/Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon games.

We'll be playing the new Kirby game this evening.

Thanks for sharing, I'll give them a try (this and crash bandicoot). I already played breath of the wild and it is a technological prodigy however I felt the open world was too open/free and not enough filled with narration.

That's why I bought and played Breath of the Wild. It sure beats an experience like GTA V's single player where I can't seem to go five minutes without some NPC talking. I dreaded everytime I opened a car door.

There are many, most of which are wildly famous by now: Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Smash Ultimate, Animal Crossings: New Horizons...

Even a lot of the not-so-famous titles are great, like Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

I've either played and didn't like, or never played to begin with, almost every single game mentioned in the sibling comments.

My favorites: Towerfall, Bastion, Transistor, Pikuniku, untitled goose game, Stardew valley, Kentucky route zero.

Towerfall is like Smash Brothers Lite Lite, I love it.

Nintendo Switch has sold 100m+ units - over 20m of which were in the last year. It's by no means obsolete, it just serves a different market than the one you're interested in.

You don't get the market Nintendo is catering at all. I have bought 3 Switches because the games are fun and they have age appropriate content. I will probably buy another two more Switches by the end of the year, but not a single PS5 or Xbox One *.

Maybe not a switch but a fast Arm (not a dinky tegra) processor would be a game-changer any steam deck 2.0 type of device.

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