Comment by dcow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcow | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It’s been longer than the Wii. I agree with the philosophy and that it works at a product level. That’s not what I’m criticizing. I am a fan of Nintendo’s exclusive titles.

But I don't agree that you can continue a trend of shipping hardware that fails to run even your experience centric resource limited titles and remain relevant. I’m saying there’s a middle ground between barely 720p @ 30fps and 4k @ 120fps with ray tracing and ultra settings. The Switch was marketed as a handheld console hybrid. Not a fancy gameboy. I’m not asking for Nintendo to ship a PS5. But I would like to be able to pay a little more (pass the cost entirely on to me and keep a lower tier for all I care) for a hardware device from Nintendo that can run on my 4k TV in docked mode without looking like pixel art. Nintendo needs to deliver a device that can run low to medium quality graphics at 1080-1440p @ 60fps. That’s a completely reasonable request and still confines Nintendo focused studios to the product centric resource constrained environment they want. It’s sad to see all the interest from devs in porting titles to the Switch but then actually trying them and encountering unplayable garbage. Like Skyrim, what a joke.

> Nintendo needs to deliver a device that can run low to medium quality graphics at 1080-1440p @ 60fps.

You say this like they didn't spend the last decade selling 75 million devices that barely pushed ~360p, and making a small fortune from it. I get wanting Nintendo to bump the hardware (I'd love a beefier Switch too), but they've proven over and over again that they don't need to do anything.

If anything, I kind of like that Nintendo has chosen to cede the market of "indie/port" titles, their decision to mostly ignore that market is a big part of what's allowing Steam Deck to flourish right now. And the Steam Deck might be the healthiest new development the industry has seen in 20 years.

I actually think they've walked the line historically very well. I agree with you. I'm not criticizing their past decisions. They're wildly successful. I've purchased 4 Switches (between two people). The part I'm criticizing is that in hindsight I don't think the current gen Switch hardware specifically aged well. I want everything Nintendo has to offer in terms of product, I just don't want it to struggle to drive my modern 77" 4k OLED. Yeah I'm an edge case. I'm just saying it kinda sucks. Tiny violin I get it. If the Switch was marketed only as a handheld I wouldn't be saying anything. But it was marketed as a console hybrid that you plug into your tv. It's like the only TVs they accounted for were 42". I am pretty confident the next Switch or whatever it's going to be will fill the gap. I just wish they'd give me the option so that I could match one of their products to my display hardware a little better. Literally like "to the dev it's indistinguishable hardware the graphics look exactly the same but it can output 1440p@60fps" and to the consumer "it cost you $200 more sucker have fun". I'm just rambling now.

Back to the Steam Deck, I guess that's silver lining. I'm lamenting that my Switch can't really do what the steam deck can do because it does get a lot of indie/ports "attempts" they just kinda suck and especially when there's a PS5 sitting next to the Switch why would I hamstring myself. I'm happy the Steam Deck has spurred a bunch of gaming compatibility layer love. The industry's needed that. I have a pc for pc games, and a switch for console games (and a ps5). As cool as it looks, I don't see myself dropping money on a steam deck at the moment because I got a switch pro last year. Maybe the steam deck will force Nintendo to get a little more serious about hardware? One can dream.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com