Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games? I don't see it. Nintendo has always thrived on underpowered hardware.
If they released a new version with a 120hz display that could actually run games at 120hz, I'd be ecstatic. I don't even mind the 720p resolution, it's fine on such a small screen in my opinion.
It seems like the Switch is unable to have more than a handful of moderately complex animated objects at a time. It's a problem for Pokemon because they wanted to show a lot of different Pokemon doing different things, it's a problem in Breath of the Wild with just too many trees, and it's certainly a problem with all the Dynasty Warrior clones because the whole appeal of those games is hack and slashing through a big hordes of enemies.
30FPS for an interactive experience is really bad. And them saying some regions are locked to 20 FPS - holly shit that's a slideshow.
I used to game on budget PCs when I was a kid, I rarely got to play at 60 FPS, but going down to 30 was just "OK I'm not playing that".
Plus the other benefit to faster hardware is decreased loading times. The Switch has a lot of very long loading screens (and elaborate animations/cutscenes to mask background loading) and the PS5 with near instant loading very much increases the fun, because more time is spent playing vs waiting on a loading screen.
I certainly experienced areas in BOTW which took a heavy FPS hit and it sounds like TOTK is similar. Such an FPS drop does take me out of the game so if the console was powerful enough to avoid that then you could argue it would allow more fun games
The GameCube was the weakest hardware-wise between the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and ~~Dreamcast~~ edit: guess not the Dreamcast, but definitely behind Xbox and PS2. ~~The Nintendo 64 was weaker than the PlayStation or Sega Saturn~~ edit: was wrong here, N64 was definitely the stronger console of this generation.The Super Nintendo had less computing capacity than the Mega Drive/Genesis.
Even when it came to handhelds, the GameBoy was often much weaker hardware. Compare the GameBoy to the Lynx on a spec sheet and it's clear which is better. Actually hold and play both of them and you can see why Atari doesn't exist anymore. The Game Gear was practically the current gen home console in a handheld form and could even get a TV tuner attachment before the GameBoy Color was even announced. Later, the Genesis Nomad was a full blown Genesis console in handheld form. Good games, cheaper hardware, better pocketability led to Nintendo dominating that market despite usually having the weakest hardware around.
It might have been weak, but definitely was comparable (sometimes even stronger) in power to PS2 and definitely not weaker than Dreamcast [0].
> The Nintendo 64 was weaker than the PlayStation or Sega Saturn.
What? No, no, no. PlayStation was definitely weaker. N64 was crippled down by using cartridges instead of CD.
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Despite the raw power, both N64 and GC were crushed by PS1 and PS2 in sales.
[0]: https://www.cs.umd.edu/~meesh/cmsc411/website/proj01/main/co...
Yup, you could say Nintendo always thrived on underpowered (compared to competition) hardware.
NES was twice less powerful than SMS;
GameBoy didn't even have a color display;
SNES vs SMD similarity as NES vs SMS;
GBC was weaker than Neo Geo Pocket or WonderSwan;
GBA didn't have competition (although, if we count N-Gage...);
Wii had hardware from previous generation;
NDS was way worse in raw numbers that PSP;
3DS analogically with PS Vita;
Switch isn't even comparable to PS4/X1, let alone PS5/XSX;
Whereas when Nintendo focused more on being on par in hardware power during 5th gen. (N64) and 6th gen. (GameCube), they didn't sold nearly as much as other generations.
The exception to the pattern are Virtual Boy and Wii U. The former was poorly designed then sacrificed as "filler"; the later flopped due to bad marketing (and naming) + poor decision on betting on "casuals".
In conclusion: as we can see, there is a clear trend, not a rule, but a trend nevertheless.
Correction, Nintendo has more specifically thrived on cheap hardware, which is often correlated with 'underpowered' but does not mean the same necessarily. The Wii's remote wasn't 'underpowered', but it was relatively cheap and added an interesting feature.
> Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games?
These are not the only (though they are important) factors to consider. With a portable platform, battery life, size, weight, heat, all matter much more than with a stationary console. A 2x more powerful Switch with the same power envelope as the original would be able to play games for longer using the same battery due to being more efficient. If you're playing a significantly demanding game, that might mean the difference between only being able to do short sessions on battery, and being able to play for a satisfying amount of time. Or it might mean that you can play it with the screen at a higher brightness, and thus make the game accessible in more environments.
And if the games are have performance issues, having more powerful hardware can make those problems less frequent and more bearable. You can argue that gamedevs need to do a better job, but that doesn't eliminate reality where most people just want to play the game and don't particularly care about the specifics of how to get the best experience.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...
I'm not sure why you mention the controller or how to measure its power, but the console itself was definitely underpowered compared to PS3 or X360. Heck, it was comparable to 6th rather than 7th gen.
Yes. Movement in an action game feels inherently better at 60fps than at 30fps. Metroid Zero Mission (2004), and Metroid Dread (2021) both feel extremely crisp and precise compared to Metroid: Samus Returns (2017) which runs at 30fps.
The biggest complaint that Bloodborne gets, outside of not being available on PC, is that it's locked to 30 fps.
I can't think of a single reason where a game at 60fps would be more fun at 30fps.
Mind clarifying?
I played Zelda: Breath of the wild through on switch. It was one of the launch titles, and it was fantastic. The slow loading times were the #1 complaint I had about the game. They really broke the immersive experience. Whenever I died, teleported between zones or entered & left shrines the loading time was long enough that I fell briefly out of the zone while playing.
I assume loading times haven't gotten any better for Tears of the kingdom, given the hardware hasn't changed. I'd probably buy the new zelda game instantly but when I think back to breath of the wild, my strongest visual memory is that black and red loading screen.
The machine I descrive is already quite underpowered compared to Nintendo's competition by magnitude of orders.
This limits my enjoyment of Nintendo games and I prefer emulators.
Anyway hardware limits are already apparent and yes some games aren't as enjoyable due to very low stuttering performance.
They said "underpowered", not "outdated" or "ridiculously weaker"
Older consoles could get away with much more. There's a Dynasty Warriors style Zelda game on switch called "Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity"[0]. It struggles with the hardware to the point that the choppiness of the frame rate makes the gameplay thoroughly unenjoyable. Even Breath of the wild is infamously laggy in certain areas.
[0] https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Hyrul...
I believe the other two make up the loss on the hardware with licensing rights on the software side of things.
https://www.gamesradar.com/unlike-playstation-and-nintendo-x...
It rather have a switch than can play nintendo games plus some AAA games, than a steamdeck or something like it.