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Nintendo Switch Dev Kit Stats Leaked? Cortex A57, 4GB RAM, 32GB Storage, Multi-Touch.

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Orbis

Member
You'd have a point if it wasn't a much bigger device. If we compare it to Tablets it's barely competitive at its price range, and won't be for long.
It doesn't appear to be marketed as a tablet either though. They've not even shown the touch screen in use, which seems deliberate in stating that it's not a tablet. Portably this is marketed as a 3DS successor from what I can tell.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
A $200-250 device is less powerful than a $700 phone, Nintendo you useless fucks!!!

The phone costs nowhere near $700 to manufacture... still it has a whole lot of stuff this console would not need: over 2K high quality 4.7-5.5'' screen (Nintendo is investing in a 720p screen and I doubt it will match the iPhone on other quality parameters either), high quality front camera and very high quality main camera 12 MPixels custom sensors and lenses array) with optical image stabilisation, fingerprint sensor, more expensive material for the screen glass protector and the phone shell, phone antenna and GPS circuitry, etc...
 

Oregano

Member
It doesn't appear to be marketed as a tablet either though. They've not even shown the touch screen in use, which seems deliberate in stating that it's not a tablet. Portably this is marketed as a 3DS successor from what I can tell.

What's it is marketed at doesn't really factor into it. The device is closer to a tablet in size than it is to a phone or the 3DS and needs an internal fan which none of those other devices do. Despite that it's not particularly powerful.
 

Rodin

Member
The Switch will very likely not have the equivalent of that. Then again, if they can optimise for Switch, this level may be possible.

Edit:


I found it has 21 GFLOPS. So, roughly 7.5 times as few GFLOPS, without taking architectural differences into account. If Switch can do the same, then it should theoretically be able to reach 720p 30 fps I think.
Look for some DS3 gameplay on the HD4600, that's the closest match for the GPU we're looking at here. Switch is not on Windows, has fp16, vulkan etc so it should perform better, but that should give us a ballpark.

The rumour about battery life is from the same source that said it would be Pascal. Not credible at all.

It's less powerful than the iPhone 7(and probably other flagship phones). It won't be long until midrange ones catch up.
Even if it was (and I don't think it is) good luck waiting to see a game that looks and play like breath of the wild there.


EDIT: yeah wii u-switch docked is a larger gap than PS4-PS4 Pro (cpu, gpu, ram, architecture, api... everything) and the gap between wii u and ps4 is significantly more pronounced than the switch-pro one, even without considering that the Pro largely uses its more powerful hardware to boost resolution. I really don't see how this is an argument lol
 

manuel

Neo Member
Look for some DS3 gameplay on the HD4600, that's the closest match for the GPU we're looking at here. Switch is not on Windows, has fp16, vulkan etc so it should perform better, but that should give us a ballpark.


Even if it was (and I don't think it is) good luck waiting to see a game that looks and play like breath of the wild there.
Acording to youtube videos hd4600 is capable of running ds3 @720p 20-25fps on low. Not too bad ha?
 

sfried

Member
Uhm... I would say PS4 to PS4 Pro... base clock and shader core counts alone for the GPU plus a shift to Polaris+ architecture for the shader cores (on top of the >2.x performance upgrade the clock speed and shader core count increase brought). While Wii U included some Wii bits for BC its GPU was certainly much newer and fully programmable shaders based.
...but it was definitely not Graphics Core Next based. Compared to NVidia's Maxwell architecture, the Wii U is still looking pretty primitive depspite it having programable shaders.
 

AzaK

Member
Vena sums up better but yeah... this isn't terrible as a portable but it could be better especially considering how big it is and the fact it has an internal fan.
Unfortunately, Nintendo said this is a home console.

Battery life and price most likely.

~XBO/PS4 system specs, good battery life, decent price

You can only pick two of those.

I'd have been happy with #1, but have no interest in #2

You wont need storage space if the games are played off of some cartrage as the rumors say.

What about patches (Say, doom at 10's of gigs)

Then you buy an SD card.
For what, $200 for a measly 512GB? Thanks Nintendo. That said it won't be a problem because third parties won't bother with the machine with these specs.
 

Rodin

Member
this must be with an overclocked 4xxxk, no ?
They're probably gonna need to lower details a bit more then, because the Switch cpu is certainly less powerful than the i5 4460 used here and ds3 is a cpu intensive game.

Anyway from is the same developer that thought blighttown was acceptable enough to ship ds that way, so maybe let's not expect steady 30fps for ds3 on the Switch if it comes out.

Realy? 400? Oops, did not know it was that much. Sorry. Hopes for a switch ds3 back to zero i guess...
Switch gpu is ~400 as well (plus fp16)
 

LordRaptor

Member
Look for some DS3 gameplay on the HD4600, that's the closest match for the GPU we're looking at here.

Its pointless looking at IntelHD performance as a comparative for anything gaming related; they are literally brute forcing their way around dedicated GPU requirements via software rendering, and have no VRAM, outdated OpenGL support, and do not support any shaders more modern than DX10 (introduced with Windows Vista) did.

e:
I mean, IntelHD gaming capabilities are almost a poster child in not taking raw specs in isolation to give anything approaching an accurate estimation of real world performance.
Even the very latest IntelHD revisions are - best case scenario - competing with dedicated GPUs from over a decade ago in performance.

Unfortunately, Nintendo said this is a home console.

Do you really want to try and make the case that the Switch is not a portable gaming device, because Nintendo said so?

At some point Nintendo will say The Switch is the best gaming machine on the market under whatever specific criteria they want to apply.
Weirdly, I don't think you will take that as an absolute fact.
 

Zedark

Member
They're probably gonna need to lower details a bit more then, because the Switch cpu is certainly less powerful than the i5 4460 used here and ds3 is a cpu intensive game.

Anyway from is the same developer that thought blighttown was acceptable enough to ship ds that way, so maybe let's not expect steady 30fps for ds3 on the Switch if it comes out.


Switch gpu is ~400 as well (plus fp16)

Funny thing, I looked at some erformance vids for intel HD4600 and Dark souls 3 ran worse than for example Battlefield 1. Definitely a case of poor optimisation for DS3, so there should be room for improvement for the Switch version (if it does indeed materialise).
 

AzaK

Member
Do you really want to try and make the case that the Switch is not a portable gaming device, because Nintendo said so?

At some point Nintendo will say The Switch is the best gaming machine on the market under whatever specific criteria they want to apply.
Weirdly, I don't think you will take that as an absolute fact.

I have always thought Switch was a handheld. Thing is, with Nintendo saying it's a home console and showing "home console" games like Sky Rim, they need to walk the walk and make it worthy of being called a home console.
 

LordRaptor

Member
they need to walk the walk and make it worthy of being called a home console.

Not really.
It is two things simultaneously. They have to show the value of each of those aspects, not outperform a thing that only does one thing and is dedicated to it at doing that one thing.

Dedicated cameras are better than phones for a number of reasons. Dedicated music players are better than phones for a number of reasons.
Phones aren't better cameras or better music players than dedicated devices are.
Phones have value for not just being a camera or a music player.

e:
I mean, its just as easy to look at a multipurpose device through a negative lens and say "Its not as good as a specialist device!" as it is to look through a positive lens and say "No other device can do all this!".
It's simply a question of value, and Nintendos job is to demonstrate that value. Attacking it for not outcompeting a niche product in its own niche is spectacularly missing the point.
 
They aren't saying Switch is a home console. They are saying it's home console and a handheld. They are underlining the home console aspect because it is very obviously handheld and people need to see the home console part as well. Also home console that you can take with you is much better marketing than handheld with tv out. And while that seems to offend some people in gaf for some reason that is a good strategy for mass market. Point is that it's just marketing and the Switch is very obviously as a hardware goes a powerfull handheld with also tv aspect ie hybrid console. I can't believe that people here think that Nintendo is saying that it is just a home console. They are saying it is a hybrid but are underlining home console aspect for the reasons above.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I feel like they are using the "home console" angle solely so they can charge $59.99 for certain games.

Price isn't the same as value.
Is Dark Souls 3 a game worth $60? A lot of people said yes and bought it at that.
Is Dark Souls 3 on a platform that runs it really well worth more than Dark Souls 3 on a platform that doesn't? Did PS4 and X1 owners get a discount over Pc owners?

e:
I mean, if you didn't think getting third parties onboard was difficult enough, what sort of message does it send to tell them they're "not allowed" to price their software the same as on another platform because "its not a true console"
 

ecosse_011172

Junior Member
I feel like they are using the "home console" angle solely so they can charge $59.99 for certain games.

It's not because you can play all games on it with a traditional controller on your TV in the same manner as any other home console then?
It's somehow an "angle"? Seriously?
 

AzaK

Member
Not really.
It is two things simultaneously. They have to show the value of each of those aspects, not outperform a thing that only does one thing and is dedicated to it at doing that one thing.

Dedicated cameras are better than phones for a number of reasons. Dedicated music players are better than phones for a number of reasons.
Phones aren't better cameras or better music players than dedicated devices are.
Phones have value for not just being a camera or a music player.

e:
I mean, its just as easy to look at a multipurpose device through a negative lens and say "Its not as good as a specialist device!" as it is to look through a positive lens and say "No other device can do all this!".
It's simply a question of value, and Nintendos job is to demonstrate that value. Attacking it for not outcompeting a niche product in its own niche is spectacularly missing the point.


The only thing I care about is what the Switch does for me. I couldn't care less if people think it's an amazing handheld. I don't play handheld games but I like some of Nintendo's franchises......A LOT. However if they've spent tonnes of their budget on handheld stuff and made it weak as the one thing I want it for (really nice looking Nintendo games + third party AAA titles) then it's looking like something I'll skip.

I'm not here to have conversations but what's best for Nintendo or the industry or Nintendo games. I'm following Switch because I want to see what it does for me. The thing that I'm waiting for is the 6 months after launch to see what AAA devs are still around on it.
 

Roo

Member
I think a $60 pricetag was a given since they have consolidated their teams. $50 would be nice, but I wouldn't count on it.
Their games definitely will have a flexible pricing. They already did with Wii U. There's literally no reason why they would stop with Switch. Expect their high profile games like Mario, Zelda, Kart, Smash, etc to be $60 while smaller projects like DK, Kirby, Mario Party, Sports, etc fluctuate between the $30-$50 price range.
 

ggx2ac

Member
I have an idea since we are just throwing things around. What if switch has two models at launch. A lot of people even Nintendo referenced apple when explaining their new business model. One ecosystem multiple devices. What if we get the switch in this form at launch with Two configurations. One is based on 720p gameplay and experience. The other with bigger carts, better processors (pascal vs maxwell 20nm vs 16) and more memory. I know it's rather unlikely but just throwing it out there.

Iwata said that was an idea since they weren't sure whether to go with one form factor or multiple, that never confirmed anything.

Pascal isn't significantly different from Maxwell, only the nodes 20nm and 16nm matter. Bigger carts? If this is about the 16GB standard size, it's not a restriction.

More memory? We don't even know what the system has but from the revealed clock speeds it has enough memory to use.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Look for some DS3 gameplay on the HD4600, that's the closest match for the GPU we're looking at here. Switch is not on Windows, has fp16, vulkan etc so it should perform better, but that should give us a ballpark.

Its pointless looking at IntelHD performance as a comparative for anything gaming related; they are literally brute forcing their way around dedicated GPU requirements via software rendering, and have no VRAM, outdated OpenGL support, and do not support any shaders more modern than DX10 (introduced with Windows Vista) did.

e:
I mean, IntelHD gaming capabilities are almost a poster child in not taking raw specs in isolation to give anything approaching an accurate estimation of real world performance.
Even the very latest IntelHD revisions are - best case scenario - competing with dedicated GPUs from over a decade ago in performance.
Just to add to the above that in my OpenCL experience IntelHD flops translate to ~0.5x Kepler flops, and a comparison to Maxwell would not turn any more favorable to IntelHD.
 

manuel

Neo Member
Been watching on youtube how a bunch of newer titles indeed can run on theese intel integrated graphics, barely, but they run. I think there will not be any major issues to make modern games run on the switch. With Many compromises and tweaks that is obviously.
 

z0m3le

Banned
Heh, it's even more of a difference than I calculated. Do you have a link to where you got that info?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/4

I did the math. Again it is a rough estimation, but GCN further improved on the efficiency that VLIW4 offered.

There are even ancillary benefits within the individual SPUs. While the SP count changed the register file did not, leading to less pressure on each SPU’s registers as now only 4 SPs vie for register space. Even scheduling is easier as there are fewer SPs to schedule and the fact that they’re all alike means the scheduler no longer has to take into consideration the difference between the w/x/y/z units and the t-unit.

Meanwhile in terms of gaming the benefits are similar. Games that were already failing to fully utilize the VLIW5 design now have additional SIMDs to take advantage of, and as rendering is still an embarrassingly parallel operation as far as threading is concerned, it’s very easy to further divide the rendering workload in to more threads to take advantage of this change. The extra SIMDs mean that Cayman has additional texturing horsepower over Cypress, and the overall compute:texture ratio has been reduced, a beneficial situation for any games that are texture/filtering bound more than they’re compute bound.

This is mainly why VLIW4 replaced VLIW5, AMD could remove 1ALU for every 5 they had and have roughly the same performance, so 160 cores would work out to 128, of course Wii U has 176gflops, those extra 16gflops would be further covered by the move from VLIW4 to GCN, which moved from 4alu groups to 16alu groups, allowing the 128 cores (alus) to handle multiple thread waves at once, think of it like a catch all, threads would feed into a wider bandwidth of processing than before, without changing the available number of cores, and since you could now do multiple instructions at once, you don't have to worry about ALUs going unused. VLIW4 to GCN was from a processing standpoint smaller than VLIW5 to VLIW4, hope you are satisfied with that, you can read more about it and anandtech is a great deep dive into VLIW4/5 and GCN if you search their archives. This is what the WUST thread did to me btw.

As for maxwell over GCN, I used ~28% better performance, in reality it can be as much as 40% but like I said this is a rough estimation on the safe side, I don't even add in the added functionalities like just being able to do certain effects better and more efficiently than R700's 2008 VLIW5 engine was capable of.

To everyone being down right dense, yes Zelda on docked Switch could do 1080p 60fps, it is straight up 4times as powerful, before feature enhancements, that is enough to handle the game at the higher demand, the only issue is that wii u's architecture is very different, while PS4, XB1 and Switch roughly have the same structure. IE a bad Wii U port can still run badly on Switch, while a bad ps4 port should be handled much better since PS4 and Switch are much more alike.
 

Vena

Member
I'm not surprised that this isn't as powerful as XBO but what I am surprised about is the fact its's not even as powerful as a phone despite needing an internal fan. It is absolute garbage design.

If this was a Vita sized handheld, with no fan, at this performance level it would be awesome but it's not.

We are going to get both shit power and shit battery life.;_;

Until there's a teardown this is a stupid ass statement. You're not an engineer.

And just looking at the patent breakdown, I'd challenge your "garbage design" claim anyway. Too caught up in numbers.
 
A $200-250 device is less powerful than a $700 phone, Nintendo you useless fucks!!!
But many of the people who Nintendo would want to buy a Switch are already carrying around that high end phone. Nintendo has to convince them that the Switch can do enough to justify buying another device and carrying it around in addition to their phone. That's why dedicated mobile gaming in general is becoming a much harder sell.
 

z0m3le

Banned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znX3u9U16wE the HD 7650k is what everyone is looking for, this is very close to 1:1 as a 400gflop maxwell part running only fp32.

This video is DX11 rather than vulkan, but it is also 720p, the question here is with the added features and better API, can fromsoft push similar performance at 1080p? at the very least, you now have something to youtube.
 

Oregano

Member
Until there's a teardown this is a stupid ass statement. You're not an engineer.

And just looking at the patent breakdown, I'd challenge your "garbage design" claim anyway. Too caught up in numbers.

I don't need to be an engineer. The end user experience is more important than how the internals are engineered.

From the patents we know the Switch's fan runs when portable which already makes it a compromised user experience. The fact that it seems the offer no tangible benefits for that is terrible.

That was my issue with it when I first heard it has a fan and continues to be my issue. It's a horrible compromise.
 

Hermii

Member
But many of the people who Nintendo would want to buy a Switch are already carrying around that high end phone. Nintendo has to convince them that the Switch can do enough to justify buying another device and carrying it around in addition to their phone. That's why dedicated mobile gaming in general is becoming a much harder sell.

In terms of actual real world graphics and not theoretical specs, the switch will blow away phones for years because mobile gaming is limited by other things than the theoretical capabilities of high end phones.

- IOS android business models
- File sizes. Good luck selling a 16gb game (or more).
- Bulky OS, inefficient APIs.
- Trying to target a larger market, including budget phones.

Especially super optimized exclusives, will be leaps and bounds ahead of the most technically impressive phone game.
 

random25

Member
But many of the people who Nintendo would want to buy a Switch are already carrying around that high end phone. Nintendo has to convince them that the Switch can do enough to justify buying another device and carrying it around in addition to their phone. That's why dedicated mobile gaming in general is becoming a much harder sell.

"But can your phone play these games?"

Until console games, Nintendo's to be specific, lose their appeal over their mobile overlords, that will always be a valid argument for devices like Switch to co-exist with smartphones.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Is all the talk about the fan being active while in portable mode based solely on the patents?

Cause... you know, patents are supposed to be vague and not specific for every little scenario, and on top of that, things can change.
 
Great specs and a huge leap forward...

...as a successor to the 3DS.

This isn't Nintendo's next home console despite what NoA may have suggested. I believe they said that to avoid negative headlines such as 'Nintendo pulls out of the home console market'. There's also the factor of them not wanting to take away from sales of the 3DS and Pokemon Sun/Moon.

Makes no mistake about it, this is a portable console with a dock so you can play the games on a TV as well. If you ask me to bring you a dog but I bring you a cat and call it a dog, it's still a cat and this is still a portable console.

For me, barring an absolute miracle gimmick, there is no real chance of Nintendo being moderately successful in the home console market, so a system of this style is 100% the right choice for them.

The Switch may be bigger than the usual portable Nintendo systems but things have changed and people are now used to carrying tablets and smaller slimmer laptops around with them. To be honest, I even carried my 3DS in a bag with me if I went away rather than have this huge bulge in my pocket.

All Nintendo can do now is focus on just the one system. Rather than make Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS and Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, they can now make just one Mario Kart game and use the spare time and resources to make a completely different game instead.

So as well as getting more games from Nintendo themselves, we should also be getting the best of their portable and home console games. So Pokemon in HD and playable on the TV, as well as a huge new Zelda adventure.

This system will potentially have Nintendo's best ever software library in that regard. Kinda sad I won't be playing a Metroid game with graphics on par with the new Doom game though.
 
In terms of actual real world graphics and not theoretical specs, the switch will blow away phones for years because mobile gaming is limited by other things than the theoretical capabilities of high end phones.

- IOS android business models
- File sizes. Good luck selling a 16gb game (or more).
- Bulky OS, inefficient APIs.
- Trying to target a larger market, including budget phones.

Especially super optimized exclusives, will be leaps and bounds ahead of the most technically impressive phone game.

Not really.
It is two things simultaneously. They have to show the value of each of those aspects, not outperform a thing that only does one thing and is dedicated to it at doing that one thing.

Dedicated cameras are better than phones for a number of reasons. Dedicated music players are better than phones for a number of reasons.
Phones aren't better cameras or better music players than dedicated devices are.
Phones have value for not just being a camera or a music player.

e:
I mean, its just as easy to look at a multipurpose device through a negative lens and say "Its not as good as a specialist device!" as it is to look through a positive lens and say "No other device can do all this!".
It's simply a question of value, and Nintendos job is to demonstrate that value. Attacking it for not outcompeting a niche product in its own niche is spectacularly missing the point.
Irony. You know that exact same argument can be used against the Switch in a phone vs. Switch comparison. The hybrid capabilities of a mobile phone are far more important than the hybrid capabilities of the Switch.

In addition, high performance gaming on mobile phones are just going to get better. We have already seen Google make changes to Android to enable better VR experiences. High performance games simply have not been a high priority to phones until now which is really what should make Nintendo quake in their boots. Just like Microsoft and Sony did with motion controls, once a Nintendo competitor senses a big enough market in something Nintendo does, they can quickly match it.

Oddly enough I don't think any of the mobile phone makers care that much about the types of dedicated games that Nintendo makes, but they do want to push VR to differentiate themselves from their competitors. But VR has even higher gaming requirements than traditional games, so by pursuing VR they stomp on Nintendo as a side effect.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Great specs and a huge leap forward...

...as a successor to the 3DS.

This isn't Nintendo's next home console despite what NoA may have suggested. I believe they said that to avoid negative headlines such as 'Nintendo pulls out of the home console market'. There's also the factor of them not wanting to take away from sales of the 3DS and Pokemon Sun/Moon.

Makes no mistake about it, this is a portable console with a dock so you can play the games on a TV as well. If you ask me to bring you a dog but I bring you a cat and call it a dog, it's still a cat and this is still a portable console.

For me, barring an absolute miracle gimmick, there is no real chance of Nintendo being moderately successful in the home console market, so a system of this style is 100% the right choice for them.

The Switch may be bigger than the usual portable Nintendo systems but things have changed and people are now used to carrying tablets and smaller slimmer laptops around with them. To be honest, I even carried my 3DS in a bag with me if I went away rather than have this huge bulge in my pocket.

All Nintendo can do now is focus on just the one system. Rather than make Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS and Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, they can now make just one Mario Kart game and use the spare time and resources to make a completely different game instead.

So as well as getting more games from Nintendo themselves, we should also be getting the best of their portable and home console games. So Pokemon in HD and playable on the TV, as well as a huge new Zelda adventure.

This system will potentially have Nintendo's best ever software library in that regard. Kinda sad I won't be playing a Metroid game with graphics on par with the new Doom game though.

This. I wish they would just market it that way.

Then, when an SCD comes out, market that as the new home way to play.
 

Hermii

Member
I don't need to be an engineer. The end user experience is more important than how the internals are engineered.

From the patents we know the Switch's fan runs when portable which already makes it a compromised user experience. The fact that it seems the offer no tangible benefits for that is terrible.

That was my issue with it when I first heard it has a fan and continues to be my issue. It's a horrible compromise.

It isn't confirmed that the fans are running when portable, these specs makes it unlikely imo,

As unbelievable as it sounds they allegedly spent 500 engineering years on the switch. I believe it has a decent price / features / battery / performance / battery capacity ratio. You might not agree with that ratio but thats another thing.
 

ultrazilla

Member
I'm not worried. Everybody gonna be like "omg!" When they cover the add on
computational devices that will increase performance that they'll sell at launch with the system. While I've seen a few folks post that patent, I'm also seeing a lot of doom and gloom posts with the "Switch" being "under-powered" complaint. It won't be if my prediction and their approved patent is acted on. That's the "missing piece of the puzzle" people are overlooking IMO.

Again though, knowing that for all intents and purposes this will be more powerful than a Wii U is just fine for me. Ymmv.
 

z0m3le

Banned


The Switch is a catch all, there is no reason that Nintendo couldn't up the clocks in the handheld or the docked mode. A 25% clock increase would handle that. As for a future console, I wouldn't put too much weight behind that, a dock that acts like a SCD is likely though, and that would offer "console" gamers the performance they want. There really isn't much of a limit here because Nintendo only needs to sell you a GPU wrapped inside a new dock, call it a 4K dock, slap $200 on it and give people a 4tflops+ gpu, fed to the switch through thunderbolt in USB-C. That is what the earlier patent suggested, and unless Nintendo was very unlike Nintendo and didn't think of an expansion port, that is very likely going to have USB 3.1 on the low end or thunderbolt 40GB/s on the high end.
 

Hermii

Member
The Switch is a catch all, there is no reason that Nintendo couldn't up the clocks in the handheld or the docked mode. A 25% clock increase would handle that. As for a future console, I wouldn't put too much weight behind that, a dock that acts like a SCD is likely though, and that would offer "console" gamers the performance they want. There really isn't much of a limit here because Nintendo only needs to sell you a GPU wrapped inside a new dock, call it a 4K dock, slap $200 on it and give people a 4tflops+ gpu, fed to the switch through thunderbolt in USB-C. That is what the earlier patent suggested, and unless Nintendo was very unlike Nintendo and didn't think of an expansion port, that is very likely going to have USB 3.1 on the low end or thunderbolt 40GB/s on the high end.

That would still be limited by the Switch cpu right? Even more so than the PS4 pro.
 

random25

Member
Great specs and a huge leap forward...

...as a successor to the 3DS.

This isn't Nintendo's next home console despite what NoA may have suggested. I believe they said that to avoid negative headlines such as 'Nintendo pulls out of the home console market'. There's also the factor of them not wanting to take away from sales of the 3DS and Pokemon Sun/Moon.

Makes no mistake about it, this is a portable console with a dock so you can play the games on a TV as well. If you ask me to bring you a dog but I bring you a cat and call it a dog, it's still a cat and this is still a portable console.

For me, barring an absolute miracle gimmick, there is no real chance of Nintendo being moderately successful in the home console market, so a system of this style is 100% the right choice for them.

The Switch may be bigger than the usual portable Nintendo systems but things have changed and people are now used to carrying tablets and smaller slimmer laptops around with them. To be honest, I even carried my 3DS in a bag with me if I went away rather than have this huge bulge in my pocket.

All Nintendo can do now is focus on just the one system. Rather than make Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS and Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U, they can now make just one Mario Kart game and use the spare time and resources to make a completely different game instead.

So as well as getting more games from Nintendo themselves, we should also be getting the best of their portable and home console games. So Pokemon in HD and playable on the TV, as well as a huge new Zelda adventure.

This system will potentially have Nintendo's best ever software library in that regard. Kinda sad I won't be playing a Metroid game with graphics on par with the new Doom game though.

I really don't get this kind of argument? What defines a home console? Specs? Power?

The Wii and Wii U aren't on par with the specs of their competition. Does that mean those two are not home consoles? For as long as you can plug it to your TV by its original design and play games with that set up, then it is a home console by definition.

And when it comes to power jump, the Switch as both a home and handheld console still is a jump when compared to both the 3DS and Wii U, even if rumors from DF are true. So does it still not fit it as a home console even if the jump from its home console predecessor is evident?
 
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