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[Nightbird]

Maybe, or maybe something else in the dock.

Guess we'll find out when it releases. I'm really curious about this

 

[Rodin]

If we can then say the WiiU to Switch is the smallest jump ever.

Yeah totally, in a universe where GC and Wii never existed

 

[KratosEnergyDrink]

Being portable automatically makes it a successor to another portable system? Even though Nintendo says it is not the successor (3DS is still a thing) and is a home console? Man you guys are really jumping through hoops.

Nintendo said that DS was not the successor to the GameBoy. Switch is obviously the successor to the 3DS, there is no doubt about it.

 

[Astral Dog]

Did you miss the part of my post where I said it would likely never see the light of day? We already know that Nintendo is always working on new hardware and the only thing that could really save them if Switch bombs as hard as Wii U is to announce a successor to 3DS.

And port all them Switch games to it? Come on man,the only Nintendo has not been more clear its because they still need to sell those 3DSes this year.
A handheld only Switch might come later.

 

[Kamina]

Guess we'll find out when it releases. I'm really curious about this

I am curious about the whole experience, and i have no doubt i will use it in Handheld and Console mode equally.

Yeah totally, in a universe where GC and Wii never existed

How big of a jump was DS -> 3DS in comparison?

 

[Astral Dog]

Yeah totally, in a universe where GC and Wii never existed

If it was the successor to the 3ds then yeah. But its the successor to the WII-U

Its the sequel to BOTH,they even said so at the reveal event

 

[Gattsu25]

If you consider Switch to be a handheld that is

Not even close.

iPad Pros existed before the Switch.


The jump from iPad Pro to Switch isn't that large and is mainly a difference of developers not being hamstrung by the "Free with microtransactions" pricing model of the Apple app store.

 

[Skunkers]

Without checking, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the Atari Jaguar blows everything out of the water.

 

[rambis]

Arguable. Some people on this very thread are saying that the 3DS wasn't much more powerful than a Ps2 (or even considerably weaker!) and the Switch docked is more powerful than a Ps3 (in before no Switch game looks as good as TLoU!).

Well if we are going by the specs as presented by the OP, the PS2 is just over 1-2 gigaflops above the 3DS. The 3DS gpu however is much more modern. Its the same with the PS3. Raw power wise its defintely above the reported 384 of the Switch but the Switch's gpu is alot more modern.

As far as how games look, featureset can be alot more important than raw power.

 

[kubev]

If we're only including generational leaps within a single console manufacturer's offerings, then I'd probably say Saturn to Dreamcast or PlayStation (1) to PlayStation 2. In general, I think the leap to Dreamcast was the most impressive graphical leap to me between all consoles in general, though.

 

[commish]

If it was the successor to the 3ds then yeah. But its the successor to the WII-U

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Source.

 

[Astral Dog]

I am curious about the whole experience, and i have no doubt i will use it in Handheld and Console mode equally.


How big of a jump was DS -> 3DS in comparison?

It was big
Except in resolution.
2 MB to 64 for games,pica 2000 shaders,etc.

 

[jroc74]

op, are you really implying that it's a portable console?
it's large, it has a *very* limited duration... and that's just for starter..
consider it a MOVABLE (meaning that you can play on the bed//sofa and not necessarily in front of the tv), but PORTABLE.. portable it ain't...

So far when describing the Switch I've seen its not convenience portable and movable.

But not portable....

Interesting times ahead.

And I also believe it's a handheld first n foremost. The dock is the X Factor.

Some of us said it before remove the dock from the box, what do you have.

Remove the Switch from the box and what do you have.

They are both needed to connect to the TV but without the dock and TV you still have a gaming device. That fits in your hand and can be carried with you.

Every hybrid device I've seen has a core function. The core function of the Switch is handheld gaming device.

This is gonna be a hotly debated topic for many years. lol

 

[Astral Dog]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Lies!

 

[commish]

Nintendo said that DS was not the successor to the GameBoy. Switch is obviously the successor to the 3DS, there is no doubt about it.

If I say, one day, that I'm going to have turkey for dinner, then change my mind and eat ham, does that mean every time I say I'm eating turkey, I'm going to eat ham? Silliness.

I have a hard time believing that Nintendo is only going to have one piece of hardware out there for the first time in decades, but it is certainly possible and I would really hope so. Better to focus on one.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Waiting...

 

[Aleh]

Why are people getting so worked up over something so simple? The Switch is being marketed as both a home console and a handheld, see the picture from Nintendo's site someone posted a few posts back.
The only thing they're doing is concentrating on the home console part first because the Wii U failed and died and the 3DS didn't. It's literally that simple.

 

[BooJoh]

And port all them Switch games to it? Come on man,the only Nintendo has not been more clear its because they still need to sell those 3DSes this year.
A handheld only Switch might come later.

Who says they would necessarily have to port all the Switch games to it? (though after the number of Wii/Wii U ports 3DS got I wouldn't be surprised.)

People don't seem to understand that I'm talking about a system that would only be released as a last resort in the event of Switch being a failure. Nintendo would be insane not to have something like that in the works, and the most surefire way to ensure such a system's success would be to ride the 3DS's success train.

The reason Nintendo hasn't been clear with their intentions is the same reason they weren't clear with their intentions with DS. If it fails, they want to be able to say "Don't worry, we still have 3DS!" and then they would announce my hypothetical successor to that because 3DS is at the end of its life.

 

[phanphare]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

this sounds like sarcasm but if not it's false

 

[Phife Dawg]

If you consider Switch to be a handheld that is

Of course it is, it's also a home console. And I don't think anyone expects Nintendo to put out a seperate 3DS successor.

Edit: Oops I stand corrected, even in this very thread

 

[Josman]

How on earth is the Switch being a handheld still on debate? The hardware was designed to be portable with mobile components and it's the reason why it's underpowered for a home console

 

[AfterTheFall]

Really reaching here OP.

Wii U should have been taken into the equation as it replaces both.

 

[Powwa]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Tales from my ass.

 

[AfterTheFall]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Um, source? I don't believe they did.

 

[Jonneh3003]

The denial about it being a handheld is a little absurd, you can take it around with you and it has a built in screen therefore it is a handheld. Hybrid is a better term but the design form is handheld first and console second.

 

[phanphare]

Really reaching here OP.

Wii U should have been taken into the equation as it replaces both.

well the OP does compare the power of the 3DS to the power of the Switch undocked so it's not really reaching

 

[Rodin]

I am curious about the whole experience, and i have no doubt i will use it in Handheld and Console mode equally.


How big of a jump was DS -> 3DS in comparison?

I was 15 when the DS came out and i didn't care about specs back then, so i don't know if wikipedia is reliable about this, but here are the reported specs for it:

Two ARM processors:
32 bit ARM946E-S main CPU; 67 MHz clock speed. Processes gameplay mechanisms and video rendering
32 bit ARM7TDMI coprocessor; 33 MHz clock speed. Processes sound output, Wi-Fi support and takes on second-processor duties in Game Boy Advance mode
4 MB (expandable via the Game Boy Advance slot, only officially used by the Opera web browser).
Rechargeable 850 mAh lithium-ion battery.
256 kB of serial flash memory.
Screen: 256x192

Here's the 3DS:

CPU: ARM11 dual core 268MHz(+ARM9 coprocessor for DS bc)
GPU: PICA200 268MHz (~4gflops+fixed functions). OpenGL ES 1.1 API
VRAM: 6 MB
RAM: 64 MB
Flash memory: 1GB
Screen: 400x240 TN/IPS (800x240 in 3D)


Here's the Switch

CPU: ARMv8 A57 (or newer) quad core 1.02GHZ (1.78GHZ for the final version if the foxconn leak is correct)
GPU: Nvidia Tegra Maxwell 2+Pascal enhancements 256 cuda cores. 307MHZ undocked, 768MHZ docked (921MHZ according to the foxconn guy). 157gflops undocked, 393gflops docked (472gflops according to the foxcoon guy). Vulkan API
RAM: 4GB LPDDR4 (25.6GB/s on a 64bit bus or 51.2GB/s on a 128bit bus)+cache
Flash memory: 32GB
Screen: 1280x720 IPS

Bonus (Wii U specs):

CPU: Espresso (IBM PPC 750) derivate tri core 1.24GHZ (no real SIMD units, OoOE, 4 stage pipeline, 3MB cache L2)
GPU: AMD VLIW5 custom chip, 160 shaders*550MHZ (176gflops). GX2 API (DX10.1 level)
RAM: 2GB DDR3 (1 for games, 1 for the OS) on a 64 bit bus, 12.8GB/s+32MB eDRAM (exact bandwidth unknown, but it's in the 37-70GB/s range)
Flash memory: 8GB-32GB

Why are people getting so worked up over something so simple? The Switch is being marketed as both a home console and a handheld, see the picture from Nintendo's site someone posted a few posts back.
The only thing they're doing is concentrating on the home console part first because the Wii U failed and died and the 3DS didn't. It's literally that simple.

Apparently no considering the amount of mental gymnastic going on in this thread.

 

[CronoShot]

Regardless of marketing, Switch is physically a portable system. All of the necessary internals are inside of the portable unit.

So yes, 3DS to Switch is probably the largest generational jump we've seen from a single manufacturer.

However, Wii U to Docked Switch is probably one of the smallest (not THE smallest, that would be GCN to Wii).

 

[NolbertoS]

When Iwats was alive, didn'y he say thr NX is gonna be the sucessor to both the Wii U and 3DS. There won't be a 3DS2 or 4DS guys. Nintendo want their portable market to count as console gamers now. If they can get at least 50% of the users that own a 3DS to buy a switch, it'll be already a win for Nintendo

 

[Napalm_Frank]

When Iwats was alive, didn'y he say thr NX is gonna be the sucessor to both the Wii U and 3DS. There won't be a 3DS2 or 4DS guys. Nintendo want their portable market to count as console gamers now. If they can get at least 50% of the users that own a 3DS to buy a switch, it'll be already a win for Nintendo

''4DS'' will be a smaller, stripped down version of Switch that is portable only with the same library. I think there will be another SKU next year.

 

[Rodin]

When Iwats was alive, didn'y he say thr NX is gonna be the sucessor to both the Wii U and 3DS. There won't be a 3DS2 or 4DS guys. Nintendo want their portable market to count as console gamers now. If they can get at least 50% of the users that own a 3DS to buy a switch, it'll be already a win for Nintendo

This is what Kimishima said

Respected Japanese paper Nikkei asked Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima what kind of game machine the NX was. "At this current stage, I'm not able to say," Kimishima replied. "However, it's not merely the successor to the handheld 3DS or stationary console Wii U. This will be hardware that's been made with a new way of thinking. I'd like to announce more particulars regarding its specs and how it works another time this year."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1212423

And i'm pretty sure Iwata stated the same thing.

''4DS'' will be a smaller, stripped down version of Switch that is portable only with the same library. I think there will be another SKU next year.

I don't even see the point in creating another device. Just remove all the accessories from the current Switch package (joycons grip, docking station, docking station adapter, HDMI) and release a standalone Switch as a real standalone handheld for 199$.

 

[Kamina]

''4DS'' will be a smaller, stripped down version of Switch that is portable only with the same library. I think there will be another SKU next year.

Yeah no. I could believe it if you said that they'll release a Switch without dock however.

 

[clevbrowns94]

Exactly. Nintendo already said we'll get a separate 3DS successor down the road in a few years.

Nope.

So, just so we are clear, it's not a successor to blank GAF poster, so therefore it's not a successor to anyone, it doesn't fit in my pocket, the above lie, Nintendo marketed that way, and the 3DS still has games. All a bunch of bull. I'll leave it as this: if Nintendo releases a 3DS successor in a few years, then you can bump this thread and show you are right. Until then, you are all reaching in so many ways that it's embarrassing for you.

 

[Protome]

Nope.

So, just so we are clear, it's not a successor to blank GAF poster, so therefore it's not a successor to anyone, it doesn't fit in my pocket, the above lie, Nintendo marketed that way, and the 3DS still has games. All a bunch of bull. I'll leave it as this: if Nintendo releases a 3DS successor in a few years, then you can bump this thread and show you are right. Until then, you are all reaching in so many ways that it's embarrassing for you.

If Nintendo releases a 3DS successor in a few year it's not because the Switch wasn't their new handheld, it's because the Switch failed.

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

If Nintendo releases a 3DS successor in a few year it's not because the Switch wasn't their new handheld, it's because the Switch failed.

And if that happens it will be 100% backwards compatible with Switch.

 

[Hoo-doo]

It's the largest yet it's also the smallest, compared to the Wii-U.

It's whatever you want it to be.

 

[Mokujin]

In this thread I learned thanks to GAF that I won't be able to play Switch outside my home.

 

[koss424]

op, are you really implying that it's a portable console?
it's large, it has a *very* limited duration... and that's just for starter..
consider it a MOVABLE (meaning that you can play on the bed//sofa and not necessarily in front of the tv), but PORTABLE.. portable it ain't...

Regardless of marketing, Switch is physically a portable system. All of the necessary internals are inside of the portable unit.

So yes, 3DS to Switch is probably the largest generational jump we've seen from a single manufacturer.

However, Wii U to Docked Switch is probably one of the smallest (not THE smallest, that would be GCN to Wii).

you've perfectly described the Switch paradox.

 

[Rolf NB]

This was something i was wondering for a while actually, because that way it would be similar to a Laptop

So, you would argue that activating TV Out is what triggers it?

Ehrm....
Whatever activates TV Out in that version?
Because that same thing will activate the docked performance profile.

op, are you really implying that it's a portable console?
it's large, it has a *very* limited duration... and that's just for starter..
consider it a MOVABLE (meaning that you can play on the bed//sofa and not necessarily in front of the tv), but PORTABLE.. portable it ain't...

Throwability is the only useful metric here.

 

[Starfish Hero]

Nintendo: Switch is a home console
GAF: No

 

[ShdwDrake]

I don't understand how Gaffers use terminology. I mean yeah Nintendo markets it as a console but it is clearly a handheld with a dock needed to connect it to the tv.

It's like calling a windows phone a PC bc you can attach it to monitor.

 

[Sora the Cat]

Nintendo: Switch is a home console
GAF: No

From Nintendo's official page:

 

[Rolf NB]

Nintendo: Switch is a home console
GAF: No

Nintendo: Switch is a <blablabla>
Smart GAF: I already have the feature list, so kindly fuck off with your stupid market positioning antics.

 

[Shmuppers]

I always thought the jump from PS1 to PS2 was the most dramatic. I don't know the exact hardware differences between the two, though.

Vagrant Story

Silent Hill 3

 

[The Hermit]

you can hold any console in your hands and play it with enough effort.

Holy shit I actually laughed out loud

It's a handheld too, this discussion is getting ridiculous.

To be on topic though, the 16-32/64 bit was bigger. Snes-> N64 was something insane.

 

[Ekid]

The Switch is a home console first and portable second so you can't make this comparison. The logical comparison is Wii U to Switch.

Well this version of the Switch is clearly the Wii U successor.
But the cheaper, full handheld version that will undoubtedly come out next year will be the 3ds successor, so the comparison still stand.

 

[pswii60]

Wii to PS4 is a pretty massive generational leap.

 

[Starfish Hero]

Nintendo: Switch is a <blablabla>
Smart GAF: I already have the feature list, so kindly fuck off with your stupid market positioning antics.

"Smart GAF" lmao everyday Gaffers somehow find a way to one up a previous high in condescension

 

[bomblord1]

I always thought the jump from PS1 to PS2 was the most dramatic. I don't know the exact hardware differences between the two, though.

Vagrant Story


Silent Hill 3

3DS

Switch