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[Bernoulli]

one advantage of having not too powerful hardware is not having to push the graphics too hard

like we have seen pubslishers complaining that games became very expensive to make because you push more graphics and everything
would that be the reason why nintendo prefers cheap hardware that makes them profit from day 1 and the games aren't hard to make?

when i say cheaper is cheaper to make, they are still scamming us with games that cost same as day one years later after release

 

[acm2000]

no its because higher profit margins and they only make portable consoles so power is limited by battery

 

[killatopak]

That is one of the consequences. I think their overarching goal is to make as much profit and milk fans as much as possible. They never lost money on a sale ever since the Wii.

Just remember TotK was $70. If the only goal was to make it cost less with subpar graphics then they would not have increased price at the last second. Nah, they are greedy corporations just like everybody else.

 

[Fbh]

The Switch was decently powerful for a $299 handheld back in 2017.
The reason they haven't updated the hardware is because there hasn't been any need for it as the system has continued to sell incredibly well through the years.

Also the visuals in their games seem more like a design decision than something related to the hardware. I actually doubt TotK would look substantially better if the Switch was more powerful, you'd just get some better textures and the game would run at 1440p 60fps instead of 900p 30(ish)fps. Nintendo makes games people actually want to play because of their gameplay and design instead of just graphics.

Not to mention that getting the physics of a game like TotK to run on the Switch was probably the opposite of "an easy to make game"

 

[Bernoulli]

That is one of the consequences. I think their overarching goal is to make as much profit and milk fans as much as possible. They never lost money on a sale ever since the Wii.

Just remember TotK was $70. If the only goal was to make it cost less with subpar graphics then they would not have increased price at the last second. Nah, they are greedy corporations just like everybody else.

by costing less i'm taking about making the game

and their reason is to make the most money possible

 

[vaibhavpisal]

They can get away with it. So why not?

 

[Skifi28]

Powerful hardware don't necessarily mean higher costs. They can keep making the same looking stylised games and increase resolutions and framerates to hell.

 

[ThaGuy]

Considering how many publishers we lost during the 360/PS3 era, it's good to have a mixed balance. Yes i wouldn't mind paying 400-450 for a stronger Nintendo console but we're not the overall target. I'm fine with their choice as long as the competition doesn't do the same.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Form factor is what's limiting the power.

 

[Crayon]

That is one of the several major advantages.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Form factor but also focusing on less power will deffo allow to reduce budgets and improved profits.

They are a very clever business and provide imo the best playability for their games.

I love nintendo.

 

[cireza]

They want to turn a profit on every console sold day one, this is how they design their consoles. Cheap components is how they achieve it. They have been doing this since the NES/Famicom days.

However, I will concede that Switch OLED does feel a bit premium (but not the joycons nor dock, obviously). Second time it happened, first being the Game Boy Micro, that did feel premium with the metal case. It was too tiny to be practical though.

 

[Chastten]

They are a business that wants to make money. Keeping game development costs down by focusing on style over graphical prowess is a great way to achieve that. They were among the first companies who understood that and they profit in a major way from it.

When I look at how many game companies went bankrupt since the 90's, I'd say it was the right decision to make. Nintendo is only a relatively small company compared to their direct competitors, so going head to head with them like SEGA did would've doomed them decades ago.


Also, if you feel like they're scamming you, why are you buying their products? They're entertainment, there's plenty of that to go around, you can easily go without Nintendo's offering. Or are you saying Nintendo's games are easily among the best in the industry, despite being graphically inferior? In that case, Nintendo has won, no matter what.

 

[Spukc]

3ds games have better looking 3d assets then the console can actually display,
mario odyssey would be the best looking game ever made running on the ps5.

 

[shamoomoo]

one advantage of having not too powerful hardware is not having to push the graphics too hard

like we have seen pubslishers complaining that games became very expensive to make because you push more graphics and everything
would that be the reason why nintendo prefers cheap hardware that makes them profit from day 1 and the games aren't hard to make?

when i say cheaper is cheaper to make, they are still scamming us with games that cost same as day one years later after release

No. Stronger hardware doesn't have to push cutting edge visuals.

 

[Kataploom]

That's one of the reasons, Iwata said so ages ago iirc.

But... Have you seen the quality of materials in Zelda and Xenoblade games? If it wasn't for texture resolution, they'd look just as good as any other modern day game.

When you work your textures on Substance Painter (standard texturing software), you don't save time, money nor any other resources by making the assets at smaller resolution, the results have infinite resolution due to the nature of its internal functioning and that can't be changed no matter if it's for next Kirby game or for RDR3, that's just the way it works.

If anything, you'd probably be using more resources because the assets have to be manually downscaled depending on your production pipeline and tools.

Also, creating stylized assets isn't inherently cheaper or easier, or even less demanding on hardware.

Using Substance again as an example, you'd actually have to be very good and spend extra time in order to make non-realistic textures on it since "realistic" is the default easier way to produce them.

Zelda BOTW and TOTK don't make less calculations in their lighting tha your average AAA game either, they actually do way more than any 7th gen game and are more comparable to 8th gen games due to using full PBR pipeline, realtime lighting at big scale and manage many variables for temperature, reflections, specularity level, etc. just for materials to be shown properly.

Same for Xenoblade, the difference between Xenoblade X and Xenoblade 2, save for resolution, are like half or full generation apart due to lighting and materials alone. Xenoblade X used same old PS360 graphic pipeline while Xenoblade 2 used full PBR pipeline which is more akin PS4/Xbone.

Their games are probably cheaper to make not because of the hardware though, they are because they don't waste time making horses balls shrink on cold and instead prefer the cold to actually affect the gameplay or just not do it at all. They don't bloat their games, they go straight to the point and work on the actual meaningful stuff.

They're the epithome of "less is more" in a very functional and effective way.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Nintendo left the horse-power race in 2006....and they have never looked back since..so this isn't something new....and arguably they did something similar in 1989, when you'd think having a portable hand-held colour system was the way to go, but they didn't and they didn't release a colour version of the Gameboy till the LATE 90s.......long after the the Game-Gear and Lynx left the scene.....

 

[Paulistano]

Nintendo business is centered on shitty old tech.

Nintendo 3ds used a 2005 shitty GPU in 2011 or the NES CPU that was a clone with things disabled to avoid patents, if others could do it they would but Nintendo have that free pass.

 

[havoc00]

Speaking of,what do you think the play is for the next system ? A switch 2 ? Or whole nother gimmick ?

 

[Captain Toad]

Luckily, diminishing returns is making this less of an issue every generation.

 

[RoadHazard]

I don't know about that, because their own games also struggle on this hardware.

 

[Pelta88]

No.

Their internal research shows that their target audience don't give a shit about realistic visual fidelity.

 

[Danjin44]

Some you guys need to accept that Nintendo, heck even majority of Japanese developers stopped chasing high tech graphics. Western devs are the only ones willing spend crazy amount of money for high tech graphics in order make their games look as photo realistic as possible.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Luckily, diminishing returns is making this less of an issue every generation.

Yep, they really only need to land their next console at around ps4 levels or a tad higher and itll be fine.

 

[Kilau]

For the Switch, Nintendo didn’t do anything in regards to the hardware. Other systems of theirs were definitely designed with a lower target in mind for cost or development reasons.

 

[Rentahamster]

HD towns are hard

 

[Mr Hyde]

Nintendo is a smart company who have managed to carve out their own niche playing by their own rules, with no regards to their competitors. They have succeeded in something no one else in the buisness have, and the sales of their IPs speak volumes. Sony and MS would kill to have those kinda evergreen sales and profits, but they have a different audience who demand high end AAA games, meaning they will never profit the way Nintendo does. I wouldn´t be surprised if Nintendo is the only one left standning if a hypothetical video game crash would take place and obliterate the market.

 

[Banjo64]

“Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology” was a statement putting forward by Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo’s legendary hardware designer.

But why do we use “withered” technology? In fact, “withered” technology usually means mature technology. It is much easier for companies to create best-selling products by using mature technology as this kind of technology is abundant, well-understood and cheap.

 

[cireza]

Same for Xenoblade, the difference between Xenoblade X and Xenoblade 2, save for resolution, are like half or full generation apart due to lighting and materials alone. Xenoblade X used same old PS360 graphic pipeline while Xenoblade 2 used full PBR pipeline which is more akin PS4/Xbone.

Well okay, I get this. Like Bayonetta 3 is super modern or whatever. But in the end, since all of these games run on a shitty console, visuals are so comprised that the games simply look worse than the previous entries. And not by a slight margin, they are super bad, blurry as hell, with awful drops etc...

Bayo 2 looks ten times better than 3
Xeno X is crisp while Xeno 2 has ridiculous resolution drops
SMTV looks like a bad joke
BotW and TotK are low res, low framerate
Hyrule Warriors BotW is a complete joke while the original looks just fine
Etc...

To me, these modern games fail at understanding the hardware they are running on. You should not have a super costly rendering pipeline if the hardware is simply not up to the task. How complicated can it be to keep things simple ? I wonder. Metroid Prime Remastered shows us that it is possible though...

 

[93xfan]

Powerful hardware don't necessarily mean higher costs. They can keep making the same looking stylised games and increase resolutions and framerates to hell.

Plus better LoD, shadow resolution, texture filtering, etc.

 

[MaxwellParrish]

3ds games have better looking 3d assets then the console can actually display,
mario odyssey would be the best looking game ever made running on the ps5.

That's pretty normal for sub HD consoles ? For the secon affirmation I don't know what you means : we already know from PC emulator what Mario Odissey would look with PS5 image quality, the assets aren't really up to par except sometimes. Between I find the art style of Odissey pretty discutivle, some worlds looks great, other not so much so.

 

[Moses85]

Only to maximize their profit with each console they are selling.

 

[Lokaum D+]

I imagine the level of meltdown if Sony and MS decide to roll back hardware to ps3/x360 in order make cheaper games, ll never understand why Nintendo aways get a pass on this.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

The Switch was decently powerful for a $299 handheld back in 2017.
The reason they haven't updated the hardware is because there hasn't been any need for it as the system has continued to sell incredibly well through the years.

Not on their hustle, but let's not forget that the Tegra X1 chip the Switch uses is actually a scaled-back/entry version of the 2015 chip used in devices like the Nvidia Sheild.

I would be shocked if the Nintendo Switch cost more than $199 for Nintendo to make back in 2017.

 

[Hudo]

Nintendo business is centered on shitty old tech.

Nintendo 3ds used a 2005 shitty GPU in 2011 or the NES CPU that was a clone with things disabled to avoid patents, if others could do it they would but Nintendo have that free pass.

Then it seems Microsoft and Sony have both adopted this philosophy because neither the PS5 nor the XSX are "high tech".

 

[Spukc]

That's pretty normal for sub HD consoles ? For the secon affirmation I don't know what you means : we already know from PC emulator what Mario Odissey would look with PS5 image quality, the assets aren't really up to par except sometimes. Between I find the art style of Odissey pretty discutivle, some worlds looks great, other not so much so.

 

[Daniel_Mallorca1985]

nop

 

[Robb]

Could be, although I think it’s more likely they just want to make money on the hardware from the get-go.

Considering their big games sell upwards to 30M copies, at full price, I don’t think having bigger budgets would be much of an issue for them.

 

[Chastten]

I imagine the level of meltdown if Sony and MS decide to roll back hardware to ps3/x360 in order make cheaper games, ll never understand why Nintendo aways get a pass on this.

Is it that hard to imagine that people don't care about graphics? Graphics haven't mattered to me since the mid 00's. That's when things got good enough for me, and anything better looking is just icing on the cake.

Honestly, if Sony or Microsoft started making games I like, I'd let them get away with OG Xbox quality games since they're perfectly fine for me. Hell, Panzer Dragoon Orta is one of the most beautiful games I ever played, as well as one of my favorites. And that's what? running at 480p/30? No idea, actually. I just know it's a stunning game.

Instead, Microsoft focussed on pew-pew games, and Sony focussed on boring, realistic crap, and neither have of them have made a game I care about in well over a decade. Doesn't matter if they look good when I just can't enjoy the gameplay.

 

[phant0m]

i was hyped for switch 2 for a long time. but now that i have a Deck it seems kinda unnecessary. the biggest advantage I have with the Deck is 15 years of backlog that i don't have to re-buy or subscribe to access. sure, some things won't run due to technical limitations but by and large my Steam library is playable.

how many times have people repurchased 1P Nintendo games to run them on the newest console?

 

[Kakax11]

It doesn't matter what the hardware is, Nintendo will put you on a 12hrs shift everyday, somebody better work on those cats polygons in Animal Crossing

 

[Astral Dog]

Yes, that was the logic during the (3)DS and Wii era, that videogames didn't need the highest end graphics and production values with bloated budgets to sell and it ended up working very well. it was no longer the case on Wii U and Switch , the hardware was modest as it is so the transition to portable line only was smooth .

note that it doesn't matter much once we enter the HD era cost,time and asset complexity multiplies

It doesn't matter if the game runs at 720p/30fps it still cost a pretty penny to make ,and next gen there will be a big jump as well, it just won't be at the same level as Xbox series/ps5 for obvious reasons

Nintendo is not against prettier graphics they just use their own strategies that focus on other features and the exclusive games own appeal to sell their consoles, they still compete with Xbox and PS and are aware they won't match them power wise(one of the reasons is that the Japanese market favors portable gaming)

 

[Banjo64]

I imagine the level of meltdown if Sony and MS decide to roll back hardware to ps3/x360 in order make cheaper games, ll never understand why Nintendo aways get a pass on this.

Put it in the palm of my hand with an OLED screen and release 4-6 high quality first party games per year like Nintendo does - I don’t understand why Sony get a pass on increasing their own development cycle to 5-6 years to be honest.

 

[Woopah]

No. The ganes are designed around the potential of the hardware, they didn't intentionally lower the hardware to make the games cost less to make.

They had a 299 price point in mind, and looked for what materials they could get while still making a profit.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Nintendo doesn't care about power and neither do it's fans. Why change just to lose money?

 

[Paulistano]

Then it seems Microsoft and Sony have both adopted this philosophy because neither the PS5 nor the XSX are "high tech".

Both have a Zen 2 CPU (2019) and RDNA2 GPU (2020) architecture and both consoles are from end of 2020 using bleeding edge tech, clearly electronic waste...

 

[Kataploom]

Nintendo left the horse-power race in 2006....and they have never looked back since..so this isn't something new....and arguably they did something similar in 1989, when you'd think having a portable hand-held colour system was the way to go, but they didn't and they didn't release a colour version of the Gameboy till the LATE 90s.......long after the the Game-Gear and Lynx left the scene.....

How was the experience with the game gear tho?

 

[UltimaKilo]

It’s already been mentioned: no. It’s about margins on the hardware sales.

 

[RoboFu]

At a certain point it takes more effort to make a modern game design on lesser hardware not less.

 

[Hudo]

Both have a Zen 2 CPU (2019) and RDNA2 GPU (2020) architecture and both consoles are from end of 2020 using bleeding edge tech, clearly electronic waste...

There is nothing bleeding edge about this. It's a solid evolution of the platforms that came directly before to avoid a complete technical shift again and to make it easier for devs. Both deliberately chose somewhat modern stock components that are easy to manufacture, don't draw too much heat but still are more powerful than the predecessor platforms. The last time Sony released a bleeding-edge console was PS3. Microsoft had always been on the conservative side, although one could argue about their unified memory, which was fairly forward-thinking at that time. But it was weirdly implemented with the split. Both the PS3 and 360 were definitely bleeding edge when it came to memory media, Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD was an interesting battle to witness.

I am not saying these consoles are electronic waste, what I'm saying is that they are solid evolutions (deliberately so) with conservatively chosen components on both sides and that's ok. But there's nothing bleeding-edge about the tech. Same is obviously true for the Switch, where battery life and heat dissipation were probably one of the biggest factors in choosing the components.