Hate Train #1 - The Great Nintendo Switcheroo
WARNING!
The following article contains offensive language unsuitable for minors and weak-minded crybaby manchildren - proceed at your own risk! You have been forewarned, I will not be held responsible for any cases of butt-blasting that may occur.
The following article contains offensive language unsuitable for minors and weak-minded crybaby manchildren - proceed at your own risk! You have been forewarned, I will not be held responsible for any cases of butt-blasting that may occur.
Before I became a part of the Mag Staff, I used to be quite a disagreeable member of the forums. I would use the word “abrasive”, but no amount of sandpaper can describe the amount of rage, toxin and vitriol that flows through my veins every single day and keeps the steam engine of hate that is my personality going. I’m the local Prince of Hate, and I’ll happily wear that title as a badge of honour. Needless to say, my new position required me to curb some of my unique… “qualities” in order to maintain the friendly atmosphere on the Temp. As you might imagine, I’ve been bottling up my poisonous comments, storing them for when the time comes, and that time is now, because I’ve ran out of bottles. I’m a little older, a little wiser and I give even less of a fuck than before, so get your seatbelts buckled up, ‘cause I’m taking you on a ride!
Welcome to GBATemp’s Hate Train, a brand-new segment where I can finally do what I do best – explain in excruciating detail why everyone’s an idiot except for me. Now that I’ve explained what this jig is all about while simultaneously jerking myself off, it’s time to serve up my first steaming bucket of bile, and it’s all about our favourite game developer Nintendo, so open your hatch wide, because I’m planning to ram a torpedo of truth straight down your throat.
Nintendo, oh Nintendo. Few companies are as beloved as our dear Nintendo. One could say many things about the company, but perhaps the most accurate description of their operation is that they’re absolute masters at marketing. By that I mean that they’re masters at convincing people to buy things they probably already own for the money they could probably spend on something better. This isn’t a new development, of course – between the eight billion iterations of the DS and the 3DS which, for all intents and purposes, do the exact same thing and their long-term con of selling the same half-game twice, thrice, or even four times they endearingly call “Pokemon”, Nintendo has a long history of scamming their customers. Ever heard of Amiibo? Good, here's five different versions of the exact same figurine that do the exact same thing - fork over the cash, idiot. What makes them unique is that their customers absolutely love every bit of it, which is a perfect explanation as to why we still haven’t established First Contact. I’m willing to bet that any advanced alien civilization capable of interstellar travel turned right the fuck around when they saw millions of braindead dullards queuing outside a video game store for the exact same video game they bought last year with some minor tweaks, genuinely tackling the dilemma of deciding whether they want the one with blue or the red box art. What *is* new is Nintendo’s recently-announced video game system, the Nintendo Switch.
Immediately after it was announced everybody lost their fucking mind. Just like everybody else I watched the teaser, and just like everybody else, I felt a glimmer of hope somewhere deep down, in the bowels of my black heart... I think. It might've been just gas in my actual bowel, I wouldn’t know – I haven’t felt hope in the longest time, I’m dead inside. In any case, Nintendo is releasing a brand-new home console capable of running triple-A titles, and one that you can *take outside*? Mind blown, Christmas came early this year, our bodies are ready! It looks sleek, it looks modern, it has detachable controls, it has third-party developer support, what could *possibly* go wrong? It’s the perfect storm, I’m all-in, I’m cashing all my chips, I’m on board. Sure, the video was a little cringeworthy and nobody involved looked even remotely like the target audience for the Switch, the target audience being sweaty manchildren with severe acne, but all things considered the system looked competent for a change. Nintendo Switch, a system that combines the processing power of Nvidia and the engineering genius of Nintendo, what else could you possibly want? It felt like Nintendo’s hardware used to be – modern, up-to-date. What’s the word? Ah, yes, relevant.
I didn’t give the system much thought since – after all, it won’t be out until March, so who cares? Well, I was sitting on my porcelain throne the other day, my sanctuary, where I do most of my good thinking, and I thought back to the Switch… and something dawned upon me. A sudden realization that made me think so much less of all of you numbskulls who are excited for Nintendo's new excuse for a console. Oh Nintendo, my precious Nintendo, you’ve done it again, you magnificent bastards, and nobody’s any wiser. You’ve made *a tablet with a detachable controller and an HDMI Out* seem like the most innovative thing since the invention of the goddamn wheel. You shifty motherfuckers played everyone for a fool and they loved it, yet again. Don’t even try to deny it, you bought it hook, line and sinker too, and you should feel stupid and small right about now, because it’s not the first time either. I’m pretty fucking smart, so I already know what you’re about to say. “Foxi, you might be right, but it’s the first-ever gaming tablet that puts all of these things together into a seamless blend – it’s totally innovative!”, or something along those lines. Wow, you’re right, I didn’t think of it that way. Oh wait.
The Wikipad 7 and the Nvidia Shield called, they want their innovation back. To make this tragicomedy even more bitter-sweet, those two are also Nvidia Tegra devices – great. To put it bluntly for all my readers who have problems connecting dots the size of the Moon, Nintendo is trying to sell you an Android tablet with a controller and proprietary HDMI Out, except *without Android*, and therefore crippled right out of the box, and they're completely shameless about it. Just because you've obscured the HDMI Out with a stupid pass-through dock doesn't mean that I can't see right through it, Big N - you're trying to play me again, and I'm not as dumb as your usual customer.
Now that I’ve given C.P.R to a few of your previously dormant brain cells, you’re probably thinking to yourself “wouldn’t the Switch be more beefy than a tablet or Android console? I mean, it’s going to be brand-new technology”, right? Honestly though, will it? We have no indication of that, beyond Nvidia’s vague announcement that the Switch is powered by their chip architecture. Has Nintendo ever released a system based on completely brand-new, untested technology? No, of course not – it goes directly against the credo of their company. Nintendo traditionally uses only tried-and-true hardware to facilitate ease of development and lower production costs – they’ve never been on the bleeding edge, and that’s a deliberate strategy. Here’s a little tidbit from Wikipedia regarding Gunpei Yokoi, the architect of the Game Boy’s success and Nintendo’s strategy of “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology” which they’ve followed ever since without exception:
“Yokoi articulated his philosophy of “Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology” (枯れた技術の水平思考, “Kareta Gijutsu no Suihei Shikō”) (also translated as "Lateral Thinking with Seasoned Technology") in the book, Yokoi Gunpei Game House (横井軍平ゲーム館 Yokoi Gunpei Gēmu-kan), which consists of a collection of interviews. “Withered technology” in this context refers to a mature technology which is cheap and well understood. “Lateral thinking” refers to finding radical new ways of using such technology. Yokoi held that toys and games do not necessarily require cutting edge technology; novel and fun gameplay are more important. In the interview he suggested that expensive cutting edge technology can get in the way of developing a new product.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi
It's withered technology alright - it makes my dick shrivel each and every time, and the Switch will be no different. If you think they’re going to suddenly switch away from the strategy that filled their bank accounts to such an extent that they could cosplay Scrooge McDuck all fucking day, you’re a delusional twit.
We can pretend that specs don't matter and it's the games that we all care about, but we've been saying that throughout the Wii U's life cycle and crossing our fingers didn't magic any games into existence, so consider this cold shower a blessing - you can thank me later. Whether we like it or not, we need adequate hardware performance in order to get third-party support, so let's talk specs. In fact, let's be optimistic about it - let’s pretend for a moment that we live in an alternate reality in which Nintendo isn’t a bunch of skinflints reluctant to try anything new lest it fails and instead opt to jerk off their audience’s sense of nostalgia for cash like cheap hookers. Let’s assume that the Switch’s backbone is in fact the bleeding edge of Nvidia’s technology, collect what we know about the chip and draw a quick “best scenario” conclusion.
The Switch is currently rumoured to be powered by the Parker SoC, which in turn implements Pascal, their most recent GPU architecture. That would suggests that the system is driven by the Tegra X2 chip, Nvidia’s latest SoC baby. Now, let me tell you, these bad boys are rated to deliver 1.5 teraflops of computational power, praise Jesus! That’s right in-between of the Xbox One’s 1.31 teraflops and the PS4’s 1.84 teraflops of processing power, we’re in the clear, pewf! Triple-A multiplats are guaranteed, we're on the right track! There’s just one little detail that most Nintendo fanboy blogs conveniently forget to mention when covering the Switch, possibly because their brand royalty is obscuring their vision to such an extent that they lose the ability to read fine print. We *still* don't know a lot about the X2, and most of information about it comes from a leaflet about the automotive implementation, so let's have a look at Nvidia's slide. To be specific, let's have a look at the very bottom of the page:
Oh. For those who aren't in the know, the basic operation used in a typical gaming scenario is a single-precision FP32 op, which counts as two FP16 ops. The theoretical computational power of the Xbox One and the PS4 are stated as FP32 figures, not FP16 ones like in Nvidia's press release. So... this means that the actual processing power of the chip in a 32-bit graphics environment is half of the number Nvidia's boasting about, meaning 750 GFLOPs? Significantly less than the PS4 or the Xbox One? And they're showing off a number that's completely irrelevant to gamers? From the automotive version of the chip, with an uninterrupted power supply and ample cooling, as opposed to a tablet version that doesn’t have either and will very likely be dialed back due to power and heat dissipation concerns? Okay. Lord have mercy.
I know that you're clinging to the hope that there's something magical in that dock, that this sinking ship can be mended before you once again descend in the sea of shit that spells poor performance and lack of third-party support known as "The Nintendo Experience", but as the old adage says, "hope is the mother of fools", and hardcore Nintendo fans that got this far into the article and still clung to hope are some grade-A naive fucksticks. Paradoxically, I'd call them "hopeless".
"The dock is not the main console unit of Nintendo Switch. The main unit of Nintendo Switch is the unit that has the LCD screen, which the two Joy-Con controllers can be attached to and detached from. The main function of the Nintendo Switch Dock is to provide an output to the TV, as well as charging and providing power to the system." ~A Nintendo representative in an interview with IGN
Sounds like doom and gloom, but fear not! We have no solid numbers, this is all speculation, and speculation is for suckers. What we’re really interested in is the jerk-off material – we saw Skyrim being played on the Switch! A game from 2011 that ran on the PS3, a 230 GFLOPs machine with 256MB RAM and 256MB VRAM. Boy, oh boy - I can't wait to buy this new piece of tech so that I could play... 5-year-old games with minor face-lifts? Jesus Christmas, taking money from you suckers is easier than taking candy from a baby suffering from terminal stages of Polio, are you all blind?
Thankfully the Switch will still provide us with what we want - Nintendo games. D'uh. Hey, did you know that the Wii U has 17 games featuring Mario, in most cases as a playable character? Do you know what it doesn't have? A new Metroid Prime. Or a new F-Zero. Gee willikers, I can't wait to play the same 5 games over... and over... and over again. I don't know what's climbing faster - my body temperature due to my blood boiling or the suicide rates in the Nintendo fandom.
You couldn’t have written a better heist screenplay if you tried. It’s the Great Nintendo Switcheroo, the Super Mario Swindle, and all you suckers are getting bamboozled. Again. As a duplicitous, shady and hateful character I can’t help but admire Nintendo’s ability to wring the very last dollar out of your wallets. For all intents and purposes you deserve it if you’ve stuck with them for this long. What concerns me is that I’ll probably grab one of those things too, just like I grabbed a Wii U, and I can’t explain why. Being a Nintendo fan is like an abusive high school relationship – the company takes all your money and just when you’re on the verge of saying “y’know, fuck these guys, all they want is my dough!” they come around with a shitty card they made during an arts and crafts class. It smells of Elmer’s glue and the pasta shells are peeling off, they misspelled your name, but for whatever reason the card means something to you. My only question is how many cards it takes for people to realize that they’re dating a total asshole.
Real Nintendo consoles are dead, and they were killed by you. If only you could break your backs just to reach down and chew your dicks off whenever you get too excited and feel ready to fork over your cash without actually checking whether the product is any good, perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation. I blame all of you collectively and each and every one of you individually. It's your fault. Feel ashamed.
I would say “thanks for reading”, but every moment I spend writing this high-quality, educational content is charity, so instead I’ll say “you’re welcome”. I should get a tax write-off for this, really. Be sure to post your opinions below, so that I may treat them accordingly - ignore everything you wrote, print it out blind, put it through the shredder, book a plane flight to wherever Bumfucknowhere you live and shove it down your throats, because you're obviously wrong. Until next time, chumps!
