Gaming Extremely unpopular opinion: too many people hate consoles (specifically the switch) for not being as powerful of a gaming pc

[AkikoKumagara]

"Can it run Starfield" boutta be the new "Can it run Doom"
(starfield requires some real good specs)

What? Doom was well-optimized and ran on everything. You mean Crysis?

 

[Veho]

Every time a new Nintendo console is announced, some portion of the userbase immediately forgets the last 20 years of Nintendo's market strategy and start speculating that the next one will be a powerhouse in direct competition with the current gen PS or Xbox, start throwing wild numbers around, and are then extremely disappointed when it turns out Nintendo is still pursuing the money-printing strategy of lower powered hardware plus exclusives.

People don't buy consoles for bleeding edge specs. A console doesn't even have the most powerful hardware available at the time at launch, and over its 6-7 year lifetime it will get outpaced and outdated several times over. People buy consoles for the convenience of having a plug-n-play solution out of the box, and for the exclusives.

 

[Deleted member 681657]

While I would prefer Nintendo to release more powerful hardware, I buy their underpowered hardware anyway because they make good games.

 

[any_name_you_wish]

Every time a new Nintendo console is announced, some portion of the userbase immediately forgets the last 20 years of Nintendo's market strategy and start speculating that the next one will be a powerhouse in direct competition with the current gen PS or Xbox, start throwing wild numbers around, and are then extremely disappointed when it turns out Nintendo is still pursuing the money-printing strategy of lower powered hardware plus exclusives.

People don't buy consoles for bleeding edge specs. A console doesn't even have the most powerful hardware available at the time at launch, and over its 6-7 year lifetime it will get outpaced and outdated several times over. People buy consoles for the convenience of having a plug-n-play solution out of the box, and for the exclusives.

wow! it's almost as if Nintendo's whole thing is cheaper hardware, better games!

 

[mituzora]

Sorry for the necrobump, but I agree (for the most part) that people miss the point of consoles and will ALWAYS complain that one isn't as good as a PC. even in the PC groups, people want to shit on people for using old hardware, even though it's cheaper and perfectly viable. I do disagree that the Steam Deck and Switch are for completely different market segments. the Steam Deck is 100 percent trying to compete with the Switch. I prefer PC gaming and the Deck over the Switch, but not for it's performance, but for it's versatility and the fact that I don't have a company locking me down to what I can do with the hardware, but that is subjective to me, and not anybody else.

tl;dr If you're happy with your consoles, than great! ain't nothing wrong with that, and I absolutely agree that PCs and consoles are targeting largely different markets. the Steam Deck though is trying to bridge that gap, and I don't think it's unfair to compare the switch to the Steam Deck, but I do agree they're wildly different at the same time.

For me, I think chasing miniscule performance gains is a fools game, and for that reason, I constantly get called "poor" for running a perfectly viable 5-year old CPU and 7-year old GPU. so I totally get where the aggrivations come from when it comes to the PC/console comparisons. I think they're stupid and as long as you enjoy what you're playing on, that's all that matters!

 

[ciro64]

I will absolutely continue to complain that the Switch is underpowered.

If you choose to develop a game for a certain console, then it's ideal that you develop the game's graphics around those specs.

Nintendo DS for example was underpowered for its time and proceeded to become even more as time went on but there are many games that look good on it because they were developed specifically for it.

Ocarina of Time ran at 20 fps on the N64 but it looks good because all the graphics and animations were carefully designed to be expressive with that restriction in mind.

Modern gaming is too streamlined for that. The same games that were released on consoles and PC are expected to release on Switch, including indie ones. Devs will very often rely on modern game engines such as Unity or Unreal and will simply compress the assets and tone down the shaders for the Switch. I lost track of how my times I went "Oh cool that game is on the Switch" only to discover how atrocious it runs and/or looks.

Oh, but then there's first parties to save the day right? Surely the Switch wouldn't suffer from unstable framerate and stretched resolutions in games like Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Peach's Showtime, Link's Awakening etc etc RIGHT!?!?!

Doesn't help that nearly every single modern game wants to have a realistic lighting system and many of them go for the open world trend.

Smash Bros is my favorite game on the Switch not only in gameplay but in aesthetic too because it looks good and runs at 60 fps. I wished it had less watered down colors but still.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

Power is the least of my concerns. When I can play any game I would want to play from other consoles (looking at XB/PS) I see no reason to buy them if they're also just basically worse versions of my desktop PC that mostly play worse versions of the same games. Take me back to the days I grew up in where console gaming felt special. PS1/N64 era was awesome, and I'm glad I lived through it.

 

[The Catboy]

I loved my Switch until I got into PC gaming, now I can see why PC gamers shit on the Switch

 

[TomSwitch]

I will absolutely continue to complain that the Switch is underpowered.

If you choose to develop a game for a certain console, then it's ideal that you develop the game's graphics around those specs.

Nintendo DS for example was underpowered for its time and proceeded to become even more as time went on but there are many games that look good on it because they were developed specifically for it.

Ocarina of Time ran at 20 fps on the N64 but it looks good because all the graphics and animations were carefully designed to be expressive with that restriction in mind.

Modern gaming is too streamlined for that. The same games that were released on consoles and PC are expected to release on Switch, including indie ones. Devs will very often rely on modern game engines such as Unity or Unreal and will simply compress the assets and tone down the shaders for the Switch. I lost track of how my times I went "Oh cool that game is on the Switch" only to discover how atrocious it runs and/or looks.

Oh, but then there's first parties to save the day right? Surely the Switch wouldn't suffer from unstable framerate and stretched resolutions in games like Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Peach's Showtime, Link's Awakening etc etc RIGHT!?!?!

Doesn't help that nearly every single modern game wants to have a realistic lighting system and many of them go for the open world trend.

Smash Bros is my favorite game on the Switch not only in gameplay but in aesthetic too because it looks good and runs at 60 fps. I wished it had less watered down colors but still.

You will always feel that way, until you decide to stop. No body else can help. Soon enough you will feel the same about Switch 2.

I would actually bet you feel that way for everything sooner or later.

 

[ciro64]

You will always feel that way, until you decide to stop. No body else can help. Soon enough you will feel the same about Switch 2.

I would actually bet you feel that way for everything sooner or later.

Can you elaborate what you think that feeling is, and what is "everything" in that context?

 

[AkikoKumagara]

I loved my Switch until I got into PC gaming, now I can see why PC gamers shit on the Switch

They do? Most PC gamers I know have a Switch (and often not an Xbox/PS5)
I mean, I get that the performance and visual fidelity is limited, but I don't think it's anything but a loud minority shitting on the Switch, and it's mostly about piss poor ports of specific titles and not the console itself.

 

[The Catboy]

They do? Most PC gamers I know have a Switch (and often not an Xbox/PS5)
I mean, I get that the performance and visual fidelity is limited, but I don't think it's anything but a loud minority shitting on the Switch, and it's mostly about piss poor ports of specific titles and not the console itself.

It’s more like PC gamers shitting on video game consoles in general, I probably could have done more on my post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[TomSwitch]

Can you elaborate what you think that feeling is, and what is "everything" in that context?

Everything include your current PC. Sooner or later you are going to think it sucks. You may even think it was bought under powered even. It's a human condition for many people. Some people are happy for no reason and some unhappy with no need to have justification but they like justify being unhappy while it is really just a choice most of the time.

On the other hand, some people who don’t own a Switch may be speaking out of jealousy.

 

[ciro64]

Everything include your current PC. Sooner or later you are going to think it sucks. You may even think it was bought under powered even. It's a human condition for many people. Some people are happy for no reason and some unhappy with no need to have justification but they like justify being unhappy while it is really just a choice most of the time.

On the other hand, some people who don’t own a Switch may be speaking out of jealousy.

If I don't update my PC over time and expect to play new games then yeah, it's going to suck purely because of outdated specs.

Switch on the other hand is a console with fixed specs. I can criticize games based on how well they dealt with those specs, and those games won't change there.

I can choose to play a game with choppy framerate and/or poorly executed artstyle and maybe enjoy it under certain circumstances, that doesn't mean I became oblivious to the things that are bothering me.

I can also play a game managed to successfully express a good visual style within the console specs and has no framerate issues, be it on a Switch or a Gamecube. It will continue to look good forever regardless of how much the technology advances afterwards.

So I still don't get your point.