I don't think there's been any outrage or anyone getting bent out of shape; I think the fact that you have debated valid points without going all "rabid angry fan-boy" has just prompted a reasonable discourse on the subject is all, it's a good thing disagreement is healthy when appoached the correct way. Don't take it to heart

 

Some point of agreement at last. Yes, the Switch chassis construction, the measly heatpipe and tiny heatsink are all at fault here, but even without adjusting them I've never even heard the Switch properly spinning its fan up. I know some people would rather hang themselves than hear a fan, but if it means a 20% boost in performance, I think the sacrifice is worth it. Here's for hoping that homebrew unlocks the CPU clock and allows for more steady framerates in demanding games like Doom and the upcoming Wolfenstein 2, it would be most welcome.

 

It doesn't, the TDP of the X1 at full clock is 15W with an average of 10W, and it's underclocked in the Switch. The fan never undergoes proper spin-up and barely turns at all. It just doesn't produce that much heat and the few-and-far-between cases of plastic warping are most likely a result of shoddy assembly. It barely consumes any power at all and does not generate a lot of heat as a result. They didn't have to pull anything out of their ass, the existing Pascal and VEGA architectures were readily available and more efficient. Even if they wanted to stick with Maxwell, on a custom die they could've traded CPU space relevant for general computing for GPU cores relevant in gaming, but they opted for an off-the-shelf component instead. They had plenty of headroom.

 

I don't know why you people are going out of your way to defend Nintendo's design - Nintendo can defend themselves just fine without your help. It could've been much better.

 

No, it's just that I don't see a tablet more powerful than the Switch, especially for the same price, so people saying "it should've been much better" just baffles me. The battery life is already low enough as is.

 

Okay so do we now go off real world performance or sales for success in a console?

Customers would get good value for money if Nintendo took a loss on every console but that kind of business behaviour invariably leads to an end unless you have MS pots of cash to basically just play around in the video game industry.

50-100$ might not be a lot for you, but it would be a massive hindrance to most people buying the console.






If you take financial considerations out of the equation for a console, then nearly every successful console can be criticised to hell and back.

I think Nintendo has two options in regards to power;
1. Wait a year to see GPU prices go down to release at an affordable price with a stronger more long term architecture
2. Release as they did now

I think 2 was the smarter decision given the financial climate when it comes to GPUs at present.

 

Exactly. Imagine trying to sell the switch for $400 with BOTW being the only playable game. 299 was already pushing A LOT of people away from the console.

Given the Wii U's total flop and lack of brand presence in family environments for Nintendo consoles, for longevity their main priority HAD to be just getting the console into people's homes. Nintendo didn't have the option the PS3 had of just cutting the price on slims and maintaining a brand presence because in all honesty re-designing the Wii U would have led to nothing.

 

Thats exactly the direction its going in, aka one of the most successful consoles of all time. The difference is with Sony & MS scared of entering the portable market, Nintendo COULD get totally dominate this new form of gaming.

However my biggest worry is developers now will find it much easier to port games from the Switch to the PS4/XBOX which might impact the number of old exclusives which systems like the 3DS could hold onto.

 

Hundred million-selling dust collector, perfect for soccer moms and grandparents. I will happily choose the PS2 model over the Wii model of development, 10 out of 10 times, as much as I enjoyed the Wii remote and the platform.

As for the ease of porting from the Switch to other platforms, it's really no different than usual - most game code is platform independent. As long as you have access to the same API's you can port with minimal effort, this isn't the 90's, hardly anything runs on bare metal.

 

i always followed sony and nintendo since ps1 and n64 days and i even own original xbox and a 360(both bough used while sony and nintendo i buy them new) someday i will get an xbox one when i find an appealing price used, so yeah nope im not loyal to nintendo, heck in all i got manny more ps2 and ps3 games than all nintendo games put together, just for ps2 i got over 60 games and ps3 around 50.