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Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

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Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#711

Post by adamors »

dayvid wrote: post #647
joshstrange wrote: post #411

At this point I'd be hard pressed to consider this over my Steam Deck. We will see the specs later but I doubt it will really compete processing-wise or screen-wise. The openness (full arch desktop) of the Steam Deck is also awesome while having a great UI that you never have to leave if you don't want to. EDIT: I mistakenly called it "fedora desktop", my bad

I have a Steam Deck and agree, but I think this is more for kids and younger people.

It’s for people who play Nintendo games first of all.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#712

Post by Dalewyn »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #292
Dalewyn wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a portable device, at some point or another I'm going to handle it without the side controllers. Having some place to grab the thing is basic ergonomics, much less something designed with kids in mind.

Where you touch it when not in use doesn't matter. You're not going to use it that way, because nothing uses the touchscreen for gameplay. [edit] originally I said it didn't have a touchscreen, but I've been reminded that the original does actually have one and it's just never used by anything because ever requiring it in a game would be really dumb when the entire premise of the switch is that it's dockable.

>Where you touch it when not in use doesn't matter.

Being able to easily grab something is always important, especially anything portable. I'm going to pull it out of a bag, move it across a table, etc. and having microbezels gets in the way of that by reducing the useful grabbing space.

Smartphones are the epitome of horrible here. With silky smooth glass and/or sheer aluminum/plastic on all sides with nanobezels (or no bezels at all...) and razor thin thickness, they are a fucking pain to grab and handle without dropping them. Most of us put them into a case to give them the necessary girth and friction for practical handling.

Mobile device design and design in general nowadays focus on aesthetics way too much to the detriment of practicality. People handle and use them at the end of the day, they aren't for oogling.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#713

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #608
EA-3167 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that the best Nintendo platform is also the best mobile platform: The Steam Deck. It plays Nintendo games better than Nintendo consoles do, and as a bonus, it plays everything else.

Have you ever tried to dock a Steam deck to a TV? Have you ever tried to use physical media with a Steam deck? Have you ever tried to get 5 hours of battery life with a Steam deck? Have you ever put a Steam deck in your pocket? (I do have big pockets, but at least with the Switch Lite, it's possible.) Nintendo will be just fine. I personally will never use a platform that can kick me out on a whim, or could screw me…

I have docked my Steam Deck to a TV. I have also used physical media with a Steam Deck. The USB port lets you do both of these things. I also just plug it into my laptop dock to play more desktop-oriented games.

The Deck works for me since I rarely play for more than a couple of hours in a stretch (so I don't need 5 hours of battery life), and I don't need to stick it in a pocket. It's "just a PC", so you can still play non-Steam games on it if you need to avoid the Steam ecosystem for some reason. Its direct competitors (Asus/ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion and others) show there's a market for this type of device.

The Switch satisfies the needs for a lot of people people; great! Good ideas will cross-feed with those in the handheld PC gaming device realm.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#714

Post by epicide »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #608
EA-3167 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that the best Nintendo platform is also the best mobile platform: The Steam Deck. It plays Nintendo games better than Nintendo consoles do, and as a bonus, it plays everything else.

Have you ever tried to dock a Steam deck to a TV? Have you ever tried to use physical media with a Steam deck? Have you ever tried to get 5 hours of battery life with a Steam deck? Have you ever put a Steam deck in your pocket? (I do have big pockets, but at least with the Switch Lite, it's possible.) Nintendo will be just fine. I personally will never use a platform that can kick me out on a whim, or could screw me…

> Have you ever tried to dock a Steam deck to a TV?

Yep, works great with non-proprietary docks vs even using a 3rd party dock on Switch has led to bricked units.

> Have you ever tried to use physical media with a Steam deck?

I haven't tried, but I'd be surprised if plugging in a USB optical drive wouldn't work. That'd be pretty silly though, but so are some of the Switch physical releases when the bulk of some games isn't actually on the cartridge.

I think the better thing to look at is DRM instead of specific transmission format. Steam itself is a grey area for DRM (some games are DRM-free IIRC), but you can also use things like Lutris... or generally whatever you'd like. Takes a bit of tinkering, sure, but a whole lot less tinkering than getting anything unofficial to run on a Switch.

> Have you ever tried to get 5 hours of battery life with a Steam deck?

Yep, works great. I'll still give the point to Nintendo because they prioritize battery life so much more, but if you aren't running the SD at full tilt with a large 3D game, it can get decent battery life.

> Have you ever put a Steam deck in your pocket? (I do have big pockets, but at least with the Switch Lite, it's possible.)

I would love a Steam Deck Lite or something. That's probably the biggest reason I keep my Switch Lite: it's easy to just toss in a bag on a whim while the SD (and other Switches) require planning to actually use them.

> Nintendo will be just fine.

Yup. They're probably still sitting on piles of cash from the DS and now Switch. People were saying Nintendo was doomed when the Wii U did poorly, but others at the time rightly pointed out that they've probably got enough runway to have a few more total flops of consoles.

> I personally will never use a platform that can kick me out on a whim, or could screw me the moment Gabe Newell gets hit by a bus.

Losing Newell is a valid concern (again, for Steam as a platform), but Nintendo is certainly an interesting choice to say they won't kick you out on a whim, given their track record of bans, lawsuits, and just being particularly litigious.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#715

Post by OtomotO »

philistine wrote: post #582
OtomotO wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can.

We all know about piracy buddy, but between having to deal with a Switch emulator and the major pain points of extracting keys to get Tears of the Kingdom to run and putting in a credit card, I'll take the credit card route.

You talk about piracy, I talk about just having to bring a single device of the devices I own with me and using a paid product on another paid device.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#716

Post by int_19h »

pupppet wrote: post #222

For those of us with zero interest in playing a console on the go I wish they would release a non-mobile version and put the money saved into beefier specs.

The beefier specs would be wasted though since game developers would still be primarily targeting the handheld (since that is still their main offering, so that's what most people have).

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#717

Post by [deleted] »

dmonitor wrote: post #702
ecliptik wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite video essay's on this is "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by Game Makers Toolkit [1]. It goes into when making a game, Nintendo first determines the mechanic they want to focus on; jumping, throwing a hat, shooting paint, etc and finding out how to make it fun, then building and iterating on the idea. It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different. 1. http…

GMTK is popular, but he's mostly talking out of his ass. He's got zero industry experience and most gamedevs I know personally clown on his takes constantly. Unless he references specific Nintendo interviews where they talk about their design process, I have doubts about this video containing an accurate description of how Nintendo does things.

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#718

Post by int_19h »

hedora wrote: post #536
isk517 wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The SNES was a revolution Nintendo has actually stated they view the SNES as a evolution of the NES. They have directly stated their hardware development cycle goes Revolution>Evolution>Revolution. Considering that the Switch was considered one of their revolutionary leap (their first hybrid console) it is no surprise the Switch 2 is a simple evolution of that concept. If their next console is another iteration of t…

I’d be curious to know when they said that. It sounds like revisionist history to me. Based on the switch launch video, the delta between the NES and SNES was much higher than Switch -> Switch 2. Here’s an analogous snes ad, which spends most of its time showing off 3d and increased sprite counts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eSBFw93V3Rg

At the time, at least, I don't recall seeing SNES as a "revolution". It had better graphics etc, but the form factor was the same, and games were broadly similar, so it was more of a luxury option.

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#719

Post by adriand »

skissane wrote: post #636
adriand wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember where I read this, but I came across someone talking about the fact that these AAA photo realistic games are hugely expensive to make, but if you look at what young people are spending their time playing, they're games like Fornite, Minecraft and Roblox. As soon as I read this, it clicked for me. I have two teenagers (15 & 17) and this is exactly right. My son plays games all the time and although he…

> and this other 2D game with a platformer vibe whose name I forget that has procedurally generated maps. Terraria?

> Terraria?

Yes!

Re: Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

#720

Post by dmonitor »

ffsm8 wrote: post #475
ActionHank wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some new games will work on S2, but not S1, most S1 games will work on S2. Glad they didn't go MS route of forcing compatibility for games releasing the higher powered platform to run on the lower powered platform.

MS didn't force compatibility between generations either. The series X and series S are the same generation. Wherever it was smart to start into this generation with a 3+ yrs old underperforming el-cheapo chipset is another question... But for what it's worth, Nintendo has done the same decision according to the hardware leaks, they're just missing the equivalent to the Series X. (Which makes sense as it's a mobile d…

Series S is severely ram-starved at 10GB (~2GB used for OS, so 8GB functionally)

Switch 2 has 12GB according to leaks

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