> Nintendo has always thrived on underpowered hardware.

Correction, Nintendo has more specifically thrived on cheap hardware, which is often correlated with 'underpowered' but does not mean the same necessarily. The Wii's remote wasn't 'underpowered', but it was relatively cheap and added an interesting feature.

> Why? Will it make the games more fun to play? Does it enable more fun games?

These are not the only (though they are important) factors to consider. With a portable platform, battery life, size, weight, heat, all matter much more than with a stationary console. A 2x more powerful Switch with the same power envelope as the original would be able to play games for longer using the same battery due to being more efficient. If you're playing a significantly demanding game, that might mean the difference between only being able to do short sessions on battery, and being able to play for a satisfying amount of time. Or it might mean that you can play it with the screen at a higher brightness, and thus make the game accessible in more environments.

And if the games are have performance issues, having more powerful hardware can make those problems less frequent and more bearable. You can argue that gamedevs need to do a better job, but that doesn't eliminate reality where most people just want to play the game and don't particularly care about the specifics of how to get the best experience.

Nintendo calls it “Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology”[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...

> The Wii's remote wasn't 'underpowered', but it was relatively cheap and added an interesting feature.

I'm not sure why you mention the controller or how to measure its power, but the console itself was definitely underpowered compared to PS3 or X360. Heck, it was comparable to 6th rather than 7th gen.

That's my point exactly - you can't measure it's power, yet that one feature made the Wii sell like hotcakes, and caused both Microsoft and Sony to try making their own versions.

A lot of games get limited to 30 fps (and even dip lower) on the switch which makes them unplayable for me. I don't care about graphics at all, I'd rather play in some extremely low poly/low texture mode at 60 fps (ideally higher) than at 30 fps.

If they released a new version with a 120hz display that could actually run games at 120hz, I'd be ecstatic. I don't even mind the 720p resolution, it's fine on such a small screen in my opinion.

That's not really an issue for the stakeholders. Zelda is probably the only game that has this problem. Most hits - Mario Kart, Smash, Splatoon - run at 60FPS.

On the other hand, the 5th and 7th best selling Switch games (Pokemon SS and SV) were notorious for being unable to maintain 15fps. A lot of the workarounds made the game legitimately awful looking (downscaling shadows on the fly for demanding scenes, very reduced draw distances, slowing down and synchronizing background animations to slideshow speeds during battle).

It seems like the Switch is unable to have more than a handful of moderately complex animated objects at a time. It's a problem for Pokemon because they wanted to show a lot of different Pokemon doing different things, it's a problem in Breath of the Wild with just too many trees, and it's certainly a problem with all the Dynasty Warrior clones because the whole appeal of those games is hack and slashing through a big hordes of enemies.

To be fair, the last two Pokemon games were atrociously optimized cash grabs.

They look like Gamecube games honestly, and are generally not impressive from a technical standpoint.

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall point, but BotW and Dynasty Warrior clones are probably a better argument over all.

What makes them unplayable that a doubling of framerate would fix?

Have you played games at 30 and 60 FPS ? I'm not one of those competitive 120+Hz gamers but try setting your desktop refresh rate to 30Hz - you can see mouse trailing and text delay while typing.

30FPS for an interactive experience is really bad. And them saying some regions are locked to 20 FPS - holly shit that's a slideshow.

I used to game on budget PCs when I was a kid, I rarely got to play at 60 FPS, but going down to 30 was just "OK I'm not playing that".

Yes. After like 30 seconds it's barely noticeable unless the animation/physics are tied to the framerate. Some genres benefit from it but I'm not sure Zelda really needs it. Ocarina of Time ran at 20 FPS on N64, not in SOME demanding scenes, everywhere. And it's still a beloved, fantastic game.

I also regularly play games capped at 30 FPS because it greatly increases battery life in the Steam Deck in a lot of titles and not everything really needs it.

The problem with "SOME demanding scenes" is that inconsistent frametimes are much more noticeable and irritating than a lower, but consistent framerate.

BOTW feels bad in certain areas because rapidly switching from 30->20 causes noticeable stuttering. Even once it settles you're likely to be aware of animations and interactions behaving differently.

>Ocarina of Time ran at 20 FPS on N64, not in SOME demanding scenes, everywhere.

And I used to find a lot of old games immersive - but I can't play them nowdays.

Things don't exist in a vacuum and my experience is impacted by what other experiences I've had to compare it to. There's a threshold in graphics/voice acting/etc. that just makes the games I spent weeks on as a kid not interesting at all (even for the sake of nostalgia).

I used to work on 800x600 CRT monitor with 256 colors and today I get a headache when I have to work on a low pixel density cheap LCD.

> Have you played games at 30 and 60 FPS?

Yes, I make games as a hobby and have done both. I agree with the other commenter about fluctuation in framerate being a bad experience. If I make no changes beyond setting fps from 60 to 30, you can tell the difference in smooth scrolling, etc. However, a consistent 30fps can be just fine as an interactive experience with some thought put into it.

I see this kind of comment on Eurogamer all the time and don’t understand it. 60fps is so much better in every case. I can’t think of a single example of a game that isn’t materially improved as an experience by going from 30 to 60. The effect is far more striking than extra graphical effects. This isn’t cinema where 24fps looks “cinematic” - it’s just plain worse.

It’s 2023. No one is asking for 120fps as a mainstream baseline. 60 is such a sweet spot. It’s time for us to admit that 30 was a compromise for a certain console era that was defined by CPU limitation. If we don’t call bullshit, publishers will keep pumping this stuff out. Look at this week’s disastrous Redfall launch. 30fps on a 12tflop, 8-core Series X. Insanity.

A consistent 30FPS experience really isn't that bad in a lot of games. I'd much rather developers push game design with stuff like big open worlds and cool physics stuff like logs from the tree you just cut roll down the hill than a no risks locked 60 FPS static environment. Poor optimization like what is seen in Redfall or Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is an entirely different problem.

And we're talking about a game running on a 6 year old handheld! Not a CPU beast.

Yeah I’ve been playing TotK with my son all afternoon and I think they’ve done a great job with it - it looks and runs much better than BotW. Pretty remarkable technical achievement I reckon, given the well-known limitations of that machine.

But my point was about where we go from here, in 2023. I’d be disappointed if I couldn’t play this - or a remaster of this, or perhaps its sequel - at 60fps on a next-gen Switch successor, whenever that arrives.

I think there's two separate issues. The first which is your main complaint is the poor performance on modern systems of games. Totally agree, it's a combo of laziness, customer acceptance, and schedule/priorities that leads to it. I'm right with you on the frustration.

Tying into that is why I don't do a blanket 60fps in all cases, which is respecting the player's resources. If I was making a tetris clone, where the block falls at a set step every x milliseconds, all I'm doing is wasting their battery with double the frames.

For most people there is a threshold somewhere around 50 fps that is the distinction between choppy and smooth enough.

It's not the framerate itself that bothers me, it's when the framerate drops on demanding scenes. I'd rather have a consistent 30fps than a game constantly fluctuating between 30-60. But even a consistent 30fps is kinda a dream for the Switch, there's plenty of titles where it regularly dips down to 10fps.

Plus the other benefit to faster hardware is decreased loading times. The Switch has a lot of very long loading screens (and elaborate animations/cutscenes to mask background loading) and the PS5 with near instant loading very much increases the fun, because more time is spent playing vs waiting on a loading screen.

By your logic, why move past the Wii U or Wii or any console before it?

The machine I descrive is already quite underpowered compared to Nintendo's competition by magnitude of orders.

This limits my enjoyment of Nintendo games and I prefer emulators.

Anyway hardware limits are already apparent and yes some games aren't as enjoyable due to very low stuttering performance.

> By your logic, why move past the Wii U or Wii or any console before it?

They said "underpowered", not "outdated" or "ridiculously weaker"

Yes, a game that runs smoothly is more fun to play.

Nintendo has always thrived _despite_ underpowered hardware.

Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power.

I certainly experienced areas in BOTW which took a heavy FPS hit and it sounds like TOTK is similar. Such an FPS drop does take me out of the game so if the console was powerful enough to avoid that then you could argue it would allow more fun games

> Always is a bit strong isn't it? Prior to the Wii their consoles tended to be similar to their contemporaries in processing power.

Yup, you could say Nintendo always thrived on underpowered (compared to competition) hardware.

  NES was twice less powerful than SMS;
  GameBoy didn't even have a color display;
  SNES vs SMD similarity as NES vs SMS;
  GBC was weaker than Neo Geo Pocket or WonderSwan;
  GBA just didn't have competition (although, if we count N-Gage...);
  Wii had hardware from previous generation;
  NDS was way worse in raw numbers that PSP;
  3DS analogically with PS Vita;
  Switch isn't even comparable to PS4/X1, let alone PS5/XSX;

What all of those Nintendo consoles have in common? Being their the most successful.

Whereas when Nintendo focused more on being on par or even surpassing competition in hardware power during 5th gen. (N64) and 6th gen. (GameCube), they didn't sold nearly as much as generations prior.

The exception to the pattern are Virtual Boy and Wii U. The former was sacrificed as "filler" (+ bad design), the later due to bad marketing (and naming) + poor decision on betting on "casuals".

The SNES wasn't at all underpowered compared to the SEGA Mega Drive. In fact, it was better in many ways.

Indeed, it had way less computational power, but other aspects were better. I should have worded it more clearly.

While their older consoles weren't as far away from modern stuff as the Switch, Nintendo wasn't often the more powerful console. Well-designed with good developer buy-in and incredibly strong first party titles, but not really pushing the envelope in terms of raw performance.

The GameCube was the weakest hardware-wise between the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Dreamcast. The Nintendo 64 was weaker than the PlayStation or Sega Saturn.The Super Nintendo had less computing capacity than the Mega Drive/Genesis.

Even when it came to handhelds, the GameBoy was often much weaker hardware. Compare the GameBoy to the Lynx on a spec sheet and it's clear which is better. Actually hold and play both of them and you can see why Atari doesn't exist anymore. The Game Gear was practically the current gen home console in a handheld form and could even get a TV tuner attachment before the GameBoy Color was even announced. Later, the Genesis Nomad was a full blown Genesis console in handheld form. Good games, cheaper hardware, better pocketability led to Nintendo dominating that market despite usually having the weakest hardware around.

> The GameCube was the weakest hardware-wise between the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Dreamcast.

It might have been weak, but definitely was comparable (sometimes even stronger) in power to PS2 and definitely not weaker than Dreamcast [0].

> The Nintendo 64 was weaker than the PlayStation or Sega Saturn.

What? No, no, no. PlayStation was definitely weaker. N64 was crippled down by using cartridges instead of CD.

---

Despite the raw power, both N64 and GC were crushed by PS1 and PS2 in sales.

[0]: https://www.cs.umd.edu/~meesh/cmsc411/website/proj01/main/co...

Gamecube was much stronger than the Dreamcast, and generally sat between the PS2 and X-Box in terms of performance.

Yes.

Older consoles could get away with much more. There's a Dynasty Warriors style Zelda game on switch called "Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity"[0]. It struggles with the hardware to the point that the choppiness of the frame rate makes the gameplay thoroughly unenjoyable. Even Breath of the wild is infamously laggy in certain areas.

[0] https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Hyrul...

60fps in action game does make it more fun to play

>Why? Will it make the games more fun to play?

Yes. Movement in an action game feels inherently better at 60fps than at 30fps. Metroid Zero Mission (2004), and Metroid Dread (2021) both feel extremely crisp and precise compared to Metroid: Samus Returns (2017) which runs at 30fps.

The biggest complaint that Bloodborne gets, outside of not being available on PC, is that it's locked to 30 fps.

I can't think of a single reason where a game at 60fps would be more fun at 30fps.

I'm confused because the last sentence seems to directly contradict the rest of the post.

Mind clarifying?

Might've worded it poorly. Just meant that a game running at 60fps is always better than that same game running at 30fps. In the worst case scenario, they're the same game.

Not always better. A 30 fps game that you can play twice or three times as long before having to recharge the battery may be better.

Depends, some might be willing to make that trade. I think most consoles are making that option of performance or visuals these days. As an option, letting the user choose seems to be more the norm these days.

If i'm playing plugged in I would want better visuals (as the switch allows with the dock) the primary reason being more power available.

> Why? Will it make the games more fun to play?

I played Zelda: Breath of the wild through on switch. It was one of the launch titles, and it was fantastic. The slow loading times were the #1 complaint I had about the game. They really broke the immersive experience. Whenever I died, teleported between zones or entered & left shrines the loading time was long enough that I fell briefly out of the zone while playing.

I assume loading times haven't gotten any better for Tears of the kingdom, given the hardware hasn't changed. I'd probably buy the new zelda game instantly but when I think back to breath of the wild, my strongest visual memory is that black and red loading screen.

IIRC load times were improved in a later update (although that update came too late, imo)

Something to note is Nintendo makes profits on their hardware where as the other two (Microsoft & Sony) typically take a loss on their hardware, until about midway point of the console's life.

I believe the other two make up the loss on the hardware with licensing rights on the software side of things.

https://www.gamesradar.com/unlike-playstation-and-nintendo-x...

I liked playing their AAA ports like the witcher 3 on the go. A more powerfull console would make such ports easier, so I would hope to see more of them.

It rather have a switch than can play nintendo games plus some AAA games, than a steamdeck or something like it.