The switch platform was very unique when it launched. It has inspired a new category of gaming devices.
It’s also the most reliable and (easily) controllable portable gaming console that has significant new game support. PC, Xbox and playstation make it too easy for children to access online chats and adult content. The switch and by extension Nintendo ecosystem severely limit this.
It’s great for playing games with younger family members in person and online. Whereas the alternative platforms should only be used by young children when they are actively being monitored by an adult. It allows the child some independence without danger. Not just stranger danger, many businesses are desperate to directly communicate with children with no adult in between. It’s perverse we allow this type of advertising and targeting. The Nintendo switch severely limits this, and provides further limits in an easy to use app.
The customers of the steam deck wouldn’t tolerate this. They expect a fully portable gaming pc. Artificial limitations would only frustrate their user base. People already expect these limitations when they buy a Nintendo product so it’s less of an issue.
Nintendo always innovates on the hardware. The switch doesn’t appear as innovate now. But that’s only because the innovation was so good it was widely replicated. Supporting technology was also a factor.
If Nintendo make a switch 2 that only improves processing and screen resolution, it will be the least innovative console generation they ever had. But it would the standard affair for most gaming hardware manufacturers.
The protections incentives Nintendo to pursue innovation in gaming, in both hardware and software. Everyone else only does software, even the Steam deck is a follower. This approach is still risky with these protections. As not every hardware system is highly profitable, as we saw with the Wii U. The Wii U was great and very innovative but didn’t capture much market share and many great games didn’t sell as well as they should have (Nintendo remade many in the switch, but classics like Nintendo land can’t be supported on any other device easily).
If you don’t like this you don’t need to support Nintendo, there are plenty of games being released that don’t require dedicated hardware. More are being released than you could ever expect to play in a lifetime.
I think what the switch did best was having hardware that more or less works given the diminishing returns we’re seeing in the processor space these days.
It was the first time that a handheld could competently compete with a home console, and could merge the two into one. The Vita got close, but it wasn’t there due to the hardware differential.
Exactly, so its not much more than they got lucky + theyre big enough to force developers to optimize aggressively for their hardware, hardly anything new there
If Nintendo make a switch 2 that only improves processing and screen resolution, it will be the least innovative console generation they ever had.
…No. The SNES existed. Compared to its predecessor the NES, the SNES was considerably more powerful with 16 bit architecture, more RAM, a faster, more powerful processor etc. It could run at overall higher resolutions, it had a larger overall and simultaneous onscreen color palette, it could do larger and more colorful sprites, and it had a MUCH more capable sound chip, but…compare Super Mario 3 on the NES to Super Mario World on the SNES. Or Metroid to Super Metroid. They really didn’t innovate that much, they added more buttons to the controller and made the graphics and sound more impressive.
To a lesser extent I’ll also point to the GameCube, whose design is “A more powerful disc-based N64 that is objectively not as good as the PS2.”
But, I think in certain ways the SNES and GameCube hold up where the more innovative N64 and Wii don’t. It’s easier to develop for “It’s like the last one, but more capable” than “It’s got this really weird new kind of controller no one has ever used before.” I remember people talking about the SNES mini and what games they would add to the existing lineup, and then talking about a theoretical N64 mini and struggling to even name 20 N64 games they want to play again.
Then there’s the case of the Wii U. The Wii U is their second worst console after the Virtual Boy (which I would argue is the most innovative console they ever made) and it’s not because of the Wii U itself. 1. The marketing was absolute crap. The previous “Wii Would Like To Play” campaign was excellent, because they showed off what the Wii was about. They held the controller up for the camera to see, then they showed people playing the games, both gameplay and people handling the controller. You knew what a Wii was when you went to the store to buy one. And it sold like chocolate covered hotcakes. Meanwhile the Wii U showed gameplay that could plausibly exist on the Wii, they showed pictures of the screen controller with very Wii-like design language so many people thought it was an addon to the Wii…Especially since it wasn’t called the Wii 2 or the Super Wii so it didn’t feel like a new console…then they spent 94% of the console’s life releasing basically no games for the thing, and the long-awaited, Zelda game was delayed so long that most people think of it as a Switch game; Breath of the Wild was developed for Wii U and ported to the Switch, but as a launch title for the Switch it outsold the Wii U version 13 to 1. By comparison, the Wii version of Twilight princess outsold the original GameCube version by ~4 to 1.
The switch platform was very unique when it launched. It has inspired a new category of gaming devices.
It’s also the most reliable and (easily) controllable portable gaming console that has significant new game support. PC, Xbox and playstation make it too easy for children to access online chats and adult content. The switch and by extension Nintendo ecosystem severely limit this.
It’s great for playing games with younger family members in person and online. Whereas the alternative platforms should only be used by young children when they are actively being monitored by an adult. It allows the child some independence without danger. Not just stranger danger, many businesses are desperate to directly communicate with children with no adult in between. It’s perverse we allow this type of advertising and targeting. The Nintendo switch severely limits this, and provides further limits in an easy to use app.
The customers of the steam deck wouldn’t tolerate this. They expect a fully portable gaming pc. Artificial limitations would only frustrate their user base. People already expect these limitations when they buy a Nintendo product so it’s less of an issue.
Nintendo always innovates on the hardware. The switch doesn’t appear as innovate now. But that’s only because the innovation was so good it was widely replicated. Supporting technology was also a factor.
If Nintendo make a switch 2 that only improves processing and screen resolution, it will be the least innovative console generation they ever had. But it would the standard affair for most gaming hardware manufacturers.
The protections incentives Nintendo to pursue innovation in gaming, in both hardware and software. Everyone else only does software, even the Steam deck is a follower. This approach is still risky with these protections. As not every hardware system is highly profitable, as we saw with the Wii U. The Wii U was great and very innovative but didn’t capture much market share and many great games didn’t sell as well as they should have (Nintendo remade many in the switch, but classics like Nintendo land can’t be supported on any other device easily).
If you don’t like this you don’t need to support Nintendo, there are plenty of games being released that don’t require dedicated hardware. More are being released than you could ever expect to play in a lifetime.
The switch is still piggybacking off The WiiU and PSP.
They innovated greatly off the PSP with uhhh a second joystick! And uhh uhh motion controls, those have never been done before!
How by that logic was the PSP not simply an iterative improvement on the Game Boy?
Exactly, handheld consoles are hardly a new experience - nor is multiplayer for that matter
I think what the switch did best was having hardware that more or less works given the diminishing returns we’re seeing in the processor space these days. It was the first time that a handheld could competently compete with a home console, and could merge the two into one. The Vita got close, but it wasn’t there due to the hardware differential.
Exactly, so its not much more than they got lucky + theyre big enough to force developers to optimize aggressively for their hardware, hardly anything new there
…No. The SNES existed. Compared to its predecessor the NES, the SNES was considerably more powerful with 16 bit architecture, more RAM, a faster, more powerful processor etc. It could run at overall higher resolutions, it had a larger overall and simultaneous onscreen color palette, it could do larger and more colorful sprites, and it had a MUCH more capable sound chip, but…compare Super Mario 3 on the NES to Super Mario World on the SNES. Or Metroid to Super Metroid. They really didn’t innovate that much, they added more buttons to the controller and made the graphics and sound more impressive.
To a lesser extent I’ll also point to the GameCube, whose design is “A more powerful disc-based N64 that is objectively not as good as the PS2.”
But, I think in certain ways the SNES and GameCube hold up where the more innovative N64 and Wii don’t. It’s easier to develop for “It’s like the last one, but more capable” than “It’s got this really weird new kind of controller no one has ever used before.” I remember people talking about the SNES mini and what games they would add to the existing lineup, and then talking about a theoretical N64 mini and struggling to even name 20 N64 games they want to play again.
Then there’s the case of the Wii U. The Wii U is their second worst console after the Virtual Boy (which I would argue is the most innovative console they ever made) and it’s not because of the Wii U itself. 1. The marketing was absolute crap. The previous “Wii Would Like To Play” campaign was excellent, because they showed off what the Wii was about. They held the controller up for the camera to see, then they showed people playing the games, both gameplay and people handling the controller. You knew what a Wii was when you went to the store to buy one. And it sold like chocolate covered hotcakes. Meanwhile the Wii U showed gameplay that could plausibly exist on the Wii, they showed pictures of the screen controller with very Wii-like design language so many people thought it was an addon to the Wii…Especially since it wasn’t called the Wii 2 or the Super Wii so it didn’t feel like a new console…then they spent 94% of the console’s life releasing basically no games for the thing, and the long-awaited, Zelda game was delayed so long that most people think of it as a Switch game; Breath of the Wild was developed for Wii U and ported to the Switch, but as a launch title for the Switch it outsold the Wii U version 13 to 1. By comparison, the Wii version of Twilight princess outsold the original GameCube version by ~4 to 1.