Topic: The Nintendo Switch Rumor and Speculation Thread

@Grumblevolcano
I was trying so hard to get a PS5 for a couple years after it launched, but honestly I'm glad it never happened.

I had a PS2 and loved the heck out of it - really was a magical console with so many unique games and cool ideas. One of those gaming eras I'll never forget.

But I skipped the PS3 and only got a PS4 later in its life. I do like Sony's first-party games, but for the last decade or so they're all pretty darn similar. Over-the-shoulder action/adventure, heavy on story and cutscenes, open world-ish, tons of tasks to do, usually pretty mature... kind of gets exhausting after awhile. And their design philosophy isn't really showing any signs of changing in the future, maybe even for the worse with the talk of more live service stuff. Ugh.

I am holding out hope that Switch 2 will get the Final Fantasy VII remasters, though. I played the first one's demo on my PS4 and it was pretty cool.

@rallydefault There’s some more recent PS Studios stuff I’m interested in like Rift Apart, Sackboy and GoW. With the latter, it’s about how Nintendo’s handling Zelda. Lots of people are saying GoW (the 2 Norse games, not the Greek ones) is like linear Zelda so it would be kind of like how Metroid’s absence after Prime 3 partially led me to getting a 360 because I felt that Halo looked like a good alternative to Metroid. Music games were the primary reason I got a 360 but Halo was a major 2nd factor.

That TotK interview back in December pretty much confirms linear Zelda is dead. I still have hope that WWHD and TPHD gets ported over from Wii U but apart from that, I don’t have any hope for the future of traditional 3D Zelda.

So I've been playing around with NVidia's RTX HDR on emulated Wii U/Wii/GC games. A bit hit and miss, sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't. But I didn't think tooo much about it in the context of the Switch 2. Then I watch this LTT video on it and I had a sudden realisation....

..... Nintendo could use this on Switch 2. I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier. Obviously for games designed for Switch 2 or games with patches to run on Switch 2? You'd do a proper HDR master. But what about Switch backwards compatibility? Maybe Wii and GC games on a new NSO? They're not going to be putting the effort into mastering all those games for HDR. "RTX HDR" could be a big deal

@Grumblevolcano
I also felt a bit down after that Zelda interview, but I can see them doing both going forward. I think their "big" Zelda games will be more open-world nonsense, but I do think they'll still make linear experiences either through remasters and/or new 2D ideas. As soon as I finish Unicorn Overlord today I'm actually going back to finish my millionth playthrough of Link's Awakening lol

The God of War reboot was solid. I really enjoyed it, but I was getting a bit fatigued by the end of the game. I haven't played the second one yet, though. I certainly wouldn't call it open world, but it's not exactly linear, either. It's very much like an Ocarina of Time "open world," is the way I'd describe it.

If anything at least we get real Nintendo talk of Switch 2 or Demos showcasing Switch 2 graphics. That's what I hope for at least?

One thing that I think people have slept on a bit about the rumoured Switch 2 SoC is the file decompression acceleration that it has. On these forums there's often a lot of talk about cartridge sizes and games being on cart or not. Extra downloads, devs being "cheap". And I think there's a general perception amongst some that this will only get worse with a higher fidelity Switch 2. But between this file compression and the rapidly dropping price of NAND? I'm not sure that'll be true

As an example. If you look at the transition from PS3 to PS4, which is broadly similar to the jump in power we're going to see between Switch and Switch 2, you saw games basically double in size. Higher resolution assets, bigger games. Makes sense. And in isolation the idea of 100GB+ games on Switch 2 is a bit scary. However in the transition from PS4 to PS5 we haven't seen this. If you look at game sizes on PS4 vs PS5? On average games are around 30% smaller.

Of course there are still outliers. There are games on PS5 that are multi 100GB downloads. But that was also the case on PS4 and, broadly, from PS4 to PS5 game sizes are generally a touch smaller on PS5. Like for like. So when you combine those things together? I don't think Switch 2 games will that much bigger at all

When you add the fact that we're 7 years down the road in terms of the prices of NAND? I think it's fair to say that storage will be basically a non-issue on Switch 2. I'm sure there will be some games that will still be a partial game on cart with a download code (2K NBA games I'm looking at you) but I think it'll be far less common than it has been

Saw a video which I won't post here because it certainly flirts with the site rules. But fair to say the video did make a fairly compelling case about where the Switch could already be. Not Switch 2, the Switch.... if it was free from Nintendo's arbitrary resolution and clock limits. We're talking something like 2X the original clocks and upto 4K/60Hz output on the OLED in the OLED dock

I mean sure, none of that is particularly new. Even seeing some of the things they managed to do with this new found freedom. But even so, when you see like.... a decompiled Ocarina of Time running at 4K/60 or Wind Waker running through Dolphin at 1440p or even like. On a Switch. In a video. And also some things I won't mention due to the previously mentioned community rules.....

I think sometimes we are being a bit conservative in terms of how much we're going to get out of backwards compatibility on Switch 2. The rumour from a while ago said there was a BotW demo where it was running at 4K with no loading times? I mean.... yeah, comfortably, don't even need DLSS for that