With XBox Series X And the PS5 coming out, Will Nintendo Yield to the call of more Power?

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I've been on record saying that the Nintendo Switch is my favorite console of all time. Namely because it's been with me every step of the way since I got it. The second I was playing Skyrim in the airport waiting for my delayed flight to Altanta and getting PISSED that they were finally boarding, I knew how much of a Game Changer (Puns, I got them!) Nintendo created with the Switch.

But with the Xbox Series X (they want us to call it Xbox Sex, we all know this) and the PS5, we are one step closer to complete uncanny valley. If not the generation after this, the generation after that will probably be able just to model a full photo realistic town with people that look as real as actors.

These leaps of gaming will lead people to expect more. There are still people decrying how bad the Switch is because the Witcher 3 doesn't look as amazing as it does on their PS4.

I think we're reaching the culmination of what Nintendo Wants. The integration of Motion Control to separate themselves from the pack. If they release a Joy Con pro with actual one to one motion, The Nintendo Switch will be the only way to play a FPS outside of a PC. The low price point and the accessibility almost demands that all your children in the household have their OWN switch. You used to be able to say that you have only one TV screen so you have to share the game console. Now you literally can just give them their own screens and have them play the same game with separate experiences. They have game experiences that still rocks people socks off. Legend of Zelda was game of the year. Odyssey is supposedly good. I love Splatoon 2. I freaking love ARMS (which brings up another call for Joy Con pros). They have a steady stable.

But I think this generation will be the 'Wow' generation.

I think we're in for the spectacle of being in a real, living town. Or world building, as Phil Spencer puts it. Can Nintendo really keep up by releasing a Nintendo Switch Pro that gives us maybe early ps4 graphics on the go?

Can Nintendo find another route to go down instead of trying to get back into the power race? We already have our games on the go. Will making the games on the go in early Ps4 tech be enough to keep up with the PSVR and the sheer computing power of the Xbox? Is there a new way of controlling your games that can immerse you more than motion controls? Or have we found the limit of the deviation that Nintendo can attempt until they have to come back and start actively competing with the worlds that the PS5 and the XSex are going to be able to create?

Last series of questions posed to you. Say Nintendo sticks with the Switch Format. It can be hand held or docked. Knowing the limitations of mobile chipsets, what do you think is acceptable to ask for Nintendo to put in this new iteration? Is it fair to say that you'd want a game like Tekken 7 on the new iteration but you'd understand if they couldn't make a Spiderman? Would you be ok if the dock acted as more of a booster that you COULD play a game like Spiderman docked, but not on the go? Or hey, are you ok with what is going on and you think Nintendo never has to re-enter the console arm race again?

 

[CritialGaming]

I doubt it. Nintendo has proven that they don't care about a console with power.

They made the most powerful consoles TWICE now and it didn't really help them (N64 and Gamecube). I think they've figured out how to have a place in the console market without needed to compete on that scale. By making a console that fills a niche market and making great games for it, they can exist outside the so called graphical arms race.

They only make the consoles now as strong as they need to. So the next console after the switch will probably have a decent level of power, it wont compare to SeXbox or PS5, but it'll naturally step up from the Switch like the Wii U did from the Wii.

But frankly they don't need to step up to the call of power, nor should they.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Nintendo I think is fine doing their gimmicks so a more realistic quandary might be what will be their next gimmick.


Maybe something vr or AR related?

 

[meiam]

People buy nintendo console for nintendo game. They have no reason to push for more power so long as they don't start making game for other console (which they obviously won't). Treating the switch as a console makes no sense anyway, it's a portable and no one expect portable to keep up, power wise, with console.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

People buy nintendo console for nintendo game. They have no reason to push for more power so long as they don't start making game for other console (which they obviously won't). Treating the switch as a console makes no sense anyway, it's a portable and no one expect portable to keep up, power wise, with console.

If anything, nintendo cut power in their new switch lite to make it cheap, so they definitely don't seem to be worried about their consoles being too weak.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Would more power be nice for port jobs and possibly bigger and better experiences from some companies? Sure. Do I feel it's necessary with the experiences I've enjoyed on my Switch up until this point? Not really, no. Nintendo does their thing and I love them for it. That's good enough for me

 

[SupahEwok]

I can't think of a single Nintendo IP that follows a "photo-realism" art style. They're all stylized. And historically, Nintendo designs their consoles to work for themselves, not everybody else.

There's a better question to be asking here. The thing that I believe OP is missing (provided I didn't skim over it) is that Nintendo's spirit has been that of a toy company. It's how they look at things. Everybody knows about Miyamoto, but the principle architect of Nintendo's consoles (Takeda?) has just as much sway within the company. Under them, Nintendo hasn't viewed themselves as selling media experiences, they sell funboxes. Which is a big part why they've been so slow to adopt to Internet and apps on their devices.

However, we've reached the point where Miyamoto and Takeda no longer directly oversee Nintendo's design production, and pretty soon they won't even be consultants. And they're so old that even the people they directly trained are old. The rank and file of the Nintendo company haven't experienced Nintendo as the old toy company. I think a big generational change is ongoing, and the real question is, what will Nintendo do when they transition from a toy company to a videogame company? Will their desire to create toys disappear, or will it survive in the company culture?

Labo is an example of thinking of games as toys rather than media. Will there be room for Labos and motion controls in the new Nintendo? We'll see.

 

[CaitSeith]

If the price of the spectacle is so much that it can't survive without lootboxes or life service models, then it's better that Nintendo doesn't yield to the call of more power.

 

[CritialGaming]

If the price of the spectacle is so much that it can't survive without lootboxes or life service models, then it's better that Nintendo doesn't yield to the call of more power.

But that's not the case, there are plenty of high spectacle games that succeed without the need for lootboxes or shady bullshit.

God of War
Bloodborne
The Witcher 3
Uncharted
Last of Us
Horizon Zero Dawn
Persona 5
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Mario Odyssey

Nothing from Microsoft as it happens, but....shrug.

Point is, games can and do make money by looking grand and incredible without needed extra monetization. It's the greed of third party developers that force that trash upon people.

So it isn't that they CAN'T it's that publishers wont LET them. Though that is starting to change if Jedi Fallen Order is any glimpse of what's to come.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

-looks at history-

It. Will. Never. HAPPEN. Nintendo does not care about power because, guess what, the PUBLIC does not care. If power mattered then the Switch would be slowing down. It hasn't, in fact it's STILL selling gangbusters, it's STILL getting a lot of 3rd party support, and it's STILL got years ahead of it. There's not going to be a Pro variant (mostly because the "pro" variants of other consoles have been placebos at best) and it's gonna be awhile until we hear about new hardware, probably 2021 at the EARLIEST.

As for the next-gen, let's be real here: the uncanny valley is going to remain for a long, LONG time. People have been claiming "Oh, NEXT gen will finally overcome it!" No, no it won't. And I reiterate: the public doesn't really care. They don't care about polygons, they care about fun gameplay, fascinating worlds, engaging characters, compelling narratives, not how many triangles were used to create a model. It's a fool's errand to go down that path.

 

[Casual Shinji]

As for the next-gen, let's be real here: the uncanny valley is going to remain for a long, LONG time. People have been claiming "Oh, NEXT gen will finally overcome it!" No, no it won't. And I reiterate: the public doesn't really care. They don't care about polygons, they care about fun gameplay, fascinating worlds, engaging characters, compelling narratives, not how many triangles were used to create a model. It's a fool's errand to go down that path.

The public doesn't really care, because the option of power is available. If the Switch was the only system around the public would most certainly care about the lack of power.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Also we need to remember that twilight princess was Nintendo dipping their toes in the "realistic/dark" pool and while I was a huge fan it definitely had a more mixed reception than their other Zelda games.

 

[CaitSeith]

Also we need to remember that twilight princess was Nintendo dipping their toes in the "realistic/dark" pool and while I was a huge fan it definitely had a more mixed reception than their other Zelda games.

Ironically, not as mixed as the initial reception of Wind Waker.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

The public doesn't really care, because the option of power is available. If the Switch was the only system around the public would most certainly care about the lack of power.

No they wouldn't. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day gaming is a CREATIVE medium. The "power rules all" argument is a myth pushed by tech porn addicts who don't actually want to design and let the hardware do the heavy lifting.

 

[CaitSeith]

If the price of the spectacle is so much that it can't survive without lootboxes or life service models, then it's better that Nintendo doesn't yield to the call of more power.

But that's not the case, there are plenty of high spectacle games that succeed without the need for lootboxes or shady bullshit.

God of War
Bloodborne
The Witcher 3
Uncharted
Last of Us
Horizon Zero Dawn
Persona 5
Zelda Breath of the Wild
Mario Odyssey

Nothing from Microsoft as it happens, but....shrug.

Point is, games can and do make money by looking grand and incredible without needed extra monetization. It's the greed of third party developers that force that trash upon people.

So it isn't that they CAN'T it's that publishers wont LET them. Though that is starting to change if Jedi Fallen Order is any glimpse of what's to come.

I don't want to diminish the merits of Persona 5, BotW or Mario Odyssey; but we are talking about aiming for the photo-realistic spectacle, not stylized ones. From the rest of the games you listed, only The Witcher 3 was published without the financial support of Sony (with the latter's priority being to make console-sellers instead of just profits from game revenue), and that was in 2015. Spectacle creep makes games to become more and more expensive to make. Heck! We had the Pokemon Sword and Shield controversy where they decided to focus on the spectacle instead of keeping all the Pokemon, and a lot of defenders' argument was "games are more expensive to make than ever".

 

[Casual Shinji]

The public doesn't really care, because the option of power is available. If the Switch was the only system around the public would most certainly care about the lack of power.

No they wouldn't. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day gaming is a CREATIVE medium. The "power rules all" argument is a myth pushed by tech porn addicts who don't actually want to design and let the hardware do the heavy lifting.

Did I say power rules all? No I didn't. I said people would care about power or lack of power if the only available system was the Switch. But they don't really care, because most people that own a Switch likely also own a PC/PS4/Xbox 1. You're claiming the public doesn't care about power, because the Switch is still selling well, but they do. They just don't care about the Switch being powerful, because they know that's not the kind of system it is, the PC/PS4/Xbox 1 is.

If people didn't care about power, they wouldn't go apeshit over a classic game getting a graphical overhaul. If RE2 Remake was released as is except with the same graphics as the PS1 version you can bet your ass the public would care.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Power isn't very important as the best games can play on a PC without a video card these days. However, I feel you need to be in the same ballpark so that your system can play basically all the games. It's why RDR2, Control, Sekiro, RE2 Remake (RE3 remake), Cyberpunk, DMC5 and tons more aren't going to be on a Nintendo system. And if they do eventually come, it's after everyone who wanted to play them has already played them. Remember that 1-year time period when the Wii U was out before the PS4/Xbone released and the Wii U got games like Batman Arkham Origins the same day as PS3/360? That's because for that 1 year, a Nintendo system was in the same ballpark with regards to power.

There really isn't an arms race of power anymore, consoles are just using low-power AMD chips. And AMD chips aren't expensive. You don't need to sell consoles for a loss per unit anymore like in the old days. The biggest / most noticeable difference in next-gen is going to be the SSD.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Did I say power rules all? No I didn't. I said people would care about power or lack of power if the only available system was the Switch. But they don't really care, because most people that own a Switch likely also own a PC/PS4/Xbox 1. You're claiming the public doesn't care about power, because the Switch is still selling well, but they do. They just don't care about the Switch being powerful, because they know that's not the kind of system it is, the PC/PS4/Xbox 1 is.

If people didn't care about power, they wouldn't go apeshit over a classic game getting a graphical overhaul. If RE2 Remake was released as is except with the same graphics as the PS1 version you can bet your ass the public would care.

You can obfuscate it until you turn into a pretzel, that's exactly what you're saying; that somehow power is an ends, not a means. That kind of thinking has been dismantled every time over the years, the decades since gaming first cropped up. Heck, 90% of games whose selling point was their power have aged into dust as an example. That narrative isn't just dead, it was never alive.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Did I say power rules all? No I didn't. I said people would care about power or lack of power if the only available system was the Switch. But they don't really care, because most people that own a Switch likely also own a PC/PS4/Xbox 1. You're claiming the public doesn't care about power, because the Switch is still selling well, but they do. They just don't care about the Switch being powerful, because they know that's not the kind of system it is, the PC/PS4/Xbox 1 is.

If people didn't care about power, they wouldn't go apeshit over a classic game getting a graphical overhaul. If RE2 Remake was released as is except with the same graphics as the PS1 version you can bet your ass the public would care.

You can obfuscate it until you turn into a pretzel, that's exactly what you're saying; that somehow power is an ends, not a means. That kind of thinking has been dismantled every time over the years, the decades since gaming first cropped up. Heck, 90% of games whose selling point was their power have aged into dust as an example. That narrative isn't just dead, it was never alive.

You're doing a continent's amount of obfuscating yourself.

 

[Yoshi178]

As for the next-gen, let's be real here: the uncanny valley is going to remain for a long, LONG time. People have been claiming "Oh, NEXT gen will finally overcome it!" No, no it won't. And I reiterate: the public doesn't really care. They don't care about polygons, they care about fun gameplay, fascinating worlds, engaging characters, compelling narratives, not how many triangles were used to create a model. It's a fool's errand to go down that path.

The public doesn't really care, because the option of power is available. If the Switch was the only system around the public would most certainly care about the lack of power.

if the public cared so much about power, then why did the Nintendo Switch literally just outsell the Xbox One's lifetime sales? you know, that much more powerful gaming console?