The Nintendo Switch needs to be more powerful

Bloomberg recently reported that Nintendo is working on a new and more powerful version of the Nintendo Switch hardware that will allow the console to display games in 4K resolution when docked. That would certainly be an interesting resource, but that is not why this news is so exciting.

The truth is that the switch has been without power for some time, and this has become a problem for anyone who uses the hardware as the main console. The problem was never the lack of 4K support, but the ability to deliver graphically modest games to the player without having to compromise on performance.

The optimization issue

The Switch was launched four years ago and took off like a rocket due to the portable hybrid / console nature of the system design and the availability of a Mario game that became an instant classic, a Zelda game that … well, same thing, and an updated version of one of the best Mario Kart games ever released.

The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 received mid-generation power upgrades, and successors from Microsoft and Sony tried to bring some of the power of PC games to consoles. Nintendo launched its system with the insides of a glorified cell phone. It was a bold choice that paid off, proving that some players are more interested in the game library and portability than in raw power.

The Switch wasn’t as powerful as the competition, but who cared? It didn’t have to be. Nintendo was making its own standout games for the platform, and they were working well. The power difference between the Switch and its closest competitors was also much less pronounced in earlier seasons of 2017.

Photo: Michael McWhertor / Polygon

But that power gap has widened over time. Overcooked launched with significant frame rate problems; Ark: Survival Evolved it had to be reduced to basics to function in the system. Motion Twin, the developer of Dead cells, apologized for the state of its Switch version at launch. And the latest Switch port for a big game, Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends, is a very compromised experience.

Game developer Sterling Selover wrote about the challenges of porting Stingbot’s The Forbidden Arts to Switch in 2019. “Altogether, I spent 4 months working at the Switch’s door, while simultaneously continuing to improve and finish the game on other platforms,” ​​said Selover. “The hardware for the Switch is unique, and unless a game is designed specifically for the Switch, it will probably be very difficult to maintain consistency with more powerful hardware consoles.”

This problem is only getting worse as developers focus on increasing the power of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It will be increasingly difficult to make games that work well on both console classes. The answer is more time spent on optimization, which comes with its own cost and limitations for smaller teams, or designing with the huge disparity of power in mind from the start.

Over time, however, it becomes more likely that more games with disappointing performance, load time and resolution will be released for the Switch. This is bad news for everyone, from developers trying to deliver the best version of their games, to fans who want to play high quality ports on their switch. Something had to give.

So, what does more powerful hardware bring us?

The supposed new hardware for the Switch also includes technology that would make it easier for developers to extract more performance from the system.

“The addition of DLSS would be a boon for new games and developers,” Michael McWhertor of Polygon explained in a recent news post about the console. “Nvidia’s technology uses AI to accelerate graphics rendering by reconstructing the image, maintaining high image quality while offering improved frame rates. Simply put, it allows a video card to render a game at a lower internal resolution – reducing the load on the GPU – as it uses Nvidia’s AI algorithm to generate a reconstructed image that looks as good as (or in some cases, better) the game rendered in native resolution. “

Forget the arguments about frame rate and resolution a little bit. The real problems here are the readability and feel of each game. Developers want to create switch ports that allow players to see and understand the action, ensuring that the games remain enjoyable to play. That is the goal.

Nintendo has put developers in a kind of dilemma with the original Switch: the system isn’t powerful enough to be comparable to competing consoles, but it’s selling so well that developers may feel they can’t afford to ignore it. . By increasing the power of the lowest performing console on the market, Nintendo can make game development easier in all areas, which can lead to more – and better – ports on all the games you want to play on the go.

By offering more powerful Switch hardware and getting players onto that more powerful hardware as quickly as possible, Nintendo could give developers an ecosystem where they can spend less time optimizing their games to achieve that goal. It also means that developers who spend time building scalable engines can use more of these engines’ features on the Switch, while keeping the game playable in terms of raw performance.

The best scenario? More doors, made in less time, using fewer resources, that look and work better. And that’s good for everyone … except maybe for Microsoft and Sony.