The Nintendo Switch we have now could have been more powerful then what we got, instead it’s no where near as powerful as the PS4 or the XB1. Some of the ports that make it to the switch have to make so many compromises in terms of graphics, resolution, and frame rates. A lot also speculated that the dock had additional computing power based on a [patient](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/04/nintendos_supplemental_computing_device_patent_is_cleared_for_completion) that got leaked for a supplemental computing device. Instead everything is confined in the tablet and the dock only serves several basic functions.
1. Out to TV
2. Send commands to tablet to boost clock speeds
3. Charges the tablet for handheld play
4. Wired Controllers and Wired Internet
All this is done though a single USB-C connection in the center of the dock. They might have realized that adding additional computing power to the dock would make the system more expensive “$399 to $499 range” instead we got a $299 system at launch. Now the ASUS ROG Ally gaming tablet allows for the use of external GPUS, what happened in the trial of Microsoft VS the FTC revealed that Nintendo could release its successor to the Switch in 2024 but Microsoft promised that Call of Duty would come to the Switch and they all say it’s going to run natively on the tablet. Yeah in single player campaign while I guess that multiplayer will all be cloud based. Now Fortnite runs natively on Switch we know if you ever noticed how massive the updates can be when transitioning to another season. Now this is what I’m speculating.
Nintendo is going to want it’s next home console to be on the same level as PS5 and Series X but they can’t do that with just a tablet. Even the most powerful gaming tablets on the market can’t reach those levels even with ARM based architecture so Nintendo could sell two versions of the Switch 2. Each with the same tablet but the only difference being the dock.
One could be a basic Switch 2 dock that is similar to what we got now but can output games at 4K/120fps with the same level as Series S and the other PC gaming tablets at a $299 to $349 price range, it would still downclock in tablet mode to conserve battery life.
The second would be a what I’m calling a “Power Dock” that would take add additional computing power and better graphics, resolution and frame rates to each game potentially reaching 8K/120fps in later titles. At a price range of $499 to $549.
Now I’m saying this because whatever development kits are out there could have these SCDs either unplugged or disabled so developers will know how their games preform in handheld and docked mode using a standard dock. This is only speculation but if Nintendo is paying attention to Series S and X sales, they would know it’s possible to do all this as most Series S games are using the same textures in geometry as their Series S counterparts and even though some developers are saying Series S is a bottleneck, it might serve to aid in development for Switch 2 if this is the case or not.
by RealJoeCracker
30 Comments
The switch 2 will be as powerful as an Xbox one from what I’ve read so idk what you’re talking about
There’s one huge problem I see with this: Nintendo doesn’t care about how powerful their system is. Their three most recent home consoles and all the handhelds they’ve ever made have been weaker than the competition, but that doesn’t seem to matter for sales. I don’t see why Nintendo would make an expensive dock that just gives better graphics. That’s not their style.
I personally don’t care. Give me the portability and I’m sold. Lol
>Nintendo is going to want it’s next home console to be on the same level as PS5 and Series X
Or, considering how well the current Switch has done, they could have it weaker than the PS5 as the original was to the PS4.
This “power dock” of yours has been suggested since the switch launched. A new console could certainly make it possible, but as you said, this adds an extra expense and Nintendo’s done well as the cheaper alternative.
I think if you connect the switch to another running piece of hardware you now can’t take it out seamlessly anymore, idk how the console would react to suddenly losing like a quarter of its power and ram. unless you give the dock some kind of lid to keep it in place
also asking a tablet to do 4k/120 for 500 is wild when an 800 dollar handheld like the ally cant even do that
the dock should at least provide more electric power and better cooling so when the switch is docked it can run at higher speeds/be overclocked
As others have mentioned, Nintendo doesn’t really care about being as powerful as PS or Xbox. They care more about the experiences their devices bring to people. The devices you mention also cost WAY more than a PS5/XSX. The ROG Ally is $700. The proprietary eGPU that would be roughly equivalent (RX 6850 XT) to a PS5/XSX costs $800. That’s $1500 for a device portable like the switch but can be docked to play like a PS5/XSX. That is way more than Nintendo is looking to sell their next gen console for. Not to mention, the battery life of the ROG Ally is quite bad.
If I had to venture a guess, the Switch 2 will be close to XBO or PS4 level of performance that will retain the 720p screen. Games will target 720p60 without upscaling while handheld and 1080p60 while docked and use DLSS to scale it up to 4k. Nintendo has to be very power conscientious as they won’t go down the route that the Chinese handheld gaming machines go and make it a massive device with a large battery inside.
this would never work. They probably realized that the idea of putting an EGPU in the dock was a waste of time. The performance loss from EGPU to Native GPU is roughly 15% – 50% (all depending on the game), and USB C technology at the time of development would have caused it to have an even larger EGPU performance loss than nowadays.
Microsoft used to sell a laptop called the Surface Book with a detachable screen for tablet mode where you’d lose part of the processing power once it was detached since both the keyboard and screen each had portions of the processing power.
Keyword here is “used to”. It’s just not a good idea. Why spend the extra resources to make this possible at higher cost to the consumer when they will feel punished for even using the portable mode due to the significant drop in performance? Developers would never bother optimizing a game for both levels of power since that’s a waste of time which means you end up with a machine that is only worth using in docked mode but costs more than if they had left out the portable element completely. It’s a terrible idea.
I just want more consistent framerate: don’t care what the games look like
Nintendo will not even think of 8k for atleast 2 more generations. Plus 8k is pretty much non functional for most considering you probably need atleast a 70-80 inch tv to get the benefit
Nintendo’s first party games are all cartoons that can run on potatoes. Im sure third party games could really benefit. I do wonder what percentage of Switch owners play those games on their switch instead of on another platform.
Pointlessly expensive to produce instead of just making the console more powerful and maybe sticking a fan in the dock.
The current presumably switch successor SoC is over 10x as powerful as the current switch and faster than last gen consoles, should do OK by itself if it has access to unrestricted power/cooling.
Just buy a damn Xbox at that point.
Plus, it’s a pretty reasonable assumption that the Switch 2 will be around PS4 levels of power. CoD still comes out for that system and runs acceptably (even if it’s definitely pushing it) so if CoD ends up being Switch 2 only, the obstacle would be porting their jank ass engine to work to ARM.
I don’t want a Nintendo console that rivals Playstation or Xbox in power. In fact, I actively want that to not happen.
No, the switch really could not have been any more powerful than it was, while still being a switch.
There was nothing on the market that they could have out into the switch. No pascal wouldn’t have done it. Switches custom maxwell had everything advantageous related to gaming that pascal had and the mariko die shrink gains the NM advantage pascal had that erista switch didn’t.
By the time you get to a pascal gpu with a render config that would actually outdo the switch by a minor measure like the geforce gt 1030,
(384 / 24 / 16) the switch was already on the market for a year.
The next pascal gpu after that went out of range of the switches tdp by over 2x.
The mariko switch could have brought the clocks up to standard maxwell speed for an additional 25-30% performance over switch, but it went with extra hours of battery life instead.
Spending a stupid amount of money on an external gpu that bleeds 20-30% of its performance because of its distance from the main soc, just to gain the shader power to render in a higher resolution isn’t exactly the most practical idea when you have tensor cores and OFA hardware accelerating dlss so the Cuda shaders don’t have to take on the load.
I hope they concentrate on performance instead of resolution for their next console.
Nintendo has learned that what people demand most on the Switch is a playable game. And most Switch owners have become accustomed to the sacrifices necessary to keep battery life high and console costs low.
Third-party developers who want their games to “shine” graphically are perfectly okay reducing that shine on the Switch if it means increasing sales, which have a special shine all their own. And some developers have performed miracles (the ports of Dying Light, The Witcher 3, Diablo 3, Nobody Saves the World, BOTW/TOTK, etc).
As a first-party developer, Nintendo has rarely experimented with changing performance between docked and handheld modes. I hope they don’t embrace it with their next console. Thinking mostly about Bowser’s Fury, which plays at 60 FPS in docked mode and 30 FPS in handheld. It’s kind of jarring.
To get on my performance soapbox for a second, I also hope they return to making more of their first party games 60 FPS, like the Kirby series, which has been moving towards lower frame rates since Planet Robobot, and the Pikmin games, which were developed in a way that makes high framerates so difficult (or expensive) to implement that they didn’t even bother for the remasters.
Edit: Typoz.
You’re overestimating how much Nintendo cares about what other console makers do and how much they care about bloated third party AAA games coming to their platform.
Nintendo’s next console is *not* going to be on the same level as the PS5 or Series X.
We’re going to be getting a handheld PS4. And that’s *okay.*
“4K 120FPS”
LOL
It’ll make ice, too.
You bring up the ROG Ally but forget it’s substantially more expensive than the sweet spot that gamers prefer to pay, and that’s before considering the external GPU.
Nintendo doesn’t care about how powerful the system is and honestly, neither do I.
> The second would be a what I’m calling a “Power Dock”
Here we go again, its 2017 all over again guys.
I’m all for different models that meet our needs properly this time.
The current Switch came out with 2 variant versions and… *both* of them only cater to portable players.. 😐
A single docked-only variant for us loungeroom only players with a bit more oomph and perhaps even 2-3 slots for game cards would make me extremely happy.
Dawg that was a patent for the switch. Not the new console. And it’s already not possible with the usb-c port they went with.
The series s isn’t doing 4k/120. You need a reality check.
I honestly prefer to buy $299 Switch 2 with Xbox One S ~ PS4 power over $399 Switch 2 with PS4 Pro ~ Xbox Series X power. I don’t mind bad graphics as long as they deliver great games.
None of the current consoles are anywhere near 4K 120fps.
The only thing that can reliably do 4k 120 at the moment is the 4090 and that’s $1500 just for the GPU. By the time you actually build a PC with it you’re looking at $2500-3000.
The idea of having 4K 120 in a ~$500 handheld is ludicrous
You know, this is different than the discussions taking place in this thread but something else Nintendo is going to have to contend with is the utter fact that whatever switch 2 is, it will underperform from a sales perspective too. Nintendo essentially has never followed up a successful generation with another generation even remotely as successful, save for the GB/GBA to DS generations. Everything else has had a follow up perform markedly worse than the console before it. NES -> SNES. Wii -> Wii U. DS -> 3DS. These all had gangbuster sales numbers only to follow up with a console that sold tens of millions less.
So, really, what is going to be interesting to me is the switch 3, or if sales are low enough, the switch 2.5/Pro.
I’m sorrry but did you just say 8k 120fps for a Nintendo console? Throw the whole post away lmfao
Nintendo is going to want their next home console to be on the same level as a PS5 and series X –
Not unless Nintendo has done a complete 180 of their priorities and beliefs. Nintendo has NEVER cared about graphics. They are known for saying that they only care about what the game needs not what is possible.
As much as we would all love a system that has the graphics of a PS5 or series X, that would be so off brand for Nintendo that I think anyone even entertaining that idea will be very disappointed when the new console comes out. The most we can hope for is something equal to the PS4.
Never will happen. Nintendo wants their console to be $100-150 dollars cheaper than PS5 and XB1 more than they want it to be as powerful.
Cheap and portable. That is the Nintendo way.