Topic: Why is everyone talking about a “Switch 2?”

I don't really understand the 'Switch is dead' people. Given the majority of rumours have the next console being basically an upgrade of Switch, Switch is no more dead than Gameboy was when GBC or GBA came out. The Gameboy line of consoles was sold for 17 years. The general Switch concept could easily last 15 years as well.

Because we want to see Sony and Microsoft fanboys melt down on Twitter.

For some reason this generation , I got both Ps5 and Series X…. The Switch feels dated after playing those. I am not done who is focused on power, graphics and frame rates. But the loading times are ridiculous on the Switch, even for games that aren’t that demanding at times. It’s just time for an upgrade.

@NeonPizza everything you described is why I am likely going digital only next gen. Especially since I expect to be back to using my PC for gaming by then (waiting on the new elder scrolls). Storage is getting cheap enough that I can keep most of my libraries digital and (for me) I bought way less on the sony and MS systems so I am not seeing the point in taking up shelf space. Like xbone/series x combined is maybe 100 games. Meanwhile my switch is 700+. I am looking into ways to mod my systems so I can rip my owned games (no rom sites) so I can box up my games and get my space back.

That being said I am also considering sitting out a gen so I can beat games as well. Decisions, decisions.

@rockodoodle
Loading times is going to be a huge difference for this upcoming hardware. And I know some will say "who cares" but, we're not just talking initial game loading. We're talking removing stuttering when moving between areas. Having more detail in areas and/or larger areas

It really is kinda stupid how cheap and fast RAM and flash has become. I'd say people should probably temper their expectations on what this next hardware will be.... except for RAM and storage where people are being WAY too conservative with their expectations

@rockodoodle I actually don’t think the loading times are THAT bad, It takes me like 45 seconds at most to get into a level of Celeste, or the world of Bug Fables, or heck even TotK for example

@DiamondCore
Yeah, kinda not the point. What we're talking about with "faster load times" isn't just some number of times less time to load. Of course it is sometimes, for straight ports and/or when developers aren't optimising for the newer storage architecture. But it's also not just that

With the PS5, XBox Series and one can only assume Nintendo's next hardware to a lesser extent what you have is storage that's fast enough that you can get away with loading some assets directly off the mass storage device. Rather than having to load them before hand and spend some CPU time decompressing assets. Which is how for some well optimised PS5 games you see games with like 1-2s load times where the PS4 equivalent takes almost 1min

Switch load times don't bother me. While Series X load times are faster, more time is lost due to the infamous "[insert game] took too long to start" error than gained by the faster load times resulting in Switch being faster overall. Can't say about PS5 as I don't have one but I may get one if Switch 2 doesn't get certain 3rd party support.

To get slightly technical on the storage bit think of it this way. The Switch as it stands has eMMC flash, basically as fast as an SD card, probably not a super fast micro SD card but. Lets for arguments sake say this can do around 100MB/s. A standard SATA based SSD can do ~750MB/s so about 7.5X faster. But in 2023? We're beyond SATA even at the low end for SSDs. Realistically we're probably looking at something closer to ~3-5GB/s, so 30-50X faster than what the Switch currently has

But that's not the whole story. We also know from leaks from NVidia that the rumoured SoC has file compression acceleration. Lets say the compression ratio is 50% and the hardware acceleration allows you to read the compressed files straight off the flash. If that's the case then the speed effectively doubles again....

So again, we're not talking here about like a 2-3X improvement. That's the scale you usually see specs improve for consoles between generations. On this very specific metric? Potentially we're talking maybe a 100X performance improvement. So again, it really can't be understated how big the jump will be in the speed of games loading. But not just the speed of loading, also where loading can be hidden and how big assets can be

Loading times aren't too annoying when you only have to rarely load things like starting long levels or starting the game itself, but some games have a ton of loading screens. Cult of the lamb for example has the 'only 30 seconds loading' but it has it every couple minutes of dungeon so a large percentage of time is loading. I realize that's just a bad port, but it's a good example of annoying loading times. Or open-ish world games where it takes 30 seconds to go from the main map to inside a building and you want to go in and out of shops/your home a lot.

For most games I barely notice but for some it is ridiculous.

@DiamondCore it’s certainly not unplayable in most cases. But once you get stuff virtually in an instant, it’s hard to go back. It’s a first world problem for sure.

1. Switch is old. It's over 6 and a half-years old with no successor unveiled. Even the Super Famicom was announced around 1988. The cancelled Project Atlantis (a GBA-like handheld) was talked about in the mid-1990s. Switch's hardware has been stretched to the limit and it's time to unveil a successor.
2. Unless Nintendo throws some massive curveballs in announcements next year, the sheer amount of smaller games, remasters and remakes on the horizon signal a successor is on the way. Unless some big Nintendo titles end up being crossgen, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder seem to be like the swan songs/big finale of Switch.
3. Rumors and patents. With this many out there, some have to be true.
4. The ten-year comment does not have to mean Switch will take ten years to be replaced. That's honestly insanely unlikely even for platforms as successful as Switch. I just think Nintendo wants to assure investors and consumers that Switch will still be available for purchase for years to come and will still get software (even if it's third-party only and small in the very last years). Remember that Nintendo started giving up on Wii after 2011 and if the Switch 2 fails or underwhelms out the gate, Nintendo has Switch to fall back on.

@LuigiTheGreenFire Older than six and a half years. The Tegra X1 is from 2015.

I'm going to be that guy and say I don't want a new/next Switch anytime soon. I'm so ridiculously satisfied with my Switch and my backlog will keep me busy with it for a (very) long time. Ever since I quit the time sink "main game" (Sunbreak) earlier this year I've been so focused on the backlog. Made some good progress but for every 1 game I cross off I'd say about 2-3 get added on. Having so much fun doing it though. Just did 100% Everspace and only have about 3 more completions in Hades to finish the story and roll the credits. Love that game! Was going to dig into Mario Wonder but of course Company of Heroes Collection reviewed well on Switch and I'm feeling a gravitational pull towards it which could mean Wonder will get put on the backburner There's too much to play and not enough time! How do you people get to all of it and STILL want new systems to play them on!? It's madness!

@rockodoodle alright, I can understand that lol

@skywake ah, that’s fair.

Personally, my extremely heavily used almost 7 year old Switch is showing age. I will need to replace it regardless before it dies so I would rather replace it with something new. Considering even my phone is cheaper than Switch, has better graphics, and much more storage it feels a bit of a waste to buy current Switch for the price when hardware is so much cheaper/better now. Instead of buying a second normal Switch, I would prefer to buy a Switch upgrade and then play my current backlog on the new device. 😝

@Ganner
I don't see how those two things are mutually exclusive. The way I see it the Switch is a great platform and there are plenty of great games to play on it. And it's precisely for that reason that we should get new hardware so that this platform lives for another 5-7 years. I expect there to be backwards compatibility on this next bit of hardware and, frankly, I expect it to be a significantly less visible division than it has been on any other Nintendo hardware. With the possible exception of GBC

And as @FishyS said. I brought my Switch in early 2017, just physically it has had better days. It's not broken by any stretch but the screen is slightly lifting on one side and there's a fair amount of "finger grease polish" on the bezel. Also when I brought the Switch it was connected to a 46" 60Hz 1080p SDR LCD, within the capabilities of the HDMI spec the Switch uses. But now I have a 55" 120Hz 4K HDR OLED panel with a VRR range of 20-120Hz. Now I don't expect "Switch 2" to max out that spec but.... there's certainly a LOT more headroom there

As a side note, currently I have both the Switch and a PC hooked upto that TV. And as it happens the PC I have hooked upto my TV has a 1660Ti with a 10th Gen Core i3. Which, if you look at the rumoured SoC, isn't THAT far ahead of what the Switch 2 might end up being. And honestly? It runs rings around the Switch. I mean sure, I can't crank the settings run at 4K and expect 60fps on everything. But I can play, for example, Dirt 2 at 1080p with settings fairly high and land well above 60fps and let VRR take the wheel. Or play something like Halo Remastered with everything maxed out at 4K and get comfortably above 60fps

I wouldn't complain if Nintendo's titles also had that kind of graphical headroom

Not sure why but I bought the Oled near launch. My OG Switch was fine and I just didn’t make the transition until just recently. I wish I did it sooner. But I would not blame u for holding out for the new device.

The one thing I like about the next gen Switch being a bit later than sooner is that it will probably be more powerful the longer we wait. I am guessing it will launch around next year at this time but it would not bother me too much if it was a spring launch like the Switch

@rockodoodle I'll be pretty happy if it's late next year but announced earlier next year. If we're all wrong and nothing is coming out until 2025 or 2026 then I would have to decide if I could wait or had to get an OLED instead and inevitably Switch 2 would be announced the day after I got an OLED. 😝

@JONOFTHEJONS its just rumor mill to get Nintendo moving forward =) we need to give them a little push cause its time for sure (b ':')b

@FishyS i was late to the OLED party as well, just put 115hours into Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and still have more games to get done sigh