Call Of Duty Will Run As You "Would Expect" On Nintendo Platforms, Says Microsoft

So it’ll run poorly and top of that the terrible Nintendo online infrastructure.

I'm expecting these games to either perform terribly or be through a cloud service.

...So it'll be 400p portable/720p docked and struggle to hold 20FPS.

There’s plenty I would sacrifice for the sake of the portability that the Switch offers, but if I’m trying enjoy my CoD multiplayer experience then I ain’t playing the game on a Switch. lol

Even with Microsoft’s cloud service, I would expect this to still not be a top tier experience.

I haven’t played a CoD game in well over 5 years so I don’t really care.

I hope they don’t actually mean “the way people expect them to” because expectations are lower than a 6ft under grave. Hopefully they sort this out so it functions decently enough so people stop talking about it; it’s super frustrating.

I appreciate the honesty lmao too funny

I believe they're implying that it will look and play well, but most people on the internet love drama so they take the worst possible interpretation of this to be the truth.

I honestly just hope they put the older games on the Switch for the campaigns alone.

Don’t care for COD, but I can appreciate that it’ll be there for Nintendo’s next console.

Cloud Strife edition, CoD Mobile, or maybe a miracle port to a New Series Switch Pro XL?

We need this kind of games on the Nintendo Switch console.

@FaceButtons that is the ORIGINAL MW1 which came out back in 2007 ish. Not the MW 2019 game.

But yeah, they could port Modern Warfare Remastered to Switch first ig

I expect it to never run at all on my Switch. I'm good w that.

The next cod is rumoured to be another cross gen game aswell code named 'cerberus' makes sense not moving on to 'next gen' if once the acquisition goes through they'll be legally required to do native versions of cod on Nintendos hardware with the same release date as other platforms

@TheBigBlue ...people are talking about this? And enough for it to be frustrating? Like, where?

Cod's a competitive shooter I doubt anyone's going to want to play the multiplayer on the weakest hardware it's on with the the worst online infrastructure

Itll be cloud version. Or it be only campaign.

@illmatic20xx well MW2 remastered was campaign only.

We'll never get it, but a Black Ops I & II Remastered - with some multiplayer options, even if not all of the original offering - would sell pretty well as a Switch-only title.

@TheUnrestCure they could probably remaster the 1st 2 Black Ops games and maybe bring the older MW trilogy to Switch.

Guy literally says zero about it running bad
people assume he means it'll run bad

remember who build narratives... its you

So Microsoft has a legally binding commitment to bring a series they don't own to the Switch? How is that going to work?

A legally binding contract over a property neither party currently owns. Madness.

@MrHonest This isn't about your comment but the fact that you called it Nintendo Network makes me think that they shouldv'e kept it called Nintendo network for switch.

I don’t what to expect anymore when it’s come to any third party developing for the switch. If the frame rate is even remotely dreadful then I won’t even bother

How important is COD to Nintendo I wonder...People typically buy a Nintendo console to play Nintendo games like Zelda, Mario, Pokemon. And people who play COD already have a device to play it on, be it a PC, PS, or Xbox. It's good for people who only have a Switch and want to play COD, but a the overlap between COD fans and Nintendo fans is likely slim.

COD ran well on the 360 so as long as the Switch holds up that performance with a little boost in graphics, it will be fine. Bring on Black Ops and I'm down

I take this to mean it’ll be perfectly serviceable if Nintendo is the only platform you own, though not the best place to play if you don’t care about portability…pretty much how most third party games go. I don’t think this means “it’ll suck lol” at all.

@Pungu I’m pretty sure the Wii versions sold pretty well despite their shortcomings. Regardless, this is more about Microsoft gaining leverage to get their Activision acquisition to go through but still, I’m sure there’s a decent sized pocket of Switch owners who will be happy to play CoD on Nintendo again after so long. Failing that it’ll be a nice feather in the Switch 2’s cap if that’s where they plan to start this support

@anoyonmus True, honestly i could see them porting Modern warfare 1,2 remakes to switch campaigns only.

@anoyonmus I think his point was the Wii was wayyyyy underpowered compared the the 360 and PS3, but they made it work.so same thing here when it comes to ps5/series x versus switch.

Nintendos own online code is completely broken. Splatoon 3 caused people to get thrown out of countless matches.

Even if Activision pull off some miracle and deliver the perfect looking port, it still needs Nintendo to sort out its online service.

@Karatecanine Call of Duty on Nintendo consoles and on the Wii especially was done by another studio that is now defunct.

@illmatic20xx Modern Warfare Remastered had online iirc. But it came out in 2016 and was a remaster of the OG MW. So the Switch can run that. OG MW 2 remastered was campaign only tho.

But maybe they could remaster OG MW3 one day tho.

Didn’t hear the Switch itself named in the press release… don’t know why people are assuming at this point since it was take a couple of years for this to start after the acquisition.

Just bring the Xbox 360 games and Wii U ones over.

The only way to achieve this is to go under the assumption that future CoD games will be focused more on optimization and addressing the major issue of storage that already plagues current-gen platforms.

@MrHonest
Water-downed port, yes. Crappy service, no. The games will be running on Call of Duty's servers, not Nintendo.

@AG_Awesome @anoyonmus @TheUnrestCure @P-Man
Seems like this is a recurring issue with the CoD games in general, where we're drip-fed all of this legacy content and instead, keep getting stuff only designed for the current games (remastered maps).

30fps/240p even on the next console and between every match a full screen ad is plastered on the screen where creepy shelf man tells you where you can get the Real Experience™ while teeny tiny text on the bottom says that the presence of these ads was agreed upon in the written commitment.

Out of spite I hope Nintendo goes and makes the next Switch as powerful as a regular old Gameboy just to see Microsoft/Activision be forced to port CoD to it.

Microsoft really doesn't know how Nintendo works - all of a sudden Nintendo will decide to make the next console a piece of cardboard.

@illmatic20xx they mentioned content parity & that it would be available the same day as Xbox , playstation & pc in their announcement so it would have to be the same game with the same amount of content or they were lying (doesn't rule out cloud though lol)

I expect them to perform and look just as good or better than the existing Switch ports of Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, Crysis 1/2/3 Remastered and Metroid Prime Remastered. Anything less on the part of the COD developers or port specialists would be a failure.

It'll probably run like Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified did on Vita: poorly.

@progx Nintendo doesn't sell its consoles at a loss so unless they plan on making their next console more expensive (especially if it's another hybrid) I think it's safe to assume the specs won't come close to Xbox series or ps5

One big problem with this while thing that I don't see being discussed is that it shouldn't matter one way or the other. It's like saying Disney buying Fox was ok just because you don't have to buy a Disney brand blu-ray player to watch your Disney brand blu-ray movies. A company the size of Microsoft that already owns so many gaming companies and has maintained success as part of the big 3 console brands for over 20 years, should not buy an entire gaming company the size of Activision Blizzard, even if they put every single one of those games on every competing platform, forever.

It shouldn’t be that hard. It should be a game separate from the others. I have always been a Nintendo fan. But COD is fun, the best games were MW and MW2. Just give us a simple but balanced game like those. Switch could handle both.

Nintendo’s online “infrastructure” is just one old Japanese guy smoking cigarettes in a basement bathroom and a mimeo machine.

@NinjaNicky yeah, that must be it!

This is still meaningless and a bad faith tactic.

@LikelySatan I’ve seen comments here and there (mostly jokes, in all fairness) of people saying the games will run at 10p on the switch, and the internet service is bad enough, call of duty will be worse on it, that sort of thing. It’s harmless and actually kind of true. But there have been a ton of these comments since the contract was signed yesterday. We get it, cod will run like garbage on switch. We know. We don’t need it repeated several times after the news outlets already report them. It’s just people on social media being irritating, nothing new, sorry for the lack of context there. No problems on this site or anything else.

Imagine being upset over Call of Duty finally making it's way back to Nintendo for the first time since Black Ops 2 on the Wii U. Some of ya'll are letting your biases blind you to the benefit this presents for Nintendo gamers.

@Would_you_kindly if NVIDIA has anything similar to Apple’s A13, A14 (M1) or A15 (M1 Max, Ultra & M2), then I think it’ll definitely keep on par. Arm-based SOCs have really decimated the gap with performance and power. The fact Nintendo could use smaller chipsets is a huge benefit, unlike the the race to keep shrinking down an architecture that’s showing its age in X86.

The only way X86 can keep up is to draw more wattage. Even GPUs are starting to bulk up. Wouldn’t be surprised if you need a separate circuit breaker for the PS6.

@Ambassador_Kong they will 👍

Would love to play some zombies black ops 2

@Pungu Any good game will help a Nitnendo console.

If Nintendo's next console is just Nintendo's own games, I won't buy it.

I'm pretty sick of Nintendo games. In this generation, of more than 60 games on my Switch, only 5 are from Nintendo, 3 of them I played very little, 1 I played 40 hours, and only Mario Kart passed 100 hours.

I play MUCH MORE third party games on my Nintendo Switch than Nintendo's own games.

I actually chuckled when I read that title lmao.

I have Modern Warfare II on my Wii so it can definitely run on Switch.

Crappy Cloud of Doodie version here we come. I would rather have an entirely different game than a watered down port.

@progx I don't know much about mobile chips (my phone uses a mediatek dimensity 900) but I'd think a new powerful mobile chip that could keep up with the GPUs in Xbox series & ps5 consoles would be extremely expensive ... No ?

@Rykdrew Yeah I feel ya, Nintendo games have gotten pretty stale for me this gen outside of the occasional Mario game. It seems like all they focus on these days is just Metroid, Kirby, Fire Emblem, Zelda, and overpriced remasters. Gone are the days when we would get fun and interesting IP's like 1080, WaveRace, and F-Zero.

Can't even get excited about the latest remasters like Metroid Prime and Kirby Return to Dreamland, they just feel unnecessary and unnecessarily expensive.

@xXGalacticAngXx They probably should’ve. Liked that name better.

@ModdedInkling I am talkkng about stuff like friend list and messages.

I hope we get a port of Modern Warfare 2. That should be able to run well on the Switch.

@Rykdrew To me it just sounds like a Switch isn't the console for you. I get it though, I'd pick a PS5 over a Switch anyday just for Final Fantasy.

@Would_you_kindly not really. On paper, the new Apple TV 4K is powered by the A15… it can soar through 1 teraflops and crush the PS5’s GPU. Since there aren’t any iOS games that will push the hardware, it wouldn’t be something advertised. It goes without saying the M1, let alone the M2, could spank those two consoles.

For example, the Tegra X1 could stay on par with Apple’s A10 Fusion (it was marginally better), but the A11 Bionic (even with two less cores and RAM) crushed it the following year. I would imagine NVIDIA has been watching Apple this whole time since they’ll want their Arm chipsets in line with that type of performance, especially the Switch. I'm not sure if Nvidia is looking to hop into the PC market with their SOCs, but it will largely depend on Qualcomm and Microsoft with their Arm-powered sets will do.

The Switch would need to use Apple’s A13 or A14 as a baseline for performance. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the A14 generation, but offers more cores and RAM.

I love how MS is making promises for… a company they haven’t bought yet. None of this is legally binding, because they don’t own Call Of Duty.

Don’t fall for the PR spin folks.

Will love it when this acq is blocked.

@progx if they're more powerful aswell as obviously being able to make the consoles smaller then why don't Xbox & playstation use them ?

@Aswannsong Umm all these contracts are legally binding under the pretense that they're buying it. Odd how you want to deny over 100 million Nintendo users Call of Duty just because you have some weird personal issue with Microsoft, that's just toxic and selfish.

Don’t people hate this series? Because I swear people hate the cod series.

@Would_you_kindly couldn’t tell you. Likely, the new consoles were designed long before the Switch began its utter domination. It wasn’t until after the Switch came out that Arm-based SOCs were seen in this light. NVIDIA Shield started the conversation, the Switch pushed it into the mainstream and now Apple says it’s the future of PCs after years of building them in their iPhones and iPads. If iPadOS wasn't such a bottleneck, the M-equipped iPad Airs and Pros could be considered as laptop replacements. That's how far Arm-based chipsets have come and the power gap has been eradicated.

The next PlayStation and Xbox machines could be smaller devices. Microsoft had one they were planning on pushing for xCloud and Game Pass, but it was dropped since they’ve pushed it to smart TVs.

Nintendo going to AMD to build another console box like Sony and Microsoft would be a boneheaded move. Nintendo stopped making consoles after the Wii U, even the Switch isn’t considered a handheld console and more of a device in line with a small tablet. The question for Nintendo is to adopt a similar hardware path akin to Apple and Samsung, except update the specs every 4 years rather than yearly.

@Eagly Umm I expressed a desire to have something new from them or for them to revisit some of their IP's that they have long been sidelining. How is that me being against everything they make just because I am tired of Kirby and Fire Emblem games?

After Hellblade, Cup Head and Ori, I'm perfectly ok thinking Microsoft will make a decent port. We'll see it when we see it. No point expecting the worst lol. I'm more interested in which game we will be getting. Hoping for MW2. I would probably play that again.

@Eagly Well that's good and all but a lot of those are old games by now or sequels to the same few IP's.

Fact remains that Nintendo hasn't been making the kind of games that excite me lately. If you have a different take, well good for you, but that doesn't change my stance.

@MrHonest
Friend list is very much possible. Anyone you have added would appear, anyone you would like to add can be done straight away - no need for friend code. Some games already skip the friend code.

Messaging is something they would integrate in-game. Console-wide messaging can reach farther, but at that point just use Discord or something meant for that.

I'd be more than down for a good campaign only cod, I'd be put on my arse by some young un every 5 seconds online anyway

Nope. I'm not playing Call of Duty on a Switch. Same reason I don't play FIFA on a Switch.

However, FIFA does sell a lot on Switch... and so will COD. I feel sorry for the kids that get these versions and either 1. Don't realise they're playing a far inferior product or 2. Do realise but can't do anything about it.

Plenty will not care one bit though. And the fact remains, inferior COD on Switch is still up there with the best FPS available on the console. And will be far and away the greatest FPS experience on a handheld console too.

The other thing to consider... I'm not convinced quite as many people as Sony/Microsoft perhaps hoped/expected are rushing out to buy a PS5/Xbox now stock is available.

I've considered it plenty of times, but everytime, keeping 500 quid in my bank account comes out on top.

Whether that is still the case when FFXVI releases in the Summer... we will see, but I'm not rushing to play COD and FIFA that's for sure.

I think if they were still doing the sci-fi COD games I’d be interested in COD on the Switch. But they’ve gone back to the more mundane terrestrial combat which doesn’t really excite me.

I don’t play online so I’d only be interested in the campaigns and being able to play them with gyro aim would actually be a bigger selling point for me that fancy graphics. I actually waited for Doom Eternal on the Switch because Doom 2016 played so well with gyro aim.

So it’ll look murky and muddy and aim for 30fps but rarely hit it and have thousands moaning as to why it isn’t 60fps

@illmatic20xx I highly doubt it would be a cloud version. Call of Duty heavily relies on it’s online functionalities and microtransactions.

"60GB download required."

Wow, several people here just made baseless scenarios in their head lol.

By the time the MS/Act-Blizz deal goes through(assuming it does of course) and given development time, it'll probably be time for the Switch successor anyway. Current Switch might get some ports, if anything. Which, I don't see why those wouldn't run well as long as they optimize them well.

Hard to believe the Wii U got 2 of them while the mega successful Switch has yet to see any(and probably never will as its hardware is so long in the tooth now) . Makes no sense.

It will be cloud versions. And they will be terrible. Next.

@KryptoniteKrunch Sssssshhhhh! No positivity allowed in this comment section ever. This is strictly for the pixel crybabies. Leave them to it.

So streaming cloud version with aim, shoot and miss, because of the latency.

I expect nothing less than Treyarch being involved and doing an amazing job.

@WiltonRoots Yeah it's like how dare we actually desire this lol

That kinda says nothing LMAO. If it's anything like the Treyarch Wii/Wii U ports it could run really smooth @ 60fps, but given the state of big AAA Switch ports we could be looking at 30fps with some sub-720 resolution.

@JayJ I'm sure they'll make a ground up version of whatever they have planned rather than try and shoehorn something ridiculously grand onto a much smaller device. I would imagine better than the Wii U versions (which looked pretty decent) and more than likely going to be better on whatever system Nintendo does next.

@WiltonRoots I'm guessing they're going to make some changes to the way they'll approach the development of upcoming COD games to ensure it'll work.

I am also wondering if Microsoft knows something that the rest of us don't, like some sort of non-disclosure agreement they got with Nintendo on a Switch successor or something. Undoubtedly they are going to be working far more closely with Nintendo from here on out.

@Eagly Well no, they had far more of a focus on different offerings in prior generations, so you are objectively wrong.

meh,,,, Call of Duty is the Madden of FPS. Basically the same game every year with new skins/assets. Never was interested.

Black Ops 2 and Ghosts run at a decent 720p 50-60fps on Wii U. However Nintendo Network was vastly superior back then as EA built it.

Since the Switch Nintendo have regressed massively regarding online capability, Japanese studios aren't cut out for networking.

CoD4 remaster would be a good start for switch imo

@StarPoint probably through a cloud service, there is no way that they will be able to port games like MWII without making the game look like it was made for the n64.

@liveswired nintendo just needs to get more servers up in the us. they have 3 servers over in japan while north america only has one spanning the entire continent if i remember correctly. so it's really no wonder their servers are crap for us in the U.S.

Maybe it will just be COD mobile or remastered versions of the Wii and Wii U titles?

@AndrasLOHF I thought the same until the recent modern warfare titles. Though the single player campaigns have always been excellent imo, even if a bit short sometimes.

@AndrasLOHF - That hasn't been true for the last five years. MW2019, BOCW, Vanguard, and MWII all play very, VERY differently.

So it's gonna run like crap? Good to know.

@JayJ agree 100% with you!

Why the negativity? It could run as well as Senua's Sacrifice or Doom which is pretty good. Of course the graphical downgrade is to be expected. I guess that's what they mean.

Low resolution, 0.5 frames per second. 1 hour loading time, 1 million patches everyday after we get a video "we hope you understand" from nintendo lol.

So it'll run worst than Doom Eternal, Crysis, and Metroid Prime, three awesome games that plays 30x better than any Call of Duty game?

@anoyonmus Yeah but you had to remember Modern Warfare 1 was an HD phenomenon at the time. For the Wii version to be able to run that and play smoothly was a miracle. Some thought the game was not possible but it is.

@MidnightDragonDX Call of Duty had always run good on Nintendo consoles even the DS and 3DS versions were good. The only disappointing Call of Duty game on Nintendo was Call of Duty 3 for Wii and that's only because of missing features, the performance and gameplay was excellent. Also not sure why some people think Call of Duty shouldn't be on Nintendo, the series itself basically started on Nintendo. Call of Duty 1 & 2 were both on the GameCube with 3, 4, 5 & 6 on the Nintendo Wii. Sure they are waterdown compare to the PC versions but in terms of performance they run quite smoothly.

My reaction to that information:
There will absolutely not be a CoD game next year, and the next game will be revealed for the upgraded Switch.

@progx The A15 SOC in the Apple TV 4k can crush a PS5 GPU?

Though you're right that the GPU is well over 1 TFLOPS, I'm not sure why you think that is good, or rather, anywhere near a PS5. For some perspective, even the Steam Deck is around 1.65 TFLOPS, and while it's a beast for a handheld, it's not really close to the power of a PS5 or Series X.

The A15 in the Apple TV is the exact same SOC as the iPhone 14, and I'd estimate it to to be around 1.33 TFLOPS. Which is excellent for a phone or mobile device, of course, but not even in the same stratosphere as a PS5, which has a 10 TFLOP GPU, the SeriesX being 12 TFLOPS.

So even if Nintendo came up with a beastly custom ARM SOC that was let's say similar to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, it would be a few times more powerful than the Switch and a welcome upgrade, but still not even close to the same league as the PS5 or Series X which have fairly high end desktop level power.

@Raffles on paper, but without any real marker test, it's benchmarks and specs that show it has the ability... but Apple and video games haven't really connected. In short, the A15 Bionic equipped Apple TV 4K isn't going to beat a PS5... unless it's streaming Netflix and more friendly on your power bill.

I was proving a point that Arm SOCs have eliminated the so-called "power gap" and are quickly evaporating what's left for X86 chipsets to wave high. Once any Snapdragon powered PCs start being able to accomplish simple tasks, especially in the business world, anything with X86 will be seen as a luxury item and everyone does their work on Pi-sized devices.

I'm using Apple as a baseline since they're the only ones who consistently publish their SOC internals. Whereas it's confusing between Qualcomm and Samsung; we know Nintendo is Nvidia's only consumer customer, it's difficult to figure out where the Tegra line goes from here.

I suspect the next Nintendo hybrid family will consist of devices far more powerful than the Deck; even drawing less power and have LONGER battery life. I can see it going past the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, but we won't know until it's released. Also, I suspect Nvidia will have offerings of more cores and RAM since no one can program efficiency like Apple does into their devices with A and M series.

Also, from the leak, the next Switch that was apparently on-track for 2021 was a spec bump. Which further pushes my belief that Nintendo stopped making consoles after the Wii U and moved over to make gaming devices based on mobile architecture. They can get much more value and build out the kind of devices they want under this type of architecture.

@Raffles
We're closing in on seven years since the Switch chipset was finalized. Any new system they were to define now is sure to be more than just a few times more powerful.

@progx OK that's fair enough, I was responding to your explicit line of the A15 being able to crush the PS5's GPU, so thought you must have the wrong end of the stick and not realise the PS5 GPU was quite a bit more powerful than 1 TFLOP

I agree about ARM processors, I've been consistently amazed by their progress in recent years, bridging the gap to desktop level power, all the while with passive cooling.

It makes me wonder how long it will take for ARM to start becoming more of a player in the desktop/laptop field. The efficiency is amazing.

I'm a developer, my main test device on Android is a Snapdragon 870 due to the lack of thermal throttling and it does consistently amaze me what it's capable of doing at a TDP of around 5 watts with no active cooling. It can run the current game I'm working on, an open world driving game, at 60fps with the CPU temperature somehow staying at around 40 degrees celcius, which is slightly cooler than my Ryzen 5800 at idle

That is incredible.

@Pod How powerful are you expecting exactly? A few times more powerful was used loosely, but tbh I would expect "a few times more" to be more accurate than say, 10 times more.

Given Nintendo's pricing strategy and not going all out with hardware while taking a hit on each unit sold - a la Microsoft and Sony - I expect the hardware to be very good, but not blow all mobile devices out of the water good.

For some perspective the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was recently released and is the overall best mobile chipset available now, and it's in the region of 5 times more powerful than the Switch in real world benchmarks, not just on paper.

If the Switch 2 is released anytime soon, that's pretty much what I would expect, something like the Gen 2, for a 5 times performance upgrade. And that's nothing to scoff at, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has comparable GPU performance to the Steam Deck, with an excellent CPU.

@Raffles probably not too much longer. Qualcomm has their new desktop SOC coming out this year. Microsoft and Samsung are working their own to power Windows PCs. If Apple is any indication, it could be sooner rather than later they start to topple the X86 in performance and power. However, it would still take quite a while before we'd see Intel and AMD rethink their business models.

I would suspect AMD would jump into Arm sooner than later, but Intel might exit if X86 does die out and just manufacture chips out of their foundry. Last part is speculative, but it will get very crowded with hardware manufacturers running to build their own SOCs to cut out partners for maximum profit, or some kind of special team-ups with Qualcomm, Samsung, Nvidia and AMD.

Again, a lot hinges on how well the M-powered competitor from Qualcomm does out of the gate and who winds up adopting it. Apple has seen their PC sales grow where everyone else has seen declines, clearly these new machines are generating interest. Question is, will it carry over in the Windows world? I think it might. Plus, Microsoft is making huge strides with Windows 11 on Arm compared to previous versions. This change is coming, but it'll be when and not if.

@Raffles
I'm not expecting to see a successor to Switch anytime too soon, and I'm genuinely assuming a new system to close in on a full 10X from Switch, or even more.
This would be preferable to Nintendo for a handful of reasons, not least because they would want developers to still consider it a viable platform for the games targeting the systems AFTER the PS5 and SeriesX.

@progx I'm certainly intrigued to see what happens, as I said it's the efficiency of ARM cpus that is off the charts, so if that could translate to high power desktop CPUs, with a similarly modest power requirement ratio - they have a real winner.

@Pod I know it has seemed like Nintendo is in no rush for a successor, and Nintendo continued to dominate even when the PS5/SeriesX were released.

However suddenly things have changed a bit, hardware sales have slowed and there seems to be a consensus that the Switch is showing its age.

We could see one sooner than expected, and if it's released in say, two years, the idea of it being 10 times more powerful than a Switch is a tad unrealistic. That would make it twice as powerful as the current most powerful mobile chip. A fanciful notion, especially considering cost.

Coincidentally, the 10x you're estimating puts it pretty much exactly on par with a SeriesS (0.4 TFLOPS to 4 TFLOPS, with a similar ratio of memory bandwidth etc). And people are already grumbling about the SeriesS holding the generation back etc.

So even 10 times more powerful than the Switch, would still put several leagues below the SeriesX/PS5.

I agree it would be just about good enough though, if it came out soonish, given the SeriesS is part of the same generation and can run all the same games.

@Raffles
The only ones grumbling about Series S holding anything back are elitist players that don't make games themselves, or developers that want to make said elitists feel smart and "with it".

And I don't think it's weird to assume a chipset releasing two years from now could be twice as powerful as what we got right now. With Moore's Law being down to just eighteen months on average, it's actually what's to be expected.

Also, Series S power level is not "several leagues" below Series X.
It's not even ONE league below, if by leagues you mean orders of magnitude in computational power.

@TheNumbr24 I would love to see Nintendo collaborate with Microsoft for cloud and online, just like Sony have.

@Pod Although they have the same CPU, by leagues ahead I'm talking about raw GPU power. The SeriesX is a whopping 3 times more powerful than the SeriesS, which has largely boiled down to resolution differences as advertised, but has sometimes manifested in the SeriesS being more gimped - ie lacking raytracing or lacking a 60fps mode of the SeriesX.

So if we're talking GPU, yeah it's absolutely leagues difference, a league being a GPU tier or generation. It's the difference between a GTX 1060 and an RTX 3060, two generations difference.

Regarding the potential mobile chip, yes you might be right, the cutting edge chips available in 2 years will probably be twice as powerful as a Gen 2 if they continue to increase by around 50% a year. I was partly thinking of cost, but the truth is it might be affordable enough - it's easy to forget that the Tegra X1 was actually pretty cutting edge for a mobile chip when released, at least on the GPU side.

@Raffles
Let's hope it all works out in everyone's best interest.
I personally wouldn't call 3X in GPU leagues of difference. When it isn't even half a magnitude then, as you mentioned yourself, the difference is mostly stuff like frame rate and resolution, or cosmetics like choice of RT and AA models.