imthesoldier

The Item shit was the single most infuriating thing about Skyward Sword (yes, even more than Fi), and was one of the reasons I stopped trying to play through it again. Once I saw that trailer a few days ago, I knew I had no other reason not to give it another go. I am so glad Nintendo addressed this stupid bug/quirk/feature in the game. The other now optional stuff was really cool to see, and makes it more likely veteran players will dive back into this. And of course, the 60fps is going to be sweet. I distinctly noticed that immediately when the first trailer was shown, and was pleasantly surprised. It honestly gives me some hope that if Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess end up on Switch, they may get the 60fps treatment (WWHD less so I suppose given some of the technical limitations on Wii U)

Tegra Xavier, a possible chip for an upcoming next-gen Switch, would put it broadly similar in performance to PS4 Pro, maybe a little in between Base PS4, and PS4 Pro. And with the addition of Tensor cores built right into the silicon, DLSS would help a lot for such a low-powered system.

Just remember though: It is possible to polish a turd.

Perhaps with an RTX card. Although given what Hardware Unboxed uncovered a few months ago with driver overhead issues with newer nVidia cards and older CPUs, maybe an RX 6700XT would be a better fit in this case. I feel I’m at a point where I just refuse to let my AMD FX die.

With my luck, I’d probably have a better chance with the Newegg shuffle. Not that it would be a big deal anyway, since my PC would be severely bottlenecked with my AMD FX 8320. But with a 1080p 60hz display, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

After the Switch Lite, I always thought Nintendo were going to make a console-only version of the Switch, call it the Switch Mini, Switch TV, or something. Sell it for $200 dollars, and let the mayhem begin. And who knows? Maybe as a final send off before the Super Switch, they will.

I believe it. I recently replayed Metroid Fusion on my GBASP, and can confirm on the cheap mono speaker it had. It worked for what it did, but there are better options. But hey, the damn thing still works, backlight included, and the battery life is still good. Also currently own a New 3DS XL, but haven't played it as much as I did my GBASP in the day. Would love to homebrew it actually.

Good to know about the Vita. Thanks for that. For Tegra X2, it's possible Nintendo considered it, but the cost per chip might've been too high compared to X1. Only Nintendo, and nVidia though know the whole story here. Given how both the 3DS, and Wii U were both sold at a loss, Nintendo might've decided it was better to go with something not as powerful, but could make money on each unit sold at a rather affordable price given the hybrid nature of the device.

I mean, they're not wrong, but still. Like you said, pure price gouging on their part, and they know it. What a joke. I got on eVGA's auto-notify thingy for the 3060Ti back in March. Still haven't heard if and when my queue is up, but maybe a few more months. And who knows? Maybe by the time I get in a slot, I may not even buy it anyway.

Sounds like good business to me actually. Cuts down on the R&D to develop said hardware, and probably allows them to fast-track manufacturing to build the final product. And in defense to Tegra X1, I don't believe there was another SoC with that kind of power in such a small footprint with that much supply available at the time. And given the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo needed a new chip, and fast. nVidia might've also been looking for a slice of the console-space pie, and approached Nintendo with an offer since AMD was already all in with Sony, and Microsoft. Sorry, Intel.

So, maybe I'm missing the point entirely here, but when I hear some folks mention how the Vita had an OLED screen, do they not also realize Sony switched over to LCD a mere two years after the system came out? And correct me if I'm wrong, but the Vita with the LCD screen was a lot cheaper than the original OLED model, no? OLED is great tech, but expensive when compared to an IPS LCD panel. And the screen itself is 13% larger in size to boot. Probably explains why the battery life hasn't improved. 13% larger screen with a more power-efficient panel = about the same battery life. To be fair to BOTW2, BOTW1 was a cross-platform title originally built for the Wii U, and only later on did the development team add the Switch to the table (And BOTW1 still ran at a higher resolution with a more consistent frame rate on Switch). Switch is the Wii U's horsepower in handheld mode with a more modern feature set (hell, there are some features in the Switch's hardware that the PS4 or Xbox One could not do simply because the Tegra X1 came out later than the other systems) I think it's more likely we'll not only get a better looking game than BOTW1, but will run more consistently because they can now build the whole game around one platform. Time will tell of course though. Is the Tegra X1 old? It came out in 2015, so yes. Yes it is. But we're also talking about an ARM-based SoC that is on par, or exceeds what the PS360, and Wii U could do in terms of horsepower, and yet only does it at a mere 15 watts in your hands. And last year, we also found the answer to the question of "Can it run Crysis?" (on top of all the other "Impossible" ports). If nothing else, this makes me more excited of what the actual next-generation Switch will have. Tegra Xavier? Tegra Orin? Custom-based Tegra X1? Who knows at this point. No doubt Nintendo make money off of every Switch system sold (I believe a firm analyzed the price breakdown of the Switch back in 2017, and came up with around 260-270$US for the total cost of the system). Surely though, the cost per unit has gone down over time, although they did do the Mariko Chip revision with a smaller 16nm chip instead of the 20nm they started out with. Cost per unit probably went down to 230$ or so (but maybe there was additional R&D to make the chip smaller?)? And with the OLED screen, plus double the NAND storage, and better speakers, Switch most likely pushes above 300 dollars per unit now, maybe more? I'm not an expert on this, and only some Analytics Firm can do a price breakdown. I genuinely do wonder how much the Xbox Series S/X, and PS5/DE all would cost if they did not lose money on each system sold? Maybe someone has done a price analysis on that.

I picked up the STALKER trilogy on Steam as part of the Summer Steam Sale early last week (along with ReCore: DE, and Halo MCC). Even though I bought the game when it originally released, I wanted a digital version, and so I'm playing through Shadow of Chernobyl again. Despite how janky of a game it is, the AI still holds up tremendously well in 2021, and the game definitely rewards you for patience. It's a flawed game that at times is made better with mods, but it's still a good prototype of a game. I look forward to playing the other two games, plus STALKER 2 when that eventually comes out.

I see your point, although I think it could be argued we're both kind of right. While it's certainly true that by the time the Game Boy Color had launched in 1998, it was already 9 years since the release of the original GB in 1989. That said, the Game Boy Color still used an 8-Bit processor much as its previous iteration had done, albeit with more powerful hardware for sure. Mind you, the GBC CPU was the same exact processor as the GB one, but with double the Mhz. Memory was doubled in VRAM, and quadrupled in normal RAM. Even the screen's resolution was the exact same. Truth be told, by this logic, the Nintendo Wii is a mid-gen refresh to the Nintendo Gamecube since they use very similar CPU, and GPU but with higher clocks, and more memory, not counting for the motion controls of course. But like you said, it was a Game Boy with a Color screen, which is still a huge improvement over OG Game Boy. But then Nintendo went full bore into 16-bit territory with the GBA, so it felt like a much greater leap compared to GB to GBC, at least that's how I interpret it. And compared to the launch gap between GB, and GBC, GBC to GBA was only 3 years, which is a rather short life span between generations. GBC felt more like a stop gap system as Nintendo went into development with GBA. I think you're still correct, but GBC always felt more of a mid-gen system compared to lets say GBA to DS. Ultimately, I'm also fine calling it a next-gen system in the eyes of what the system could do at the time. Heck, some games even had built-in rumble paks, which I thought was amazing at the time.

Couldn't agree more. I also haven't really upgraded my PC since 2014, minus a ram upgrade recently. Still rockin' a GTX 770 (...and an AMD FX 8320 baby). I want a fricking 3060 Ti, Damn it!

My thinking is the next-gen Switch will have at least PS4 to PS4 Pro-like power, and Backwards compatibility with all Switch 1 titles. And given what is known about the current Tegra Xavier chip, that's not out of the realm of possibility. I doubt Tegra Orin would be used as it's too new, and likely too expensive. Provided Nintendo continues the Hybrid approach with the Switch line of systems, don't expect 1:1 parity with what Sony, and Microsoft do, which I'm sure most people these days are already aware of that. Realistically, if Nintendo continues to use nVidia, it stands to reason DLSS will be featured, and thus, resolution will become less of a concern, especially after the new recent 2.2 Update. We'll see I guess.

I'm more of the belief that Nintendo realizes how successful the Switch is, and would rather spend the R&D on a next-gen Switch rather than a spec-bump mid-gen upgrade, and ride out the remainder of the system's life. And sure, history has shown with the likes of the GB Color, DSi, and New 3DS that Nintendo has done refreshes that now Sony, and Microsoft do. But I would wager given the Hybrid nature of the system, it makes less of a case. Not to mention history has also shown when Nintendo does do a spec-bump, they do segregate their install base with exclusive titles that only work on the beefier system. I think Nintendo this time around did not want to do that, and thus figured it was a better use of their resources to refine the current Switch with updated screen, improved stand, LAN port for dock, bump in audio, and whatever else. It's not much, and while I, personally consider this to be an unworthy upgrade, Nintendo will sell millions of these. And for those who have waited this long to get a Switch, I think they'll be happy. I mean, OG Vita folks tend to praise the OLED screen on it, so maybe there's something to this new fangled "OLED" tech? I'm also curious how the new OLED screen will look, especially on something like BOTW. Hell, Nintendo could easily patch in a "Pro" version of the Switch by maxing out the clockspeeds if they really wanted to. There's your Switch Pro.

Fair enough. It's why I asked the question. I do understand that emulation is very much a CPU-intensive process, but wasn't sure if Ram could be a factor in it as well, and by extension, the SSD in the PS5.

I was referring to what some devs have been talking about with regards to how the fast speeds of the SSD work in conjunction with the Ram. I'm purely speculating here, but I wonder if PS3 emulation might be easier with it rather than simply brute forcing it like what folks do on PC. I could be completely talking out of my ass here, but given what the developers have already said about how the PS5's transfer speeds will transform how games are designed, I wonder if the same could be applied with emulation.

I originally played it on PS4, but now on Switch, I'll be finishing up the campaign for Doom 2016. Regardless of platform, Doom 2016 Rips and Tears well.

I think it's fairly safe to say that every single 1st party PS4 title will be included as part of the PS4 BC feature. I would also expect most if not all 3rd Party AAA titles to be included as well, and only real wild card might be Indie games/Digital Only titles. I am also curious how this will affect PS2 titles that are on PS4 and such. I cannot recall if PS2 titles on PS4 were emulated to work on PS4 via some engine, or if the game code was altered to work with the hardware itself. Either way, PS1 and PS2 I think will still happen at some point, but perhaps it's not a "priority" for Sony right now. PS3 I don't even see happening unless the use of the SSD can help alleviate some of the emulation overhead or something, and somehow make it work much easier and faster.

I would imagine PS1 and PS2 emulation at the minimum would at some point be added on, if it is currently not in the lineup for legacy titles. PS3, however, I have doubts it'll be feasible even with such hardware the PS5 has. I know PS3 emulation in general has made great strides on the PC front, but is that currently enough to be feasible for next-gen hardware?

If I recall from what Cerny said though, a lot of today's games utilize a lot of duplicate assets (He used the mailbox analogy from Spiderman as his example), and other data (to help with accessing information at different points within the game's data), but with a super fast SSD, it could reduce/eliminate the need for duplicate assets, thus reducing the size of games. I'm not saying it would be the difference between 100GB, and 50GB (or maybe it could?), but it will be interesting if games actually shrink in size for next-gen because of it.

I'm currently more impressed by the SSD related specs than anything else. Where it lacks in raw horsepower appears to make up in data read/write speeds. My dreams of instantaneous loading times just might be around the corner.

I own MadWorld, but have never played it (should really get on that), and yet would love the prospect of a port/remaster, and/or a sequel on the Switch/PS4/Xbone. And going back to what you're saying earlier, I think you're right about W101 not having much power compared to a franchise like Bayonetta. I would bet that Bayo 3 will never be ported over to other platforms as long as it is successful, same with Bayo 2. Bayo 1 is a different animal because it started out as a multiplatform game, and we all know the story of Bayo 2 (still remember all the butthurt folks who complained to Nintendo, forgetting that if not for Nintendo, the game likely never would've existed). It's possible Nintendo thought given their current relationship with Platinum, they could allow this one time as long as Platinum did all the groundwork (which they are). W101 is a unique situation for a Nintendo-published game becoming multiplatform. Now, having said all this, that does not answer the question of why Xbox was not included in the campaign. It simply is not in the cards if the kickstarter is anything to go off. And yet, W101 is very much a Japanese-style game, made by a Japanese developer, and the Xbox is anything but a success over there. As a compromise, I think Platinum agreed to port it over to Steam like they did for Vanquish, and Bayonetta 1, in exchange for not porting it over to Xbox. EDIT: Guess I'm only partially right. https://twitter.com/IonMagus/status/1224580370643017728?s=20

Based on what I read on Kotaku, it would appear that for the case of W101, Nintendo gave them the all-clear to port it to other systems despite that it was backed by Nintendo themselves. It's possible it's purely on a case by case basis, so who knows? It is possible that Nintendo feels Bayo has more staying power on their platforms compared to W101, so maybe W101 is ok, but Bayo is not?