Nintendo finally reveals the Switch console

Looking at 1080p instead of 4K is already generous. At some point, you have to wonder if Nintendo is asking consumers to sacrifice too much, the resolution, batter life, extra controller costs, paid online from a company that has been pretty awful with online… i mean first party titles will only take you so far.

I thought I was pretty clear about distinguishing between graphics quality in general (texture resolution, draw distance, shadow complexity, etc.) and resolution specifically. If you look online, there are a lot of discussions about “Which is more important: resolution, framerate, or graphics quality?”, so clearly people think about resolution as something separate from graphics quality.

That’s why I think that saying, “X doesn’t do 1080p resolution” doesn’t tell the whole story. I can take a low-end PC graphics card and get it to run at 1080p at 60fps (or even higher) by cranking all the settings down to the bare minimum. but that doesn’t mean you would necessarily want to play that way. And as others have said, a lot of Xbox One games run at 900p instead of 1080p.

Good point about the Atari 5200, although it didn’t auto-center so it was a little more difficult to use. Would you accept, “Nintendo had the first auto-centering thumbstick” instead?

In any case, after Atari stopped making home consoles (and abandoned the analog joystick before that), no one had an analog stick on their controller for several generations. Then Nintendo came along with their analog stick, and it was so successful that Sony revamped their PSX controller in the middle of the generation to add an analog stick, and then later, rumble. And now, everyone has an analog stick.

Not really. 4K adoption is still a relatively minor percentage of the installed base of televisions, and you can argue that most people who have 4K displays don’t even sit close enough that they would notice the difference between 4K and 1080p. Most people aren’t sitting 6’ away from their 60" screens.

The BBC Micro had an analogue stick.

Meh.

Most people wouldn’t be able to tell if a game was running at 900p or 1080p (and probably even 720p, I know I can’t) if it wasn’t pointed out to them by the internet.

Then why should I get Zelda for switch over Wii u if resolution doesn’t matter?

Dude, the environmental sound!

I’m getting it on the switch so I can explore in handheld mode while watching tv with my wife/shitting/traveling etc. Also as stated above there is more to graphics than resolution. Draw distance for example would be really important for this game.

If you already have a Wii U, then you have to decide if you want to buy into the Switch ecosystem. I think the idea is that most people don’t have a Wii U, so if they’re going to buy a new system, they’d want the brand new one and not the one that’s pretty much EOL.

Hopefully not all at once.

Agreed, though I can tell the difference when it’s 4K. I also can really tell if something is running at 60 vs 30 fps.

I’m buying Zelda for the Wii U since I don’t have a good reason to buy a Switch for at least a year (6 months if E3 has some surprises).

Only advantage I really see to the Switch version of BOTW for me is being able to play it portably, which while is a really good advantage to me isn’t worth $360.

That’s the dream.

Just get an RV. Dream realized.

Because when you buy a console you’re only thinking about one year out? Come on Andy. I am a Nintendo fan too. This is pretty weak unless Nintendo intends to have a short tail which just brings it back to my original point of how quickly they abandon their platform compared to the other two.

4k doesn’t much matter on consoles as it’s difficult to tell the difference with most screen sizes and couch distances. HDR is very noticeable, though. HDR is meaningful.

Adaptive sync matters too. That will be a huge deal when it comes to HDMI and consoles.

My point is, the other consoles are looking forward to 4k. Nintendo isn’t even producing 1080p with good frame rates. I realize resolution isn’t everything, but I think it’s fair criticism to point out their largest launching title doesn’t offer it.

It is absolutely fair. The difference between 720p and 1080p is very noticeable. 900p is less so, and that’s what the Switch will deliver on your TV, but still not great news.

Oh lord, yes. That thing was garbage for most use-cases; I was just being pedantic. I remember rigging up some rubber bands in a failed effort to make it suck less. It almost worked.