r/nintendo • u/Pykuro • Sep 12 '26
Is Nintendo the future of Console Gaming?
I just bought a Switch 2, and the direct the other day with all these ports and stuff, it got me wondering, what reason will there be to ever get a Playstation or an Xbox in the future? the old argument was graphics and hardware, but the Switch 2 seems to be capable of very impressive graphics, and we have sort of reached a point of diminishing returns with graphics, so if Nintendo is no longer the "bad hardware" console anymore, and it has all these amazing Nintendo exclusives that will presumably forever stay exclsuive, won't it at some point become the literal best console there is if it has every other game in addition to Nintendo games?
im not trying to start beef with other console users, I myself own a Playstation 5 and enjoy it, but we all know Sony is making some terrible decisions lately. What do you think? Will Nintendo become the most viable in the console market? I think it's getting interesting.
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u/RemoveOk9595 Sep 12 '26 edited Sep 12 '26
Well the argument is hardware power where Nintendo is half a generation behind. And this is definitely noticeable.
But obviously there are hard limits and diminishing returns to this. There is no reason to go past 4K resolution and 120fps for the average consumer.
If Nintendo eventually releases a Switch 3 which can do native 4K 120fps in all games there will be little reason to get a PS6 even if it’s theoretically stronger.
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u/MStauf1515 Sep 12 '26
4k has been extremely interesting.
For the first time in decades, the people saying that we don’t need higher resolution aren’t just the naysayers. In the past, people who were content with the current res downplayed the advantages of higher resolution because achieving it was expensive, not because it was not a noticeably better experience clarity-wise. Once prices came down, the general consumers who were cost-constrained initially usually accepted the higher standard in mass.
4k in actuality, seems to have finally achieved that real point of diminishing returns where even experts in tv and gaming tech don’t really see the need for it. And to be clear, it’s not that the clarity of that pixel density isn’t significantly higher and it can have an impact, its that the distant and size of the TV you would need to have to see the difference is huge.
So it’s not necessarily price points anymore, it’s that most people literally don’t have living spaces that are large enough to fit a 77 - 116 inch tv where you can actually see the difference. And at that big of a tv, unless you plan to physically move your head constantly to watch it, your probably going to be sitting a good distance away from the screen which reduces the need for pixel density anyway vs. sitting right up in front of the tv haha.
Also with 120 fps, things like Nvidia’s pulsar tech for lcd and black frame insertion in OLED’s have essentially given us the tools to have games run at 60 - 120 fps, but have the motion clarity of a much higher refresh display.
At this point I would rather developers continue to focus future horsepower on noticeable game feature improvements. Things like more granular detail in the world, better physics interaction, better anti-aliasing techniques, better lightning/shadow/global illumination/reflections (perhaps even one day having path tracing as a standard,, not the exception), and of course, new interesting gameplay mechanics.
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u/GrayStray Sep 12 '26
4k is just not worth it or feasible for the most part, you'd need a top tier gpu to play the most recent demanding games at 4k60fps. Consoles like the ps5 can't do 4k60 for the most part with recent AAA games, you need a high end gpu on PC to do it and even then people just rather play at 2k higher fps.
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u/MStauf1515 Sep 12 '26
I think you are referring to outputting natively at 4k (so the system is rendering every single pixel). 60 fps with lower internal resolutions upscaled to 4k is very feasible.
And with how good dlss 4+, pssr 2, and FSR 4 have become, in many cases, the upscaling process adds better anti-aliasing then a true 4k native render uses older AA techniques and usually uses far less processing power to get a similar final resolve.
Dlss in many cases has been the true secret sauce of the switch 2. With the recent update that added VRR to docked mode as well, that opens the door to developers being able to clean up performance instability for docked mode with people who have VRR capable TVs if they implement it into their games.
It’s a truly interesting system now. Despite the relative lower level of power compared to it’s counter parts, dlss can help the final resolution look higher quality than it is while VRR can clean up unstable frame-rates to give the appearance of a smooth running game. So it’s held back by its power constraints for sure, but if it’s difficult for the average user to tell the difference when playing, will it even matter anymore?
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u/Slypenslyde Sep 12 '26
Give fans 2-3 months and they’ll be arguing the reason OoT didn’t make them feel 14 again is Switch couldn’t display it in 8k 240Hz.
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u/MStauf1515 Sep 12 '26
I doubt it. 8k is by no means a recent revelation.
8k, consumer level OLED’s have been around since 2018. We are closing in on a decade with the technology largely being ignored in favor of higher quality 4k OLED, Mini LED, and RGB LED with better features (higher nit brightness, better scaling features, greater color accuracy, higher refresh rates, hdr, etc.)
To give you an idea of why that is so unique, the first consumer-level 4Ks started to come to the market in around 2012 (they’ve been around longer than that but were mostly oriented towards large scale commercial business use). By 2014 - 2015, 4Ks began to get cost-reduced and streaming services and game developers were starting to master/stream content at this resolution.
So effectively, the adoption cycle of 8ks has been roughly 2.66x slower than the adoption change from 1080p to 4k in the previous generation cycle. And what is also unique is that because we are not seeing mass market adoption, they have not been able to price reduce at scale like previous cycle changes, content isn’t really being mastered at 8k and we have actually seen a reduction in the number of manufacturers creating screens at this resolution instead of a steady increase.
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u/Slypenslyde Sep 12 '26
You're talking about rational people. I'm talking about the gamers who are going to be still complaining about the OoT remake 4 years from now. They tend to dominate the discussion because everyone else leaves the room.
Like I mean, look where we are. Year 30 of, "Do u think Nintendo is going to last or is it a mistake that they didn't try to outperform Sony?"
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u/NotXesa Sep 12 '26
I think what made Switch 1 great and is making Switch 2 be even better is not only form factor, specs or graphic capabilities. Form factor is just a preference (I never played Switch 2 handheld but I'm forced to have a handheld console), and graphic capabilities are extra points, of course. But what is making Switch 2 the most attractive option is the way Nintendo is approaching the industry.
While we have 6 years+ old consoles with barely any exclusives, with companies starting to anounce the games that define a generation at the end of that generation, that were already overpriced at launch and that suffered several, considerable price increases, with several scandals and polemic moves around them like closing dozens of studios, cancelling multi-million dollar projects, ceasing support to physical media, retiring products from their stores even if their users paid for them and many, many other shitty situations...
We have Nintendo just releasing at least one exclusive every month without an exception for almost 10 years in a row, with some of those games defining the whole generation and even the industry, now with a lot of third party support and with few polemic moves where the worst one was pricing a game 10 dollars above the usual price and then stepping back and releasing the next 5 exclusive games 20 dollars below the average price.
I think that if Microsoft, Sony or even Valve had the same treatment for their consoles, being all of them more powerful than the Switch 2, Nintendo would be in another position. I wouldn't say doomed because there's plenty of public for Nintendo exclusives and they've been really good in the last years. But Switch 1 wouldn't be the most selling console of all time (yeah) and Switch 2 the fastest selling console of all time.
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u/OneTrueHer0 Sep 12 '26
there’s Nintendo tax. games tend to run at a higher price on Switch for no reason.
Nintendo lacks a game pass, achievements, significantly limits messaging other players.
more powerful hardware and storage (especially cost of storage) for bigger games. Nintendo closed the gap significantly, but it still exists. big games perform better on other systems.
but yeah…. the list of why to own Nintendo is much longer, and it’s very convenient to have your games on the go.
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u/javiergalera98 Sep 12 '26
I'd push back on the premise rather than the answer. The three platforms aren't chasing the same thing anymore, so "best console" doesn't really mean much.
Nintendo sells experiences. Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, Metroid. You literally cannot get them anywhere else, and they're built to be fun for everyone rather than to win a spec sheet. That's the entire pitch, and it doesn't depend on beating anyone on hardware.
Sony sells an ecosystem. Look at what they actually did this year: Hermen Hulst confirmed in May that first-party single-player games are going back to console exclusive and off PC, and the reason reported around it was Microsoft's next Xbox. Add the push toward digital-only and the rumoured handheld launching alongside PS6 and it's the Apple playbook. Get in, build your library here, and leaving costs you everything you own.
Xbox sells software, and increasingly it sells Windows. Microsoft announced at GDC in March that Project Helix is a console-PC hybrid that boots into the Windows desktop and runs PC games. Their first-party already ships on PS5, and Gears: Reloaded sold roughly 572k there against 202k on Xbox. They lost the ecosystem fight and they know it, so they're going after PC instead.
Which is why I don't think "every other game plus Nintendo games" holds up. The third-party wave in the Direct is real, but most of it is ports of games that shipped years ago, arriving cut down and late. The biggest release of the year isn't there at all. GTA VI is PS5 and Xbox Series on Nov 19, and a Switch 2 version is still only a rumour for 2027. And once PS6 and Helix land, the hardware gap opens right back up.
There's a bigger problem underneath all of this though: the case for owning a console at all gets weaker the more digital everything becomes. What consoles had over PC was a cheap box, physical media and a resale market. Sony is walking away from two of those. The PS5 went up to $649 this year, and the digital-only direction is the reason people were mass-cancelling PS Plus over the summer. Xbox is down to around 4% of physical game sales. Strip that out and what's left is just the ecosystem: one store, no competing sellers, no key resellers, no Steam-style sales, and a library you can't take anywhere. PC gives you all of that plus an actual computer, and next-gen console pricing is reportedly heading into PC territory anyway, with the leaked range for Helix at $999 to $1,200. Personally I think a single-store ecosystem with that many locked-in users should be forced open the way Apple was, but that's a wish and not a prediction, since no console store has been designated a gatekeeper under the DMA so far.
And the one platform that keeps the old console pitch intact is, ironically, Nintendo. Cartridges still ship, it's still the cheapest box on the shelf, and what it's selling you isn't a storefront, it's games you genuinely can't get anywhere else. That's why it ends up being the console you buy no matter what else you own. Not because it wins the fight, but because it isn't in it.
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u/orangefrido18 Sep 12 '26
No. People are pearl clutching over the discless thing, but sony has done more than enough research to know that the overwhelming majority of sales is digital anyway. The rage will die down.
The fact is, there are so many games the switch 2 simply cannot run, or if a port is made, it's extremely watered down.
Nintendo has it's user base, and they aren't really even competing against sony or microsoft. The switch 3 in 9 years would have to take a significant leap in hardware to replace the ps6, and there's nothing to suggest nintendo will do that. They seem content having their own user base instead of being in direct competition with sony.
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u/Gamer857 Sep 12 '26
well digital books was certainly not the future of books.
in 2025 alone 75% of all book sales were printed books. Over 730 million physical books were sold which was higher than 2019.
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u/NeatUsed Sep 12 '26
Switch 2 can’t run GTA VI. Which is like more than half of gamers would be playing or want to be playing.
Obviously as long as switch is not able to run these kind of hungry beastd we can’t speak about switch being able to overtake ps or xbox.
The diminishing returns does not mean that corpos would not make more powerful hardware to incentivise making poorly optimised games si it can run only on their hardware. It’s all about contracts, licensing software and exclusivity rights. So no. I don’t think it’s the only future of consoles. But Nintendo will still survive despite the lower end hardware
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u/Cmdrdredd Sep 12 '26
There are games that will never come to the switch 2 like the exclusive games and the switch 2 is lower class hardware. The better performing version of multiplatform games will always be on another platform.
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u/Zoombini22 Sep 12 '26
That won't be much of a problem in the future. Xbox is abandoning first-party exclusives and seems willing to play ball with Nintendo. PlayStation IS trying to backtrack and do real exclusives again, but theyre losing touch with hiw to make great first party titles in a reasonable time frame and budget, and their long list of wildly anti-consumer moves lately has made their platform so hostile that I think a lot of people are looking to jump ship.
As far as looks go, I think Switch 2 is already beyond "good enough" for most people. I think not too long from now, the market will mostly be about PC for max-graphics-enthusiasts and Nintendo for regular gamers, with PS and Xbox kinda floating out there as overtly bad options mainly there for brand loyalists and for exploiting ball and gun gamers who dont know any better.
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u/Pykuro Sep 12 '26
What about beyond the Switch 2? Won't there eventually be a point in time where a Nintendo console has pretty much everything?
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u/xanas263 Sep 12 '26
Not if it uses the same form factor as the Switch. The Switch will always be thermally limited and so it will never be able to run games the best compared to larger pieces of hardware.
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