Nintendo fans know the drill by now; their products are innovative and fun, but always underpowered.
Competitors are releasing impressive systems that end in “Pro” and “X,” which process teraflops like nobody’s business…
Will the Big N ever enter the computing arms race?
It would certainly make it easier for third-parties to bring their multiplatform software over. Of course, the trade-off is always price, and it seems that Nintendo is unwilling to be the most expensive option on the market.
Historically, that kind of price tag didn’t serve the PS3 well, or the Xbox One in the following generation.
Nintendo has picked their battles wisely, because they know their audience and how to reach them.
2DS and 3DS are the current entry-level offerings, while Switch is their only product on the high-end. What if another tier existed at the top (a third-pillar, so to speak) that appealed to the more spec-savvy crowd?
I’d like to have the option. Nintendo will likely sit back this generation and watch how Microsoft and Sony’s top-of-the-line hardware performs before considering an equivalent.
tldr; no—probably not.
Scott
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Nintendo has had a lot of success with the Wii by placing importance of gameplay and fun over graphics, but that didn’t hold well during the Wii U era. The Switch is popular because of the innovative hybrid design of the console… but there are cracks in the mystique when comparing ports of Doom and NBA 2K18 compared to other consoles out there.
I would like to think Nintendo will, at some point, put out a real powerhouse in the graphics department. It is tiring to try and continually beg for ports of hot games that other consoles have, not realizing that it could be difficult to downgrade a game that was designed for the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X down to Switch specs.
I firmly believe that Nintendo can do both – graphics and the fun that they are known for – it’s just I’m not so sure they ever will.
I would be surprised if they did. GameCube was the last time they tried and that came out in 2001. I think they’ll continue what what they’re good up, portables. They’ve always been king in the portable department with Sony being the only thing to even coming close to being competition and even they have abandon that segment.