Granadico

I'd be tempted to trade in mine for an OLED Depending on the cost. With the way things are going Switch 2 might be my last console so I might as well get the best version of it. But I hesitate over fears of some hardware vulnerability like the launch Switch 1 had that I'd miss our on.

It's nice to hear technical ambitions and a well made game but it's hard to get over the overall industry news of the past couple of weeks. And throw in their own issues with obscene amounts of microtransactions.

It takes me a few seconds of unscrewing to change the battery of my GBA SP, DS, and 3DS. Phones used to be able to just snap the back off and swap batteries, same with laptops. Unless its a special rugged focused phone I don't think waterproofing is as big a deal, and I don't think many people notice a couple millimeters of thickness for removeable batteries.

If this isn't the start of a video game crash then the last couple of years into the next couple of years is definitely a slow death from cancer and limping along.

I really don't think Sony will back down. I moved to PC/Nintendo after the PS4/XB1 needed to install everything anyway and day 1 patches were becoming commonplace. Ownership fans are gonna have to put their money where their mouth is sadly.

The writing was on the wall with the digital only PS5 option and that being the only option for the Pro without the add on. Game Key Cards are already half way there too. I can understand PC gaming being digital and try to buy GOG whenever possible but for consoles there's basically no benefit besides convenience.

I'm sure the average person who plays games might not care but those people are also content to play a couple games for an entire generation. It'd be interesting to see a split of how many physical games the average owner has and how many games the average primarily physical owner has.

Sega's output has been supbar for the Switch 2. Between lack of upgrade options on most games, embracing GKCs, and generally not seeming to run as well as other publishers like Capcom and Ubisoft, they've 180'd compared to Switch 1 support. And since they love Denuvo on PC there's not a lot of good options.

I don't think the gaming industry will ever truly crash with hiw easy it is to develop and distribute games now compared to the 80s but the overall health of anything above indie or maybe AA is going to be on life support if this keeps up for another couple of years.

@Max_the_German hell I'd take an option to bypass the HDMI and use a straight usb c to display port on monitors to get VRR.

I've got no interest in playing GTA6 but it's always good to see some eye candy analysis here. It'd be interesting to try to figure out the ratio between RAGE being that good of an engine and essentially having unlimited time and money for building a game.

@Darren1967 I'd classify locking people out of selling their game and preventing a used market from popping up as greed and/or "we can do what we can't cuz we're GTA" yes. There's no benefit to consumers except maybe it's easier to buy in stores as a gift.

There's no point in delaying it, if anything they'd need to reengineer it a bit and use different components if they waited. It'd basically be a different machine at that point.

Surprised there's no DLSS from how clean the image looked in the demo. If nothing else Nintendo are stewards of making smaller 3rd party devs shine in a way their previous releases didn't.

Game Key Cards have been my biggest issue this gen for Switch 2 but code in a box on the ither consoles must be way more infuriating since the cost of a BD is so marginal. This is pure publisher greed/because we can attitude. I'm sure this is basically going to be a live service game with a campaign tacked on the idea of Day 1 code barely makes sense but the principle of it is upsetting.

I admit I'm in the camp that is disappointed by the specs on paper for the Cube but I also love the form factor and focus on size and being quiet (and oresumably power draw). The consoles of yesteryears were much more manageable in size and now the high end GPUs draw more power than old consoles did entirely. Meanwhile handhelds require a backpack compared to old pocketable Gameboys/DSs.

A Switch that can become a laptop is a pretty cool idea. I suppose you can just get a small wireless keyboard for any handheld and its the same thing but this looks pretty sleek.

I can't imagine many people who already own PCs to buy one at that price. I upgraded my computer last year once it was clear the process were only gonna get worse for at least the next year and saved some money reusing the case and power supply. Unless you really need that form factor and size i can't see the appeal.

@darthvirgin Ocarina of Time has the same issue, people say its an underwhelming trailer when its literally two essentially still images with a slow pan/zoom.

Anyway i look forward to essentially the exact same article in a year or two when the PC version is announced and/or when the PC version gets announced to have path tracing (either at launch or later).

There's probably not much appetite for it since COD is released so frequently but I'd enjoy some COD collections of their older games even if it's campaign only. I enjoyed 2 through BlOps and wouldn't mind going through them again. They're still around on Steam but they're still like $20 each and I dunno how the compatability is nowadays.

I have no interest in playing GTA6 but i look forward to DF's coverage of the tech and eye candy of the game.

@matmartin your comment didn't make sense at first because you used "than" instead of "then". I thought you were comparing the two not making a list of actions.

I basically built from scratch a new computer around Christmas time and feel good about my Ryzen 5600 with 16GB DDR4. I think spent like $300 between the CPU RAM and motherboard. It might not blow the consoles out of the water but it's good enough.

Happy to see my exact 5600/9060XT build is right at recommended. I'm not really interested in this game beyond eye candy but it looks like my machine should last me several years until PC either settles into a barren wasteland ruined by AI or it's finally affordable again.

The idea of anything gaining in value that fast is insane. At this point computers the world over will be like cars in Cuba, being outdated and needing to be kept alive as long as possible because they can't be replaced.

Nintendo seems to like to stack direct with one genre, as a jrpg fan it was great. It didn't necessarily feel like an E3 tier direct so maybe that's the disappointment, without that expectation it would be seen more favorably.

Seeing KH4 featured here and not PlayStation was crazy though. I'm disappointed KH is a key card but i had no hope that KH4 would be on Switch 2, especially not day 1. And Ocarina of Time would hit a lot harder if not for leaks, i don't think you can fault Nintendo for but surprising you from a leak. The idea of being disappointed there was no gameplay for a game coming so soon only makes sense if it wasn't also the announcement. Otherwise an announcement of a game coming in a few months is generally seen as a good thing.

The bare minimum I'd like is more Switch 2 patches for Switch 1 games. They came in hard when it launched and it's been a drio fred since. There's so many games from Nintendo that could jump to 1440/60 that would drastically improve the experience.

The Switch 2 is the first hardware I bought day 1 and has been worth it. I'm really bummed about GKCs and imagine it's only going to get worse, and some lack of upgrade path (free or not) from Switch 1 to Switch 2 is genuinely baffling and frustrating, but when its there its usually worth it. I'd love to see more games that are visually simple with ray tracing or DLSS for clean visuals, like HD2D but next gen.

I am bummed at how large and power hungry it is though. Handhelds aren't portable anymore and now they've gotten to the point where you need a backpack to carry them around, and their battery life is a fraction of the GBA and DS.

I miss easily replaceable batteries and hope the US does the same. The GBA SP, DS, and 3DS all have easily replaceable batteries with just a screwdriver. I was able to extend the life of an old phone by a year or two by hot swapping batteries theoughout the day too. And of course anything that uses AA/AAA batteries can last indefinitely.

The recoil system sounds interesting. I've been annoyed for years at games using hitscan and head glitching, so anything to shake that up is good. Splatoon got made fun of a lot for its family friendly shooter concept but at least the ink was a physical thing that comes out of the weapon.

This sounds like one of those dev sanctioned expansions made by another team years later that was apparently more common PC back in the day. The rise in requirements is interesting considering it's still so low comparatively, maybe the old ceiling is now the floor?

I'm confident it will still be around, maybe at worst just getting earlier PS5 ports instead of late PS6 games. I'm more interested to see if the game key card situation is better or worse at that point, both from a price standpoint for storage or that more games require it for performance. Physical games might be an afterthought at that point and entirely gone next time.

This bums me out but I admittedly would mostly play Sony games out of mornid curiousity of how revered the games are, I haven't really cared for most Sony games since the PS2. I wish they were more consistent about the GOG support though, strange what games are on there and what aren't.

As cool as this is I feel like it's mostly suited for esports games or 10x or more frame generation so that dampens the interest. That Pulsar tech to replicate CRT strobing seems much better to use for the vast majority of use cases.

On the podcast you guys mentioned the idea of an indie game with low tech requirements except for path tracing, that was an idea I had ages ago that I'm surprised still hasn't cime around. Something like the Touryst would make perfect sense. It'd be interesting to compare the ray tracing capabilities of the Switch 2 vs the twin consoles when raster isn't really an issue either.

That's clearly aimed at students so I'd be interested in how well it does with emulators instead of the latest games they might not have the money for.

Everyone might have aped the 360 ergonomics but it's crazy how Xbox still doesn't have gyro or advanced rumble.

@Hustler_One it's pretty common to say that the Switch 2 looks better than the Series S version of games and not mention the frane rate difference. I think its impressive how well the Switch 2 holds up but it is disingenuous to compare 30 to 60 fps, but you can't show off frame rate in a screenshot.

We've come a long way from the terrible but fun speakers of the Wiimote to haptics that can produce sound.

Surprised they didn't do this in the first place. Maybe they didn't think they'd be a hit?

Hopefully this will finally be a game made for Switch 2 from the start, maybe even use DLSS.

That's a hugely steep price but apparently its worth it. Any reason to get these gamer specific headsets vs regular high quality headphones like Audio Technica outside of if convenience? I'm pretty sure at $400 I got my headphones, a decent JBL mic, and a 2.1 Logi speaker set.

Very cool of Valve to do stuff like this.

Pretty interesting, kinda shows that there's only so much extra headroom there is from the console specific API vs just a straight PC. It's really more about targeting a specific hardware than anything.

I never understood how people gave Bethesda such a pass on these games. I understand ambition and freedom means the games are gonna have bugs but if your game is too ambitious to actually function then maybe its just not worth it.

So this is really only useful on Sony's own games? I assume most/all PC games wouldn't support any fancy features like that because no controllers suport.

The requirement to run the game through Steam is a bummer. It's easy enough to add a non Steam game but it makes a hassle when I try to buy through GOG whenever possible. I'm good using a Switch controller on PC but if money were no object I'm sure I'd buy one of these.

I'm happy Valve is trying to innovate in the controller space still. Nintendo seems to be the only one really trying actual input methods rather than just more buttons or replaceable parts. Admittedly i doubt I'll buy one but I hope they're successful.

This would be a great joke in a Suda 51 game or something along those lines. I can imagine some joke game doing this.

Damn I'd kill for an updated Nvidia Shield. I hear the 2019 one is still good and getting updates but it's a hard mental barrier to spend so much on such an old product. There's no way it's as expensive to make as it's priced now but who knows.

Even though I mainly play Switch 2 docked and think the Switch 2 is too big to be portable, I don't think I'd buy a dock only Switch 2. I miss true portables (3DS XL is the limit of pocketable), there's still too much freedom lost to make it only docked, and I doubt we're ever going back to portables sadly.

@themightyant I did this years ago with my 512GB sata ssd being the boot drive and used for more modern games while the old 2TB HDD was used for basically everything else. I think storage size wouldn't be as much of an issue if internet speeds were better and forever games weren't so prevalent compared to games you could beat and uninstall.

The Switch 2 was criticized for its 256GB storage but that isn't so bad for anything that isn't 3rd party AAA.