Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo desperately needs a new console

Second the latest report on the profits of Nintendoits famous hybrid console would have exceeded 122 million units sold worldwide, a number that continues to grow, especially with regard to the OLED model, which has seen a significant increase in sales over the last nine months of the current financial year .

in summary, Nintendo Switch continues to be a decidedly healthy console in terms of sales, and at least as far as the latest Nintendo Direct leak is concerned, it seems to be the same for every title the big N has in store for us gamers over the course of the year… and beyond.

Precisely this number, however, is linked to all those titles that have had an announcement with very distant or even undefined time windows, such as the new chapter of the Professor Laytonwhich could worry players, and not a little.

The question that’s been on our minds for a while, and one that has become increasingly pressing lately, is: Has the Nintendo Switch become obsolete? And if all of Nintendo’s announcements regarding big exclusives and third-party titles clearly tell us otherwise, this is the case the quality of the same which makes us think that maybe, and I stress maybe, the hybrid console needs to be retired.

It’s no secret, in fact, that the console has already come out with obvious technical limitations, but which, five years ago, thanks to some of the most important exclusive titles and among the most beautiful video games of all time (yes, breath of the wild), didn’t carry the same weight as it does today, a moment where the generational leap makes the Switch less appealing than it actually is.

Among the new generation consoles (more or less) in every household, the world of PC gaming increasingly within everyone’s reach, and Steam Deck, the hybrid of Nintendo seems to be taking the hit much harder than it has in the past despite excellent sales figures and excellent future prospects.

And the “problem”, if we want to define it that way, is being blamed on the fact that even first-party titles are starting to have something that’s wrong: if five years ago we blanked out the technical weaknesses of the ports (with due exceptions ) behind the very high quality of the first suppliers, today it is very difficult to go beyond seemingly essential values.

Wandering framerate, low resolution, poorly detailed environments, and so on are beginning to erode even the much-vaunted “Nintendo difference” that we poor big N fans (yes, because the author is also the proud owner of three Nintendo Switches) us decorate us in conversations at the bar.

Just the idea of ​​having to play Tears of the Kingdom somehow castrated in the technical presentation is a thought that gives me goosebumps and hives, not so much for the quality of the work itself, which I think there can be no doubts, but for the staging, which unfortunately has to struggle with a piece of hardware that cannot compete with this new Hyrule.

In practice, from what we’ve seen so far, the feeling is that the new Hyrule will have a very rich visual language, but one that will have to compromise and adapt to the technical limitations of the console it’s running on. A case of Creativity and art direction that preceded the hardware that makes them into video games.

And mind you: breath of the wild It had the same limitations that this second chapter is likely to have, and yet it’s one of the best video games ever made – even able to do its best on Wii U, therefore with even more pronounced technical limitations.

The problem, as mentioned above, Therefore, it’s not due to the actual final quality of a first-party Nintendo titleas in the bitter statement that technically and aesthetically this title could have been infinitely better.

And it should be emphasized that this is not simply the result of mere assumptions: if we absurdly tried to emulate certain titles on a decent PC, applying certain filters and certain precautions to the same identical game would give a significantly better result. And if that was acceptable seven years ago, it isn’t today, in an industry where even the standards have changed and a year is worth a lot more in terms of new technology.

So why does Nintendo continue to remain in its “technical Middle Ages”? Why Nintendo Switch 2 continues to be just a distant rumor that hasn’t found concreteness yet, if not in so many corridor rumors?

And if the need for better quality in third-party titles has always been felt strongly (always mitigated by the effective ability to play certain titles on a laptop), at a time when that need is becoming more alive and pressing, even in home productions Isn’t it appropriate to pause for a moment and ask yourself if it still makes sense to just refer to the “Nintendo difference”?

Still enough flawless gameplay, a beautiful world and an incredibly fun gaming experience to please players? Of course, as mentioned at the beginning, the sales figures obviously say yes – and we “poor” fans of the big N certainly can’t declare ourselves dissatisfied, because it would be hypocritical, that’s true.

But it is also true that as we begin to dwell on certain aspects more than we need to, we notice a limit more than usual and we begin to feel this vague sense of “desire” beginning to take shape – and in the face of a failed one animation continue Engage Fire Emblem or too high before a frame drop Xenoblade Chronicles 3the spell breaks and one wonders “but how much longer do I have to wait?”.

In the meanders of the web, someone claims that with the release of the second part of the DLC from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet We will also see the arrival of this new Phantom console (with a rumor that has proved all too true for the content of the latest Pokemon presentations), but on the other hand one wonders why the arrival of this new console should come with a Pokemon be linked to DLC and not to a new chapter The Legend of Zelda (what you find on Amazon).

What is certain is that it seems to be another year without Switch 2 (or whatever the name of its hypothetical heir), another year of games in which wonderful fantasies have to adapt to technical compromises; another year of unfulfilled wishes and in May, By the time Link returns home to us, we’ll probably have forgotten all of that – aware that it could have gone much better and that this “Nintendo difference” may still make it, this difference.

Nintendo Switch has a library of titles, especially exclusive titles, of truly sensational quality. More than six years after its debut, it’s more legitimate to wonder if it’s not even starting to devour the games that should have been in place of its future heir. Compromises won’t stop them from being good titles anyway, that’s true; But Even the (potential?) masterpieces have the right to show themselves in their best clothes.