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Breath of the Wild ran poorly on both platforms on release. Which surprised me, and undermined the power of the Switch.

That said the Switch remains underpowered compared to contemporary game consoles.



Switch is not competing with PS/Xbox, but with mobile phones, tablets and portable consoles (including Nintendo's DS line). It's not underpowered for a battery powered game machine and has a standardised controller setup and easy docking as differentiators to other mobile devices.


Unless you like JRPGs, in which case the Switch is a first-class console.

Except for a few AAA-scale action RPGs that launch on PS4/5 (e.g. FF7R, upcoming FF16), the vast majority of JRPGs being released today come to Switch first. And when Switch exclusivity expires, many of them only get a PC release beyond that with PS4/5 and XB1/XSX releases simply never happening.

For a good chunk of JRPG players, the question is "PS5 or Switch?". And if you're like me and specifically prefer turn-based JRPGs, you can forget about anything that launches as a Sony exclusive so that leaves the Switch as your #1 console.

Though I guess the comparison to the DS works well here, as the DS was to platformers during its heyday what the Switch is to JRPGs now.


The DS was also to JRPGs what the Switch is to them now! Contact, Dragon Quest IX, TWEWY, Strange Journey, Rune Factory - median and top 10 beats both the PSP and PS3.


There were some good JRPGs for the DS, but it was nowhere near as dominant as the Switch is now..

The PSP was a pretty strong contender, since it had the 2.5D Trails games, FF7 Crisis Core, and some of the best remakes of FF4, FFT, and Tactics Ogre.

And PS3 got a lot of then-exclusives in mid-budget franchises that would be Switch games if they launched now, such as multiple Atelier trilogies and the first half of Trails of Cold Steel (and in fact they've all been ported to Switch). By comparison, current Atelier games now launch simultaneously on Switch and PS4 with PC ports following soon after, and the much-delayed English localizations of Trails now get cross-platform releases (Switch/PC/PS4 simultaneously).

There was never a point during the DS's lifetime where you could say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS3 exclusives, every JRPG either got simultaneous DS/PS3 releases or was a DS exclusive", but it is the case that right now you can say "except for a tiny handful of AAA-scale PS4/5 exclusives, every JRPG either gets a simultaneous Switch/PS4 release or is a Switch exclusive". I'll also add that we're in a PC renaissance too; JRPGs on PC were virtually nonexistent during the PS3 and DS's heyday (unless you spoke enough Japanese to play unlocalized Falcom games), but now pretty much every JRPG that isn't a first-party Nintendo game gets a PC port, with even the timed Switch exclusives coming to PC after a few months to a year.


Yeah but the PS5 gets horrible battery life and I need an IKEA furniture bag to transport it.


It did? I never noticed performance issues with breath of the wild


I bought a Switch the other week (OLED version, but same powered hardware I guess?) and am playing BotW just now. Two things that create some lag I've noticed: the forest area with the master sword, and when blowing up lots of explosive crates.


Did you never get to the forest where the Master Sword is? The entire area around it runs at about 10fps, on both the Switch and the Wii U.


Breath of the Wild is quite terrible on the Wii U. You get frame stutters when there’s more content on screen than just a few enemies and the resolution + aliasing are really hard on the eyes. Load times as well are longer.

I stopped playing on Wii U and rebought it for the Switch where it’s significantly better.




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