Lately, much of my off time has been pre-occupied with a great experiment. A few weeks ago, I decided to finally pull the trigger on a Switch 2, my first time owning a Nintendo system since the SNES and GameBoy Color, and my first time playing on one since the N64 was still a smash hit at parties.
For the most part, it’s been a positive experience. I love that it’s a much larger screen and less hefty device than my original SteamDeck, not that the battery life is significantly different. I’ve found it remarkably nice for playing handheld on the couch, and has actually caused me to use my SteamDeck in handheld much more frequently. Unlike my laptop and ‘Deck it can actually be docked in the TV console upstairs without making me grumble about the tight spaces, which is also a plus.
In terms of graphics and power, it’s kinda of a “Meh” factor. Many of the games already out on the platform encompass things that have had Steam and Xbox One / PlayStation 4 releases. Often ones that also run on SteamDeck either perfectly or with a little fiddling. The difference of course is the Switch 2 is more apt to target 1080p, which makes me happier because I often play docked to a large 4K screen. I consider the main advantage there that it’s now “Good enough” hardware rather than as limited as the Switch and its revisions. Plus, nVidia’s DLSS tech and stuff is definitely better.
Hardware has been pretty solid, but I have to preface that with “Depends on what you play.” The Joy Cons 2 seem to be pretty decent controllers for handheld mode, but not as good as Steam Deck’s superb (but integrated) controller. For more FPS oriented games like Resident Evil, frankly, the Joy Cons 2 sucked so bad that I turned right around and ordered the Pro 2 controller. That’s closer in quality to an Xbox One or Series X/S controller. I honestly don’t care about the detachable controller aspect, but if you’re more prone to playing games like Pokemon and Mario than games that require fast, precise aiming (basically any first person and most third person shooter), they’re great for the former and crap for the latter. On the flip side, gyro aiming support is actually native for many Switch/Switch 2 titles.
One of the things I’ve been happy for, is that the eShop has a much larger variety than I expected. Quite a few games I’d play are available through the Switch back catalog, except I already have them on other platforms. I was a bit concerned that options would be smaller beyond Nintendo’s own first party releases.
Game Cards, I remain somewhat on the wall about. For games that actually use them, I don’t really mind. The downside of course is that many third party games are either digital (shop / code-in-a-box) or Game-Key Cards. For those, the only real value IMHO is the second hand market. You can trade in the card, but unless you’re frequently trading 3-5 games whenever you buy 1, it’s probably a bigger deal when for you cash out. I.e., if you migrate to an incompatible platform like PlayStation, it makes sense to dump the games with the console. That said, my childhood is proof that trade-ins and pre-owned are a perk when money is tight. In which case, you probably should get anything other than a Nintendo Switch–the games are frakking expensive.
Conceptually, I like the idea of Game Cards. They’re a similar size to full SD cards, making them practical in ways that a MicroSD is too damned tiny. Likewise, that avoids the problem that earlier Game Pak / Game Card are too bulky when you’ve got a lot of them to carry. Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of the install to hard drive model for game consoles: may as well use a PC and pure digital distribution if that’s how it is.
Of course the reality is the inverse. For first party games, the benefit is much smaller updates. For a game that’s around DVD/DVD DL scale, the update might be closer to 500 MB stored to internal storage. That’s been the case for Mario/Zelda/Pokemon games that I’ve tried so far. IMHO, that’s a fair compromise for saving 4-8 GBs per game.
For third party games, the reality is you may as well be digital and expect to have to download the entire thing. On the flip side, I’ve found that games are often smaller. Many are in the HD DVD to Blu-ray SL scale as opposed to Blu-ray DL and up, meaning they’re well suited to a 16G or 32G Game Card if they actually used the card for storage. It seems many publishers have dropped unnecessary assets when baking games for the Switch platforms.
For example, Resident Evil 9 is a Big Freaking Game™️ on Steam if your storage is measured in GB, but basically a standard size for modern games. If you like PC gaming, you measure your storage in TB, not GB. It’s about 80 GB on PC, and I had expected it to be over 120 GB when I pre-ordered. On Switch 2, it’s under 30 GB! There’s some irony in that as well. On Switch 2, we’re basically running a DLSS upscale to 720/1080p from about half that resolution. Docked, it’s no where near as nice as my laptop’s 4K output. I wouldn’t be surprised if SteamDeck offered equally limited graphics at best, but you’re still stuck downloading the entire shebang because the game’s assets have to cover everything from the lowest supported potato to the beefiest they’ve got.
That’s actually one thing I kind of like about consoles, since it’s a stable target, you’re basically locked, cocked, and ready to rock from the beginning. No fiddly. But, it’s also going to be inferior rendering to a beefcake PC that can throw 3 pounds of RTX at the problem. For me, it’s become more about input methods in many cases; e.g., I greatly prefer to play certain games with a mouse and that typically leaves PC as the only platform. Playing Doom 2016 on an Xbox One for example was a painful experience compared to PC, where the controller is optional.l
Well, that’s enough rambling for now.
