It’s not hard. It’s expensive. Nintendo has never been in the power game, except with the N64. The SNES was marginally more powerful than the Mega Drive/Genesis in most respects, but that was largely a function of its later release.
Processing and graphical power have never been all that significant in the home console market (except to schoolboys on playgrounds, who are no longer the prime market). With ~5 year product lifecycles, something more powerful is always going to come along later anyway. The keys are (1) releasing great games, and (2) ensuring a large user base to make sure developers want to release games for you. Neither of these require high-powered systems. In fact, that can be a hindrance in some cases.
Incidentally, making the N64 cartridge-based was not a “stupid” decision. In hindsight, it turned out to be the wrong one, but Nintendo had no way of knowing that consumers would accept CD load times, or that third-party developers would jump to Sony.
I think the key is that none of the Nintendo game franchises need high end hardware. I cant think of one nintendo game i would care about that couldt be made on the SNES. Disregarding the Wii controller ofcourse, but i owned a wii for a few months, and all i learned was that whatever the wii controller could do, the SNES controller could do better. Or a Mouse and keyboard as i prefer
Nintendo has no reason to directly compete with the PS5 and Series X because they have yet to fail with their current strategy. Even as dismal a failure the Wii U was, Nintendo still turned a profit on it, because they don’t allow their hardware to be sold at a loss. I’m sorry if this means you won’t see a raytraced Legend of Zelda any time soon, but like Loggins says all the best Nintendo franchises don’t need high end hardware. I don’t know that I’d enjoy an SNES version of Breath of the Wild as much as I enjoyed the Switch version, but the fact remains that games on better consoles are still trying and largely failing to replicate what a game on the Wii U did.
Every Nintendo game would benefit from being elevated above 30 (or worse) frames per second. The clarity that higher frame rates bring to animations and effects, as well as feel of input, are straight improvements. You can see it on the few cross-platform games between Switch and PC such as Rune Factory 5 or Dragon Quest Builders. (Plus some illicitly cross-platform games through emulation.)
I feel Nintendo is very lucky that mobile gaming from smart phones never got it together in a way that’d offer the type of games that’d challenge their dominance in that space. I don’t know why that is.
I’m playing Shin Megami Tensei V on the Switch right now and it looks amazing, to be honest. I think every since the PS3 era or so, I’m incredibly easy to please.
Shin Megami V was exclusively released to Switch(temporarily, I presume). Controversial in a way, but honestly, I see great graphics and I am not one to notice frame-rate issues, though I read others noticed some slow down. Anyway, the Switch is actually quite capable.
I have a gaming PC, and an Oculus Quest 2, and I am considering buying a switch, as I miss the nintendo experience.
I’m not saying that games on other platforms don’t have great gameplay – generally the bar for all games on all platforms is very high now.
But there is a certain “something something” that nintendo games have, and it’s inherently cartoony and stylized. It doesn’t need superpowered hardware.
Also, in terms of competing in the market, isn’t it good to have your own niche versus doing the same thing as Sony, Microsoft, Valve etc?
