A VentureBeat article is saying that two anonymous sources have confirmed that Nintendo's Switch will use Nvidia’s last-generation Maxwell graphics-processing instead of their newer Pascal architecture. What that means is real world ability is that Switch will be behind even the 3 year old PS 4 processing power.

"...The custom Maxwell Tegra (which uses a 20nm process as opposed to the more efficient 16nm process of the Pascal) in the machine is still powerful enough to play Nintendo-style games that rely on quality art over horsepower, but don’t expect Switch software to match the graphical fidelity of the highest-end PS4 games." ~ VB

It appears that most of the reason Nintendo when with the older architecture was timing. The Switch needs to come out to take over for the floundering Wii U soon. And Pascal architecture is too new, as came out only last year, so the ability to design around it wasn't possible for Nintendo. On the practical side, it is alleged that Nvidia's Pascal architecture requires more cooling even though it is more efficient. As a handheld unit, that might have been too much of a design conundrum with more moving parts and more space needed. Moreover, It can be assumed that Pascal architecture is so new that yields are low and thus the price per chip was still high. Nintendo is nothing else can be described as frugal, cautious, and very conservative in design needs.

My opinion is this doesn't really matter. Was anyone seriously 'betting' on Switch being as powerful as PS4 or Xbox One? No, they were betting it would be better than Wii U, and from all appearances it is that. We have seen running Zelda and ist looks good, so it looks just fine for a Nintendo system running Nintendo games.

On the other hand, in another thread, we see that someone found more Nintendo patents that ARE about Switch. And in other ways Switch will have thing like a touch screen and various movement sensors...that is good news even if the GPU is older. If the patents are about "the device" they will put out, things look okay for Switch.

Well if it releases at around 250$ then it won't matter anyway as long as it looks better than wii U and works as advertised.

No more powerful than my Shield TV then.

@korwin said:

Yup, this thing continues to be a re-skin of the Shield. That's by no means a bad thing, but people shouldn't set their expectations too high.

This is a good thing. The Switch won't be stupidly expensive (rumors have it at or under $250 USD) and it will still look fine. Last time I checked, there're a bunch of Wii U games that look goddamn fantastic, and that thing is barely more than a 360. Nintendo doesn't need a powerhouse machine to make great games that look beautiful.

I'm not sure what value calling it 'last generation' has when you're talking about a portable system coming out between the Pro and the Scorpio. I guess 'hybrid console not as powerful as rivals' isn't really much of a story though.

I highly doubt anyone here was expecting a portable console that costs just £200 to be as powerful as a PS4 anyway.

As whats already been said price is what matters. Honestly for me as someone who likes a few Nintendo properties but isn't huge on a lot of what they do a lower priced less powerful console is much more appealing to me. All I want from Nintendo is Zelda games, a few Mario games and Smash, I'm not going to fork out the near $400 the Wii U still is here for that.

Maybe my expectations are too high, but I was kind of hoping the Switch would at least be as powerful as a 3 year old console that was never all that impressive in the horsepower department when it released 3 years ago.

It's more powerful than their previous consoles, and I think that's all that matters. Not to mention Digital Foundry already put forth a proof of concept of the same hardware running GameCube games, so we know that'll work too.

It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo eventually releases a revision of the Switch (they always do for their handhelds, but not home consoles), and whether or not that version has a Pascal Tegra chip.

While it might make it cheaper in the short run, I'd rather have it more powerful for the long run tbh.

Nintendo don't care about dem Teraflops.

@falconer: And the revision will be called the Switch Hitter.

@isomeri: Not a bad thing? the shield TV barely runs a gimped version of Bioshock, so a 3+ Year old mobile phone part is certainly not a good thing.

All of the consoles are outdated to me including the recent Hamburger Pro so it doesn't make much difference to me.

It's all about how they utilize the hardware for the games they make and they have a proven track record of making their games run well enough on old hardware.

Not surprising, if they are trying to keep the price down. I already have a powerful PC so whether I'm playing on a X1, PS4 or a Wii U or Switch or whatever, I'm not coming to the console experience for plastic melting power and mind blowing graphics. Power was never what held the Wii U back, any first party Nintendo game on it looked absolutely gorgeous, and ran extremely well. The thing that matters is that this thing comes out at a low price, works as advertised, has a battery that lasts longer than 4 fucking hours, and has a smartly designed online aspect to it. Nintendo has repeatedly flubbed it on anything that has to do with the internet, acting as if it is this amazing new alien technology from the future that they somehow don't understand.

Is there no one at that company right now that is asking "Guys, why is all of our online functionality straight out of 2005? Anyone?". Nintendo has a lot of other things to get right outside of the technical aspect of the console.

@monetarydread: Yes, I know. It probably won't be able to run "current gen games" well at all. But think about the kind of phone you can buy with 250 bucks, and then compare it to the Switch. It's a pretty smart cost/power solution for the kind of graphically non-intensive games Nintendo is good at.

That's fine, I don't want to pay $400+ just to play Mario and Pokemon.

It's dead already tbh, we'l buy it to play Zelda and whatever, but it's going to flop like the Wii U.

Nintendo are done in the hardware business, this will be their last console and they'll switch to Software only.... maybe that's what Switch really means...

So long as i can play Pokémon & Zelda I'll be more than fine.

This is a little disappointing but I wasn't expecting a powerhouse anyway. I just want to play some Nintendo games.

It's Nintendo. You buy it for the first party games, not the power of the hardware.

Surely this has surprised literally no one. Nintendo hasn't been about graphical power since the SNES.

No, please, please not again... Since the Nintendo 64 (so... Since the 90's) people are saying "Nintendo is done, this will e their last console, they will do only softwares for now on". This kind of discorse (this exactly same discorse, they will wuit hardware and make only software just like Sega) is really outdated, they will not brankupt so soon just because their new console didn't appeal to someone.

Nintendo hasn't been about graphics since the Wii actually. N64 has more powerfull hardware than the Playstation One and the Game cube has more powerfull hardware than the Playstation 2 (but both loose to the first Xbox).

Due to that (both N64 and Game Cube were not so popular than the weaker oponnent, and the Snes, who was weaker than the Mega Drive (yes, it was, some Snes games look great for its time because of the extra chip trick that the Snes allowed to make its performance better) was more popular) they quitted the hardware fight (and let's be honest here, if hardware is really an essential thing for a game to someone and this one can afford a PS4 or a Xbox One... It is more logical to build a strong PC).

I know that Nintendo hasn't cared about having the most horsepower in many years now but... I would love to see Nintendo be a little more ambitious when it comes to performance. Reading that a new console from Nintendo will be less powerfull than a 3 year old console I can't help but feel a little dissapointed.

The Mega Drive's processor was faster, but the SNES was more powerful in almost every other way. Higher possible resolution. Double the memory. Four times the sprite size. Eight times the sound RAM. Sixty-four times as many colors. The list goes on.

It's still way cheaper, and easier, to buy a console than building a PC.

Building PCs might very well have gotten easier through the years but people who say that might also be the same people that have always been used to building their own PCs. But for someone like me who have close to no experience with building a PC that still seems really daunting to me. Actually GB's own PC building stream really convinced me that building a PC is not something I have any interest in doing in the foreseeable future. The GB crew definitely know waaaaaaaaaaay more about PCs than I do and seeing them struggle with it like that... fuck that! And there might be a million people ready to tell them that they did it all wrong and if they just did so and so it wouldn't have been an issue. But that's easy to say if you have been building PCs all your life.

I'm primarily a console gamer simply because I enjoy the convenience of it. I buy a game and it just works. I don't have to worry about graphic settings and fiddle around with every little setting until I think it's just right. I know myself well enough to know that, that would drive me nuts. The first hours of every game would just be me constantly changing settings until I find the ones I like the most. That would result in me not relaxing and just enjoying the game. With a console game I don't have to worry about that. The only thing I have to do is play games and not worry about anything else.

So I enjoy the convenience and simplicity of console gaming. The other argument people use in the big debate of PCs vs. consoles is the price of games. I will say that in these last two years Sony has become a lot better on giving discount on games on their Playstation Store. It's not uncommen to see new games, that are not more than 2-3 months old, go on sale for a radically discounted price. I can't speak for the Xbox store, but I can definitely say that it is not uncommon anymore to see new-ish games for half or less of their original price on The Playstation Store. Sony have become way better about having constant flash sales with pretty big discounts.

I will still be a console gamer for the next few years to come. In the future I don't know but for now I definitely prefer console gaming. So your point about it being more logical to build a PC if you can afford to buy a console simply doesn't make sense to me for the reasons I have stated above.

There also seems to be a tendency to underestimate just how many people still prefer to play games on consoles over PC. In the first couple of years of the PS4 the GB crew especially wondered if console gaming would be over soon. But the fact is the PS4 has sold more now in 3 years than the PS2 have. And just to clarify: PS2 is the most sold console ever! But so far PS4 is outselling it. So I still think console gaming is alive and well. Even if the way we are thinking of consoles are changing.

Eurogamer have some new details on the clock speeds of the Switch, and it seems like the console will be less powerful than the Nvidia Shield TV. When undocked the GPU runs some 40% slower (307.2MHz) than when docked (768MHz).

So based on the details so far, it seems that the device falls somewhere between the Wii U and the Xbox One in terms of power. Much closer to the Wii U end of things when undocked.

And, DigitalFoundry has made a video that is interesting by comparing the supposed specs of Switch to current hardware that uses X1 Maxwell architecture. I think it is a very interesting discussion as they talk about where the hardware fits into the landscape of other devices. A very nice calm discussion forma few points of view.

I hope Nintendo don't completely shit the bed when it comes to the tablet mode performance.

Nintendo's first part games look incredible on the Wii U. I'm sure their games on the Switch will look even better. That's all I need!

If it keeps the price down, I can live with it.

Just wait for the New Nintendo Switch in 18 months. It'll have a 1080p screen, but they'll have removed the headphone jack for some reason :)

Seriously though, being on Tegra gives them a pretty clear path for incremental upgrades, since those are thing now.

Well that seems perfectly fine. Nintendo's games have long appealed more for their gameplay and design rather than breaking barriers on the technical front. A reasonable price and the promise that they'll support their platform (cause let's not kid ourselves that 3rd parties will do anything this time around) is enough for me to buy one.

People comparing a portable to a stationary system power wise is hilarious. You've got so many other factors at play here.

Battery consumption, heat, size and a touch screen. And as most of you've said, keeping the price at half of a PS4 pro or Scorpio.

The only thing that would make this a must own for me is if it was truly a capable touch device, which would require Nintendo to use an android based OS, or allow the tablet to boot to android. I don't see this happening (due to their strict security concerns), so it becomes a dubious proposition from my point of view.