It’s Time to Put the Nintendo Switch Into a Nursing Home

I am always amazed at how quickly time passes by. In March 2023, the Nintendo Switch will be turning six years old. I was a day one buyer of the Switch. It was a monumental release despite handheld consoles not being new.

In recent releases (especially ports), there have been performance issues aplenty. For as well as the Switch has held up, the age of the Nvidia Tegra X1 chipset is starting to show. It has reached a point where some publishers have resorted to cloud streaming of games instead of direct ports. That's not to say some games don't run smoothly. Many of the Nintendo exclusive games run conveniently at good and stable bitrates like Splatoon 3.

In one of the recent Pokemon releases, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, reviewers complained of performance problems and random bugs. Whether it's launch jitters and requires code optimisation or endemic hardware limitations, it's too early to say. It does make me concerned about the release of Born of The Wild 2, given it will have more demanding graphical requirements.

Not even a couple of years into the release of the Nintendo Switch, rumours started to circulate that there would eventually be a Nintendo Switch Pro. Eventually, we did get an updated Switch in the form of an OLED screen. It looked great, but with the same limited chipset inside. Even now, there are rumours a Switch Pro could be released in March 2023.

Recently some Nvidia DLSS source code leaked, allegedly referencing a new Switch. Whether it's a Switch Pro or Switch 2, nobody knows. Nintendo could honeybadger us again and release a Switch with a slight upgrade, but nothing that fixes the performance issues that have begun to plague the Switch consistently.

I respect Nintendo for not feeling the need to compete with Playstation and Xbox. Underpowered consoles with fun games have always been their thing. However, Nintendo needs to consider a moderate hardware revision for the Switch, emphasising backward compatibility rather than sitting idle on their hands.

And don't get me wrong, I love my Nintendo Switch and take it with me almost everywhere I go. I have a USB-C charger in the car, and the kids love playing with it. It's great for long car trips too. I think there is more to gaming than frame rates. I think gamers have become obsessed with getting the highest frame rates possible. In reality, you only need a little above 30fps for a game to be stable. It's not so much the frames but their stability of them.

In the case of the Switch, some of the later titles vary wildly in terms of frame rate stability. I am okay with 40 fps on a game if it's stable. If my game ranges from 45 to 30 fps, it becomes noticeable and annoying. The graphics come across as glitchy, and it ruins the gameplay.