kbolino 2 days ago

The Switch was weak when it came out. Decent PCs from that same year can handle most of these games just fine. It's not really the developer's fault when the Switch is the only platform with issues, and they're usually not "pushing the envelope" in any way. The fault here is Nintendo's, they didn't prioritize support for ported games, though admittedly they couldn't really foresee the indie game boom, since it wasn't nearly as big of a deal at the time, especially in Japan.

First-party Nintendo titles are more or less the only games that actually manage to "push the envelope" on the Switch, and that's because they have the resources and experience to do it. Even then, some games end up constrained compared to the original vision, because the hardware can't handle it no matter how much insider knowledge you have about how it works and how to use it right.

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  • drawkward 2 days ago

    Witcher 3 was an amazing port.

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    • kbolino 20 hours ago

      Thanks to the success of The Witcher 3, I wouldn't call CDPR an indie dev anymore. I'm sure porting that game wasn't easy, but it had a well resourced studio behind it. Not all games can even make the tradeoffs that were necessary for it to work, though. Factorio, a 2D game, also made by a pretty competent but still indie developer, was ported to the Switch, but its expansion pack Space Age couldn't be.

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      • drawkward 14 hours ago

        I agree with all of your points, but they dont merit a logical conclusion of "therefore the switch was a weak console"

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        • kbolino 13 hours ago

          Sorry, I only meant that the hardware was weak. As a product, the Switch was an overwhelming success, and I don't really think Nintendo made a mistake by choosing weaker hardware at the time. However, it's 9 years later and things are different now. The new platform should try to be more accommodating for ports IMO and the issues with the original are just backdrop.

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    • evilduck a day ago

      Kinda. It had to be downscaled to below 720p to get passable frame rate performance. Compared to like almost any PC with a discrete GPU or any alternative console release it had, the Switch port was a huge step down in visual quality.

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      • drawkward a day ago

        But i dont care about any of those things; they dont make the game more fun for me. It was a great port. Buy a different machine if you want to be inside the matrix.

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koromak 2 days ago

Most indie devs don't have time and money to optimize. They will make the game primarily for the biggest audience, and then make it somewhat playable for everyone else.

The closer Switch is to the Steam Deck, the more likely both will be targeted.

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BobaFloutist 2 days ago

What a bizarre thing to say. People buy indie games for all sorts of different reasons, and sometimes it's the beautiful art style.

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  • filleduchaos 2 days ago

    "Beautiful art style" and "cutting-edge graphics" are nowhere near synonymous. They are orthogonally related at best (and many people would even argue that they are opposing goals).

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