Hver gang Nintendo står foran at lancere en ny konsol, dukker der rygter og ønsketænkning op, som peger på, at Kyoto-giganten er på vej med seriøst kraftfuld hardware og vil blæse os omkuld med et fotorealistisk Zelda-spil. Kun for endnu en gang at opdage, at Nintendo igen vælger at gå sine helt egne veje.
I et interview med The Game Business kommenterer den tidligere Nintendo of America-chef Reggie Fils-Aime dette og siger, at Nintendo ikke har nogen interesse i at konkurrere direkte med Sony om blockbuster-spil:
"Let's be clear, Nintendo, in my opinion, will never position themselves as a direct competitor to PlayStation. It's not in their DNA. It's not how they think about the business opportunity.
Nintendo, as it thinks about its hardware, it doesn't think through how I'm going to get the absolute latest graphics chip, the latest processing chip, that's not how they think about it. But the chip set of Switch 2 can do quite a lot. And so, it's in the middleware, it's in the education to the third-party."
I modsætning til sin markant svagere forgænger har Switch 2 ganske anstændige ydeevner, og nu begynder der at komme spil, der er ret krævende, men som stadig gengives på imponerende vis af konsollen - ikke mindst Cyberpunk 2077 og det kommende Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade.
Fils-Aime mener, at Nintendo har nogle utroligt dygtige udviklere, der forstår at udnytte hardwaren optimalt - noget, der især afspejles i, hvor lidt lagerplads deres spil kræver. Han mener, at Nintendo bør dele denne ekspertise med tredjeparter:
"One of the things that always amazed me is how efficient Nintendo developers are with their games. Big games like Tears of the Kingdom, when you look at the size of the game, the actual file size is about half of what another developer would do. And it's just in the efficiency that Nintendo is able to get out of its systems, and that efficiency is what they need to share with third-party developers so that their best content... maybe not the latest version, but, you know, half a step behind, could make its way onto Switch 2 and be quite successful."
Hvad tror du - vil high-end spil til Switch 2 kunne blive lige så store som dem til PC, PlayStation og Xbox? Og virker det som en god idé, at Nintendo forsøger at lære tredjeparter, hvordan man bedst optimerer til Switch 2?