SAN DIEGO, CA – JULY 20: Actor Adam Scott from the television series “Ghosted” stopped by Nintendo … [+]
Microsoft announced today that the company would bring Call Of Duty to the Nintendo for 10 years if the deal to acquire Activision-Blizzard goes through. It’s a bid to deflect Sony’s criticism of the acquisition and placate wary antitrust regulators leery of the $67 billion purchase.
It’s also a ludicrous proposition that can’t possibly ever come to fruition without a massive upgrade to Nintendo’s current hardware. In no realistic future will the Nintendo Switch be capable of running Call Of Duty outside of maybe Call Of Duty Mobile or Warzone Mobile. But I’ve played games like Fortnite that run significantly better on my phone than on the Switch. Of course, this performance deficit goes well beyond Call Of Duty.
The fact is, the Nintendo Switch is nearly six years old—but its hardware feels much older. The system is a clever handheld/home console hybrid that was a novelty when it released in March of 2017, but that novelty has worn thin. It’s held back by aging hardware that felt dated the day it hit the market. Games simply don’t perform as well on the Nintendo Switch as they do on Xbox or PlayStation. Ports of big third-party games tend to be lackluster and at times downright unplayable (I gave up on Apex Legends almost immediately on the Switch). And even Nintendo’s big first-party releases (which have been awfully sluggish lately) feel shackled by the shoddy Switch and its NVIDIA Custom Tegra processor. The true potential of Nintendo’s game design is being held back by its hardware and that’s a real shame.
Phil Spencer can say all he wants about bringing Call Of Duty to Nintendo, but it’s never going to be a viable option for the Switch. Even if they could somehow get it running at a playable framerate, the prevalence of Joy-Con drift—an infuriating hardware deficiency that causes the controller inputs to move around without you even touching the thumb-sticks—would make a competitive shooter a nightmare to play.
The fact is, the Nintendo Switch launched as just another Nintendo gimmick that could have been great, but fell short in terms of performance on day-one. It’s a popular system, especially in Japan, but a Switch Pro or a dedicated Switch Pro home console that ditches the handheld feature, is sorely needed. (Believe it or not, many gamers don’t care to own a handheld and would be just fine leaving their console permanently “docked.”)
I realize Nintendo isn’t really competing directly against Xbox or PlayStation in the way those two platforms compete, but that doesn’t mean that Nintendo fans should continue to accept and even expect subpar hardware that can’t even keep up with Nintendo’s own games. The latest controversy around Pokémon Scarlet And Violet is only the tip of the iceberg.
The Wii launched in North America in 2006. The Wii U came out six years later in 2012. The Switch will soon outlive both of these systems with no sign of a refresh on the horizon. I know the maxim is ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ but the Switch’s aging hardware and Joy-Con problems are hardly a model of ‘ain’t broke.’
So maybe it’s time to fix it.
Further Reading
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2022/12/08/face-it-the-nintendo-switch-just-doesnt-have-what-it-takes/