 Hey everyone, welcome back to Nintendo Prime. I am Nathaniel Rumpeljantz and today I wanna have a little conversation with you. Before I have that conversation, we are actually on our road to 80,000 subscribers. Like it feels crazy to say this. It wasn't even that long ago. I believe like 2018, maybe 2019 when I was hoping to just hit 50,000 and we are literally on the cusp of 80. That's just insane to me. Thank you so much for all of your support for subscribing and enjoying the content. We have a crazy giveaway going on. Anyways, for all of you guys, we're giving away a replica Hylian Shield, a replica Deku Shield, and a replica Master Sword with made out of actual metal for... It's based on Breath of the Wild anyways for our 80,000 subscribers. We're not actually, like you can't enter the giveaway right now. I've learned from the past when we hit 80,000 subscribers, that's when we'll begin the giveaway. I wanna thank you guys for all of that support. And today, I just have a really, just something I wanna talk about. And this is the idea of, do we actually need a Switch Pro or a next generation Switch, either or? Or are we just fine with the way Switch is today? You know, we got our Switch OLED right here. This is the really dirty current model of the Nintendo Switch. But obviously it's using the exact same hardware essentially since 2017. They did shrink the chip down and everything and that's cool, but what I wanna actually focus on is do we need it? Now, there's a lot of logic to say that we do. The Switch is on the down swing as an example. 28 million units, roughly in 2020, down to like 23 million in 2020. Well, we're talking fiscal years. Now they're projecting just over 20 million in the current fiscal year. So you can argue we had our peak year and we're slowly doing really down since after this current fiscal year, the next one will probably be under 20 million. And you can kind of see that roadmap of yeah, it's leading to that next platform. Plus, we just had the fifth anniversary in March 3rd, which means we're now, what is this? Three months or so, a little over three months into the sixth year of Nintendo Switch. And typically platforms have been replaced every five to six years, especially at Nintendo. They've been really, really consistent with that. But we know obviously the president himself put out there, the president of Nintendo, and he was put out there, hey, we wanna make this a really long generation. So it's interesting, you're just looking at the sales perspective that could lead you to believe, you know what, maybe it is time, maybe Switch is losing momentum, despite outselling the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series during this time period. You know what, those are still on the up swing and Switch is on the down swing and eventually Switch is gonna sell less than them. And you can argue that's a panic time for Nintendo. Moving beyond that, of course, we can talk about how, hey, you know what, we're not getting every AAA third party game grounded. I don't think we ever will, but we're seeing a lot of games coming over now that are coming through streaming. Hitman 3, Marvel's guardian of the galaxy last year. Potentially Final Fantasy, Crisis Core 7, like yeah, I understand that like maybe that one will be local, we don't know, but it wouldn't be shocking to see it in that way. In fact, you know, we finally got the Kingdom Hearts games on Switch. And despite the fact that Switch can clearly run the majority of the Kingdom Hearts series, they still gave it to us via cloud because it was just easier to do and cheaper to do than porting the game natively to Switch. So there's an argument from a game perspective. There's an argument from Nintendo game perspective. We're seeing tricks being used in games like Kirby and the Forgotten Land where they're having the frame rate in background objects. You can literally see them skipping on the screen. That's how much the frame rate is being affected. And obviously we know Breath of the Wild that launch never ran smoothly. You can argue that that could be about being a Wii U game. But it's one of those situations. Even Mario Odyssey couldn't run at a full 1080p 60fps. They had to cut it to 900p in dock mode. And obviously we can get into the fact that most of us have some form of 4K television in our house because 4K TVs have become the standard. It's almost impossible to go to say Walmart, a mass consumer store and actually buy a 1080p TV that's bigger than like 20 inches. Because almost everything there, even 50 inch TVs, are selling for like 300, 400 bucks that are 4K. They might not have all the bells and whistles and be really, really cheap. But hey, you do technically get a 4K resolution and the Switch just doesn't support that. We have other things out there like the Photo Fast Gamer Pro and the M Classic that can help with some of these cheaper 4K TVs. But at the end, it's just not the experience many people are looking for in 2022. Now, the Nintendo Switch is also not dropped in price either. So some people can actually view it as a little bit expensive. When you get an Xbox Series S or a Switch, the S feels like a better deal, especially if you plan to play at home. Plus the Steam Deck is on the market. So there's a lot of arguments out there that exist for us to get an upgraded platform. There's all the rumors last year where there's smoke, there's probably fire, there's a lot. But here's the thing, do we actually need it? To that, I think the question is a bit more complicated. See, Switch is a hybrid. It means it effectively replaced the 3DS, which is now discontinued, and the Wii U. So it's a home console and a handheld. And a lot of times we look at this platform as, man, it's really weak compared to PlayStation 5. It's weak compared to the PlayStation 4. It's weak compared to the Steam Deck. But also it is absolutely incredible the leap the Switch is from the 3DS. And the 3DS only recently went out of production. So I'm trying to paint a picture here where we're getting a really strong lineup of games, right? We have Splatoon 3, Xenoblade 3, Bayonet 3, Sparks of Hope, Breath of the Wild 2, many more games that come, who knows? Maybe we get a new Mario card, maybe a new Mario game, probably another Mario, Paper Mario at some point, Mario plus Luigi, I know Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, maybe we get Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime 4. And so many others, like Nintendo has a bunch of games because reality is this is the first time they've actually combined their development studios to focus on one platform. I'm not trying to set a precedent that I don't want there to be a more powerful Switch. I wouldn't be covering all the leaks and rumors and speculation out there about the platform if it wasn't something I actually wanted. But I don't know if we're in a need stage yet. Nintendo might need it to keep sales going but do we as consumers need it? We have one of the biggest Pokemon games of all time coming this year, right? You know, I'm not even talking about Arceus. We kicked off the year with Arceus. The visuals were crap. Everyone loved the game anyways. We're about to get the Scarlet and Violet open world Pokemon game, maybe of our dreams of the last 20 years. And again, they're doing that on the current Switch hardware, Breath of the Wild 2, even if it ends up a new hardware can run on the current Switch. Harbors, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Current Switch hardware, Kirby and the Forgotten Lamb, maybe the best Kirby game of all time, Current Switch hardware, Metro Dread, was up for game of the year last year on the current Switch hardware. I think you're getting my point. What gets lost when we're talking about wanting something new, wanting something fresh, wanting something more powerful is that power doesn't give you amazing games. Power is just power. You can have a PlayStation 5, but if it doesn't deliver the content, what does the power matter? You can have your Xbox Series X, but if it doesn't deliver the games, number one criticism of Xbox Series X this year is it's not delivering on games in 2022. So without the games, what does that power matter? And what Nintendo's proving right now in year six is that with all of their development focused on a single platform, they're still bringing the games. So from a sales perspective, absolutely Nintendo should release a new platform. From a wanting to get all the third-party games to stop being cloud and actually be local on the system, they should want to release a new platform. Game developers probably want them to release a new platform. But from just enjoying games, sitting back, playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder's Revenge on my plane flight, heading off to vacation, just from the perspective of just playing games and being a gamer, I don't find myself begging for a new Switch to come out. Now, I have owned every Switch, version one, the version two, Switch Lite for my children, I got the Switch OLED for myself. I've owned every version. I've enjoyed the incremental updates and different things they've done, obviously Switch OLED being the most drastic quality of life improvement, but still no power difference. And I don't find myself playing the Switch any less. Now, I will admit, I don't play the Switch as much on TV. Now, I have this new TV back here as I did before. I find myself playing it more in handheld because obviously the resolution differences and stuff don't matter as much on a smaller screen. So I have changed how I'm playing the system because it's not that powerful and because I don't like looking at blurry images on a giant, you know, 80 inch TV. But I will also say this, switching over to an almost exclusive handheld experience has sort of reinvigorated the Switch. And I think that's one of the benefits. As it's not as impressive on TV, it still blows my mind that I'm sitting there on a plane playing Breath of the Wild. And I understand now if you got a Steam Deck, you're playing Elden Ring on a plane, right? Like you're on that plane playing one of the newest and greatest games of our current generation. And that is absolutely astounding and a big credit to the Steam and Valve and the Steam Deck. I get it. PC gaming rocks. I literally have a 49-inch ultra-wide $2,500 monitor that costs basically as much as my gaming ring does to get the ultimate gaming experience on PC. I love PC gaming. I got my Xbox back here. You guys know I like playing on that PlayStation. I love gaming and I love high fidelity and I love high frame rates. I love playing the best of the best at the highest visual quality. I love it. Miles Morales was absolutely stunning on PlayStation 5. I played that thing in quality mode the whole time, even though performance mode and quality mode I wish would just find a way to combine. But guys, as I sit here playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Shredders Revenge on my Switch, as I sit here looking forward to Xenoblade Chronicles 3 next month, as I sit here playing Mario Strikers as disappointing as that game might be video on that later, as I sit here contemplating, I find myself less and less feeling like I need a new Switch. It's more of just a one. Now, maybe my tune changes in 2023. Maybe it changes in 2024 if we're still on this Switch. I don't know. And I'm not going to complain if one comes on, but I'll be really happy if a new Switch comes up. And from a business perspective, Nintendo needs one more than I think they do. Like business-wise, if I'm Nintendo, I release it because it makes too much sense. But from a gamer perspective, I get it. I get wanting better. I get wanting more. I also get why there's probably millions and millions of you that are just completely satisfied with Switch as is. Sure, I want new Joy-Cons and Hall-sensing sticks on them. Gully kits making ones you can replace now in your Joy-Con. That's amazing. I want a lot of things to get better, but I'm actually okay with the way things are. So I want to thank you guys so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this video and want to continue the discussion down in the comments, I would definitely appreciate that. You guys are absolutely amazing, and I will catch you in the next video.