DF Direct Weekly #94: Has Switch Run Out Of Steam - Does It Need A Next-Gen Successor?

The big topic of the moment - has Nintendo Switch hit its limits? Is performance not good enough anymore and do we need a next-gen successor? John, Rich and Alex share their thoughts on the current Switch and a prospective replacement model. The team also discuss Microsoft's new Developer_Direct initiative, Xbox's 'carbon aware' credentials and finally... what on earth is happening at Ubisoft?

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:37 News 01: Does the Switch need to be replaced?
00:30:33 News 02: Xbox “Developer_Direct” to showcase first-party games
00:39:30 News 03: Xbox becomes “first carbon aware console”
00:49:43 News 04: Ubisoft has financial difficulties, cancels several upcoming games
00:57:01 DF Supporter Q1: Should Microsoft switch to rechargeable batteries for their controllers?
01:03:31 DF Supporter Q2/3/4: Any thoughts on the PS5 liquid metal console damage story?
01:09:42 DF Supporter Q5: Could shader compilation be handled with a separate app while the PC idles?
01:14:52 DF Supporter Q6: In 10 years, will high-end PCs be able to brute force their way past compilation stutters?
01:18:19 DF Supporter Q7: What do you think about gaming laptops? Is their negative perception just because of price for performance, or is there more to it?
01:23:03 DF Supporter Q8: What does DF think of producing the weekly DF Direct show at 4K?

[MGsubbie]

The main reason I want a Switch successor is that I primarily play Switch games on my 4k TV. Having games like Breath of the Wild run at 900p with no AA upscaled to 1080p by the Switch, which is then upscaled (bilinearly) to 4k... The results don't look that great. But a theoretical Switch running DLSS to upscale much better to 4k... It would look significantly better. And it wouldn't require a huge chip.

Edit : All these people telling me not to use it on a 4k TV. My old 1080p TV died. I'm not going to buy a 1080p tv just for a Switch.

[SwitchUpYt]

Totally agree. While we might not "need" one; it's certainly time we had one. Exactly as you say, some teams simply cannot afford the time/money with low level coding. Throw in a blatant lack of care in titles like Pokémon and it's starting to get a little frustrating for owners. Particularly when we know on overclocked hardware most of these games can hold 30fps.

[MrGermanpiano]

DF Direct Weekly makes every Monday much better. Always a pleasure to listen to your discussions.

[Moravias]

Possibly the best podcast style show when it comes to gaming right now. Thank you guys for bringing professionalism and passion back to gaming, it was sorely missed in a sea of mediocrity, click-bait, and lazy/cheap reaction videos that unfortunately seem to flood YouTube content these days (with several exceptions).

[LifeCodeGame]

Great video! It's always interesting to hear different perspectives on the Switch and its future. Keep up the awesome work!

[exzisd]

I've watched the channel for a few years now when I heard about you guys from Spawn Wave in multiple stories. I used to just watch a video here and there but I watch all the content now and love the podcast. I mostly listen to audio while I'm at work and it makes the day pass by faster. Thanks for the great content. Hope 2023 is another great year for everyone at DF.

[SyntaxDaemon]

This show is always a highlight of my week. The passion and experience you guys have really comes through, and you always have interesting perspectives.

[eqjase]

I totally agree on keeping the resolution targets 720p and 1080p. I’d much prefer better frame rate than image quality.

[WusijiDoctor]

Always a great start to my week, being greeted by Rich's "Heveryone".

[useless]

Tbh i think even 10 years from now there will still be switch games being produced (similar to psp)

[ryanfisher]

on the note of shader compliation in a seperate window before launching the game, this is exactly how the new star ocean does it on PC

[thecooljohn]

It's not just about "oh well we need better performance for third party titles"... Their 1st party games are more often than not very magical, inventive, beautiful, novel experiences and those are also being held back by the hardware. Their 1st party studios will be able to continue to innovate and impress with the restrictions lifted; their imaginations allowed to run wild.

[pAdude]

I just grabbed a switch last week and I liked it more than I had expected, but only as a complimentary console to a PlayStation or Xbox. To me it's just a fun little machine to play 1st party titles and RPGs

[KoolMB]

Sadly the switch will continue to sell as long as there are people out there still settling for poorly optimized games and ports....
The Pokémon Scarlett/Violet incident has opened the eyes of some, but unless Zelda: TotK runs like hot trash no one will complain and Nintendo won't do anything.

[SeanNoonan]

Yep, I opened up my PS3 controller recently and the battery had expanded to the point that the controller housing was broken. I managed to fix it with some ebay parts - but it was a real pain putting it back together :D

[DakhniURDU]

You guys need to address the HDR settings situation in many games where they have an in game setting as opposed to a console settings and each game has a different setting and the actual nits vs what the numbers say in game are almost always different. This is something a lot of people are trying to figure out and you guys will gain a lot of views and thanks as well

[Neoxon]

I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t get a ton of *new* big games this year from Nintendo, but the strength of the likes of Zelda (as well as Pikmin & Fire Emblem) will be enough to carry the Switch 1 through what will likely be its swan song year.

As for Call of Duty, I’m pretty sure Microsoft specify mentioned the new console entries being brought to Nintendo hardware. So yeah, that’ll likely either require a Switch 2 or a cloud version for Switch 1 (or both). And given the 2024 will likely be the first year of that commitment, I’m leaning towards the former.

[steveco]

AA batteries for Xbox controllers is a great feature - Rechargeable AA batteries are great these days and hold charge in storage. They're easy to swap out so you don't need another controller in case it goes flat and long term it's reliable as John explained.

[anonymous_coward]

Regarding Q5, the Steam client on Linux already pre-compiles shaders for games that do not have any explicit support for Steam doing that and it has been that way since several years prior to the Steam Deck. The pre-compilation that Steam does on all Linux systems works just as well at eliminating stutter as it does on Steam Deck. The only difference between Steam Deck and Linux desktop shader compilation ends up being that the shaders on desktop can't just be downloaded and need to be locally compiled before running the game. Playing the FF7 remake on desktop Linux I would not know about the stutter issue if DF hadn't mentioned it because I just don't encounter it.

[tamasmasable]

Love watching these at work, thanks in advance for a great Saturday morning