Tech analyst says Nintendo Switch will be powerful in a different way over PS4 and Xbox One. We also hope that we can hook an external hard drive to the dock. Or at least have an expandable drive in the dock. For now, it looks like 128GB SD cards for launch. Takashi isn’t the first one to make a comparison like this.
Nintendo Switch may not have the sheer raw power of the PS4 and Xbox One but it is still powerful in its own way
Nvidia has criticized the CPU in the PS4 & Xbox One as well. And Ubisoft who are now really excited about the Switch has also been complaining about the CPUs in the other consoles. We think they’re right about the CPU being more of a factor in how the Switch will measure up against the other consoles.
Many devs have complained about the PS4 CPU being a bottleneck for the system. A lot of people think the GPU of consoles matters more but that is looking at the situation from a wrong manner. The GPU renders the images you see onscreen which is what we’re mostly concerned with in most games. The CPU handles the overall structure of the game, the AI, etc. When you look at Assassin’s Creed Unity when it launched and all the bugginess you’re seeing were the results of an underpowered CPU. The quote from the Wallstreet Journal reporter is that the Switch is powerful in a different way than PS4 and Xbox One. We suspect that’s what he means & it definitely fits with Nintendo’s blue ocean approach and with Nvidia’s prior criticisms of the CPUs in the other consoles.
For a system like Switch, the CPU is more important. If the CPU can run PS4 games with no problem, but the GPU is half as powerful, just run the game at half the resolution–no problem. If the CPU is half as powerful as the PS4, it doesn’t matter how good the GPU is, it won’t be able to run a PS4 game at a reasonable framerate. 720p is roughly half the pixel count of 1080p. But even if they downgraded a game to 480p (don’t think they will do that), you could still run the game, whereas if the CPU was underpowered you couldn’t.