Every Nintendo Switch game you can play right now and a look at what comes next!

Street Fighter II and KOF 98? lol. Where is Street Fighter IV, V, Tekken 6/7, Dead or Alive? Nintendo makes it hard for developers when their system is weak compares to others. I want to see more multiplatform games.

yeah, I need some shooters on Switch.

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Here's the copy/paste:

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Sorry in advance for the tl;dr, but I think the more thorough answer works better here. Kudos to anyone who gets all the way through it. :-)

It's still a little bit of an "unsettled science" just precisely how powerful the Switch is when docked (because it's more powerful docked than undocked). I mean, what is settled is that it's more powerful than WiiU, and less powerful than XB1, but just precisely where it lands within that spectrum I don't believe is absolutely settled yet. However, the more we see of the games, and more we get to know the system, the more powerful, and not less powerful it seems to be.

If we think of the power of the WiiU as represented by the number "1" (low), and the power of the XB1 as represented by the number "100" (high), then, yeah, undocked, we might only be looking at a Switch that's "10" or "20". But undocked, it's a portable, and should be judged by portable standards. So, a portable that's more powerful than the WiiU (and by extension, more powerful than the PS3, XB360, and waaaaaay more powerful than the Vita), that's actually INCREDIBLY powerful!

But that's only half the story. Docked, the GPU clocks back to 100%, from 40% when undocked, and the RAM clocks back to 100% as well. The only constant between the two modes is CPU clock so that logic isn't interrupted or messed with. It's been postulated that in that "1-to-100" spectrum of power between WiiU and XB1 that we might be looking at as high as "80" when the system is docked. That's much closer to XB1 levels of performance than it is to WiiU, amounting to a roughly full-generation-leap over the previous Nintendo. Not bad!

That will be powerful enough to handle big blockbuster games with only modest sacrifices to graphics and the like over XB1 and PS4. But the big question is whether that's what we see coming out of the system or not. Do we see that 80 narrative playing out, or do we see something more like 50, or even 30?

To look at "I am Setsuna", and see it running at 30fps vs 60fps, or to see that BotW is only upped to 900p from 720p on WiiU, with otherwise 99% identical graphic detail settings, or the sparsity of massive blockbuster games in the launch window may make one worry. But I think there's more to the story.

Gone are the SNES, PS1, Dreamcast days where a new system gave you a paradigm shifting leap in performance right in the launch window. Now, we have to wait a couple software generations before we finally get to reap the full fruit of that generational jump. It takes a few generations to get the juice flowing fully, and in the early going, the performance of the first crop of new system games can be a little underwhelming vs the late-cycle games of the previous systems. It happened that way at the dawn of the XB360 / PS3 vs XB / PS2, and now it's happened again with the XB1 / PS4 vs XB360 / PS3. So should we not also expect the same thing out of the Switch?

Therefore, what we need to be doing really is be focusing the lion's share of our attention not on how the Switch launch games are fairing against late cycle PS4/XB1 games, but rather, how similar the Switch launch looks compared to PS4/XB1 launch, and when we do that, we see similar trends emerging: very few PS4 and even fewer XB1 launch games ran in 1080p / 60fps, and very few had any kind of decent anti-aliasing. Instead, the launch window was dominated by 900p, 30fps, and significant aliasing. Gee, that all sounds a lot like the Switch, doesn't it -specifically BotW. In fact, it sounds EXACTLY like BotW! 1080p / 60fps and good AA as the norm are relatively recent developments on the PS4/XB1. But yet we expect them right off the bat with the Switch?

Another feature of the XB1/PS4 launch window were up ports of PS3/360 games - better enough to be the to-have version if you had both systems, to be sure, but not enough necessarily to compel you to plunk down on the all-new system for them. Do we see that with the Switch? Yep! BotW, sure. But even more impressive from this perspective is Fast RMX. It's a definitive edition of the WiiU racer Fast Racing Neo with all the DLC, all new content, and then substantially updated graphics. Fast Racing Neo ran in pseudo 720p - 600-something-p poorly upscaled to 720 and then further upscaled to final system output (usually 1080p), and with fairly rudimentary environmental lighting. Fast RMX instead takes the existing physics, and existing textures (upsampled), and runs in true native 1080p, at the same 60fps of the original, and with much more advanced, resource demanding lighting. This is PRECISELY the kinds of differences we saw between launch PS4/XB1 games and the late era PS3/360 games they improved upon.

Now I just said that we should be comparing launch to launch, rather than launch to non-launch, but there's one game we really should look at and that's Snake Pass. Sure, it's low res and low fps, but the anti-aliasing on it is really pretty great, and it's lush, vivid, rich, and detailed. And before we get too bent out of shape about it being 600-something-p, 30fps, consider that even the PS4 version runs in 30fps, and can only itself manage 800-something-p, with only a few extra gfx details, and anti-aliasing that's no better than the Switch version. So the compromises that were required to get launch-era Snake Pass to run on the Switch were fairly modest vs the 4th software gen version on the allegedly so much more powerful PS4. And I know, Snake Pass doesn't have the look or feel of a massive, hardware intensive AAA blockbuster, but consider that Doom 2016 runs in mostly full 1080p / mostly full 60fps on the original PS4 where Snake Pass, I believe, doesn't even run at full 1080 / full 60 on the PS4Pro! So it's a more resource demanding, power hungry game than it appears to be on the surface, and therefore, a better tech-demo than it appears.

And in that tech demo, in this early trial of the new system's hardware, what do we see? We see that the launch-era Switch game "hangs with the big boys" quite respectably. Not *** for tat, no. But close enough that porting similarly demanding games shouldn't be any tougher - easier, actually once the "1st-gen-stupor" wears off, since the Switch is as easy, or even easier to program for than the PS4, and has as robust, or even more robust support for all the latest cutting edge APIs than PS4 or XB1.

The picture this all paints is that the Switch is perfectly capable of blockbusters that only require very minor downgrades to make work. That sounds an awful lot more like the "80 out of 100" story than the "30" or "50" that all of those who are prematurely 3J4CUL471NG doom and gloom imply.

I think the bigger risk for 3rd party support will come not from CPU/GPU/RAM limitations of the Switch hardware, but rather, storage concerns. 32GB is a joke, and sd card support capping at 256gb only helps so much. Worse, I could be wrong, but I believe that ROM size caps at 32GB as well so for big games they'd have no choice but to rely on sd cards, and we'll have a situation where we're going to have just as much traffic going into and out of our sd slots as we do going into and out of our carrtridge slots. That's not good!

---BUT--- where there's a will, there's a way. And with hardware that's proving itself up to the task of respectable ports, with only modest downgrades, the amazing ease of programming for it, the ability to be a console and a portable all at once, the simplicity of switching between the two on the fly without interruption, the way above expectations demand for the system, and the way warmer than expected reception.....I have a pretty healthy confidence that we'll find that there's a will.

But three final points before I stop "tl;dr-ing" you:

1) let's say the Switch is actually less powerful than I think it is.....so? While there is admittedly a sense in which the following maxim is true of all systems, and a sense in which it's false of all systems, never has it been more true of any system than it is of the Switch that hardware might is not the most important, central thing.

The ability to be a console or a portable, or a tabletop, or (in time) something of a tablet is so captivating, and revolutionary that it can maintain a compelling value proposition on less hardware than a PS4 or XB1 could get away with, being tethered to a TV set, and relying on at least halfway decent approximations of games where the PC versions blow them out of the water, and console exclusives of a similar caliber as their perfectly respectable but thoroughly unamazing PC ports. These systems demand a certain level of power to be worth our time, a level I feel they attain, but don't really exceed. However, the million different ways to enjoy a Switch is a use-case unto itself, and for that, we would tolerate a lower spec level that would cause us to balk if attempted on a more conventional console.

Plus, there's the full support of the massively important Nintendo 1st party IPs that have caused us to maybe not happily, but all too willingly look right past hardware and 3rd party limitations just to have them for the past decade.....and the Switch, of course, will have those too.

So, I think it's way more powerful than a WiiU....but even if I'm wrong? So what, we're still good.

2) even if I'm wrong in my optimism over the eventually coming of big blockbusters to Switch, consider: the original Wii was an almost complete desert of blockbuster 3rd party games....and it tanked because of it....oh wait, that's not what happened. No, it sold more than both of the more powerful, 3rd party competitors COMBINED, until late life, heavily discounted sales finally overshadowed it after all three were well past their prime. But even still, it still outsold either of the other systems standing alone.

The Wii had nothing in the way of 3rd party, and represented even less of a hardware boost over the GameCube than even the most stingy hardware estimates of the Switch over the WiiU. And it was a SMASH HIT!

Nintendo doesn't need big 3rd parties to succeed. They have their own special magic that does the job. The reason the WiiU did so (relatively) poor wasn't directly because of a lack of power and a lack of 3rd parties, no. Instead, it was that the tablet controller never took off, became a giant albatross, and Nintendo's own first party was more or less a no show. That it didn't have hardware might or 3rd party software to bail it out was just the nail in the coffin, rather than the actual cause of death.

The Wii's "gimmick" was a smash hit, and the 1st party showed up. The WiiU's "gimmick" was a flop, and the 1st party phoned in. That's the difference. In fact, that's really the ONLY difference. Well, in the case of the Switch, we have already seen that its "gimmick" is resonating like a ****, and the 1st party is already steamrolling in with other major acts in the wings. A Metroid Prime, anyone? It's coming!

So even without the AAAs, all the ingredients are there for the Switch to be - not another WiiU, or worse as the "doom spoojers" are squirting all over the Internet - but rather, another Wii, or better. Plus, while not a winner-maker by itself, the final feather in the cap here is that while indie support on the Wii and WiiU was only so-so, the Switch is already shaping up to an absolute indie Mecca!

So, I think the major AAA blockbusters are coming in at least decent measure....but even if I'm wrong? So what, we're good.

3) It's not as if the PS4 or the XB1 or either of their present or future big brother iterations are any sorts of high holy hills, or gold standards for Big Bang major AAA 3rd party blockbusters either. No, that'd be the PC instead.

By the standards of "serious, real deal, thoroughly modern gaming PC specs" my rig is pretty decidedly "Average Joe".....and you know what? It absolutely eats the PS4Pro alive....and uses the standard PS4 and XB1 as after dinner mints. Think about how the consoles stack up then to the true heights of PC gaming?

Also, all this glib talk coming from PS4 owners about how the Switch is so underpowered: As a PC gamer, I think it's incumbent upon me to give that the full weight of response it deserves.....

........ready?.......

.........AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ....[pounds chest to get heart started again] ......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA........AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! That is SOOOOOO ADORABLE, Mr. PS4!!! I'm sure I have a cinnamon disc here for you somewhere!

Look, as one who loves the console exclusives of both the PS4 and the XB1 for one, as one who loves the veritable deluge of free and discounted content coming from XBLG and PS+, admittedly the two best services in all of gaming for two, as one who is a collector/hoarder of games and systems who doesn't get rid of stuff for three, and as one who grew up on consoles, has consoles in his very blood and of whose collection of 40+ systems / 1200-1500 games - most of which are consoles for four, I'll never willingly get rid of my PS4 or XB1.

But between the left fist / right fist one-two punch tag-team of the PC and it's incredible might, and the Nintendo Switch, and it's incredible flexibility / utility / novelty, the two conventional consoles have been made, in my opinion, to look like total @55 clowns, and for the first time ever, I look at them and have to ask myself "man, do I even still need these things anymore?"

Again, I won't actually get rid of them, but thanks to the PC and the Switch.......I could. They pale badly against the PC in terms of performance, and are complete non-starters against the Switch in terms of utility.

So anyway, all that just to say this: that we have SF2 Ultra and not SFV on the Switch? I'm not worried about it, and actually, probably look forward to SF2 -MORE- anyway! So I might not be playing SFV walking through the produce aisle at the grocery store.....neither will you. At least I'll be playing something fun! :-)

Cheers!