news Seriously, Nintendo, It’s Time to Release a Switch Pro

The Nintendo Switch has a performance problem.This isn't news for Switch fans (or haters). The limitations of its humble Nvidia Tegra X1 chip were visible in early exclusives like

Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which ran at 720p docked yet sometimes dipped below 30 frames per second. Still, the issues were rarely distracting. But today, six years after the Switch's

release, the cracks visible at launch have widened into gaping cracks—sometimes, literally. IGN's Rebekah Valentine saw this first-hand while reviewing pokemon scarlet and

Purple. “These games run like garbage,” she says. “There are also tons of bizarre clipping issues where Pokémon can get caught in walls or underground, or the camera gets

stuck at an odd angle and show an empty void on half the screen.” The issues are too numerous to detail here (read her review for the full scoop), but easy to summarize. They're

bad. So bad they sour what should be a refreshing open-world spin on Game Freak's usual Pokémon formula.It's Not Just PokemonPokemon Scarlet and Violet are singularly terrible

examples of how modern Switch games perform, but they're not the only games that struggle. Bayonetta 3 ambitiously targets 60 FPS but falls short, with many detours to 45 FPS and

below. The Switch port of Sonic Frontiers is drastically scaled back, running at or slightly below 30 FPS and suffering major object pop-in besides. Some publishers, such as Square

Enix, have given up on “real” Switch ports of graphically demanding games like Kingdom Hearts III, instead releasing cloud releases that stream the game from a remote

server.It's not all bad news. Splatoon 3 achieves a stable 60 frames per second in gameplay (though the city sections are 30 FPS) and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 runs at a much more

stable 30 FPS than its predecessor. Yet these improvements are small comfort to Switch fans hoping for ports of Elden Ring gold Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. These games, along

with many others released on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, are unlikely to ever see a Switch release. The gap between the Switch's capabilities, and that of its competitors,

is too wide for most developers to bridge.It's a problem, but not a surprise. The Nintendo Switch is six years old. The Nvidia Tegra X1 chip that powers it is even older: it was

first released in 2015, meaning it was already a bit out of date when Nintendo released the Switch. A 2019 chip revision improved efficiencyboosting the battery life of new Switch

consoles, but performance was unchanged. The Switch's lackluster performance might be a contributor to slowing sales. Though a hit for Nintendo with over 114 million consoles sold