@e3man01: "Yes, you can downgrade games to look like 360 games, IF they're 360 games." Umm, that's not a downgrade, then.
"The Switch is more like the Wii." Ummm, no. The Wii U had .352 Terraflops or about a third of what the Switch has. (Wii U Specs: http://geekermagazine.com/xbox-one-vs-ps4-vs-wii-u/; Switch specs: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/14/nintendo-switch-specs-less-powerful-than-playstation-4/.) The Xbox 1 is about 1.3 Tflops, so the Switch is in terms of TFLOPS significantly closer to the Xbox 1 than it is to the Wii U.
For GPU clock speeds, the Wii U hit 550MHz, while the Switch Clocks in at 768 MHz. Again, it closer to the Xb1's 858 MHz (85MHz difference) than to the Wii U (218 MHz difference). (Src: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/console-specs-compared-xbox-one-x-ps4-pro-switch-a/1100-6443665/; https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/142002-wii-u-cpu-and-gpu-clock-speeds-revealed-not-the-end-of-the-world-but-not-great-either).
So, all told, the Xb1 has roughly 1.2x as many TFLOPS as the Switch and about 1.1x the clock speed. Most Xb1 games run at about 900p (src: http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_Native_Resolutions_and_Framerates). That's a little more than 1.5x the pixels (and thus the required power) of 720p. So, if a game can run at 900p on Xbox, it should be able to run at 720p on the Switch. At the very least it should be able to run 600p. And this is just by reducing resolution; if we instead reduce lighting or AA, we can maintain a higher resolution.
There is, in short, no reason to think the Switch can't run downgraded versions of most Xb1 games. The power difference between it and the XB1 is just not that great.
The reason the Switch isn't getting 3rd party support is the same reason the Gamecube got less 3rd party support than the PS2 despite being more powerful. It's the part of the reason the N64 got less support than the PS1 despite being more powerful. It's that there's no market for 3rd party games on the Switch. Nintendo could rectify that by giving 3rd parties incentives to bring their games to the Switch. But they won't. Because Nintendo never learns.
@e3man01: "No, it can't." Oh well, since you say so.
"Not as simple as just lowering the resolution."
Right, you could also turn down AA, AO and other fancy graphical goodies. But if you think you can't find a combination of settings to lower to make it run on Switch, I need some actual evidence of that. Because you can absolutely lower most PC games to Xbox 360 levels of quality.
"The Switch has the 360/PS3 Skyrim, not the higher resolution SE." No, it doesn't. Look at a screenshot. It's clearly not the original. It's probably not going to be the SE, but it's clearly not a straight port either. Frankly, even if you don't trust your eyes, it wouldn't make a ton of sense for it to be the original either: the SE is more stable thanks to being 64-bit and the performance difference is fairly minimal. Moreover, Bethesda's been pushing console mods which would make much more sense if the Switch version was downgraded version of the SE rather than a port of the 360 version--mods made for original do not in general work for the SE.
@Tomcat2007: If text's a problem at all, it's an incredibly minor one. For one, while games are typically designed to played on a larger screen, they're also designed to be played further away. But second, that's amongst the easiest things to fix and devs do it all the time--heck, fans often do it to enable older games to be played at modern resolutions.
I just don't buy that the Switch couldn't bring third party games over without more expensive hardware. Sure there would probably be some games that could never ever run on it, but I'd be willing to bet that most could run on (at least) the equivalent of lowest settings on the PC version.
@Tomcat2007: Not designed to be played on a hand-held? It's a screen with a controller. It's not like they're adapting it to mouse and keyboard. I think the novelty of playing games on the go is enough to lure gamers over. After all, the novelty of playing Nintendo games on the go has so far made a huge difference between the Wii U and Switch. But even if not, and even if gamers buy the Switch for exclusives, it doesn't follow that they couldn't be persuaded not to buy there third party games if Nintendo brought them. And even if they couldn't, this isn't going to be Nintendo's last console: if they make the effort to bring 3rd parties over now, it could help them bring gamers over to their next system.
@joshrmeyer: That's absolutely right. Of course, that means that Nintendo is missing out on a large segment of the gaming population. They could try to remedy that by incentivizing devs to port games that might not otherwise be profitable in hopes of eventually appealing to more customers... Or give just keep giving Mario and Zelda. That can't backfire.
@e3man01: Skyrim is NOT the original. It's not the SE either, it's somewhere between the two. But even so, there's no reason to think games could run at much lower settings--I bet the switch could run PC version's minimum settings in most cases.
People will say "well, Nintendo fans don't care about COD, they just buy it for Nintendo IPs." That's true, but it's also the problem. Nintendo has a really cool idea here, and if they could get third party support, they'd be able to pickup some non-Nintendo fans--i.e., some gamers that don't care about Mario or Zelda. If I could take even a seriously downgraded version of Nier or RE 7 or Red Dead (or even a port of RDR!) on the go, then I'd be interested. But, for me at least, I've already got more games than I can play so, missing out on the 82nd Mario game just doesn't move me.
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