...how the hell did this get cleared, anyway?
The Activision/Blizzard/King buyout by Microsoft is currently before a US court, and a part of the deposition has revealed a proposed level of power for the next dedicated hardware from Nintendo.
In a deposition as part of an injunction hearing brought by the United States Federal Trade Commission, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was quoted in an email to Nintendo President Shunturo Furukawa that the successor platform to the Switch has "closer alignment to 8th generation hardware", specifically the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. The email was read in response to a question regarding whether or not Call of Duty could be ported to the Switch (or its successor).
"Given closer alignment of Gen 8 platforms and our previous offerings on PS4 and Xbox One, it's reasonable to assume we can make something compelling for NG (next generation) Switch as well." - Bobby Kotick
The FTC is currently before the courts attempting to obtain a restraining order/injunction to prevent Microsoft from closing the $68.7bn deal to acquire ABK: the deal would be required to close by July 31 or be renegotiated to prevent Microsoft from paying US$3bn to ABK for failing to complete the deal. A hearing with the full commission is scheduled for August.
My concern though is was the Switch's strong third party support a happy accident? Did Nintendo put any thought into that when designing the hardware or did it just happen? Is it something they consider important for the Switch 2?Nintendo added more RAM to Switch because Capcom asked nicely.
Anyways, a lot of the speculation that I've seen up till now does Suggest the "Switch 2" can stretch to PS4 levels, if not in raw marketing numbers at least in what actually shows up on the screen. And the longer we go on without the Successor releasing, the longer technology has to get more inexpensive/more powerful/more efficient.Perhaps more importantly, a Switch successor would be using more modern technology as well as being compatible with the latest middleware etc.