I hadn't really followed much about the Switch 2 other than reading the prices of games are getting out of hand. I wasn't particularly interested until a friend got one and informed me that does a much better job displaying games on high end TVs (I have an LG G4 OLED, one of the best TVs for gaming currently) and upgraded many Switch 1 games to noticeably better specs and 60 fps. The Switch 2 is really what the Switch 1 should have been other than the inflated game prices. I managed to circumvent the $80 price of Mario Kart World by getting the bundle, which is only $50 more. I got Donkey Kong Bonanza for $62 from a Costco sale, which should arrive in a few days. And I just upgraded the Zelda games for $10 each. I've seen the hardware compared to last generation, but it looks closer to this generation to me. Maybe close to Xbox Series S. Perhaps between a PS4 Pro and XSS. HDR initially seemed all jacked up, but they have some screwy settings that seem to be designed for HGiG. I made some tweaks, and then everything finally fell into place. Tears of the Kingdom looks like a new game, and Breath of the Wild also looks substantially better with a consistent 60 fps instead of low res 20 to 30 fps. The games that are fully upgraded or ground up Switch 2 games like Mario Kart World look very good and have good performance. I found a 512 GB memory card for under $80, although it has less usable space than most cards in this range. Nintendo has shockingly RAISED the price of the Switch 1 OLED, so I'm going to try to use that to my advantage and sell my Tears of the Kingdom special edition version of the Switch 1 OLED, which is in close to mint condition. I didn't play it as much as I expected because the performance of some games were pretty poor, which the new Switch addresses. Now a lot of those games look and run significantly better on the new machine. The Switch 2 is probably the least powerful of the current generation consoles, but this time it looks like it's just at the low end of this generation instead of a generation or two behind. It has some version of DLSS, although some games aren't even using it, suggesting the visuals of future S2 games could be significantly better down the road.
I'll probably get one eventually. I got the Switch 1 more for my son, but he lost interest in it and moved on to PC gaming. I didn't expect that to happen so fast.
A lot of the initial value of the upgrade is from the games I already owned but didn’t play because they ran so poorly. The Zelda games are almost like new games for me because I wasn’t enjoying low res, blurry image quality and drops to 20 FPS and didn’t play through them. I’m impressed with how much they have been upgraded, especially when I got HDR functioning properly.
Yeah I felt like I really gave the Zelda games a try, but they just ran so poorly I couldn't get into them.
I played BotW for a day or two and stopped probably a dozen times on Switch 1. It was tough to stick with it because things were hard to see, and it ran like garbage. It was absurd how much was overlooked by games "journalists" regarding the tech problems it had with all the Game of the Year and 10/10 reviews. Now you can finally play the game it should have been. I'm not familiar with Switch 2's built-in capture abilities. I searched a bit and found it needs to be a "compatible game" that is "from supported software," whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. I may post some video clips I can get something recorded that looks halfway decent. HDR is a really nice addition when you get it configured properly. The glow of the shrines or a glowing sword from the mechanical enemies and differences in lighting are very noticeable. Breath of the Wild runs at 1440p upscaled to 4K with HDR at 60 fps compared to 900p on Switch 1 at 30 fps with drops to 20 fps that it would hold there for multiple seconds to limit screen tearing, and no HDR.