GOAT
Its Nintendo. They are always a decade behind on new technology.
Come 2032 or so they are going to be all about how great this technology that lets them create custom VAs for all their characters (so they never have another Marinet situation) is amazing.
They are not behind. Since they are not trying to catch up with Sony or MS. They purposely choose to use cheaper hardware and go a different direction. That’s not the same as being behind.
It’s their Blue Ocean strategy. They don’t want to compete directly against Sony and a trillion dollar company called Microsoft. Since the last time they did that it almost took the company under. They make a profit on each Switch sale since the first one was sold and they offer an entirely different gaming catalog that targets a different audience.
Nintendo used to be ahead of the curve with the N64, but you’re right that they’ve been trailing behind for a while now. The Switch still uses the Nvidia Tegra X1 CPU/GPU, which was released in 2015.
I would actually very much argue that the N64 is when they “stopped trying” as it were.
Sony (which is a can of worms on its own), Sega, and even frigging Atari realized that CD-ROM was “the future”. Nintendo… let’s skip the Sony aspect and just say they chose not to.
The end result is that everyone else had 700 MB-ish to use for resources and were working on finding ways to hide the load times (RIP Shang Tsung). Nintendo continued to use a cartridge that could hold 4-12 and later 32 and 64 MB. This meant dialogue and cutscenes remained almost non-existent and texture work was similarly VERY limited in favor of solid colors.
Its Nintendo and most of The Internet are still the kids on the playground looking to beat up the Sega kids so we mostly talk about the good parts of those consoles going forward. But it is always fun to watch one of the Influencers have that “So… outside of like four games the N64 REALLY sucked, huh? BUT THOSE FOUR GAMES ARE THE GREATEST GAMES TO EVER EXIST AND I STILL LOVE YOU MIYAMOTO SAN!!!”. Whereas we all almost universally agree “The Playstation had an amazing library… and most of them look like someone sharted on the screen” because… 700 MB is still not a lot for texture and audio work. And “Oh yeah. The Sega Saturn existed… That was the tower of power, right?”
And from then on? It was gimmick city. The Gamecube was “portable” because of the handle. Wii is obvious. Wii U was marketed atrociously but actually was way ahead of its time in terms of second screen (… I actually loved my Wii U) but was marketed like another condom for a wii mote. And the Switch is obviously the gameboy/console hybrid.
