Switch Screenshots

It still boggles my mind that the Switch has a dedicated screenshot button but no way to take high-quality screenshots.

I understand wanting to avoid the case where a kid quickly fills up their small memory card with huge image files and then can’t download more games or save their progress and doesn’t understand why. It seems totally reasonable to me to take 720p compressed JPG screenshots by default. But why not put in the option to take full resolution PNG screenshots for those of us with more space? I’ve got a 400 GB memory card in there; let me use it!

How do you respect the value of shareable play artifacts enough to constrain the hardware with a dedicated button, but then not provide an option to make good use of it? This is a lot like the compromised mechanics I spoke of before, and I can’t help but notice it’s Nintendo again.

PS4 defaults to JPG screenshots but provides an option to save higher-quality PNGs instead. This reason by itself is why I play cross-platform AAA titles on PS4 instead of Switch. If Switch gave me this ability, I’d happily play them there instead.