Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]
nintendo.com
nintendo.com
Besides an original Gameboy (which I loved), I've never owned a Nintendo console. After seeing this trailer, it is an instant buy for me in March.
The only thing I want to know more about is the online store. From what I understand, Nintendo's eStore has a lot of shortcomings in a lot of weird areas. I hope they address those. I have an Xbox One and about 25 games, all of which were purchased digitally. I'm not sure I could go back to physical versions of games.
Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better.
My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must own Super Mario World 3 or 4 times by now.
(Obviously they're not actually forcing me, but it would be good to have cross-platform pass for that kind of content)
1. They're slow.
2. There are far too many screens/taps necessary to do things.
Loading each new screen seems to take at least a few seconds, and there are way too many of them. I'd estimate you could remove like half the screens in the 3DS shop purchase flow through better UX design. Just compare how long it takes to buy something on either system to how long it takes on Android or iOS.
edit: oh yeah and downloading takes large games takes a REALLY long time. I downloaded the new Sonic game for my 3DS the other day on the guest wifi at a Google office and it took like 3 or 4 hours. It definitely wasn't the wifi that was the constraining factor, speed testing on my phone showed it at like 200 mbps.
But the real killer is: games are still tied to hardware, not user account. Which means, if your console dies, you lose all your purchases. (Unless that's changed VERY recently.)
If you're used to the Xbox store like the grandparent, going to the Nintendo Shop is like stepping back in time a decade.
Blu Ray Player (that I never use), check. Plex client, check. DLNA client, check. Digital Optical Out, check. Netflix, Amazon Video check. Gaming machine, yup.
It completely removes the need for a HTPC.
The WAF of using a controller to control video playback is low. We have a Roku 3 and it's far simpler to use than our 360 or PS4. Plus it's never "off". Side benefit is that I can remote play the PS4 when someone is using the Roku ;-).
The Switch could plausibly fill this gap, but I guarantee that those little controller thingies are going to get lost.
Honest question, I don't know. Just wondering if Nintendo is continuing the trend or if they're still stuck in the past.
Haven't run into any as a casual user – Nintendo managed to make the purchase workflow easy even on a 3DS, which is impressive.
http://i.imgur.com/DlUMgxb.png
The Switch might offer some advantages now, but it's not going to take long before mobile phones offer similar graphics, and gamepad experiences. At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
I think Switch will sell enough to be profitable, but Nintendo is going to be squeezed out of the hardware market. They can't compete with Playstation and Xbox for the console market. They can't compete with Steam on the PC and laptop market. They'll also lose the mobile market to the iPhone, and Pixels of the future.
Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development. Imagine Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros, and Kirby games distributed on Playstation, Xbox, Steam, iPhones, and Android. That's a huge market waiting for them.
Nintendo's first party IPs are partially what keeps it alive. Think about it. Mario and Mario Kart have more or less been the same for generations, yet people (including myself) keep coming back for more.
Also, the Wii marked a decided family-friendly focus for Nintendo. Everyone complains about Nintendo's online ecosystem being so abysmal. This is rightfully so. If you look at it from the perspective of a parent with children, it's basically the perfect platform. Aside from their IPs, Nintendo consoles don't offer much for older gamers that Sony and Microsoft does way better. However, Nintendo consoles do get tons of games that are child- and family-oriented.
But they already do now. The only problem, albeit a big one, with gamepad experiences is the constantly changing form factors of phones over time.
>> At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
It's not about the hardware, it's about the software. And in Nintendo's case, it's about having the latest and greatest first party Nintendo games. Which, with few exceptions, are not available on other platforms. The bottom line, enough people are still willing to pay for proprietary hardware to play Nintendo's games.
Yes: Nintendo's offering allows for "couch co-op" and/or "party games"—that is, local multiplayer. It's Nintendo's bailiwick, and always has been. Every feature in that video (each device supporting two players; ad-hoc pairing of N devices to get 2N players) is about local multiplayer.
Phone hardware is generic; you can force it into a gaming mould, but it won't support gaming experiences out-of-the-box in a way that a gaming console does. And because of that, devs will make single-player or online-multiplayer games for phones (for the people who care to specialize their devices themselves), but no devs will bother making local-multiplayer games for phones (because that assumes everyone in your friend group has bought into the same specialized peripherals.) This is why the Ouya failed: it assumed the Android ecosystem had local-multiplayer titles, or that devs would build one once offered a TV "target." It doesn't, and they won't.
Apple does want into the local-multiplayer space (they're working toward it with paired iOS+tvOS apps) but as I said, iOS devs just aren't interested; meanwhile, Nintendo consoles have Nintendo developing first-party "flagship" local-multiplayer titles to prop them up, and to encourage and provide a role-model for third-party devs who want to do the same.
> Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development.
The other thing Nintendo is "about", in the modern era, is developer lock-in. You buy Nintendo consoles mostly because of their exclusives. How do they achieve so many exclusives? By making them in-house, yes, but also by designing their consoles to do unique things, such that third-party devs will write games that exploit those unique console features... and then find themselves unable to make a sensible port to any other console. Every Nintendo console is designed with the idea in mind that "if it was a plain-and-simple PC, you could just enjoy the same game on another console, or on an emulator. So let's make it not just a PC."
The Wii's Wiimote is a pretty good example of this lock-in effect; but it was eventually cloned—by Microsoft and Sony both. (They never intended anyone to make games just for the Kinect or the Move; instead, their strategy was effectively just to cancel out Nintendo's de-facto exclusivity and encourage devs to make their "motion" games into cross-platform releases, rather than Just Dance et al remaining Nintendo-exclusive.)
But the best example is the DS. Make a game for two screens, with touch-interaction only on the bottom screen? it's going to just look plain silly if you do a direct port of that to iOS or Android. It's a "natural" barrier in the way of porting.
And keep in mind that [3]DS games still vastly outsell iOS games in the mobile gaming market. Nintendo's strategy works. They make mobile hardware specifically for gaming, and people buy it. And they make money on the hardware, not just the games!
The Switch, though, creates a second, higher rung to Nintendo's mobile strategy—like the iPad is to Apple's. This isn't a home console, it's a mobile console for people who want a high-def gameplay experience and local-multiplayer.
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In Nintendo's previous generation, we saw Super Smash Bros 4 and Mario Kart: two titles that were developed in parallel for both the 3DS and the Wii U (a lot of work!) They did that work because the Wii U was "a thing attached to your TV", while the 3DS was "a portable thing", and they wanted people to be able to play in both contexts. Other games that would have been perfect for this setup (e.g. Splatoon, Pokken Tournament) were left behind.
Effectively, those were all just Switch games that were released before the Switch was ready for them. They'll play better as ports to the Switch than they played on either the Wii U or the 3DS.
Console with graphical power that rivals Xbox One and PS4. Check.
Industry-standard architecture and tooling (Unity), allowing third parties to flood in. Check.
Blends their successful portable division with their console division (this has been a common refrain for awhile now). Check.
They already addressed multiplayer, although they could go further with that.
This is going to be a major windfall for them.
This thing has to run on batteries. It has to include mobile-quality batteries and a screen, which is an added cost that other consoles don't have.
With those components in mind, I fully expect it to have comparatively weak hardware so they can hit a comparable price-point.
Where do you get this from? The specs haven't been released and they're showcasing some previous-gen games. I doubt this will have the processing power of the original Xbox One or PS4, let alone the souped-up versions of those consoles that are coming soon.
It's probably safe to assume it will be a customized version the latest or an upcoming model. I believe this puts the system in the PS4/Xbone ballpark.
It's too bad, FPSes on the Wii with the motion controllers were so natural even with the tiny lag.
The native program has been what major publishers use though, and that one is harder to get into (It was known as Warioworld)
Does it?
> Industry-standard architecture and tooling (Unity)
I'm struggling to think of a Unity game that actually looks as good as one of the other modern engines.
Umbrella Corps is darn close to AAA as well (http://store.steampowered.com/app/390340/).
Just because most Unity games are indie doesn't mean that AAA studios can't make a good looking Unity game. It just means that most studios using Unity don't have the money to make a good looking game.
Why would you think that? It's a mobile system, running mobile CPU/GPU with a price target of a mid-market smart-phone. It's isn't going to match the PS4 or XboxOne, no way.
>This is going to be a major windfall for them.
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if they'll be able to run the latest AAA titles, especially with the new MS and Sony consoles coming out soon. So they'll have the same problem as they had with the Wii and WiiU - you buy the console for Nintendo games and that's it.
Almost certainly not. It's a tablet, it's very unlikely it's going to equal the home systems with 100W power supplies and huge fans.
I've tried to get into VR with the oculus and the VIVE, but no, it's just not for me. Happy to see Nintendo do what they do best: come up with a great formfactor, but let games be games.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43uSXA9qUe8 [2] http://www.nintendo.com/3ds/ar-cards
Bravely Default, the Square-Enix RPG, had an intro where a fairy crawled out of my carpet and flitted around. I don't remember any more AR in that game, but it was kind of a neat gimmick that I hadn't seen since unboxing the handheld.
Nintendo seems to have built something they hope is simple, but entertaining.
I think your comment reflects a sentiment that I agree with which is that HMD based systems today do not give the same degree of awe that happened when the NES came out - or even the playstation.
I'd rather see Nintendo invest heavily ($5BN+) in an AR VRD and infrastructure that changes the landscape. But nobody seems to want to do that. Again I chalk it up to lack of imagination/leadership.
While we probably can produce great AR content today and produce headsets to display it, it will likely take almost another decade before it can be made portable in something you WANT to use.
I'll never understand the marketing motivation to show a bunch of people getting together for a social gathering and togetherness, then cram together to watch / play on something with a screen the size of a hardback novel.
But I'm glad Nintendo doesn't seem to be giving up local MP: It's the best part of having a console, and dropping it is a REALLY BAD IDEA.
Also local split-screen multiplayer is harder to do since you have to do two (or more) graphic rendering at the same time, so dropping it allow the dev to spend more time on the rest of the game.
Not an easy drive to make with triplets, but we loved it. Didn't make a peep.
It looks like you'll be able to use the standard Switch controller as two "half controllers." Sure, you get limited functionality, but one person with one standard (portable!) console and one multiplayer game like Mario Kart can say those all-important words to anyone, anytime: "Want to play?"
Because if it can't do everything else my current tablet can, I'm gonna have to carry a tablet AND this thing. Done right, Nintendo can make this thing the first real challenger to the iPad for mass-market adoption. But they've gotta treat it as a first-party Android device and get updates out ASAP and not muck with the interface too much. I'm willing to bet they could work out a rev-share agreement with Google on the Google Play store and Google Play Apps (and keeping their own Nintendo licensing scheme).
But let's not kid ourselves here: Nintendo is a Japanese company and it operates like one. That means they'll try to own the entire value chain and miss out on any network effects, while simultaneously moving themselves from a market with a 5-10 year refresh cycle to one with a 2-3 year refresh cycle. While it means they could sell more tablets to repeat customers, it also means that they have less time to be patient for success (as happened with the Wii and WiiU) since it also increases customer churn. Network effects and platform lock-in are a lot more important when the refresh cycle is shorter, because there are more opportunities for your customers to jump off the train.
I wish Nintendo luck, and I think that this is a good usage model. But I'm not convinced it's compelling enough to displace the tablets that people are already carrying around with them unless it can also duplicate the capability of those devices.
I also have no issues carrying a separate device for that. IMO, touch gaming for anything beyond the basics is terrible. Even Minecraft is way better with a mouse and keyboard or controller.
Having an all encompassing device from a company that has continually nailed portable gaming is something I will continue to buy. The big screen of this, for me, is an added bonus.
If Nintendo did what your asking, it would be a pretty compromised experience. The hardware for gaming is significantly different than generic tablet hardware. (For example, high-res displays are great for Web / Facebook / Twitter / e-Books, but are drawbacks for a gaming console. High power GPUs are great for games, but are often underutilized in tablets. Any non-casual game needs high quality, thick controls, but traditional tablet users favor very thin hardware).
Perhaps in the future, technology will advance, and there won't need to be a trade-off between these two usages. But today, by asking Nintendo to make this a generic Android tablet product, your asking them to compromise something their fairly good at (gaming), to give you a tablet experience that still likely won't be competitive with the iPad anyway.
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I think it's better to position the Switch as a gaming console (as Nintendo is doing). That way, the Switch doesn't really need to do any tablet stuff to be successful. The Switch only needs to provide a great gaming experience that convinces the 65 million people who own a 3DS or Wii U to buy a new Switch in the future.
That's actually a great idea. Someone else pointed out this press release [0] from Nvidia saying they're making the chip. Tegra's can run Android (Nexus 7, 9) which has the latest OpenGL ES and Vulkan support.
[0] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/
In the world of non US working people, many sit in a bus/metro 2x a day, 30-60 mins each way :)
ever heard of mass transit?
I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but the video didn't show any touching of the screen or a stylus (which the 3DS and Wii U both have). I wonder if this thing is even capable of being used without the controllers.
In a space currently dominated by two nearly-identical competitors (XBONE and PS4), I think Nintendo has the opportunity to capture a large portion of the market.
I really love the slide-in controllers.
A few things I hope for would be:
* Open specs for the slide-in controllers so that third parties can satisfy various niches (like the fighting game community)
* A standard USB-C or micro-USB charging port so that people can use their existing power banks/chargers
* A well implemented eStore (with purchases that aren't bound to a single device) with a huge back catalog of games from their older consoles
* Compatibility with Nintendo's older wireless controllers
Well, it looks like it uses bluetooth. If it uses a standard bluetooth stack, they might let other BT controllers (such as the PS4, Wii U Pro and Xbone) work with the system.
I really have a lot of high hopes for this, but I don't wanna get super excited without knowing any of the specs.
Different people have different priorities when it comes to gaming.
Thought AMD would be their supplier before, but I don't think they have any mobile chips
What about the A[n] series? Not sure whether those include GPUs.
As a parent, I have 4 of the current gen DS systems. One for myself and one for each of my three children.
Nintendo has really struggled to stay relevant in the console space though as seen by the Wii U's underwhelming sales.
If this device is priced right and can continue on their virtual handheld monopoly then they become a sort of defacto console system for the masses. For the first time in ages I'm curious to see what is going to happen with Nintendo.
Part of the issue is going to come down to pricing. With a handheld each person needs their own device. If this can be kept sub $200 it's sort of a no brained. If it is priced similarly to consoles today it's a harder sell.
I am also left wondering if this could end up sold as different packages. It could be packaged as a full console edition and a handheld only lite edition at different price points.
Glimpses of Mario, what appeared to be Skyrim, too - more third party support this time perhaps?
I'm most interested to see the price and the spec of the machine. Xbox One and PS4 seem to have become more homogenised in terms of architecture than the last generation of consoles (PS3 was especially weird), if the Switch follows suit it would hopefully encourage more third party support. Assuming the power is there.
Its apparently running a Tegra chip[1]. Exact specs... well we can only guess at this point. So its more similar to an Android tablet than the other consoles.
So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
[1] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/
That could be a double edged sword. I think Nintendo doing a "me-too" console that is like the PS4/XBone/Steam would hurt them more than it helps them. And as it is, Steam already offers a portability element if you've got a decent laptop with a discrete GPU.
>> That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
At this point, I think Nintendo is going to struggle no matter what they do. They're in third place and unless Nintendo can make it worthwhile for 3rd parties with huge hardware sales, it's not going to be pretty.
If Nintendo is smart, they will find a way to let console devs leverage the power of Nvidia's libraries like GameWorks which may actually be a huge boon to 3rd party adoption. But that all depends on what kind of OS and stack they choose to go with, and whether they consider developer effort an issue. If it's going to fit a different use-case with mobile and docked performance profiles, it may be difficult to port games to it with AMD hardware anyways.
As for price, I'd expect it to undercut the competition, but also to be less technically capable: That's usually how they play it.
Edit: oops, watched it again and yep skyrim is also in there. Sorry.
It's amazing how slow game consoles change minus beefed up computing capabilities, and while Nintendo has had some hit or misses, this shift looks like a vastly superior improvement over the initial ideas brought forth by the Wii U.
It does indeed use cartridges:
http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/20/13344618/nintendo-switch-n...
I think the word you're looking for is "tactile".
Price point: How much is this going to cost per unit? I'd imagine it's going to be much cheaper than the other current gen consoles
Battery life: If it doesn't get more than 1-2 hours, or else come with some way to extend the battery life via an accessory, it will be kinda underwhelming.
That being said, this is a very intriguing idea, and is a good focus on an easy to understand concept. Funny image: Two people playing on a Switch with the controllers snapped onto it, doing some top down game like air hockey or something.
With the Shield's battery saver setting, it gets about 4 hours, and 7 hours for streaming. Again, I'd like to think Nintendo is doing better than this here.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/20/13344202/nintendo-nx-share...
As a piece of hardware, this looks really cool and innovative. But I don't actually know if the product-market fit is there.
Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.
Swiitch? ;)
Really? I gather with friends to play Smash on a gamecube every two weeks or so. Bring a few beers, play some good music, pass the controllers around and it's lots of fun. I also co-op a lot with my girlfriend.
5V usb port at 2.1A = 10.5W = battery gets drained even when plugged in.
It has a 20Whr battery, if I'm at 90%, and I'm wary of draining it below 10%, that leaves me with 16Whr = an hour at most of gaming on battery alone, on a brand new full capacity battery.
Doesn't help that the device gets pretty darn hot also.
Portable gaming sounds fun until you remember that batteries suck, sure they've improved much but what improved is also the power management. 3D/Graphics are still a power hog, so you get a tiny package with almost no battery to speak off and a heating element all in one.
Hey but if you play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tt2kgames.... or somethig similar at least you know you can defer hypothermia by about 10-15 min if you are on batery :)
But, on the other hand, Nintendo's games are just plain fun. I didn't buy a Wii U because I didn't want that giant tablet controller and its charging stand taking up space on my coffee table, but every time I saw Splatoon I wished I had room for it.
Perhaps this can fit in my life.
They even managed to get 3 new IP on the system, where in previous consoles they were berated for never coming up with new IP and simply rehashing things over and over again. Splatoon in particular looks like it will stick around for a long time, Mario Maker probably as well (they even mentioned possibly doing a Zelda Maker in the future...I really hope that comes true).
It meant that the Wii was not really viable as your "only" system if you were interested in those games. While the NES, SNES, N64, and Gamecube were either competitive or the leaders technically in their gen.
The Wii was a huge opportunity for Nintendo but they couldn't adapt to modern game play or sales to take full advantage of it. So perhaps it wasn't a failure but it was a huge disappointment.
But still, Nintendo just hasn't been "king" ever since the SNES. The N64, GameCube, Wii and Wii U all disappointed a lot of people and each stumbled in significant ways.
(I'm not one of them, I'm a huge Nintendo fan)
My worry here is that Nintendo may be making the same mistake that BlackBerry made: doubling down on hardware when they should be building out their app ecosystem on dominant mobile platforms.
That said, the Switch looks cool. Really freaking cool. I just wonder if it'll be enough.
What I find most notable in the video is their nod to competitive-gaming / esports, which Nintendo has such a long history of shunning/disrespecting/mis-understanding. Maybe they’re finally trying to atone for the debacle around the whole Smash scene? (Then again, maybe it’s just the marketing people who put this video together thought that would be fun to add and have no idea about Nintendo’s history here.)
This could be a great new marketplace for indies that make pay up front mobile games.
F2P mobile games monetization strategies rely on huge install bases that the Switch is unlikely to reach, so porting these games over may not make as much sense, but it could still be worthwhile to port to the device in order to provide more gameplay options to existing users.
There was a an article (gamasutra maybe?) about how the N with the Wii, fundamentally had no idea what their competition was up to or understood gaming notions that had become very commonplace by that time -- like online matchmaking for gaming, etc.
However, as a gamer, I think this is definitely setting a differentiable and right path that doesn't tie Nintendo to just selling another port target for games.
I'm reminded of this old Reddit post that presages some of what's in this video:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FutureGaming/comments/2eox69/the_un...
Nintendo is about children and families and friends playing together. Online gaming is about playing in a global community of millions of strangers who may become friends or turn around and spoil everything.
That risk is accepted by gamers who play multiplayer online games, especially competitive games with online matchmaking, but it doesn't fit in the "we're all friends and family" narrative.
I think it's brilliant. Looking at the concept video, it seems like local coop multiplayer is built right into the controller but they also show local network multiplayer for parties and competitions. It's trivial and emphasised by the design choices.
Games that do online multiplayer well generally don't work well with local multiplayer. What works well for one doesn't necessarily work well for the other. This reminds me of GameBoy link cables and 1990s LAN parties -- and I think that's an aspect of gaming that has been neglected by other companies who favoured the online experience.
Also it makes perfect sense for Nintendo not to attempt to get a foot in the door in an oversaturated market they don't have any experience in. This is the first time since the original Wii that I've been genuinely surprised by Nintendo and it looks a lot less gimmicky.
EasyPrivacy apparently breaks some Youtube embeds and only fixed it partially. In the end, it's almost never the content blocker but the lists you choose to enable.
edit: but thank you for the link!
This may be naive, but while Disney strikes me as profits first, and nothing else really matters, and everything else is a byproduct, both Nintendo and Apple strike me as companies that actually give a shit about the final product, and profits are just a vehicle to achieve excellence in that.
Also, the entire selling point is being mobile crossover. That seems like a great secondary feature, but alone... that's it? Where is the imagination that brought us the Wii?
I can only hope Nintendo attracts enough development to make interesting (perhaps Pokemon Go-influenced) unique crossover use cases, beyond just playing the same game the same way on a TV and at the airport.
I really hope they fix some of the issues with the eShop - it needs work, but its improved a lot!
What happens when you lose the right part of the controller? can you buy them individually or do I need a whole new pad?
If my screen gets scratched - can I just replace the screen section?
What happens to my save data - if my bag gets damaged/stolen, will I lose all my save data or is backed up in the cloud/the switch device?
will it come in different colours - I like that the 3ds is so customisable!
You can't have good local portable multiplayer if one player always has their fingers on the screen, blocking the other's view.
Motion would be very haphazard, due to all the usage styles. Where would the motion sensors go? If it's part of the tablet, you can't play while docked to your TV. If it's part of the joycons, you'd probably have to remove them to play some games, which would be again annoying if it's docked. If the pro controller has motion controls as well, some games requiring both joycons wouldn't bother using it. You'd have to have at least 4 sets of motion controls across the parts for it to work ubiquitously.
All in all, it makes a lot of sense that we might not see those 2 clunky features returning, which is great.
But all the bits (dock, tablet, 2 joycons, joycon mounting stump, pro controller) is a bit too clap-trap for me. I had used Wii Fit for a while on someone else's Wii and liked it, so I got a Wii U version. The addition of the touchscreen plus wiimotes in the Wii U made it a mess of always picking up and putting down things, which was super annoying. Having fewer input schemes, and using them well, would be preferable, in my opinion.
Also, it will be quite the challenge for nintendo to gain momentum with the handheld part of the console. Everyone plays on phones and tablets these days, so i don't see much incentive on that part.
They should've stalled pokemon go and launched it with the new console.
That would create a massive demand for the new console.
They're also the only company in the handheld market right now, with a surprising amount of sales, (even with the 2DS), so they don't really have to gain momentum as much as keep it.
I think putting their next handheld and console in the same basket means massive sales, especially for one side or the other that hasn't really crossed over yet. It's gonna be really interesting, and I'm pretty curious to see it in real life.
The crucial element that is going to determine whether I purchase this or not is will it support location-based gaming? Touchscreens, gyros, and cameras aren't necessary, but location based-gaming and the spontaneous, real-world social interactions it generates was the only reason I played Pokemon GO. I do understand that designing games with this in mind and making it fun for all players is a difficult if not impossible problem to solve for those who don't live in dense urban areas
I'm also disappointed that Nintendo isn't developing for VR yet. While I respect them for not following the herd, if any developer is going to lay the foundational design patterns for VR gaming, it's Nintendo. Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of time did this for 3D.
It'll be interesting to see if this becomes more than a gimmick.
Only if you make game console purchasing decisions based on hardware alone.
I would think that the hardware matters less if your primary interest is in having access to the latest and greatest Nintendo first party games like Zelda, Mario Kart, etc.
In handheld mode, one wonders if they were able to keep parity with the battery life and the touchscreen capability that the DS/3DS had. Losing those would be a significant minus.
Unfortunately, while it's a rather good gimmick, it seems like Nintendo is repeating its usual mistake of sacrificing gaming power for it. Releasing a device with a 720p screen in 2016 is almost as bad as releasing a device with a 400x240 screen in 2011, in my opinion.
Nintendo has a very bad habit of making devices that compete with the previous generation of its competitors' devices instead of the next one.
Also an interesting decision to cover the docked screen (probably to keep 100% compatibility to the single mobile screen and not waste resources while powering the big screen).
I'm sure we'll learn more over the next 6 months... but there's a lot of things you could do with a dock like that.
However, it looks as big as an iPad mini. So logging it around, I might actually want it to have tablet functions too.
Hopefully as the technology develops in a couple of years we'll see a Switch Mini to take the place of the NDS, so at least it will be small-enough to lug around easily.
Skyrim is a five-year-old game at this point. It's not exactly an indication of graphical horsepower.
Lots of consoles are going to be sold this xmas, so Nintendo announcing now may help hold people off from switching to msft/sony.
The only better strategy would have been an Xmas launch, a spring launch means they aimed for xmas but the schedule slipped.
The only thing I can't see is whether the screen is a touch screen, which would be necessary. Which may also preclude using 3DS games in TV mode. (Unless they do something weird with Wiimotes or something. But I'm not sure that would play well enough to be worth doing.)
If it's backwards compatible with both 3DS and the WiiU, and perhaps even the Wii, this thing will come out of the game with an absolutely killer lineup. ('Twould be a pity there would probably no way to port the physical disks that you already own across, though. The 3DS games would just slip in, so they'd have an ironic advantage over "real" Wii games.)
Which means breaking compatibility, but certainly makes it possible for them to lower costs reduce power consumption and iterate more quickly.
Nobody needs to write games for it, it already runs Unreal, Unity, and the creation engine, which covers about 90% of the AAA games on the market right now.
I would say with 100% confidence there is no way it would replace your phone.
And I would say with 90% confidence it will not replace a tablet. It may have a web browser, YouTube, Netflix, and a few token apps but don't expect full Android or anything. I could be wrong of course.
Can I interpret that as "we missed the holiday season, and pre-announce this because we think its Osborne-effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect) will be smaller than its effect on the sales numbers of our competitors?
Saying that though, I am almost certainly going to get one.
With that said it's a smart move to use the same controller for both use cases.
Overall looks pretty slick, interested to see how this plays out.
This is the problem with the gaming industry. It's the equivalent of very smart engineers using their skills on the web to find ever more effective ways to make people click on ads. It's such a waste of human talent.
Gaming is different but not really. Most of the popular games have no real redeeming qualities. They are black holes into which youth can get sucked into, burn hours, days and years and, in extreme cases, ruin their lives. This, I think, is despicable.
If you want to do well in gaming you have to use your skills to find ways to create addictive games that shift a person into a Pavlovian state where they want more, they keep clicking the buttons and, eventually, they send you money. This has certainly been proven by the iOS space. Games like "Clash of Clans" is one of many examples of this.
Getting truly creative to find ways for people to engage with more intelligent and useful activities is very, very difficult. And so, to usurp part of a phrase that paints an amazing image...when they go low, we go lower.
I have long been disenchanted with what the gaming industry has done to kids. It's making money at the expense of their brains and emotions. It's selling drugs in digital form.
I didn't used to think this way until I saw the effect on my own kids. To make a long story short, my two little ones started to lie to us and play a couple of these addictive games on their iPods.
We have a simple rule at our house: On Saturday's you can play the available games for a couple of hours. The rest of the week play with legos, go outside, play with the dogs, etc.
This worked very well for many years (almost 18 to be precise). In fact, in a lot of cases they'd play less than two hours because they'd get sick of it and prefer to go for physical play.
Until a couple of games surfaced. And they, like evolved bacteria, became immune to the mechanism that made my kids decide to stop playing. Soon we would discover them playing the games in secret under their blankets at 11 at night instead of sleeping. Warnings did not work. And, after a couple of them we took the iPads and iPods away. They had become destructive devices rather than the opposite.
My kids were lying to me in a manner which I would imagine was no different than kids lying about taking drugs.
They've been off the iOS devices and these games for a year. They get their devices back in January. Cleared of all the addictive games. We'll see what happens.
So, yeah, I look at a video like the one for the Switch and immediately imagine how many lives it will destroy if used as portrayed.
The problem is that the word 'game' is too vague. Nobody would think to put 'viral videos' and 'Tarantino\'s latest film' in the same pile (except perhaps those who really dislike Tarantino), and yet that's what we do with gaming.
Some games were as good as some of the best novels I've read (Planescape Torment, Thief, System Shock). Some multiplayer games left me with friends for life (UT, Quake, Halo). Some games offered a creative outlet just as rewarding as the Lego or tin soldiers I had growing up (Minecraft, Neverwinter Nights level creation, Chip's Challenge), and some games actually tricked me into learning interesting things (Assassin's Creed 2, Civilization, etc.)
I'm not a parent, but if I had kids I'd probably limit their gaming too, but I'd put way more emphasis on controlling the kind of games they played. Cow Clickers (or most MMORPGS)? Not so much. Minecraft with coding mods? Hell yes!
All that said, if you'd be making an argument against sitting inside and media consumption in general, I'd probably agree a little more. There is still something fundamentally different about playing outside and interacting with other kids directly, and I hope I can make my kids do that instead of just staring at screens all day.
How can it possibly be powerful enough to attract third party developers?
Doesn't this compete with 3DS?
My NVIDIA Shield Android TV box is Tegra based, and it drives 4k games pretty darn decent. It's no PS4 but I don't need that (and PS4 can't do 4k games) and you don't need that to run good (non-VR) games. And Nintendo is apparently using their own custom Tegra SoC so it's likely a step above the couple year old Tegra that is in the Shield.
Also the promo video shows Skyrim being played on it. Whether it's real footage or not, I don't know, but it doesn't look bad at all, and requires some decent GPU heft.
And if they're smart about this the switch to an ARM SoC means they'll be able to iterate more quickly and produce new higher spec'd or cheaper models to follow up and keep market, like they should have done with the Wii.
Direct link to the trailer video
Why not create a VR/AR console hybrid that lets you create things at home and then experience them in the real world... digitally graffiti your town at home then go out and check out your art work and or messages? Maybe that's an app already... leave your friends messages in certain locations seen via an AR app?
And yes the 3DS has some minor AR, but that was just a tiny little gimmick/experiment.
Im failing to see how this design is superior to the Wii U's approach
Yes, this device would have more opportunity to suffer physical damage based on the nature of its design but I think that cost is easily justified.
This looks more interesting though: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smachteam/smach-z-the-h...
And it's supposed to run Linux. Recent AMD GPU means it will work with amdgpu/radeonsi for OpenGL and radv for Vulkan eventually.
However after disastrous Jolla tablet crowdfunding, I'm not so eager to back hardware campaigns anymore. But I'll surely buy such device if they'll pull off making them in the end.