The Nintendo Switch

ehhhhhhh disappointed
it's a handheld that's priced as a console, with console software pricing as well
region free is good but paying for online is not
liked a lot of the software announcements but most of the ones I'm interested in look like they have just begun development
no mention of what will happen with VC etc
get the feeling that this is going to stumble out of the gate like the 3DS and require a quick price cut
definitely considering getting Zelda on WiiU (£40 on Amazon vs £60 switch version wtf) and waiting a year or more

In what sense exactly is it a handheld priced as a console?

It's a handheld console that uses a mobile chip for CPU/GPU, there's a pass through dock so you can hook it up to a tv?

When it launches in the UK it will be less powerful than an Xbone but £60 more expensive?

and a handheld with a battery that might only last two-and-a-half hours, no less :(

it is going to have a tough time competing with xbone and ps4 when, like zappi says, it'll be more expensive and doesn't include a pack-in game either as far as i can tell

Oh plus £75 for an extra pair of joycons.

The new Mario looks stunning but yeah, almost everything else about this feels wrong.

I'm possibly a little out of the loop - is there a handheld game that looks anything like those two videos?

weirdest announcement for me is the port of skyrim - like there's a sizeable community of hardcore rpg fans who have nonetheless been holding out for nearly six years just for the opportunity to play it on a nintendo machine

They're going to sell a shitload of these things

i'd love for that to be true, but i just don't see it - who are they going to be selling these to?

and why the switch and not a ps4/xbone/ios/android?

Let me try to explain that. It feels dumb and indulgent to blow $400 for a console just to play a few AAA RPGs on my TV. I'm not into shooters so everything else on the PS4/Xbone is moot, even after the price drops. But I'll try a AAA RPG I've heard about on the $300 console that seems like my whole family might enjoy.

(This post deliberately constructed to induce maximum "Actually..." in response)

and why the switch and not a ps4/xbone/ios/android?

Two words: Animal Crossing

Two more words: New Zelda

Also honestly if you think this thing is competing with phone / tablet games you're not thinking it through

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I'm possibly a little out of the loop - is there a handheld game that looks anything like those two videos?

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, January 13, 2017 8:22 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark

i think ipad is probably capable of this type of graphic output, hampered by the fact that pure touch is possibly the worst control interface ever created

Also honestly if you think this thing is competing with phone / tablet games you're not thinking it through

maybe, but it is competing with phones / tablets in terms of available, disposable household dollars to spend on digital entertainment and i dunno if the switch is going to be persuasive enough to draw that cash over its competition

i see your argument about the family appeal of the switch and i really hope it's true - i want nintendo to do well but i just don't see the switch being the no-brainer family entertainment system the wii was, at least based on what they've shown so far

3DS came out nearly 6(!) years ago, the games shown are exactly what a handheld system would be able to output in 2017 given the huge advances in mobile tech over the intervening period.
nice to see Bomberman still exists though!

DoA

hampered by the fact that pure touch is possibly the worst control interface ever created

EGGSACLY

The switch has things for your thumbs to do and plugs into a TV and stuff for non-gamers to dabble in; as such, it has little to no competition at this moment.

Before you say "but so did the Wii U" don't forget the Wii U was competing with its predecessor, which everyone already had two of, and also in 2012 tapping a touchscreen to win was still kind of amazing and novel

3DS came out nearly 6(!) years ago, the games shown are exactly what a handheld system would be able to output in 2017 given the huge advances in mobile tech over the intervening period.

I don't get why spec arguments are relevant to Nintendo products. We have been over this material.

ANECDATA WARNING: my niece and nephew are seven and 10 and they've got no issues with playing minecraft and first-person shooters for hours on their ipads using purely touch controls, which seems like total fucking madness to me but there you go

i'd like to have faith that nintendo will be able to successfully convince non-gamers that they can dabble in stuff on the switch, but if the best pitch they can come up with is that it has things for your thumbs to do and it plugs into your TV (exactly like playstations and xboxes do, to the untrained eye) i think they're gonna struggle.

the wii had the unique pitch of motion controls so the gaming-challenged could play tennis on their tv similar to the way the played actual tennis; the switch-pitch is that you can use it like a tablet or on your teevee which isn't far off the double-screen pitch of the wii u, and could easily be misinterpreted as yet another tablet for the kids to lose behind the sofa or drop and smash on their floor at mcdonalds just like they did with that goddamn ipad mini last year.

at least they haven't called it the wii thrii i guess?

xp Not just Nintendo, PS2 was the weakest in its gen iirc. As always it comes to price & software, and that's where Switch going to struggle initially imo. Most unfathomable bit of the presentation was getting Sega & Suda up on stage to say they might make something for it, maybe. Why bother?

Yeah never mind gamepads I am curious about what's going to happen when (if?) my niblings' generation start having to use mice.

The Joy Con is also two motion controllers, mind.

two motion controllers with, currently, no killer motion-based app and facing the prospect of being greeted by a collective shrug from a non-gaming public, some of whom have moved on to other digital novelties like vr on their phones

They're going to sell a shitload of these things

Yep, all the people being like "PROCESSORS" are really misunderstanding how and why the Nintendo brand works.

this is another nintendo console that i basically only want to play the zelda game. have successfully resisted for a couple generations now but but but

there's like maybe 6 games tops on any new machine that i'll ever want to play so at least this thing is likely to have a higher hit to shit ratio

I am reasonably certain that the core non-gamer Nintendo audience is not that bothered about VR on their phones. I agree that software needs to be there. I don't think either of us, at this point really have any reason to imagine that this will or won't be greeted by a collective shrug - how enthusiastic were people about the wii at this point?

Like watch the video of Jimmy Fallon flipping out like a gibbering buffoon over this toy and multiply that by the audience that watches Jimmy Fallon, and all these Kotaku-lite posts about how "people" would rather either play Candy Crush or [some difficult PS4 game, I have no concept of this system] look nuts

given that you couldn't buy a wii for love nor money for months after launch, i'd have to say that people were rather more psyched at this point in the hype cycle xp

but i do concede that there's no way of knowing for sure that this point how the switch will pan out

Like watch the video of Jimmy Fallon flipping out like a gibbering buffoon over this toy and multiply that by the audience that watches Jimmy Fallon, and all these Kotaku-lite posts about how "people" would rather either play Candy Crush or [some difficult PS4 game, I have no concept of this system] look nuts

ahem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzsRHGtEWfI

the fallon factor did jack fucking shit for the wii u

i might be reading the Wikipedia page wrong or it might be lying but it says the WiiU has outsold the XBone by over 4 to 1 so Nintendo must be really hurting

looks like for some reason those wikipedia xbox sales figures stop in 2014 as opposed to sep 2016 for the wii u? here's some golobal total sales figures correct as of june last year

PlayStation 4 Total Sales: 42,183,599

Xbox One Total Sales: 21,679,269

Wii U Total Sales: 13,139,054

Yeah that's the thing, are people underestimating just how much Wii U has bombed? Because there still seems to be a lot of "but it's the nintendo software that'll sell it" thinking here plus some "kids will love it" but a) neither of those saved the Wii U and b) kids aren't a big enough proportion of gaming's audience any more for you to make them your key target and still sell the kind of volumes consoles do these days.

And yeah, one triple A game at launch and it's one which is also being released on a console I already own (in fairness not many people already own that console so that's not the biggest problem).

(xp)

(yep and those total figs include a year of extra sales for the wii u versus xbox one)

Actually it's odd that they didn't show any Pokemon Stars footage given that it's already confirmed? That really does have potential as a system seller and you'd think they'd be able to get it out within the first few months at least, given that it's basically a port of an already finished game.

one triple A game at launch and it's one which is also being released on a console I already own

i'm pretty sure this has never happened before, although i'm open to being corrected, but it doesn't seem like a great omen does it? and it'll be eight or nine months before mario odyssey comes out, assuming of course it manages to hit its launch window. that's a long time to wait between blockbuster releases

The thing with Wii U, is that it was just like a "better" version of the Wii (who cares). Switch is like "Here is the next generation of both our console and our handheld and working in the digital age." Its a complete reboot of everything and is made totally replace your Wii, your Wii U, your DS, your reliance on "disks," and has an IRL social component that doesn't involve people coming to your living room or bedroom. There is no way this thing isn't going to be huge even if it totally sucks ass

Twilight Princess was Gamecube / Wii, just as the obvious comparison.

But was not the only AAA, true.

IDK Gamecube was fairly successful and I think that went like 2 years from launch with Smash Bros as like the only top-flight title. this is just what they do.

Its a complete reboot of everything and is made totally replace your Wii, your Wii U, your DS

unless you actually want to keep playing the games you've bought on your wii, your wii u, or your ds, in which case you'll have to keep them cuz it's not directly backwards-compatible and nintendo have not been shy about asking users to pay for the same games over and over again on their systems

Uh no? Gamecube had Luigi's Mansion at launch and Mario Sunshine within the first year.

The last clause there is not really necessary for your point, and also nonsense - I can play my GC games on my Wii, and my Wii games on my Wii U.

xp to bg there - though lol at Luigi's Mansion as a top-flight title.

i do think nintendo at least is aware of how much a flop the wii u was, given how much of their switch lineup is retooled reworked versions of the wii u catalogue.

the switch does have some advantages with the general public over the wii u. the name, for instance. i talked to a surprisingly large number of people who thought the wii u was the same as the wii. very hard to sell a console your target audience thinks they already own.

the question which is still open is whether nintendo can survive as a first-party-only console maker. decades of open hostility towards third party software companies (designing systems that are difficult and expensive to program for and then failing to promote third-party games) have taken their toll, and the wii debacle seems to have been the last straw.

couple that with the, uh, questionable leadership situation since iwata's death and, you know, i want them to succeed, but i'm a little uncertain as to how they will.

The last clause there is not really necessary for your point, and also nonsense - I can play my GC games on my Wii, and my Wii games on my Wii U

good luck playing your 3ds virtual console super mario world on your wii or your wii u without paying for it again for each

There's a decent breakdown here of why this isn't looking all rosey: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-13-nintendos-precarious-reveal-runs-risk-of-switching-off-fans

But I dunno, it's not like I'm not going to get one of these myself, probably not at launch but definitely in time for Odyssey - I'm a sucker for non-linear mario games and I'm lucky enough to have disposable income. It's just that I also work in games retail analysis and I know how hard it's been to shift nintendo stuff in general over the last few years. I'd love this to be their big comeback, but it already feels like they're making too many of the same missteps they've made with other recent platforms.

Also Luigi's Mansion was a GREAT game fuiud. Actually so was Star Wars Rogue Leader and that was a gc launch title too.