Nintendo Switch

Holy shit, its Nintendo new console!

OH MY GAWD GUYS I AM

Completely unimpressed

Small cart based games, so no physical backwards compatibility with Wii or WiiU. Sucks because I am contemplating a WiiU and if this could play those games I might have been interested.

It's a neat concept though. Looks like it's what they wanted the WiiU to be.

I like the idea of this with the playing tings multiplayer everywhere and hooking it up too anything.

With my only interest in Nintendo being Fire Emblem, Zelda, Metroid and Pokemon, when two or three of those are out I would pick up one of these. The only question I have is will the 4 button controllers be shit for multiplayer. With the number of buttons we have on games now that wouldn't really work so well on some games. If this encourages split screen gameplay though I'm in.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Small cart based games, so no physical backwards compatibility with Wii or WiiU. Sucks because I am contemplating a WiiU and if this could play those games I might have been interested.

It's a neat concept though. Looks like it's what they wanted the WiiU to be.

No reason it won't have digital BC

Some people are speculating on the possibility of the Switch being backwards compatible with the 3DS, although I think that is farfetched. That would be pretty cool, and that would also give you DS compatibility. The real question I have is whether or not the games developed for it will be designed for a classic gaming pad or more like the last two consoles with motion controls as the base.

I honestly though that would be an interesting idea for Nintendo just to make compatibility for both Wii U and 3DS so it would just save Nintendo from making another handheld (as Switch would just be both).

Of course I doubt it and seeing the console now, its most likely not going to have backward compatibility. That is already a bad point for the switch.

If Nintendo's new console is as powerful as let say the PS4 or Xbone, they might have a chance let be honest, the PS4 Pro and Scorpio are not worth the investment it seems and it takes years before the next consoles to arrive, which Nintendo will be more prepared.

The problem I think I am gathering if this is just turning another idea "innovation" to "gimmick"

So are nintendo still making a handheld?

I think this IS their handheld.

I think its going to be BOTH their new console and new handheld.

Now nothing is confirmed and a handheld could still happen (as while Nintendo is sucking in the console war, Nintendo's handheld sells faster than an aids cure.), so we'll see what happens.

I guess if this flops they'll make a 1DS to confuse the shit out of people a little more.

So we're getting a sandbox mario like sunshine... not sure what to make of that.

Sandboxes dont seem to suit platformers for me.

Its also apparently for fans of action games... I don't like the sound of it.

Have you seen the pricing for this?

The base Switch is £280, and for a machine than is still noticeably less powerful than the vanilla Xbox One and PS4 hardware - both of which are over 3 years old now. Nintendo are pushing the local multiplayer capabilities quite hard, but if you want additional "Joy Con" controller-end-thingies, they're about another £75, or you can get the more "classic" look controller for £65. Local multiplayer is great in theory, but getting eight people together is going to cost over £800 if you factor in the hardware purchase as well.

Which, of course, is ludicrous. No one in their right mind is going to pay that kind of money.

Games - the few so far confirmed - are allegedly going to retail at £60 as well. Want Zelda? You could just buy yourself the Wii U version, because that's retailing at £40. Mario Kart Switch is a port of Mario Kart 8, it just costs £60. Oh, and its getting Skyrim as well. But not until the end of the year, by which time that will be a six year old game. A very good six year old game, sure, but by that point the Remastered edition will have been out for a year. Surely every one who has any interest in it will have played it already on the other formats?

I'll always love the history of Nintendo and what they've given us over the past decades, but I just cannot see Switch being a success. What's more damning, is that I don't think it deserves to be, not if they're going to gouge their would-be customers on pricing in such a manner.

I completely agree. The actual reality though is Nintendo consumers barely buy games. So to actually keep themselves in the home console market they can encourage people they will have lots of multiplayer fan so they buy loads of controllers (seriously N64, Wii users were the only people I knew that seemed to have 4 controllers).

Selling there 1st party games with mark up will also help maximise profits. I really hope third parties start realising Nintendo does barely anything to help sell there games, I mean look at Wonderful 101, which was highly praised, but is possibly the worst selling game that actually was in the press.

I also get really annoyed by the word innovative being used constantly around Nintendo. This apparently is the justification of the mark up you pay. I'm always tempted to play Zelda, but unless they sort out the price I'm never going to bite.

It would be better for everyone if Nintendo became a third party developer.

Superbuu3 wrote:

I completely agree. The actual reality though is Nintendo consumers barely buy games. So to actually keep themselves in the home console market they can encourage people they will have lots of multiplayer fan so they buy loads of controllers (seriously N64, Wii users were the only people I knew that seemed to have 4 controllers).

So much truth right here!

I think I purchased maybe five or six games in total for the Wii before I sold it, and I've got two 3DSs (the vanilla "old" 3DS and the New XL), yet I only now own four games.  How ridiculous is that?  Also, I still have my N64.  And yes, I do have lots of controllers, but only because the analogue sticks had a habit of feeling crappy after six months!

Quote :

I also get really annoyed by the word innovative being used constantly around Nintendo. This apparently is the justification of the mark up you pay. I'm always tempted to play Zelda, but unless they sort out the price I'm never going to bite.

There's a thin line it seems between something being a gimmick and being innovative, and they don't always fall the side you perhaps think they ought.  Nintendo Wii?  Innovative.  Xbox Kinect?  Gimmick.  Wii U Gamepad?  Gimmick.

I'm not adverse to spending money on a hobby; as above, I've bought two 3DS systems, two Xbox Ones, two Xbox 360s, two PS2s, two PS3s, and within the last 6 months I've bought a honking great 4k TV to play it all on, but I need to see the value in doing so. Zelda games are always excellent (usually, anyway; Twilight Princess left me strangely cold) but yes, there's no way I'm spending £340 to play Breath of the Wild, especially when the Wii version could be had for a lot less than half that, were you so inclined. (From what I've seen the performance difference is pretty negligible as well, though that might be a result of the game being developed for Wii U and the Switch version being a pretty hurried port.)

Kaio wrote:

It would be better for everyone if Nintendo became a third party developer.

I'm inclined to agree, though with the caveat that maybe they could perhapsconsult on hardware and accessories because they undoubtedly have some excellent ideas, and I can't help but think the industry would be poorer for losing them entirely, but you can't sustain and support hardware on one innovation / gimmick alone, especially when that hardware is overpriced and - yet again, -underpowered in comparison to its direct competition.

I was reading an article today about the new Zelda, and how Switch is going to have a problem with internal memory.  PS4 and One launched with 500GB, and that wasn't really enough, so they are now being offered in 1TB (or very ocassionally, 2TB) guise as well.

So, what have Nintendo seen fit to do?  Grace Switch with a minimum of 500GB?  Nope.  250GB?  Nu-uh.  120GB, the same as the ten year old Xbox 360 Elite hardware?  Nope.  Not even close.  They've allegedly given it 32GB of internal storage space.  Yes, thirty two gigabyte. Given that a portion of that is likely to be reserved for the operating system, users are likely to get around 25-30GB of usable storage.  So you might have enough to store maybe two games on it.  Exterior storage is going to be as essential, basically, even if I was playing Devil's advocate and suggesting that it would reasonable to assume games won't use as much memory as a PS4 or XO game does.

Further adding to the cost is the news that the only way to charge the Joy Con controller when in use is by use of an accessory, costing another £30.  Otherwise you can dock it on the console, but obviously this isn't an option if you're actually playing.  

You know what I said above, about Nintendo's pricing feeling like it's totally out of whack with what the system (and the competition) offers?  Yeah.  As if the retail cost of the games wasn't high enough as is (let's face it, no one is going to retail them at £60 )in addition to the base cost of the system, you'll need to fork out £30 to charge your controller, and then fork out for an SDXC memory card.  Yes, you can get them for about £20, but that only gets you around 64GB.  If you want something with any kind of longevity, you're lookign at a further £100+ for a 256GB card, or if you want the same 500GB storage you'd get out of the box minimum with PS4 and XO, you're looking at a further £200.  That would take your total hardware cost for Switch to £500.  

I don't like being negative about it, but Nintendo seem to have fucked this up royally.  It's a farce.

Sounds like a handheld console that has a bunch of accessories that turn it into a home console.

It seems very much like they're trying to promote is a system that is versatile enough to be both handheld and home console, and some of the tech involved is very impressive (the scanning, rumble and infra red built into each half of the Joy-Con) but the pricing is just all wrong.

I guarantee there'll be hundreds of them on ebay for ridiculously inflated prices prior to launch though.

So I now see how Nintendo are legitimising £75 controllers. Apparently they consider the left and right half worthy of being sold seperately and yours for only £42. Thats stupidly ridiculous when you consider the lack of buttons on their half controllers.

Its a bare minimum to have two sticks on a controllers. It seems we're going to have severely dumbed down multiplayer games.

One thing that i find odd is Wii U had the tech to allow the tablet and the tv to output two different images. Given the base need to be in the docking station to use the console this seems like a step backwards.

Watched a video this morning where the Wii U and Switch version of Zelda Breath of the Wild were compared. The reviews pf the game have been massively positive, though that's no real surprise; even Twilight Princess got rave reviews at release, and it left me cold.

What was most disappointing was that even on Switch the game was dropping down to 20fps in places. I know the game is essentially just a port of the Wii U game, but even so that's hardly good news for the undoubted killer-app of the Switch.

Time to get a WiiU I reckon.

SimianWonder wrote:

Watched a video this morning where the Wii U and Switch version of Zelda Breath of the Wild were compared.  The reviews pf the game have been massively positive, though that's no real surprise; even Twilight Princess got rave reviews at release, and it left me cold.

What was most disappointing was that even on Switch the game was dropping down to 20fps in places.  I know the game is essentially just a port of the Wii U game, but even so that's hardly good news for the undoubted killer-app of the Switch.

When you watch things in Nintendovision all your dreams come true. Thats not going to matter at all for people purchasing the game and theyll buy it and possibly complain later, but nothing stops the Zelda train.

Got to play a bit of Breath of the Wild at a mate's house today (yes, he bought a Switch, though allegedly it's for his kids - yeah, right!) and it does rather go against the grain in terms of what we've come to expect from a Zelda game.

Typically, you spend an hour or so doing a few basic fetch quests and learning how to play the game as a result, then venture into a dungeon which rewards you with an item needed to access a tougher dungeon, which in turn rewards you with an item that lets you access a tougher dungeon, and so on and so forth until you fight Ganon.

BotW seemingly switches (ha, see what I did there?) that up a bit, by giving you a lot of tools earlier on and letting you explore the open world at your leisure, even if that means running into enemies who will one-shot you. I'm sure there'll be a suggested order to tackle the dungeons in, but it feels much more free than any Zelda game has for years.

Graphically, it's a bit underwhelming. Yes, it has a very unique art style, but playing on a 55" TV, there were numerous visble jaggies, texture pop-ins and frame dips even when playing the game with Switch docked. So, as a piece of hardware, I'm not sold on Switch. Neat idea, but still seems underpowered and overpriced. As a game though? BotW was great, even in the short time I had with it, it's clearly got something about it. The same something that Ocarina had, but that Twilight Princess and even Skyward Sword did not.

SimianWonder wrote:

Got to play a bit of Breath of the Wild at a mate's house today (yes, he bought a Switch, though allegedly it's for his kids - yeah, right!) and it does rather go against the grain in terms of what we've come to expect from a Zelda game.

Typically, you spend an hour or so doing a few basic fetch quests and learning how to play the game as a result, then venture into a dungeon which rewards you with an item needed to access a tougher dungeon, which in turn rewards you with an item that lets you access a tougher dungeon, and so on and so forth until you fight Ganon.

BotW seemingly switches (ha, see what I did there?) that up a bit, by giving you a lot of tools earlier on and letting you explore the open world at your leisure, even if that means running into enemies who will one-shot you.  I'm sure there'll be a suggested order to tackle the dungeons in, but it feels much more free than any Zelda game has for years.

Graphically, it's a bit underwhelming.  Yes, it has a very unique art style, but playing on a 55" TV, there were numerous visble jaggies, texture pop-ins and frame dips even when playing the game with Switch docked.  So, as a piece of hardware, I'm not sold on Switch.  Neat idea, but still seems underpowered and overpriced.  As a game though?  BotW was great, even in the short time I had with it, it's clearly got something about it.  The same something that Ocarina had, but that Twilight Princess and even Skyward Sword did not.  

Switch runs better on the tablet (certainly for this game is the general consensus), probably due to the lower resolution.

It's got to be down to the shoddiness of the port, there's no way a new piece of hardware should be struggling to run a game from the previous generation at a locked 900P/30fps.

Regardless, Switch has still had a good launch according to Nintendo, shifting over 80,000 units in its opening weekend. Thing is, numbers are a double edged sword. Without context, they can look great. 80,000 units is a lot, I'm sure you'll agree. Thing is, that's 30,000 less than 3DS sold in its opening weekend. It's half of what Xbox One did in its opening weekend, and it's a freaking third of what PS4 did in its opening weekend.

See how numbers work? 80,000 not looking quite so good now, Nintendo, is it?