thatdemoguy

So it's been a week, I am pretty sure we have all seen the trailer for Nintendo's new console, which was codenamed NX but is now dubbed the Nintendo Switch. And what a trailer it was. It was slick, it was modern, it hit all the right notes, with its visuals and the catchy song. It was a brilliant opening to a new marketing campaign that seems poised to erase all of the mistakes the big N has made the last few years. And let's not mince words here (yes I will make this work) Nintendo made a plethora of mistakes when it came to the marketing of the Wii U. But here we are, nearly 4 years to the date of their last major console release, and in about 3 minutes, Nintendo has attempted to seduce their way into our wallets yet again. And I admit, I was all but swept up in the initial hype of the reveal. The ideas it presented were extremely appealing and I was ready to proverbially start throwing money at my screen. I had even started writing a reaction piece to the trailer that was full of an almost childlike zeal and anticipation. But I had to take a moment and pull back the reins on my excitement and see things from a much more practical standpoint. Let’s REALLY look at this thing. What exactly did they show us? Think long and hard about your answer to that. Now MY answer to that is that they honestly didn't show us a terrible whole lot. Before you grab your pitchforks and light your torches, just give me a chance to explain myself. I am going to cover what I took from the trailer, while trying to stay away from the repeated rhetoric that has likely already been heard. I am also going to be putting a healthy dose of speculation in this, seeing as how Nintendo themselves are being pretty stingy with ACTUAL information about the console and its capabilities. That's what I am going to be talking about here and now, just a few of my thoughts on the system reveal and what I perceive as the PROS and CONS of it.

 

PROS

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When speaking about this new system, the very first thing that has to go into the "pro" column is it's portability. With this system Nintendo aims to finally give the gaming community something we have always wanted, and that's the ability to take our home gaming experiences with us on the go. Not a graphically deficient and pared down version that's missing features. The game that you play at home is now the game that you will play on road trips, in the doctor's office, in church, or at those boring family functions that we all end up at every now and again.  

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Going hand in hand with the portability are the social functions. The trailer did an amazing job of showing "implied" social interactions via onboard local networking. Take for instance a few key moments of the trailer. First off let's explore the scene in the van with the multiplayer Mario Kart. I would be remiss if I didn't first point out that the game shown has King Boo being played on one side of the screen, and he is NOT a playable character in Mario Kart 8, let that marinate real quick. But moving forward, this system appears to give us portable multiplayer while only using ONE system, instead of having to have multiple players each with their own hardware like portable gaming's past. One screen seems to support two players via split screen and the use of the joy-con controllers. But what if you want to have more than two players? Well two scenes in the trailer address this very question. The first of those is the one of the guys playing basketball at the park and then going to play NBA 2K. What's crucial to note about this scene is that via the use of two separate Switch units, they were able to have a four player game with two players playing FULL SCREEN on each team. Two guys were playing Golden State while the other two were playing Cleveland. The final scenes of the trailer show two separate teams of four planning to face each other in a match of Splatoon. This absolutely IMPLIES (I won't say confirms yet) that local multiplayer will be a focus for Nintendo when it comes to this system. 

 

Going forward with the thought of multiplayer. Did you all happen to notice something very promising on the Switch dock when it was shown? Well, take a moment to go to the :25 second mark of the trailer. What do you see there? Well I will tell you, what you see are a pair of USB slots, which means that I can safely speculate that the system will make use of the GameCube adapter from the Wii U because I absolutely highly doubt that Nintendo will abandon the Smash Bros community. The question this brings up though is if the Smash that will be on it will be a new game or a port of the existing version. Also if the USB slots are only available on the Switch dock, then that leads me right into my....

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CONS

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Throughout the entire trailer, Nintendo seemed adamant about showing us the Switch's portable screen, but failed to show us ANYTHING of the dock other than it being where the screen is stored for home play. This presents quite a few points of curiosity. If the Switch dock basically functions as a means to transfer your game to your television, are the docks tied to a unique screen? As in, say I buy a Nintendo Switch and go to a friend's house who also has a Switch, will I be able to use his dock for my system? If not, and I have to always pack my entire unit, this really hurts the mystique of the proposed portability of the system.

 

Also storage space available on the dock is a question. One would wonder why this would be important given that it was shown that the system no longer uses optical media, and functions via the use of carts/cards which will likely have their own form of storage. But what about that old library of Wii U titles? Is Nintendo just abandoning that platform? Will there be a way to transfer those titles you may own to your dock digitally? If so this would require a bit of system storage on the dock. 32GB just isn't enough this go around. Following trend with both Sony and Microsoft, 500GB is a minimum amount of storage if there are going to be full games that will be purchasable for play on this system.

 

Speaking of the Wii U platform and the POSSIBILITY of downloading certain titles for play on the Switch, during the entire trailer not one person actually TOUCHED the screen. Meaning there is a major part of the past functionality gone and this heavily implies that any form of backward compatibility is a pipe dream. If there is no touch on the screen, this also somewhat states there won't be any traditional tablet functions.

 

I may be getting well ahead of myself though, given that no form of any online ecosystem or infrastructure was hinted at.

Moving on to the hardware, if the screen is going to travel constantly, it needs to be addressed how durable it will be. The kickstand shown in the video doesn't appear to be very strong either. The Microsoft Surface has a kickstand that should be the standard for any type of tablet going forward.

 

I didn't want to speak on the battery life because EVERYONE has spoken about the battery life, but I want to go in a slightly different direction.

I don't want to talk about the battery life of the screen, but I want to talk about the battery life of the joy-con controllers. Those are also wireless, and if they are the way you play while on the go, what happens when they die? And they will die. Which then brings up how they will be charged on the go. Meaning that's MORE equipment that needs to be carried for a system that is being sold as being "portable". 

 

Speaking of the joy-con controllers, they appear to be way too small for comfortable use. Yes they look amazing in concept, but in function they look atrocious. 

 

There was a long list of third party companies shown to be "on board" and developing for the Switch, but I have to question if they are going to be making exclusive experiences for the Switch or will they finally be getting versions of the same AAA games that will be hitting the PS4/XB1. This isn't meant to be as some form of direct competition, but it is meant to be seen as a viable competitive alternative. But I going back to the controller options, I have to ask how will the AAA games be played on the joy-con, given that they do not appear to have enough buttons. I did see a trigger on each joy-con, but even coupled with the face buttons, this is simply not enough to play the games that release nowadays. They did show a "pro" type controller that does have fact buttons and dual triggers on each side, but if that is going to be a required peripheral, then this also adds to the equipment that needs to be carried around, further tarnishing the image of the "portable" console. This also adds to the costs to the consumer.

 

Which is really the BIG point that has to be addressed. The system releases in March, and we have no idea of the price point. I know I know, Nintendo says they aren't trying to run alongside the other two companies, being Sony and Microsoft, but it cannot be ignored that both of those companies have very attractive home consoles with GUARANTEED third party support priced at $299. If the Switch releases near this, they are doing good. But if the system comes out at $399 or higher, then they are essentially shooting themselves in the foot. I only say this because they cannot sell us on another piece of hardware at a high price point that is being pushed via pure nostalgia and a quirky gimmick. Even if that gimmick is as cool as the idea of playing home games anywhere.

 

There was so much more I could talk about, but the lack of information from Nintendo themselves is actually killing the hype for me personally. And telling us that we have to wait until January 12th to get any new information is not a good look.

 

I need specs.

 

I need hardware capabilities.

 

I need software lineup.

 

I need to know storage.

 

I need a price point.

 

I know I may be coming off somewhat ambivalent or even pessimistic about this new console, but I guarantee I am not. I am just being extremely cautiously optimistic.

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So what do YOU think of the Nintendo Switch? Are you ready to jump in and buy one right now? Are you waiting for more information? Or have you felt burned by the last two consoles and are likely going to skip this one? Feel free to sound off in the comments here or hit me up on ALL social media at thatdemoguy.