Nintendo finally reveals the Switch console

If you already have a Wii U, then you have to decide if you want to buy into the Switch ecosystem. I think the idea is that most people don’t have a Wii U, so if they’re going to buy a new system, they’d want the brand new one and not the one that’s pretty much EOL.

Hopefully not all at once.

Agreed, though I can tell the difference when it’s 4K. I also can really tell if something is running at 60 vs 30 fps.

I’m buying Zelda for the Wii U since I don’t have a good reason to buy a Switch for at least a year (6 months if E3 has some surprises).

Only advantage I really see to the Switch version of BOTW for me is being able to play it portably, which while is a really good advantage to me isn’t worth $360.

That’s the dream.

Just get an RV. Dream realized.

Because when you buy a console you’re only thinking about one year out? Come on Andy. I am a Nintendo fan too. This is pretty weak unless Nintendo intends to have a short tail which just brings it back to my original point of how quickly they abandon their platform compared to the other two.

4k doesn’t much matter on consoles as it’s difficult to tell the difference with most screen sizes and couch distances. HDR is very noticeable, though. HDR is meaningful.

Adaptive sync matters too. That will be a huge deal when it comes to HDMI and consoles.

My point is, the other consoles are looking forward to 4k. Nintendo isn’t even producing 1080p with good frame rates. I realize resolution isn’t everything, but I think it’s fair criticism to point out their largest launching title doesn’t offer it.

It is absolutely fair. The difference between 720p and 1080p is very noticeable. 900p is less so, and that’s what the Switch will deliver on your TV, but still not great news.

Oh lord, yes. That thing was garbage for most use-cases; I was just being pedantic. I remember rigging up some rubber bands in a failed effort to make it suck less. It almost worked.

Yes, the other console manufacturers are looking at 4K hardware, at least partially because Sony has a vested interest in pushing 4K so they can sell more TVs and Blu-ray players. And Microsoft needs to keep up with Sony because they’re competing in the same space.

Nintendo has made it clear that they aren’t competing in a straight-up power race with the other console manufacturers. And at the moment, 4K adoption is low, and the benefits of 4K are (and will continue to be) minimal at normal viewing distances that most people use. Sure, it’s a great bullet point, and maybe Nintendo will suffer because of it. But they simply can’t compete with the other consoles in raw power.

So instead of looking forward to 4K, Nintendo is looking forward to a unified platform for console and portable use cases. They are looking forward to a console that has two-player support out of the box. They are aiming for a different goal than the other console manufacturers, and frankly I think it’s a smart move, given that the market probably can’t support three consoles that don’t have much differentiation.

No particular reason why not. It’s not like the Xbone and PS4 are custom these days. They’re commodity PC hardware with a semi-custom AMD SoC. Nintendo could have walked up to AMD and said “we’ll take one of those suckers too”, told AMD the price-point they wanted, and AMD would have fulfilled the terms of their agreement.

Microsoft and Sony benefit more from economy of scale, simply because they’re vastly more popular than the Wii U. But if the Switch engaged the market, Nintendo would get that too.

Of course AMD doesn’t have a low-power solution suitable for a mobile device, and Nvidia does. That’s why Nintendo didn’t do that.

I think you mean that’s what the last-minute Wii-U port of Zelda will deliver on your TV. I doubt 900/30 will be the defacto ‘standard’ on Switch as Wii-U had games running at 1080/60 after all.

I think you need to stop here. They’re not competing. I have tablets that do better than this, cheap 90 dollar tablets. While everyone else is looking to give their consoles longer tails and perhaps second generations of the consoles, Nintendo’s view seems a lot shorter, and I think that’s going to hurt them. You don’t have to demand 4K now but this console of their looks like it will struggle out the gate. I don’t see how that’s a great plan. You don’t have to agree with me Andy, but that POV is not anti-Nintendo. it is just what it is.

Sure. If you compromise image quality sufficiently, any potato can run at 4k60. That’s how the PS4 Pro supports “4k” in modern games today. Tricks.

@Nesrie: Actually there are no tablets with a GPU remotely comparable to the Tegra X1. The closest is the Shield K1, which is one generation behind and substantially slower.

I thought Tegra was a mobile/tablet processor. Am I mistaken with that?

It is indeed. However, there is no tablet using the Tegra X1. It is only used in the Nvidia Shield TV (android TV STB) and the Nintendo Switch.

Basically, they never released a Shield tablet X1 because they didn’t want to compete with Nintendo.

And the Pascal tegra SoC codenamed “Parker”, which was announced mid-2016, was never released at all. Also due to Nintendo. That’s why the ShieldTV was just refreshed with the exact same hardware and price in a smaller case.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification.

So who or what does Nintendo consider their competitor. if it’s not the other consoles… it can’t be the phones. They’ve got to know the phones are’t going to replaced by the Switch. Are they trying to align themselves as the 2nd system… which worked for the Wii, but that didn’t work for Wii U.

Yes, phones. They’re trying to bring “core” gaming (hate that term, but nobody has a better one) to the mobile space, as Sony attempted many times before them.