Nintendo finally reveals the Switch console

I suspect it’s because the specs for the Switch are just that low that running a matchmaking/comms app on the side would interfere with the actual game.

Nintendo as a company is just classic groupthink. That is their number 1 problem from which all other problems are borne. I wonder when the last time “why” was asked in that company.

Both other consoles have extra processing power reserved for background processes, such as networking etc. I gotta imagine the switch is using all the juice it can out of that processor.

Maybe the switch will come with an eventual memory/cpu upgrade option. :D

The idea that Nintendo is going to charge you a monthly fee so that you can use your own phone to – wait for it – talk to other people is such amazingly delicious irony. Not to mention that if you are using your phone as a WiFi hotspot, you are burning through precious paid cellular data rather than home WiFi. Surely, there’s a way to play online that’s not through a celluar hotspot?

If any other console company was proposing this, they would be laughed out of the industry.

Oh I’m definitely not saying it’s a great solution. I’m just theorizing why they might be doing something so clumsy.

Why do you think it wouldn’t use your home wifi?

Obviously any wi-fi connection will do, you’re reading way too much into that example.

I hope so, but this thread has taught me not to hope.

: P

Reminds of the good old days when we used to use PS3 for MH chat in Wii. Nice to see Nintendo bringing back these classic, elegant solutions to online gaming.

Fuck me, this is pretty much what we had to do when playing Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U anyway, and it was a nightmare.

We had to get voice chat working across Android and iOS devices with my two friends in separate parts of the country and me and my girlfriend sat next to each other on the sofa. We tried Skype, Hangouts and one called ‘ooVoo’ but the problem was getting the apps to pick up our voices without the Mario Kart 8 noise. None of them had sensitivity options so we had to perch the phone near our heads and sit really close together so we could chat and hear our friends. It was so stupid.

When we do this on PC I use my headset mic, my girlfriend uses a mic near her, we lower the sensitivity on both mics and route the voice chat through the speakers so we can both hear everything. It’s a bit fiddly but it works like a charm. We struggled to do anything like this through a phone because you can’t (easily) have two discrete voice inputs. I wonder how Nintendo will get around this for group voice chat with parties of friends and family? I mean, that’s the point of the Switch, right?

Here’s an elegant solution: Route the Nintendo console through your Xbox One’s HDMI input, then use Xbox Live Parties.

Hahahahahahaha. I mean, yes, if you’ve got the Xbox One, that’s probably a slightly less inelegant solution than skyping or whatever. I’m not laughing at you for suggesting it, but this is a seriously bonkers proposal.

“elegant” was in <scarcastic /> tags but Discord didn’t pick it up :)

Sarcasm or not, it can be done. But just be aware that there will be some lag when playing another console this way. I used to have my 360 set up like this (back before XB1 BC when I had a shortage of HDMI ports and some 360 games I wanted to finish), but there was a <=1 second delay for button presses etc. Not a big deal for some games, but made certain games very difficult to play when fast, timely, precise actions were required from the player.

I just want to put this out there. I know it is anecdotal etc.

But, if Nintendo would have announced that the VC on the Switch would have all the Wii U and 3DS titles, and your purchases from those consoles would transfer over to the Switch…

I would have pre-ordered the Switch. I would love to have all of those games together in a portable format. That is really what would have sold me on the device. I have dozens of 3ds and Wii U titles that I play (more sparingly on the Wii U), and if I could be assured the Switch could play all of these (and more in future) I would be sold, my back catalog would make up for the deficit in launch titles.

Heh, gotta love a solution for a console’s lacking feature by using another consoles features instead.

I hope Nintendo makes the online features better… it would have been nice for them to do that first and then ask for payment though.

Finally decided to cancel my preorder last night. If Zelda is amazing I’ll get it on my Wii U. I don’t want to sell my Wii U since I still enjoy playing some games on it too.

I looked back to when I bought the Wii U. It came out in November of 2012, and I bought it in January of 2014 - just over a year after it came out.

When it came out in November of 2012, the deluxe version was $350.

When I bought it just over a year later, I got the deluxe version for $270. And it was the Zelda bundle which came with the Wind Waker remake special edition. And it came with Ninja Gaiden 3. And it came with The Wonderful 101.

I’ll happily wait for post-release bundles for the Switch.

This could probably go in another thread since its for an old game. But thanks to the awesome new Zelda: Breath of the Wild trailer (certainly the absolute best thing to come from Nintendo’s direction in the last week), I ended up with a hankering to play some Zelda right quick. And since I hadn’t played Skywsrd sword yet, I downloaded a copy for my WiiU.

Thanks to the Metroid Prime trilogy, my Wiimote and nunchuck are already batteried up and ready to go. It would be great if the Switch supported these (and my WiiU pro controller).

So far my first thought from the game is “I just made Link sit on a toilet and look in the bowl. What a way to start my grand adventure.”