Nintendo Switch

Oh that’s very interesting. I did notice that in docked mode (things going blurry in some games), but I never noticed it in handheld, probably of course because the screen is smaller (and my eyes are not getting younger).
I just checked and I noticed there is now a 480p option in the display settings in docked mode (with black borders, so 4:3 I am guessing?)
What a strange console.

According to a recent leak, SMT V’s apparently still on track for this year.

I’m a bit disappointed the setting isn’t a postapocalyptic one (probably), but at least we got plenty of esoterical references to Shinto and Kabbalah stuff right from the tentative store page!

Hell yeah!

I found back the guy who keeps announcing the Switch Pro every year:

It’s still him, this year, apparently: he just had switched from Wall Street Journal to Bloomberg ;D

And he’s angry at Nintendo for not doing the reveal party for his favourite fake hardware before E3, like he announced.

Ah, experts truly are legends.

All right so, I could probably use some advice. My son had a birthday recently and has a bit of money and he’s interested in buying a Switch. So I understand that currently there are two models, just a regular old Switch that can also display on a TV, and a Switch Lite that does not, is handheld only. I also see various rumors that I’ve paid very little attention to that yet another version is coming. I figure I don’t really need to concern myself with this new, higher res(?) model but I am also kind of wondering if this new model might also result in a price reduction for the existing models, should I wait to buy one of those?

They’re both still in very high demand and quite cheap already, so a big discount is unlikely, but I could see a new bundle being a thing at least. With E3 a week away it can’t hurt to wait and see if all the rumor prognosticators were wrong yet again, at least :-)

Yeah to echo @ArmandoPenblade , the most likely best case is you find a bundle with a game (probably Mario Kart). Otherwise discounts are unlikely.

If you do choose to but one now, I would recommend not buying the light version. My 8 year old ended up on youtube and comparison videos…and I have regretted buying the switch light ever since. I do recommend the annual $20 subscription tho, hes gotten a lot if milieage out of the included old school nes games, and the rewind feature. Back in my day we started over when we died.

Can I ask why you regret your decision? Is it because it can’t play on a TV? I don’t think that’s a big deal to my son, since his primary gaming platform at the moment is an iPad. He would value mobility more than a big screen, I believe.

As far as bundles go, I like the idea. My best option would probably be a Switch Lite with Pokemon Sword or Shield, since that’s mainly what he wants to play. I see a regular Switch bundle with this game on Amazon but it’s $450 which, ouch. I see a yellow Switch Lite with Pokemon Snap bundled, but I have no idea what Pokemon Snap is. So yeah, I’ll take my time with this and see if I can find something that would line up with what he’s looking for.

Well to be clear those are probably not Nintendo bundles.

For example this is what I got, and it cost $300

I got this at Christmas.

As far as I am aware, this is the only software bundle they officially made for the US market. There may have been a Mario Party or Odyssey pack, but I don’t know that for sure.

The Pokémon bundle you see is probably just a third party reseller doing so to maximize their value by packing in extra cost with the guaranteed seller device.

The Lite has a lot of downsides. It’s not all that much smaller/more portable (if the kid can carry around an iPad, a Switch Chonk is gonna be fine), so its main upside is cost. However, yes, you do lose the ability to ever play it on a larger screen. Not just losing “gee whiz” factor, but multiplayer on the Lite is gonna be a lot worse than breaking out some controllers and Mario Partying it up with buddies in the living room. Using an external controller with the Lite in general is just a bit awkward; it’s small enough that you really want it up in your face, but the built-in, non-detatchable JoyCons aren’t perfect for every job.

Speaking of which, yeah, the controllers are fused to the body of the Lite. While all modern consoles’ primary controllers will probably suffer from stick drift to some extent after heavy use, the especially small size of the JoyCons makes their internals consequently tinier and more vulnerable to the smallest of damaging events, so JoyCon drift is a real issue that many, if not most, Switch users are gonna have to deal with sooner or later. Having to mail off your entire console to Nintendo for a month for their (mercifully free) repair service sucks. Just having to mail off a set of controllers for a regular Switch is way less of a hassle.

Yeah, that’ll be the “this console is still in heavy demand” issue, unfortunately. Lots of price scalpers on the internet taking advantage of shortages and stuff. A Switch should cost $300, and you should generally be able to buy the Mario Kart bundle Craig mentioned for that price, if things are, you know, in stock. Which they often aren’t.

Pokemon Snap is a reboot of an old N64 title about taking cool pictures of Pokemon. The new one is basically the same thing, albeit with cooler graphics and somewhat more gameplay features. But at the end of the day, you get in a little on-rails submarine/cart and tool around a tropical island tempting rare Pokemons out of the bushes with fruit and toys so they’ll strike a pose for you to get maximum points with your camera shots of them. It’s cute and fun for fans of the series, but it’s very different from the mainline titles like Sword & Shield, which are full-fledged monster-capturin RPGs with open worlds and crafting and raids and all sorts of stuff.


Far be it from me to tell the kid what he likes, mind. If he’s set on a Lite, go nuts. I just think it’s worth being cognizant of the limitations, cuz once you’re locked in, you’re locked in, whereas you can always just, like, not put your regular Switch on the dock if you wanna be mobile, but at least the extra options remain available if preferences ever change.

Yeah. Single joycons aren’t exactly great experiences for control, but they are functional for most games. Which is one big advantage of the non lite Switch. You get 2 controllers in the box.

Plus the dock for the Switch has the capacity to accept other controllers, I have a GameCube controller adapter for my 4 GameCube controllers. Combined with the two joycons which can be put in a dockable controller form, and two cordless controllers I picked up for $13 each on Amazon, hey I have a 2 and 4 year old who like to play and at $13 if they break they break, and I have a lot of options for playing.

I would not have nearly the flexibility on the Lite. For me an additional outlay of ~$40 got me the ability to play up to 8 people. I’d have completely collapsed the price difference between the regular and lite to get the same level of flexibility in controllers.

Granted this is largely due to me already having 4 controllers for the GC, but it is worth flagging that.

This sounds much more complicated than I was counting on. Guess I need to do some more homework.

It doesn’t have to be. Just buy a standard Switch. :P

Ditto. Get the regular Switch.

Another vote for the regular Switch. Most stuff has been mentioned but with the regular you can also get better joy one with grips that for a hand much better than the Nintendo ones. So even if it’s going to be used primarily as a handheld the normal version can be much more comfortable with the better grips.

This is the biggest reason for me (that and being purely portable means there’s no real ‘switch’–it’s great being able to dock it and play on a bigger screen, for solo, multiplayer or sharing an experience). I can’t imagine how much of a pain it would be to send the whole unit back for stick drift though. I’ve already sent one Joy-Con off and it started drifting again before using some rubbing alcohol on it.

Don’t buy a Lite. I got my 20 year old son one for Christmas because he thought that was what he wanted and he already replaced it with a new full size Switch and I bought the Lite back from him and I turned it on once.

It’s really for a specific use case, people who only play portable… ever. If you grew up on Game Boy or more recently a Nintendo DS or 3DS, and never dabble in console games ever then it’s viable. The extra $100 for the function the machine is actually named for is worth every single penny.

The only thing you should probably do is wait to see if there actually will be a new model, but I think they would have announced it by now.

Yeah it really isn’t.

Reasons to get Lite:
It’s $100 cheaper

Reasons to get full Switch:
Literally everything else

I have also only ever played handheld mode personally, my kids occasionally on the TV. The whole point of my controller post was simply to highlight how the regular Switch has a lot more flexibility and options for controllers, and is a vastly superior machine for multiplayer.

It also comes with a dock, which even if you only use it for charging is great.

So as others said, just get the full Switch. It is objectively the correct call in 99% of cases.

The 1% mostly being your house already has a full switch and the Lite would be a second switch for doing stuff