Nintendo Switch

[Flojomojo]

I disagree. This is clearly an evolution of Nvidia's existing Shield line of consoles, portables, and tablets, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume it will have sufficient power to pull off near PS4 and Xbox One (original versions) levels of performance. From the partner list, most of the necessary game engine providers are on board, and most stuff is made using those tools, so there's no reason to think that it can't run the same stuff as PC, PS4, and Xbox One, even with slight and probably barely noticeable (outside of side-by-side comparisons) reductions in performance. That's all that's needed for a hybrid system. It doesn't have to be the best performance-wise, it only has to provide suitable performance and accessibility to the same games. It's versatility can take care of the rest.

 

Agreed 100%. Modern, high quality mobile systems are a lot more powerful than many people realize. It's not all Candy Crush and Angry Birds.

[dj_convoy]

It's interesting, I suppose. The problem, in my eyes, isn't so much hardware, as what games will this thing play? I like my Wii U well enough I suppose, but there are only maybe a dozen titles or thereabouts worth having on the thing... maybe more if you squint. Are they going to make us rebuy stuff on the Virtual Console again? Etc. etc. etc.

 

There will need to be a reason for me to buy this thing, and "portable, on the go gaming" isn't enough of one. The new Zelda or the new Mario aren't enough anymore. I really didn't need the Wii U, honestly, and at this point in my life, the only new consoles I'm looking to buy are old consoles.

[BadPricey]

 

I disagree. This is clearly an evolution of Nvidia's existing Shield line of consoles, portables, and tablets, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume it will have sufficient power to pull off near PS4 and Xbox One (original versions) levels of performance.

Showing video clips on your latest and greatest hardware isn't the same as running the game. Until they show actual game play footage, in my estimation, it'll be underpowered.

[Keatah]

Wow, tough crowd here.

 

A seasoned and experienced crowd that knows what works.

[Gentlegamer]

Showing video clips on your latest and greatest hardware isn't the same as running the game. Until they show actual game play footage, in my estimation, it'll be underpowered.

 

PS4 and Xbone are underpowered, so shouldn't be tough to match them.

[Keatah]

I found it disturbing how the guy at the beginning of the video felt the need to touch his dick from watching Link on a horse.

 

I think a lot of people have those kinds of habits. And here in the reveal its part of the canned sing-song lead-in. It goes with the horse jumping, the tail wagging. The bubbly intro notes.. The viewpoint shifting. The dick rubbing.. All part of what speaks to a typical millennial. At least Nintendo thinks so.

 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on getting just the first 20 seconds storyboarded exactly so. And I'm sure there are other subtle resonances and forces at play throughout the rest of the spot.

 

But what I didn't like is the artificial tan & blue color tints, again. I'm hoping we'll grow out of these fake color fads. Rather dated don't you think?

[leods]

The problems in terms of performance for third party, is that PS4 and xbox one are already struggling to keep up with modern game development, so the Switch, being almost certainly less powerful will have even poorer performance. In some games that might not be an issue at all, for some others it probably will.

 

Another problem is the fact that it's so complex. The system will probably cost more than an xbox one while having less power. So for the living room gamer the switch will be a tough buy.

 

But the question is still: What games are going to be available on this, how good will the system run, what services will nintendo offer. I don't think the Switch looks awful, but it doesn't look great either, so we'll have to see how it actually fares.

[game_escape]

 

I think a lot of people have those kinds of habits. And here in the reveal its part of the canned sing-song lead-in. It goes with the horse jumping, the tail wagging. The bubbly intro notes.. The viewpoint shifting. The dick rubbing.. All part of what speaks to a typical millennial. At least Nintendo thinks so.

 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on getting just the first 20 seconds storyboarded exactly so. And I'm sure there are other subtle resonances and forces at play throughout the rest of the spot.

 

But what I didn't like is the artificial tan & blue color tints, again. I'm hoping we'll grow out of these fake color fads. Rather dated don't you think?

 

It is funny. I was thinking the same thing. It is actually pretty amusing to slot this in with the other questionable portrayals of "gamers" in video game advertisements. Whenever advertising execs try to invent their version of a gamer, the ads fall flat-from the overly excited NES family from the late 80s to Marcus, the trash talking urban kid that tried to get us all to buy PSPs. I found the Switch ad to be especially bad. Yes, it it good job of showing off the system's functionality, but the idea that the target audience is a bunch hip millennials who are always on the move--whether walking dogs, taking business trips, playing b-ball, attending spontaneous rooftop parties, or filing into a stadium to watch Splatoon--was utterly absurd. But Nintendo is not alone. I recently saw a commercial in which a sexy 20-something drove her sporty new Toyota Carolla to work a job in a food truck. It really shows the disconnect between a lot of these companies and their customers, and the result is they just throw nonsense against a storyboard and run with it.

[Punisher5.0]

I just watched a pretty interesting video that showed some things that I missed like the two systems possibly playing together on the basketball court.

 

[Flojomojo]

A seasoned and experienced crowd that knows what works.

A bunch of aging dorks who think their experience and ideas are relevant to a product that most of them won't buy anyway.

 

:-P

 

In addition to no kids or old people, and nobody touching the screen, the other thing that struck me was the copious amount of leisure time these affluent young models seemed to enjoy.

 

They should have shown ...

 

a fortysomething salaryman on his train ride home from work, grasping at thirty minutes of control in his miserable existence before his family seizes his energy and attention.

 

a thirty-year old underemployed tech worker, keeping himself amused on the night shift of his boring, dead end job.

 

a lonely college student compensating for her lack of friends by immersing herself in virtual worlds while she gains another twenty pounds and fails all her classes.

 

a young adult "editor" of an online community dedicated to electronic entertainment, playing in the four hour window between his MMORPG raid and his CPAP machine.

 

a fifty year old former player of Atari who has bought every other game system, despite declining interest and engagement, is trying to get into the Nintendo Switch out of what, exactly? Habit?

 

an autistic cataloguer of video games who is writing a FAQ.

 

a pre-teen, neglecting health, hygiene, schoolwork, and sleep, compulsively feeling that she Gotta Catch Em All.

 

a "True Gamer" secretly playing these stupid kiddie games when not participating in message boards about ethics in journalism.

 

Fill in the rest...

 

You know what else really bugged me, right from the start? The young man in the first segment on the couch playing Zelda 2017. His dog really wants to go for a walk. So the young man PICKS UP HIS GAME SYSTEM, TAKES IT WITH HIM, AND CONTINUES HIS STUPID GAME while the dog takes a solitary shit in the urban park near their home. The young man keeps his attention on his electronic master, the Nintendo Switch. I guess Nintendo systems no longer encourage people to take frequent breaks anymore.

 

I wonder if he picked up his dog's poop?

[game_escape]

A bunch of aging dorks who think their experience and ideas are relevant to a product that most of them won't buy anyway.

 

:-P

 

In addition to no kids or old people, and nobody touching the screen, the other thing that struck me was the copious amount of leisure time these affluent young models seemed to enjoy.

 

They should have shown ...

 

a fortysomething salaryman on his train ride home from work, grasping at thirty minutes of control in his miserable existence before his family seizes his energy and attention.

 

a thirty-year old underemployed tech worker, keeping himself amused on the night shift of his boring, dead end job.

 

a lonely college student compensating for her lack of friends by immersing herself in virtual worlds while she gains another twenty pounds and fails all her classes.

 

a young adult "editor" of an online community dedicated to electronic entertainment, playing in the four hour window between his MMORPG raid and his CPAP machine.

 

a fifty year old former player of Atari who has bought every other game system, despite declining interest and engagement, is trying to get into the Nintendo Switch out of what, exactly? Habit?

 

an autistic cataloguer of video games who is writing a FAQ.

 

a pre-teen, neglecting health, hygiene, schoolwork, and sleep, compulsively feeling that she Gotta Catch Em All.

 

a "True Gamer" secretly playing these stupid kiddie games when not participating in message boards about ethics in journalism.

 

Fill in the rest...

 

You know what else really bugged me, right from the start? The young man in the first segment on the couch playing Zelda 2017. His dog really wants to go for a walk. So the young man PICKS UP HIS GAME SYSTEM, TAKES IT WITH HIM, AND CONTINUES HIS STUPID GAME while the dog takes a solitary shit in the urban park near their home. The young man keeps his attention on his electronic master, the Nintendo Switch. I guess Nintendo systems no longer encourage people to take frequent breaks anymore.

 

I wonder if he picked up his dog's poop?

 

Classic!

[Gamemoose]

 

I think a lot of people have those kinds of habits. And here in the reveal its part of the canned sing-song lead-in. It goes with the horse jumping, the tail wagging. The bubbly intro notes.. The viewpoint shifting. The dick rubbing.. All part of what speaks to a typical millennial. At least Nintendo thinks so.

 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on getting just the first 20 seconds storyboarded exactly so. And I'm sure there are other subtle resonances and forces at play throughout the rest of the spot.

 

But what I didn't like is the artificial tan & blue color tints, again. I'm hoping we'll grow out of these fake color fads. Rather dated don't you think?

Dick touching....wait...

 

:watches a couple times:

 

I didn't catch that before and I think I know why- it was a groin scratch, not a dick touch. Unless the guy hung to the left. It was a casual motion. He scratched an itch, something we men typically do. Something we all have in common. So the dude is just an average Joe, kickin' back, scratching places you don't in public and playing his Switch (no pun intended).

 

Either it was an abscent minded scratch while on camera or a way to make this guy the everyman in the ad...only marketing knows for sure.

[BadPricey]

3 hour battery life! And they had the nerve to constantly bash the Atari Lynx regarding poor battery life ?

 

http://www.appy-gamer.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=4&articleid=75718488&source=drive

[Bill Loguidice]

It's interesting, I suppose. The problem, in my eyes, isn't so much hardware, as what games will this thing play? I like my Wii U well enough I suppose, but there are only maybe a dozen titles or thereabouts worth having on the thing... maybe more if you squint. Are they going to make us rebuy stuff on the Virtual Console again? Etc. etc. etc.

 

I think we can all agree (and I know many of us have agreed previously) that Nintendo's account system is garbage. Presumably they'll fix that once and for all and this will have some level of online parity/independent account system like the PS4/Xbox One/PC. With a system like this and the way it's meant to be played, shared, etc., the assumption is they'd have to even if they didn't want to. I'll take rebuying virtual console stuff (preferably at a discount for any overlap) if all that is fixed from Switch forward.

[Bill Loguidice]

3 hour battery life! And they had the nerve to constantly bash the Atari Lynx regarding poor battery life

 

http://www.appy-gamer.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=4&articleid=75718488&source=drive

 

I fully expected 3 - 5 hours max. I don't think that's a deal breaker given the performance this should have.

[Tickled_Pink]

The problem here is that I just can't tell who this is marketed at. Obviously it's not the hardcore gamer/teens/young adult. Nintendo were smart enough to know that nothing they could produce now could compete with the Xbone and PS4. But it's not aimed at kids either. Parents will take one look at that and think JEEZUS! One more thing for little Timmy/Sally to break. The combined controller also looks like it'll be too big for small hands.

[spacecadet]

It makes lots of sense for Nintendo to try to do something different. In a marketplace where the main TV consoles are pretty much locked-down, proprietary PCs that can only play games, it's impossible to compete against them in terms of "power."

Not true at all. Nintendo in fact did exactly that right up until the Wii. The Wii was the very first console Nintendo ever made that they themselves did not argue was *more* powerful than the competition. The Nintendo that we originally grew to know and love got where they were by making what were at least arguably the most powerful consoles. Even the SNES, which Sega tried to belittle with its nonsense "blast processing", had more sprites, better sound and things like parallax scaling that the Genesis lacked.

 

And the PS4 and Xbox One both use off-the-shelf x86 hardware. To say it's "impossible to compete" with that makes no sense at all. The PS4, for example, uses an AMD APU that is now two generations old, but that you can otherwise go buy at Micro Center yourself, and probably for about $50 at retail. (It has some customizations, but not anything that's really "impossible" to compete with or do some updated version of.)

 

Nintendo was apparently so shellshocked by the failure of the GameCube in the marketplace that it has literally now screwed up their entire home console strategy for the last decade. It seems to still be haunting them. The GameCube was Nintendo's Vietnam.

 

Raw power is overrated anyway, it's all about the game design.

No, it isn't. Otherwise PC's would not be the most popular gaming platform in the world (125 million active Steam users alone), and the PS4 would not be the #1 current game console.

 

More power *allows* better game design. It's what gets third party developers to make games for a system. It's why Nintendo's had so much trouble doing that lately.

 

Anyway I'm starting to see the Switch as a handheld with a dock, especially after Nintendo's clarification today that the dock has no additional processing power, it's just the PSU and video output. So as a handheld, the Switch looks pretty powerful. But it doesn't really seem to be a serious home console. Especially if it's also 720p as the rumors are suggesting. (Then again, if the 3 hour battery life rumors are also true, then it doesn't sound like a very serious handheld either.)

[enoofu]

The problem here is that I just can't tell who this is marketed at. Obviously it's not the hardcore gamer/teens/young adult. Nintendo were smart enough to know that nothing they could produce now could compete with the Xbone and PS4. But it's not aimed at kids either. Parents will take one look at that and think JEEZUS! One more thing for little Timmy/Sally to break. The combined controller also looks like it'll be too big for small hands.

 

Believe its the same with all the Systems now

 

For example PS had to killed their Vita line to focus on the PS4, and the Sony VR maybe a lot harder sell then this since you need to strap down and drop down 400-500 dollars

Probably more parent's will say"But it's not aimed at kids either. Parents will take one look at that and think JEEZUS! One more thing for little Timmy/Sally to break"

[Flojomojo]

Not true at all. Nintendo in fact did exactly that right up until the Wii. The Wii was the very first console Nintendo ever made that they themselves did not argue was *more* powerful than the competition. The Nintendo that we originally grew to know and love got where they were by making what were at least arguably the most powerful consoles. Even the SNES, which Sega tried to belittle with its nonsense "blast processing", had more sprites, better sound and things like parallax scaling that the Genesis lacked.

Erm, not really, not to my mind. Do you really think the GameBoy smoked the Lynx or even the Game Gear on technology? That the 3Mhz SNES owed its popularity to "power," not to clever design such as the Sony-designed audio? Not that anything prior to the Wii is particularly relevant anymore, since that system was designed more than 10 years ago. Nintendo is all in on their blue ocean strategy. Without it, they're never going to stand apart from the competition, which is looking less differentiated every year.

 

More power *allows* better game design. It's what gets third party developers to make games for a system. It's why Nintendo's had so much trouble doing that lately.

Only up to a point. Beyond that, it's diminishing returns and significantly higher costs. If "more frames per second at the highest resolution you can draw" is your only success criteria, sure ...but I know I'd rather play Super Mario 3D Land on my two-hundred-dollar 3DS than Crysis 3 on some two-thousand-dollar watercooled PC.

 

It remains to be seen if Nintendo can pull out another Fun Machine.

[Unbeliever]

Well, maybe the thrill of Nintendo is officially gone from me, but I was excited for a few minutes...then went, "meh" and moved on. I'm not trying to be critical here, I'm just stating that I am not very excited. Would I buy this if I had the money to spend on it come March 2017? Sure...why not? It's Nintendo. However, that being said, at this moment in my gaming "life", I'm focusing on the Xbox One. I just bought the damn thing not too long ago and it's my main "go to" console.

 

Now, that's not to say I haven't tossed the idea around of getting a portable console. THEN I remind myself I traded in my 3DS to get an Xbox One. This is the same go-around I have with myself all the time, periodically, complete lack of focus on what I really want to play. I'm not sure if it's the age or what (50 seems a turning point in my gaming time), but as much as I do like the looks of this hybrid, I'm going to pass on it and see where it goes.

 

What I DO think about this new console/portable is that it will sell well, probably to the core Nintendo players that have been waiting for something to peak their interest. I'm not sure I like the idea that the screen is unprotected, and I can imagine that a fall or two would do the system in, but I'm just speculating. As to the casual gaming market? Perhaps they would be willing to invest, but I don't think they're going to get it on day one. I would assume that these gamers would wait for a period of time to see what's released for it.

 

I'm hoping Nintendo does really well with this system. I really do, but for me personally I'm going to stick with my Xbox One and continue to buy games for that. Nintendo and I have really had a falling out...until perhaps the mini is released next month. We'll see.

[Gentlegamer]

The problem here is that I just can't tell who this is marketed at. Obviously it's not the hardcore gamer/teens/young adult. Nintendo were smart enough to know that nothing they could produce now could compete with the Xbone and PS4. But it's not aimed at kids either. Parents will take one look at that and think JEEZUS! One more thing for little Timmy/Sally to break. The combined controller also looks like it'll be too big for small hands.

 

The video is marketing to Nintenhipsters.

[godslabrat]

As one of the people on the "pro" side here, I think I should clarify: I'm not saying I'm sold on the switch. I'm just saying that I can see this appealing to me more than I can see the MS and Sony offerings appealing to me.

[Flojomojo]

The video is marketing to Nintenhipsters.

which is totally a thing

[Classic Pac]

I really find it interesting, a console/handheld hybrid. Being into handheld gaming as I am I actually may buy one.

[Keatah]

Either it was an abscent minded scratch while on camera or a way to make this guy the everyman in the ad...only marketing knows for sure.

 

Oh these ads and spots, there's nothing, absolutely nothing, that goes in unintentionally. Every single frame is scrutinized and retouched to perfection. They spent more money on that one angle than you will spend in your lifetime buying new cars. Unless you're getting a new Jag every couple years.

 

Like mentioned before, it's one of those camaraderie building things. A subtle way for the advertisement to connect with you. Dare I say subliminal?

 

Manchild language! heh.. Whenever I see the word switch I'll think of pinching briefs and dick scratching.