The Nintendo Switch Thread

[Shade Vortex]

5 hours ago, Cyrus said:

The Switch's release date and price will be revealed at a press conference on the 12th of January.

We've actually known about the Switch Presentation for quite a while now, but the news this article actually talks about- the Hands-on demo at New York, is new news.

[Candescence]

Laura Dale initially leaked a Switch-exclusive game, and then Gameblog.fr provided proper screenshots, claiming it's from a game called Seasons of Heaven. It's supposedly a smaller title, but it looks pretty gorgeous.

This provides a pretty decent third-party idea of what the Switch can do, at least.

[Patticus]

Milo 2: The Return of Milo.

That's pretty much what that game looks like to me. I'm hopeful that it won't be a massive gimmick-fest, that it'll actually tell a good quality story and contain some solid gameplay, But it's just impossible to tell at this stage. The visuals look alright, brilliant for a Nintendo platform, but I'm not sure it's quite as good as what I've been seeing on the PS4.

Hope we hear more soon. 

[Candescence]

This a UE4 indie title, we'll see some really amazing stuff from first-party devs at some point. It's not like PS4 and Xbone games started out looking amazing, either.

[Patticus]

15 hours ago, Candescence said:

This a UE4 indie title, we'll see some really amazing stuff from first-party devs at some point. It's not like PS4 and Xbone games started out looking amazing, either.

Well, no, you're right, and as an indie title I suppose it does look pretty nice; I wasn't aware it was an indie game when commenting.

[Blacklightning]

It feels kinda crazy that just one gen ago Sakurai couldn't optimize the Ice Climbers enough to make them work on 3DS hardware, and now here we have UE4 running on a fucking handheld. Been a while since I saw a power leap that big.

[Patticus]

3 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

It feels kinda crazy that just one gen ago Sakurai couldn't optimize the Ice Climbers enough to make them work on 3DS hardware, and now here we have UE4 running on a fucking handheld. Been a while since I saw a power leap that big.

Now there is no excuse not to have handheld Ice Climbers. Check and mate, Sakurai.

[Marcello]

The date and time for the presentation has been set.

• January 12, 8 pm PT (West coast NA)
• January 12, 11 pm ET (East coast)
• January 13, 4 am GMT 
• January 13, 5 am CET (Central Europe)
• January 13, 11am JST (Japan)
• January 13, 3 pm AEDT (Australia)

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1324649

5 am. Wonderful. I guess it could've been worse...

[Remy]

3PM! for once I can watch one of these without being massively sleep deprived.

[Menace2Society]

11PM? Seriously? Ugh, why does Nintendo's presentations always start very late at night where I live?

Looks like I'll be missing out on this, then. Shame, but ah well. I'm used to missing out on stuff like this.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

8 PM for me. I'm gonna wait the ENTIRE DAY being all excited, shoot.

Ah well. I just hope my Internet can handle it.

[PC the Hedgehog]

Sweet, right when I get home from work.

But yeah, I'm gonna be antsy that entire day too. Sure hope I don't have trouble sleeping that night from excitement.

[NegaMix]

4am... well, that ain't happening! Guess I'll be watching it later that day.

[Thrippa]

If I'm lucky, I'll just be home from work. . . this probably guarantees an hour of overtime that night, though.

[YoshiUnity]

Normally, Nintendo Directs start sometime in the morning or late afternoon in US Eastern time. So I was nervous that my new job would interfere with this.

So I'm VERY thankful that this is a late night direct for me. I can watch it completely uninterrupted! 

[Meta77]

Hopefully this system turns out good and not like how they hyped up the wii just for it to end up a pure first party machine. Not that, thats bad but many third parties said they would support them before, release a few games, and never look back. I have high hopes for this but this will probably be a make or break nintendo system for me. Boy do i miss the 64 days lol.

[Blazey Firekitty]

19 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Hopefully this system turns out good and not like how they hyped up the wii just for it to end up a pure first party machine. Not that, thats bad but many third parties said they would support them before, release a few games, and never look back. I have high hopes for this but this will probably be a make or break nintendo system for me. Boy do i miss the 64 days lol.

Yeah, I hope more third party games are on the way. Sonic, Yooka-Laylee, and the Skyrim Remaster look like good signs, but I guess time will tell if the gimmickry scares off developers or attracts them.

[Blacklightning]

You know, I've heard "gimmicky" thrown around a few times in regards to Switch, and honestly, I'm really not seeing it. It's an unusual console to be sure, but by no means does it actually change the way you play a game or the way developers design a game around it - as far as we can tell, there's no touchscreen, no accelerometer, you can't play it in console and handheld mode simultaneously so no dual screens, they haven't deliberately limited the amount of reachable buttons on the controller to force the usage of any aformentioned gimmicks (like the Wiimote and Nunchuck did), and for all intents and purposes they haven't invented a brand new wacky way to play games otherwise. All they've done is given people the ability to literally pick up the console and play it on the move, and to make the control modules usable regardless of whether they're even attached to something or not.

Beyond that, what ultimately separates a Switch game from any other console game from a gameplay standpoint? So far, only the ability to split a controller between two players, but even that is something developers are by no means obligated to stand by like they've been for the past two Ninty gens. Whether or not the Switch succeeds won't depend on having to redesign entire games to fit it - more likely it'll depend on good PR and a strong launch push, things that the WiiU could never recover from once they blundered both.

[Meta77]

Gimmick: the concept on focusing on games on the go. True it's not like the wii u but the cartridge use looks bad. He'll I lose my vita games frequently cause their size 

[JezMM]

7 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Gimmick: the concept on focusing on games on the go. True it's not like the wii u but the cartridge use looks bad. He'll I lose my vita games frequently cause their size 

It'll prolly support digital download too.  If that isn't your cup of tea then idk what to say, take better care of your stuff lol.

[Shade Vortex]

On 12/15/2016 at 4:11 AM, Blacklightning said:

as far as we can tell, there's no touchscreen, no accelerometer

Sure, we don't have "official" confirmation straight from Nintendo... But the patents for the system, which have been found, reveal quite a lot about the system, pretty much confirmed a lot of the rumors about the system. You can find the patent information here and here.

There's also a good overview made on reddit here.

The main things to note are:

-Vitality sensor not dead: Vein authentication/vitality sensor: the IR sensor could be used to authenticate users by imaging their vein pattern; can also read their pulse

-Touchscreen (Probably multi-touch)

-Gyroscope (acceleration sensor+angular velocity sensor).

Mind you this is just the patents for the prototype version and features MAY not make it into the final model, but I'd say most of this stuff is likely to make it to retail.

 

[Candescence]

The list of features in the recent patents either implied or outright stated so far is shockingly extensive:

Quote

 

• there seems to be an Ambient Light Sensor on the main unit, to automatically control the brightness level of the main unit screen;
• there seems to be a cooling fan inside the main unit (the big duct made that one pretty obvious)
• there seems to be a touch screen on the main unit (seemingly confirming rumours/leaks)
• each Joycon seems to have its own vibrator and gyroscope (seemingly confirming rumours/leaks);
• one of the Joycons seems to have NFC and IR units (seemingly confirming rumours/leaks about motion controls);
• one of the Joycons seems to have a record button (screenshots?)
• you could have up to four-player splitscreen on the screen of the main unit (with two sets of Joycon controllers);
• you could have two-player splitscreen on the screen of the main unit (with two sets of Joycon controllers, one for each player);
• (+ several other configuration options)
• it looks like the main unit could be inserted into a HMD (Head Mounted Display… think VR) accessory. Do note this does not mean the Nintendo Switch will have VR, it simply means the main unit could be used with such an accessory. It's most likely Nintendo making sure the console (and its patents) are future-proof;
• the main unit could use a wired connection for internet (USB > Ethernet adapter, Ethernet);
• the LED on the Joycon grip LED could be used for both player number and battery level (like on a Wii Remote);
• Joycon controllers could be charged via the Joycon grip;
• there could be several type of Joycon controllers (like one with a proper D-Pad, for example);
• there seems to be should buttons on the connection-side of the Joycon controllers.

 

It seems like Nintendo is trying to cover as many bases as possible.

[Blacklightning]

Well, I guess I'll stand corrected if any of those make it into the retail unit - though I still maintain if nothing else that it's quite unlike Ninty to market strictly traditional games and experiences so far if it's got that much crap stuffed into it.

[Junko]

So, remember how the Wii U was two Wiis stuck together and the Wii was two GameCubes? Seems like the Switch is two Wii Us stuck together.

Quote

Going over the specs further, before Switch was revealed, some information popped up on Twitter that was thought to be out of date/fake. However, Digital Foundry says that “Nintendo has briefed developers recently with the same information.” Almost everything was on point besides the 4K30 aspect of the spec.

These were the specs that had surfaced on Twitter:

CPU: Four ARM Cortex A57 cores, max 2GHz
GPU: 256 CUDA cores, maximum 1GHz
Architecture: Nvidia second generation Maxwell
Texture: 16 pixels/cycle
Fill: 14.4 pixels/cycle
Memory: 4GB
Memory Bandwidth: 25.6GB/s
VRAM: shared
System memory: 32GB, max transfer rate: 400MB/s
USB: USB 2.0/3.0
Video output: 1080p60/4K30
Display: 6.2-inch IPS LCD, 1280×720 pixels, 10-point multi-touch support

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Clock-speeds are locked here at 768MHz, considerably lower than the 1GHz found in Shield Android TV, but the big surprise from our perspective was the extent to which Nintendo has down-clocked the GPU to hit its thermal and battery life targets. That’s not a typo: it really is 307.2MHz – meaning that in portable mode, Switch runs at exactly 40 per cent of the clock-speed of the fully docked device. And yes, the table below does indeed confirm that developers can choose to hobble Switch performance when plugged in to match the handheld profile should they so choose.

 

 

[Conando]

I'm not surprised if it turns out to be weaker than the competition. People can hem and haw all day about it being suicide, but anyone that's been paying attention can see trying to shove in a 3rd PC Lite is hardly an intelligent business manuever on Nintendo's part. They'd have a LOT more to lose on an expensive flop. See: Saturn and Dreamcast when Sony came along and Gamecube when Microsoft did.