I'm quite excited by this. The video was a bit lengthy but it demonstrated the concept quite well.
Glimpses of Mario, what appeared to be Skyrim, too - more third party support this time perhaps?
I'm most interested to see the price and the spec of the machine. Xbox One and PS4 seem to have become more homogenised in terms of architecture than the last generation of consoles (PS3 was especially weird), if the Switch follows suit it would hopefully encourage more third party support. Assuming the power is there.
Its not running x86 like the PS4 and XBone that's for sure.
Its apparently running a Tegra chip[1]. Exact specs... well we can only guess at this point. So its more similar to an Android tablet than the other consoles.
So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
It did look like they had NBA2k as well, which has an iphone/android port. Maybe the game developers are planning on porting their mobile version of the games onto the Wii instead of the platform versions?
>> So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes.
That could be a double edged sword. I think Nintendo doing a "me-too" console that is like the PS4/XBone/Steam would hurt them more than it helps them. And as it is, Steam already offers a portability element if you've got a decent laptop with a discrete GPU.
>> That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
At this point, I think Nintendo is going to struggle no matter what they do. They're in third place and unless Nintendo can make it worthwhile for 3rd parties with huge hardware sales, it's not going to be pretty.
I actually totally disagree. Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone - and they sell well because they have great software and excellent (for games) interfaces/controls.
This seems like an attempt to take that concept into something higher-end/something that is designed to connect to a TV (at least sometimes). I've got to think that will go quite well for them.
The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
Don't get me wrong, I actually -like- the system and it might very well be the first console I buy since the PS3. But practically speaking, I don't think the rest of the market will view this console as favorably as I do.
Clarifications of my original response:
By "me too" I was referring to the original post's point of going x86 in a traditional TV box in the way that XB1/PS4 did.
By "struggle", I was specifically talking about third party software support in the post I replied to. On the TV console front, Nintendo's primary strength going back to the Wii (and maybe further) has always been first party games. Most of the third party games on the Wii and Wii U were not very good. In other words, if you're buying a Nintendo TV console for the third party games, I think that would be a big mistake, regardless of how long the list of committed 3rd party developers is.
Addressing some of your points:
>> Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone
By "mobile products", I assume that you're referring to the DS/DSi/3DS - how are those "me-too"? What other successful portable consoles have that clam shell form factor? If anything, Nintendo's mobile form factors (starting with the original Game Boy) were the ones that were historically copied by others.
>> The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
Yes, but the market for gaming is completely different now. Games are no longer the exclusive territory of proprietary tv consoles or portable gaming devices (i.e., psp, 3ds).
On the TV console side, Steam is a legitimate substitute for a TV console. I myself switched to Steam since most of the AAA titles I played (2D/3D fighting games) are now all available on PC and I can bring them with me in the form of a laptop with a discrete GPU. And with Steam, I can regularly upgrade my hardware with full backwards compatibility for my purchased games.
On the portable gaming side, phones and tablets have basically taken over the market. The only reason why I bought a 3DS is so that I can have my fill of 2D/3D fighting games (with a real controller and buttons) in my pocket, but I'm in a very small niche.
>On the portable gaming side, phones and tablets have basically taken over the market.
You say that, but phone games have an exceptionally limited capability without extra hardware (like a controller), and few phone games are designed to take advantage of a controller in any case. If you want to actually play good mobile games, you need a mobile console, and Nintendo's are some of the best. The Gameboy line defined portable gaming for over a decade, and there are still holdouts using them to this day (I count myself as one of them: >20 hours of gameplay, countless classic games, one of the best tools for chiptune music creation on the market, and all in a tiny form factor? sold!), and the DS is the console of choice if you want Real games on the go.
If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA? It has a lot of good games in its own right, you can play all the GB/GBC games, and with the aid of PocketNES + mkrom (they're around, but you might have to do some digging to find them) you can emulate NES games pretty well, provided you pony up for a flashcart and flasher (I got mine from http://bennvenn.myshopify.com: $57 for a flasher and card reader, plus one GBA flash cart. And he's offering a decent SD-based card for the original GB for half the price of an Everdrive (although it has some limitations that the Everdrive does not, it will run most GB games). So it's a good place to look for that sort of stuff). Yes, a hacked PSP is better, but it's a lot harder to find one, much harder to get it working, significantly more expensive, and a heck of a lot easier to brick (which is what I did to mine).
What you're saying is technically true, but for the vast majority of people it's about the convenience of not having to carry a second device.
In the same way that a real camera is better than a smartphone, convenience trumps quality.
>> If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA?
I have a 3DS because I wanted to play Street Fighter, Tekken and Dead Or Alive on the go. But I don't always bring it with me. In fact, I only bring it with me on vacations. And when I'm out on the go with just my phone, well, I don't play anything at all - it's not a huge loss. FWIW, you can already do everything you mention and more on a 2DS/3DS with the right "accessories" and a little bit of time.
Price aside, it's actually easy. Just buy a micro-SD card and the right "accessory" (there are maybe only two worth buying) and it takes a few minutes. With the most popular accessory, you can also run any home brew .3ds files very easily.
It only gets hard if you want to play online, which means you need to do .CIA files, which becomes difficult (it also requires a new SD card). But if playing online isn't a priority, it's not even an issue.
>Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone
What? If anything, Smartphones are the "me-too" products. The Gameboy came out in 1989, and the DS came out in the early 2000s, when nobody outside Japan could envision something like a smartphone, and even they didn't have something really usable for the kind of complex games that both platforms offered.
I do agree that they succeed because they have an interface well-tuned to their task. Another reason for success, though, is battery life: When the GameBoy came out, it was really the only portable game console that could last more than four hours. And my GBA (not an SP, notably), a console that has a lower battery life than the GB or GBC that came before it, can last through me playing on it for an entire day, nonstop. Can your phone do the same?
Mind, this is less of a selling point nowadays: it seems even Nintendo's forgotten how to make products with a good battery life.
>So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
If Nintendo is smart, they will find a way to let console devs leverage the power of Nvidia's libraries like GameWorks which may actually be a huge boon to 3rd party adoption. But that all depends on what kind of OS and stack they choose to go with, and whether they consider developer effort an issue. If it's going to fit a different use-case with mobile and docked performance profiles, it may be difficult to port games to it with AMD hardware anyways.
Yeah Nintendo seem to be doing pretty well I'd say. I don't know how they compare to Sony or Microsoft, but I have no doubt that Nintendo will keep producing video game consoles well into the future. (And I think Sony will as well. Probably Microsoft too.)
Very clever. Anchor for home, and again trying for the mobile area where their creativity really worked (3DS). I'll be curious in the system specs and the decisions they made - such as having that apparent card slot. Hooray for the headphone jack.
I'll never understand the marketing motivation to show a bunch of people getting together for a social gathering and togetherness, then cram together to watch / play on something with a screen the size of a hardback novel.
Oh yeah. Dropping LMP isn't just dumb from a "fun" perspective, it's also a stupid business decision: LMP is the one place where Consoles are inarguably superior to PCs. By tossing it out, you're tossing away a major selling point for your system.
I think the gap that makes Consoles 'inarguably superior' in local multiplayer is going to close rapidly as the steam link's issues get worked out.
But I do agree, Consoles (Specifically Nintendo's) are currently inarguably superior by a wide margin for local multiplayer. And local multiplayer games provide distinct enjoyment that remote multiplayer games cannot replicate effectively.
Steam link is effectively just a way of turning your PC into a more console-like device. But most of us don't have Steam Link or an HTPC, so consoles are more convenient, which has always been the console tradeoff: loss of control for added convenience.
> Dropping LMP isn't just dumb from a "fun" perspective, it's also a stupid business decision [...] By tossing it out, you're tossing away a major selling point for your system.
It seems to have worked out pretty well for Sony and Microsoft—and the manufacturer that does still focus on LMP (Nintendo) is struggling. So I don't think it's actually a major selling point.
I mean, I wish it were; that's one of the things that I love best about Nintendo hardware. But it really doesn't seem like it is.
Sorry, no idea. I don't really see what the difference is from user perspective either way (as long as the feature is compatible with the underlying hardware).
My experience is that of a bystander with fairly high standards none the less. My kids seem to love Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Plants vs Zombies Garden warfare local multiplayer on Xbox one and what I observe works great.
Microsoft never dropped local multiplayer. Just as many kids younger than you have those same nostalgic memories about going over to a friend's house and playing 4-player Halo 2 or Rock Band.
They might not "focus" on it (whatever that means-- it has the feature, it works, what more "focus" do you need?), I suppose.
It's the focus that I'm talking about: LMP is an increasingly rare feature in games, save indies (which usually don't have online MP), and a few genres (Fighting Games, Rhythm Games). For example, AFAIK the new Halos don't have LMP. I know several other shooters have dropped it.
> They might not "focus" on it (whatever that means-- it has the feature, it works, what more "focus" do you need?), I suppose.
To me, it means many first party titles are designed around using it. For instance on Nintendo consoles: the main Mario series games, Mario Kart series, Smash Bros series, Mario Party series, Mario Sports series, Nintendo Land, Splatoon, etc, etc, are all designed with multiplayer in mind.
I guess the difference is, it's not just a couple of titles, or "it works", but instead it's a major company focus for their titles. That's a pretty big difference.
Indeed it is: Games like Halo heavily de-emphasize it, and games like Titanfall and Overwatch and such don't even have it anymore: Once upon a time, if an MP-only game didn't have Local Multiplayer on console, it would have been laughed out of the room.
One possible benefit of the hybrid handheld/docked model is that each player maintains their own system and screen, independent of whether or not they have control of the television or are even in the same room as their opponent.
I don't know how much Nintendo is going to implement with regards to their online services, but if they do this right, they would have the killer family gaming machine ecosystem.
They could:
* Implement sensible parental controls. Each user potentially having their own handheld system would make this significantly easier and more robust.
* Implement a friendly family content sharing model. I'm not necessarily begging for free family sharing a-la-Steam, but a discounted license per additional family user would be a smart move, compared to their current 3DS strategy.
* Implement something along the lines of PS4's amazing SharePlay feature, where you can invite a friend to watch you play, voice chat, and even hand the controller virtually over to them so they can help you through tricky sections. Here again, the hybrid model would make it so cool to cheer on my kid from a hotel room across the country on a business trip.
I don't know if the NS will live up to its teaser video, but everything I've seen makes me excited to imagine possibilities, rather than the raw polygon-pushing and logic-crunching. This in stark contrast to the comparatively gimmicky Wii and Wii U.
FWIW, games like Black Ops 3 technically have LMP, but it's a subpar experience compared to prior generations (particularly limiting in features/settings, like being able to choose basic things like vertical/horizontal screen splitting). Often, the feature's riddled with bugs and other glaring flaws that make it a notably worse experience than forming online parties on two consoles, on two TVs, even when you're sitting next to each other on the same couch.
Only because multiple controllers are practically standard when it comes to consoles. Grab a few gamepads that easily fit in a laptop bag and there's a plethora of great options for local multiplayer. Spelunky (the remake) is a personal favorite.
Mario Kart (after Warlords on the Atari 2600 or MULE on the Atari 8-bits with 4 players) is my favorite group game. It just has the fun feel, and hearing the various characters screaming or victory yells is hilarious.
Goldeneye is an amazing game which I hope is ported. Perfect Dark was pretty good when played in multi-player. It pretty much was a Goldeneye sequel at that point.
I also played a ton of goldeneye when I was around 10 years old, so I get where you are coming from and it pains me to be the bearer of bad news but that game is ... so bad.
That doesn't mean it wasn't fun. It doesn't invalidate the good times we had. But there is so much about that game (from the controller itself, to the control layout, to the gameplay) that just does not hold up. N64 Goldeneye is a clunky, hard to play, unbalanced mess.
It was a ton of fun, and I wouldn't trade the experience of playing it for anything; but it is not a 'masterpiece'.
Mario Kart 64 is, even by modern standards, a good game, but calling that a masterpiece would mean we need to come up with a classification higher than masterpiece for Mario Kart 8.
It's not bad, it's actually got some of the best game design and multiplayer options that the steep learning curve (or clunky / hard to play factor as you call it) for a console FPS shooter. A couple major faults (Oddjob) but great level design I think redeems it a whole bunch.
I'll stand by it, because later I went on to be a Half-Life and Adrenaline Gamer hardcore player, and HLDM's complexity with the long jump and tau cannon required a lot of study and practice for most. Goldeneye was a good trainer for that.
Yeah I knew a lot of the Quake and Q2 guys in our circle, definitely quite a high-tier game. We had fun with Q3 but it was definitely a less brutal take on FPS skill than Q2 in my opinion. I swear HLDM was the absolute best because at first when the Tau Cannon could splash damage through walls and arc around corners, there was no other weapon like it in any game. Later Valve patched it down and whatnot, which made it easier on (1)Player population but was frustrating as it mandated a playing style change somewhat.
Q3 was arguably less brutal, although its rockets actually moved, which was nice. This lack of brutality is why CPMA was devised, which brought back the brutality and advanced movement tactics in full force.
I really don't swear by Q3 or HLDM: Although I do swear at them a lot. My preference is either Quake 1 or Xonotic, which is like Quake meets UT, and lowers the floor on advanced movement so plebs like me don't get totally stomped the first time they log on (we still get stomped, just not impossibly fast).
I love them all, which probably means I'm a masochist or something.
Please don't forget that Goldeneye had several controller layouts.
Personally, I thought the default one was terrible, and I always used "1.2 Solitaire" which was copied from another N64 Title, Turok.
In 1.2, the stick is used to look, which felt much more natural for an FPS. And while in "aim mode", it allowed finetuning the aim very quickly too.
I also played a lot of Goldeneye multiplayer as a kid. My memories of it are far fonder than more recent plays on emulators! That said, I learned through a comment a couple years ago on HN that Goldeneye's multiplayer mode was a total afterthought, not really supported by the publisher and more or less done by one guy (or at least a very small team) in a month or two. Pretty incredible, considering its kind of the grandfather of local multiplayer first person shooters. I don't think its fair to hold it up against many other games that jumped off its shoulders.
If you haven't, I recommend checking out the story on Goldeneye!
Especially the version on the Xbox360, or, as I call it, "that big white box I own solely to play Perfect Dark on". A straight port with upgraded graphics, better framerate, modern controls, and (or perhaps this one I'm imagining) subtly rebalanced difficulty to account for those other changes. Nothing like that garbage trying-to-be-Call-of-Duty-and-failing-miserably Goldeneye reimagining a few years back.
Still unmatched in terms of gameplay options. Coop single player, versus(!) single player, the great multiplayer of course. The way the difficulty settings changed objectives and even starting location(!) in addition to damage values and AI. The fun "cheats" you unlock with speedruns. Brilliant game.
Ba-Bomb Blast on the GameCube was my favorite, i never got that setup for the Wii, as i had the GameCube controllers for a while, but couldn't find the GameCube Game... if i remember correctly, they were compatible.
Wow, now that is a great multiplayer game. One of the few video games that my whole family played together (the other being 'Where in Time is Carmen San Diego' for the NES).
Very nice to see it mentioned here! It is a huge classic.
We played it when it was long past its prime in the dorms at college in 88-89. A 4 player game that was addictive, short and generated a lot of trash talk and claims of the one true technique. I think if you can design games so easily accessible you are doing well.
Functionally, it filled the niche that would be occupied by Mario Karts, Goldeneye, M.U.L.E., and Perfect Dark. 4 player head-to-head games that were simple to understand and fun to play repeatedly.
I recently watched a long video for a Kirby game for DS and not only was it like 8 games in one, it was setup so that one person could have a physical copy, but four people could play on their own DS'. Amazing in the age of micro transactions.
Yep. Download Play, the name of that feature IIRC, means that for some MP games on DS, only one person needs a copy. It makes finding games to play with your friends a lot easier, I tell you.
Also if a game does not have local multiplayer, people who want to play together will buy more than one game. At least I think it's the rationale behind this decision.
Also local split-screen multiplayer is harder to do since you have to do two (or more) graphic rendering at the same time, so dropping it allow the dev to spend more time on the rest of the game.
As the years go on and my fingers get more wear and tear, my first question seeing the tiny controller option was "I wonder how bad my hand will cramp using this" but it looks absolutely perfect for kids.
I dunno. I'll grant that it's a clever idea but those half-controllers aren't going to have all the buttons that a full controller does, so games using that mode will be restricted in what controls they have. Plus, the ergonomics is not going to be as good as a full controller as well.
It looks like they've kept the D-Pad in so it can double as the A/B/X/Y buttons in that situation, which I think is a really clever way to alleviate some of that issue. I think the type of games where this use case makes sense probably don't need a large number of buttons anyways, though.
But they don't need to have all the buttons or even be ergonomic; they just need to be convenient enough that there's nothing else that provides the same functionality or better. Everything else just affects the quality of the experience, but that determines whether anyone even buys it.
I can't imagine how complicated it must be to develop a decent game that works with a full controller, half a controller, 2 full controllers, 4x1/2 controllers, etc
Wii U devs are already doing that kind of thing. Mario Kart 8 supports a ridiculous variety of controllers from both the Wii and the Wii U, which actually is great if you're me because you can suddenly do four-player Mario Kart thanks to those old Wiimotes lying around!
I hope the Switch can still talk to Wiimotes. Even if they drop sensor bar and the ability to point (which will prevent most Wii games coming to Virtual Console without substantial modifications), being able to pair with one and use the nunchuck or the classic controller would be great for someone like me who has a Wii gathering dust and a Wii U on active service.
Given that the sensor bar is just two IR diodes spaced apart, it's not unimaginable that they could just integrate it into the body of the console itself. There exists a youtube video of someone using two Zippo lighters to emulate it.
I'm sure there's an abstraction over all of it. The game just has to support N controllers. The number of inputs necessary to drive mariokart are pretty small (turning, acceleration, menus, items). Other than maybe displaying some specific images for each controller type, I doubt the game actually cares deeply about the full vs half controller.
If each half of the controller is similar to a Wii Remote (+-pad and two or three buttons and an accelerometer/gyroscope) then it'll be plenty to play a lot of Wii U games.
It's brilliant. I have kids, and I could definitely see it coming places like the car where the kids are able to play together, or where I am able to play with the kids.
Growing up, my family would do a 24 hour drive to visit family in Pennsylvania, and my dad would get the Sega/N64 working in the van with an inverter for my sisters and me to play on this tiny 10in screen. I looked forward to the 24 hour drive because we'd play games like Mario Kart the whole time.
Not an easy drive to make with triplets, but we loved it. Didn't make a peep.
I've used the Wii U Gamepad to play multiplayer games in the car with my son (you don't need a monitor at all). Yeah it's a bit of a tight squeeze, but still fun.
This looks amazing - nice form factor for easy use on the go (demonstrated in many ways in the video, including on airplanes), but still letting you have a classic game experience. It shows smart usage of now standard wireless tech and highly portable & fast storage.
It's amazing how slow game consoles change minus beefed up computing capabilities, and while Nintendo has had some hit or misses, this shift looks like a vastly superior improvement over the initial ideas brought forth by the Wii U.
I find the Jetsons really overpriced... I can pick up a TX1 Nvidia shield TV for £150 with controllers (and even install Ubuntu on it), but the Jetson dev kit with the same SoC is £500? It's like they don't want people to start using them
The A line is APUs, so CPU + GPU on chip. I wouldn't call those mobile chips, though. They drain waaayyyy too much power for that. The tegra line is arm + nvidia gpu on the same SOC, which has way lower power draw (and is already used in some tablets and a chromebook or two).
It is so reassuring to see Nintendo create a modern gaming machine that doesn't try to be a living room hub or an iPad competitor. Going entirely by the video alone, every single design decision has been made with a clear focus on gaming. The simple docking action for transitioning it to the TV, the versatility and portability of the controllers, the reasonable size, etc all combine to make this (again, judging entirely from the video) a focused, confident release that finally embraces the changing way people play games.
Besides an original Gameboy (which I loved), I've never owned a Nintendo console. After seeing this trailer, it is an instant buy for me in March.
The only thing I want to know more about is the online store. From what I understand, Nintendo's eStore has a lot of shortcomings in a lot of weird areas. I hope they address those. I have an Xbox One and about 25 games, all of which were purchased digitally. I'm not sure I could go back to physical versions of games.
The Nintendo Shop on the Wii U is reasonable, actually. It's fairly easy to use, discoverability is decent. It's pretty basic but it's (in my opinion) their best attempt yet.
Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better.
My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must own Super Mario World 3 or 4 times by now.
(Obviously they're not actually forcing me, but it would be good to have cross-platform pass for that kind of content)
The Wii U shop isn't completely awful, but it's pretty bad. Both the 3DS and Wii U shops suffer from two major problems:
1. They're slow.
2. There are far too many screens/taps necessary to do things.
Loading each new screen seems to take at least a few seconds, and there are way too many of them. I'd estimate you could remove like half the screens in the 3DS shop purchase flow through better UX design. Just compare how long it takes to buy something on either system to how long it takes on Android or iOS.
edit: oh yeah and downloading takes large games takes a REALLY long time. I downloaded the new Sonic game for my 3DS the other day on the guest wifi at a Google office and it took like 3 or 4 hours. It definitely wasn't the wifi that was the constraining factor, speed testing on my phone showed it at like 200 mbps.
Additionally the search is pretty bad. Just yesterday I searched for "smash bros" to buy some new characters, the actual game is deep in page 2 of the results after a bunch of developer videos and other tertiary stuff. Games, especially as popular as Smash, should be right at the top.
Also, filters for available DLC are nonexistent. You can't filter by maps, characters, or whatever applicable content types are available. All you can do is sort by "latest" and "most popular" for example.
You're right about the UI slowness. That is a problem for the system as a whole. When it was originally released, returning to the home screen (for example) was incredibly slow - it's marginally better since a system update, but woeful compared to the equivalent functionality on PS4 or Xbox.
Another weird thing: I have a 3DS and a 3DS XL but purchases can only be installed on 1 system. This is also a problem if your system breaks, because your games are tied to your console.
For eShop games you can call Nintendo and they can transfer the licenses (I did it when upgrading to a New 3DS.) For me the real bummer was that your saves are also tied to your console and it's more complicated transferring those. I don't mind paying 30-40$ for another game license, but it really hurt losing 100+ hours of progress in several unfinished games.
It's like their 'HTML5' browser (on either the wii or wiiu) so slow! The thing is the Wii U specs could have run at least some version of Chrome... I don't think it's hardware accelerated in anyway - prehaps to stop html5 games interfering with 3rd party games maybe?
I think that's a big part of why Nintendo still has purchases tied to devices. As a way to push people to buy the same content over again. They don't push out new digital content fast enough to keep the income flow up if they aren't getting you to repurchase things.
But the real killer is: games are still tied to hardware, not user account. Which means, if your console dies, you lose all your purchases. (Unless that's changed VERY recently.)
If you're used to the Xbox store like the grandparent, going to the Nintendo Shop is like stepping back in time a decade.
I am under the impression the lack of unified account system problem will finally be fixed with this new system. This is so long overdue and very welcome.
I'm fairly confident you're incorrect. There's a single shared account between the 3DS and Wii U online stores, and I also know for sure that 3DS purchases are tied to your user account, rather than your hardware. I suppose it's possible that it works differently for the Wii U than the 3DS ecosystems, but that seems unlikely. You can still only have an account attached to a single console (of each type) at a time, but if you lose one or it dies, you can reattach your account to the new one.
Your account is tied to the hardware (1 3DS and 1 Wii U). You can move your account from one hardware to another if you have both on the same room, or with a phone call.
Sorry, but that's the way it is. You do share the 3DS and Wii U accounts, but game titles are tied to the console. Nintendo has no instructions on how to transfer games to a different 3ds system without having both of them physically there and working [0]. I wanted to trade in my 3DS for a discount on a "New 3DS", but wouldn't have both systems to transfer my games. (Though I've read most Gamestop's will let you do the transfer in their store when you do the trade-in, I haven't tried).
It seems a Kotaku author was able to get their games transferred by contacting Nintendo directly. So at least there's that [1]. There's no direct way to download your games onto a new 3ds. And additional source about transferring between systems [2].
they are not.
you only need to contact Nintendo if your account is still TIED TO ANOTHER 3DS.
However if it isn't you can just buy a new 3DS and selling the old one before you have the new one. If you've forgotten to detach your account your games are missing.
Here a german letter (I translated it) that I got from Nintendo before selling my 3DS (I wanted to sell the Games with the Account):
Die Spiele, die Sie mit Ihrer NNID erworben haben, werden für den Nachbesitzer also nicht verfügbar sein, vielmehr sind die Lizenzen der Spiele
mit Ihrer NNID verknüpft.
Spiele sind auch nicht zwischen NNID's übertragbar.
Eventuell vorinstallierte Spiele (wie z.B. Mario Kart 7) sind mit der Seriennummer der Konsole verknüpft und werden für den Nachbesitzer wieder
verfügbar sein, solange Sie vorher keinen Datentransfer auf eine andere Konsole aus der New Nintendo 3DS-Familie durchgeführt haben.
NNID = Nintendo ID.
In short it says Licenses are connected with the Nintendo ID. Only Games that are pre-installed on the Console will be tied with the Console ID, if you didn't do any Datatransfer to another Device.
However I detached the ID and bough a 2DS later and I still can play all the Games on my NNID. Basically I only sold the 3DS + Cartridge Games.
Calling Nintendo to transfer your account in the event an old system becomes inaccessible is inconvenient, but not insurmountably so. It's good enough for me to consider games not tied to the console.
The worst part of buying stuff on the Wii U shop is that you can't store it on a tiny SD card. You have to plug in a full external hard drive. This seems like a pretty obvious thing for them to fix in this iteration.
Don't forget that the WiiU also follows USB standards strictly and won't power a portable USB hard drive over a single USB port, requiring a Y-cable. Also you only get the option of formatting the entire drive to use for the WiiU.
Correct me if I am wrong. I believe eshop purchases are still tied to the system and not the account. This makes transferring of content more of a hassle than it needs to be. You'll need to do a system transfer of the games if you want to maintain your library.
AFAIK, that is still how it works as of the Wii U. And yeah, there's awful processes for if say, your device dies, and you need to recover your digital purchases.
It is unfortunate Nintendo still operates their online purchases this way. Many other platforms (XB Live, PSN, Steam, et cetera) tie purchases to the account. Nintendo's way goes against expectations.
I hope Nintendo spends a little more resources to improve on the online side of things alongside the new Switch console (store, online multiplayer, interaction with friends...); they are severely behind compared to their competitors.
Nintendo has been behind with respect to online gaming for multiple console generations. Friend codes instead of user names is a terrible idea, and like their game purchases friend codes are tied to the hardware and not the user account.
I think a big part of the friend code choice is their focus on younger gamers. I think Nintendo's intentionally tried to make it hard for people to become friends who don't know each other outside of the Nintendo ecosystem. They don't want to be seen as an avenue for children being taken advantage of, they don't want parents worrying about what their kids do on a Nintendo platform, etc.
I'm not saying it's the right call, or that in this day and age, we haven't moved past that in many respects, but I'm willing to bet that's a big part of their lack of online focus.
The age control and granularity of control over what my son can do is far superior on the Nintendo consoles than either the PlayStation, Xbox, iOS or Android.
And yes, my ex have had total freak-outs over several of the other platforms due to ridiculous decisions (Plants vs. Zombies on the Xbox making it an outright pain to find out not to have random strangers suddenly broadcast their conversation to you - seemingly without realising - and liberally using the n-word, for example... whoever thought it was a good idea to have player audio broadcast without making it easy to mute on either end without muting all in game sound is a total idiot), or numerous iOS games that are otherwise great that allow unrestricted chat where my son has several times come across rather disgusting behaviour.
In general I'm not so worried in my sons case - he knows what he's not allowed to tell people, and he knows what not to repeat, but I can see why a lot of parents would find many games that otherwise would be perfectly age appropriate problematic to let their kids play.
Word on the street is that the higher echelons of Nintendo are absolutely terrified of a pedophile picking up children on their network. When views through that lens, all of their Internet decisions make sense.
This is exactly what I'm concerned about. It seems ridiculous. Not sure if it's enough to be a deal breaker, but it seems so backwards especially as they control the whole platform.
Yes. If you can't have both systems available at the same time and location you need to call in to have your account transferred. This requires you to answer some questions about the account such as what games do you own and when did you buy them. Then they take a few days to get around to unlocking your account. It's awful and easily the most user hostile of the modern gaming platforms' stores.
I don't understand why they do it this way. Buying a game on any other platform feels so much nicer, because I know if my console dies I can just log in and re-download. I assume it's something about piracy, but it does feel hostile towards regular users.
A plausible financial incentive for them would be rent-seeking: they might be afraid they lose money on the balance if you only have to buy the game once. Doing it this way they have a shot at getting money from you again for the same game when new consoles come out.
It actually made piracy easier. At least in the 3ds, all you need to do is add some id of the game to a file in the 3ds and it will be like if you purchased it.
Is there any info on whether this was a problem with not having Nintendo IDs linked to the shop on original Wii systems? On my Wii U, I had to create a Nintendo ID to use the shop, so presumably that follows me now. I could see the process you describe as their interim solution before they started linking accounts to the shop, but I don't know whether that's true.
The Wii, DSi, 3DS and Wii U all had both physical media and downloadable software. There were e-shop exclusives for all of those systems from mini-games to obscure games that were localized from JP and were too niche for a physical release.
That's far from likely. Not having digital purchases would be a terrible decision for a gaming system. The slot will be there to allow the choice to buy physical media, and to placate brick and mortar game stores.
Every current system, and the last several Nintendo systems, have had physical media and digital purchase options. That the system accepts physical media tells us nothing.
> The only thing I want to know more about is the online store. From what I understand, Nintendo's eStore has a lot of shortcomings in a lot of weird areas.
Haven't run into any as a casual user – Nintendo managed to make the purchase workflow easy even on a 3DS, which is impressive.
The Switch might offer some advantages now, but it's not going to take long before mobile phones offer similar graphics, and gamepad experiences. At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
I think Switch will sell enough to be profitable, but Nintendo is going to be squeezed out of the hardware market. They can't compete with Playstation and Xbox for the console market. They can't compete with Steam on the PC and laptop market. They'll also lose the mobile market to the iPhone, and Pixels of the future.
Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development. Imagine Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros, and Kirby games distributed on Playstation, Xbox, Steam, iPhones, and Android. That's a huge market waiting for them.
>> it's not going to take long before mobile phones offer similar graphics, and gamepad experiences.
But they already do now. The only problem, albeit a big one, with gamepad experiences is the constantly changing form factors of phones over time.
>> At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
It's not about the hardware, it's about the software. And in Nintendo's case, it's about having the latest and greatest first party Nintendo games. Which, with few exceptions, are not available on other platforms. The bottom line, enough people are still willing to pay for proprietary hardware to play Nintendo's games.
I agree, their hardware sells because of their games. Profits are in game sales and not hardware though, so why sell proprietary hardware in the first place, if it just vastly limits the audience for your game sales?
Nintendo see themselves as a toy company, in fact they still make non-game toys.
They don't make consoles as a "CPU+GPU+GAME" they make toys, for example this is why they invented some back then outright bizarre stuff, like N64 funky controller and first 3D platformer games, Wii and Wii controller, that board controller, and so on.
Nintendo doesn't like making games, they like making toys, the fact that their best product are consoles+first party games doesn't change this fact, if you look videos of they designing stuff, you will see that their first games for a platform are usually designed alongside the console, with game designers making prototypes of potential controllers and designing not a game for a console, but the console+game pair that fits their goals.
Then, they accept third party games as a "bonus", but it is NOT their focus.
You could make the same argument about having an Xbox when Microsoft already deals with computers. Why have a separate console when you can have a PC that does the same and then some?
Nintendo's first party IPs are partially what keeps it alive. Think about it. Mario and Mario Kart have more or less been the same for generations, yet people (including myself) keep coming back for more.
Also, the Wii marked a decided family-friendly focus for Nintendo. Everyone complains about Nintendo's online ecosystem being so abysmal. This is rightfully so. If you look at it from the perspective of a parent with children, it's basically the perfect platform. Aside from their IPs, Nintendo consoles don't offer much for older gamers that Sony and Microsoft does way better. However, Nintendo consoles do get tons of games that are child- and family-oriented.
There really is no financial reason on any side to keep the proprietary single platform console hardware for game releases. Nintendo would certainly (as demonstrated by Pokemon Go) make ludicrously more revenue if their games were on all platforms rather than just their own. Because nothing their hardware does is useful. They make nice peripherals (Wiimote, whatever the tablet for the Wii U) which could easily have (and often do) have driver support everywhere else already.
So what are you getting out of a Nintendo console? Lackluster proprietary software and crippled low powered hardware. Not a compelling offer to pretty much anyone, so they use their software to prop up the hardware and lose out on dramatically more software sales to maintain a dead hardware business.
If this console were just an Android handheld / console switcher device it would be immensely more successful.
> Is the Nintendo Switch much different than the below[...]
Yes: Nintendo's offering allows for "couch co-op" and/or "party games"—that is, local multiplayer. It's Nintendo's bailiwick, and always has been. Every feature in that video (each device supporting two players; ad-hoc pairing of N devices to get 2N players) is about local multiplayer.
Phone hardware is generic; you can force it into a gaming mould, but it won't support gaming experiences out-of-the-box in a way that a gaming console does. And because of that, devs will make single-player or online-multiplayer games for phones (for the people who care to specialize their devices themselves), but no devs will bother making local-multiplayer games for phones (because that assumes everyone in your friend group has bought into the same specialized peripherals.) This is why the Ouya failed: it assumed the Android ecosystem had local-multiplayer titles, or that devs would build one once offered a TV "target." It doesn't, and they won't.
Apple does want into the local-multiplayer space (they're working toward it with paired iOS+tvOS apps) but as I said, iOS devs just aren't interested; meanwhile, Nintendo consoles have Nintendo developing first-party "flagship" local-multiplayer titles to prop them up, and to encourage and provide a role-model for third-party devs who want to do the same.
> Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development.
The other thing Nintendo is "about", in the modern era, is developer lock-in. You buy Nintendo consoles mostly because of their exclusives. How do they achieve so many exclusives? By making them in-house, yes, but also by designing their consoles to do unique things, such that third-party devs will write games that exploit those unique console features... and then find themselves unable to make a sensible port to any other console. Every Nintendo console is designed with the idea in mind that "if it was a plain-and-simple PC, you could just enjoy the same game on another console, or on an emulator. So let's make it not just a PC."
The Wii's Wiimote is a pretty good example of this lock-in effect; but it was eventually cloned—by Microsoft and Sony both. (They never intended anyone to make games just for the Kinect or the Move; instead, their strategy was effectively just to cancel out Nintendo's de-facto exclusivity and encourage devs to make their "motion" games into cross-platform releases, rather than Just Dance et al remaining Nintendo-exclusive.)
But the best example is the DS. Make a game for two screens, with touch-interaction only on the bottom screen? it's going to just look plain silly if you do a direct port of that to iOS or Android. It's a "natural" barrier in the way of porting.
And keep in mind that [3]DS games still vastly outsell iOS games in the mobile gaming market. Nintendo's strategy works. They make mobile hardware specifically for gaming, and people buy it. And they make money on the hardware, not just the games!
The Switch, though, creates a second, higher rung to Nintendo's mobile strategy—like the iPad is to Apple's. This isn't a home console, it's a mobile console for people who want a high-def gameplay experience and local-multiplayer.
---
In Nintendo's previous generation, we saw Super Smash Bros 4 and Mario Kart: two titles that were developed in parallel for both the 3DS and the Wii U (a lot of work!) They did that work because the Wii U was "a thing attached to your TV", while the 3DS was "a portable thing", and they wanted people to be able to play in both contexts. Other games that would have been perfect for this setup (e.g. Splatoon, Pokken Tournament) were left behind.
Effectively, those were all just Switch games that were released before the Switch was ready for them...
Biggest pain point for the Nintendo eShop? If you own a 3DS and a Wii U and want to own a Virtual Console game for both - you're stuck with buying it two times.
I agree this should be fixed, I can play a game on either of my iPhones without having to re-buy it, but do any other consoles allow you to do this? If I bought a game on the PS Vita that was also on the PS4, could I play without re-purchasing?
Honest question, I don't know. Just wondering if Nintendo is continuing the trend or if they're still stuck in the past.
>If I bought a game on the PS Vita that was also on the PS4, could I play without re-purchasing?
Yes. For example, they used to sell "PS Classics", Playstation games through their store. I bought Symphony of the Night once, and had it on my PSP, PS3, and PS Vita. I'm sure you could get it on the PS4 as well.
Microsoft has a similar thing for their Xbox Live Arcade games on the xbone, but many of those are being made into HD Remasters instead of being ported.
Some games are cross-buy. Others are not. PSone Classics titles are cross-buy. Final Fantasy X/X2 HD is cross-save, but not cross buy.
There are a few cross-buy games on Nintendo systems, Severed is the most recent example. Most of Nintendo's cross-buy games have been rolled out since the new Nintendo Account system that debuted with Miitomo.
I don't know about PS Vita to PS4 compatibility but the reason why I decided not to buy a PS4 was that I'd have had to repurchase all the PS3 games that I've bought online before if I wanted to play them on the PS4.
What's wrong with being a living room hub? Since cutting the cord, my PS4 has been the ideal set top box and is the only device attached to my TV.
Blu Ray Player (that I never use), check.
Plex client, check.
DLNA client, check.
Digital Optical Out, check.
Netflix, Amazon Video check.
Gaming machine, yup.
I wonder if, using a more powerful alternative to the raspberry pi, you can create a mobile gaming pc that can run PS now. It wouldn't be a PS4, but PS3 games would be a nice consolation :)
EDIT: Interesting, this http://www.udoo.org/udoo-x86/ could definitely power a PC running PS Now. So, I can't lug a PS4 around, but I could lug a PS3 around :)
And it would just so happen to have access to the entire library of older systems. Thanks for the idea. I know what my next weekend project will be!
When I moved, I didn't build a "living room hub". In fact, I don't have a TV. I find it much more gratifying to hang out on the couch with my 3DS nowadays in hour long bursts.
Game consoles don't ship with TV remotes, and the remotes that you can buy are overly complicated affairs.
The WAF of using a controller to control video playback is low. We have a Roku 3 and it's far simpler to use than our 360 or PS4. Plus it's never "off". Side benefit is that I can remote play the PS4 when someone is using the Roku ;-).
The Switch could plausibly fill this gap, but I guarantee that those little controller thingies are going to get lost.
My girlfriend instinctively used the TV remote to control the video playback on the PS4, and to my surprise it worked.
It's a Sony TV and I can even control the PS home menu.
This looks amazing, and the fact they got Skyrim in the trailer is a great promise of its graphical prowess. I just hope they take online gaming seriously this generation.
It could be, sure. Which has minimum specs well south of even the PS4, release date merely three years ago. I'm not saying it's a bad game. (Skyrim is the last Bethesda game I enjoyed--man, FO4 was bad.) But it is not really a benchmark in 2016.
This is a higher-end Tegra. It's impressive-for-a-mobile-chip, but mobile chips still aren't really impressive. Maybe the base has additional GPU muscle or something, who knows. But the existence of a video-rendered Skyrim on-screen isn't really indicative of "graphical prowess" in the first place.
Is there any other console that can play Skyrim smoothly on the go? No, which is why this is impressive. We'll have to wait for the specs to be announced before we can confirm that the docked console is behind the rest.
Why limit it to "consoles"? An iPad could, depending on the desired render quality. The A9x is probably beefier than the Tegra in this, or is at least competitive. (edit: "Probably" is a strong word, given that this is coming out in early 2017, but at least in the ballpark.)
Don't get me wrong, I think the device looks cool and I was already planning on buying one. But "playing Skyrim" just doesn't tell you anything, especially when the video on-screen is plastered there with After Effects. It's sloppy thinking to jump on that as meaningful anythings.
I've yet to see an iPad game at the level of Skyrim. Yes, you could get the same graphics, but I doubt you could get one with such scale onto an iPad.
I understand that the trailer is not meant to reflect the exact console. But remember that Bethesda is behind this, and so we have their seal of approval, so to speak.
I'm not saying the games exist on the iPad platform. I'm saying that the hardware is certainly competitive with this and so it's not some super-impressive thing that this is coming out with Skyrim. Like, we have this hardware already.
No inside information, but I can make some educated guesses? It's an nVidia Tegra-platform SoC in a mobile form factor, which limits its TDP. That it has a fan grille suggests that it can run a little hotter than a no-fan device like an iPad, but you're still fighting with battery life. Like, there's only so much you can do with that, plus the needs to keep costs down in order to be price-competitive with the PS4 and Xbox One. By "we have this hardware already", I was referring to how preposterously tight Apple has gotten with their A9x/A10 hardware in terms of CPU and GPU performance. It's still not as competitive versus Intel in general use cases as Apple wants you to think it is, but it is very, very good and is definitely no worse than "competitive" against nVidia's current Tegra line.
I don't think I'm saying anything particularly shocking. And none of that's to say it can't be a good, satisfying device. I mean, Christ, I was playing my Vita this morning, and the chip at the heart of that is Frito-Lay. Just that the gamer conception of "power" really isn't...real? And that there are a lot of things that have to be considered in terms of that.
Fair enough. I'm honestly hoping that the base has some kind of GPU acceleration a la Surface Book. Otherwise, it's going to be treated the same way as the Wii U by third party devs.
"Release date three years ago" was referring to the PS4. Fallout 4's minimum specs on PC, even (i.e., not an optimized platform), are lower than the PS4-equivalents on that platform. I would expect a mobile device (and the Switch is on a Tegra platform, it's a mobile device), three years further down the line, to be able to be at least in the ballpark of "competitive", with allowances and restrictions (lowered draw distance, simplified shaders, maybe reduced texture size depending on the memory budget), with a machine packing a Radeon HD7870.
My point is that re-engine'ing the game doesn't change the assets involved (stuff like texture quality or shader complexity has a pretty significant impact on performance), nor (necessarily) the visual effects involved. You could scale UE3 down to run on absolutely laughable hardware and games today still regularly support 640x480 and other silly things. Being "on an engine" means something only when you have hard hardware requirements, like requiring support for SM 4.0 or whatever.
FO4/GameBryo has really weird hardware requirements in general that make it less conductive to mobile ports. It's super sensitive to single-threaded performance, it's super sensitive to memory bandwidth (very unusual for a game), it eats a whole bunch of GPU power in city areas, etc. Portables tend not to be known for those things. It also really prefers to be run on a SSD so it doesn't stutter when it's paging game-world cells in and out, although that could probably be tuned.
I generally agree that you can probably stuff it into a portable with some compromises within the next couple years, sure. But I'm glad I'm not a Bethesda employee, that's going to suck and I think the compromises are going to be big.
Re-engine'ing a game is a massive undertaking. There's a huge amount of work involved in porting mission systems and event triggers and so on between the two systems. I don't really think it's feasible, I'd see it as much more likely that they port the engine rather than porting the game to another engine (which AFAIK is what they did with Skyrim Special Edition).
It's especially unlikely because Bethesda has put a huge amount of work into developer/world-building tooling for GameBryo. They have been on a single engine for almost 20 years now (since Morrowind) and it's going to be a tough sell to throw all that tooling and experience away, even with the engine making ominous creaking sounds (as the FO4 codebase clearly is doing).
It clearly needs it though. Like, STALKER was playable on a laptop processor and iGPU ten years ago and the newer games are on par with FO4 visually in most ways. In many RPG senses it was even more flexible and more ambitious (A-Life was similar to Radiant AI). FO4 just runs like shit compared to how dated it looks and plays.
I'm not sure you're actually disagreeing with me here? SkyrimSE is using the upgraded "Creation Engine" variant of the same Gamebryo engine; that's what I was referring to. It's still Skyrim-era assets, for the most part, and that has a much bigger impact on performance and suitability for Tegra-esque hardware than the particulars of that flavor of the underlying engine.
I think you were downvoted because you misread the comment you were replying to, which generally isn't considered productive. It happens, it's not abuse of the system.
(You were then downvoted for complaining about votes, because that is universally considered negative behavior.)
You can always email hn@ycombinator.com if you'd like.
Telling you what you wanted to know wasn't an invitation to argue with me. I am the OP to whom you refer. I didn't mix the dates; you misread the antecedent to which "release date" referred and, in an effort to treat your response in good faith, I issued a mea culpa I then edited out when I realized that I had had it straight in the first place.
What did you had straight in the first place, the fact that your comment wasn't clear about if you where talking about Fallout 4 (like you said in the mea culpa that you now removed) or Skyrim Special Edition, or that you said it "came out 3 years ago"?
Because neither Fallout 4, Skyrim original and Skyrim Special Edition "came out 3 years ago", and if you weren't going around editing your comments, my comment would be both factual and properly addressing your original comment.
The PS4 came out three years ago (almost exactly). Skyrim's recommended PC specs are somewhere below the PS4 in terms of performance. It's not an unclear sentence, and it isn't one that I edited.
You were mistaken. Your fictional Internet points aren't important. You should stop.
All of the TES and FO3/4 games have been using the same engine since Oblivion. Bethesda now calls their internal build of GameBryo "Creation Engine" but it's very much the same thing. I think you can actually still pull "GameBryo" out of the EXE using the Unix `strings` util, and you can definitely see it from the game data.
So "ported to the FO4 engine" doesn't really mean much. It's like saying that Half-Life 2 has been ported to CS:GO's engine. Yeah, it's a more modern build of the engine but it's still the same engine and it's not going to look or run drastically different unless the assets are also revamped at the same time.
Also, my personal opinion (from the outside) is that Bethesda doesn't seem to have done a good job maintaining their codebase. Fallout 4 still doesn't really look any better than Skyrim (the facial animations are especially terrible), it's quirky/buggy as hell (framerate-locked physics in 2016?) and it runs like shit even on high-end machines. An engine from a game released in 2006 shouldn't struggle to hold 50 fps at 1440p on a 780 Ti. TF2 gets slagged on a lot for its shitty codebase but it's nowhere near that bad.
I did the same in FO3. Decent but not outstanding games on their own but really great once the modders get going. I really like loot-driven games with more realistic gun physics (more damage taken/given, high accuracy, etc). The base FO4's weapon/armor mod system is doing much better for me than FO3 did but I still am pining for variety. I've been meaning to restart FO4 with some mods.
The performance issues were really terrible at launch. It's somewhat better now but it really prefers current-gen hardware and running from an SSD. It's really sensitive to memory bandwidth too.
The thing that killed my interest in FO4 is the lackluster story. I don't mind the whole setup but it felt they never built up the story enough to make it comparison to New Vegas' endings which I felt were more interesting. It always seems Bethesda fumbles with lore in their games more than anything.
Skyrim came out in 2011. I understand this is the "special edition" but that usually just means better textures, not a new engine. The recommended hardware requirements are not exactly cutting edge for the PC version of the remaster (i5 2400, 8 gigs ram, GTX 780).
The larger point is those recommended (not minimum) hardware requirements are still for the special edition and aren't blowing anyone out of the water.
You can get 16GB micro SD cards (which are phsyically much smaller than the cartridges appear to be) on Amazon for $7, and double that size for about $10.
Nintendo is always firmly in the gaming market - they're quite stubborn about it. I don't expect it will ever be useful as a general-purpose tablet other than supporting Netflix.
Hopefully as the technology develops in a couple of years we'll see a Switch Mini to take the place of the NDS, so at least it will be small-enough to lug around easily.
It's perfect. It was the obvious direction putting together the ideas that the Razer Edge and various snap-on-phone gamepads and the controllers of the Wii and the Wii-U implied, as well as Nintendo's attempts to create input-parity with the Wii-U and the DS by having them share the same "2 screens, one is touch" layout.
Nintendo has been trying to blend mobile and console gaming since the Gamecube (anyone else remember the GBA link??). I think they've finally succeeded in a way that can make the transition between the two seamless.
In a space currently dominated by two nearly-identical competitors (XBONE and PS4), I think Nintendo has the opportunity to capture a large portion of the market.
IIRC, it was a huge issue for the 3DS. If you lost or damaged your 3DS, it was a real pain to get all your downloaded games back on a replacement device.
It's no problem since they introduced actual accounts (Nintendo ID). But you still lose your 3DS friends list, and games can only be installed on one system at a time.
Nintendo hasn't sold devices at a loss unlike some other game console makers. At one point they were the only major console provider to make a profit on the device.
I think I'd forgotten that point. I also think they could just straight offer a second tier i.e. $10 for the device-linked game and $20 for the device-unliked.
> Compatibility with Nintendo's older wireless controllers
Well, it looks like it uses bluetooth. If it uses a standard bluetooth stack, they might let other BT controllers (such as the PS4, Wii U Pro and Xbone) work with the system.
I really have a lot of high hopes for this, but I don't wanna get super excited without knowing any of the specs.
Even before that, they had the N64 Transfer Pak. And before that they had the SuperGameboy. They've been trying to blend mobile and console since they had both.
I mean, the SuperGameBoy literally let you play GameBoy games on your TV. And it was hidden way deep inside of it, but Pokemon Stadium 2 had a GameBoy emulator that ran out of a Transfer Pak.
Not sure if you noticed in the Switch launch video, but that's Skyrim they're playing. It looks like Nintendo is putting some effort into third party this time, and they'll be the only "console" which allows you to play "console" third party games portably. Pretty significant advantage.
That's quite a jump you made there: a port of a game that came out in 2011. I don't really think getting Skyrim is a big deal. If you were around for the Wii U launch, they got a ton of third party ports. Comically a game like Mass Effect 3 when I'm pretty sure the first two games didn't appear on any Nintendo platform.
I'd also be wary about battery life. The 3DS and its sleep mode aren't known for being very good on that front.
The fact that they're showing off Skyrim, a 2011 game, in their 2017 console launch video doesn't say much for their hardware's abilities. It says a lot about how beloved Skyrim is, though.
To me this seems like an entirely new console, actually. I wonder if this is the "Nintendo NX" they were talking about or if that was only the codename for this project...
There's also a healthy market for second hand 3DS game cartridges. It helps that it is backward compatible and can play a bunch of games from older handhelds (for which the games are cheaper).
Looking carefully at the cartridge when they slide it in (0:53 in the video), it looks to be perhaps twice as thick as the 3DS cart. But it would be very easy to make both go in the same slot, just make the new carts ever so slightly thinner. I can't see if the controllers have all the 3DS controls, but it looks like it's at least close. And a modern chip, with the option to be at least partially designed for the task, could easily either emulate or ship with hardware support for running the 3DS, which still is not that powerful in modern terms. Losing the 3D support is all but a non-issue in practice. I don't want to predict this is the case, but I see no major technical reason why this couldn't run 3DS games fully backwards compatibly.
The only thing I can't see is whether the screen is a touch screen, which would be necessary. Which may also preclude using 3DS games in TV mode. (Unless they do something weird with Wiimotes or something. But I'm not sure that would play well enough to be worth doing.)
If it's backwards compatible with both 3DS and the WiiU, and perhaps even the Wii, this thing will come out of the game with an absolutely killer lineup. ('Twould be a pity there would probably no way to port the physical disks that you already own across, though. The 3DS games would just slip in, so they'd have an ironic advantage over "real" Wii games.)
Of the featured use cases, gaming on a plane is the only one that made a ton of sense to me. (Binging on Stardew Valley on a laptop during my last trip to China actually helped a lot with jet lag recovery.) The other featured cases, I'm not so sure. I definitely miss the days of my youth when my friends and I huddled around a TV split four ways. But I also don't see us returning to gaming together in person either. The most bizarre use case featured is for esports--I see no advantage to using the Nintendo Switch versus a more powerful console or PC in competitive gaming.
As a piece of hardware, this looks really cool and innovative. But I don't actually know if the product-market fit is there.
> But I also don't see us returning to gaming together in person either.
Really? I gather with friends to play Smash on a gamecube every two weeks or so. Bring a few beers, play some good music, pass the controllers around and it's lots of fun. I also co-op a lot with my girlfriend.
I know theres something pleasant about the older smash games, but the new one is really just as much fun and supports 8-player matches. If you are already meeting >4 people bi-weekly get them to cough up some extra cash, or just buy cheaper beer for a few months and get yourselves a wiiu.
the older smash games such as melee have a higher technical ceiling also, which a lot of people enjoy. For example, the competitive melee scene has never been as big as it is now, even though the game was released 15 years ago.
But why buy a new device when the old plays just fine? We can also all have a copy of the game and the console at home. Everyone brings their own controllers. It's fun and cheap.
Limiting to 4 players allows the night to be more than gaming night. If all 12 of us are there, it allows for some rotation (most of the time, we will be 4 to 8). While some of the guys/girls are playing, some others can be spectators or be at the kitchen table talking or having some beers. We can even rock both smash and board games at the same time!
The gamecube is really our main console... funny thing is none of us were gamecube lovers when it initially came out. Lots of PC, PS and Xbox players among us. Our only Nintendo time is when it's time to play together.
Despite the non-existence of children in that video, don't forget they still sell a lot stuff to children. My kids aren't old enough to be running around with 3DSs with all their friends yet, so I don't know how prevalent it is in practice. But if everyone who had a Wii could also that easily pick it up and cart it somewhere, that would be a huge network effect compared even to the 3DS. There is a very good chance this could become a Thing for that age group, and given how children are, it could simply become expected that you have a Switch.
Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.
> Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.
I vastly prefer gaming with people locally to doing it over the internet so there definitely is some market there for it but it remains to be seen how big it is
rooftop patio party turns into ... huddled masses around a tiny gaming console? kinda unrealistic, imho. however, it's still quite innovative and i'll probably pick one up "for the kids." :)
I read somewhere it seems the Switch won't be region locked which is very interesting. I wonder if Nintendo is cutting the initial 3rd party devs a deal on the new cartridges then (considering they'll likely be still more expensive than your standard Bluray DVD).
Battery life on tegra devices is abysmal I'm really wondering if the guy can get from the gate to the plane without it running out if you run full 3D graphics games like those.
Yeah that's an excellent point. The Nvidia Shield (Tegra K1) can pull 15-20 watts while gaming. I can play hearthstone for like 3 hours when plugged in.
5V usb port at 2.1A = 10.5W = battery gets drained even when plugged in.
It has a 20Whr battery, if I'm at 90%, and I'm wary of draining it below 10%, that leaves me with 16Whr = an hour at most of gaming on battery alone, on a brand new full capacity battery.
And Hearthstone isn't a demanding title, the streaming works fine but any of the "native" Tegra AAA 3D games kill the drain the device before you finish a level (30min~ and honestly even under that, some games are going to flat out at like 10).
Doesn't help that the device gets pretty darn hot also.
Portable gaming sounds fun until you remember that batteries suck, sure they've improved much but what improved is also the power management.
3D/Graphics are still a power hog, so you get a tiny package with almost no battery to speak off and a heating element all in one.
The Shield is 1900x1200, the Switch will run at 720p in mobile mode, for "performance reasons". Pretty sure they mean for battery life reasons. It will push out 1080p when docked so it's not like the GPU can't handle it.
I'm guessing they won't be playing the "make it as thin as possible" game that tablet makers are. And it's a two handed device, so weight isn't as much an issue.
For a second I wondered, is Nintendo building network hardware now?
My worry here is that Nintendo may be making the same mistake that BlackBerry made: doubling down on hardware when they should be building out their app ecosystem on dominant mobile platforms.
That said, the Switch looks cool. Really freaking cool. I just wonder if it'll be enough.
Huh? BlackBerry's mistake was not embracing their weird hardware. They'd still be relevant if they doubled down on their hardware without trying to be a "me too" and embraced Android.
Obviously playing second fiddle to the main series. It reuses assets from NSMBU, one of the least loved of the 2D series. It's a good early attempt on mobile from Nintendo, but they're clearly testing the waters still, not all in.
So instead of a portable screen/controller like the WiiU that's separate from the main machine - the main machine IS the portable part that could easily be dropped/broken, now? Or am I missing something?
Im failing to see how this design is superior to the Wii U's approach
You can't take the Wii U tablet with you. It's not the core of the system. This allows Nintendo to combine their console and handheld divisions so that they can unify their focus and have a steady stream of software, even if third parties don't show up.
Yep. They specifically mentioned the difficulty of keeping up with software for both consoles (which both have different architecture) this generation and that they weren't going to make that mistake again next generation. And clearly they aren't.
The wiiu gamepad is only functional when it is within line of sight or about 15 feet of the home console. It isn't really portable. The advantage is that it can still be used while the TV is displaying something else.
Yes, this device would have more opportunity to suffer physical damage based on the nature of its design but I think that cost is easily justified.
My family has a Wii U, and it's connected to the only TV we really use in the house. The Wii U game pad permits pad-only play on some, but not all, games and doesn't have any capacity for multiplayer on it. I think this addresses the, "someone is taking over the TV" and, "take it outdoors" kind of use cases very nicely. Surprised they didn't play up the family aspect of it for that, but I guess that's an (only?) already-captured demographic.
They already have 360 parity. Tri-core PPC processors (Wii U is clocked to half of 360 speed but CPU was never really the problem with those games) with AMD GPUs bound directly to the southbridge (Xbox 360 has an R500 equivalent, Wii U has a Radeon HD 4000/R700 equivalent). Also, the Xbox 360 had 512MB of VRAM and no other RAM; Wii U uses 2GB DDR3 with 32MB transparent rendering cache.
The Wii U does more than the 360 with less, already. It's actually a pretty great piece of engineering. And there are already tablets that can kick butt in that form factor (https://docs.sony.com/release//specs/SVF15N17CXB_mksp.pdf) so it's not unreasonable to think that with the new AMD Polaris tech that they're going to make something awesome.
Having learned from the Wii U, I think Nintendo is going to knock this next one out of the park. My biggest questions are, will there be 4K support, and what's the battery life on the tablet mode?
If you looked at that PDF, you'd see a battery powered tablet that has an Nvidia card matching the Wii U. And it was released some time ago, before Polaris.
As a user of AMD's current Polaris tech, I'm certain this next console will kick butt.
If you think of the use cases they showed in the demo, they're not using the battery for extended amounts of time. The guy was playing while his dog did its business. That's a few minutes, maybe 15 minutes. Maybe half an hour if the dog wants to play a bit. My dogs usually tire themselves out at the dog park in about that time.
The guy playing at the airport, you might be waiting up to an hour. When he got on the plane, he plugged it in.
The guys at the basketball game seemed like they were killing time while they cooled down, maybe up to an hour.
The person at the rooftop party, she was at a party. They're probably not playing for hours.
The people in the car, I don't remember if they plugged it in or not but they could have, or they'd be playing on a short trip.
The one case where the person is in tablet-mode for an extended period of time, he sat down and immediately plugged it in. I wouldn't be surprised if we find an hour or two of battery life with the most taxing games.
> Console with graphical power that rivals Xbox One and PS4. Check.
Where do you get this from? The specs haven't been released and they're showcasing some previous-gen games. I doubt this will have the processing power of the original Xbox One or PS4, let alone the souped-up versions of those consoles that are coming soon.
yet to be fair, the very modest gamecube had some of the best franchises around (Metroid Prime a total classic), and even the PS2 did wonders on Shadow of the Colossus. It's almost as if, when the hardware is not supreme, creativity becomes more important?
Mostly true, but improved graphical fidelity can add to the immersion and experience. But also, compute power doesn't mean solely graphical compute - more power means more advanced AI, faster menus, higher maximum players in multiplayer, and so on.
I'm nowadays a PC-gamer myself owning a hefty computer and I love beautiful games like Witcher 3.
But I still think Nintendo has some of the best games ever made on their consoles. Take a look into Super Mario Galaxy series, how they just work, are nice to navigate and play, how you can play the games over and over again and have fun even years after their release. Sure they don't have the fastest hardware, but what they can do with it is just amazing.
I played through the two Galaxy games, the second one I think twice since you get Luigi after the first run... Maybe 8 months ago I was playing through Resident Evil 4 on the Wii to keep myself from buying the PC version, and when I finished I booted up SMG2 again to show a friend, and I was struck by how terrible it has aged... If I do play it again it'll be on the Dolphin Emulator. (4k 60hz SMG2 actually looks really nice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO8H5F1tCjg)
On the other hand I have hundreds of games on Steam I need to play but sometimes when I just want some random fun for a while I'll dig out some old SNES games (or launch an emulator). No one denies you can make incredible games on weak hardware, but you can't make certain types of incredible games without powerful hardware. And in any case you can always make some really crappy games.
I can't even seriously take the "but Nintendo does good gameplay and design even if their hardware sucks" rationalization anymore. With the possible exception of Splatoon (haven't played it), the other Wii U titles I have played at a friend's (I don't own the console) have, despite raising my expectations, systematically disappointed me in some major way due precisely to the gameplay, not the graphics: Super Mario 3D World, Star Fox Zero (that one hurt the most), Pikmin 3 (actually not so bad but no replay value), Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting. The next Zelda game is their last chance for me and every gameplay demo I've seen has set my expectations real low.
In short, the level design. I felt the hints of what annoyed me when I was playing the two Galaxy games, and this video really summed up what I find terribly wrong (as opposed to brilliant) with the design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmIkEvEBtA It's lazy design. There are other complaints (even other specific issues with the level design I experienced) but that's the big one, it's so bad I don't want to play it ever again, let alone finish it.
While I agree with you, it's also possible to flip the argument that improved graphical fidelity as the immersive experience may cover the tendency to rehash the same story lines and action in a different setting.
It actually does the opposite for me. Back when every polygon was precious I new what to look at, nowadays that's so much distracting stuff on screen I get lost.
fair enough (and yes I now remember that it did have an Ati sticker on the front - you're right), but the point is that awesome gameplay is not a positively sloped function of hardware power. The correlation, once certain thresholds are met, appears to be zero if not negative.
More horsepower can hurt because it's more expensive to produce content for (textures/polygons/realism expectations), and more money on the line for the studio means less creative risk taking permitted.
An easy way to reject that hypothesis is to consider the utter load of shovelware that Nintendo consoles attract, because top-tier studios stay away in droves.
It's probably safe to assume it will be a customized version the latest or an upcoming model. I believe this puts the system in the PS4/Xbone ballpark.
Unless there is a separate GPU contained within that docking station that is extremely unlikely to have the processing power of a PS4/Xbox One and especially so the PS4+ and Xbox One+. That would mean that either some games could not be played while in mobile mode or they will be degraded significantly performance/graphics wise when in mobile mode.
There is just no way they could pack the hardware/cooling/battery into a mobile device.
Nvidia X1 already is 1 tflops GPU and the X2 (which is likely to be in the nintendo) is going to be around 1.5 tflops. Those are mobile SoC's with CUDA cores, fit OK in tablets (Pixel C has one), X1 peak power consumption is about 10 watts.
Xbox one GPU is 1.3 tflops and PS4 is 1.8 tflops. So in the same ballpark
The X1/X2 are big.LITTLE setups. Between that and various other leaks, it seems that the Switch is designed to run on the low-power LITTLE CPU/GPU in mobile mode and on the beefier Watt-burning big cores when docked.
That is a good catch, double speed FP16, so FP32 perf should be half that on the X1. While useful for some things (like neural network inference and I guess some shaders) it's not directly comparable - NVidia style marketing
This was the same deal with how CPUs were (mis)marketed for years. Higher clockspeeds don't mean anything unless the pipelines are identical. A much smarter chip with larger cache sizes, branch prediction, SIMT, ultra-wide registers, better instruction caching, etc might have half the clockspeed of a dumber chip and outperform it by a huge margin. GPUs are no different in that texture caches, vertex buffer sizes, warp sizes, etc all play a big part and you really can't compare flops unless comparing two GPUs of the same product line.
I was thinking before the blog post confirmed the Tegra (and I had already known of the Tegra rumors from months ago) that by March 2017 it ought to be possible to stick one and maybe two GTX 1080s in that form factor... There's already a laptop that crammed two of them inside. That would make for a killer powerhouse. Of course it's modern Nintendo, they don't care about technical capability...
Very unlikely that this has performance that competes with Sony and Microsoft. This is an integrated GPU on a battery-powered device with limited thermal regulation. The PS4 and Xbox One are always plugged in to AC and have plenty of space for a proper cooling system.
That's OK, this time the console actually takes advantage of weaker performance to offer a better form-factor. Whether that tradeoff satisfies consumers is yet to be seen.
It appears to the the upcoming definitive edition remaster.
It looks like the power is somewhere between Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
The specs I saw showed it with 4 GBs of ram, which would put it clearly above Xbox 360/PS3 power and even a bit above the Wii U, which can do way better looking games than Xbox 360/PS3.
We shall see what the final specs and games look like, but what they showed off looked pretty good. It won't be PS4 Pro or Xbox One Scorpio powerful, but it's a device you can use on the go (or for second-screen gaming, which might be the killer app here).
>There is a lot of speculation in the community that when docked, additional video processing will be available in the hardware within the dock.
Doubt it. Not a trivial problem to solve technically and console pricing is inflexible - they need to sell this thing for under $400, and Nintendo hates subsidizing hardware.
USB C connector Alternate Mode can be used to carry PCIe signals (without Thunderbolt). Switching GPUs is a well solved problem for nVidia, they call it Optimus. By now this is a technically solved problem, no problems.
I don't think with the nVidia blog posts and the pictures of the dock that they're hiding a more powerful GPU in the dock. If it were I'd expect a larger dock to provide more cooling to the docked GPU and some mention of 2 GPUs or GPU switching in the nVidia blog post about the Switch.
>By now this is a technically solved problem, no problems.
Is it? We're not talking about load balancing GPUs - we're talking about a GPU just disappearing underneath you (like when the user picks up the Switch), while maintaining context and dynamically lowering quality - I can't imagine that being a trivial problem.
But that's not the major issue here. Nintendo is going to have to sell this thing for under $400. A mid-market smart-phone costs that much. Shipping a dock with a high performance GPU along with the actual portable isn't going to happen.
One concept that seems feasible - if the portable device is vented but lacking airflow for cooling, power that airflow with fans in the dock. Then, when docked, overclock the chip (or underclock when undocked).
This all presupposes, though, that the hardware they're packing in the portable unit is comparable to what's in the PS4/XBO or their newer equivalents.
It could be that the chip itself is throttled when in handheld mode, and the dock provides additional power and cooling, as an alternative take on that option.
You say that like it's supposed to imply it's worse for some reason.
> battery-powered device with limited thermal regulation.
The Xbox one and PS4 were both released about three years ago. Almost three and a half by the time the Switch is released. That's a long time for Moore's law to operate, and it's easier for GPUs to take advantage of that phenomenon, since they are extremely parallel.
At 14-15 mm, the portable portion is actually a bit thicker (if smaller) than a new MacBook. Without the need for a keyboard or a clam shell design, that's probably quite a bit of usable space. I'm not sure why we should be surprised by claims of performance matching three year old systems.
They produce less heat because they are an inferior versions of a standalone GPU. It's harder to extract heat from two chips in the same space (CPU and GPU) than two separate chips, also you're limited in chip space for transistor count. (I'm assuming inferior refers to compute performance and integrated means integrated on to the same chip btw., if that's not what you meant then ignore my comment).
> They produce less heat because they are an inferior versions of a standalone GPU.
Isn't that entirely based on what they integrate? The market has traditionally been such that integrated units are for cost, and so are paired with cheaper GPU components. I don't know of any technical reason that integrated units use low end GPU specs, just business reasons. Any normal market pressures would be different in this case, based on the size of the order and specific needs.
> I'm assuming inferior refers to compute performance
Inferior based on maximum possible compute performance, sure. The top of the line dedicated GPU will have more leeway to work with than the top of the line integrated, but we're hardly talking about top of the line, we're talking about matching three year old hardware.
3 years is a long time but IMO not enough to being a 100+ watt SoC down to ~20-30 required for that form factor.
That being said, Nvidia is still much more energy efficient graphics wise vs AMD so I could see it getting fairly close - maybe 70-80%. CPU wise though I doubt they'll be as close just because of power.
The only reason to think Moore's law is dead now, much less a decade ago, is if you don't know what Moore's law actually is.[1] I don't blame you for that though, it was incorrectly explained for decades.
Moore's law refers to the number of transistors, not speed. We've consistently added more transistors to CPUs, but through separate cores,since there are problems related to doing that usefully with a single core. Now, that's been of mixed benefit to some programs, because not all problems, programs, or programmers can effectively take advantage of multiple cores, or at least not effectively. GPUs though, are doing work that is "embarrassingly parallel", and thus can effectively utilize this increase in transistors and cores. For example, the GeForce Titan X has 3072 CUDA cores.[2]
The GeForce GTX 760 (maybe a mid-range desktop part?) was released June 25, 2013 with a retail price of $249.[3] The GeForce GTX 980M (second newest generation mobile part) was released October 7, 2014 (two years ago!).[3] It trounces the desktop part from one year prior.[4] We've had a year since then. I don't think there's any problem hitting the performance of the last generation of consoles, at least as far as the GPU is concerned.
Edit: Switched from 980 to 980M to clearly indicate a mobile part, which only makes the release a year earlier for the mobile part, but doesn't really change the outcome.
Moore's law describes that trend for computing performance – processing speed, memory capacity and the like - to double approximately every two years, named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who first outlined his theory back in 1965.
That's not what Moore's law is, and is an example of what I meant when I said it was incorrectly explained for decades. The very first paragraph of the Wikipedia article I originally cited shows this.
The other articles seem to be about density scaling, which is only part of what goes into "how many transistors you can fit into a dense integrated circuit." Cores, obviously, allow us to mitigate this to some degree.
For example, in this[1] article, you'll find a graph that shows transistor count over time. It's fairly easy to see that as of a couple years ago, Moore's law was still going strong.
That's a good point, hadn't thought of the battery.
Apple is claiming that the iPhone 7 has console-level graphics capabilities. If that's true (and I have no idea what that actually means), then Nintendo should be able to come up with something even better since they have so much more room for battery and have lots of expertise in making consoles.
The x86-64 chip in question is AMD's Jaguar design which was meant to be used in tablets. The only reason the consoles had more power than you'd get in a tablet at launch is because they had 8 cores at high clock speeds while an actual tablet using Jaguar would presumably only have 2. It's been a few years and the ARM64 designs are pretty impressive so if this is a quad core part or better it should be competitive.
I seriously doubt its going to be as powerful as Sony or Microsofts current consoles. Eurogamer did a decent anaylsis of a Tegra processor http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-ninten..., which should be similar to what nintendo are using in the Switch. I would assume Nintendo chose a processor that can give good battery life, rather than raw horsepower.
I'm aware. The link I provided is from a few months ago when rumors about that were going around. Also its not just the graphics hardware, the Tegra is a CPU/GPU combo.
I honestly don't care too much if the graphical power is not up to PS4 or XBox One. Probably doesn't because of the mobile capabilities. If there are great games it doesn't really matter if they are hyper realistic. We saw that with the Wii.
Realistically, I'm betting this one is going to lag the competition in terms of specs, and imho that's okay. Nintendo made a huge splash with the Wii while making a weaker device.
This thing has to run on batteries. It has to include mobile-quality batteries and a screen, which is an added cost that other consoles don't have.
With those components in mind, I fully expect it to have comparatively weak hardware so they can hit a comparable price-point.
Lagging in specs is a major reason 3rd parties shun Nintendo's consoles. Porting a game between XB1, PS4 and PC is relatively easy due to them all being of similar caliber. But the cutbacks required for porting to Wii U usually means they just don't bother.
I'd say it has more to do with demographics than specs. Nintendo's demographics usually only buy first party titles, and Nintendo hasn't done much to market themselves towards the xbox/ps demographics. If they're paying devs to have Skyrim/NBA on their consoles, that's a good first step, and hopefully a sign of things to come.
It's hard to buy third party titles when the only third party titles are games that came out years ago and that you already own on other platforms... It's also hard to buy first party titles when there are so few, and so few new IP at that (Splatoon, what else?). (I went into a Gamestop for the first time in a while a few weeks ago, was kind of surprised at how limited the Wii U selection still is at the end of its life.) What Nintendo needs is a set of "second party" devs like they had in the N64 era. But that's expensive.
That feels very chicken and egg to me. Nintendo owners don't buy 3rd party games because there aren't very many. And there aren't very many because owners don't buy them.
The SNES had extensive 3rd party support. Obviously it's hard to compare 25 years ago to today, but the SNES and Genesis were really "even". Supporting both systems was a no brainer for most game companies. The N64 threw a curve ball with carts, and 3rd party support tanked. Anecdotally, the GameCube seemed to have better 3rd party support, as it was a very equivalent system to the Xbox and PS2.
>> That feels very chicken and egg to me. Nintendo owners don't buy 3rd party games because there aren't very many. And there aren't very many because owners don't buy them.
Not sure it's about quantity, it's more about quality. When Nintendo's first party software sets a high bar for quality, it makes most of the non AAA titles sold by third parties look like crap, and they usually are.
Third party AAA titles like Just Dance, FIFA, Madden, Tiger Woods Golf etc. sold well enough on the Wii that some sequels were still being produced even after the Wii had become an afterthought. IIRC, Street Fighter IV on the 3DS sold very well too.
Yes, but if they target PC release then realistically they have to support the whole gamut of PCs, including lower-spec ones. If the Switch turns out to have similar video-performance to a low-mid-range consumer video board, then that's realistically something that PC ports will already be supporting.
It helps that the Xbox One and PS4 are basically lower-spec value gamer PCs.That's not the case for any of Nintendo's hardware. It's even lower spec, without any potential crossover compatibility in architecture.
The current consoles are already at the low-mid range of PC video cards. If the Switch is even less powerful than say the Xbox One it will be a pain to support when developing a multi-platform title.
The lesser performance can be a setback for Nintendo systems in some ways, but I think the DS and 3DS outperformed their competitors due to having cheaper hardware. The lower price point made appealing-looking games less of a financial commitment.
I'm guessing they will ship an Nvidia chipset. Even if this isn't true, we are reaching an age where GPU technology is nearly identical for PC, console, and mobile.
I have seen this reported as a rumour with circumstantial evidence to back it up (why would they release a brand-new flagship product with a 2-year-old chip). Has it been confirmed anywhere yet?
Just because most Unity games are indie doesn't mean that AAA studios can't make a good looking Unity game. It just means that most studios using Unity don't have the money to make a good looking game.
>Console with graphical power that rivals Xbox One and PS4.
Why would you think that? It's a mobile system, running mobile CPU/GPU with a price target of a mid-market smart-phone. It's isn't going to match the PS4 or XboxOne, no way.
>This is going to be a major windfall for them.
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if they'll be able to run the latest AAA titles, especially with the new MS and Sony consoles coming out soon. So they'll have the same problem as they had with the Wii and WiiU - you buy the console for Nintendo games and that's it.
I didn't get it... is it a handheld or a phone/tablet device? my question whatever it would replace my phone or just be another device on my backpack like the iPad, Laptop and tons of extra chargers, i carry to almost everywhere?
Seems to be a gaming device and not a tablet or phone replacement.
I would say with 100% confidence there is no way it would replace your phone.
And I would say with 90% confidence it will not replace a tablet. It may have a web browser, YouTube, Netflix, and a few token apps but don't expect full Android or anything. I could be wrong of course.
What is so big in the dock? Speakers (not really needed with hdmi TVs, no?)?
Also an interesting decision to cover the docked screen (probably to keep 100% compatibility to the single mobile screen and not waste resources while powering the big screen).
Power supply for charging? Wired ethernet port? (doubtful) Maybe a hard drive for local game storage? Discrete/external GPU for pushing more pixels? I doubt 4K, but its possible... also, the portable screen might not be 1080.
I'm sure we'll learn more over the next 6 months... but there's a lot of things you could do with a dock like that.
This is a pretty brilliant move in concept. While phones and tablets have encroached on the handheld gaming space, the DS is still a huge success and where Nintendo has continued to dominate the market.
As a parent, I have 4 of the current gen DS systems. One for myself and one for each of my three children.
Nintendo has really struggled to stay relevant in the console space though as seen by the Wii U's underwhelming sales.
If this device is priced right and can continue on their virtual handheld monopoly then they become a sort of defacto console system for the masses. For the first time in ages I'm curious to see what is going to happen with Nintendo.
I'm assuming the Switch replaces the Wii U. But will the 3DS live on? I assume the answer there is yes as well, but the lines between the two products is getting really blurry, isn't it?
This is the same question that's in my mind. With it's form factor it could potentially replace both.
Part of the issue is going to come down to pricing. With a handheld each person needs their own device. If this can be kept sub $200 it's sort of a no brained. If it is priced similarly to consoles today it's a harder sell.
I am also left wondering if this could end up sold as different packages. It could be packaged as a full console edition and a handheld only lite edition at different price points.
I disagree that it will replace both. The DS brings ruggedness and a smaller form factor. I can't see me bringing this little flimsy tablet with probably max ~8 hours of battery life with me on one of my travels. My 3DS has had no trouble being thrown into a ruck and dragged across SE Asia needing a charge a week.
Maybe I didn't convey it clearly, but this is what I was trying to get at by different packages and price points. Consider how the 3DS is marketed. I can buy the cheap 2DS, the middle of the road 3DS, or the high end 3DS XL (might even be missing some options).
At the end of the day they all play the same games. I bought the 2DS for my 3 kids because it is cheap, but also because it is the most rugged with it's non folding uni-body so they are less likely to break it.
I bought the 3DS XL for myself because I have poor eyesight and need the bigger screen and I'm less likely to break it.
If Nintendo does something along these lines I suspect people would buy multiple Switches per household. Based on their history it's not unreasonable to suspect that something like this is in the works. I doubt it would happen at launch since, but over time I will not be at all surprised to see different versions of this system offered.
This is my guess. Since it uses cartridges and a single screen, there's nothing stopping them from selling a version which is a single smaller unit with better battery life but without TV/local multiplayer capabilities.
I doubt it will be priced as cheap as the DS, but hopefully it'll play DS games so you don't need to own both and will be able to play multiplayer against DS owners.
Looks intriguing, although, as always, it boils down to what games will be available. I'll reserve judgement until we hear more about them.
In handheld mode, one wonders if they were able to keep parity with the battery life and the touchscreen capability that the DS/3DS had. Losing those would be a significant minus.
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[ 237 ms ] story [ 9382 ms ] threadGlimpses of Mario, what appeared to be Skyrim, too - more third party support this time perhaps?
I'm most interested to see the price and the spec of the machine. Xbox One and PS4 seem to have become more homogenised in terms of architecture than the last generation of consoles (PS3 was especially weird), if the Switch follows suit it would hopefully encourage more third party support. Assuming the power is there.
As for price, I'd expect it to undercut the competition, but also to be less technically capable: That's usually how they play it.
Edit: oops, watched it again and yep skyrim is also in there. Sorry.
Its apparently running a Tegra chip[1]. Exact specs... well we can only guess at this point. So its more similar to an Android tablet than the other consoles.
So the hardware is more standard but its still not the same standard as the other boxes. That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
[1] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/
That could be a double edged sword. I think Nintendo doing a "me-too" console that is like the PS4/XBone/Steam would hurt them more than it helps them. And as it is, Steam already offers a portability element if you've got a decent laptop with a discrete GPU.
>> That could hurt 3rd party adoption.
At this point, I think Nintendo is going to struggle no matter what they do. They're in third place and unless Nintendo can make it worthwhile for 3rd parties with huge hardware sales, it's not going to be pretty.
This seems like an attempt to take that concept into something higher-end/something that is designed to connect to a TV (at least sometimes). I've got to think that will go quite well for them.
The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
Clarifications of my original response:
By "me too" I was referring to the original post's point of going x86 in a traditional TV box in the way that XB1/PS4 did.
By "struggle", I was specifically talking about third party software support in the post I replied to. On the TV console front, Nintendo's primary strength going back to the Wii (and maybe further) has always been first party games. Most of the third party games on the Wii and Wii U were not very good. In other words, if you're buying a Nintendo TV console for the third party games, I think that would be a big mistake, regardless of how long the list of committed 3rd party developers is.
Addressing some of your points:
>> Their mobile products are, in essence, "me-too" products that are larger and less powerful than a smartphone
By "mobile products", I assume that you're referring to the DS/DSi/3DS - how are those "me-too"? What other successful portable consoles have that clam shell form factor? If anything, Nintendo's mobile form factors (starting with the original Game Boy) were the ones that were historically copied by others.
>> The years when the Wii outsold the PS3/X360 are not all that far past. If they come out with something different and compelling, the market will respond.
Yes, but the market for gaming is completely different now. Games are no longer the exclusive territory of proprietary tv consoles or portable gaming devices (i.e., psp, 3ds).
On the TV console side, Steam is a legitimate substitute for a TV console. I myself switched to Steam since most of the AAA titles I played (2D/3D fighting games) are now all available on PC and I can bring them with me in the form of a laptop with a discrete GPU. And with Steam, I can regularly upgrade my hardware with full backwards compatibility for my purchased games.
On the portable gaming side, phones and tablets have basically taken over the market. The only reason why I bought a 3DS is so that I can have my fill of 2D/3D fighting games (with a real controller and buttons) in my pocket, but I'm in a very small niche.
You say that, but phone games have an exceptionally limited capability without extra hardware (like a controller), and few phone games are designed to take advantage of a controller in any case. If you want to actually play good mobile games, you need a mobile console, and Nintendo's are some of the best. The Gameboy line defined portable gaming for over a decade, and there are still holdouts using them to this day (I count myself as one of them: >20 hours of gameplay, countless classic games, one of the best tools for chiptune music creation on the market, and all in a tiny form factor? sold!), and the DS is the console of choice if you want Real games on the go.
If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA? It has a lot of good games in its own right, you can play all the GB/GBC games, and with the aid of PocketNES + mkrom (they're around, but you might have to do some digging to find them) you can emulate NES games pretty well, provided you pony up for a flashcart and flasher (I got mine from http://bennvenn.myshopify.com: $57 for a flasher and card reader, plus one GBA flash cart. And he's offering a decent SD-based card for the original GB for half the price of an Everdrive (although it has some limitations that the Everdrive does not, it will run most GB games). So it's a good place to look for that sort of stuff). Yes, a hacked PSP is better, but it's a lot harder to find one, much harder to get it working, significantly more expensive, and a heck of a lot easier to brick (which is what I did to mine).
In the same way that a real camera is better than a smartphone, convenience trumps quality.
>> If you're looking for something cheap to carry your retro games around on, might I recommend a GBA?
I have a 3DS because I wanted to play Street Fighter, Tekken and Dead Or Alive on the go. But I don't always bring it with me. In fact, I only bring it with me on vacations. And when I'm out on the go with just my phone, well, I don't play anything at all - it's not a huge loss. FWIW, you can already do everything you mention and more on a 2DS/3DS with the right "accessories" and a little bit of time.
Also, I actually don't have a 2/3DS, because I have no money. A GBA costs ~$20.
It only gets hard if you want to play online, which means you need to do .CIA files, which becomes difficult (it also requires a new SD card). But if playing online isn't a priority, it's not even an issue.
Yeah, I'll stick to my GBA for now. I've got very little money.
What? If anything, Smartphones are the "me-too" products. The Gameboy came out in 1989, and the DS came out in the early 2000s, when nobody outside Japan could envision something like a smartphone, and even they didn't have something really usable for the kind of complex games that both platforms offered.
I do agree that they succeed because they have an interface well-tuned to their task. Another reason for success, though, is battery life: When the GameBoy came out, it was really the only portable game console that could last more than four hours. And my GBA (not an SP, notably), a console that has a lower battery life than the GB or GBC that came before it, can last through me playing on it for an entire day, nonstop. Can your phone do the same?
Mind, this is less of a selling point nowadays: it seems even Nintendo's forgotten how to make products with a good battery life.
If Nintendo is smart, they will find a way to let console devs leverage the power of Nvidia's libraries like GameWorks which may actually be a huge boon to 3rd party adoption. But that all depends on what kind of OS and stack they choose to go with, and whether they consider developer effort an issue. If it's going to fit a different use-case with mobile and docked performance profiles, it may be difficult to port games to it with AMD hardware anyways.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/10/20/13344202/nintendo-nx-share...
Direct link to the trailer video
I'll never understand the marketing motivation to show a bunch of people getting together for a social gathering and togetherness, then cram together to watch / play on something with a screen the size of a hardback novel.
But I'm glad Nintendo doesn't seem to be giving up local MP: It's the best part of having a console, and dropping it is a REALLY BAD IDEA.
But I do agree, Consoles (Specifically Nintendo's) are currently inarguably superior by a wide margin for local multiplayer. And local multiplayer games provide distinct enjoyment that remote multiplayer games cannot replicate effectively.
It seems to have worked out pretty well for Sony and Microsoft—and the manufacturer that does still focus on LMP (Nintendo) is struggling. So I don't think it's actually a major selling point.
I mean, I wish it were; that's one of the things that I love best about Nintendo hardware. But it really doesn't seem like it is.
My experience is that of a bystander with fairly high standards none the less. My kids seem to love Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Plants vs Zombies Garden warfare local multiplayer on Xbox one and what I observe works great.
They might not "focus" on it (whatever that means-- it has the feature, it works, what more "focus" do you need?), I suppose.
To me, it means many first party titles are designed around using it. For instance on Nintendo consoles: the main Mario series games, Mario Kart series, Smash Bros series, Mario Party series, Mario Sports series, Nintendo Land, Splatoon, etc, etc, are all designed with multiplayer in mind.
I guess the difference is, it's not just a couple of titles, or "it works", but instead it's a major company focus for their titles. That's a pretty big difference.
I don't know how much Nintendo is going to implement with regards to their online services, but if they do this right, they would have the killer family gaming machine ecosystem.
They could: * Implement sensible parental controls. Each user potentially having their own handheld system would make this significantly easier and more robust. * Implement a friendly family content sharing model. I'm not necessarily begging for free family sharing a-la-Steam, but a discounted license per additional family user would be a smart move, compared to their current 3DS strategy. * Implement something along the lines of PS4's amazing SharePlay feature, where you can invite a friend to watch you play, voice chat, and even hand the controller virtually over to them so they can help you through tricky sections. Here again, the hybrid model would make it so cool to cheer on my kid from a hotel room across the country on a business trip.
I don't know if the NS will live up to its teaser video, but everything I've seen makes me excited to imagine possibilities, rather than the raw polygon-pushing and logic-crunching. This in stark contrast to the comparatively gimmicky Wii and Wii U.
Some of that stuff might get implemented, but no, each player needn't necessarily have their own console.
Doom is also a good one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRRuhviJGMQ
That doesn't mean it wasn't fun. It doesn't invalidate the good times we had. But there is so much about that game (from the controller itself, to the control layout, to the gameplay) that just does not hold up. N64 Goldeneye is a clunky, hard to play, unbalanced mess.
It was a ton of fun, and I wouldn't trade the experience of playing it for anything; but it is not a 'masterpiece'.
Mario Kart 64 is, even by modern standards, a good game, but calling that a masterpiece would mean we need to come up with a classification higher than masterpiece for Mario Kart 8.
I'll stand by it, because later I went on to be a Half-Life and Adrenaline Gamer hardcore player, and HLDM's complexity with the long jump and tau cannon required a lot of study and practice for most. Goldeneye was a good trainer for that.
I maintain that HLDM stands amongst the best of Multiplayer shooters: Up there with Quake, Q3A, CPMA, and UT.
I really don't swear by Q3 or HLDM: Although I do swear at them a lot. My preference is either Quake 1 or Xonotic, which is like Quake meets UT, and lowers the floor on advanced movement so plebs like me don't get totally stomped the first time they log on (we still get stomped, just not impossibly fast).
I love them all, which probably means I'm a masochist or something.
Another masterpiece would be the Megaman 2: It's one of the best platformers out there, and there's been nothing like it before or since.
If you haven't, I recommend checking out the story on Goldeneye!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenEye_007_(1997_video_game...
Especially the version on the Xbox360, or, as I call it, "that big white box I own solely to play Perfect Dark on". A straight port with upgraded graphics, better framerate, modern controls, and (or perhaps this one I'm imagining) subtly rebalanced difficulty to account for those other changes. Nothing like that garbage trying-to-be-Call-of-Duty-and-failing-miserably Goldeneye reimagining a few years back.
Still unmatched in terms of gameplay options. Coop single player, versus(!) single player, the great multiplayer of course. The way the difficulty settings changed objectives and even starting location(!) in addition to damage values and AI. The fun "cheats" you unlock with speedruns. Brilliant game.
Wow, now that is a great multiplayer game. One of the few video games that my whole family played together (the other being 'Where in Time is Carmen San Diego' for the NES).
Very nice to see it mentioned here! It is a huge classic.
Functionally, it filled the niche that would be occupied by Mario Karts, Goldeneye, M.U.L.E., and Perfect Dark. 4 player head-to-head games that were simple to understand and fun to play repeatedly.
Also local split-screen multiplayer is harder to do since you have to do two (or more) graphic rendering at the same time, so dropping it allow the dev to spend more time on the rest of the game.
What are you talking about? https://i.imgur.com/zhz5wHh.jpg
I hope the Switch can still talk to Wiimotes. Even if they drop sensor bar and the ability to point (which will prevent most Wii games coming to Virtual Console without substantial modifications), being able to pair with one and use the nunchuck or the classic controller would be great for someone like me who has a Wii gathering dust and a Wii U on active service.
Not an easy drive to make with triplets, but we loved it. Didn't make a peep.
It's amazing how slow game consoles change minus beefed up computing capabilities, and while Nintendo has had some hit or misses, this shift looks like a vastly superior improvement over the initial ideas brought forth by the Wii U.
Thought AMD would be their supplier before, but I don't think they have any mobile chips
What about the A[n] series? Not sure whether those include GPUs.
Besides an original Gameboy (which I loved), I've never owned a Nintendo console. After seeing this trailer, it is an instant buy for me in March.
The only thing I want to know more about is the online store. From what I understand, Nintendo's eStore has a lot of shortcomings in a lot of weird areas. I hope they address those. I have an Xbox One and about 25 games, all of which were purchased digitally. I'm not sure I could go back to physical versions of games.
Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better.
My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must own Super Mario World 3 or 4 times by now.
(Obviously they're not actually forcing me, but it would be good to have cross-platform pass for that kind of content)
1. They're slow.
2. There are far too many screens/taps necessary to do things.
Loading each new screen seems to take at least a few seconds, and there are way too many of them. I'd estimate you could remove like half the screens in the 3DS shop purchase flow through better UX design. Just compare how long it takes to buy something on either system to how long it takes on Android or iOS.
edit: oh yeah and downloading takes large games takes a REALLY long time. I downloaded the new Sonic game for my 3DS the other day on the guest wifi at a Google office and it took like 3 or 4 hours. It definitely wasn't the wifi that was the constraining factor, speed testing on my phone showed it at like 200 mbps.
Also, filters for available DLC are nonexistent. You can't filter by maps, characters, or whatever applicable content types are available. All you can do is sort by "latest" and "most popular" for example.
But the real killer is: games are still tied to hardware, not user account. Which means, if your console dies, you lose all your purchases. (Unless that's changed VERY recently.)
If you're used to the Xbox store like the grandparent, going to the Nintendo Shop is like stepping back in time a decade.
It seems a Kotaku author was able to get their games transferred by contacting Nintendo directly. So at least there's that [1]. There's no direct way to download your games onto a new 3ds. And additional source about transferring between systems [2].
[0] http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a...
[1] http://kotaku.com/salvaging-games-from-a-broken-3ds-is-surpr...
[2] http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/154883/how-to-get-...
they are not. you only need to contact Nintendo if your account is still TIED TO ANOTHER 3DS. However if it isn't you can just buy a new 3DS and selling the old one before you have the new one. If you've forgotten to detach your account your games are missing.
Here a german letter (I translated it) that I got from Nintendo before selling my 3DS (I wanted to sell the Games with the Account):
NNID = Nintendo ID. In short it says Licenses are connected with the Nintendo ID. Only Games that are pre-installed on the Console will be tied with the Console ID, if you didn't do any Datatransfer to another Device.However I detached the ID and bough a 2DS later and I still can play all the Games on my NNID. Basically I only sold the 3DS + Cartridge Games.
that's wrong. only the game that is preinstalled on the console is tied to the hardware. which mostly happens on bundles.
This seems crazy in this age of apps
I hope Nintendo spends a little more resources to improve on the online side of things alongside the new Switch console (store, online multiplayer, interaction with friends...); they are severely behind compared to their competitors.
I'm not saying it's the right call, or that in this day and age, we haven't moved past that in many respects, but I'm willing to bet that's a big part of their lack of online focus.
And yes, my ex have had total freak-outs over several of the other platforms due to ridiculous decisions (Plants vs. Zombies on the Xbox making it an outright pain to find out not to have random strangers suddenly broadcast their conversation to you - seemingly without realising - and liberally using the n-word, for example... whoever thought it was a good idea to have player audio broadcast without making it easy to mute on either end without muting all in game sound is a total idiot), or numerous iOS games that are otherwise great that allow unrestricted chat where my son has several times come across rather disgusting behaviour.
In general I'm not so worried in my sons case - he knows what he's not allowed to tell people, and he knows what not to repeat, but I can see why a lot of parents would find many games that otherwise would be perfectly age appropriate problematic to let their kids play.
Haven't run into any as a casual user – Nintendo managed to make the purchase workflow easy even on a 3DS, which is impressive.
http://i.imgur.com/DlUMgxb.png
The Switch might offer some advantages now, but it's not going to take long before mobile phones offer similar graphics, and gamepad experiences. At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
I think Switch will sell enough to be profitable, but Nintendo is going to be squeezed out of the hardware market. They can't compete with Playstation and Xbox for the console market. They can't compete with Steam on the PC and laptop market. They'll also lose the mobile market to the iPhone, and Pixels of the future.
Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development. Imagine Mario, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Metroid, Zelda, Smash Bros, and Kirby games distributed on Playstation, Xbox, Steam, iPhones, and Android. That's a huge market waiting for them.
But they already do now. The only problem, albeit a big one, with gamepad experiences is the constantly changing form factors of phones over time.
>> At that point, what's the advantage of buying a Switch, when the phone in your pocket does all of the same things, and more?
It's not about the hardware, it's about the software. And in Nintendo's case, it's about having the latest and greatest first party Nintendo games. Which, with few exceptions, are not available on other platforms. The bottom line, enough people are still willing to pay for proprietary hardware to play Nintendo's games.
They don't make consoles as a "CPU+GPU+GAME" they make toys, for example this is why they invented some back then outright bizarre stuff, like N64 funky controller and first 3D platformer games, Wii and Wii controller, that board controller, and so on.
Nintendo doesn't like making games, they like making toys, the fact that their best product are consoles+first party games doesn't change this fact, if you look videos of they designing stuff, you will see that their first games for a platform are usually designed alongside the console, with game designers making prototypes of potential controllers and designing not a game for a console, but the console+game pair that fits their goals.
Then, they accept third party games as a "bonus", but it is NOT their focus.
Nintendo's first party IPs are partially what keeps it alive. Think about it. Mario and Mario Kart have more or less been the same for generations, yet people (including myself) keep coming back for more.
Also, the Wii marked a decided family-friendly focus for Nintendo. Everyone complains about Nintendo's online ecosystem being so abysmal. This is rightfully so. If you look at it from the perspective of a parent with children, it's basically the perfect platform. Aside from their IPs, Nintendo consoles don't offer much for older gamers that Sony and Microsoft does way better. However, Nintendo consoles do get tons of games that are child- and family-oriented.
So what are you getting out of a Nintendo console? Lackluster proprietary software and crippled low powered hardware. Not a compelling offer to pretty much anyone, so they use their software to prop up the hardware and lose out on dramatically more software sales to maintain a dead hardware business.
If this console were just an Android handheld / console switcher device it would be immensely more successful.
Yes: Nintendo's offering allows for "couch co-op" and/or "party games"—that is, local multiplayer. It's Nintendo's bailiwick, and always has been. Every feature in that video (each device supporting two players; ad-hoc pairing of N devices to get 2N players) is about local multiplayer.
Phone hardware is generic; you can force it into a gaming mould, but it won't support gaming experiences out-of-the-box in a way that a gaming console does. And because of that, devs will make single-player or online-multiplayer games for phones (for the people who care to specialize their devices themselves), but no devs will bother making local-multiplayer games for phones (because that assumes everyone in your friend group has bought into the same specialized peripherals.) This is why the Ouya failed: it assumed the Android ecosystem had local-multiplayer titles, or that devs would build one once offered a TV "target." It doesn't, and they won't.
Apple does want into the local-multiplayer space (they're working toward it with paired iOS+tvOS apps) but as I said, iOS devs just aren't interested; meanwhile, Nintendo consoles have Nintendo developing first-party "flagship" local-multiplayer titles to prop them up, and to encourage and provide a role-model for third-party devs who want to do the same.
> Personally, I think Nintendo should move away from hardware and focus on game development.
The other thing Nintendo is "about", in the modern era, is developer lock-in. You buy Nintendo consoles mostly because of their exclusives. How do they achieve so many exclusives? By making them in-house, yes, but also by designing their consoles to do unique things, such that third-party devs will write games that exploit those unique console features... and then find themselves unable to make a sensible port to any other console. Every Nintendo console is designed with the idea in mind that "if it was a plain-and-simple PC, you could just enjoy the same game on another console, or on an emulator. So let's make it not just a PC."
The Wii's Wiimote is a pretty good example of this lock-in effect; but it was eventually cloned—by Microsoft and Sony both. (They never intended anyone to make games just for the Kinect or the Move; instead, their strategy was effectively just to cancel out Nintendo's de-facto exclusivity and encourage devs to make their "motion" games into cross-platform releases, rather than Just Dance et al remaining Nintendo-exclusive.)
But the best example is the DS. Make a game for two screens, with touch-interaction only on the bottom screen? it's going to just look plain silly if you do a direct port of that to iOS or Android. It's a "natural" barrier in the way of porting.
And keep in mind that [3]DS games still vastly outsell iOS games in the mobile gaming market. Nintendo's strategy works. They make mobile hardware specifically for gaming, and people buy it. And they make money on the hardware, not just the games!
The Switch, though, creates a second, higher rung to Nintendo's mobile strategy—like the iPad is to Apple's. This isn't a home console, it's a mobile console for people who want a high-def gameplay experience and local-multiplayer.
---
In Nintendo's previous generation, we saw Super Smash Bros 4 and Mario Kart: two titles that were developed in parallel for both the 3DS and the Wii U (a lot of work!) They did that work because the Wii U was "a thing attached to your TV", while the 3DS was "a portable thing", and they wanted people to be able to play in both contexts. Other games that would have been perfect for this setup (e.g. Splatoon, Pokken Tournament) were left behind.
Effectively, those were all just Switch games that were released before the Switch was ready for them...
Honest question, I don't know. Just wondering if Nintendo is continuing the trend or if they're still stuck in the past.
Yes. For example, they used to sell "PS Classics", Playstation games through their store. I bought Symphony of the Night once, and had it on my PSP, PS3, and PS Vita. I'm sure you could get it on the PS4 as well.
Microsoft has a similar thing for their Xbox Live Arcade games on the xbone, but many of those are being made into HD Remasters instead of being ported.
Some games are cross-buy. Others are not. PSone Classics titles are cross-buy. Final Fantasy X/X2 HD is cross-save, but not cross buy.
There are a few cross-buy games on Nintendo systems, Severed is the most recent example. Most of Nintendo's cross-buy games have been rolled out since the new Nintendo Account system that debuted with Miitomo.
Blu Ray Player (that I never use), check. Plex client, check. DLNA client, check. Digital Optical Out, check. Netflix, Amazon Video check. Gaming machine, yup.
It completely removes the need for a HTPC.
EDIT: Interesting, this http://www.udoo.org/udoo-x86/ could definitely power a PC running PS Now. So, I can't lug a PS4 around, but I could lug a PS3 around :) And it would just so happen to have access to the entire library of older systems. Thanks for the idea. I know what my next weekend project will be!
The WAF of using a controller to control video playback is low. We have a Roku 3 and it's far simpler to use than our 360 or PS4. Plus it's never "off". Side benefit is that I can remote play the PS4 when someone is using the Roku ;-).
The Switch could plausibly fill this gap, but I guarantee that those little controller thingies are going to get lost.
Skyrim is a five-year-old game at this point. It's not exactly an indication of graphical horsepower.
This is a higher-end Tegra. It's impressive-for-a-mobile-chip, but mobile chips still aren't really impressive. Maybe the base has additional GPU muscle or something, who knows. But the existence of a video-rendered Skyrim on-screen isn't really indicative of "graphical prowess" in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I think the device looks cool and I was already planning on buying one. But "playing Skyrim" just doesn't tell you anything, especially when the video on-screen is plastered there with After Effects. It's sloppy thinking to jump on that as meaningful anythings.
I understand that the trailer is not meant to reflect the exact console. But remember that Bethesda is behind this, and so we have their seal of approval, so to speak.
I don't think I'm saying anything particularly shocking. And none of that's to say it can't be a good, satisfying device. I mean, Christ, I was playing my Vita this morning, and the chip at the heart of that is Frito-Lay. Just that the gamer conception of "power" really isn't...real? And that there are a lot of things that have to be considered in terms of that.
My point is that re-engine'ing the game doesn't change the assets involved (stuff like texture quality or shader complexity has a pretty significant impact on performance), nor (necessarily) the visual effects involved. You could scale UE3 down to run on absolutely laughable hardware and games today still regularly support 640x480 and other silly things. Being "on an engine" means something only when you have hard hardware requirements, like requiring support for SM 4.0 or whatever.
I generally agree that you can probably stuff it into a portable with some compromises within the next couple years, sure. But I'm glad I'm not a Bethesda employee, that's going to suck and I think the compromises are going to be big.
Re-engine'ing a game is a massive undertaking. There's a huge amount of work involved in porting mission systems and event triggers and so on between the two systems. I don't really think it's feasible, I'd see it as much more likely that they port the engine rather than porting the game to another engine (which AFAIK is what they did with Skyrim Special Edition).
It's especially unlikely because Bethesda has put a huge amount of work into developer/world-building tooling for GameBryo. They have been on a single engine for almost 20 years now (since Morrowind) and it's going to be a tough sell to throw all that tooling and experience away, even with the engine making ominous creaking sounds (as the FO4 codebase clearly is doing).
It clearly needs it though. Like, STALKER was playable on a laptop processor and iGPU ten years ago and the newer games are on par with FO4 visually in most ways. In many RPG senses it was even more flexible and more ambitious (A-Life was similar to Radiant AI). FO4 just runs like shit compared to how dated it looks and plays.
(You were then downvoted for complaining about votes, because that is universally considered negative behavior.)
You can always email hn@ycombinator.com if you'd like.
No, I didn't misread anything, like the OP then cleared out in answering my original comment, it was him that mixed the dates.
Because neither Fallout 4, Skyrim original and Skyrim Special Edition "came out 3 years ago", and if you weren't going around editing your comments, my comment would be both factual and properly addressing your original comment.
You were mistaken. Your fictional Internet points aren't important. You should stop.
So "ported to the FO4 engine" doesn't really mean much. It's like saying that Half-Life 2 has been ported to CS:GO's engine. Yeah, it's a more modern build of the engine but it's still the same engine and it's not going to look or run drastically different unless the assets are also revamped at the same time.
Also, my personal opinion (from the outside) is that Bethesda doesn't seem to have done a good job maintaining their codebase. Fallout 4 still doesn't really look any better than Skyrim (the facial animations are especially terrible), it's quirky/buggy as hell (framerate-locked physics in 2016?) and it runs like shit even on high-end machines. An engine from a game released in 2006 shouldn't struggle to hold 50 fps at 1440p on a 780 Ti. TF2 gets slagged on a lot for its shitty codebase but it's nowhere near that bad.
The performance issues were really terrible at launch. It's somewhat better now but it really prefers current-gen hardware and running from an SSD. It's really sensitive to memory bandwidth too.
Unlike many others, I highly doubt this gets near PS4 performance. there are just too many reasons for it not to.
You can get 16GB micro SD cards (which are phsyically much smaller than the cartridges appear to be) on Amazon for $7, and double that size for about $10.
However, it looks as big as an iPad mini. So logging it around, I might actually want it to have tablet functions too.
Hopefully as the technology develops in a couple of years we'll see a Switch Mini to take the place of the NDS, so at least it will be small-enough to lug around easily.
In a space currently dominated by two nearly-identical competitors (XBONE and PS4), I think Nintendo has the opportunity to capture a large portion of the market.
I really love the slide-in controllers.
A few things I hope for would be:
* Open specs for the slide-in controllers so that third parties can satisfy various niches (like the fighting game community)
* A standard USB-C or micro-USB charging port so that people can use their existing power banks/chargers
* A well implemented eStore (with purchases that aren't bound to a single device) with a huge back catalog of games from their older consoles
* Compatibility with Nintendo's older wireless controllers
Well, it looks like it uses bluetooth. If it uses a standard bluetooth stack, they might let other BT controllers (such as the PS4, Wii U Pro and Xbone) work with the system.
I really have a lot of high hopes for this, but I don't wanna get super excited without knowing any of the specs.
The Xbone controllers use some proprietary Wi-Fi-based protocol, don't they? Not Bluetooth.
Different people have different priorities when it comes to gaming.
I'd also be wary about battery life. The 3DS and its sleep mode aren't known for being very good on that front.
The fact that they're showing off Skyrim, a 2011 game, in their 2017 console launch video doesn't say much for their hardware's abilities. It says a lot about how beloved Skyrim is, though.
The 3DS remains to be seen.
The only thing I can't see is whether the screen is a touch screen, which would be necessary. Which may also preclude using 3DS games in TV mode. (Unless they do something weird with Wiimotes or something. But I'm not sure that would play well enough to be worth doing.)
If it's backwards compatible with both 3DS and the WiiU, and perhaps even the Wii, this thing will come out of the game with an absolutely killer lineup. ('Twould be a pity there would probably no way to port the physical disks that you already own across, though. The 3DS games would just slip in, so they'd have an ironic advantage over "real" Wii games.)
As a piece of hardware, this looks really cool and innovative. But I don't actually know if the product-market fit is there.
Really? I gather with friends to play Smash on a gamecube every two weeks or so. Bring a few beers, play some good music, pass the controllers around and it's lots of fun. I also co-op a lot with my girlfriend.
Limiting to 4 players allows the night to be more than gaming night. If all 12 of us are there, it allows for some rotation (most of the time, we will be 4 to 8). While some of the guys/girls are playing, some others can be spectators or be at the kitchen table talking or having some beers. We can even rock both smash and board games at the same time!
The gamecube is really our main console... funny thing is none of us were gamecube lovers when it initially came out. Lots of PC, PS and Xbox players among us. Our only Nintendo time is when it's time to play together.
Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.
Swiitch? ;)
5V usb port at 2.1A = 10.5W = battery gets drained even when plugged in.
It has a 20Whr battery, if I'm at 90%, and I'm wary of draining it below 10%, that leaves me with 16Whr = an hour at most of gaming on battery alone, on a brand new full capacity battery.
Doesn't help that the device gets pretty darn hot also.
Portable gaming sounds fun until you remember that batteries suck, sure they've improved much but what improved is also the power management. 3D/Graphics are still a power hog, so you get a tiny package with almost no battery to speak off and a heating element all in one.
Hey but if you play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tt2kgames.... or somethig similar at least you know you can defer hypothermia by about 10-15 min if you are on batery :)
Most other games also don't run at 1200p, and probably not even 1080p unless they are simple games.
Current consoles don't push 1080p games properly so the non-native resolution was never even in question.
My worry here is that Nintendo may be making the same mistake that BlackBerry made: doubling down on hardware when they should be building out their app ecosystem on dominant mobile platforms.
That said, the Switch looks cool. Really freaking cool. I just wonder if it'll be enough.
https://supermariorun.com
Im failing to see how this design is superior to the Wii U's approach
Yes, this device would have more opportunity to suffer physical damage based on the nature of its design but I think that cost is easily justified.
Console with graphical power that rivals Xbox One and PS4. Check.
Industry-standard architecture and tooling (Unity), allowing third parties to flood in. Check.
Blends their successful portable division with their console division (this has been a common refrain for awhile now). Check.
They already addressed multiplayer, although they could go further with that.
This is going to be a major windfall for them.
My guess would be somewhere around PS3/360 performance, perhaps with better graphics.
The Wii U does more than the 360 with less, already. It's actually a pretty great piece of engineering. And there are already tablets that can kick butt in that form factor (https://docs.sony.com/release//specs/SVF15N17CXB_mksp.pdf) so it's not unreasonable to think that with the new AMD Polaris tech that they're going to make something awesome.
Having learned from the Wii U, I think Nintendo is going to knock this next one out of the park. My biggest questions are, will there be 4K support, and what's the battery life on the tablet mode?
As a user of AMD's current Polaris tech, I'm certain this next console will kick butt.
Edit: Pastebin has what purports to be a spec sheet[1], but this 1024 FLOPS/cycle business sounds inscrutable to me and it's not verifiable anyway.
[1]: http://pastebin.com/UD1Vx9rf
The guy playing at the airport, you might be waiting up to an hour. When he got on the plane, he plugged it in.
The guys at the basketball game seemed like they were killing time while they cooled down, maybe up to an hour.
The person at the rooftop party, she was at a party. They're probably not playing for hours.
The people in the car, I don't remember if they plugged it in or not but they could have, or they'd be playing on a short trip.
The one case where the person is in tablet-mode for an extended period of time, he sat down and immediately plugged it in. I wouldn't be surprised if we find an hour or two of battery life with the most taxing games.
With Nintendo's strong art design, there are games like Mario Kart 8 that look as good as most PS4/Xbox One games.
Where do you get this from? The specs haven't been released and they're showcasing some previous-gen games. I doubt this will have the processing power of the original Xbox One or PS4, let alone the souped-up versions of those consoles that are coming soon.
But I still think Nintendo has some of the best games ever made on their consoles. Take a look into Super Mario Galaxy series, how they just work, are nice to navigate and play, how you can play the games over and over again and have fun even years after their release. Sure they don't have the fastest hardware, but what they can do with it is just amazing.
On the other hand I have hundreds of games on Steam I need to play but sometimes when I just want some random fun for a while I'll dig out some old SNES games (or launch an emulator). No one denies you can make incredible games on weak hardware, but you can't make certain types of incredible games without powerful hardware. And in any case you can always make some really crappy games.
I can't even seriously take the "but Nintendo does good gameplay and design even if their hardware sucks" rationalization anymore. With the possible exception of Splatoon (haven't played it), the other Wii U titles I have played at a friend's (I don't own the console) have, despite raising my expectations, systematically disappointed me in some major way due precisely to the gameplay, not the graphics: Super Mario 3D World, Star Fox Zero (that one hurt the most), Pikmin 3 (actually not so bad but no replay value), Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting. The next Zelda game is their last chance for me and every gameplay demo I've seen has set my expectations real low.
Does it? Do you think people playing Doom this year have a more immersive experience than I had playing Doom on my 486? A better experience?
It's probably safe to assume it will be a customized version the latest or an upcoming model. I believe this puts the system in the PS4/Xbone ballpark.
There is just no way they could pack the hardware/cooling/battery into a mobile device.
Xbox one GPU is 1.3 tflops and PS4 is 1.8 tflops. So in the same ballpark
2. Both Xbox and PS4 consume around 100W. Unless the Switch has 10x the perf/watt, it seems like performance won't be comparable.
3. Both Xbox and PS4 have massive heat sinks and fans, so they'll be able to sustain higher perf for longer.
Not clear on how they're cooling it, though
That's OK, this time the console actually takes advantage of weaker performance to offer a better form-factor. Whether that tradeoff satisfies consumers is yet to be seen.
It looks like the power is somewhere between Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
The specs I saw showed it with 4 GBs of ram, which would put it clearly above Xbox 360/PS3 power and even a bit above the Wii U, which can do way better looking games than Xbox 360/PS3.
We shall see what the final specs and games look like, but what they showed off looked pretty good. It won't be PS4 Pro or Xbox One Scorpio powerful, but it's a device you can use on the go (or for second-screen gaming, which might be the killer app here).
When undocked, they can scale down resolution and frame rate for the smaller screen.
Doubt it. Not a trivial problem to solve technically and console pricing is inflexible - they need to sell this thing for under $400, and Nintendo hates subsidizing hardware.
Is it? We're not talking about load balancing GPUs - we're talking about a GPU just disappearing underneath you (like when the user picks up the Switch), while maintaining context and dynamically lowering quality - I can't imagine that being a trivial problem.
But that's not the major issue here. Nintendo is going to have to sell this thing for under $400. A mid-market smart-phone costs that much. Shipping a dock with a high performance GPU along with the actual portable isn't going to happen.
This all presupposes, though, that the hardware they're packing in the portable unit is comparable to what's in the PS4/XBO or their newer equivalents.
You say that like it's supposed to imply it's worse for some reason.
> battery-powered device with limited thermal regulation.
The Xbox one and PS4 were both released about three years ago. Almost three and a half by the time the Switch is released. That's a long time for Moore's law to operate, and it's easier for GPUs to take advantage of that phenomenon, since they are extremely parallel.
At 14-15 mm, the portable portion is actually a bit thicker (if smaller) than a new MacBook. Without the need for a keyboard or a clam shell design, that's probably quite a bit of usable space. I'm not sure why we should be surprised by claims of performance matching three year old systems.
It does because of thermals.
Isn't that entirely based on what they integrate? The market has traditionally been such that integrated units are for cost, and so are paired with cheaper GPU components. I don't know of any technical reason that integrated units use low end GPU specs, just business reasons. Any normal market pressures would be different in this case, based on the size of the order and specific needs.
> I'm assuming inferior refers to compute performance
Inferior based on maximum possible compute performance, sure. The top of the line dedicated GPU will have more leeway to work with than the top of the line integrated, but we're hardly talking about top of the line, we're talking about matching three year old hardware.
3 years is a long time but IMO not enough to being a 100+ watt SoC down to ~20-30 required for that form factor.
That being said, Nvidia is still much more energy efficient graphics wise vs AMD so I could see it getting fairly close - maybe 70-80%. CPU wise though I doubt they'll be as close just because of power.
Moore's law refers to the number of transistors, not speed. We've consistently added more transistors to CPUs, but through separate cores,since there are problems related to doing that usefully with a single core. Now, that's been of mixed benefit to some programs, because not all problems, programs, or programmers can effectively take advantage of multiple cores, or at least not effectively. GPUs though, are doing work that is "embarrassingly parallel", and thus can effectively utilize this increase in transistors and cores. For example, the GeForce Titan X has 3072 CUDA cores.[2]
The GeForce GTX 760 (maybe a mid-range desktop part?) was released June 25, 2013 with a retail price of $249.[3] The GeForce GTX 980M (second newest generation mobile part) was released October 7, 2014 (two years ago!).[3] It trounces the desktop part from one year prior.[4] We've had a year since then. I don't think there's any problem hitting the performance of the last generation of consoles, at least as far as the GPU is concerned.
Edit: Switched from 980 to 980M to clearly indicate a mobile part, which only makes the release a year earlier for the mobile part, but doesn't really change the outcome.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
2: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-tit...
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_proces...
4: http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-980M-vs-GeForce-GTX-760
you cite nvidia as an example against it but nvidia itself clearly does is not of the same opinion
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/nvidia-vp-claims-tha...
http://www.techdesignforums.com/blog/2015/12/11/iedm-arm-yer...
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=13298...
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123529-nvidia-deeply-un...
Poor reporting:
Moore's law describes that trend for computing performance – processing speed, memory capacity and the like - to double approximately every two years, named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who first outlined his theory back in 1965.
That's not what Moore's law is, and is an example of what I meant when I said it was incorrectly explained for decades. The very first paragraph of the Wikipedia article I originally cited shows this.
The other articles seem to be about density scaling, which is only part of what goes into "how many transistors you can fit into a dense integrated circuit." Cores, obviously, allow us to mitigate this to some degree.
For example, in this[1] article, you'll find a graph that shows transistor count over time. It's fairly easy to see that as of a couple years ago, Moore's law was still going strong.
1: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/190946-stop-obsessing-...
That's it? The PS4 is three years old now. They should be able to make something significantly better at this point.
Apple is claiming that the iPhone 7 has console-level graphics capabilities. If that's true (and I have no idea what that actually means), then Nintendo should be able to come up with something even better since they have so much more room for battery and have lots of expertise in making consoles.
It's too bad, FPSes on the Wii with the motion controllers were so natural even with the tiny lag.
This thing has to run on batteries. It has to include mobile-quality batteries and a screen, which is an added cost that other consoles don't have.
With those components in mind, I fully expect it to have comparatively weak hardware so they can hit a comparable price-point.
The SNES had extensive 3rd party support. Obviously it's hard to compare 25 years ago to today, but the SNES and Genesis were really "even". Supporting both systems was a no brainer for most game companies. The N64 threw a curve ball with carts, and 3rd party support tanked. Anecdotally, the GameCube seemed to have better 3rd party support, as it was a very equivalent system to the Xbox and PS2.
Not sure it's about quantity, it's more about quality. When Nintendo's first party software sets a high bar for quality, it makes most of the non AAA titles sold by third parties look like crap, and they usually are.
Third party AAA titles like Just Dance, FIFA, Madden, Tiger Woods Golf etc. sold well enough on the Wii that some sequels were still being produced even after the Wii had become an afterthought. IIRC, Street Fighter IV on the 3DS sold very well too.
The native program has been what major publishers use though, and that one is harder to get into (It was known as Warioworld)
Does it?
> Industry-standard architecture and tooling (Unity)
I'm struggling to think of a Unity game that actually looks as good as one of the other modern engines.
Umbrella Corps is darn close to AAA as well (http://store.steampowered.com/app/390340/).
Just because most Unity games are indie doesn't mean that AAA studios can't make a good looking Unity game. It just means that most studios using Unity don't have the money to make a good looking game.
Why would you think that? It's a mobile system, running mobile CPU/GPU with a price target of a mid-market smart-phone. It's isn't going to match the PS4 or XboxOne, no way.
>This is going to be a major windfall for them.
Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if they'll be able to run the latest AAA titles, especially with the new MS and Sony consoles coming out soon. So they'll have the same problem as they had with the Wii and WiiU - you buy the console for Nintendo games and that's it.
Almost certainly not. It's a tablet, it's very unlikely it's going to equal the home systems with 100W power supplies and huge fans.
I would say with 100% confidence there is no way it would replace your phone.
And I would say with 90% confidence it will not replace a tablet. It may have a web browser, YouTube, Netflix, and a few token apps but don't expect full Android or anything. I could be wrong of course.
Also an interesting decision to cover the docked screen (probably to keep 100% compatibility to the single mobile screen and not waste resources while powering the big screen).
I'm sure we'll learn more over the next 6 months... but there's a lot of things you could do with a dock like that.
As a parent, I have 4 of the current gen DS systems. One for myself and one for each of my three children.
Nintendo has really struggled to stay relevant in the console space though as seen by the Wii U's underwhelming sales.
If this device is priced right and can continue on their virtual handheld monopoly then they become a sort of defacto console system for the masses. For the first time in ages I'm curious to see what is going to happen with Nintendo.
Part of the issue is going to come down to pricing. With a handheld each person needs their own device. If this can be kept sub $200 it's sort of a no brained. If it is priced similarly to consoles today it's a harder sell.
I am also left wondering if this could end up sold as different packages. It could be packaged as a full console edition and a handheld only lite edition at different price points.
At the end of the day they all play the same games. I bought the 2DS for my 3 kids because it is cheap, but also because it is the most rugged with it's non folding uni-body so they are less likely to break it.
I bought the 3DS XL for myself because I have poor eyesight and need the bigger screen and I'm less likely to break it.
If Nintendo does something along these lines I suspect people would buy multiple Switches per household. Based on their history it's not unreasonable to suspect that something like this is in the works. I doubt it would happen at launch since, but over time I will not be at all surprised to see different versions of this system offered.
In handheld mode, one wonders if they were able to keep parity with the battery life and the touchscreen capability that the DS/3DS had. Losing those would be a significant minus.