Looks like joy-cons will have 'mouse-like' functionality and there's a 'C' on right joy-con but its functionality is not reveled. New Mario Kart showcased would probably be one of the first exclusives.
A few details are quite different from 8, notably the boost and character animations, it's definitely a new game.
Marketing will be difficult, MK8 already peaked graphically and has 96 tracks, and will still work on Switch 2. I hope they'll find real selling points for MK9.
Would have not surprised me if it's actually Mario Kart 8 2. (Technically that's already what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is, so, actually, it would be Mario Kart 8 3).
I mean, at this point it makes little sense for them to start from scratch, releasing a newer game but with much less than the enormous amount of content provided by MK8D + DLC would seem like a very noticeable downgrade, so just revamping the old one would be a practical move, though I don't think fans would be happy with that.
MK8 was mostly flawless gameplay wise, how can it be improved? But at this point one has no choice but to trust Nintendo's ability to come up with surprises.
There are certainly some ways they can, I'd love to see a 100 man race or something crazy like that.
yeah, i agree on that, makes more sense to update 8.
BUT, i don't know if i would use that as the first look at the new console, basically looks like really similar to a game that was released 10 years ago, i wouldn't buy a new system to play again mario kart 8.
I thought they were showing the retro compatibility feature, since the gameplay comes after the message that switch 1 games would be playable on 2 (maybe upscaled or something)
MK8 was also an iteration on MK7, with refinements to the handling, the addition of anti-gravity, and tweaks to items. It's certain there's going to be _some_ sort of mechanical shakeup.
Mario Kart sells like hotcakes; I doubt they'll have to do much to convince people to buy a new one, particularly folks who've played the old one for hundreds of hours.
Everyone has a new design, maybe I'm more familiar with my Marios than most but I could tell immediately it has a more cartoonish design, and characters have a rubbery kind of stretch and bounce to their animations. You can see it notably on the closeup of Mario where he hops into a drift.
The art style is somewhere between the 2010s bog-standard Mario and Super Mario Bros Wonder.
To be fair, if we’re going by track alone, there’s nothing to say it’s not just a new track for the Switch 2 release (or even just released at the same time, but available on both).
That's so cliche and cringe nowadays, but the reason they didn't wait to do that is probably because of all the leaks. The specs, the name, photos of the console and internal components all leaked. Even the fan renders people were making turned out to be pretty damn accurate (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1i008os/nin...)
Calling anything “cringe” is pretty self-referential. This slang just makes me imagine a bunch of genZ folk wincing nonstop with the heads in their phones. Must be exhausting.
As long as the internet has existed, we have been lampooning corporate keynotes. The gaming industry does this every cycle, trying to hype up incremental updates as if it’s the best thing to ever get released. See you again in a few years!
I would say it's more about minimizing cost of the console and their first party games just so happen to be not intensive enough to need it... But some games would have absolutely benefitted from a bit better hardware.
cloud gaming has given me this same revelation. It's as portable as a Switch but the gaming experience isn't limited by the hardware in hand. Connectivity is important for the experience, though.
cloud gaming is good if you live close to the servers and don't care about graphics, but playing with +60-100ms for every action feels very bad. It almost feels like playing on 15-20 fps PC and quality of streaming video is always a problem compared to native quality maybe AV1 will fix it.
My kid plays fortnite using home streaming to an xbox, and says he doesn't notice the latency. I do the same on an Asus ROG Ally, and it's "good enough". I am not a competitive FPV player, but suffer from OCD and notice latency and it tweaks me hard.
Depends on the game. I think I'm more sensitive to latency (less able to compensate) than most people. I couldn't enjoy playing Titanfall until I put my Samsung TV in game mode; I would just get hit and couldn't do anything about it playing League of Legends on my gaming laptop with a 4K monitor, but when I hooked up an external monitor, mirrored the screen, and ran a clock, I took photos showing my laptops' screen was behind by 30 ms. I started playing on an external monitor and started to win. I even found I had a hard time with some 1 player games such as Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet if I didn't run in game mode.
On the other hand, I went through a phase where I did a lot of streaming from my PC to a NVIDIA Shield and an XBOX. Sometimes through wired Ethernet, something through an airMAX microwave link to my other house. Games like Persona 5 and Orcs Must Die 3 were just fine, but I could not play any Rhythm games, which I have a knack for, High-Fi Rush was no fun at all.
I'm playing single player games via Parsec and the latency feels fine. Moonlight is tolerable but Steam streaming feels terrible for some strange reason. This is running two Wifi 6 devices so nothing is even wired. I often use a controller connected to my laptop, or even better use the wireless controller, connect that to the physical device then you bypass the controller latency and only the video has a lag, which is kind of a neat trick if you're close enough to the computer you're streaming from.
The only sorts of games I can't play are things like Binding of Isaac that are super dependent on reaction speeds, but even games like Elden Ring feel fine.
Sunshine on the server and moonlight on the client blows steam link out of the water in terms of latency. Even on my home network with everything on ethernet, steam link would stutter. I sometimes forget I am not directly connected to a computer while on the couch.
Did clicking on the Rent my PC tab really try to benchmark my GPU through my browser, or did I accidentally click another button on that page inadvertently that triggered that?
If the former, that's a terrible idea. If the latter, that button really needs a confirmation and explanation of what's about to happen.
I'm viewing on an Intel Mac and it hung my entire computer for like 15 seconds. I didn't even connect that it was related to viewing your site until I got the error at the end and everything unfroze.
It does. Sorry about the experience, we will try to improve it.
Having user confirm it is not a good option, because every click is a hassle.
What we could do is first run a very short version of a smaller benchmark, and if that takes too long, don't run the main one. Then the worst case you will have a 100ms lag at this point, which is way better than 5 seconds of reading.
It's a neat feature, I just think it'd be ideal to do a confirmation first. It wouldn't be a great experience if it happened on mobile, either.
Every click is a hassle, but principal of least astonishment applies here. Literally not a soul will be expecting that to happen when casually browsing your site.
What does utilization look like? I would be interested in running this on a spare machine but it's not clear how large the potential audience of renters may be in my area.
Right now the utilization is low (< 10%), but in the effort to prop the providers side the company is footing the bill and paying for availability approximately 50% of what the benchmark on the page tells you. This is a rather common strategy for bootstrapping any two-sided market.
7ms latency, 4k120fps with geforce now. 10ms on wifi. I'm not kidding.
It's ALMOST perfect. I play BF1 through it. Try it once (I believe they still have the "free for 1hr per session, infinite sessions"? That's what sold it to me).
I can play very intensive games (graphically) on my macbook on the couch. It's amazing, and I couldn't believe the 10ms on wifi. It's mind-blowing.
BUT I live near Amsterdam, where a server cluster is.
Also, about the graphics: I'm borrowing a 4080 every time. Everything is on max. If you're in a very (very) hard scene for compression, then yeah, you'll see (very little) artifacts. But I run it on 75mbit, and that's a LOT.
Streaming videos, leasing cars, cloud gaming, spotify, are all great until the distributor takes it away.
I prefer to own my things. The sense that something is mine increases the pleasure of using something for me.
It probably stems from my acquired lack of trust in people. The idea that there's a suit in a high-rise building that spends their days thinking about how to exploit my continued enjoyment of a title by raising the fee, or not addressing congestion hours, or retracting the title when the contract is up and renewing would cost too much, or putting a clause in the service agreement that strips me of my right to sue them if I lose an arm in their amusement park, simply by blurring the lines of ownership.. it bothers me.
The Switch is genuinely one of the last pieces of hardware I was really excited about, and I can't say that about much anymore. It's extremely well put together, I've repaired mine a number of times with no issues (honestly opening anything made in Japan is a joy, the engineering is so good) and the specs leave a lot to be desired, which is unfortunate, but at the same time, you wouldn't know it while using it. The XBox is such a curmudgeonly slow experience to use, everything in the menus takes forever to load, the dash jerks and lags, and it's just like... this machine can run Halo Infinite, why does it struggle so damn hard with just... boxes and jpegs?
The Switch has a similar issue occasionally in the store application, but outside of that, settings are snappy, updates are practically instant, it turns on and off so quickly. It's what consoles are supposed to be.
And honestly in this same vein, the PS5 is also bloody impressive, but that impressiveness came with an impressive price too. The Switch costing as little as it did and still holding it's own is so cool.
I kind of like the joy con issue, as it means I can send the controllers back to Nintendo and get them fixed for free, even when the problem isn't the joycon - it's the kids destroying the controller.
Honestly I swapped them myself both in the Joycons and in the Pro controller a couple times each over the years. The modules cost like $15 through Amazon or Ebay, and unlike the XBox controller, they're separate modules with a ribbon connector instead of soldered in, which makes replacing them a breeze.
New Switch user, believe it or not. I just purchased my second 8BitDo controller with Hall effect joysticks this week. Hoping I can avoid the drift problem by avoiding Joy-Cons! (We usually play on the TV.)
You can get free replacements btw. My original switch from release finally got drift in the latter part of last year. Nintendo had replacements to me within a few days at no cost. Rare to have such a pleasant experience with customer support, it was a flawless process
We have a switch and an XBox and after liking the 360 back in the day the newer XBoxes just make me want to tear my hair out. They sold us all on bigger and bigger hardware to get rid of load times and they ended up with the system with the worst load times going all the way back to the 70s. Sometimes it seems like it takes 10 minutes to start up and actually play a game, and then there the updates.
My son got a Forza Horizon game for Xmas and it immediately said it needed to download 128GB from the internet before he could play it. With the way it worked out he didn't get to play it on Christmas day as it never finished downloading before we had to go leave to visit relatives.
Unfortunately the situation with needing to download huge updates is also occasionally present on the Switch. Several third party AAA games (EA sports titles come to mind) ship small cartridges and a require big downloads to the SD card to be playable. Switch game downloads (usually) aren't as large as Xbox/PlayStation downloads, but the wifi chip in the OG model was so slow, they might as well be.
The Switch was the first device where i saw how well the mobile + docked system worked and it was my favorite device until I got a Steam Deck. The Deck is killer IMO because it takes the same form factor of the Switch, gives you more power and no restrictions on games.
We all know about piracy buddy, but between having to deal with a Switch emulator and the major pain points of extracting keys to get Tears of the Kingdom to run and putting in a credit card, I'll take the credit card route.
That's not a restriction, nobody's preventing Nintendo from bringing those games to the platform. I don't currently have pasta at my place, but that's because neither me nor my partner have bought any, not because it's banned from the house.
But Steam doesn't restrict Nintendo from releasing their game on the platform, so the platform isn't restricted.
To put it another way, if I invite you to my birthday party, but you say you're busy, does that mean that my house is restricted to you? Are my other friends restricted from hanging out with you because you decided to stay home?
It's not like saying I'm busy though. It's like you invite me to your birthday and I tell you "Please stop talking to me. I don't want to associate with you."
Or a more apt analogy, your child invites my child to their birthday party. And I tell little Timmy that he is not allowed to go to Johnny's house.
From a usability perspective, the Steam Deck is pretty good but the Switch blows it out of the water. Fast boot times, you don't need to restart it all the time, games don't crash frequently, controllers just work, it just slots into its dock, a much simpler UI, and no need to futz around with Proton.
The Steam Deck is cool but I waste infinitely more time dicking around with it than the Switch, where it just works. The Switch is the best console I've ever owned.
I like my Steam Deck and would generally personally prefer it over a Switch if I had to choose one. I even use it in the "docked" way where it is both driving the family TV but can also be taken out and used directly.
And they've clearly put so, so much quality work into the Steam Deck. It's absolutely amazing considering the source material.
But it's also hobbled by so much of its library assuming it was built for a desktop PC or a notebook that could pretend to be a desktop. Some of my games react to being docked properly, some do not. Some can handle switching from the integrated controls to an external controller live, some do not. Some can handle switching resolutions, some do not. Some respond well to using the integrated controls to manipulate how much computing power you allocate to the games in real time, some do not. Some games work perfectly with multiple controllers, a couple freak out unless the stars align.
The Switch just works.
But I will say that even as someone who is generally not a graphics snob, the Switch is definitely not just aging, but aged. If all the Switch 2 is is basically "Switch 1 but with 2021-level power instead of 2013-level power" I'd be pretty happy.
YMMV, but I'm not finding any of those to be problems with my Deck.
Reboots take a noticeable length of time and could certainly be faster but they're almost entirely "oh there's a new version of the OS" for me.
I haven't had any problem with games crashing either.
Its native controllers largely Just Work, and it's easy to turn on turbofire or rearrange buttons to work better with Steam Input. When I connect it to the projector and pick up the PS4 controller I have attached to the dock that works fine too, someday I should really try to properly pair it so I can use it wirelessly, but I mostly just play it handheld.
I basically spend zero time futzing around with Proton unless I am trying to get some old PC game to run.
I spent a while fooling around with installing emulators when I first got it, but I never actually touch them in practice, that's the only time I've ever been outside of the Steam UI.
the switch software feels so freaking good too. it feels rock-solid and fast. what really blew me away is how quick system updates are, from start to finish.
Interesting I have had close to zero issues with my deck. Occassionally the audio is crackly when waking from sleep. But it's rare and goes away after a sleep/wake cycle. But then I never really fiddle with settings, at most I cap the FPS for more intensive games. I never dock it either
It's very usable for me. And wakes from sleep almost as quick as switch. That immediacy made switch my favourite console of all time until I got the deck.
Did you turn on beta OS updates? Because in my experience I have to restart it about every three months when Valve releases an OS update -- but when I had betas turned on, that was every few days instead. (Might also explain some stability issues for you.)
Also: I've seen one crash in the whole time I've owned one, the controllers work perfectly, and I don't think I've ever had to meddle with Proton in any way.
Dock cable going in on the top is a bit fiddly, though, I'll grant you.
From a usability perspective, I can play Halo on my Steam Deck.
From a usability perspective, I can play Doom on my Steam Deck.
From a usability perspective, I can offline Spotify music on my Steam Deck.
From a usability perspective, I can SSH into my server from a Steam Deck.
The Nintendo Switch is cool but it is infinitely less useful than a Steam Deck. From a usability perspective, it's quite poor. The Steam Deck is the best console I've ever owned :)
Isn't the Steam Deck too bulky to be used comfortably on your sofa for more than a few minutes? I already think that switch 2 seems too big. I'd wish the regular switch was the size of the lite already.
It's nowhere near the 'same form factor'. I'm taking switch to me in almost every trip and I have taken steam deck once and had regret it deeply (too bulky, too noisy, hot and barely lasts a couple of hours).
It's fascinating how the Switch can be such a different device for different people. I bought my Switch in 2022 and it has remained exclusively docked under my TV since then. I have yet to even conceive of a scenario in which I would want to play it on the go. Perhaps if I went on long flights more than a couple of times a year? But who am I kidding, I would still read or listen to podcasts on the plane.
The initial reason for me was to play it while others wanted to watch TV. And then once I got used to that, I found myself preferring to play it in other places in the house even when the TV was free - on the porch when the weather is nice, on my comfy reading chair, playing rhythm games on the exercise bike, next to the computer to have quick access to strategy guides, etc.
I would say that after being a happy Switch owner for 6 years I still think the portability aspect is useless. It's too big to take with me when I leave the house, and if I'm at home I get a way better experience while docked. I thought it was a stupid gimmick on launch and I still think that. I recognize I'm apparently in the minority, though.
I know you're joking but technically it does have AI, the SOC is built on Nvidia's Ampere architecture with tensor cores. If nothing else they'll probably be used for DLSS upscaling.
I like the image halfway down the announcement page that shows not only will your Switch 2 have larger controllers, but your hands will also be larger. Cool benefit, at the right price.
The problem with Xbox naming is that names are both inconsistent and too similar to each other. Aside from the Wii/Wii U debacle, Nintendo console names haven't been consistent, but they have been distinct. It's easy to remember that the GameCube and the Wii aren't the same thing.
Xbox, though, it's just the word Xbox followed by arbitrary numbers, maybe with the letter S or X thrown in for fun. I have no idea why they thought Xbox Series X wouldn't confuse people right after the Xbox One X.
The Xbox came out when the PS2 did. When it came time for the next generation, Sony went with the obvious PS3. Microsoft of course couldn't compete with an "Xbox 2" vs a "PS3", and they couldn't skip right to "Xbox 3", so they called it the "Xbox 360", which was frankly genius because it had the 3 there anyway and put it on the same level in consumers' eyes.
But after that it all fell apart -- they had no good options. They still couldn't jump to "Xbox 4". Maybe "720" would have worked. Someone decided to have a clean break and restart at "One" but of course that fell apart immediately at "Two". So another clean break to "Series..". And by that point it's so screwy they've lost any chance of fixing it...
>Microsoft of course couldn't compete with an "Xbox 2" vs a "PS3", and they couldn't skip right to "Xbox 3"
Nope, it all goes back to Microsoft not naming the 360 "Xbox 3" with some lame excuse for why it did so. Yes, everyone would have laughed, but no one would remember or care today that the "Xbox 5" isn't actually the fifth Xbox.
An alternative that Microsoft missed, from Reddit:
>They could have named the Xbox Series X the Xbox 5 and said it was because they counted the One X as the 4th gen Xbox.
Exactly - or they could have released a rare, ignored souped up Xbox as the "Xbox 2" and done the "Xbox 3".
The 360 was a good "fix" for the problem but not going to something like Xbox13 or Xbox2013 (though year based names were on the out by then) - anything other than "Xbox One" (Xbone would have been better).
I still don't know how the various versions work and apply to the Series SeX.
A&W tried to make a 1/3 pound burger to compete with the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder but it failed because people thought it was smaller, because 3 is smaller than 4.
They can't call it the <something else> Box because they don't want people to think of it as a Microsoft Device.
Nintendo can go from Nintendo 3DS to Nintendo Switch because the brand is Nintendo.
Microsoft clearly considers the brand "Microsoft" to be poison ivy to gamers, and always brands their gaming hardware as "Xbox" as if that were the company name. Going to Ybox would kill their brand and put them back at square one.
I think "Xbox 4" coming after "Xbox 360" would have been the cleanest break. It would have been fine. Or heck, jump straight to "Xbox 5" if they really think the number in the name is the main point of comparison with the PlayStation.
I actually thought that would be cool for Switch 2 - call it the Switch 25. They could release the Switch 30 in 5 years and so on without too much confusion, assuming compatibility all the way through (by 2035 we'll probably all be on thin clients anyway).
It's possibly the most normal successor name they've ever chosen. I like it. I'm picturing someone suggesting "Switch U" and getting thrown out the window like in that meme comic, even though he's often used as the voice of reason...
I still like Famicom > Super Famicom as the best successor name, but having to go back that far to find some competition for naming probably says something.
With the habit they've developed of releasing upgraded versions inside a generation, especially already having Switch OLED, I think Super Switch would be too ambiguous.
They tried something similar with the New Nintendo 3DS but a lot of people got confused.
Sure, "new" is probably one the worst words you could use. But I don't think "super" would be better. And even if they did use "super" how do you name the next console ?
I was also expecting they would fumble marketing again and call the new console something like 'Switch U', but it seems they really learned their lesson there.
I'm glad they finally learned to use sensible names. I guess it took the failure of the Wii U for them to realize they should just keep it simple if they want to be sure it's easy for consumers to understand what the product is.
I wonder if they have a new control technique up their sleeve. Innovative gameplay and pushing new control ideas is one of Nintendo’s signatures. That said, being the switch 2, not a new console, maybe they kept it the same and just upgraded the processing and graphics hardware.
Innovation is their way, but they're still burned a LOT by the Wii U. Now they've managed to find something that works, I think they'll stick with it for at least the Switch 2, maybe the 3 as well.
The Switch wouldn't exist if they hadn't first experimented with that form factor with the Wii U. The innovation and risk of the Wii U paid off for them in the long run.
True, but I think they still wanted the U to actually sell better than it did. It was a case of too much innovation too soon, IMO — having an alternating "evolution/revolution" cycle makes a lot of sense.
Every company wants a product to sell better than it did, but it's pretty obvious that the WiiU didn't meet expectations.
It sold 13m units, but the clearest sign of it not doing "as well as expected" is that they discontinued it as soon as possible as they could once the Switch was out.
From my experience both with "gamers" and "non-gamers" - it was too similar in name for the latter and not exciting enough for the former.
Yeah, definitely—it's my favorite thing about the company. Well, maybe second to their consistent level of quality. But seriously—the Labo piano used the IR camera to scan in waveforms to create new instruments. The VR kit had an elephant trunk mask to let you move around parts in a marble run game. Nintendo has a lot of wild experiments, and Labo takes that all to the next level.
And that's not getting into the quality of software for building the kits—way beyond any instructions that Lego has ever put out.
Both controllers have optical sensors (visible in the trailer), confirming the rumors that they'll have mouse like functionality. Remains to be seen if games will actually bother to implement it or if it'll remain a curiosity that only a handful of titles support.
All it does it confirm that they have something there. The Wii used a sensor to detect where it was pointing, the Switch had an IR camera for a variety of weird gimmicks, the NES and SNES had light-detecting "guns". Hell, it could even be an IR blaster like the Wii U Gamepad had, and not a sensor at all. We just don't know yet.
The trailer shows the joycons sliding on that side with an additional attachment (see: 1:10). It seemed pretty obvious they were trying to hint at some kind of mouse-like optical tracking on a flat surface.
For action games doesn't look like a good option. But i think it will be used if it works well on any surface.
Probably there will be a resurgence of point and click adventure games pushed by the new mouse functionality (or even republish some old sierra/lucas arts stuff with mouse support).
Also may be useful for pc ports like simcity clones and strategy games (i could use that in civ).
Some propietary nintendo stuff will use it like mario maker or wario ware, some zelda dungeon probably will have a gimmick around it. And also some small indy third party stuff, like i don't know, mini motorways, things like that, will be built arround it.
It would be great if games implemented it for aiming, but I am not sure that they will for sure. Given how few third party developers add a gyro-aiming option when they release a game on the console when most first party games have it in some way.
It will make for an interesting dynamic for games with cross-play with other consoles where implemented though.
We could hope that Nintendo exposes a mouse like interface when it's in mouse mode, which could help a lot for adoption for cross platform third-parties.
Dealing with Switch specific gyro info, sometimes coming from two sources sometimes from one must have been a PITA, especially for games using a cross platform engine.
I’m glad to see Nintendo found a form factor that’s kind of gimmicky that actually worked. The Wii and Wii U were too gimmicky, but portability was a great choice. I’m also glad to see backwards compatibility.
I’m excited to see what kind of hardware improvements have been made. The switch came out in March 2017, just about 8 years ago. Just due to the way Nintendo games have their animated charm, they’re able to make their games look excellent on that hardware still. That said, I’d love to see how good a Zelda game looks on some new hardware.
> which combines the best of both of those consoles.
Minus the dual screen of the Wii U, which was awesome. It'd be cool if the Switch 2's dock could work independently of the console, so that you could have a reverse Wii U- experience with it. The dual screen setup can be a neat gimmick for gameplay, but it's biggest strength is the convenience that comes from having a second screen closer to your face. You can have less visual clutter on the main screen, and reduce the amount of menus players need to click through.
TBH other then a few neat local multiplayer stuff in NintendoLand, there really wasn't much that actually utilized the dual screen in a way that actually enhanced the game. You couldn't quickly swap between the screens like you could on the DS, because the screens were different distances away and required re-focusing your eyes. This meant that most gamepad usages played the same as if you just pressed a button to bring up your inventory or switch views or whatever.
And that's before you take into account the fact that the biggest titles on the Wii U (Mario Kart and Smash Bros) didn't use the second screen at all. The second screen was a gimmick, and a gimmick that was exhausted pretty quickly.
Been forever since I played it, but I recall appreciating having 2 screens for Xenoblade X (which I'm curious to see how it feels on the Switch remaster coming out in March). But yeah as someone who bought a WiiU there weren't a ton of games that did a good job with the second screen.
Zelda Wind Waker made excellent use of the second screen. You could swap tools and scroll the map on the fly without pausing, while continuing to otherwise play normally.
I really loved some of the multiplayer games on Wii U that took advantage of the gamepad. Completely brilliant to have one "special" player with the gamepad + second screen vs. the rest of the plebs with Wiimotes.
I’m fairly certain I remember them suggesting that the original switch was capable of doing this but then they either never granted access to it in the dev kit or they just never had it end up getting used in any noteworthy games.
Nintendoland for the Wii U was _very_ fun in my memory. It was the only title that I remember leveraging the asymmetry of information that different players can have for local multiplayer.
That would be an interesting use of the USB connector at the top --- plug into the Dock and use the Switch as a gamepad à la the Wii U while playing on the TV.
The switch may be kind of hard to count for home console sales, since the switch lite is a portable console (lacks hardware to use the dock) and may be included in some sales numbers.
"Gimmicky" in the sense that they used movement controls and that's non-standard in the industry and went away mostly afterwards. I'm considering anything that isn't a traditional stationary control (keyboard + mouse or controller) as "gimmicky" or out of the ordinary.
In terms of sales, you're absolutely right - the Wii crushed it. I'd be curious to know about usage and software sales though. Maybe I'm wrong (very possible), but almost everyone I knew had a Wii at some point, but they didn't use it outside of a family toy with a few games when they first got it. I'd still consider that a win for Nintendo compared to less sales, but I'd imagine the average Xbox 360 or PS3 had a lot more software sales per console.
Right, but it's not the main focus in the majority of games. In many games that do offer gyro support, it's usually able to be toggled off. It's not like the Wii where the core of the controllers was pointing them and swinging them around.
I don't remember motion controls being a majority of Wii games either.
A lot of them were played with a Nunchuk to emulate a classic controller (or attached to the actual Classic Controller or Rock Band instruments to play cross platform games).
The motion control that comes to mind beyond Wii Sports were circling the Wiimote to collect things in Mario.
The Wii exclusive Zelda, Skyward Sword, was motion control only.
Even games that didn't require motion controls for basic gameplay still required you to do things like turn the controller around and use the pointer to select options from a menu rather than using the D pad. (I'm thinking Punch Out). I think Donkey Kong country occasionally made you shake the controller.
Come on, EVERYTHING about the Wii was about moving these like they were your hands in game. Pretty much NOTHING on the switch uses them. On the other hand VR has accomplished the dream of early Wii games like Red Steel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfNgkhmPPsc
I believe the Wii had the best or second best attach rate for a Nintendo console (how many games sold per console sold). It lived a long time and had a ton of good releases.
> almost everyone I knew had a Wii at some point, but they didn't use it outside of a family toy with a few games when they first got it.
At various points in my family's owning one, we obviously used it for the Wii Sports-type games, as well as non-motion games like NES titles from the Virtual Console (the Wiimote in its rubber case felt surprisingly decent in the hands while turned sideways). But we also used it for Netflix and YouTube with the official apps, and surprisingly, various other websites with the Internet Channel. We sometimes used the SD card reader to look at photos from digital cameras, which seems like it doesn't make a lot of sense today, but was easier than connecting up a camera or camcorder to a TV with a cable to look at things, which was also a thing back then.
It was certainly a "go long periods without touching it" part of the home, but it was also surprisingly versatile with the uses that did pop up for it. And I think we got more usage out of it, both in terms of hours and in terms of distinct use cases, than we got out of the Xbox 360 we had later (if not, it was basically due to Minecraft, not because we played a larger number of games on the Xbox).
> That said, I’d love to see how good a Zelda game looks on some new hardware.
Hopefully they'll go back and update their major Switch titles to leverage the new hardware. BOTW and TOTK look fantastic in an emulator with the resolution and framerate cranked much higher than the original Switch hardware could handle, even without updating any of the assets.
I personally don't have much faith that Nintendo will do that, _but_ I hope I'm wrong. That would be wonderful. Also just removing some of the lag from those games (and the Link's Awakening remake was pretty bad) would be a big win.
> I’m glad to see Nintendo found a form factor that’s kind of gimmicky that actually worked.
I don't quite understand this comment. Parents will be unable to tell the difference (like parents buying their kids Xbox One S when Xbox Series S came out, really bad naming increment with form factor so similar), and other comments here note this Switch 2 is a regression to less quirk.
What's the gimmicky part of this that caught your eye you feel like they found in Switch 2?
My words definitely could've been better. I was referring to "portability" as the gimmick here since it's not the norm in the industry for primary console. Nintendo did handhelds for years, but that was also a secondary thing to their primary consoles. Having their only console also be handheld was what I was referring to as the gimmick here, but I understand the argument that that's not a gimmick.
As for naming, I think it'll be fine since they're using numbers. I'm not in the position of a middle aged parent who's getting a gift for a child, but the fact that Sony has successfully done it for this long makes me feel that it'll work.
Add a letter to the end is awful though. It took me a bit to nail down the Series X vs Series S Xboxs (granted, I haven't owned an Xbox in over a decade). The Wii U definitely confused people as well.
The portability was amusing but then turned out to be absolutely phenomenal (and likely resulted in multiple sales to individual households).
It both saved them from having to work out what to do with the handhelds, and introduced parents to "the kids can just bring it with them".
I have an Xbox Series X and I'm still not sure I got "the right one" but since I got it as a glorified blurry player that can also play games maybe, it's fine as is.
> It both saved them from having to work out what to do with the handhelds
Well, more accurate to say they just gave up. The Switch is very much not a viable replacement for a 3DS because of how damn big it is. You can't just slip it into your pocket and go.
I think parents will have no problem with the concept of a Thingie N+1 and most of those stories came from either XBOX's insane naming or from Wii->Wii U.
The gaming industry is much more mature and settled than the past when Nintendo could mess around with a crazy new gimmick every new console release.
People expect backwards compatibility now, and the Switch has such a mature software library, it would be a waste to throw it out. And it'll be harder than ever to re-sell people a port of a game from a few years ago that looks basically identical to how it did before (though Sony's been trying)
I'm looking forward to this, and I hope Nintendo patches OG Switch games to take advantage of the new hardware. It's a shame the only (official) method of playing the new Zeldas gets you frequently chugging along at like 15fps.
> The switch came out in March 2017, just about 8 years ago. Just due to the way Nintendo games have their animated charm, they’re able to make their games look excellent on that hardware still.
Even more impressive, the SoC in the Switch is from about 2013 I believe.
Relieved that they are just iterating instead of trying to go for something radically different like they did. Everybody is pretty happy with the current feature set, just add some stuff and get a nice power upgrade in there and you're all set for another 6 years.
Honestly i was expecting a little more info. I get this is on purpose, to create hype, but not having a graphical demo, a release date... anything really more than the design, input ports, and joycons, seems too little.
And the direct in april seems too far away honestly.
All they showed is the things that leaked, i mean, to me (besides the confirmation of something that was obvious) is like nothing happened really. I know the same as yesterday + the plastic texture maybe and i have to wait almost 3 months for the next official info.
Sad they’re keeping at the same thing, I was personally hoping for a NEW thing like innovation but it seems like theyre just keeping steady at the same pace.
Of course looking back at the past this shouldn’t have been a huge surprise with their ds to 3ds to new3ds shenanigans
> Sad they’re keeping at the same thing, I was personally hoping for a NEW thing like innovation but it seems like theyre just keeping steady at the same pace.
Why risk it though? The original Switch is a money printer but it became obvious that it's ... lacking brawns and brains after eight years of service. Fix that by upgrading the SoC to something with more power and remove a few other annoyances (the flimsy stand, primarily), and that will be enough to make it sell like lemonade on a hot summer day.
I'll be really curious to see what the gpu specs are like since it'll likely be nvidia again. The original Switch was 720p but lets you bump up to 1080p when in docked mode, so developers had to restrict design to accommodate both modes, but nvidia could possibly do a dlss trick when plugged in so devs just need to worry about 1 render target that will get upscaled automagically.
DLSS is disappointing compared to actual resolution increases. It adds plenty of artifacts like shimmer, ghosting, occlusion issues. I’m expecting Nintendo to use it unfortunately.
Have you watched any of the recent videos about dlss 4?
It's using a different neural network for upscaling, and these issues seem to be massively reduced. It should be compatible back to at least the 20xx GPUs as well, not just the new 50xx GPUs. Maybe it'll be on the switch 2 as well.
I've only seen a few clips of Cyberpunk but they surprised me a lot. If that level of quality can work on other games too then it'll be a huge upgrade.
I’ll try it when out. Marketing videos are not a useful way to test something like DLSS which is easy to mask the issues with things like low bitrate, slow pans, avoiding problematic situations, etc.
I'm not talking about teasers, the one I watched was from digital foundry who were given some time with the game and took their own videos as far as I know.
They have to be using upscaling. No matter your feelings on it, it is the way everything is moving and will become a requirement to run any "AAA" game going forward soon enough.
Indeed. Unfortunately, even if all of HN boycotts the Switch 2 it won't have an effect on Nintendo, but their behavior is entirely unacceptable and is boycott-worthy.
I'm so glad that they named this the "Switch 2" instead of going with something really stupid like "Switch U". It's simple and it immediately explains to the consumer what the product is.
Everyone is going to buy one of these as soon as they can ship them to them, so if the thumb sticks could not be intentionally engineered to fail this time, that would be great, thanks.
I don't like the aesthetic as much as the Switch 1. Looks a little too sleek, too monochrome, not Nintendo-y enough. Other than the splash of color around the thumbsticks it looks like any number of those handheld Steam Deck-alikes that have been coming out.
That said I always wait for the special Zelda editions of Nintendo's consoles, so I don't know that I have standing to complain.
I personally like the new color scheme. It says "I'm mature now, but still playful". Also, all black is less distracting when you're trying to concentrate on a bigger screen which needs you to move your eyeballs.
Also, the new controllers look more "freedom friendly", if you pardon the pun. IOW, they iterated them so that they're more useful when they are detached.
I prefer just "playful" to "mature but still playful". Something about the straightforwardness of "this is a toy for people of all ages, but it is still a toy" speaks to me.
> Also, the new controllers look more "freedom friendly", if you pardon the pun. IOW, they iterated them so that they're more useful when they are detached.
I am a little concerned about that connector for the controls. I hope they have designed it to be sturdy. After working on broken Switch 1s a lot of USB C ports were abused by users.
Yeah, I am not a big fan of the Switch UI. They really took out the "surprise and delight" compared to the Wii U and 3DS. Very bland and straightforward, and yet somehow awfully slow and laggy.
That's the only part I don't like about the Switch OS, and, yes, it's very bad. And it always baffles me why they wouldn't improve the app that generates revenue of all things.
And you can only buy one game at a time, and have to enter your password in for each one? I like to do all my game research and shopping in one evening and buy 3-4 games at a time. If there's a way to do this I would love to know how!
There's a very good reason for this: The whole OS is under 400MB. Every Nintendo Switch game cartridge comes with a full copy of the necessary OS on it.
Every game card is playable, no matter how out of date the Switch is, without any internet connection.
I'll take that kind of functionality before "surprise and delight." We might get "surprise and delight" this generation though, if in part because the change to a modified Samsung NAND over Macronix might be cheaper at larger capacities if rumors are correct.
> Every game card is playable, no matter how out of date the Switch is, without any internet connection.
This is mostly accurate, but not entirely afaict. I had to connect my switch to wifi in order to update the OS to play Xenoblade 3 (or Tears of the Kingdom? It's been a while).
It's so odd to see Nintendo who hasn't competed on hardware specs for decades to release new console without atleast some gimmick(s) to sell their severely underpowered hardware.
Absolute zero gimmicks and zero excitement.
I personally dont care for gimmicks, but I expect them from Nintendo.
Yeah, and this might make first-person shooters and some strategy games play a lot nicer if (big if) it works well. Perhaps the next iteration of Mario Maker might also make use of it.
They had it right with motion controls on the Wii. I could headshot on the Wii edition of Resident Evil 4 so effectively it was cheating.
The Switch also has motion control for fine aiming in some games (Zelda, Borderlands 2). Joysticks for gross movement then motion controls for smaller adjustments. Much better scheme than Xbox or PS.
Resi 4 on the Wii was so good. It was a good game anyway, but the aiming was precise and a hell of a lot of fun. I think about it a lot. I'm hesitant to play the remaster on my steam deck because I doubt it's possible to be as good
That sounds like such an obvious oversight with benefit of hindsight. They could have instantly plugged Valorant/Apex gateway into PC established by YT Live/Twitch through that if only they had it on the right joycon.
The current Switch had an alternative monochrome (grey) version from the start, so I guess there's a chance the alternative version of the new one would be colorful.
It's been a while, but from my recollection that was the main version at launch. It's what I got, anyways. I don't remember the red and blue joycons showing up until later.
The switch had the red and blue from launch. In the reveal trailer they only showed the grey, but then in the switch presentation they revealed the red and blue. I don't quite remember, but I think from then on they mainly used that in marketing. It could be the same situation here, but the fact that the joycons already have a hint of blue and red makes me think this will be the only version, as it's sort of a mix between the 2 versions of the original switch.
Personally I like it. I choose the grey version of the switch, and I think making the joycons the exact same colour as the system this time looks way better. Also I like the splash of colour rather than it being entirely grey/black.
I know for a fact they had the grey and colorful models on launch day, I bought the model with the red and blue joycons at mignight on launch day at my local BestBuy. The promo video in this article[1] shows some folks playing bomberman with those joycons about 2/3 in.
Not sure which version was more popular, but I bought a red/blue switch on launch day. And anecdotally I'd say I've seen more of those than the grey one over the years.
What do you mean HUUUGE upgrade? The only difference between the 3DS and the 3DS XL is the battery. Same with the New 3DS XL and New 3Ds.
You might be getting confused because the New 3DS (which was a hardware upgrade) mostly sold in XL version in the US. The non-XL model was sold mostly as limited special editions.
A mouse with an analog controller will make for a very powerful 3D manipulator, like a 3DConnexion SpaceMouse. Combine with the improved kickstand, it will be interesting to see what devs come up with.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 443 ms ] threadNintendo Direct focused on Switch 2: Apr 2nd.
Looks like joy-cons will have 'mouse-like' functionality and there's a 'C' on right joy-con but its functionality is not reveled. New Mario Kart showcased would probably be one of the first exclusives.
Marketing will be difficult, MK8 already peaked graphically and has 96 tracks, and will still work on Switch 2. I hope they'll find real selling points for MK9.
I mean, at this point it makes little sense for them to start from scratch, releasing a newer game but with much less than the enormous amount of content provided by MK8D + DLC would seem like a very noticeable downgrade, so just revamping the old one would be a practical move, though I don't think fans would be happy with that.
MK8 was mostly flawless gameplay wise, how can it be improved? But at this point one has no choice but to trust Nintendo's ability to come up with surprises.
There are certainly some ways they can, I'd love to see a 100 man race or something crazy like that.
BUT, i don't know if i would use that as the first look at the new console, basically looks like really similar to a game that was released 10 years ago, i wouldn't buy a new system to play again mario kart 8.
I thought they were showing the retro compatibility feature, since the gameplay comes after the message that switch 1 games would be playable on 2 (maybe upscaled or something)
Mario Kart sells like hotcakes; I doubt they'll have to do much to convince people to buy a new one, particularly folks who've played the old one for hundreds of hours.
The art style is somewhere between the 2010s bog-standard Mario and Super Mario Bros Wonder.
"Nintendo Direct: New games in 2025" would have been the perfect setup for a "and one more thing"-moment.
That's so cliche and cringe nowadays, but the reason they didn't wait to do that is probably because of all the leaks. The specs, the name, photos of the console and internal components all leaked. Even the fan renders people were making turned out to be pretty damn accurate (https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/1i008os/nin...)
As long as the internet has existed, we have been lampooning corporate keynotes. The gaming industry does this every cycle, trying to hype up incremental updates as if it’s the best thing to ever get released. See you again in a few years!
i expected a radical redesign, but this switch 2 is great too
can't wait to play old switch games on it, as well as new ones!
I'm a little disappointed they didn't fix the terribly unergonomic joy cons though.
I would say it's more about minimizing cost of the console and their first party games just so happen to be not intensive enough to need it... But some games would have absolutely benefitted from a bit better hardware.
Besides more leaves on trees, of course.
It's kind of hard to look past it at this point.
Compare any Mario game to Astrobot and you can see the difference.
It quickly became one of my favorite gaming consoles. The ability to play anywhere didn’t seem like a big deal until I could do it.
I have zero interest in being tied to a single spot like the traditional console experience now.
On the other hand, I went through a phase where I did a lot of streaming from my PC to a NVIDIA Shield and an XBOX. Sometimes through wired Ethernet, something through an airMAX microwave link to my other house. Games like Persona 5 and Orcs Must Die 3 were just fine, but I could not play any Rhythm games, which I have a knack for, High-Fi Rush was no fun at all.
The only sorts of games I can't play are things like Binding of Isaac that are super dependent on reaction speeds, but even games like Elden Ring feel fine.
200+ ms
You should get low latency as long as anyone in your city joins as a provider.
If the former, that's a terrible idea. If the latter, that button really needs a confirmation and explanation of what's about to happen.
I'm viewing on an Intel Mac and it hung my entire computer for like 15 seconds. I didn't even connect that it was related to viewing your site until I got the error at the end and everything unfroze.
Having user confirm it is not a good option, because every click is a hassle.
What we could do is first run a very short version of a smaller benchmark, and if that takes too long, don't run the main one. Then the worst case you will have a 100ms lag at this point, which is way better than 5 seconds of reading.
Every click is a hassle, but principal of least astonishment applies here. Literally not a soul will be expecting that to happen when casually browsing your site.
It's ALMOST perfect. I play BF1 through it. Try it once (I believe they still have the "free for 1hr per session, infinite sessions"? That's what sold it to me).
I can play very intensive games (graphically) on my macbook on the couch. It's amazing, and I couldn't believe the 10ms on wifi. It's mind-blowing.
BUT I live near Amsterdam, where a server cluster is.
Also, about the graphics: I'm borrowing a 4080 every time. Everything is on max. If you're in a very (very) hard scene for compression, then yeah, you'll see (very little) artifacts. But I run it on 75mbit, and that's a LOT.
I prefer to own my things. The sense that something is mine increases the pleasure of using something for me.
It probably stems from my acquired lack of trust in people. The idea that there's a suit in a high-rise building that spends their days thinking about how to exploit my continued enjoyment of a title by raising the fee, or not addressing congestion hours, or retracting the title when the contract is up and renewing would cost too much, or putting a clause in the service agreement that strips me of my right to sue them if I lose an arm in their amusement park, simply by blurring the lines of ownership.. it bothers me.
The Switch has a similar issue occasionally in the store application, but outside of that, settings are snappy, updates are practically instant, it turns on and off so quickly. It's what consoles are supposed to be.
And honestly in this same vein, the PS5 is also bloody impressive, but that impressiveness came with an impressive price too. The Switch costing as little as it did and still holding it's own is so cool.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/region/d/joycon...
(Nintendo has always had excellent support - I remember getting a Gamecube refurbished long after the Wii was everywhere).
My son got a Forza Horizon game for Xmas and it immediately said it needed to download 128GB from the internet before he could play it. With the way it worked out he didn't get to play it on Christmas day as it never finished downloading before we had to go leave to visit relatives.
Just a horrific experience compared to Switch.
To put it another way, if I invite you to my birthday party, but you say you're busy, does that mean that my house is restricted to you? Are my other friends restricted from hanging out with you because you decided to stay home?
Or a more apt analogy, your child invites my child to their birthday party. And I tell little Timmy that he is not allowed to go to Johnny's house.
The Steam Deck is cool but I waste infinitely more time dicking around with it than the Switch, where it just works. The Switch is the best console I've ever owned.
Feels like the Steam Deck is like a Hot Rod / Muscle car and the Switch is a Toyota Corolla.
Might not be as cool or have as much HP and you aren't going to tinker without it but you can always turn it on and get to your destination.
And they've clearly put so, so much quality work into the Steam Deck. It's absolutely amazing considering the source material.
But it's also hobbled by so much of its library assuming it was built for a desktop PC or a notebook that could pretend to be a desktop. Some of my games react to being docked properly, some do not. Some can handle switching from the integrated controls to an external controller live, some do not. Some can handle switching resolutions, some do not. Some respond well to using the integrated controls to manipulate how much computing power you allocate to the games in real time, some do not. Some games work perfectly with multiple controllers, a couple freak out unless the stars align.
The Switch just works.
But I will say that even as someone who is generally not a graphics snob, the Switch is definitely not just aging, but aged. If all the Switch 2 is is basically "Switch 1 but with 2021-level power instead of 2013-level power" I'd be pretty happy.
Reboots take a noticeable length of time and could certainly be faster but they're almost entirely "oh there's a new version of the OS" for me.
I haven't had any problem with games crashing either.
Its native controllers largely Just Work, and it's easy to turn on turbofire or rearrange buttons to work better with Steam Input. When I connect it to the projector and pick up the PS4 controller I have attached to the dock that works fine too, someday I should really try to properly pair it so I can use it wirelessly, but I mostly just play it handheld.
I basically spend zero time futzing around with Proton unless I am trying to get some old PC game to run.
I spent a while fooling around with installing emulators when I first got it, but I never actually touch them in practice, that's the only time I've ever been outside of the Steam UI.
It's very usable for me. And wakes from sleep almost as quick as switch. That immediacy made switch my favourite console of all time until I got the deck.
Also: I've seen one crash in the whole time I've owned one, the controllers work perfectly, and I don't think I've ever had to meddle with Proton in any way.
Dock cable going in on the top is a bit fiddly, though, I'll grant you.
From a usability perspective, I can play Doom on my Steam Deck.
From a usability perspective, I can offline Spotify music on my Steam Deck.
From a usability perspective, I can SSH into my server from a Steam Deck.
The Nintendo Switch is cool but it is infinitely less useful than a Steam Deck. From a usability perspective, it's quite poor. The Steam Deck is the best console I've ever owned :)
Xbox, though, it's just the word Xbox followed by arbitrary numbers, maybe with the letter S or X thrown in for fun. I have no idea why they thought Xbox Series X wouldn't confuse people right after the Xbox One X.
The Xbox came out when the PS2 did. When it came time for the next generation, Sony went with the obvious PS3. Microsoft of course couldn't compete with an "Xbox 2" vs a "PS3", and they couldn't skip right to "Xbox 3", so they called it the "Xbox 360", which was frankly genius because it had the 3 there anyway and put it on the same level in consumers' eyes.
But after that it all fell apart -- they had no good options. They still couldn't jump to "Xbox 4". Maybe "720" would have worked. Someone decided to have a clean break and restart at "One" but of course that fell apart immediately at "Two". So another clean break to "Series..". And by that point it's so screwy they've lost any chance of fixing it...
Nope, it all goes back to Microsoft not naming the 360 "Xbox 3" with some lame excuse for why it did so. Yes, everyone would have laughed, but no one would remember or care today that the "Xbox 5" isn't actually the fifth Xbox.
An alternative that Microsoft missed, from Reddit:
>They could have named the Xbox Series X the Xbox 5 and said it was because they counted the One X as the 4th gen Xbox.
The 360 was a good "fix" for the problem but not going to something like Xbox13 or Xbox2013 (though year based names were on the out by then) - anything other than "Xbox One" (Xbone would have been better).
I still don't know how the various versions work and apply to the Series SeX.
We all remember dBase II. ;)
Part of me wants to think that consumers can't possibly that uninformed, but I know in my heart I am wrong.
They should have done what Nintendo (usually) does and left the numbers out of it. Call the next iteration of the Xbox the <something else>box.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fr...
Nintendo can go from Nintendo 3DS to Nintendo Switch because the brand is Nintendo.
Microsoft clearly considers the brand "Microsoft" to be poison ivy to gamers, and always brands their gaming hardware as "Xbox" as if that were the company name. Going to Ybox would kill their brand and put them back at square one.
http://www.slackware.com/faq/do_faq.php?faq=general#0
Sure, "new" is probably one the worst words you could use. But I don't think "super" would be better. And even if they did use "super" how do you name the next console ?
Looking forward to more!
It sold 13m units, but the clearest sign of it not doing "as well as expected" is that they discontinued it as soon as possible as they could once the Switch was out.
From my experience both with "gamers" and "non-gamers" - it was too similar in name for the latter and not exciting enough for the former.
And that's not getting into the quality of software for building the kits—way beyond any instructions that Lego has ever put out.
https://youtu.be/itpcsQQvgAQ?t=70
Probably there will be a resurgence of point and click adventure games pushed by the new mouse functionality (or even republish some old sierra/lucas arts stuff with mouse support).
Also may be useful for pc ports like simcity clones and strategy games (i could use that in civ).
Some propietary nintendo stuff will use it like mario maker or wario ware, some zelda dungeon probably will have a gimmick around it. And also some small indy third party stuff, like i don't know, mini motorways, things like that, will be built arround it.
I would like the command & conquer/red alert remaster on switch.
Maybe Microsoft releases aoe2 since they are open to release games on other platforms now?
The current motion controls for the pro controller work well, but a mouse + single hand controller setting could work as well.
It will make for an interesting dynamic for games with cross-play with other consoles where implemented though.
Dealing with Switch specific gyro info, sometimes coming from two sources sometimes from one must have been a PITA, especially for games using a cross platform engine.
The idea of controlling a game with two mice is suddenly interesting to me.
Edit: the mobile web version of the same video shows as 2:21. Interesting YouTube bug!
Switch is 6 characters long, 6 divided by 2 is 3
Half Life 3 confirmed.
I’m excited to see what kind of hardware improvements have been made. The switch came out in March 2017, just about 8 years ago. Just due to the way Nintendo games have their animated charm, they’re able to make their games look excellent on that hardware still. That said, I’d love to see how good a Zelda game looks on some new hardware.
Minus the dual screen of the Wii U, which was awesome. It'd be cool if the Switch 2's dock could work independently of the console, so that you could have a reverse Wii U- experience with it. The dual screen setup can be a neat gimmick for gameplay, but it's biggest strength is the convenience that comes from having a second screen closer to your face. You can have less visual clutter on the main screen, and reduce the amount of menus players need to click through.
And that's before you take into account the fact that the biggest titles on the Wii U (Mario Kart and Smash Bros) didn't use the second screen at all. The second screen was a gimmick, and a gimmick that was exhausted pretty quickly.
Nintendoland for the Wii U was _very_ fun in my memory. It was the only title that I remember leveraging the asymmetry of information that different players can have for local multiplayer.
Is the gimmicky a personal opinion or something you believe didn’t resonate with customers?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_co...
You could argue the Switch is a home console as well.
In terms of sales, you're absolutely right - the Wii crushed it. I'd be curious to know about usage and software sales though. Maybe I'm wrong (very possible), but almost everyone I knew had a Wii at some point, but they didn't use it outside of a family toy with a few games when they first got it. I'd still consider that a win for Nintendo compared to less sales, but I'd imagine the average Xbox 360 or PS3 had a lot more software sales per console.
Nintendo still uses motion controls; they just made them portable and more resilient with gyros instead of IR.
A lot of them were played with a Nunchuk to emulate a classic controller (or attached to the actual Classic Controller or Rock Band instruments to play cross platform games).
The motion control that comes to mind beyond Wii Sports were circling the Wiimote to collect things in Mario.
Even games that didn't require motion controls for basic gameplay still required you to do things like turn the controller around and use the pointer to select options from a menu rather than using the D pad. (I'm thinking Punch Out). I think Donkey Kong country occasionally made you shake the controller.
The attachment rate was likely lower because of that.
At various points in my family's owning one, we obviously used it for the Wii Sports-type games, as well as non-motion games like NES titles from the Virtual Console (the Wiimote in its rubber case felt surprisingly decent in the hands while turned sideways). But we also used it for Netflix and YouTube with the official apps, and surprisingly, various other websites with the Internet Channel. We sometimes used the SD card reader to look at photos from digital cameras, which seems like it doesn't make a lot of sense today, but was easier than connecting up a camera or camcorder to a TV with a cable to look at things, which was also a thing back then.
It was certainly a "go long periods without touching it" part of the home, but it was also surprisingly versatile with the uses that did pop up for it. And I think we got more usage out of it, both in terms of hours and in terms of distinct use cases, than we got out of the Xbox 360 we had later (if not, it was basically due to Minecraft, not because we played a larger number of games on the Xbox).
Hopefully they'll go back and update their major Switch titles to leverage the new hardware. BOTW and TOTK look fantastic in an emulator with the resolution and framerate cranked much higher than the original Switch hardware could handle, even without updating any of the assets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex2iIvuc78k
I don't quite understand this comment. Parents will be unable to tell the difference (like parents buying their kids Xbox One S when Xbox Series S came out, really bad naming increment with form factor so similar), and other comments here note this Switch 2 is a regression to less quirk.
What's the gimmicky part of this that caught your eye you feel like they found in Switch 2?
As for naming, I think it'll be fine since they're using numbers. I'm not in the position of a middle aged parent who's getting a gift for a child, but the fact that Sony has successfully done it for this long makes me feel that it'll work.
Add a letter to the end is awful though. It took me a bit to nail down the Series X vs Series S Xboxs (granted, I haven't owned an Xbox in over a decade). The Wii U definitely confused people as well.
It both saved them from having to work out what to do with the handhelds, and introduced parents to "the kids can just bring it with them".
I have an Xbox Series X and I'm still not sure I got "the right one" but since I got it as a glorified blurry player that can also play games maybe, it's fine as is.
Well, more accurate to say they just gave up. The Switch is very much not a viable replacement for a 3DS because of how damn big it is. You can't just slip it into your pocket and go.
People expect backwards compatibility now, and the Switch has such a mature software library, it would be a waste to throw it out. And it'll be harder than ever to re-sell people a port of a game from a few years ago that looks basically identical to how it did before (though Sony's been trying)
I'm looking forward to this, and I hope Nintendo patches OG Switch games to take advantage of the new hardware. It's a shame the only (official) method of playing the new Zeldas gets you frequently chugging along at like 15fps.
> The switch came out in March 2017, just about 8 years ago. Just due to the way Nintendo games have their animated charm, they’re able to make their games look excellent on that hardware still.
Even more impressive, the SoC in the Switch is from about 2013 I believe.
And the direct in april seems too far away honestly.
All they showed is the things that leaked, i mean, to me (besides the confirmation of something that was obvious) is like nothing happened really. I know the same as yesterday + the plastic texture maybe and i have to wait almost 3 months for the next official info.
Of course looking back at the past this shouldn’t have been a huge surprise with their ds to 3ds to new3ds shenanigans
Why risk it though? The original Switch is a money printer but it became obvious that it's ... lacking brawns and brains after eight years of service. Fix that by upgrading the SoC to something with more power and remove a few other annoyances (the flimsy stand, primarily), and that will be enough to make it sell like lemonade on a hot summer day.
It's using a different neural network for upscaling, and these issues seem to be massively reduced. It should be compatible back to at least the 20xx GPUs as well, not just the new 50xx GPUs. Maybe it'll be on the switch 2 as well.
I've only seen a few clips of Cyberpunk but they surprised me a lot. If that level of quality can work on other games too then it'll be a huge upgrade.
That said I always wait for the special Zelda editions of Nintendo's consoles, so I don't know that I have standing to complain.
Also, the new controllers look more "freedom friendly", if you pardon the pun. IOW, they iterated them so that they're more useful when they are detached.
If these things could be standardized, we would have only one design for every category of item, possibly from different brands.
Since it can't, we have this thing called design and art, which is a good thing :)
I am personally not a fan of the toy-like aesthetic of the colourful switch. But having a choice between both styles is ideal.
I am a little concerned about that connector for the controls. I hope they have designed it to be sturdy. After working on broken Switch 1s a lot of USB C ports were abused by users.
Do young people even play on switch any more? Pretty sure it is xbox, mobile and pc.
Every game card is playable, no matter how out of date the Switch is, without any internet connection.
I'll take that kind of functionality before "surprise and delight." We might get "surprise and delight" this generation though, if in part because the change to a modified Samsung NAND over Macronix might be cheaper at larger capacities if rumors are correct.
By comparison, the Wii U with it's "nice touches" was over 5 GB.
This is mostly accurate, but not entirely afaict. I had to connect my switch to wifi in order to update the OS to play Xenoblade 3 (or Tears of the Kingdom? It's been a while).
As to "who", some part of the demographic who runs JellyFin/Plex/Etc.
Absolute zero gimmicks and zero excitement.
I personally dont care for gimmicks, but I expect them from Nintendo.
The Switch also has motion control for fine aiming in some games (Zelda, Borderlands 2). Joysticks for gross movement then motion controls for smaller adjustments. Much better scheme than Xbox or PS.
Strategy games might benefit.
Personally I like it. I choose the grey version of the switch, and I think making the joycons the exact same colour as the system this time looks way better. Also I like the splash of colour rather than it being entirely grey/black.
1: https://www.polygon.com/2017/1/13/14241960/nintendo-switch-l...
This has more color than either of those.
This is more like a switch "pro", and I assume a switch 2 lite and such will follow.
This is like the 3ds XL, which in terms of hardware was a HUUUUGGE upgrade to the 3ds, but they didn't really mention it anywhere.
You might be getting confused because the New 3DS (which was a hardware upgrade) mostly sold in XL version in the US. The non-XL model was sold mostly as limited special editions.
Yeah, I am sure there will be plenty of playful and colourful joycons for the Switch 2 as well.