Nintendo Switch!
This Switch thing coming from Nintendo is interesting. Here’s the full announcement video for reference:
Some random thoughts now that we have some more details on the thing:
- This is totally unlike Apple product introductions, the only other product intro presentation I typically watch. They are interestingly dressed! And the sense of humour is…. strange.
- The Joy-con controllers (the ones that snap on to the side of the tablet) have accelerometers, so they can function like the Wii remote.
- The Switch screen is 720p, 6.2″, and multi-touch. Size-wise it’s between an iPhone Whatever Plus and an iPad Mini. When it’s hooked up to a TV it can do 1080p.
- It’s only got 32GB of internal storage, but it has a MicroSD card slot and the games come on their own cards anyway.
- Nintendo remains firmly behind in hardware specs. This thing isn’t interested in 4K and it’s essentially a juiced-up phone chip running in it.
- The games look insane, and great.
- 1-2 Switch looks to be the console’s Wii Sports equivalent, a party mini-game bundle that showcases the possibilities of the hardware. Seems like the idea is one-on-one faceoffs, where the players are staring at each other rather than the screen, and using the joy-cons for various ludicrous things: gun duels, sword fights, cow milking? Why.
- The Zelda game is the first one to have voice acting and cut scenes and such like. It looks phenomenal.
- The Mario game takes place in “New Donk City”, an NYC-alike offering some degree of sandbox play. (Will Mario steal any cars?) There are semi-realistic humans walking around in it, but Mario is like half their height. And his hat has become sentient? It looks profoundly strange.
- The online strategy is not great (you only get your monthly free game for the month and then you have to pay for it), but I expect them to revise this before the holidays.
- Similarly, the pricing is high but may well come down (or feature more bundles at least) before the holidays. There’s a long time between March and November, so it’s like they’re almost doing a long beta.
- I want one of these things real bad.