The Nintendo Switch preview trailer has been released. Nintendo could make a huge comeback with this innovation!
Back in October, Nintendo released a first look video on YouTube showcasing their next generation console, the Nintendo Switch. Actually, this appears to be a console-handheld hybrid, which is an excellent choice.
Nintendo has been trying to innovate since the beginning. They’ve ran into some pitfalls and some successes. Just this last generation, Nintendo excelled in the handheld market with their 3DS games. While their hardware was incredibly inferior to their only competition, the PS Vita, their games were leaps and bounds better than a majority of PS Vita games, and better than many Wii U games.
The last Nintendo console, the Wii U, was suffering terribly against the Xbox One and PS4. While it’s true that a handful of games were great on the Wii U, it was hard to compete against the Xbox, PlayStation, and even PC since the Wii U couldn’t really play any third party games. Because the Wii U was locked down to first party games for the most part, many games didn’t, and still haven’t, dropped down in price. This hurt the console even more.
The Nintendo Switch appears to combine their handheld and console market into one. From the looks of the trailer, players can play games on the TV with a controller, then remove this tablet-looking section from the console and add parts of the controller onto the side of the screen for a portable experience.
The controllers don’t have to be snapped onto the screen. The Nintendo Switch preview trailer also showed gamers using the controller halves wireless. This all seems to be great, but the controller halves do look a bit small for the average adult hands. Nintendo has often been targeted towards children, but hopefully the controllers won’t be too difficult to handle.
Not only will a single player be able to use the snap-on controllers, but two players can play against each other using one side at a time. This worries me because the amount of buttons and controls will be cut in half if used this way. Will the games still be as good?
Another thing that stood out was the use of game cards, similar to the 3DS cartridges. This is much better than discs because they often load faster than discs, can store more data than most discs, and the flash memory means no moving parts and no worries of scratching discs or skipping games.
While the game cartridges mean no compatibility with DVDs and Blu Rays, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem since Blu Ray drives are everywhere, and many people stream movies with YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, etc.
4K resolution is very doubtful at this time. The Nintendo Switch is set to release in March of 2017, and if they aim for 4K, the price would probably be incredibly high. The Xbox One Project Scorpio with 4K capabilities is set to release holiday 2017 with an unknown price, and the PlayStation 4 Pro can only play select games at 4K resolution with a $400 price tag. It’s best to keep things at 1080p if it also means 60 frames per second and quality visuals.
The memory is still unknown. Will everything be saved on the game cards, or will their be an internal memory drive on the Nintendo Switch tablet? I’m betting my money on SD cards for memory just like the Nintendo 3DS has.
Another huge unknown is the online service. Hopefully the Nintendo Network will still be free like PC’s online network. PlayStation went the paid route with the PS4’s release, and the Xbox consoles have always been pay to play. The connectivity will probably be WiFi only like the 3DS, seeing how the PS Vita’s 3G model failed miserably and WiFi is available for free in various areas.
As for the name, “Nintendo Switch,” some people are hating on this name. I actually thing it’s a terrific name for a console. It’s a million times better than the Wii and Wii U. Not only does the Wii sound lame, but the Wii U confused so many consumers buying the games and consoles for others. They didn’t know the compatibility and whether or not they were the same console!
All in all, I’m very hopeful for the Nintendo Switch. I will definitely be buying it the day it releases! If this truly does replace the 3DS, we can all hope to see a full-length Pokemon adventure on the TV!