Switch Discussion Thread

[Reprise]

Damn, well now we just wait for the specs, price and games.

It seems like Nintendo won't be hyping the Switch and announcing the above until January 2017

[RCBH928]

Nintendo has already clarified that the dock will be doing nothing other than power/charging and providing TV output. As I mentioned, I think Nintendo will offer the system without it at a lower price point.

The big thing Nintendo is likely doing is keeping it targeting the native resolution of the integrated LCD, which seems to be 720p.
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That is one huge dock for something that you basically can do with 2 wires (USB+HDMI). I also saw the 2 USB ports so I thought there must be more to it.

Jeeze, people still talking about "POWER"?

And thinking this will be weaker than the Wii U makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me haha.

A thin portable tablet that is more powerful than the 1080p Wii U? Something does not sound right. Even if it possible, I wonder how much the battery would last.

I am hearing rumors that this is not a home console, its more of large screen handheld that you can connect to your tv not the other way around.

[Anayo]

I wonder how the virtual console will work for this thing. Most importantly, will everyone's purchases from the Wii and Wii U carry over, or will everyone be expected to buy their NES/SNES/Genesis/PC Engine ROMs over again? Also, what about the availability of Gamecube on the Nintendo Switch virtual console? I could see myself buying one just for that.

[alienjesus]

A thin portable tablet that is more powerful than the 1080p Wii U? Something does not sound right. Even if it possible, I wonder how much the battery would last.

First of all, the Wii U is quite old at this point. Technology moves on, and things get smaller.

Secondly, the Wii U itself is pretty small as is. The Switch definitely looks smaller, but not so much smaller as to be unrealistic.

Third, the Wii U includes all the hardware necessary for playing Wii games too, whereas the Switch doesn't support backwards compatability.

And lastly, and this is probably the most significant one - the Wii U contains a big old bulky disc drive. it needs space for the disc, the motor, the laser assembly, as well as the internal cooling. All of that stuff will not be in the switch as it uses cartridges.

Absolutely the Switch could be more powerful than the Wii U despite being smaller. For a start, it only has to render one image at a time, which probably helps out quite a lot on saving processing power.

Personally, I'm thinking it'll probably be pretty comparable with Wii U in power.



As for battery life, we will have to wait and see. I'd expect something around comparable with the Vita or 3DS at full brightness - ie. not that long.

[Reprise]

Yeah, it's really not impossible for it to be comparable or (more likely) more powerful than the Wii U.

[ElkinFencer10]

Technology moves quickly, fam. Here's my official prediction re: specs.

Switch screen will be 720p
Dock will upscale to 1080p60 or possibly 4k30
Either 4 or 6 core CPU
~1.5 TFLOP GPU

The Switch will almost certainly be using Nvidia's Tegra X2 tech (or something based on it), and the X1 is already capable of 1 TFLOP and (IIRC) 4K video. I'm not hedging my bets on 4k when docked, but given the impressive power of the Tegra line, it wouldn't be an enormous surprise to me, either.

[Blu]

I think it was mentioned before in the thread, but the Wii U's tablet streamed the video to the screen. That's one of the huge factors in the tablet's battery life. This time, the tablet is the console, and Shield technology can last upwards to 7 hours. I think there's some slight difference in design and implementation here.

Still quite excited.

[Xeogred]

Now for me to be a little pessimistic, I find it a little worrisome that they came out and teased this (all the while Bethesda dismisses that Skyrim is officially coming to the Switch, etc), and they've come out and said we won't hear anything else until next year. I guess they got it out there and the hype rolling, but damn. Something tells me they're working 24 hour shifts and this is being rushed. lol

[Reprise]

I can get the pessimism. I mean, why do they feel the need to hide the specs/power? Why hide the price? Why hide the games? What are they hiding...?

Or maybe it's just all part of their marketing strategy and it's part of plan that doesn't yet make sense to us.

Edit: Regarding Skyrim, Bethesda's comments are the same as Sega, Atlus's etc. I don't think it's necessarily anything to worry about or means Skyrim isn't coming out. I think Sega has sworn Publishers/Developers to secrecy until they (Nintendo) are ready to announce games.

[Sarge]

Sometimes, effective marketing is getting people to speculate on dribs and drabs of rumor, leaked specs, and hearsay. I suspect that's what they're doing right now.

I don't think power is going to be a selling point, and it hasn't been for Nintendo for a while. Like any other competitor in the market, you trumpet your strong points and stay mum on the weaknesses. It doesn't do Nintendo any good to talk about the power, because it doesn't compare favorably. They need to sell people on the concept, and once they clear that hurdle, the rest won't really matter.

Also, an odd thought: I wonder if they're waiting to release more until they clear the holiday season? They might not be wanting to cannibalize the sales of the NES Mini, something which might actually bring them significant profits. I know the two devices aren't direct competitors, but Nintendo will benefit more from directed marketing and hype on the Mini for right now. More info on the Switch might be a distraction.