Nintendo Switch Revelation

[Silent_Buddha]

FPS that I play would never be fine with just half a joy-con; its missing an entire look direction control stick, an entire Dpad which is typically weapon switches, an aim down sight button (left trigger), and most importantly a fire button (right trigger). its definitely incapable of playing a FPS without the means of aiming or firing.

If it's an arena shooter like Doom or Shadow Warrior, then ADS is irrelevant and often more of a hindrance than a help. The main loss is the use of the D-pad for quickly switching weapons or selecting items. While there is minor loss of functionality weapon switching can be accomplished via a button press, and item selection via the same button but held down instead of pressed.

D-pad and analog stick for moving and aiming/looking. Shoulder button for shooting. Buttons for jumping, weapon/item select, melee, and what else? Brain far at the moment. I guess a button for context sensitive actions.

It's definitely more old school but functions just fine for a shooter. You can't do more advanced things quickly (item selection would need to open up a wheel menu on button hold, for example), but you could still do them. But then again you really don't "need" item selection in a FPS/TPS unless its trying to be more strategic, and in that case it wouldn't hurt much to have item selection be more delayed than on a controller with more controls.

Regards,
SB

 

[Entropy]

Xbox one is selling better than xbox 360 life to date. Just because PS4 came along and doubled PS3 sales, doesn't reflect on Xbox One.

Now too be fair, Xbox 360 had a strong late life fueled by Kinect. It's unknown if XBO will match that. The whole thing gets pretty hard to compare once you figure Scorpio comes into the equation in a year.

I was wrong in my statement about Sony. When I went back and checked the numbers, their aggregate yearly volume has fluctuated around 20 million for the last decade, and while it has declined slightly, most of the lost volume is Nintendo and Microsoft. Microsoft looks to be below 4 million yet, this year....
So from 2008s peak at almost exactly 100million dedicated gaming devices sold, this year looks like it would end up somewhere between a third of that up to just under 40 million if Xmas sales are strong.

The industry needs some kind of shot in the arm, and I honestly can't see warmed over versions of the PS4 and XB1 doing much to achieve that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think he's saying it wont be enough for full games. It might be enough for simple games.

Right. Games designed to be played local coop by gamers who aren't comfortable with dual sticks plus multiple face buttons plus multiple shoulder buttons. Although it's wrong to call them not 'full games'. There are plenty of in depth games that could be made using the controls available. 'Simpler interface games', definitely. Coop games that immediately would fit would be 16-like titles, so kart racing, coop platformers, top-down games like Gauntlet. The only thing that can't really be done is dual-stick move+aim, which is a large part of the contemporary library. But anything DSish will match nicely.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

3DS is staying -

Tatsumi Kimishima, the man who succeeded the late Satoru Iwata as Nintendo's President, gave an answer of sorts in an interview with Bloomberg.

"Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still growing. So that business still has momentum. And certainly rather than being cannibalised by the Switch, we think the 3DS can continue in its own form," Kimishima said.

 

[Rikimaru]

Of course it is staying. They need cheap hardware for lower segment.
It will stay as a zombie though. No quality software anymore.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

3DS is staying -

Horrible decision IMHO.

If they're not afraid that the $200 3DS can be cannibalized by the Switch, then I don't think the Switch will be sold for less than $300.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Horrible decision IMHO.

If they're not afraid that the $200 3DS can be cannibalized by the Switch, then I don't think the Switch will be sold for less than $300.

Not sure why that is bad? Let the market decide when the 3DS is no longer a desirable product.

It's not terribly different from the transition from DS to 3DS. Or PS1 to PS2. The hardware and games for those continued to be sold for years after their "successor" came out.

It's also entirely possible that the 3DS will move to a 99-149 USD price point, providing a portable gaming environment for people on a lower budget.

There's too little information to know whether this is just marketing speak for, "We have no plans to stop selling the 3DS, and don't want to say anything that might discourage people from buying a 3DS." Which would be the same for almost all console transitions in the past except for the Xbox -> X360 transition where MS just flat out stopped making and selling the Xbox.

Regards,
SB

 

[Exophase]

Switch doesn't serve the same market appeal 3DS does. I expect it has at least twice as the footprint that 3DS has when closed. It's just not pocketable, and it sounds like it'll have worse battery life. That's not a great fit for a lot of the handheld audience, particularly children, which may be why we're seeing this thing marketed for adults.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Remember Nintendo's three pillar strategy about 10 years ago?

They'll just leave the DS on the market, doesn't make sense to pull it when there is so much hardware and software already out there.

If it turns out the Switch and DS cater to different markets they'll keep it alive. If not it will join Gameboy.

 

[BRiT]

Remember Nintendo's three pillar strategy about 10 years ago?

What is their 3 pillar strategy today? Or did they switch to something else entirely?

I'm really not liking having to wait until January 12th to find out the price range of this Nintendo Switch. That's entirely too much time to have to put up with speculation on forums.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Today they have a 1.2 pillar strategy. 3ds and wuu limping behind it like a wounded duck.

Then assume it's going to cost between 300 and 400 depending on the sku. Because that's what it'll cost. No way it's going to be 200 like some are dreaming about.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Not sure why that is bad?

The Switch will be in dire need for games, so splitting the 1st and 2nd party dev teams for 2 different consoles, plus all the 3rd-party JRPG devs is not really a good thing.

I get that they may just be trying to avoid osborning the 3DS for this coming holiday season, but if Nintendo wants the Switch to succeed they need to put their full weight behind the new console.

 

[liolio]

The more time passes the more I think i's going to fail. It won't pass as a proper home console and Nintendo has to describe the system as that to justify the pricing.
The product looks good as the design is interesting, the idea new, for once Nintendo seems to use up to date hardware but my bet is once the novelty effect wears off people will take notice of the issue in the system concept it is an quite expensive handheld.
Either way I'm right about the handheld market being mismanage but completely wrong on the topic of price: there is a niche big enough of buyers will to spend on high mobile gaming hardware. So far Sony and Nintendo would have failed to realize that.

I'm convinced that the Nx is a mistake, though a sexy one for once. (MY bet is) Its price is going to be its downfall. It will have an adverse effect on Nintendo business as I think the Nx high specs will get in the way of a future DS (I mean may force to high specs on the next DS product if there is such product either way the system will be downplayed).

 

[psurge]

Why is the Switch going to cost much more than the Shield Tablet, which retails for $200 with a larger, higher resolution screen? The base station adding a lot to the cost doesn't really jive with the rumors that make it seem like a glorified HDMI / power cable, and if it's more than that, I feel like their'd be room for a basic SKU without one. So that leaves what... expensive controllers? An expensive SoC? For the latter - even if the SoC is 14 or 16nm Pascal, I figure there is no way it has more than 512 cores, and almost certainly quite a lot less, so I'd expect it to be noticeably smaller than GP107, which is going into $100 cards. What am I missing?

 

[BRiT]

The Nintendo name brand.

We'll have to wait until Jan 12th to find out the price.

 

[function]

Why is the Switch going to cost much more than the Shield Tablet, which retails for $200 with a larger, higher resolution screen? The base station adding a lot to the cost doesn't really jive with the rumors that make it seem like a glorified HDMI / power cable, and if it's more than that, I feel like their'd be room for a basic SKU without one. So that leaves what... expensive controllers? An expensive SoC? For the latter - even if the SoC is 14 or 16nm Pascal, I figure there is no way it has more than 512 cores, and almost certainly quite a lot less, so I'd expect it to be noticeably smaller than GP107, which is going into $100 cards. What am I missing?

Looking at Wikipedia, it seems that Shield launched for 299/399 16GB/32GB respectively, but dropped to $200 because BOMBA firesale, followed by the termination of the Shield project.

I wouldn't necessarily see $200 as a viable price for Nintendo, especially as they'll be paying more for their Tegra chip than Nvidia would need to have spent per chip, and $200 was never where Nvidia wanted to be.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So that leaves what... expensive controllers?

Two detachable controllers with batteries and wireless. One portable docking bay that doubles as a controller when the two controllers are attached. RnD recouperation. Marketing. Build quality (shield tablets are pretty crap in this respect). And as function says, Shield isn't really $200.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wii U production to stop this week.

So Switch is definitely a console replacement, if that was ever in doubt. Is Wii U setting a new record for shortest lived console?

 

[AzBat]

Is Wii U setting a new record for shortest lived console?

Dreamcast has that no? Wii U been out 4 years just like the original Xbox.

Tommy McClain

 

[BRiT]

Are we talking about years or unit sales per year?