Nintendo Switch revealed: Reaction and analysis

Nintendo has finally taken the curtain off the Nintendo NX and it's about god damn time. As many may know, Nintendo has for a long time been working on a new console under the codename NX, but have absolutely refused to reveal any details on it until now. Personally, I still question whether they're going to be able to market this system properly when it's only about 5 months away from launch. By skipping its reveal at E3, they no longer have any big conference to build the hype with, and the system will have already hit the market before next year's E3, so I hope they either plan to do a bunch of marketing on TV or some other mainstream outlet before this thing happens or it's going to be the Wii U all over again. But anyway, let's get into the console itself. So it's being called the Nintendo Switch, which again, why is it that Nintendo's codenames are always cooler than the actual name they decide on? The GameCube was originally called the Dolphin, the Wii was called the Revolution, and now the NX is the Switch? I mean, I guess it's a step up from Wii, which I think everyone was pretty sick of at this point, but really, maybe Nintendo should just go with their gut next time and pick the first name they use for it.

But dammit, I'm still going off on tangents here, and I'm just nitpicking at this point, so let's get back to the reveal. So the trailer starts off with a 20-something dude just chillin' on the couch gaming inconspicuously to the latest upcoming Zelda game. Now already the fact that Nintendo decided to start the trailer like this is a breath of fresh air. This is what many people have been saying for a long time; your audience has grown up Nintendo. Wake the hell up. They always kept branding their consoles as systems for kids and casuals. But they still make games that are just as fun as ever to play regardless of your age, and they offer plenty of hardcore experiences. You've got Metroid, you've got Bayonetta, you've got Zelda, and hell, even Super Mario 3D World will give hardcore gamers a run for their money in the final worlds and especially the bonus levels. There is some gruelingly difficult stuff there. Yet the average dedicated gamer doesn't really know this because Nintendo doesn't market to them. So I'm very glad to finally see as their first ad that this is clearly a system being made for the fans as well as the existing gaming market rather than trying to pull in people who were never fans of their products before and normally couldn't care less for gaming. Anyway, the ad continues, and we finally see what this system is all about. The 20-something dude stands up and then detaches his controller into two pieces before snapping it onto the console itself, and proceeds to leave the house and take his dog for a walk while continuing right where he left off with the game, now as a portable system. This is the key feature of the Switch which gives it its name, and I gotta say it looks excellent. We're finally getting a system that merges portable and big screen TV gaming all in one device, and it does so in a way that is effortless and slick. Next we have our 20-something dude-bro hopping on a plane and showing off how portable the system is, along with revealing that the system uses cartridge-based media, and so on and so forth. I'm not going to run through the whole commercial scene-by-scene, but long story short, it shows off a possible new Mario game, Skyrim, a basketball game, and what looks to be a version of Mario Kart 8 with expanded content.

It should be noted that the ad could be a little misleading here as none of the third party games featured in this video have been confirmed to be releasing on the Switch yet, so here we arrive at our first major concern. Like it or not, unfortunately consoles need third party developers on board for their long term survival anymore, and if Nintendo fails to hang onto third parties after the Switch's initial launch, it is likely another dead on arrival release. They should secure these titles as quickly as possible so people won't be left feeling misled. Now regarding cartridge media: I'm glad this is coming back as the landscape has changed since the days of the N64 where cartridges were more expensive and couldn't store as much space. Now you've got SD cards that can easily house 64 GB, and cartridges have much faster load times than discs, being that they are solid state storage.

Now let's do a full breakdown of the system:

Obviously since the hardware is housed in the tablet in order to make it portable, there's no reasonable way one could expect it to achieve performance on par with the upcoming Scorpio and PS4 Pro consoles. However, the value proposition here is based on the idea that you're essentially getting the most powerful handheld gaming experience to date, with the inclusion of proper buttons and joystick controls. With the PS Vita being all but dead to Sony at this point, and the 3DS beginning to greatly show its age in the face of modern smartphones, this presents itself as an attractive step up from all other handheld options because now there's finally a dedicated handheld gaming device again that is more powerful than your smartphone, and with proper buttons to boot.

The rumors (which have largely turned out to be true so far) stated that this would be a hybrid home/portable console with detachable controls, cartridge-based media, performance about on par with a standard Xbox One console, and a 900p tablet display for around the $300-400 price point. While bits and pieces of this have been confirmed, the official specs remain to be seen. Given that it has also been stated that this console will be based in the latest architecture from NVIDIA, this could mean that we're talking about the same architecture that powers NVIDIA's beastly GTX 1000 series cards, which if anything was capable of pushing Xbox One-level graphics in a handheld as tiny as that, it would certainly be possible with the GTX 1000's Pascal architecture. The NVIDIA Shield released just last year was capable of outputting performance on par with the Wii U/360/PS3 already, so considering this, we already know at a minimum that it is unlikely this won't be at least a marginal upgrade from the Wii U. The question is, will it only be a marginal upgrade, or substantial enough to reach the Xbox One? If it does the latter, then I think this does present itself as very attractive for the handheld experience, because no handheld platform currently boasts graphics at that level.

So sure, at the $300-400 price point, you're paying about the same as you are for a PS4 Pro despite not offering as good of performance, but on the other hand your typical latest smartphone sells for $500+ and doesn't offer anything for AAA experiences or proper buttons and joysticks, let alone graphics on par with current-gen consoles, so if you care about having a portable element to your console, then the value is easily justified. I think a lot of assertions about this console being underpowered aren't factoring in these considerations. If the rumor is true that it reaches the performance of an Xbox One, then this certainly is top of the line hardware for the mobile market.

There's still a lot of questions in the air as to how this will all pan out, but so far it seems as if Nintendo is making the right decisions and the Switch is being well-received. I'm cautiously excited for the platform and look forward to owning one in March if it has a solid launch lineup. Well-played, Nintendo.