I don't get what the point of the two USB slots on the main dock device is then.
As others have said it could be used for different kinds of third party game I/O. Mics, cameras, controllers and so on. Gives developers more options for hardware. But it could also be used for a LAN adaptor if it doesn't have an Ethernet jack built in. They could use it for the head-tracking component of a VR headset down the line.
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"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"
Switch to run Nintendo mobile games. These apps will in someway interact with games on the Switch. For example, you might possibly be able to use the Smash app to train your player on the go in a mobile version of the game. Or you can log into your Animal Crossing town on your mobile app to do small things. Or progress in a Zelda app gives you free potions/arrows.
Eurogamer leaked that the screen is a 6.2 inch multi-touch screen.
Technically a rumour, but we've heard this before, so it's probably true. I still don't understand how the right Joy-Con turns into a Wiimote pointer essentially. I mean, I understand how, but turning it upside down? Really? Who came up with that idea?
I just wonder what kinda of content we can see on the switch. I don't think the switch tablet screen is considered a separate screen like Wii U, so Nintendo basically has what the Wii and NGC had to work with but more power. (Which arguably, gives more options since the Wii U's technology was tricky to build for and make everything work with.)
I just hope there's some innovation this gen, the console itself is innovative but the games I feel will be less innovative with technology and more so just to their individual franchises (breathe of the wild).
I guess Nintendo needs a break from technological innovation with game making, this gives them breathing room to just make games and concepts anybody can get on board and make instead of constantly pondering what they can make work with the console alone.
One more thing.. I find it weird how much they can fit on those small cartridges. They look about 3ds sized and Zelda breathe of the wild would certainly never fit on a 3ds cartridge. Technology getting smaller and smaller eh.
I still don't understand how the right Joy-Con turns into a Wiimote pointer essentially. I mean, I understand how, but turning it upside down? Really? Who came up with that idea?
I 'm sure it's because the trigger and bumper are on the top. They could have put it on the trigger or bumper, but then maybe people would be accustom to putting their fingers over it.
So the general talk across YouTube is a 720p screen on Switch will look damn good, especially if its to keep costs and battery use low. 1080p would be pushing it frankly, BUT a lot of people are saying, if it's 720p, and a premium bundle is released, and this bundle has all the caveats PLUS a game, and its any more than $300...its dead, because of the screen not being worth the price.
Now I don't do business, just economics, so my knowledge on this is limited, but why are people talking about the system needing to come with a game included when I think most if not all of their systems have done that at launch?
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I think it might be possible they don't bundle a game just because there's no real hardware gimmick that they can show off. With the wii, wii sports showed off the different ways you could use the wii remote. The wii u had Nintendoland to show off asymmetrical gameplay. What game would show off the Switch's features without requiring that you play on the TV and on the go?
I think it might be possible they don't bundle a game just because there's no real hardware gimmick that they can show off. With the wii, wii sports showed off the different ways you could use the wii remote. The wii u had Nintendoland to show off asymmetrical gameplay. What game would show off the Switch's features without requiring that you play on the TV and on the go?
My bet is no game, too. Just a gut feeling. It'll also help to keep that cost to $299, which seems to be the highest people are willing to go on this thing.
And on the screen resolution: I hope it is 720p. That will cut costs immensely, and on such a small screen, 1080p would be wasted. And there's a huge segment of people who will probably only use the Switch on their TV.
Also, think of the battery life you would save. From browsing some smart phone articles about resolutions, 720p could save A LOT of battery life over a 1080p screen. I think the magic number here is 5 hours of battery life, and every help matters.
@Operative: To be fair, Kimishima did hint that the Switch is still going to have a few surprising features. But as of right now, you're right. People can easily understand this Switch simply by watching the trailer, unlike its predecessors.
Display PPI of common displays, higher is better:
3DS XL: 95PPI
15" Laptop: 100PPI
3DS: 132PPI
Wii U GamePad: 158PPI
7" Tablet: 206PPI
Vita: 220PPI Switch: 236PPI (Assuming 720p, 6.2")
iPad Air 2: 263PPI
iPhone 7: 326PPI
Pixel: 440PPI
Pixel XL: 534PPI
I think 720p is more than fine for a screen that size. <200PPI is noticable and <150PPI is pretty brutal. But on the other side of things I think above 300PPI and it's mostly marketing. Unless the display is intended to be used for VR. Then it starts to matter again.
Speaking rumours I noticed that nobody is really talking about the other rumour where they say that the connector on the base is USB Type C. Of course people are mostly getting hyped because that means standard cables for charging on the go. But Type C? That raises some interesting possibilities. Because USB Type C has far more pins (24) than USB 3.0 (9) or USB 2.0 (4) you can do more than just power/data.
I think everyone knows of the display-port mode because Apple has pushed that pretty hard. It's the one where USB Type C can be used as a kind of display/device daisy-chain style connector like Thunderbolt. But there's also a HDMI mode. With a single USB Type C cable? You can power a device for upto 100W and get HDMI 1.4 for 1080p @ 120Hz or 4K at 30Hz. In addition you can use the HDMI Ethernet channel and USB 2.0. Not as slick as the display-port mode but probably more important for the Switch.
Think about what we think the Switch dock needs to do. It needs to have HDMI pass-through of some kind. I think it also needs to have a few USB ports for accessories and stuff. It really needs to charge the thing. Lastly it would be nice if it had an Ethernet jack for a wired connection. USB Type C can literally do all of those things. With one cable.
"Xavier" - next gen Tegra SoC. (will use Nvidia's Volta architecture). Nvidia won't even start sampling this chip until late 2017, therefore Xavier obviously won't show up in products until sometime in 2018, most likely.
With that out of the way, here's that NeoGAF conversation:
The following information comes from Teut Weidemann, one of the first German professional game developers. He worked at Rainbow Arts, Microsoft USA, cdv Software Entertainment, Ubisoft and more. It does not seem that Mr. Weidemann is working on the Switch himself, but he is in contact with devs that have dev kits.
Switch screen is a touchscreen that supports up to 10 points of interaction
current dev kits are running on older hardware specs
Switch may be based on the new Tegra X2, which is quite a jump from the X1
Cool, another source suggesting Pascal. And I'm gonna assume when he says Tegra X2 he means Parker. Going from a base Parker chip, what are the likeliest modifications we're going to see? I've read before that Denver cores have no business being on a console, so I imagine they'd go.
Another source calling it X2, however, I can understand why they would. The Tegra Parker was made for auto-driving cars, ergo it's name (IT'S A CAR PUN!). So calling it X2 makes more sense, but it's probably the exact same thing as the Parker, albeit with custom assets for the Switch (more focus on GPU than CPU functions maybe?).
It's actually named Parker after Peter Parker. The X1 was Erista (Wolverine) and the next one will be called Xavier.
Nvidia have been using superhero codenames since Tegra 3/Kal-El.
"Worst" case scenario is it X1 as base with heavy customization, maybe that's why some devs are saying it's probably closer to X2, which wouldn't be a surprise since Nintendo went all out including active cooling, something I never thought they'd include.
The main issue with X1 is that it uses the 20nm fab process which is pretty much obsolete with everybody skipping it and go for 16nm.
Parker itself (the current official name for X2) gets 750GFlops in FP32, 1.5TFlops in FP16. It's unknown exactly how much game code can be FP16 (and it would vary wildly game to game), but speculation puts us at somewhere between 20%-50% being possible in FP16. I don't think that translates exactly to up to 1.12TFlops, but it should perform a decent amount better than the 750 number indicates.
Nice so we could be looking at something quite close to XB1 which is 1.3TF right?
In pure flops? No, that would be unlikely. It's possible in this type of form factor but it's likely too expensive for what Nintendo wants to charge.
But Nvidia typically has better tools and software that end up getting better performance out of their hardware, at least on PC (which is apparently where we get the whole "Nvidia flops are better than AMD flops). We don't know if that will be the case on a console though.
So we really don't know what the real world performance will be, but it's likely much closer to XB1 than Wii U.
I think it will be fully custom and probably better than parker to be honest. With some of the things they learned building Xavier.
Nintendo's Big Switch: Q&A With President Tatsumi Kimishima
It’s been a year since Tatsumi Kimishima became president of Nintendo Co., taking over the reins from the late Satoru Iwata. A former banker, Kimishima is now overseeing one of the biggest shifts in the company's history.
Switch, a new console that the Kyoto-based company will start selling in March, will be at the center of an entertainment web that will include mobile gaming, theme parks and merchandising. The device has a tablet-like display unit that connects with a TV but can also be taken out and about. Kimishima sat down with Bloomberg News in his first interview since introducing Switch to talk about this and more.
@dtjive Their sales forecast was 5.5 million at the end of Q2 2013. 5.5 million units in 7 months. The Switch is launching in March, the last month of the fiscal year. Nintendo is predicting 2 million units for the remainder of March.
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