Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Grumblevolcano This will be the case for a little while but as time moves on they will change their minds and you will get exclusives. By then they might have another "more powerful" machine that will play the same things as Scorpio and Neo... for a little while.

@Grumblevolcano @DefHalan Quite, I wouldn't advise anyone place much trust in either MS or Sony sticking to that 'no exclusives' line. They may end up doing so, but I'm inclined to think they probably won't.

@DefHalan Sure but by then the PS4 and XB1 would've far passed their 5th birthday. The aim of incremental upgrades is to completely avoid the garbage first year or so of a brand new console's lifespan. I don't remember the last time a brand new console had a good first year lineup.

So why should Nintendo stick to the old formula that nearly wrecked their 2 latest launches? If it works for every other tech company, why should Nintendo of all of them stick to an outdated pr scheme?

Exactly.

We don't know how "regular" this console is going to be. We have no idea what the NX is going to be. The evidence points to it being a Home Console.

Why are you convinced that all of the specifics matter? Sure the Wii for example wasn't note-for-note the same as the PS3 and 360. But it was still a traditional console. You still walked into a shop and brought a single box and maybe a few games off the shelf. And those games were things like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Paper Mario, Mario Kart, Smash Bros. Sure it had this neat little trick it could do with motion controls but really, so did its competition in the end.

When I say it's not going to be a "non-traditional" console I mean it in the only sense that such a term matters. A PC isn't a traditional console because it's very DIY. A phone/tablet isn't a traditional console because you don't get full retail experiences on it. From the start we've known that the NX is going to be a piece of dedicated gaming hardware. That in itself makes it a fairly traditional console of one form or another. Since then we've learnt that the new Zelda is coming to NX. Which pretty much rules out any portable or hybrid theories people may have had. I think that narrows down what the NX is more than enough.

@BiasedSonyFan
Another thought, what would make the console "traditional" in your eyes? If it has a GPU that's sitting at around 1.5TFLOPS (PS4/XBOne spec) and is getting the vast bulk of the third party games. But it also comes with a controller that has a screen in it or something similarly experimental. Would that be traditional or not?

What if the GPU is relatively underpowered, for example something closer to 800GFLOPS (2x the Wii U). Then the thing literally only supports traditional controllers. Then somehow they get a decent amount of third party support. Would that be a traditional console?

What if the hardware itself was literally identical to the PS4 in every way. The controllers were basically the same, the GPU was just as capable, it had Blu-Ray playback and the works. Boring as all hell. But third parties were for some reason not at all interested in it and Nintendo's releases were all very experimental. Would that be a traditional console?

I'd argue all of those things would be traditional consoles. I'd also argue that some combination of the three "odd" things would also be. It's clear that you wouldn't. But why? Because Sony are the only ones who are allowed to make a "traditional" console?

@BiasedSonyFan
You have four points for this definition of yours. The first two the Wii and Wii U both met. They hooked upto your TV and used a controller that had buttons, an analogue stick and directional pads. The Wii U in particular for the controller was far more "traditional" than any Nintendo console since the SNES. Ignoring the screen the controller itself is basically just an inverted Playstation controller. Something the Gamecube and N64 controllers can't claim.

Then the last two points are about how a traditional console provides high end graphics at a reasonable price. Sorry, what? That's not even on the table. That's not a thing. That's a curve on which console makers have to compromise one vs the other. If it was a reasonable thing to say a "traditional console" should have then what does that make last gen systems? Was the 360 suddenly not a "traditional console" when it became less high end towards the end of its lifespan? There was a period where the Wii U was the most powerful console on the market. Did it stop being a "traditional console" when the PS4 launched?

And anyways, what do you expect Nintendo to say? You want them to hand out a spec sheet? And if they did what amount of TFLOPS would it require to be "a traditional console". Is it 1TFLOPS? or does it need to be closer to 2TFLOPS and beat the PS4? Or does Scorpio being a thing mean it has to get closer to 6TFLOPS?

Complete and utter nonsense. Look, it's as simple as this. The NX will be able to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It is therefore a traditional console. That's it.

@skywake Again, agreed.

When reggie says it is not about specs, it's more because of the people they are appealing to not the fact it has no specs. They are targeting a blue ocean. The moment Reggie starts talking tflops and megabits, a lot start to walk. Entertainment loses it's 'magic' when you know how it's done kinda thing.

@Skywake

I still think the NX is a hybrid, but not a hybrid as we first imagined. It won't be one console operating as a home and handheld, but instead it'll be two machines operating under the same architecture, thus operating the same games.

The home console version will be around PS4 level spec running games at 1080p, 60fps. The handheld will be more like Wii U spec operating games at 720p, 30 fps.

You're imagining pretty much the same as I do. Not a two-in-one hybrid, rather an integrated platform, consisting of a home console and a handheld, still separate devices, but working together seamlessly.

@dtjive
Well in a sense I think the same thing but not in the same way exactly. I think we'll see Nintendo merge their portable and home console content in some fashion. We'll get more games that appear as the same thing on both. Which was always an inevitable thing as mobile hardware approaches the "HD era".

But I don't think it'll be all games and I don't think it'll be the same architecture. I think we'll see a portable that's something more like the 360 and with a standard def screen. So less powerful than the Wii U and probably ARM based. And there will be some content it won't be able to run. Then the NX itself will be an entirely different machine. Probably around the XBOne spec if I was to guess, likely x86 based. A third party friendly spec.

We won't see games like Breath of the Wild on the portable system and we won't see games like Pokemon on the NX. But Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, New SMB etc... I don't see any reason why those can't be "the same" across both.

Dedicated gaming hardware could exist without the tv, or any screen. Myamoto always wanted to break away from it. So whatever the next thing is, it could be radically different from any concept we know now.

Not considering it likely, but a mat on the floor for projectable space and hololens type glasses make a tv screen obsolete, for instance.

It's always funny when people start passionately disagreeing with speculation lol.

Hi guys! It's been awhile. Many months, I believe. Had to take a break. Breaks are good for all involved lol

I think the bottom line is: Open yourself up to change, and let's just see what happens.

We already know, for a fact, that a "traditional" game (Breath of the Wild) is going to be on the console, so that should give you some ideas of what we may be looking at. The console will need to be powerful enough to play it, and the controller device needs to somehow allow such a "traditional" game to be played.

Those are really the only hard facts to mull over at this point.

@BiasedSonyFan
In terms of how the thing is actually used the Wii U controller is pretty conventional. Far more conventional than any console controller Nintendo has made since the SNES I'd argue. Think about it, what makes a modern controller? Dual analogue sticks, four shoulder buttons, d-Pad, a diamond of action buttons, start/select/home. Right? The GamePad has that. It also has a screen but so what?

I use a Classic Controller Pro on my PC for games that work better with a controller. It's literally the GamePad minus the screen. Zero issues playing games on it (why would there be?). If I could plug in my GamePad and do the same it would work just as well. Even better if I could also stream games from my PC to it. If there was an easy mod I could do to get that working I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Well if all this espionage level secrecy is for an Xbox one with a Nintendo badge slapped on, they'll be laughed off the stage imo.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Or cheered because Nintendo isn't trying something crazy again, and people have said how they want to be able to play 3rd Party games on their Nintendo systems without compromise. Who knows what they have but different people have been wanting different things. Not everyone will be happy, no matter how hard they try.

@DefHalan even when there's established affordable devices with built libraries? That are getting upgrades as well?

People have devices for those games in addition to them being well available obviously

This type of device would have no pull outside fanboys.