Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@skywake

"eventually all of the consoles will be hybrid devices like the Switch. It's an inevitability"

The only way that will happen is if it becomes possible to make a hybrid that can match a tethered home system in power at the same price. And we're a long long way from that happening if indeed it ever does.

@electrolite77 Very long way indeed. If it was done within the next year it would just be a laptop sized PS4. Don't have the technology capable to shink a PS4 or Xbox down to Switch size.

Pure power needed from them would require a huge battery to get even a few hours from it.

It's already slowly starting to happen. At CES this year NVidia was making a bit of a song and dance about a TV with an NVidia Shield built in. Basically a TV with a built in Switch when you think about it. And the 2018 lineup of Samsung TVs pretty much all have a built in Steam Link. Sure it's still a bit here and a bit there and there's no major push for it yet. But the pieces are starting to move for something like that to be a thing.

And if every new TV from Samsung or Sony came with a console built in? That's quite a bit of a marketshare that platform would have just by default. If someone was serious about this it could have the potential to drastically change the conventional wisdom about what a console is and isn't.

Except it doesn't have to be better it just has to be good enough. That's kinda the point. The PS4 and XBOne are already well bellow the bleeding edge, far more so than their predecessors were. At the same time we're starting to see rapidly diminishing returns from higher and higher end specs. Eventually we'll get to the point where the average consumer will be fine with what will be possible on a portable. And at that point the traditional home console will be a niche product even amongst gamers.

@skywake I actually had forgotten about them having steam link. It is for every model after 2016, so my gaming TV would actually be able to handle it.

But I think need they need to be simpler for mass market. Think Android simple and bundle a controller with it.

@JaxonH
Dude, we will definitely have 500gig SSDs on sale in 5 years for around 50 bucks.

You can already get a 250gig SSD (not the fastest/greatest brands, though) by waiting for the best sales on Newegg. Maybe not 50 bucks exactly, but getting darn close.

In 5 years? Heck yea. SSD tech is getting crazy, and they even have hybrid drives with expanding SSD caches that are totally manageable in cost. I currently have a 2 terabyte hybrid drive that has a 20ish-gig SSD component in it that I got for like 80 bucks on sale, and it's a drive that's been around for more than a year, I believe.

I don't know when we, as people, will open our eyes to exactly how fast even civilian tech progresses and changes our world. It's scary, in some ways, but it's like we just want to be blind to history. Just look at the changes that happened in the immediate years after the first iPhone.

How does Steam Box/Link work again? Do you have to stream from your Laptop/Desktop or can you just get the box and connect that to the TV?

Or in this case of TVs having Steam built in. Will you not need to link it to your Laptop or PC?

@rallydefault
Really not up for a back and forth, but "on sale" isn't standard pricing.

You tag me when the standard price for a 500gb SSD that can fit in a portable device (so m.2 42mm SSD) is $49.99 and tell me I was wrong. I just bought one for my GPD Win 2. It was $345.

You let me know when that day comes.

The main issue Microsoft and Sony would have with going down the Switch route is they'd be giving up on the quest for the most powerful console as a result. The XB1X is currently the most powerful console but at some point the PS5 will be announced and be more powerful which will then lead to Microsoft releasing a more powerful Xbox and the cycle repeats.

Microsoft realized after the 2013 chaos that the Nintendo way doesn't work with the Xbox community and killed off Kinect completely focusing instead on returning to the quest for the most powerful console.

@Grumblevolcano It doesn't work if you go up against a €400 machine with a €500 machine, less games, and various other silly stuff (used games etc.). Microsoft never tried something "different", they did the same thing as Sony, but more expensive, with less games and more restrictions.

@Octane
"Microsoft never tried something "different", they did the same thing as Sony, but more expensive, with less games and more restrictions."

And that's the reason why i never consider xbox machines.

One thing Sony or MS could do is the power dock route. This is something I am quite sure is impossible on the switch, you need to have fast, latency free bandwidth between 2 coupled GPUs to really have a big difference between the two modes. Unless they have added trickery to use the USB-C port in a non-standard way.

Skywake is right, the power route is unsustainable. Most people won't have any use for 4k, we are well in diminishing returns territory for stationary consoles. They need another hook than better graphics going forward.

Don’t think I’ll be paying for switch online. Don’t really care for the nes stuff and the voice chat stuff is absurd and frankly so is anyone who defends it. It’s also ridiculous you can’t back up saves to microsd or use Bluetooth headsets. I don’t have time for baby steps and it honestly feels like they don’t really care. And if they don’t care why should I?

@Therad

I think Sony and MS will go the other way. They'll chase the state of the art until-if the tech route actually starts showing diminishing returns-their £300 launch Console can match a high-powered PC.

@WebHead

I'm not defending the voice chat, I just don't care because I don't use it. I'm not 100% whether I'll sign up but that won't stop me.

I do agree on the local saves issue and the Bluetooth headset point. I'm still annoyed they didn't put a headphone port on the Classic Controller.

Uhm...how bout no? lol

I'm not going to make proving some random person on the internet wrong a priority in my life. I've got bigger fish to fry, and that sort of thing doesn't bring me any joy.

Also - who buys anything these days when it's not on sale? Especially high-priced tech stuff.

You know you're going to be wrong at some point in the next 5 years which is why you're being so gosh-darned defensive about this point. Just chill. It's ok. We're all on the same team: being decent human beings (hopefully) lol

@WebHead i feel like their holding back more details, on this service. (imho)
Nintendo said it would be "worth the wait" (but this was before the may 7th reveal, they could just be talking about that)
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/60828/nintendo-switch-online-s...

We have some ideas about how to make Nintendo Switch Online appealing when it becomes a for-pay service, so I think our next announcement will be worth the wait

as i said. i hope there more details.

@Winklebottom I think they expected cloud saves and NES games to be enough.

For me, the price is perfect considering what's being offered.

I couldn't care less about social features or bluetooth headset support, though.

Yes, you stream from a computer to the TV in the same house.

A game on a TV doesn't need as much power, since most people have the TV much farther away from the couch. If I remember correctly, the average distance from the TV to the couch in the US is 9 feet. At that distance 4k is totally worthless*. So diminishing returns is already happening.

• Worthless for pixel density, there might be other things making it better, such as colours, saturation, contrast, self adjusting for lightning etc.