Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@TheLZdragon If that is true, then why do developers even bother adding voice chat in games to begin with?

Also, there's a difference. I've never said or implied anything about Nintendo itself. And since when can't we disagree with something Nintendo does (or any other company for that matter). Having the option of picking your own preferred method of voice chat is always better than having no options at all.

I understand what TomJ is saying though. Just because you don't care about something, doesn't mean it's the right decision and nobody's allowed to question it. That's the complete opposite what I'm saying. Always question why developers or companies are making certain decisions, never just agree to what they're doing. And if anyone wants to make the argument that VA being limited to your phone is better than having the option of doing it through the Switch itself as well, be my guest, I'd love to ear your argument. No sarcasm intended, I'm serious.

@Octane I think the problem is nobody knows whether it'll be better or worse. It's good that's there's a debate over it but it goes back to the "wait and see" philosophy. Potentially you could say handing off all the chat and matchmaking services to a dedicate app would provide a seemless experience between all online games and also preserve resources and power on the switch itself. It's never been done by any other company so we haven't got anything to compare it to. Just because it's different doesn't make it bad... or good.

@Mellor2000 I'm not talking about the app itself, I'm talking about the lack of options to do voice chat. All I'm saying is that having the option to do it another way is always better than not having the option. I already said that I like the app, I like the idea and it has a lot of potential. It's indeed a wait and see game, kinda getting used to that, and I already acknowledged that. I don't buy the lack of power argument though, even the original Xbox could do voice chat.

Edit: Even the DS had voice chat.

@Maxz
The console charges via USB-C which is relatively new but a simple charge cable is fairly cheap and easy to get.
The one issue is the location of the charge slot. The slot is on the underside of the console which makes it impossible to charge while in tabletop mode.
So if you want to emulate the suave swagger of that guy in the switch advert casually playing the switch from a pulldown airplane table you'll have to be either somewhat fleetingly cool or invest in an awkward plastic contraption from HORI: https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Playstand-Nintendo-Switch-Offi...
Definitely not a big deal but still an odd design choice
And if this the Max with a Z I think it is, big hello from kaizo hell! Make another Mario Maker level already!
-adam

it would interfere less with the console. Less memory, less CPU time and less traffic on your lan/wireless, meaning you would get the same experience regardless if you play single player or multiplayer. On the power twins, they quite often have turned down visuals in multiplayer.

Another thing has to do with local multiplayer. Let's say you and a friend are using the same switch and connect to an online match, then you can both be in the same chat room with minimal interference on hardware.

A third thing could be where do you put the headphone jack and not have it confusing? Right or left joy-cons? Both? On the switch itself? Bluetooth?

A fourth could be Nintendo wants to protect smaller children who may not have their own phone. Child protection has historically been a concern for Nintendo.

A fifth reason could be to give you an urge to play fe: heroes between matches, preferably buying some orbs.

@GrailUK It's an exaggeration, of course. Nintendo does some really cool stuff, and I've enjoyed most of their consoles a lot. Let's not pretend their weird ideas haven't landed them in trouble before though, with the Wii U in particular.

@Therad Yeah, I understand the potential of the app, I don't see how those are arguments against the option of having both.

As I said a couple of posts back, the original Xbox had voice chat, and even the DS had voice chat. A potato can do voice chat if they wanted. How much RAM is allocated to games? The system itself has 4, I think the rumour said 3.2 to games. Whatever the reason is, I doubt RAM is the bottleneck here.

The reason why visuals are turned down during online play is to increase the framerate. Voice chat is handled outside of the game and therefore shouldn't be able to interfere, so it's a moot point anyway.

Yea, this is exactly how I feel. Though I'm still holding out hope that you'll be able to at least chat in-match through the console itself if you want. I wouldn't even mind if lobby chat was tied to the app, as long as "all-game" chat or whatever kicks in when a match of Splatoon 2, for instance, begins.

I'm not too upset about the friends list stuff either. None of my real-life friends buy Nintendo consoles, and I'm not really big on friending complete strangers. Though I think it will actually be super convenient to be able to access all your friend list stuff through the app.

@otterskateboard Oh wow! To think of all the people who would come to my aid, it would be you! Hello adam! I haven't checked in on the Wii U in a while unfortunately, so both Mario Maker and any form of Wii U communication have been very much neglected. I'll go give it a look after I post this.

I was wondering what we'd do after the Switch-pocalypse happens and the poor Wii U is all but laid to rest, but having a touch-point here should make the transition a lot smoother. Are you getting one at launch, or holding off for a bit (or just, not getting one at all)?

I tried one out at an event earlier today. It was actually quite a shock moving from the saggy old armchair of the Gamepad to some sort of hyper-post-modern-über chair owned by a slightly terse architect living in a trapezoidal building made out of glass and bubinga. By which I mean the Switch. I'd heard people say it "doesn't feel like a Nintendo product" before, but what they meant had never really clicked with me before... I'd assumed it was mainly aesthetic, but the size, shape, layout and - crucially - response of the buttons was significantly different from either the Wii U or 3DS (or really anything that game before them).

To be honest, it was a bit jarring at first. The build quality was evidently higher than anything they'd made previously, but I'd grown quite fond on the comforting chunk and squishiness of the Wii U's flagship controller, and I wasn't fully prepared to move onto something slicker. The new, smaller, low profile buttons have a much tighter, more binary feel to them than the relative cushions of the Gamepad, which I actually found rather clinical at first. I suppose the 3DS is a closer relative, but they feel different to even that.

Anyway, I eventually adjusted throughout the event, and by the end of it had grown a lot warmer to it by the time I had to leave. I managed to find my moojoo in Spla2oon (8-0 k/d, 2000pts yo) with the Joy-Con Grip, and that felt really good after finishing the first game. Discernibly better than the Wii U, even though I was still adjusting.

Most of the games were as I was expecting. The Zelda demo gave you enough time to... do exactly the same as everyone else you've ever seen play the Zelda demo. The event staff dutifully inform you that "anywhere you can see, you can go", but omits adding that in the remaining demo time (after you've got out of the cave), that "anywhere" is basically reduced to "down this hill". Which is fair enough - they've got to shift people through the game stands after all - but it doesn't sell the game's strong points as well as some of the other titles on offer.

Spla2oon however, does. Splatoon is just frickin aceballs. It looks and feels better than the Wii U version, but ultimately has the same foundation of awesome gameplay. I'll never get over ranting about how inspired that game is.

Snipperclips was also as good as I was hoping. It looks charming and plays beautifully, and is just as hilarious as the Treehouse team made it look (even having seen the levels before). Even thinking about it makes me want to giggle. Waiting in the queue, I saw multiple ways that people tackled the same task, and they all felt like the correct solution. It's a perfect example of problem solving, as opposed to puzzle solving, and it's brilliant. I only hope the final package has enough content and variety to keep providing dumb laughs.

Ball Count does indeed sell the HD Rumble perfectly. I'm pretty convinced it justifies whatever extra cost it adds to the system (unless it's really stupid). I only hope it gets used. I didn't try Milk or Bang Bang Cowboy Guns, but I didn't feel unduly crestfallen.

Interestingly, I've come away completely cold on ARMS. It just... didn't click with me. I didn't properly work out how to move forwards or backwards... or left or right (so basically, how to move at all), and the time you have to wait between throwing each punch means I was left feeling only frozen a lot of the time, like a sitting duck. With extendable arms. Anyway, maybe it just needs more time. People wrote hysterical articles about not getting to grips with Star Fox Zero based on their demo playthoughs, and a lot of them then turned into hysterical reviews, despite the final game being... well, fine. Perhaps it's really satisfying if you'd learnt how to play it, but at the moment it's not high on my hot list.

Didn't get to play Mario Kart (got the Wii U version), but it does look like a perfect fit for the system, and if enough people I know buy it, I'll be tempted to get it again.

So yeah, I've come away with similar reactions to most people. Great, slick piece of chameleon tech with a few excellent games lined up, although it doesn't feel like they've quite opened the floodgates. I've got hopes quite high for its future though. For one thing, I only went to the event because my 'PC Master Race' brother was so friggin hyped for the system, and this is someone who I've given up selling Nintendo to after years of trying. If it can tempt him, it can probably tempt anyone.

Now I can stop pretending this thread is a personal blog.

I saw a comment somewhere talking about how underpowered the Switch is compared to the XBOne. So here's some food for thought when talking about the power of the Switch. You need to put it into context. Here's some context. An ordered list of how far behind competing consoles have been in the last few generations. Starting from the most behind to the closest.

20-400x (not even in the same ball park, lots of pre-Switch portables)
DS vs 360
3DS vs PS4
DS vs PS3
3DS vs XBOne
3DS vs Switch
PSP vs PS3
Vita vs PS4
DS vs Wii

5-20x (about a generation behind)
Wii vs 360
Wii vs PS3
7th gen vs 8th gen on average. Under this is less than a generation behind.
Switch undocked vs Project Scorpio
3DS vs Vita
Switch undocked vs PS4 Pro
Vita vs Wii U
Switch docked vs Project Scorpio
Wii U vs PS4

2-5x (close enough that a lot of games could be ported over with reduced settings)
Switch docked vs PS4 Pro
PSP vs Wii <- The closest (recent) portable to a home console before the Switch
XBone vs Project Scorpio
DS vs PSP
Switch undocked vs PS4 <- seriously, look at how many things are above these two ^^^
Wii U vs XBOne
PS4 vs Project Scorpio
XBOne vs PS4 Pro
PS4 vs PS4 Pro
Switch undocked vs XBOne

1-2x (close enough that you're comparing framerates rather than libraries)
Switch docked vs PS4
Switch docked vs XBOne
PS4 Pro vs Project Scorpio
XBOne vs PS4
360 vs PS3

We do not know the specs of the switch, so this kind of comparison is pointless. We also don't know it will be significantly faster when docked as you seem to imply.

@Therad
We know enough about the specs of the Switch to make a list like the one above for use in a forum discussion. We know that it's a bit above the Wii U when undocked and a bit under XBOne when docked. Whether it's 20% under the XBOne or 50% under the XBOne when docked doesn't really change the point much.

If it was as close to the PS4 as the PSP was to the PS3? It would be getting downgraded ports of Vita games. It wouldn't be running Wii U games at generally higher framerates in portable mode. As a portable it's unprecedented. But as a home console? It is to Project Scorpio when docked what the Wii U was to the PS4. Which in turn is less behind the curve than what the Wii was when it launched.

@skywake So if we go by your list, Switch's 3rd party support will mostly depend on whether Microsoft kept their E3 2016 promise of "No-one gets left behind" with regards to XB1 support when Scorpio comes out.

@Grumblevolcano
In terms of the hardware itself? All things being equal, pretty much. But how that actually pans out will depend on a lot of other factors. Like how hard the game is pushing the XBOne/PS4, how decent the port is and so on. There are also other limitations on the Switch like the capacity of cartridges, limited storage expansion options and the fact that it's not necessarily always online.

But there have been far less competitive pieces of hardware in the past that have managed just fine.

Sony and microsoft want the power race to be theirs. This means they need to iterate quicker than the market allows.

So their lowest common denominator is easy to match for the switch. And they are stuck to it. In fact, nintendo out manoeuvres these two with it from a market position standpoint. Their fallback scenario is good too - where you'll have a great nintendo system whether the libraries overlap significantly or only marginally.

Switch is a good thing for nintendo. For sony or microsoft to win the race they are in, they need to give up some of their footprint.

Going back to the voice chat being on the console itself I think this would cause problems with connections. Having a hard wired headset means you would have to have a jack on all controller configurations of which the switch has quite a few. Then imagine a game like Arms where you use the motion controls vigorously. How many times would you yank the headset off throwing an aggressive punch. The work around would be Bluetooth of course but anyone who uses Bluetooth connections even on low power knows how quickly they burn through you battery.

Arms can have a normal button set up tho and it looks like a game designed for local multiplayer than anything else.

@jump True but Arms with normal controls doesn't look very special. I haven't played it yet but it's seems to be a game that comes alive with motion controls.

I honestly find the mechanics of the game more interesting than the motion controls to the point where the motion controls could harm the game's appeal, especially when fighters rely on reflexes rather than how hard you waggle.

It's an arena fighter played like a boxing game with shooter elements thrown in. The presentation is great too, the music reminds me a rocky-esque boxing film with the pump of it being a theme of the tv coverage for the World Cup when it's Spain or Brazil.

@jump hopefully I'll get to play it this weekend at the UK event.