gildahl

A way that Nintendo could approach VR in the near-term is not to produce a VR piece of hardware themselves, but rather regard existing VR systems as a special kind of television. They could use this approach to bring some kind of unique or crossover gaming experiences to existing VR platforms. For example, it is already possible to play the Switch in VR using a capture card on my PC, but only in 2D (as one would expect). Without too radical an investment, I would suppose that Nintendo could create a means by which even a present-day Swich could be plugged into a PC and by offloading to the PC's GPU, re-render their games in VR with enhanced presence.

@Tyranexx
If you've spent some time doing roomscale in a Vive or Rift, then I'm fine with this as an opinion. However, if you've only experienced "VR" in a phone-base gadget or even PSVR, then you really need to demo a high-end set before calling it gimmicky. I was underwhelmed with phone VR (which is gimmicky), but absolutely bowled over with roomscale. This is the real deal and is where the real excitement is in VR. Remember when you first tried a ViewMaster. That's phone VR. Remember when Flynn got sucked into the virtual world in Tron. That's roomscale VR.

In the "real" VR world (HTC Vive/Oculus Rift) just the graphics card needed to push the desired 90fps per HD display in the HMD can cost twice the price of a Switch. Lower-end "VR" is a cool novelty and PSVR isn't too bad for what it is, but unless you've tried something like Space Pirate Trainer on a high-end roomscale system, you haven't really experienced VR's real potential. Nintendo is successful right now because affordable hardware was available for them to nail the console/handheld thing and are producing great games. The hardware needed for Nintendo to nail VR wouldn't be remotely affordable to anyone who buys Nintendo right now. In a few years maybe, but definitely not now.

Yup. 1080p was a technical improvement over 720p that visibly improved resolution at the sizes that screens were increasing to at the time (50 or 60 inches), whereas 4K functions more as a specification than something that addresses a practical need. For folks buying 100" televisions, 4K is important. Where it is becoming even more important is in VR where 4K per-eye at 90fps will ultimately be needed to ensure that pixels are rendered small enough not to be clearly visible (as they are in todays HD VR displays). But for ordinary TVs up to about 60", 4K of resolution is technicaly over-spec'ed for most use cases, so unless you game from 2 feet in front of your 50" television (which I'm sure some do), the added resolutin provides litttle practical benefit.

I have a new 4K set, but at normal viewing distances there's no discernable difference from my 1080P set. All "good" TVs are 4K now and that's why they sell; not so much because of the fantastic resolution (unless you are buying 80" or up), but because they are just the new standard. If the picture at normal viewing distances looks better on a 4K, it is more likely due to factors other than resolution (color, HDR, etc.). I never pay extra for 4K streaming or DVDs since at normal viewing distances, I just can't see any meaningful difference. So I'm with Nintendo on this one. I don't want to pay a significantly higher price for a Switch to get 4K resolutions when the benefit would be so marginal. As far as VR goes, that's my other hobby. I have a fully decked-out PC with an HTC Vive and roomscale tracking (at least $3000 in gear). To do VR right (i.e. more than just a novelty), its expensive and even with this equipment enthusiasts complain about low resolution and pine for the next generation. This is not Nintendo's space at all right now and I don't want them in it. If they want to make a simple "VR" viewer for the Switch in support of some novelty games (maybe a Virtual Boy collection), then fine; but I don't see it making any sense at all for Nintendo to compete seriously in this space for some time (though I would recommend their R&D department to keep on top of developments there for the day when it suddenly does make sense--which may end up being sooner than expected).

@MadCow74 You're right, you can lock the camera position. Thanks for pointing that out!

Best Mario game ever was the original arcade release of Donkey Kong. Reason? I will still be playing it long after completing SMO.

I purchased last night and can only offer first impressions. First, at $12, it is a no-brainer. Even though I'm not a serious chess player, it's the sort of game that is nice to have around when I'm not in the mood to do any twitch type stuff. I was a bit underwhelmed with the graphics though. I didn't buy this for the graphics, but I suppose I did expect to be more impressed based on the promos and screenshots I had been seeing. There is only a small handful of "environments" and piece sets. They're servicable, but that's about it. At first I figured that these were only initially limited and that you could unlock more, but I don't think that's actually true (maybe via DLC later?). I also found that the pieces are a bit harder to distinguish during play than they really should be, and that the 3D controls seem pretty useless. For example, the "rotate" function is not free, very limited in amount, and cannot be locked. And the zoom view seems pretty pointless. Why would I want a closeup view of my chesspiece? I mean, maybe if there was some fancy capture animation, but there isn't. So IMO the overhead view is the only other practical view beside the default one, but even in this case you can't custom scale it and you really need to use the checker pieces in order for them to be clear. Quite frankly, I would love for this game to have the option of a plain-old 2D view with simple profiles of the pieces shown like on chess.com. Another observation is that transitions between menu and environment views seems sluggish. The waits aren't that long, but considering the simplicity of the essentially static environments here, it seems like transitions could have been optimized to be much snappier. None of these things are showstoppers, though, since I really just bought this game to have a chess engine on my Switch. And between the music (which I like) and the few included environments, the game does manage to provide a nice relaxing atmosphere that lends itself well to playing chess. Add to this the tutorials, timer modes, tournament and other multi-player modes, and the game still provides me with my money's worth.

I have two TVs in the 50" range. One is 4K and the other is 1080p; both are high quality. If I push 4K content to the 4K screen and get as close to the screen as I do to a computer monitor there is, of course, a difference; but at normal viewing distances both TVs look equally great and I can't see a practical difference. In truth, the only reason I bought a 4K TV is because that's what all the good TVs come with these days, so you might as well. On the other hand, I don't spend a dime extra to pay for 4K content. Honestly, even 720p at normal viewing distance looks super on both sets, being only marginally inferior to 1080p--and only if I'm looking for differences. If you do sit really close (<5 feet) or have a really big screen (80"+), then 4K will just begin to become relevant, but at what I regard to be normal viewing distances, its just a feel-good spec.

Was thinking about it, but really, still no Pro Controller support? Is it really that hard to add?