Nintendo says that some Nintendo Switch consoles were stolen in an isolated incident that led to the termination of a distributor's employees and possibly criminal charges:
On Wednesday, a video surfaced of a Nintendo Switch in use, which gave us a good look at the device's software and how its menus work. Nintendo claims that the device in question had been stolen from a distributor.
The maker of the video had claimed that the Switch was a preorder that had shipped early, but walked those statements back. In a statement made to IGN, Nintendo said that the device and others had been stolen by the employee of a US distributor, and the one in the video had been resold.
Earlier this week, individuals claimed to prematurely purchase a small number of Nintendo Switch systems from an unspecified retailer. Nintendo has determined these units were stolen in an isolated incident by employees of a U.S. distributor, with one system being illegally resold. The individuals involved have been identified, terminated from their place of employment and are under investigation by local law enforcement authorities on criminal charges.
Previously: "Nintendo Switch" Coming in March 2017
Will Third-Party Developers Support Nintendo's Switch?
Nintendo Switch Available on March 3rd for $299
Related Stories
Nintendo's rumored "NX" console has been officially announced as the Nintendo Switch, a console-handheld hybrid. The Switch may be Nintendo's last stand in the console wars:
Previously code-named NX, now named the Nintendo Switch, the device looks like a tablet computer with controllers that attach to its sides. The device was revealed in a short "teaser" video posted on YouTube.
One analyst said the device could be Nintendo's "last shot" at selling a home console. "The Wii U was a car crash, basically," said Paul Jackson of the Ovum consultancy. They fudged the communication and confused everybody with the controller and what the screen was for. As a result it sold about a tenth of what the original Wii sold."
The Wii U was rapidly outsold by Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, although Nintendo has enjoyed success with its handheld 3DS device. The new Switch console can be seated in a dock to play games on a television, or used as a stand-alone portable device. Games will be delivered on small cartridges - a nod to older Nintendo consoles.
The console will use a customized NVIDIA Tegra system-on-a-chip. The core count/type is unknown, as is the choice of Maxwell or Pascal GPU.
The PS4 and Xbox One mid-cycle refreshes could allow Nintendo some breathing room to compete on graphics/processing capabilities, since developers will be forced to support the older consoles:
Strangely, though, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 may provide some relief. They aren't being abandoned – which means developers will already be focused on building games that scale down to less powerful hardware. It's not unreasonable to imagine the Switch will offer visual quality on par, or very nearly on par, with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 throughout its lifespan.
Also at WSJ.
As we get closer and closer to Nintendo's January 12 announcement of additional Nintendo Switch details—and an expected March launch for the hybrid portable/home console—we're starting to get more information on what kind of support the system might get from third-party developers.
The most interesting tidbit comes from Laura Kate Dale, who's come through with a number of reliable Nintendo Switch leaks in the recent past. Dale's recent tweets suggest Ubisoft's long-anticipated Beyond Good & Evil 2 will reportedly be "exclusive to Switch for 12 months," and the game will come to Xbox One, PS4, and PC only after that time. That information should be confirmed at Nintendo's January reveal, according to Dale.
[...] Unfortunately for Nintendo, not every developer is as interested in bringing big-name titles to the Switch. In an interview with Oceanic gaming site Stevivor, Bioware's Michael Gamble said he had no plans to bring the upcoming Mass Effect Andromeda to the Switch at this point. However, Gamble did leave some wiggle room: "if the Switch launches and everyone's just yammering for Mass Effect, who knows. We never want to close doors like that."
The level of high-quality support that the Switch receives from third-party developers could be a make-or-break question for the console. Will the upcoming Nintendo Switch be a Wii U-style abandoned island, with no one but Nintendo to make compatible games? Will it be a Wii-style repository of third-party shovelware that lacks competent ports of the big-budget games made for competing consoles? Or will it be a return to the SNES era, the last time a Nintendo home console was unquestionably one of the primary destinations for major games from most third-party publishers.
Coverage of the Nintendo Switch console "launch" is available at Ars Technica, Tom's Hardware, Anandtech.
Nintendo Switch uses a USB Type-C cable for charging, and has a battery life ranging from 2.5 to 6.5 hours, comparable to (but less than) the latest version of the Nintendo 3DS XL. It can be played in Console, Handheld, and Tabletop modes. The handheld has a 6.2" 720p screen but the docked console supports 1080p60 gaming.
The Switch has 32 GB of internal storage, some of which is used for the operating system. It has a "game card slot" for games released on some form of proprietary physical flash media, but also comes with a standard microSD slot for expandable storage.
Nintendo will offer a free trial of a paid online gameplay service for the Switch (similar to Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus) until sometime in Autumn.
The system will be released on March 3, 2017 for $299.
Here are some of the games.
Previously: "Nintendo Switch" Coming in March 2017
Will Third-Party Developers Support Nintendo's Switch?
Nintendo takes a gamble with record-setting Switch production plans
The Nintendo Switch has been an unqualified success so far, with Nintendo recently promising increased holiday season production to meet demand and expectations of over 16 million total sales by the end of March 2018. Reporting now suggests the company is expecting that sales pace to increase markedly in the coming year, though, and another associated production increase would come with both a fair amount of potential and risk for the company.
The production news comes from The Wall Street Journal, which cites "people with direct knowledge of the matter" in reporting that Nintendo plans to make 25 to 30 million Switch units in the coming fiscal year (which starts in April 2018). That's a major increase from the 13 million produced for the current fiscal year, which itself was a sizable increase from the company's initial plans to make just 8 million units for the console's first full year on shelves. WSJ's sources say those production numbers could go up even higher if coming holiday season sales are strong.
Nintendo exec: Failed Wii U is responsible for Switch's success
The success of the company's latest gaming console, the Nintendo Switch, is the result of lessons taken from the failed Wii U, according to Reggie Fils-Aimé, the president of Nintendo America.
[...] The console also didn't have a consistent flow of new games supporting the system. "We've addressed that with the Nintendo Switch -- having a steady pace of new launches is critical," he said. The Switch includes games like "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," "Super Mario Odyssey" and "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe."
Another issue with the Wii U was that it didn't have "strong support" from Nintendo's third-party partners, Fils-Aimé said. "Whether it's the big companies like Electronic Arts, or whether it's the smaller independent developer, we need those companies to create content to support us. We have that now with Nintendo Switch," he said.
Previously: Will Third-Party Developers Support Nintendo's Switch?
Nintendo Switch Available on March 3rd for $299
Nintendo Switch Stolen by Distributor's Employees Ahead of Launch, Details Leaked
The Ghost in Nintendo's Switch - Game Unlocks on the Date of Satoru Iwata's Death
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Monday February 20 2017, @11:59AM
Engineering is about fixing leaks.
Marketing is about engineering leaks.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Touché) by q.kontinuum on Monday February 20 2017, @12:49PM
Isn't that a bit drastic? Wouldn't it be enough to terminate his contract and file charges?
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:14AM
Can't wait for law enforcement to investigate and possibly file charges, if they get around to it. Need a strong action statement in the past tense to put this issue to bed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday February 20 2017, @06:29PM
Seriously, what's so damn hard about putting the camera on something static rather than waving it around like a damn looney?
And I'm sure those few clicks on a basic white Wii-like menu were worth theft-charges.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday February 20 2017, @11:57PM
Consoles stolen on/before release date is nothing new. I knew a truck driver who made off with six PS2's on launch. How? Easy. Thirty units were headed from a Best Buy warehouse to a store. The trailer was sealed using a tamper proof seal at departure but the warehouse was so hectic during the Christmas season that the person in charge of sealing the trailer and signing off gave the driver the seal to put on while he watched. The driver knew how the seals worked and they could be applied without locking the seal making it permanent. So he slips it on making it look like he locked it and the guy just signs off on it. He drove by his house, unloaded six of them, and then properly locked the seal. When he got to the store they went ape shit trying to figure out how they were stolen in transit. Called the warehouse who told them the trailer was sealed. They verified that the seal wasn't tampered with. The manager or whoever went over the entire trailer looking for a hole or some other point of entry. Nothing. They let him go having zero evidence and told him "I don't know how you did it. But I know you did it." He denied it and went about his day. He kept one and sold the other five for $800 each. His reasoning for stealing them? "They were the worst stop. They wouldn't let you use their water fountain or bathrooms and were assholes. Fuck em" (I have probably told this story before.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @12:35AM
So after you spent your loot did you manage to get another driving job? Come one out with the sequel...
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:25AM
Ha. He stole other stuff but usually small amounts for himself. Sometimes he fenced stuff, usually clothing. Retired with a pension (teamster). Then he worked with me in our family business where he taught me to drive trucks. Crazy SOB with a real dick attitude but I got along with him. Many fun times spent in the cab of a truck with him and his crazy stories of stealing, crossing paths with gangsters in the trucking business in south Queens out of the multitude of small trucking outfits around JFK airport and NEw Jersey, and characters he worked with.
He gave me a few of his scores. One was four NIC's, or New Internet Computers he had no way to get rid of. Low end PC's with a CD drive, 64MB SDRAM, some 200-300MHz socket 7 VIA and integrated sound. It booted off a CD and ran Linux off a ramdisk running nothing but Netscape or mozilla and a network/dial up config tool. Used a 4MB 44pin ATA flash disk for storing settings and I think the web cache and history. Total crap but I modded two to run Linux off a 44pin HDD which I played with for a bit. Though I mostly used them for parts. The other score was a box of bare Turtle beach Santa Cruz PCI sound cards. I sold a bunch on ebay and made a few hundo which was spent on booze and drugs. Still have a bunch somewhere in a box.