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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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday October 21 2016, @11:57PM
Touchscreen is not a great control medium unless you're actively moving the objects on screen.
I want to stare at the screen while my fingers jump between the buttons, and feel the amount of force I exercise on the analog stick, which I can't do on a phone.
Puzzle games on a phone? Sure, better than via controller. Shooting or RTS game? Gimme a mouse any day. Platformer or fight game? A controller with real buttons or bust.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 22 2016, @12:39AM
It's trivial to make a $20 dock that adds plastic buttons on the two sides of a modern smartphone, making it a lot like what the Nintendo Switch mobile setup looks like.
Nintendo could partner with the major Android manufacturers and Apple to make cheap phone add-ons for an existing base of over a billion people, then run their IP (Mario, Zelda, etc.) on the phone. Maybe they could even allow cartridges or SD cards to be inserted into the add-on.
Obviously you run into a problem of different phones having different capabilities, but most of those should be more powerful than the 3DS (without the 3D gimmick).
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(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday October 22 2016, @12:58AM
True, but it's a lot simpler to make nice stable quality games on hardware you control.
And handling multiple controllers while casting to the TV is not a trivial setup for most.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2016, @06:08AM
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 22 2016, @09:24AM
You're thinking of VR mode.
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