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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?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:58AM
Hey this thing sounds kinda cool.
"The system will be released on March 3, 2017 for $299" oh not so much anymore. Guess i will wait for the price drop as usual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:19AM
pay me to buy your shitch
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:18AM
For that price, this switch had better have at least 5 Gbps Ethernet.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:52PM
They subcontracted out to Cisco. It's only 1 Gbps, but for an additional $599 US dollars they'll let you install an IOS update that enables 10 Gbps. The command to enable the full 10 Gbps is undocumented, but it will work at 5 Gbps after the update.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:37AM
So you want to have a full console experience.
But you want to take it with you.
Great! We can offer you all the limitations of a handheld, without the ruggedness of a 3DS! And with separable parts to lose! And less ergonomically friendly than controllers from the other two of the big three!
I'm glad Nintendo is willing to take risks on design, but they seem to have opted for the worst of most worlds on this thing. I'd rather have a new 3DS XL.
Wait, I already do.
They would have done better with a Gamecube II, making damn sure that it's LAN party friendly with a game lineup that makes the portability a really nice feature. When will they learn that wireless everything is not a good plan in today's crowded spectrum environment? Wait, I should stop talking sense ....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:52AM
1. Make every game crowd hosted.
2. Can't host behind a NAT.
3. ...
4. Profit!
(Score: 2) by mth on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:38AM
Nintendo has a history of providing way too few units to meet demand on release day. It has happened so many times that I think it is deliberate, to create the impression that there is an overwhelming interest in their new product.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Wednesday January 18 2017, @09:49AM
They've stated there will be two million units in the retail channel at launch.
Given that their last console (the WiiU) only moved 14 million units in four years, two million at launch seems reasonable.
Granted, most stores will probably still sell out, but it's not going to be like the original Wii where the consoles were nearly impossible to find for months.
The weak lineup of launch games will also put a damper on sales, I think. To be frank, there's only one 'must have' title for the launch and that's also coming out for their last console; I think even a lot of Nintendo diehards are going to wait for a few more games before picking one up.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @09:56AM
Forgot to add: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/01/mario-kart-8-splatoon-2-more-nintendo-switch/ [arstechnica.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:36AM
I really like my Nintendo 3DS, even if it's first generation. I bought 4 (cartridge) games, and I always checked the game store, but all of a sudden it started to require my full real name.
I think that is now commonplace for most game consoles (the 3DS was the first console I bought after my SNES). It would be ok to me if I could sign-up with a pseudonym, but in no way I'm going to give my real name to a online service (can you tell? :)
I'm now looking for a game console without an built-in social network. I think I can get a SNES somewhere.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:02PM
It wants your real name for the store, for billing purposes. You can still display your made-up game name to other people. In fact, you have both a 'Nintendo Network ID' and a 'nickname' that get set, and neither have to be your real name.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:57PM
What "billing purposes" are there if one pays for games and online matchmaking with prepaid cards purchased with cash at a brick and mortar retailer?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:12PM
Its basically my sons $100 Kindle Fire HD 8 tablet without special offers and kindle app and with some joysticks plugged into the OTG hole (or bluetooth) and adds a HDMI port.
Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
I can tell the difference in the tech specs. The problem is they have to sell to grannie and mom who are gonna be like, why does that tablet cost 3x more than any old similar android tablet?
There is another interesting problem in that fads go in weird waves and my son and his friends are in a wave of minecraft story mode. Why I donno. I tried to interest him in something microscopically more advanced like a RPG or adventure or old time text adventure but its mostly a peer pressure thing to mess with the AI/gameplay for fun and share stories. Anyway, the point is that runs fine on his tablet so its going to be a hard sell to ship "not much different than the old mario kart" and "its just like un-modded minecraft on every other platform" and "its the same minecraft story mode as every other platform" but the good news is you need to buy new hardware that looks the same but costs 3x as much.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:30PM
Dunno about the ARM CPU (too lazy to care), but the GPU portion smokes your kid's tablet.
I guess we could compare the undocked-tablet-faux3DS performance to the tablet, but even then it has fairly advanced GPU cores. Although not the Pascal cores that may have been available had Nintendo waited a few months*.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/nintendo-switch-nvidia-tegra-x1-specs-speed/ [arstechnica.com]
https://www.slashgear.com/nintendo-switch-nvidia-maxwell-in-pascal-out-15467635/ [slashgear.com]
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/14/nintendo-switch-specs-less-powerful-than-playstation-4/ [venturebeat.com]
Obviously, gameplay/controllers and a variety of games beats the need for cutting-edge hardware. There is a decent amount of doom and gloom over the Switch's chances. And although it has an ARM chip, it won't support the existing base of (mostly shitty) Android games out of the box. Although given the expandable storage and plenty of I/O and whatnot, this thing will probably be hacked to support Android games on Day 2.
* Given the use of standard Nvidia ARM hardware, it shouldn't be impossible for Nintendo to refresh the hardware every 2-3 years at little additional cost. That is desirable simply because newer gens would have better battery life. It's basically the same story for PS4 and Xbone, but I think the Tegra SoC is even less customized than the ARM APUs those systems use. Consoles are now fancy PCs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mth on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:58PM
Eh, PS4 and Xbone use x86-64 APUs.
Given that a lot of games they announced aren't ready at launch, I do think they would have been better off waiting until the second half of the year, even more so if that would have gotten them a more advanced GPU.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:29PM
I meant to write AMD, which starts with the same letter as ARM.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mth on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:18PM
It's closer in hardware to the $200 NVIDIA Shield tablet, which also uses the Tegra SoC. So $100 extra gets you a dock, two wireless controllers and a fancy grip. It's not the best deal ever, but it's not terrible either, hardware wise. Subsidized console hardware is a thing of the past.
Anyway, it might look like a tablet, but the use case is very different. Having physical buttons means you can play entirely different classes of games on it. Video games have been around since the 80's; some grannies might not know a lot about video games, but mom is likely to have grown up playing video games herself. She'll know the difference between a game pad and a touch screen.
What is a pity is that unlike the Wii with Wii Sports, they're not bundling their 1, 2, Switch suite of minigames.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:52PM
Bear in mind that Wii Sports wasn't bundled in all regions. ISTR that it was sold separately in Japan.