Nintendo Switch is powered by NVIDIA

[SlowSpyder]

So much for all the arm chair pundits on here who said the switch would bomb. http://www.shacknews.com/article/99...-month-of-any-game-system-in-nintendo-history Best selling Nintendo console in it's history AND it was released in an off-season month. My hope is that they iterate new versions of it every 2-3 years but remain backwards compatible. So newer games can target 720p 30fps on gen 1 and 1080p 60fps on gen 2.

I'd like the Switch to do well, but I think it'll struggle long term. I remember the Dreamcast also set records when it launched, then a few years later Sega was dropping out of the console business.

 

[railven]

I'd like the Switch to do well, but I think it'll struggle long term. I remember the Dreamcast also set records when it launched, then a few years later Sega was dropping out of the console business.

Dreamcast's nail was rampant piracy. When you can download a simple BootLoader and require zero effort to play imports/back-ups, you're console is basically dead. I saw a recent video by Guru Larry covering this. Dreamcast hardware sales spiked after the bootloaders gained wide usage. Software sales plummeted.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Dreamcast's nail was rampant piracy. When you can download a simple BootLoader and require zero effort to play imports/back-ups, you're console is basically dead. I saw a recent video by Guru Larry covering this. Dreamcast hardware sales spiked after the bootloaders gained wide usage. Software sales plummeted.

I don't disagree, just making a point that a console's lifetime is a marathon, not a sprint. I wouldn't make any declarations one way or another so near launch. I've always liked Nintendo, had a Gamecube and Wii, Eternal Darkness is still one of my all time favorite games. But I think Nintendo has an uphill battle in front of them, but Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, etc. are solid big name franchises... we'll see.

 

[sm625]

My hope is that they iterate new versions of it every 2-3 years but remain backwards compatible. So newer games can target 720p 30fps on gen 1 and 1080p 60fps on gen 2.

Switch HD, Christmas 2018? Same games, but 1080p, with 5-6 hr battery life. Seems doable. I personally dont even care about the 1080p thing. Zelda looks just fine; I never stopped and thought omg the resolution is too low. What it needs is more battery life.

 

[tviceman]

Switch HD, Christmas 2018? Same games, but 1080p, with 5-6 hr battery life. Seems doable. I personally dont even care about the 1080p thing. Zelda looks just fine; I never stopped and thought omg the resolution is too low. What it needs is more battery life.

Better battery and higher frame rates.

 

[antihelten]

Switch HD, Christmas 2018? Same games, but 1080p, with 5-6 hr battery life. Seems doable. I personally dont even care about the 1080p thing. Zelda looks just fine; I never stopped and thought omg the resolution is too low. What it needs is more battery life.

It took Nintendo over three and a half years to launch an update for the 3DS, so I doubt we will see an update for the Switch that fast.

Also I don't really see how this would be anywhere near doable, since you would need to improve efficiency (or battery size) by a factor of 4 or there about. The only new SoC that would be ready by Christmas 2018 would be Xavier (and that's probably debatable), and Xavier is still on 16nm so it's doubtful you would see those kind of improvements (not to mention that you need a 4x improvement not just from the SoC, but also from every other component).

 

[poofyhairguy]

<redacted> the Amiibo bug has bit me. Now I have over a dozen and I can't stop. Nintendo is going to get $1K from me this year (more if I can find a SNES Classic when they come out). Well played Nintendo.

GEM is a gem of a game, it is hard but I love playing it. It has the best HD Rumble of any game I have played so far. Probably last Indie game I buy until Overcooked comes out.

I made $14 off of 1 2 Switch. I got it for $40 new off Ebay, never opened it at a party I bought it for (everyone was too busy with Snipperclips and Fast RMX) so I returned it for store credit to Wal-Mart for $54. Traded that store credit for eShop cards so I can buy digital Splatoon 2. After the test fire all I can think about is how fun that game was, and so I know I will always want it so I will pay the extra for digital. At least I faked out the zipcode on my Switch so I don't have to pay tax on digital games anymore.

I have also pretty much pre-ordered every other Switch game I want this year and I don't see any big gaps. My poor gaming PCs might not get a lot of action but we will see. Can't wait for Mario Kart.

Profanity is not allowed in the technical forums
Markfw
Anandtech Moderator

 

[Sonikku]

They won't let me take a sealed game back to Walmart for credit if it's over $20 in price without a receipt. Strange they would give you $54.

 

[poofyhairguy]

They won't let me take a sealed game back to Walmart for credit if it's over $20 in price without a receipt. Strange they would give you $54.

Frankly I didn't do much, just walked up and said I didn't have the receipt. It was kinda magical. I don't feel bad about it though, I dropped like $100 on Amiibos while I was there (<redacted>Amiibos, sigh).

Profanity is not allowed in the technical forums
Markfw
Anandtech moderator

 

[Sonikku]

Dude, get yourself GCU at Best Buy. It works on more than just games. It works on Amiibos too.

No way in <redacted>I'm paying $16 for an Amiibo, not even for Zelda.

Profanity is not allowed in the technical forums
Markfw
Anandtech Moderator

 

[Face2Face]

I just bought the NFC tag for the Fierce Deity set and Wolf link. Cost me less than $20 on eBay. My son is still enjoying BOTW, but I'm burnt out on it. I haven't played the Switch in awhile, but he plays it everyday. After i'm done studying I plan on getting back into TW3.

 

[sm625]

My son is still enjoying BOTW, but I'm burnt out on it.

The game has a sad ending. Not because of the story, but because of all the stuff I acquired with nothing left to do. Had a sword that did over 100 dmg, Tier 4 barbarian armor, endless supplies of +3 atk food. I killed a Lynel in like 5 seconds. Walked up to him and wrecked him like a fed Master Yi in LoL. I wish there was a MOBA mode because I would have gone on a killing spree.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Dude, get yourself GCU at Best Buy. It works on more than just games. It works on Amiibos too.

No way in <redacted>I'm paying $16 for an Amiibo, not even for Zelda.

Wow that is some great prices you got. I paid twice that for my Luigi. I will have to get me some GCU. So far I only bought Falco from Best buy buy my local one has a few more I want.

 

[tviceman]

Nintendo forecasts switch to sell 13 million units in it's first year of production: http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/27/15447342/nintendo-switch-sales-forecast-earnings-2016 . By comparison, PS4 sold 18 million units in it's first year and xbox one sold just under 10 million units.

 

[antihelten]

Nintendo forecasts switch to sell 13 million units in it's first year of production: http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/27/15447342/nintendo-switch-sales-forecast-earnings-2016 . By comparison, PS4 sold 18 million units in it's first year and xbox one sold just under 10 million units.

Technically they are not forecasting 13 million in its first year. The have sold 2.74 million in the first month (March 2017), and are expecting another 10 million over the next 12 months, so a little under 12.74 million over 13 months, not 12 months.

Their sales for the first year will probably be somewhere around 12 million.

It might also be worth noting that the 3DS sold about 16 million in its first year. Although the 3DS did also launch at a more favourable price ($250).

 

[Sonikku]

The 3DS was a flop at that more favorable price. It was so bad Nintendo cut it to $200 shortly after launch.

 

[Ichinisan]

Dude, get yourself GCU at Best Buy. It works on more than just games. It works on Amiibos too.

I got Best Buy GCU back in December and a Best Buy credit card.

- PS4 Pro
- The Last Guardian at launch
- ~8 other games (most are still sealed and I might never get to them)

- Playstation VR kit
- PS4 camera
- Extended warranty for PSVR

- Resident Evil VII at launch

- PS4 controller + PC receiver bundle

- NES Classic 12/20 event (Christmas gift for niece)

- Nintendo Switch at launch (pre-ordered in January, and I think that's when they charged by card)

- NES Classic 4/24 event (probably going to use the extra controller and keep the rest untouched, the collection shelf)

- Various Amiibos and other things I can't remember

On 12/20, I specifically asked if GCU would work for NES Classic and they said it wouldn't. Another time, I had asked if it would work for the PSVR and other accessories. They said it's only for new games. I asked about Amiibos. Each time, they told me that GCU would not work. I even had trouble getting them to apply it to new-release games and ended up not buying some of them (like Final Fantasy XV). They couldn't even make their buy-2-get-1-free holiday sale to work correctly.

I need to go back and review all my purchases. I haven't been able to log-in to Best Buy's web site to look at rewards stuff because they have been severely glitched. I can log in and make purchases (like when I reserved the Switch), but trying to view anything about my account triggers a message telling me that a verification email was sent to my address, which I never receive. The obfuscated email address shown looks like the Gmail address I use to log-in on Best Buy's site, but there's an extra "*" in the obfuscated part. I don't know why they would email some address other than the one I use to log-in.

 

[antihelten]

The 3DS was a flop at that more favorable price. It was so bad Nintendo cut it to $200 shortly after launch.

Quite possible, I'll gladly admit that I'm not really that knowledgeable about the minutiae of the 3DS launch history.

A more interesting point of comparison might be that the 3DS sold 3.6 million within roughly the first month. So in other words quite a bit better than the Switch (about 30% more). Subsequently the sales then fell of a cliff (only sold about 600k in the following 3 months). Will be interesting to see if the Switch follows a similar pattern.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The 3DS launch library sucked and I think that is part of the reason it crashed when it did.

I think Nintendo is being very careful with the Switch, and is spacing out some of the biggest game franchises (Mario Kart, Splatoon, main Mario) in a managed way that is at the very edge of droughts in between. They will need some big games coming in 2018 at regular intervals to keep their momentum but so far the major issues with the Switch (hardware issues, AAA third party support, etc.) all seem very manageable. I still think it will sell 3DS-like numbers longterm.

 

[peonyu]

It would be nice if Nintendo made a powerful console for a change and tried to compete head to head with Sony and Microsoft. Their last console to do that was the N64 [which still cut corners since it had not CD drive]. I still would not buy it though...unless it had a proper traditional japanese RPG style Paper Mario game, the first two in the series were awesome.

 

[poofyhairguy]

It would be nice if Nintendo made a powerful console for a change and tried to compete head to head with Sony and Microsoft. Their last console to do that was the N64 [which still cut corners since it had not CD drive]. I still would not buy it though...unless it had a proper traditional japanese RPG style Paper Mario game, the first two in the series were awesome.

Their last console to compete in that way was the Gamecube and it was a huge flop. It was such a flop Nintendo went in a completely different direction for the Wii. They tried to compete a little more directly again with the Wii U, but it undershot the mark which made that console DOA.

Frankly I don't ever see them selling a non-portable console again. I think the Wii U was such a failure it basically killed their home console line, and the Switch is a massive leap compared to their 3DS and DS lines.

 

[peonyu]

Their last console to compete in that way was the Gamecube and it was a huge flop. It was such a flop Nintendo went in a completely different direction for the Wii. They tried to compete a little more directly again with the Wii U, but it undershot the mark which made that console DOA.

Frankly I don't ever see them selling a non-portable console again. I think the Wii U was such a failure it basically killed their home console line, and the Switch is a massive leap compared to their 3DS and DS lines.

I have been out of the loop as far as consoles go since the PS2 really, so its a shame to hear Nintendo has bombed so much in the home console market. Its weird for someone like me who grew up in the NES era to see Nintendo out of its former market but thats business for you.

 

[Ichinisan]

It would be nice if Nintendo made a powerful console for a change and tried to compete head to head with Sony and Microsoft. Their last console to do that was the N64 [which still cut corners since it had not CD drive]. I still would not buy it though...unless it had a proper traditional japanese RPG style Paper Mario game, the first two in the series were awesome.

Hellooo? Gamecube and XBOX both more powerful than PS2.

Wii U was also the most powerful home console until XboxOne and PS4 were released.

 

[dark zero]

Their last console to compete in that way was the Gamecube and it was a huge flop. It was such a flop Nintendo went in a completely different direction for the Wii. They tried to compete a little more directly again with the Wii U, but it undershot the mark which made that console DOA.

Frankly I don't ever see them selling a non-portable console again. I think the Wii U was such a failure it basically killed their home console line, and the Switch is a massive leap compared to their 3DS and DS lines.

But... Why they renewed their 3DS line with a new console then? Switch is not good enough for them?

 

[poofyhairguy]

But... Why they renewed their 3DS line with a new console then? Switch is not good enough for them?

The Switch is $300. That doesn't fit into every Christmas budget. So the 3/2DS still has life.