Nintendo Switch

[mdn2]

Considering I do most of my gaming on a handheld these days I would be happy with this. Although the idea of playing something as pretty as the new Zelda on a small screen means I wouldn't want to play it till I had access to the TV. Which means I would hardly play it. 

[Cyhwuhx]

5 minutes ago, mdn2 said:

Considering I do most of my gaming on a handheld these days I would be happy with this. Although the idea of playing something as pretty as the new Zelda on a small screen means I wouldn't want to play it till I had access to the TV. Which means I would hardly play it. 

 

This angst has proved to be completely meaningless in effect. (Based on Dragon's Crown/Odin Sphere Leifthrasir.)

[gizmo1990]

What if they released 2 different screen versions? Like the 3ds and XL?

[angel]

8 minutes ago, gizmo1990 said:

 

I've long argued (shouted to the wind) for them to bring back the Gameboy brand. Still stand by it, particularly now with the retro selling so well to millenials etc. Even kids have heard of the brand.

 

Huge female player base on the DS and 3DS means that's never coming back. My mums got 3 DS's.

[fasteasyfree]

24 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

I wouldn't be so sure that the dock has no actual processing power. If the handheld physically goes into the dock, it might be in their interests to put a slightly beefier GPU with more RAM in there so that it can render natively at HDTV resolutions. Put a USB 3.0 port on that bad boy.

 

I think the dock is going to be dumb. However, I reckon the handheld unit will under clock itself when on the move, and only utilise a 720p screen. That way they can eke out more battery life. 'Only' being 720p isn't really an issue if you're using a lush OLED panel.

 

When in the dock things will power up to full speed to cope with a 1080p display, and have some sort of active cooling provided by the dock.

 

All depending on cost, i have yet to decide if I'm getting this or a Wii U to play Zelda.

[angel]

Actually, this dock stuff has thrown me. I was expecting a handheld that was its own controller, it simply cast its display to the TV via a chromecast style dongle.

[andy_h]

In the case of Breath of the Wild, I'd expect the portable element of the game to be constrained to dungeons and perhaps mini-games to working within limits of the mobile GPU, whereas when docked the entire game is made available to players. Perhaps the base unit also leverages the mobile cpu for a second screen. The idea of walking around with a heavily cut-down version of Zelda appeals to me, but it also seems like a very Nintendo-ish thing to do.

[gizmo1990]

9 minutes ago, angel said:

 

Huge female player base on the DS and 3DS means that's never coming back. My mums got 3 DS's.

 

I'm pretty sure they'll have heard of the Gameboy as well. I'm sure the Wii had a big uptake of female players too, didn't help the WiiU..

[angel]

5 minutes ago, gizmo1990 said:

 

I'm pretty sure they'll have heard of the Gameboy too. I'm sure the Wii had a big uptake of female players too, didn't help the WiiU..

 

Yes but the name "gameboy" is exclusive, as in it's excluding girls. Any PR firm would tell them to not go back to it.

[Cyhwuhx]

6 minutes ago, andy_h said:

In the case of Breath of the Wild, I'd expect the portable element of the game to be constrained to dungeons and perhaps mini-games to working within limits of the mobile GPU, whereas when docked the entire game is made available to players. Perhaps the base unit also leverages the mobile cpu for a second screen. The idea of walking around with a heavily cut-down version of Zelda appeals to me, but it also seems like a very Nintendo-ish thing to do.

 

This would be insane and a nightmare to explain to consumers.

[RubberJohnny]

I don't think competing with smartphones for gaming on the go is a good move, going up against the massive phone companies seems harder than going up against the console ones.

 

Getting something for mobile gamers to play in the home would have been a safer bet, the Wii shows they can make good living room social stuff. Also cartridges suck, dirty hipsters.

 

[Majora]

8 minutes ago, andy_h said:

In the case of Breath of the Wild, I'd expect the portable element of the game to be constrained to dungeons and perhaps mini-games to working within limits of the mobile GPU, whereas when docked the entire game is made available to players. Perhaps the base unit also leverages the mobile cpu for a second screen. The idea of walking around with a heavily cut-down version of Zelda appeals to me, but it also seems like a very Nintendo-ish thing to do.

 

Really?! That would be a terrible and very un Nintendo-ish thing to do.

[Revival]

So power wise it's somewhere in between a Wii U and an Xbox One. It doesn't sound like this'll be home to many XB1/PS4 third party titles as the system will only perform well with Open GL if it's Tegra based.

 

Very ballsy move to go with a handheld when everything seems to be mobile phone themed these days. Good luck!

 

I wonder when they plan on revealing it? Tokyo Game Show?

 

[Alex W.]

8 minutes ago, andy_h said:

In the case of Breath of the Wild, I'd expect the portable element of the game to be constrained to dungeons and perhaps mini-games to working within limits of the mobile GPU, whereas when docked the entire game is made available to players. Perhaps the base unit also leverages the mobile cpu for a second screen. The idea of walking around with a heavily cut-down version of Zelda appeals to me, but it also seems like a very Nintendo-ish thing to do.

 

So you go into a shop, buy an NX on launch day with Breath of the Wind, take it home, finish the tutorial, and it tells you to go to the shop and buy an accessory before you can actually play the rest?

 

They're not Sony.

[rafaqat]

13 minutes ago, angel said:

 

Huge female player base 

 

fattist

[Alex W.]

5 minutes ago, RubberJohnny said:

I don't think competing with smartphones for gaming on the go is a good move, going up against the massive phone companies seems harder than going up against the console ones.

 

Supposing for a moment that this does turn into a complete flop, Nintendo will have an army of developers comfortable with a powerful mobile chipset, mobiles should've caught up pretty broadly with the NX's power level, and the customers will be used to the NX controller being this thing that snaps around a portable screen.

 

If they wanted to become a thirdparty and accessory developer for mobile devices they'd be in a great position to do it.

[andy_h]

6 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

This would be insane and a nightmare to explain to consumers.

 

If that was true, it wouldn't necessary stop Nintendo from doing it. They basically failed to sell off-screen play on the Wii U.

 

5 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

 

So you go into a shop, buy an NX on launch day with Breath of the Wind, take it home, finish the tutorial, and it tells you to go to the shop and buy an accessory before you can actually play the rest?

 

They're not Sony.

 

One would assume that buying a NX, or whatever it ends up being called, would net you the mobile and base unit.

[Alex W.]

4 minutes ago, andy_h said:

One would assume that buying a NX, or whatever it ends up being called, would net you the mobile and base unit.

 

Nintendo needs to minimise the selling price, and bundling an accessory that not every customer will need is opposed to that.

[The Boatman]

Nvidia's Tesla is based around four ARM processors.

 

ARM have just been bought by a Japanese company.

 

[Cyhwuhx]

6 minutes ago, andy_h said:

 

If that was true, it wouldn't necessary stop Nintendo from doing it. They basically failed to sell off-screen play on the Wii U.

 

That's because they never bothered to tell anyone it was a separate console instead of a new Wii add-on. Nintendo are horrible at telling what they have/do. The more instructions they need to give, the worse the outcome.

[andy_h]

5 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Nintendo needs to minimise the selling price, and bundling an accessory that not every customer will need is opposed to that.

 

With the Wii U they already sold a base unit and an expensive controller, it's just that the controller wasn't designed to be independent. This didn't stop the Wii U from being competitively priced.

[Protocol Penguin]

Baseless rumours about the NX sourced from a video games website? I'm not falling for this again.  

[Alex W.]

4 minutes ago, Cyhwuhx said:

 

That's because they never bothered to tell anyone it was a separate console instead of a new Wii add-on. Nintendo are horrible at telling what they have/do. The more instructions they need to give, the worse the outcome.

 

 

[Revival]

 

[fasteasyfree]

5 minutes ago, Revival said:

 

Sold.

[Nespresso]

32 pages on gaf.

 

[Alex W.]

7 minutes ago, andy_h said:

 

With the Wii U they already sold a base unit and an expensive controller, it's just that the controller wasn't designed to be independent. This didn't stop the Wii U from being competitively priced.

 

I think I see what you're getting at now, but I think it's incredibly unlikely that Nintendo will release a console where your games stop being the same games when you're playing them in a different place. What happens if you save in a part of the game that's not portable and try to play on the move? It's too confusing.

 

I'm not sure the WiiU's launch price was really all that competitive in hindsight; it was as expensive as two of the existing home consoles, and only a bit cheaper than the PS4.

[JPickford]

21 minutes ago, andy_h said:

In the case of Breath of the Wild, I'd expect the portable element of the game to be constrained to dungeons and perhaps mini-games to working within limits of the mobile GPU, whereas when docked the entire game is made available to players. Perhaps the base unit also leverages the mobile cpu for a second screen. The idea of walking around with a heavily cut-down version of Zelda appeals to me, but it also seems like a very Nintendo-ish thing to do.

 

No chance.

[angel]

17 minutes ago, rafaqat said:

fattist

 

Its a peripheral chair reinforcement and harness system, the Nintendo huge female player base.

[Nespresso]

Performance will be comparable to this then?