The Nintendo Switch has been officially
revealed and a Nintendo Direct Switch presentation took place on the
13th January to give fans and journalists an insight into
what the console can do and what some of the upcoming games and
features are. This list is a breakdown of 15 positives and negatives
of the Switch presentation and will feature some opinions on what I
think Nintendo could have done better and what they got right.
I had quite a lukewarm reception to the
presentation itself, I think Nintendo could have gone into a lot more detail in some areas rather
than spending so long explaining the gimmicks of the console. The
first party games shown at the presentation look great and there are a lot of things to be excited for, but there are also quite a few disappointing aspects of the Switch too (a while ago I wrote a list of things I wanted from the Switch, so you can refer to that to see why I feel slightly let down in certain ways). Below is my
breakdown of the best and worst bits of the presentation, starting
with the positive points and then going into some negatives.
1
Games
Easily the best part of the Switch presentation was the announcement of a few new games. Primarily a new 3D Super Mario was announced called Super Mario Odyssey which will feature openly designed levels in a similar vein to Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine rather than the more linear levels featured in more modern entries which is very exciting.
Not only that, but Splatoon 2 was announced and looks to be very similar to the original Splatoon only with new weapons and abilities that include a dodge roll which seems to make the game much faster paced. A expanded port of Mario Kart 8 was announced called Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which features new characters and a proper battle mode with new arena stages (oddly the trailer for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe wasn't featured in the Switch presentation but was uploaded to YouTube straight after the livestream).
Aside from these three games we also got introduced to two more games called 1-2-Switch and Arms. Both look like tech demo style games (similar to Nintendo Land being the Wii U's tech demo game) which might be fun, but from what I saw, I don't think they'll have much staying power compared to the other titles which were announced. There was also a new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which gave us a release date (3rd March 2017) and showed us more of the game's world and themes.
I hoped for more games to be announced at the event, but the ones which were shown looked good and I look forward to eventually getting my hands on them.
2
Joy-Con and Second Screen
A lot of the presentation was devoted to showing off the new controller for the Switch. Like the Wii U it will offer a second screen experience but rather than using the second screen and TV screen at the same time, the Switch is only able to use one at a time. This effectively makes it both a portable and a home console in one. When you want to play games on the TV you slot the second screen into a dock and the picture goes to the TV, when you want to take your gaming elsewhere, you simply take the screen out of the dock and take it with you. Unlike the Wii U, the Switch can be played anywhere, no matter how far away from the TV you are.
The main difference between the Wii U and the Switch though is the new Joy-Con controllers. These little devices can be slid off of the Switch screen and put onto a grip which resembles a standard game controller so you can go from having a normal controller to having a controller attached to the Switch's second screen at any time. Aside from that though these controllers can be used without being attached to a grip or the screen (so think of them as a Wiimote and Wii Nunchuck but wireless), so there's a lot of customisation with the way you want the controller to feel.
That isn't the only thing the Joy-Con can do though. They have an 'HD Rumble' feature which can apparently replicate the feeling of a glass being filled with ice and will react to being shook. While this is a nice little gimmick, I don't know how much this will help the games to feel anymore immersive. I imagine this will be a feature which is forgotten about quite quickly. The Joy-Con also has a motion sensor letting you use it as a pointer or a Mario Kart wheel (like a Wiimote), and a camera which can detect distance and hand gestures, which opens it up for use in party games, but similarly to the 'HD Rumble' feature, I'm just not sure this will be a gimmick that is used all that often. Of course, the Joy-Con also has an Amiibo scanner built into it, so all those Amiibo you've collected will be compatible with the Switch.
Yet another feature of the Joy-Con is that because they are two separate devices, they can actually be used as two controllers for multiplayer. However, this does look a little bit uncomfortable and because it only has the same amount of buttons as a SNES controller, it will be extremely limiting as to what games can be played like this. Don't expect to be able to play Splatoon 2 by using this method.
They also come in red and blue variants. Which is nice.
3
Capture Button
This is sort of an extension of the last point but I feel it deserves it's own section. The Joy-Con controllers feature a 'Share' button (similar to the PS4's). At launch this will only be able to capture static pictures but Nintendo said that it will eventually be able to capture video and you'll be able to upload these to social media directly from the Switch. While this isn't big news because the Xbox One and PS4 already do this, I feel like this could be implying a more laid back attitude to sharing footage of Nintendo content on the internet.
It's a common complaint by YouTube content creators that if they use any footage of Nintendo games or trailers, they will get a content ID claim, meaning that until they can prove their video uses Nintendo gameplay or other footage under the fair use act (for example as part of a review) they can't make money from their video.
This would imply that Nintendo are open to the idea of taking a more laid back attitude to their games being shared on social media, otherwise why would they put a share button on their new console? The issue is that after the Switch presentation ended lots of people created videos which discussed what they thought of it. Those videos then got content ID claims which is sending out conflicting messages. If Nintendo are wanting a share feature to be a big part of their new console they really need to make their minds up whether they want people sharing footage of their games or not.
4
Region Free
Nintendo have finally entered the 21st
century and have created a region free console. This means you can
play any game from any country on any Switch console, regardless of
where you got them. While this isn't particularly amazing for me
personally (because I don't travel often or import games), I can
appreciate that this is a big deal for some people. I might even be
tempted to import a new Monster Hunter if it's exclusive to Japan
(like so many of them are).
Although this is a positive point about
the Switch I do feel like this is something Nintendo should have been
doing for a long time, so it's not really something to give them
praise for. It's good that they've finally opened up to the idea that
people travel and move countries, but it's something they should have
done years ago.
5
Close Release Date
The Nintendo Switch releases on the 3rd
March 2017 worldwide. The presentation took place on the 13th
January, so the release is less than two months after that. This is
great because people will still be talking about the Switch in that
time and the appeal, hype and general chatter won't have died down too much by then. Not only is it good from a marketing standpoint but it means you won't have to wait long to be playing a Switch
for yourself if you plan on getting it on release.
1
Price of the Switch
This is the thing about the Switch which has put me off of getting one on release. It's far too expensive for what it is. With Nintendo releasing a new console so late into a generation where the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have been available for so long, they needed to undercut those consoles on price. No one is going to use the Switch as their primary method of playing games because they will already have a system which is more suited to playing third party games. As such, the Switch will basically become a companion to your existing consoles and will be used primarily to play Nintendo exclusive games. But, for me at least, there just aren't enough games coming out on the Switch to warrant getting one for the high price tag.
Not only is the price of the Switch itself too high but the amount of additional costs and the high price of those costs is insane. In the UK the Switch console is £280, the price of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (the major release title of the Switch) is £60, the price of a Pro Controller (which you'll want if you plan on playing local multiplayer with someone who doesn't have a Switch and you don't like the idea of using a Joy-Con each) is £60 and the price of an accessory kit (which you'll want if you plan on using your Switch as a handheld) is £17. So already just for the console, a game and a controller you've spent £417 ($513).
I don't want to talk about this for too long because it's my next point on the list, but you now need to pay for an online subscription to play the Switch online. The price of PlayStation and Xbox's online services are £40 for a year and I imagine Nintendo will follow this pricing structure, so after the trial period you'll need to pay a subscription cost if you want access to online multiplayer, and then there's all the other games you're going to want to buy. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for example, costs £50 which then brings the total cost of the Switch and two games well over £500. Then consider the price you can get a PS4 and some fantastic games for and consider the much better online subscription services and the better third party support and it's obvious that the Switch just isn't good value for money. I feel like this could be the thing that causes the Switch to fail unless it drops substantially in price soon after it's release.
2
Paid Online Subscription
Nintendo have proved that they can't be
trusted with online services, the Wii and Wii U's online modes work, but they can be temperamental. The general lack of understanding of online gaming is also prevalent in games like Splatoon and Super Smash Bros. where it's difficult to join a friend when playing on certain modes. This makes me worry that this online subscription that the Switch will introduce simply won't be worth the money because the service won't be good enough to warrant paying for (even if it worked flawlessly it's debatable as to whether it's worth paying for).
Nintendo don't even seem to focus on online multiplayer very much. Out of all the Nintendo franchises I can only name Splatoon, Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart which utilise online services fairly heavily, and even then, in the case of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. they're better played on local multiplayer.
Nintendo didn't go into enough detail
with this subscription model, they didn't say how much it was going
to cost and they didn't say what paying the subscription gets you.
After the presentation it was revealed that you'll gain access to a
monthly NES or SNES game, but the caveat here is that unlike with the
Xbox and PlayStation's subscription service, you can only keep these
games for a month. So it's even more like a rental service than
Nintendo's competitions subscription services are.
Not only is the
month limit on all the NES and SNES games ridiculous but the fact
that they have already been out for such a long time means that you
probably already own at least one copy of the games you want anyway, whether that be on
cartridge, the Wii store, Wii U Virtual Console, 3DS Virtual Console
or Mini NES. It's also incredibly easy to emulate these games on PC
which devalues digital copies even more. When you compare this to the
PlayStation and Xbox's online subscriptions and consider you get
relatively recent games and get to keep them for as long as you remain
a subscriber, it makes Nintendo's subscription service look
atrocious.
I disagree with any of these game
companies forcing you to pay to use online features, it's such a big
part of modern gaming and to be locked out of content which is
essential to the experiences of some games is terrible. The bottom line is that Nintendo
can't justify having a subscription for it's online services and
because of that, it shouldn't have one.
Nintendo had the chance to make itself
look like the least greedy of the three major console developers by not
having a subscription for it's online services but instead it simply
followed the trend. Which is extra disappointing because that isn't
what Nintendo normally do.
3
Not Enough Detail Given
In the grand scheme of things the
Switch presentation didn't give us much information about the console
itself. A lot of time was taken up by talking about the games and
controllers but as far as the console goes, we were still left in the
dark for a lot of things. Some information was clarified later in
interviews and on the Nintendo website but this is all information
which should have been given as soon as the presentation started.
We didn't know anything about the state
of the Virtual Console, Miiverse, backward compatibility, the
Switch's interface, the price of the online subscription, the format
of the games and the style of the game boxes, whether Miis are still
a thing, whether it features an equivalent of Trophies or
Achievements and more. A lot of these things we still don't know even
this long after the presentation. Another huge thing we don't know is
whether games we purchased on the Wii U or 3DS will be accessible to
us on the Switch (but I'm assuming not).
There's also awkwardly worded
descriptions of services on the Nintendo website which might imply
that NES and SNES games can be played with new online multiplayer
features but this hasn't been clarified. This is all basic
information that I wanted to know after watching the presentation but
instead I sat looking at a man shaking a controller like a glass of
ice.
4
Number of Release Titles
There are only five retail games announced for
the Nintendo Switch's release which are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the
Wild, 1-2-Switch, Just Dance 2017, Skylanders: Imaginators and Super
Bomberman R. Two of those are multi-platform which devalues the launch
line-up slightly, one of those is a tech demo game and the other is
Bomberman, so you know what to expect from it (not that that's a bad thing). I honestly thought Nintendo
would have had at least three huge titles to be released with the
Switch to make people know that they mean business.
There's no sign of Monster Hunter,
Super Smash Bros., Metroid, Kirby, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Pikmin or
any of their other franchises (or exclusives). The new Mario game isn't out until
near the end of the year, so it seems like it's going to be a very
long wait for some more heavy hitting titles. We also have no idea if
the Virtual Console will be available on the Switch's release so
there could be a huge lack of games on the system at launch.
5
Gimmicky Filler Games
Extending the point made previously, it
seems a little bit like Nintendo are going down the same route they
always do when releasing consoles where they need at least one game
to show off the many, many gimmicks of the console. While these can
be fun and I have no problem with them being there, I feel like they
could have made more engaging games which feature these gimmicks in a
way where they enhance the actual gameplay experience rather than
being used in a one off mini game and never seen again.
Very often the best uses of Nintendo's
gimmicks are when they are used as a part of a bigger experience and
when they aren't forced on you too heavily. For example the second
screen item management and gyro aiming in The Legend of Zelda: The
Wind Waker HD was fantastic and the best use of the Wii U gamepad (in
my opinion), but it wasn't forced on you and it wasn't distracting
from the game you was playing.
I'm getting a bit off track but to
conclude this point, I feel like Nintendo needed to focus a lot less
on the gimmicks with the Switch but they ended up doing the same
thing they always do which is a bit disheartening.
6
Third Party Guests Had Nothing to Say
The most awkward section of the
whole presentation is when Nintendo brought their third party guests
on stage to talk about games they were developing for the Switch. It
basically consisted of people standing awkwardly and talking
about all the 'amazing' games they're creating without really having
anything to show. We were told that a Fifa game was going to be on
the Switch (shocking I know), we were told of a new Suda51 game, we
were told Sega is doing something which will be on the Switch and we
were shown Skyrim for the billionth time.
All of those games (apart from Skyrim)
were talked about vaguely and no gameplay was shown, so it's hard to
get excited about it and it just seems like a desperate attempt by
Nintendo to rectify the 'mistake' with the Wii U having very little
third party games.
What Nintendo should do is forget about
third party developers because they will only stop making games for
the Switch anyway (like Ubisoft did with the Wii U)
and focus on gaining the support of indie developers. Indie
developers create unique and interesting experiences which would
expand the library of games available on the Switch at lower prices
than Nintendo's own games and could result in people not only getting
a Nintendo console for Nintendo products but also because it's the
best console platform for indie games. But instead they stick to the
same old plan of trying to make it look like third party developers
are interested only for them to stop supporting Nintendo at the start
of it's life span. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I feel like this
section of the presentation was representative of what third party
developers have to offer the Switch. Nothing.
7
Lack of Focus on Indie Games
Continuing on from the previous point
yet again, I don't think there was a single mention of any indie
games being released on the Switch throughout the whole presentation.
The Wii U gradually opened up to the idea of having indie games on
it's eShop so I figured it would be even more expanded on the Switch.
However, it seems like the Switch will have very little indie content
(at least anytime soon) which is extremely disappointing and having a huge indie library at the forefront of the store could have really set the Switch apart from it's competitors.
If games like INSIDE, The Witness,
Superhot, Undertale, Spelunky, Super Meat Boy,
Gone Home, SOMA, Towerfall Accession and Hotline Miami were available
on release or soon after release it would massively improve the
library of games available and make the Switch much more appealing.
Especially if these games were priced well (something the Switch
doesn't seem to be good at). But also if more marketing went into
promoting these games on the store it would increase awareness for
those products and support the developers who make them.
Upon doing research into the Switch's line up of upcoming games, The Binding of Issac Afterbirth+ is actually going to be a release title which is fantastic, but it wasn't shown at all in the presentation which leads me to believe any indie games that do make their way onto the Switch won't get much publicity at all.
8
Bad Battery Life
One of the main talking points after
the Switch presentation was about it's battery life. During the
presentation it was stated that the battery would last between 2.5 hours to 6.5 hours. Realistically this was probably exaggerated and the 6 hour battery life is probably if the Switch has all it's
battery saving features turned on and if it was on the home screen on
the lowest light settings. I imagine the actual battery life will be
around 3 hours. They even specifically said that the battery life
will be heavily dependent on the game you're playing so I wouldn't
expect to be able to use the handheld mode for extended periods of time.
This isn't much of an issue for me
because I don't plan on using the handheld mode much, but for those
who are planning on using it as an upgraded 3DS, I wouldn't expect to
be able to get properly immersed in the new Zelda without being near
a power source.
9
Already out of Pre-Orders
Of course this would happen. It's
Nintendo. You would think after the Amiibo and Mini NES selling out
instantly, Nintendo would realise that they need to stock lots of any
product that they release. But no, the Nintendo Switch has already
ran out of pre-orders on Amazon and on the Nintendo website, but they have promised that a bigger batch of pre-orders will be
available soon and you can still find them in stock if you search
around so it doesn't seem like quite as much of a problem as the
Amiibo and Mini NES situations were. But still, it should be easy to
just go to any website and pre-order a console as soon as it's
announced to be available.
I can foresee the Switch completely
selling out when it's properly available and Nintendo simply saying
what they always say which is “we didn't know it would be this
popular”. When you're Nintendo, you should know that anything you
release is going to be popular and just running out of stock isn't
acceptable.
10
What Exactly Makes the Switch Different to
the Wii U?
This has been something I've been
thinking about for a while after properly taking in all the information
about the Switch. The Switch doesn't seem much more powerful than
the Wii U and it's not even classed as the start of a new console
generation. It doesn't seem to have as many games on it's store as
the Wii U and other than the new camera on the Joy-Con it can't do
anything that the Wii U can't do with Wiimotes or it's normal
gamepad.
It just seems like the only thing the
Switch can do over the Wii U is be a portable device as well as a
home console, which is very cool, but just not enough of a reason for
me to be overly excited.
If you couldn't already tell, I'm quite
disappointed by the Switch right now. Maybe if more information is
revealed before it's launch which clarifies some of my concerns I
will change my overall opinion, but as it stands I'm not overly
excited and I don't see any reason to get a Switch anytime soon. It's
over priced, it doesn't stand apart from the Wii U enough and the
library of games isn't big enough.
It feels like the Switch is being
released in a beta stage. The online model obviously hasn't been
worked out yet (due to the subscription service not being essential
until Autumn). The lack of information in the presentation is
off-putting and I wouldn't be surprised if the Virtual Console was
missing many, many key games at launch (if there even is a Virtual
Console at launch).
I mentioned this earlier in this
article but I think it's a nice way to sum things up. The way I see
it is that you never have a Nintendo console as your main method of playing games.
You get a Nintendo console as a companion to your PS4, Xbox One or PC
in order to play Nintendo exclusive games. Not many people will buy a
Switch and use it as their main way of playing third party games
because it's not as powerful and not as many third party developers
are interested in making games for it and that's just the way it is.
For what is essentially a secondary console the Switch is simply too
expensive and this is the main reason why the Switch is very
unappealing to me. The online subscription is flawed in this regard
too, if you're already paying for the Xbox One or PlayStation's
online service you are going to be substantially less likely to pay
for another online subscription which does the same thing only on
another console, and this is another reason that no one will buy
third party games on the Switch. All these things devalue the
Switch substantially but this isn't reflected in the actual pricing
structure.
I want the Switch to succeed and I love
the vast majority of Nintendo games, so I will get the Switch
eventually and I'll probably think the console is great when I have
one, but even when I do have one, I still won't think it's worth the
price it's going for at the moment.
I hope you enjoyed my list of positives
and negatives about the Switch presentation, if you have any feedback
or if you think I've missed something off the list or even if you
disagree with any of my points, let me know in the comments or
through any of my social media, I would love to know what everyone
thinks!
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