After months and months of painfully intense speculation, Nintendo has given everyone an answer. We now know what the NX is, and what it looks like.
It’s officially called the Nintendo Switch. “In addition to providing single and multiplayer thrills at home, the Nintendo Switch system also enables gamers to play the same title wherever, whenever and with whomever they choose,” the video description says.
As many of the rumours suspected, it’s a home console with detachable controllers that can then be converted into a portable unit. The whole casing is fairly small, as you can see in screenshots:
The video also showed a range of games, including Splatoon, Mario Kart 9, and NBA 2K17, being played on the console.
In a release sent out to all media, Nintendo said the following:
At home, Nintendo Switch rests in the Nintendo Switch Dock that connects the system to the TV and lets you play with family and friends in the comfort of your living room. By simply lifting Nintendo Switch from the dock, the system will instantly transition to portable mode, and the same great gaming experience that was being enjoyed at home now travels with you. The portability of Nintendo Switch is enhanced by its bright high-definition display. It brings the full home gaming system experience with you to the park, on an airplane, in a car, or to a friend’s apartment.
Gaming springs into action by removing detachable Joy-Con controllers from either side of Nintendo Switch. One player can use a Joy-Con controller in each hand; two players can each take one; or multiple Joy-Con can be employed by numerous people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily click back into place or be slipped into a Joy-Con Grip accessory, mirroring a more traditional controller. Or, if preferred, the gamer can select an optional Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to use instead of the Joy-Con controllers. Furthermore, it is possible for numerous people to bring their Nintendo Switch systems together to enjoy local multiplayer face-to-face competition.
The release, however, did not mention backward compatibility or any touch capabilities for the screen when the Joy-Con controllers are undocked. It does say that more about the console, including launch titles and the price, will be announced leading up to its release in March.
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102 responses to “Nintendo Unveils The NX — And It’s Called The Nintendo Switch”
Looks a hell of a lot better than I was expecting it too.
Edit: still not quite sure if they’re planning to replace both the Wii U and the 3DS with this or just the Wii U. Surely if it’s the ‘new generation portable console’, it’d have to be sold at a lower price than most home consoles (families buy multiple portables remember) but the tech seems pricey…
It’s not exactly ‘portable’ 🙂
I can just about fit a Vita or 3DSXL in my pocket. You’d need a backpack or satchel for this.
Calling the price now – US$349 (with a chance of $399). The power level’s going to be somewhere between last gen and this gen (more powerful than Wii U though). The lack of a DVD drive will make it cheaper but as you say, this will most likely be a second console for most buyers, so it shouldn’t hurt sales too much.
It’s portable in the way a laptop is, rather than a handheld gaming console as such – which is still plenty portable in a bag as you said.
Just take my money now Nintendo. This thing might actually turn me into a console-ish gamer again…
Another thought. This thing is not for kids. 3DS is tough as shit. This will break when dropped, mobile phone style.
N64 was groundbreaking for bringing 3D worlds and gaming to our home.
Wii was groundbreaking in getting gaming off the couch and moving around.
Switch looks groundbreaking for a modern world on the go.
Add a Netflix subscription, and you now have your entire Entertainment system as a portable powerhouse!
I am very excited to see future generation consoles pair up the Switch’s mobility with VR!
That’s what I really want. It looks like it doesn’t have a touch screen which is really dissapointing (hopefully they change that before launch) but if it does have one, a browser, media playing capabilities… Could end up dominating the tablet market (or make a whole new one) for non-business users.
Before I was idly curious about a Nintendo console, but this has sold me on it.
Pleasantly surprised with this in all honesty. Looks great, and hopefully it’ll create some more competition in the console market (I like cheap consoles..)
Nintendo doesn’t give a crap about competing. It sets a price point and if you don’t like it then you just have to lump it.
Now, if you are in the market for an Xbox One then it’s a different story altogether!
Thats true – I pretty much have the mindset at the moment of “Alright buy a PS4 or Xbox and then buy whatever Nintendo releases…”. A few other people I know do the exact same thing.
It definitely looks intriguing.
Put pokemon on it and it would be an instabuy for me
Suspect Pokemon will be ported over. The concept more or less kills the DS and Wii U in a single blow. The announcement won’t be made before they’ve sold millions on the 3DS, mind you.
This thing is a lot bigger than the 3DS though. I’m wondering if they’ll either keep the 3DS or introduce a new 3DS that is kind of a Switch mini. Something the size of a mobile phone.
Not usually a nintendo fanboy but this is amazing. Looks like it has potential to put nintendo back on the map
Honestly not sure whether excited or disappointed lol it has some cool things like a real controller for home use but im not at all interested in a portable but i guess the options there if needed. gotta wait for specs
Well I guess it would be good if you’re a travelling kind of person. If not then it might not be very appealing at all.
If you move from loungeroom to any other room, it will be handy.
Many will likely play on the toilet.
I sure will. It was a damn good thing my family’s house had two toilets when I was a teenager
This Is Crazy! I love it! Go Nintendo!!! : D
Having trouble believing this is real, it just sounds so made-up 😛
Cautiously optimistic. I really hope for seeing Nintendo hit some home runs with this one, so please: more third party support, easier multiplayer/online, no region lock, and reasonable backwards compatibility. (And for the love of god please design this machine properly as to not have glaring flaws as with going all the way back to the N64.)
On a second viewing there’s an obvious frame drop for the LoZ when it goes portable. Just an observation.
That could still be the Wii U version or just not fully optimized. Still 6 months from release.
Cant be sure every game apart from mario, was running on that hardware.
Just had a look and I see what you mean, definitely noticeable. Doesn’t seem as bad on the other games though so it could just be because Breath of the Wild is still being developed (maybe not optimized for the small Switch screen yet?)
Yup, my thoughts exactly. Since it was never built for the Switch to begin with it’s the logical conclusion I’d guess. Perhaps just bump down the draw distance for this one? since it’ll be on the portable anyway…
More likely, as it’s obvious that all the system guts are inside the screen, so there’s no reason for a loss of processing power.
Oh? The framerate drop would indicate that some of the grunt is lost once you go portable. I’d say there’d be some graphical grunt retained in the dock (main system) once you go portable. right? That’s just how I’m seeing it. I could be mistaken.
Nope, Nintendo confirmed the dock is just power and TV output, no extra grunt in it.
They might reduce the grunt to make the battery last longer, though. And rendering on the device probably uses up a bit more processing power (disclaimer: absolutely not an expert).
I hate reduced grunt. I’m all for all grunting, all the time!
But yeah, if there’s nothing in the dock and the handheld has to pump out 1080p/30fps on a battery then it is going to get pretty hot and die pretty quick. If they can get it up to 3 hours + then that will be good enough for me.
EDIT: Actually, I wonder if the handheld screen IS 1080p. It might be something like 720p or 576p.
The press release said ‘High Definition’ though that could just mean 720p (or they could just be exaggerating completely and it’s even lower)
The PS Vita is 960x544p, so I guess upping it to 720p would be feasible. Pumping 4x the number of pixels as a Vita seems, on a handheld, ambitious… 2-3 hours battery life confirmed?
@zambayoshi Not necessarily. The Samsung Note 5 has a slightly larger screen than the Vita (5.7 over 5″) with a 1440 x 2560 resolution and I can easily get around a full day out of the battery on mine – when using it constantly (lasts around 2 days with little use).
Nintendo don’t have the best track-record for battery-life lately though so who knows..
Speculation base damage on the rumours was a 900p display
Any frame rate drop you observe is most likely post-production special effects, those would most likely be super imposed images on blank screens / models cause you would be getting the glare of the studio lights on an gloss surface / glass.
yeah none of the images you see are likely to be actual footage of the screen. these sorts of commercials usually simulate images by rendering out game capture and motion tracking it on to a dummy system. you’ll probably have noticed in iPhone commercials the subtext down the bottom that say “Images simulated” for this very purpose. At this point I doubt we’re able to tell if there will be a performance drop or not.
That said, I doubt there would be. It appears that the actual system is isolated within the screen itself. Wouldn’t it be a bit troublesome for the system to suddenly have to offload resource usage from the screen to the dock if there were some extra grunt in there? I doubt they’d be able to instantly trade off usage from, say, an onboard GPU to one contained in the dock. I mean think about it…let’s say the dock adds a couple extra GB of VRAM (just hypothetically, I’m not exactly sure how they’d organise it) to the system when playing in Console Mode. If you were playing an intense game with a large scene that was taking advantage of this and you said HEY TIME TO GO and suddenly pulled the system out into portable mode, what does the program do with all that sudden memory loss? The game would have necessary data stored in those extra memory banks. You’d have to reload the scene and switch on limitations so you don’t reach a memory overflow.
Just doesn’t make sense to me.
(also I have a very limited knowledge of memory usage and management within programming so I could be talking nonsense but this is simply how I understand things. Someone could probably explain this better!)
Nah, Nintendo have already confirmed there is no extra grunt in the dock, so it is likely just a problem with the way they put the video together.
Nintendo continued: “The dock is not the main console unit of Nintendo Switch. The main unit of Nintendo Switch is the unit that has the LCD screen, which the two Joy-Con controllers can be attached to and detached from. The main function of the Nintendo Switch Dock is to provide an output to the TV, as well as charging and providing power to the system.”
According to Nintendo, the Joy-Con controllers — named Joy-Con L and Joy-Con R — will be included alongside the Nintendo Switch system.
I was hoping the new console would be a hybrid handheld/home console, I’m stoked.
Now all it needs is some Wii Sports/Nintendo Land style bundled game for that sweet local multiplayer goodness. Those games get people worked up in the best way.
Only thing I’m worried about is their online. I’m hoping the whole Nintendo ID is a sign of moving in the right direction.
Holy crap!!! True console gaming everywhere?? F’ yes!!!!!!!!!!! Bring on the new Pokemon games!!
This may just beat out my reigning champ the Gamecube as best console ever.
Monster Hunter or bust.
I’m soooo looking forward to home console MH again! Wooooo!
Looks interesting, but it looks like there are at least 2 controllers (2 side remotes + the central module) and the option of a standard one. Reminds me of how the N64 controller was supposed to enable 3 different game modes but 99% of games just used the middle and right handle.
I’m glad I have a preorder already, get them in or you’ll have to wait until July or September.
How did you preorder yours?
EB have had pre-orders up for the NX for about a year now. If there’s a vague rumour of something that may exist in some form some day, EB will take your money for it 😛
I just want Nintendo to make a traditional console with great graphics that can best showcase their original gaming. It seems yet again they’re going for another gimmick. how long must I wait for a good console? 🙁
Forever. It’s not going to happen.
This looks good too though. I’ll wait and see how it works in practice.
Did anyone else find that commercial awkwardly antisocial? I’m sure most people will hate you if you take your console out with you.
Depends how much animal magnetism you have 🙂
No real surprises here. If Nintendo was having problems with the mobile market eating up sales they’re going to have even bigger problems now. I can see most people looking at this and saying “So it’s controllers for my tablet?” It will be interesting to see how it goes though. Right now the only thing separating it from the Razer Edge and NVidia Shield is the Nintendo brand.
That’s ridiculous! The ad clearly shows all the ways it can be used! It’s a home console that allows you to take it with you anywhere with the removeable screen.
It’s actually the other way around. It’s a mobile device that can plug into a base station to stream to your TV (Same as if you hook a tablet to an AppleTV or Chromecast). The screen part is where all the processing and rendering power is otherwise it couldn’t be taken out and about. The base station will most likely be handling the scaling and adding extra performance for bigger screens.
My friend seems to reckon it’s actually the new Shield, pretty much.
Wow Nintendo. You’ve successfully made the worlds smallest D-pad ever. way to go… http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f85/Cuga/Screen%20Shot%202016-10-21%20at%201.23.25%20AM_zpsevhvfr2r.png
I mean, that’s what I’m looking at, right?
Its the right side controller. Its a plus symbol, opposite pad has a minus.
So I guess its selection controls to act like select/start, volume control, brightness etc.
I think that’s actually the + button. notice on the ‘pro’ controller there is a +, – and home button. There’ll have to be versions of that on the removeable controls so my guess is that is them.
Oh right. ya Duh. : P
Looks like the standard controllers just have buttons to replace the dpad on the left, which would suck for fighters but at least the pro controller has a proper dpad
It is a shit d-pad, for sure (the separated one).
Skyrim on a Nintendo device? That’s cool, I wonder if its the new edition. Hopefully the controller plays well!
Definitely has to be the new edition as they have well and truly stopped supporting the original and the remaster is the only thing worth showing for that IP right now.
Does not look interesting at all.
Wow! The rumors were right on point with nearly every aspect of this… worse kept secret in Nintendo (tablet, detachable controllers, tv interface, proprietary memory card and ports) but thats a good thing cause the rumors made it sound super awesome to begin with. Cool they have a larger controller.
Going to end up smudgy my finger prints on the top right and top left corners of the screen disconnecting the pads. Is that an air vent on the top? and didnt see an Amibo in action (NFC?) and no sign of a camera?
Still wonder whats under the hood or the service that will power it. (Android? Bluetooth? Nvidia? Batteries by Samsung?)
Shame the acting is terrible cause those people are trying so hard to look excited by a blank piece of plastic that had the games super-imposed in post production.
Honestly? Not sure what to think.
I’m sceptical now, but hope for more info before I’m ‘wowed’.
Need to sleepppppppppppppp.
Interested…..my soon to be 6yr old would love the shit out of this.
That’s what I was thinking too. MY first thought was…..”oh well, looks I’ll need three of these bloody things.” One for me, and one each for my two kids. *slow clap Nintendo.
But seriously, I feel a little jealous our kids get to enjoy something like this these days. I can just imagine the epic sleep overs that will now occur the world over with kids and their Switches.
haha, @10sec mark. Obvious hand cramp?…
btw, from what I can google Image it doesn’t seem so but at the 52sec mark, could someone here who owns a 3DS say whether you could insert a 3DS cartridge in the console or not? Just a thought…
ah, looks like that’s a no. Just saw the underside of the Switch cartridge & it’s rocking a 5 grill gold connection as opposed to the 3DS’s 17 gold arrangement. Sad face : (
But whatevs I guess.
Surpassed expectations. The modular clip on controllers feel really modern and innovative. And I believe it’s pretty obvious that the screen will have touch capacities. You can bet your ass that Mario Maker is a franchise that’s here to stay. On the other hand, backwards compatibility is almost guaranteed to not exist as it seems they’re moving back to cartridges.
Also to temper the expectations of Sony/MS bois and gals, the size of the apparatus doesn’t promise giant leaps in technological upgrades. Feel free to start dismissing the system right away. The rest of us will just get it to play the unique Nintendo games that you cannot get in the other consoles.
it doesn’t need giant leaps in technology it just needs to keep pace with the current gen enough that third party devs don’t drop support for it.
When the Wii U was released, it was on par with then current gen (PS3) but people still complained because they wanted it to be /more/ powerful. What the people I’m alluding to usually want is basically a “next gen console” (meaning significantly more powerful than the more powerful current console) that can play Nintendo games.
but the wii u released a year before the ps4 was known to be coming. it wasn’t compared to the current gen because it came so late.
True. On the other hand, it was waaay too early to have been “next gen” either. And yet, such were the expectations. Taking in account that the Switch is also coming at a sort of mid-point in the “generation” (if that’s going to keep being a thing), makes me think it will suffer of the same sort of misguided criticism.
Cautiously optimistic. If battery power is good then I can totally see my train ride for work being so much better if I can take full console games with me. I feel that it will probably see the death of games designed specifically for a portable experience though.
I assume that it’s not a touch screen considering you can play without direct access to the screen, which will seems like a backward step.
Oh It’s definitely touch screen for sure. There’s no way it couldn’t be. Rest assured Stevoru.
I’m not sure whether to buy three or one and two Switch Pro controllers?
Touch Screen???
What else can it do? Apps, media player, web browser, facebook, twitter, email, messenging ?
Can I hide the controllers in my pocket and convince people its my work tablet ?
Are those controllers in your pocket or do you just have giant, hideously deformed ‘nads? 😛
That trailer has me kinda excited, but also cautious. What’s the battery life of the console when detached? What are the specs? How hot does it get? How bad were those visible framerate dips?
The concept is great, even though I don’t think I’d get much mileage out of the “switch” feature (hah! so punny) as I don’t go out all that often.
Man you think Minamoto is actually insane, & the rest of the hardware team, building up to the actual reveal. All these years of rumours & patent applications, of crazy portable hardware, detachable controls, general unconformity & throwing normality out the window. But nope. Low & behold come reveal, the new console is slick & sexy & seems to pull off exactly what one might expect was being thought up while on shrooms.
The Switch looks, for all intents and purposes, fking rad & super awesome. Can’t wait to get my hands on it. Hat’s off to you Nintendo. Well done you.
It looks great, but the question really is what is it replacing? the wii-u or the 3ds?
I cant see the 3ds market sharing with this at all.
It doesn’t appear to have a disc drive, 3d screen, or a DS card slot – which would rule out any backwards compatibility (except digital).
Well I suppose when you think about it rationally, the 3DS really is an endless money pit for Nintendo. So they’d be crazy to step on that, at least on the Hardware side. Keeping both platforms separate is totally logical but still a bummer nonetheless : ( .
It’s definitely garnered as a WiiU replacement though, but you’ll never hear them say that. “Oh both systems can live in harmony” you’ll hear them say… But God, Nintendo please let me use my Pro Controllers on that thing, all 4 of them. Those things were 70 bucks a pop you know!
I can only guess & hope that there will be some sort of WiiU backwards compatibility. & hopefully one that won’t cost us WiiU owners with a bit of a built up catalogue an arm & a leg. – Lest you scorn us all Nintendo & leave a sour taste in our mouths. That last thing you want is a Nintendo fans with Poison in their mouths, ready to bite back…
Its directly replacing every Apple iPad and Android Tablet that the parents let their kids play on and end up accidently purchasing $120 microtransaction packs on mobile games.
Short term its replacing the Wii-U… long term if it takes off it may phase out the DS (larger screen, better controls, more computing power) why own both a Switch and a DS. Hard to tell since the DS is still a market success that Nintendo doesnt want to hard kill off.
Comments from the CEO a while back implied that the profit stream for the NX series will be through electronic network services (subscriptions, game store)… so any backwards compatibility would be implied through eShop ports. Then again Nintendo has made huge amounts from reselling people that same game for 2 decades 😛
On the apple ipad and android tablet, i don’t see it replacing those. Parents also buy those for kids because most schools require/have an option for one and there’s a lot more learning focused apps out there.
That’s kind of the way I see it, too. The most obvious slot for this is as a substitute for tablet gaming. Having physical controls gives it an instant advantage there. Problem is it’ll have to compete against both the Apple marketing machine and brand power as well as the fact that games there are either free to play or a few bucks to buy, while Nintendo games are notoriously expensive due to their seeming reluctance to discount like the other players do.
if nintendo aren’t doing VR or Augmented reality right now they will be screwed again. like when the missed the blu-ray player / HD boat with the the wii which knocked them back a few years.
It looks exactly like what I was expecting, even down the the Razer Edge style dockable side controllers.
I haven’t been this excited for a Nintendo product since I saw Wave Race 64 demo’d…. Welcome back buddy 🙂
Damn them. It looks great.
I can see this cannibalizing both Nintendo markets. The idea is cool, but I can’t see it having enough grunt to compete with consoles, and I can’t see it being cheap enough to compete with the DS.
Add on top its almost certainly an ARM chip + Nvidia GPU, and devs are going to have a hard time porting games to it.
Shrug, Interesting times I guess.
Pokemon and I’m sold. Its been years since I had a handheld, Almost broke and bought a new3ds this week. Glad I held off.
I need more info before i’m sold. need to see the battery life, how it actually functions when portable by non nintendo videos, what the situation will be with the 3ds family and will games be cross platform, are the specs good enough that third party devs won’t just drop it in a year or two.
i worry if its not replaceing/compatible with the 3ds library then it’ll suffer as a portable like the vita did where the games aren’t designed around being on the go. but it seems too large to replace the 3ds line.
https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/789155375526260736
From Software are backing the Switch. Dark Souls on a Nintendo console?
It could be cool if there’s a great library of games both nintendo properties and third party only concern is the build quality of all the pieces as kids are heavy handed wonder what a screen replacement would cost
So… Skyrim on a Nintendo Console…
I didn’t realise Splatoon had a gigantic esports scene!
Well I’m in.
Yeah but the Wii U was good too. And it hardly has any games.
This looks nice but unless they can actually get a library of games people want to pay then I can’t see the point in going there.
Also (I have a Wii U) Nintendo rarely do deals on any games. So you have to pay a premium price for everything. That gets really old, really quick.
Well I’m sold!
This is exactly what I have been waiting for.
I shall now hold off on my 3ds purchase and wait for this to come out.
It is going to make the commute to work so much better.
Saw it last night… slept on it and realised I was analysing the preview for the console.
Whats with the video demographic of the actors, 21-30 year old singles… not a single child, couple or family in sight?
For everyone who was just a little bit disappointed that the WiiU controller stopped working when it got too far from the console and you couldn’t keep playing in the bathroom…
I think it looks awesome.
My curiosity is peaked but lets see if any new games come to the console rather then re-launching of the same titles for different formats
a tablet PC with restricted software and games? sure its good for the kids…. plenty of other devices with wider range of support tho…. they are competing for that market