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Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

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Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#411

Post by ap3 »

blakeyrat wrote: post #156
revjx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nintendo Shop on the Wii U is reasonable, actually. It's fairly easy to use, discoverability is decent. It's pretty basic but it's (in my opinion) their best attempt yet. Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better. My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must o…

It has a bad UI. But the real killer is: games are still tied to hardware, not user account. Which means, if your console dies, you lose all your purchases. (Unless that's changed VERY recently.) If you're used to the Xbox store like the grandparent, going to the Nintendo Shop is like stepping back in time a decade.

>But the real killer is: games are still tied to hardware, not user account.

This seems crazy in this age of apps

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#412

Post by ThatPlayer »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #407
revjx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nintendo Shop on the Wii U is reasonable, actually. It's fairly easy to use, discoverability is decent. It's pretty basic but it's (in my opinion) their best attempt yet. Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better. My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must o…

The worst part of buying stuff on the Wii U shop is that you can't store it on a tiny SD card. You have to plug in a full external hard drive. This seems like a pretty obvious thing for them to fix in this iteration.

Don't forget that the WiiU also follows USB standards strictly and won't power a portable USB hard drive over a single USB port, requiring a Y-cable. Also you only get the option of formatting the entire drive to use for the WiiU.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#413

Post by Fej »

shogun21 wrote: post #390
whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo tried VR in 1995, but it did not go well.

Then they tried AR in 2011 with the 3DS. It went better.

It wasn't much better. The cameras on the 3DS are absolutely garbage. AR was a fun pack-in distraction.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#414

Post by greenshackle2 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #259
greenshackle2 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's an excellent point. The Nvidia Shield (Tegra K1) can pull 15-20 watts while gaming. I can play hearthstone for like 3 hours when plugged in . 5V usb port at 2.1A = 10.5W = battery gets drained even when plugged in. It has a 20Whr battery, if I'm at 90%, and I'm wary of draining it below 10%, that leaves me with 16Whr = an hour at most of gaming on battery alone, on a brand new full capacity battery.

And Hearthstone isn't a demanding title, the streaming works fine but any of the "native" Tegra AAA 3D games kill the drain the device before you finish a level (30min~ and honestly even under that, some games are going to flat out at like 10). Doesn't help that the device gets pretty darn hot also. Portable gaming sounds fun until you remember that batteries suck, sure they've improved much but what improved is also…

The Shield is 1900x1200, the Switch will run at 720p in mobile mode, for "performance reasons". Pretty sure they mean for battery life reasons. It will push out 1080p when docked so it's not like the GPU can't handle it.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#415

Post by pluma »

bane wrote: post #410

Looking at the concept video it's clear that Nintendo is doubling down again on the idea of personal, physical interaction as the concept for multiplayer activities -- the "you and a friend in the living room" idea. I applaud this, but online gaming is something that Nintendo really struggles to "get" and has cultural issues with as well. There was a an article (gamasutra maybe?) about how the N with the Wii, fundame…

I think it's really cultural. Nintendo doesn't "get" online gaming because it's fundamentally different from Nintendo's DNA.

Nintendo is about children and families and friends playing together. Online gaming is about playing in a global community of millions of strangers who may become friends or turn around and spoil everything.

That risk is accepted by gamers who play multiplayer online games, especially competitive games with online matchmaking, but it doesn't fit in the "we're all friends and family" narrative.

I think it's brilliant. Looking at the concept video, it seems like local coop multiplayer is built right into the controller but they also show local network multiplayer for parties and competitions. It's trivial and emphasised by the design choices.

Games that do online multiplayer well generally don't work well with local multiplayer. What works well for one doesn't necessarily work well for the other. This reminds me of GameBoy link cables and 1990s LAN parties -- and I think that's an aspect of gaming that has been neglected by other companies who favoured the online experience.

Also it makes perfect sense for Nintendo not to attempt to get a foot in the door in an oversaturated market they don't have any experience in. This is the first time since the original Wii that I've been genuinely surprised by Nintendo and it looks a lot less gimmicky.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#416

Post by Fej »

timdorr wrote: post #238
exelius wrote: post #105

So this is a good usage model, but I'm not sure people want to carry yet another tablet just for gaming. The only way I can see this thing taking off is if it can fall back into an Android tablet mode for web browsing, e-mail, etc. But as a portable gaming console, it seems pretty boss. I'm curious what the hardware specs are and how they differ from other tablets on the market. Because if it can't do everything else…

> So this is a good usage model, but I'm not sure people want to carry yet another tablet just for gaming. The only way I can see this thing taking off is if it can fall back into an Android tablet mode for web browsing, e-mail, etc. I'm sure I'm wrong about this, but the video didn't show any touching of the screen or a stylus (which the 3DS and Wii U both have). I wonder if this thing is even capable of being used…

According to the unconfirmed spec sheet, 10-point capacitive touchscreen.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#417

Post by n-gauge »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #97
revjx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nintendo Shop on the Wii U is reasonable, actually. It's fairly easy to use, discoverability is decent. It's pretty basic but it's (in my opinion) their best attempt yet. Assuming they build on what they've learn from that, I'd hope the store for this system will be even better. My most-wanted feature for the shop is for them to stop forcing me to buy the 'classics' on every bloody Nintendo system I buy! I must o…

The Wii U shop isn't completely awful, but it's pretty bad. Both the 3DS and Wii U shops suffer from two major problems: 1. They're slow. 2. There are far too many screens/taps necessary to do things. Loading each new screen seems to take at least a few seconds, and there are way too many of them. I'd estimate you could remove like half the screens in the 3DS shop purchase flow through better UX design. Just compare…

It's like their 'HTML5' browser (on either the wii or wiiu) so slow! The thing is the Wii U specs could have run at least some version of Chrome... I don't think it's hardware accelerated in anyway - prehaps to stop html5 games interfering with 3rd party games maybe?

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#418

Post by msbarnett »

fullofit wrote: post #319
dharma1 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia X1 already is 1 tflops GPU and the X2 (which is likely to be in the nintendo) is going to be around 1.5 tflops. Those are mobile SoC's with CUDA cores, fit OK in tablets (Pixel C has one), X1 peak power consumption is about 10 watts. Xbox one GPU is 1.3 tflops and PS4 is 1.8 tflops. So in the same ballpark

1. tflops is pretty meaningless, especially between different GPU architectures. 2. Both Xbox and PS4 consume around 100W. Unless the Switch has 10x the perf/watt, it seems like performance won't be comparable. 3. Both Xbox and PS4 have massive heat sinks and fans, so they'll be able to sustain higher perf for longer.

The X1/X2 are big.LITTLE setups. Between that and various other leaks, it seems that the Switch is designed to run on the low-power LITTLE CPU/GPU in mobile mode and on the beefier Watt-burning big cores when docked.

Not clear on how they're cooling it, though

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#419

Post by Fej »

joeax wrote: post #335

Anybody have any info on how the Switch will be backwards compatible with Wii U discs (i.e. a portable drive perhaps), and 3DS cartridges? I have a stack of Wii U games that hopefully will still be playable.

Switch uses a different architecture (ARM) than the Wii U (PowerPC) so straight-up playing games off the original discs won't happen. They'll have to be re-released.

Re: Nintendo Switch – New Video Game System [video]

#420

Post by delecti »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #296
delecti wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly confident you're incorrect. There's a single shared account between the 3DS and Wii U online stores, and I also know for sure that 3DS purchases are tied to your user account, rather than your hardware. I suppose it's possible that it works differently for the Wii U than the 3DS ecosystems, but that seems unlikely. You can still only have an account attached to a single console (of each type) at a time, bu…

Sorry, but that's the way it is. You do share the 3DS and Wii U accounts, but game titles are tied to the console. Nintendo has no instructions on how to transfer games to a different 3ds system without having both of them physically there and working [0]. I wanted to trade in my 3DS for a discount on a "New 3DS", but wouldn't have both systems to transfer my games. (Though I've read most Gamestop's will let you do t…

Calling Nintendo to transfer your account in the event an old system becomes inaccessible is inconvenient, but not insurmountably so. It's good enough for me to consider games not tied to the console.
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