Hop on the NX Excite Bike!

[Dark Jaguar]

No idea what it is, but I'm going to go ahead and get blindly excited by it. Video tomorrow!



And here it is! The rumors were true after all. It looks very interesting. The only question I've got left is whether that cartridge slot will take 3DS and DS games for backwards compatibility with that line. I predict yes, but I couldn't get a clear enough view of that slot in the preview to know for sure.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Wooooo video! I heard the 64 version was quite good. Me and my sister logged many hours in the NES version back in the day.

[A Black Falcon]

The NX is actually going to be announced, ant not stay as this unknown thing all the way until release? Wow! I was starting to wonder... :p

The video airs at 10am (Eastern) tomorrow, apparently. I'm not sure if I'll try to watch it live or not, it's only a video, but either way I will be very interested to see what's announced! It will be very interesting to see how close it is to the numerous rumors we've previously discussed...

[Dark Jaguar]

I've edited the top post with that video and my commentary.

Here's a few added thoughts. It does appear they've got some decent third party support, but Skyrim being bound for the system isn't much different than Arkham City being bound for Wii U when it first came out. I do love the promise of upcoming entries in Splatoon, Mario Kart, and so on, but I would have expected that anyway. The ability to "have it all" with that controller design is pretty awesome. It's got the Wii U style tablet/TV control as an option, as well as the "wiimote/nunchuck" style (I predict the two removable side bits have motion controls built into them, which we'll know for sure soon enough). When separated, the two bits can be connected together to make a more solid standard controller experience as well. If it uses a standard bluetooth connection, heck, this thing might even link up with our cell phones to provide a better built controller for mobile gaming. I still want to know if they went and made the shoulder buttons pressure sensitive again like back on the Gamecube. That feature has been sorely missed on Nintendo systems.

I would add one more thing. I don't think the single screen prevents backwards compatibility with DS and 3DS. That's a pretty huge screen, and it could easily be cut into two smaller screens to accomodate DS and 3DS games.

Online support is the wild card. Nintendo made some big jumps between the DS/Wii and 3DS/Wii U. Here's hoping they realize the importance of making big jumps again to finally reach feature parity with their competition. Nintendo has a good working relationship right now with Google, so here's hoping they can foster that relationship and maybe even get Google to DESIGN their whole online infrastructure. That alone would make them a serious contender, since Google's online prowess makes Microsoft seem out of touch.

[A Black Falcon]

So yeah, basically all the rumors were true. Nintendo usually doesn't leak, so I wonder where all this stuff came from... like everything about this system was known well before the announcement!

As for it though, yeah, it's a console/handheld hybrid. We don't know anything about the hardware power in the thing, but given that it's got to fit in that tablet form factor (and the hardware is in the tablet part) it can't be too high end, not at the kind of price points Nintendo's surely looking at. The system looks fairly well designed hardware design-wise, and the concept of one system that is both portable and console isn't terrible... but it's also something which has never been especially successful yet. What we will see with this system is if graphics are now good enough for people to buy something with definitely worse graphics as a home console, for the convenience of having one device which is also a portable. I remain not really convinced that it's a good idea, since you end up with a badly behind-the-curve console, but maybe a handheld with terrible battery life and a too-large form factor! That thing won't fit in your pocket, how could it ever be a 3DS replacement?

Now, the games look good for the most part, I like the idea of going to carts/cards instead of discs for this system, and the simple, gamepad-focused design seems to have gotten a good reaction with most so far, so the press and fan reaction so far is pretty positive and I can see why. But personally, I liked the Nintendo that did try to compete in hardware power, so this direction they've gone in since the mid '00s has always been something I have issues with and this goes even farther down the path of abandoning power.

And on top of that, are they going to abandon motion too? One important issue is that we also don't know what, if any, sort of touch/motion support it will have. I didn't think of this while watching the video, but the point has been made that Nintendo showed no motion or touch anything, and has not confirmed any of that to be present in this system. They won't even confirm if the screen will support touch! I have to imagine that it will, but we don't know for sure right now. I know that the current trend in gaming is against motion controls and towards traditional ones again, which is kind of a shame (both are good!), but if Nintendo doesn't even have much in the way of touch support that would be kind of horrible! If this thing is ultimately going to replace the 3DS as a portable, it better have touch. I don't want everything to go back to buttons only, that is worse controls for many things than touch is. This applies to the Wii U as well, for the few games that used touch well -- how do you do a new Mario Maker game without it for example? It'd never work! Oh, and I would like to see some sort of gyro controls too, that's simple enough to add and can be nice.

Additionally, it's quite sad that Wiimote-style pointer controls are apparently dead, at least for Nintendo. The concept itself is not dead, as the VR world has picked up motion and all three headsets have motion controllers now. Apparently they really make the experience better, but Nintendo doesn't have a VR headset or any hint of a pointer controller for the Connect at the moment, so it will be sadly ironic if they really do abandon this thing they popularized, while another field still uses it.


Still, though, I did like the video, and the Connect has promise. Right now I definitely want to get one, if just for the games shown! They showed a 3d Mario game, it's been quite a while since the last one so I'm really excited to see more of what that is. Bits of new Splatoon and Mario Kart games were shown too, and that's cool as well. And as much as I like having multiple platforms, it is true that by having only one device there should be more software for this because you aren't dividing your teams across multiple formats anymore.

As for third party support, at this point I expect little of note. Yeah, they showed Skyrim in the video and that's interesting, but no way could something that pushes the PS4 Pro or Xbox Scorpio run well on this hardware! Game size is a big issue as well. With the limited space of game cards or the internal memory, how many current-gen games even could fit into the amount of space available for games on the Connect? Will there be external hard drive support? But that'd only work when docked even if it does exist, which is a pretty big restriction. I know this system will be less poweful than the others so maybe that allows you to shrink game size a bit, but even so hoping for much of anything seems unlikely. Another point I've seen mentioned is that this thing can't be assumed to be always online, so that's an issue with third parties as well considering how many games now are always online. The whole process of Nintendo and third parties separating and going opposite directions over the past couple of decades has been sad to watch, and for major-console stuff this system sure won't help there. So between these issues and others, third party support will surely continue to be low. We'd better hope that the thing sells well in Japan so that it continues to get the game support the 3DS has gotten from there... There will be indie support of course, but that doesn't bring you many hardware sales. What else is there to hope for, that it is indeed a touch-capable tablet and it gets phone ports? I'm sure it will, but most people have smartphones already so that's no draw. So this again leaves a LOT of focus on the first party library. Fortunately what little we've seen looks good. We'll need to see more to know how good.

So yeah, this post has been pretty negative, but the thing could do great despite these potential issues; many of my complaints are just about my own opinions and not those of others, after all. Have the right price point, the right first-party software, good marketing, and rely on most gamers not wanting motion anymore outside of VR as they clearly do not, and it could do well for sure. I hope it does, and I hope third parties support it too with something or other. It's just great to see Nintendo finally actually announce what this thing is, it's been ridiculous how long they've waited ot make this announcement!

Online support is the wild card. Nintendo made some big jumps between the DS/Wii and 3DS/Wii U. Here's hoping they realize the importance of making big jumps again to finally reach feature parity with their competition. Nintendo has a good working relationship right now with Google, so here's hoping they can foster that relationship and maybe even get Google to DESIGN their whole online infrastructure. That alone would make them a serious contender, since Google's online prowess makes Microsoft seem out of touch.

Nintendo, good online? That would be fantastic, but I won't believe it until I see it.

[Dark Jaguar]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/wh...do-switch/

So, it is now confirmed that it won't be able to play 3DS or DS games (or Wii U games, but I never expected that). The lack of any sort of backwards compatibility at all is rather disappointing, considering how well Nintendo's portable systems traditionally handle backwards compatibility. Well, considering the RISC processor is being made by NVidia rather than Nintendo's traditional use of ARM designed processors in their portables, maybe that's not all that surprising. Still, it's a bit sad something couldn't be done about that. As it stands, this system is going to have to stand entirely on it's own merits, and those who may not have a 3DS yet, but are very excited about Pokémon Sun & Moon, will now need to decide which system they want more. News sites are trying to put a spin on the "virtual console" being the "backwards compatibility", but we all know that emulated games are NOT in any way any sort of backwards compatibility. I really want to be able to dismiss this, but it really is a pretty big problem for Nintendo.

I can't imagine that giant screen won't have a touch screen. Those removable JoyCon controllers may or may not have motion controls, and the main part may or may not have motion controls, but that big screen almost certainly has touch functionality. I wouldn't put much into that small trailer not showing anyone using that, because they clearly wanted to focus on the new, not the old. One thing's for sure, this trailer does make it clear this is a new system and not a remodel, and everyone should know that coming in.

[A Black Falcon]

So with Nintendo saying that there will not be any more announcements about the Switch this year (why not?), that brings us back to good old rumors and speculation!

The latest is this: http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/10/a-...-and-info/ which, if it's accurate, says that the Switch will indeed have a multitouch screen (good); the battery life on the tablet part devkit is a quite awful 3 hours (ick); the system runs faster when docked, though whether this is just unlocking more power in the tablet due to the wired connection or if there is hardware in the dock is unclear; and all games are required to work with the regular controls so any touchpad controls would be optional. That's a mixed bag there. Also, the side controllers have analog trigger buttons: https://twitter.com/LaurakBuzz/status/78...4307702784 I don't mind the digital buttons of the Wii and beyond too much, but there are some games which benefit from analog so it's a nice thing to bring back.

I have seen no reports of any mention of pointer controls still, which is disappointing given that you will want the tablet docked most of the time thanks to the system being more powerful that way (and the bad battery life!). Going back to a mostly buttons-only console after 12 years of lots of touch/motion controls isn't the worst, but it is unfortunate. Worse is what this means for handheld gaming if Nintendo does go through with replacing the 3DS with this -- as I said last post, this thing isn't a real handheld, it's far too large! And if this battery life report is accurate too, it's not very portable in that respect either, not for trips and the like anyway. Is Nintendo giving up on handhelds and ceding portable gaming to phones? If true, that's really sad...

One thing's for sure, this trailer does make it clear this is a new system and not a remodel, and everyone should know that coming in.

That's true, the video does a good job of that.

So, it is now confirmed that it won't be able to play 3DS or DS games (or Wii U games, but I never expected that). The lack of any sort of backwards compatibility at all is rather disappointing, considering how well Nintendo's portable systems traditionally handle backwards compatibility. Well, considering the RISC processor is being made by NVidia rather than Nintendo's traditional use of ARM designed processors in their portables, maybe that's not all that surprising. Still, it's a bit sad something couldn't be done about that. As it stands, this system is going to have to stand entirely on it's own merits, and those who may not have a 3DS yet, but are very excited about Pokémon Sun & Moon, will now need to decide which system they want more. News sites are trying to put a spin on the "virtual console" being the "backwards compatibility", but we all know that emulated games are NOT in any way any sort of backwards compatibility. I really want to be able to dismiss this, but it really is a pretty big problem for Nintendo.

Given the completely different architecture I wasn't really expecting any backwards compatibility. It is something I'd have liked to see, but when changing systems this much it'd have been hard to do...

(One interesting thing about the NX: Isn't this NVidia's first chip for a "real" game console since the original Xbox?)

[Dark Jaguar]

There's the NVidia Shield. Well, unless by "real" you mean "more than 10 people will actually buy it".

Technically, the NVidia chip used here is ARM just like the 3DS, so it SHOULD be the same architecture as the previous systems, but it wouldn't surprise me if it lacks a handful of instruction sets from the ARM Holdings chipset that prevent full fledged backwards compatibility. That's a shame.

[A Black Falcon]

There's the NVidia Shield. Well, unless by "real" you mean "more than 10 people will actually buy it".

That is one potential definition of the term, sure, but first and foremost probably is simply "a system which you can buy games for in stores that sell videogames."

Technically, the NVidia chip used here is ARM just like the 3DS, so it SHOULD be the same architecture as the previous systems, but it wouldn't surprise me if it lacks a handful of instruction sets from the ARM Holdings chipset that prevent full fledged backwards compatibility. That's a shame.

NVidia's mobile chips use an ARM variant too? Huh. But yeah, that's possible, or maybe Nintendo just doesn't care about handheld BC on this system. Or maybe it actually is possible, they just won't admit it now because they want people to still buy the 3DS and if the Switch was clearly a 3DS replacement that would undermine 3DS sales? That seems plausible too...

[Dark Jaguar]

Nintendo usually isn't shy about advertising backwards compatibility. Even with the DS, their last "third pillar" system, they were pretty up front about the GBA slot on the bottom of the system.

As for NVidia's main processor chipset, yeah, it's ARM based. Pretty much every portable device that isn't a laptop (which would therefor need to run x86 programs) uses ARM now. That goes from the Gameboy Advance to the iPad to my Android Phone to the "non-Pro" Microsoft Surface systems. Their design isn't the only way to design a RISC processor (the N64 uses a RISC based design, for example), but it's the standard that took hold, much like x86 did in the PC world. RISC's advantages over x86 stem chiefly from how power efficient they are and how well the power use scales with actual processor use (an idle RISC processor uses far less power than an idle x86 processor). I won't get into the details here, but it's this reason that NVidia, when designing a mobile chipset, decided to go with ARM instead of an x86 design. x86 still has some power related advantages, but ARM is catching up. x86 isn't resting when it comes to power usage either, but the two designs are so fundamentally different that there's no way to design a "two in one" architecture that can switch between them without flat out just making a dual-processor board, which doesn't really solve anything.

NVidia's graphics chipset is another story entirely, as it's their own proprietary design (like most GPUs). That one's going to more closely resemble NVidia's desktop graphics card, but optimized to reduce power drain. In any case, that wouldn't affect backwards compatibility, which as far as the 3DS is concerned only the ARM chips matters.

[Dark Jaguar]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/re...ch-screen/

Reliable sources seem to have confirmed it does have a touch screen. That much I knew, but this also confirms it's capacitive touch. That means multitouch, but it also means that slight "give" on a 3DS/DS touch screen that lets you know you pressed it won't be there any more. It's a fine tradeoff. The bigger issue is that explains why they went without backwards compatibility. Nintendo has said in the past that moving to capacitive touch would make backwards compatibility with DS games "very difficult". The way that screen reports it's input is very different, and DS software has no idea how to handle hardware reporting multiple touched spots at the same time. That said, this is something that can be solved via the hardware interface for the screen, allowing it to be set to a mode that will only report one touch when multiple points are touched (perhaps just ignoring all subsequent touches until the first touched point leaves the screen, in the same way laptop touch pads deal with where to put the mouse cursor).

The other thing is I had actually been under the impression the screen was larger, but it's only just a bit bigger than my own cell phone screen, and further it's resolution is not a straight multiple of either DS or 3DS resolutions. That means displaying those old games would not just mean putting the two screens onto one screen, but also shrinking the image until it is a multiple if you wanted an unblurred image. In the end, they may have decided it just wasn't worth it, and I suppose I agree, since the result would be very hard to see. Sad, but I understand it now. An iPad, this ain't.

[Dark Jaguar]

I found a youtube game reviewer who's also a huge fan of the muppets/sesame street/fraggle rock/whatever else Jim Henson touches.



This Arlo fellow... he speaks to me... online in videos. Whoever this is, they know exactly what they are doing. This is a work of love, and they've done their utmost to make this look good. I love it, and I wish to subscribe to Arlo's news.... channel...

[A Black Falcon]

Decent video, sure. Personally, I'm not sold on the Switch's "combine handheld and console into one" concept, or as the Switch as any kind of portable; I think there is a good likelihood that it won't be a very good handheld in a lot of the ways that make handhelds so good -- battery life, games designed for portable play, large size, etc. I also like the Wii's motion controls and the DS/3DS touchscreens and will really miss that stuff as Nintendo de-emphasizes it. I know motion controls live on in VR headsets, but NIntendo-style touch is pretty much dead now, isn't it? That's sad because I still find finger-based capacitive touch screens pretty bad for gaming purposes compared to the great precision of a single-touch plastic stylus-based design like the DS and 3DS use! Those are big issues.

However, I am sold on that I'll need to get a Switch. I never have gotten a Wii U, because they seemed too expensive for the limited library and STILL haven't come down much in price, because the new Zelda game (which would have been the system seller for me) kept getting delayed and now is cross-gen and still isn't out, and because I really disliked the move away from Wii-style motion controls. I definitely will get a Wii U eventually, no question, but I might well get a Switch first... depending on pricing and such of course. The 3DS (which, remember, I only got for the first time last year) is great but I also want to have a current Nintendo home console again, and this will be that, with ports of some of the best Wii U games and new games like the 3D Mario title as well. I think it'll be great as a home console and I want to have one.

But still, I still wonder about how smart merging handhelds and consoles together are. Yes, it saves a lot on development costs as you don't need to make all of those handheld spinoffs of console games and can instead have all your teams making games for one system, but will the kinds of games that have made me love all of Nintendo's handhelds (even the VB! Great little system that is) still be made, when the Nintendo system is far less portable than any previous Nintendo handheld due to size, potential damage (no closing system to protect the screen!) and battery life concerns? Will handheld gaming beyond the mobile sphere continue to be a thing, as it should be? And how much are you holding back the console by making it a portable too? You can make just as good arguments against this concept as you can towards it. I understand why they're merging them and it might work out, but right now I'd rather still see multiple platforms. (Of course, the 3DS isn't dead yet, but if the Switch succeeds it will be phased out at some point in the next year or so I'm sure...)

Nintendo usually isn't shy about advertising backwards compatibility. Even with the DS, their last "third pillar" system, they were pretty up front about the GBA slot on the bottom of the system.

In your next post you mentioned some other good reasons for the Switch not having DS/3DS BC, but beyond that, if the BC is Virtual Console only, they wouldn't be talking about it now.

As for NVidia's main processor chipset, yeah, it's ARM based. Pretty much every portable device that isn't a laptop (which would therefor need to run x86 programs) uses ARM now. That goes from the Gameboy Advance to the iPad to my Android Phone to the "non-Pro" Microsoft Surface systems. Their design isn't the only way to design a RISC processor (the N64 uses a RISC based design, for example), but it's the standard that took hold, much like x86 did in the PC world. RISC's advantages over x86 stem chiefly from how power efficient they are and how well the power use scales with actual processor use (an idle RISC processor uses far less power than an idle x86 processor). I won't get into the details here, but it's this reason that NVidia, when designing a mobile chipset, decided to go with ARM instead of an x86 design. x86 still has some power related advantages, but ARM is catching up. x86 isn't resting when it comes to power usage either, but the two designs are so fundamentally different that there's no way to design a "two in one" architecture that can switch between them without flat out just making a dual-processor board, which doesn't really solve anything.

NVidia's graphics chipset is another story entirely, as it's their own proprietary design (like most GPUs). That one's going to more closely resemble NVidia's desktop graphics card, but optimized to reduce power drain. In any case, that wouldn't affect backwards compatibility, which as far as the 3DS is concerned only the ARM chips matters.

Right, since NVidia is a graphics company first, it makes sense that they wouldn't use as original a CPU design as they do GPU...

[Dark Jaguar]

NVidia does have very good reasons not to try and reinvent the wheel. The ARM standard is very good after all, and creating a new standard breaks compatibility with a LOT of code that'd have to be redone entirely from scratch. It's the same reason AMD prefers to stick with the x86 standard rather than go and invent an entirely new architecture for desktops. (IBM tried inventing a new design in the form of PowerPC, but even Apple eventually had to abandon that in favor of the ubiquitous x86 standard for their desktop Macs.) Addon cards are a different thing. Since everything is still being mediated through the main CPU, addon cards can differ in their design very significantly, and so long as the driver, OS, and other elements like APIs remain the same, games will still work just fine with them. The new Pascall design from NVidia is an entirely different design from their previous models, and yet I can throw all my old 3D games at it without issue thanks to the driver and the common ground of the x86 processor at the core of my desktop machine.

[A Black Falcon]

That's true, unless you're allowing people to code down to the actual chip it doesn't entirely matter what's in the card, just that it works with the drivers the same as previous cards did... and while with a CPU you need to account for at least some machine or assembly code access, graphics cards generally are driver-only, aren't they.

[A Black Falcon]

So, the new rumor is that Mario might be a Switch launch title, but Zelda probably will be delayed into summer. If they do have Mario, a Zelda delay isn't too bad so long as the delays stop, because Nintendo needs that game. If they don't have Mario either though... seriously, maybe delay the Switch until one of those two is ready.

Also, price rumors say there will be two models, one at maybe $250 and one at maybe $300 (with a game and more storage). Those are reasonable prices, but those are not final numbers so we'll see.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm, so long as it supports an SD card, the internal memory isn't a concern for me. On my 3DS, I stick everything on my SD card. I've still not come close to filling my 64GB card up (but then again, I usually buy the physical copies of games). If I start to go more digital in the future, I'm thinking a 128 or even 200 GB card might be in order (oddly, SD cards didn't jump straight to 256 but just at a flat 200).

I've said it before, but I am totally fine with Zelda being delayed. Say what you will about whether Nintendo "needs" that game, but I really don't think we as gamers need to spend all our time worrying about Nintendo's release schedules hurting them. I'm much more concerned about having a fully realized game. This is an incredibly ambitious project, and I want it to be as fully realized as possible before release. Phantom Pain got rushed out the door (admittedly, after numerous delays), and while it ended up one of the best games that year, it also was notably missing a large number of features. I played a lot of that game, but I'd still be playing it today if they had fully realized the stuff they had set out to do from the start (like, say, finishing the story). Nintendo is going to do just fine whether Zelda is a launch title or not. They can always get a side group to make an HD release of Skyward Sword to tide us over. I will agree a Mario game needs to be released sooner rather than later though. The system needs to have SOME killer app at launch.

[A Black Falcon]

The rumors right now say it'll support up to 128GB SD cards. And I would call that a big concern, because that's not much at all considering how big games are now! Even if the Switch won't have too much from third parties, most major AAA games now are at least 30GBs each, and some are much larger -- the new CoD game is 120GB for example, with Modern Warfare Remastered of course. If Switch games are even 30GB each on the high end, that's a huge chunk of the memory of any SD card. Yes, you can buy physical, and here that will matter since those will be on dedicated cards (as opposed to just having to install them, as is the case on the PS4 and XONE), but still, that is a very small amount of space considering how big games are. Even if Switch games were only similar to a one-DVD title, 4-8GBs each, 120GB will not last long, never mind the even smaller internal memory. Maybe for people who only want to have like five games on their system at once this won't matter, but for someone like me that would get very expensive, very fast, and I'm not buying piles of 128GB SD cards, they cost quite a bit last I checked! Of course, the only solution to this would be hard drive support, something which could not work with the system undocked, but even that restriction would be better than "SD or cards only".

On a related note, while I know it has slower speeds than the internal drive, since my X360's 500GB internal drive is almost full now, I'm thinking about getting an external drive for it. Slower speeds are better than deleting lots of stuff!

As for Switch games, yeah, if Mario really is available at launch, I'd be okay with another Zelda delay... but they can't delay it forever, and it's seen multiple long delays now. Hopefully it does release next year.


Meanwhile, NVidia is saying that porting to the Switch will be easy since it has familiar hardware to other modern platforms: http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/16/nvidia...is-simple/ (but you'll ned to fit it into the limited memory of a Switch card or not-huge SD card...)

[Dark Jaguar]

Rumors don't matter in this case. If it supports SD cards, it supports SD cards. The 3DS only "officially" supports 32GB cards, but plenty of people are using the biggest size cards no problem (I'm currently using a 64GB card). They just had to be reformatted to FAT32.

Unfortunately, there really is no other solution than flash if it's a portable system. Say what you will, but there's no other option.

[A Black Falcon]

You're probably right that it will (eventually) support larger sizes, but regardless, SD cards are fine for handheld or tablet-scale games. They are not good for TV-console ones, that's the issue.

[Dark Jaguar]

I don't mean it'll "eventually" support larger sizes. It'll support those sizes out of the box. It really doesn't matter what the stated max size is, SD cards all work pretty much the same, so plug the largest size you can afford in there and it'll work fine (assuming proper formatting).

I doubt the average Switch game is going to be too large, since the system is cartridge based and everything. I'd expect something closer to DVD size than full Bluray size. A 200 GB card should last a long while that way. You're right that it will eventually fill up, but my expectation is that SD card sizes will keep pace with demand pretty well. I suppose including ports to moor an external hard drive to the docking station would help, but I doubt you'd really be fully happy with that solution when you have to take the thing around outside.

[A Black Falcon]

So this one's a weird rumor, but it sounds like it has quite a bit of backing: Ubisft may be developing a Switch launch title... and it's a Mario & Rabbids-crossover tactical strategy/RPG game with "maybe X-Com-ish" gameplay. Yes, really. How odd. The main party will have a Rabbid in it of course, along with various Mario characters, and Bowser will have a Rabbid form too. I'm not sure what to think of this, but with enough Nintendo supervision maybe it could be good?

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/11/re...aunch-day/

(It is also speculated that a lot of the Switch rumors have come out of this project, as opposed to from Nintendo itself.)

Oh, and the story also mentions that the Joycon controllers can rumble, something Nintendo hadn't mentioned one way or the other yet. That would be nice.

[A Black Falcon]

So, Nintendo just showed the first footage of Zelda: BotW running on a Nintendo Switch... on Jimmy Fallon. Fallon's kind of annoying, but the video is well worth watching despite that for the game footage! It looks pretty much the same as the Wii U version we've seen before, but apparently probably is running more smoothly, which is nice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TJ7IUNWGl4 (Oh, they show Super Mario Run as well, for what that's worth.)

[Dark Jaguar]

Nintendo seems to be learning from their mistakes with the Wii U. The original Wii succeeded thanks to talk shows promoting it. We can sit here and pontificate on all sorts of gamer reasons it did well, but when it gets down to the most basic level, Oprah made the Wii a hit among a casual audience. If Oprah (and others) hadn't promoted it with long segments on their shows, the Wii would have done about as well as the Gamecube, maybe worse. Look at the Wii U. They just didn't even bother with the talk show circuit, and almost the entirety of that massive casual audience they gained with the Wii didn't even know the Wii U existed. Heck, they STILL don't! One of my brothers is very casual when it comes to gaming (he occasionally breaks out his old N64 to play a few rounds of Mario Kart/Party, but beyond that he is much more interested in hiking than gaming), and when he saw a Wii U over Thanksgiving, he honestly didn't know, even now, that Nintendo had even released a console after the Wii, much less that it was about to be retired. I expect that's a pretty normal response at this point, because that same casual audience they won over with the Wii DOESN'T EVEN KNOW POLYGON.COM EXISTS! Why would they? It would surprise them as much as it surprised all us bleeding heart liberals to find out that the alt right and their own web sites exist. So, no matter how big the news about the Switch is, the casuals will never even see a single article about the thing because they aren't even going to the same web sites we are.

Nintendo seems to realize this. They're pushing this Switch as a revolution bigger than the Revolution, and they know that the only way anyone outside of their core audience is going to even know the device exists is if they announce it in the venues "normies" frequent, and that means talk shows. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of Fallon either (I prefer Colbert, then Conan), but Nintendo knew they had to do this. I fully expect over the next week or so we'll be seeing Reggie and Shiggy popping up all across the talk show circuit, because they need to (and are probably doing the same on whatever Japan's popular talk shows are). If they're smart, they'll also do the Youtube circuit and pop up as ultra-special guests on the big name gaming Youtube channels, and that means Pewtiepie. Like him or not (to me, he's okay I guess, but not really my favorite style, as I prefer beard bros or the pherlous) he's the absolute biggest star when it comes to that sort of thing, dwarfing even the likes of the AVGN. Oh, and Nintendo has a facebook and twitter account, for what that's worth (less and less these days), but that's not going to reach a casual audience, because they aren't checking those particular hash pounds.

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1297191 So the new Switch rumor are some specs for the thing which are not exactly powerful and... some people are surprised for some reason? Who knows if these are the real specs or not, but ever since announcement it has been obvious that the system won't exactly be super powerful, and it'll have to sell itself on the games and portability again. Well, we're getting closer to Nintendo's big reveal, so we'll see early next month!


As for the Wii U, I find it weird that people found it so confusing that it was a new system. I was confused for what. a few seconds? Then the game footage started and they showed the console for a moment, and it was very obvious it was a new system. The name is a play on "Wii 2" also, which shouldn't have been THAT hard to notice... so I just find it hard to believe that the announcement or name are major reasons for its failure to sell well. Other causes -- that the gamepad's central gimmick, having a screen in the controller, wasn't implemented well in many games and wasn't something enough people really wanted; the absence of any significant third-party support at a time when those games just keep growing in sales and prominence; the rise of smartphones taking away the casual audience... those and more are bigger factors. I guess it didn't help, but a system can easily get over an iffy launch with the right system and followup, I think.

Nintendo seems to realize this. They're pushing this Switch as a revolution bigger than the Revolution, and they know that the only way anyone outside of their core audience is going to even know the device exists is if they announce it in the venues "normies" frequent, and that means talk shows. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of Fallon either (I prefer Colbert, then Conan), but Nintendo knew they had to do this. I fully expect over the next week or so we'll be seeing Reggie and Shiggy popping up all across the talk show circuit, because they need to (and are probably doing the same on whatever Japan's popular talk shows are). If they're smart, they'll also do the Youtube circuit and pop up as ultra-special guests on the big name gaming Youtube channels, and that means Pewtiepie. Like him or not (to me, he's okay I guess, but not really my favorite style, as I prefer beard bros or the pherlous) he's the absolute biggest star when it comes to that sort of thing, dwarfing even the likes of the AVGN. Oh, and Nintendo has a facebook and twitter account, for what that's worth (less and less these days), but that's not going to reach a casual audience, because they aren't checking those particular hash pounds.

Ugh, Pewdiepie... I watch lots of Youtube, but not stuff like that. But yeah, it probably would be good for Nintendo to show up on some of the bigger Youtube gaming channels, either now or after the announcement in early January, that does make sense. You need to build attention somehow, and that's harder than ever in these days of people having such a ridiculously large number of things to pay attention to on TV, the internet, the radio, and such, so they've got to go where what remains of the larger audiences are... both for the mass audience, which means TV, and for gamers, which means the internet mostly these days I'd think.

As for late-night TV, I've only very rarely ever watched late-night shows, but on the rare cases I did it was mostly CBS (because back in the mid '90s when we first found an antenna for our TV the only stations that came in well were PBS and CBS, so for a few years there I mostly watched PBS and CBS and it kind of stuck...), so Letterman mostly; Leno never interested me. I never was a big fan of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, when I had cable back in college in the '00s; The Daily Show had some good episodes, but also some things I dislike such as the 'gotcha' interviews trying to bait people into saying stupid things, John Stewart's dislike for debate shows like CNN's Crossfire (I really liked that show!), and such. And as for Colbert... the Bush administration was bad enough, watching a fake conservative did not exactly appeal. I watched a few episodes here and there but that's it. I like some things about his shows though so when he took over Letterman's spot I watched one or two of the first episodes. It seemed good, and I do watch a few bits from it on Youtube (I at least like that he abandoned the fake-conservative thing, he's much better now!), but it hasn't got me to tuning in to the actual shows more than I did before, I must admit. It seems mostly good though, for that kind of show. I like that he has more political coverage than other major-network late-night shows.