Nintendo NX finally revealed as Nintendo Switch

By this metric EVERY Nintendo system has been a success. Nintendo's first-party development has always been exceptional, and their systems consistently get great games. To determine whether or not a system has been a success you have to check more factors than simply the number of quality games.

The Switch actually represents considerable potential. But it's success or failure is going to be determined by its portable nature, and the associated word-of-mouth.

 

There is two thing:
- the dock have a usb 3.0 port in the inside, but it's too slow and too high latency I believe
- but they seems to have a patent that does just that ... even over wifi or the cloud, ie add additional processing units.



https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...uting_device_patent_is_cleared_for_completion

The way it could work is through supplementing image frequency (there is a paper about it) and compression ... but even that would be high latency? Given they had experimented with low latency display broadcast on wii U, I don't know what trickery they could have found with increasing tech ability (transferring compressed gbuffer?)

 

I'll take this patent with the same grain of salt that I took the distributed processing power of the PS3's with. It's just a patent that has nothing to do with the Switch.

 

Yes, It's only speculation anyway, their haptic/hand detection was in a patent submit around the same time too, with nintendo you never know. And the cloud gaming experiment prompt by onlive did lead to major advance in this field, so who know? I still rate the possibility rather low, but it's open.

On console success, nintendo base has been eroded by fragmentation and specialization of the market, but while their hardware sales decline every years, their first party games sales is incredibly stable or even increasing (pokemon). So they have a large density of software sales with some more extra sugar when the hardware sells well.

 

They patented the idea of connecting supplemental processing power to a gaming console. The patent does not specify the details, and the details are the part that is important if they want to bring a concept like that to market. Connecting additional CPU, GPU, or RAM resources over USB is obviously going to be too slow. They would need something like PCI-Express to actually pull this idea off, but it would add considerable bloat to add that much physical connector to the device.

Personally, this feels like abuse of the patent system. They might as well patent flying cars or faster than light space travel. I really wish the patent system required the submission of a working prototype. Broad sweeping patents on obvious ideas (like a supplemental computing device) should not receive patent protections.

 

I doesn't work if we assume it's sending full game data instead of a fast server/client model (ie reference to cloud gaming).

 

If I start to develop on Unity 5.5 will this be safe for the Nintendo switch?
I assume when switch support is announced it will not be on an older unity version. I don't want to do a downgrade.

Any info on this?

Thanks

 

Only if the dock requires the processing capabilities of the handheld to function. If the dock were to have a complete duplicate of the base unit (plus any additional capabilities) then it would only need the USB 3.0 port for accessing the game cartridge.

 

There are a lot of rumors/leaks going around saying the dock doesn't have any extra processing power, only extra cooling and power through the USB-C. Sadly even in the recent events Nintendo really hasn't revealed much about the actual hardware specifications etc. So far it seems like the Console/Tablet does all the processing on it's own and is running at 40% efficiency when undocked and full efficiency when docked.

 

Some of those dock rumors are made slightly more credible by the announced price-point of the dock. I know Nintendo loves generous mark-ups on their accessories. But even by those standards $90 is a little ridiculous. That's almost a third of the cost of the total bundle, and that's taking their $80 Joycon controllers into account. ($100 if you buy them separately)

With that kind of price, it is likely that there is a bit more hardware in the dock than originally expected. Not even Nintendo would charge that much for the dock if the production costs for it weren't a bit higher than originally expected. They are still probably turning a hefty profit off of the dock. But it also likely has more than just a USB extension embedded within it. I don't know exactly what hardware lies within, or what it is supposed to achieve. But I would be very interested to see a hardware dissection of the dock.

 

The spéculation is that either the splitter is responsible for the cost (separating HDMI and power out of the single usb-c) or its a baseline price for future upgrade.

Or they are milking the hardcore fan before price cut.

Anyway cemu might is the superior way to expérience Zelda. It run on my laptop too.

 

The dock probably has a backplane that the Switch connects to, and that backplane PCB has connectors for HDMI, USB, power, and a fan. I highly doubt the dock has any processing power at all. But yes, $90 will be grossly overpriced for what it is. That won't stop some people from buying one for each TV in their house, though.

 

If a future dock had the entire Switch electronics in it, then that upgraded Switch would not be portable. I guess that is something Nintendo could choose to do, but it would be a bizarre path to take given the promise of portability.

 

I would love for somebody from Unity to answer this question. In addition to this, will GPU Instancing be supported with Unity for the Switch?

 

I heard targetting a tegra build should give you a great approximation of devolopping for switch.

 

Rumour has it, the Switch is running some sort of custom Android OS and it supports Vulkan (this part is confirmed).

So the graphics features are more or less whatever is supported by Unity on Android running Vulkan.

 

I think it possible that the dock could have an extra specialized processor for handling some manner of workload outputting the 1080p signal to the television. Perhaps handling up-scaled anti-aliasing via hardware, or some manner of post-processing effects. Something limited and intensely focused, but also something that would help to reduce the processing burden for the system outputting the full 1080p image. Pure speculation, but it seems to me there is likely something more in that dock than just output ports and a fan. I wouldn't expect full system hardware, that would just be nuts. That kind of redundancy would be wasteful, and frankly too risky. (only a matter of time before someone hacks something like that and turns the dock into an extra Switch) But some very specialized hardware for handling specific rendering duties or processing the output video, I could see that.

 

It doesn't though. They've shown us the inside of the dock.

 

I doubt there would be any information like this publicly available as Switch developers are most likely NDA'd on specifics (As is usual with any console platform).

Your best bet is to apply to be a Nintendo Developer (https://developer.nintendo.com/) and state you have interest in developing for/porting to the Switch.

 

They showed us the back panel shifted down, but that's not the inside. That's just an internal cavity for keeping cables organized, and is accessible by default to the end users. What I'm talking about is cracking that sucker truly open and poking at the circuit board. At the bare minimum, it has to have some manner of circuit board to serve as a bridge between the USB-C connector and the USB and HDMI ports that exist on the dock. In theory, it could use Wifi to transmit that sort of data, but even that would require some extra circuitry within the dock. I'm talking about seeing the guts of the thing.

 

I've also heard those rumors. My question was about whether Unity was going to support GPU Instancing on the Switch. Unity did not immediately support GPU Instancing on hardware platforms that already supported it, so we cannot automatically assume Unity will support certain performance related features.

 

I highly doubt there is any intelligence in the dock. It will provide power, cooling, and a breakout for connectors (USB and HDMI). There will not be any hardware post processing components built into the dock. That would add too much complexity and cost while taking away post processing control from the developers.

 

I agree on the possibility of complexity and developer control. But the cost was part of my point. The dock seems prohibitively expensive for something with just a few breakouts and a fan in it. That's why I suspect there may be more to it. I do remember that the Xbox 360 had an additional hardware feature that basically allowed developers to enjoy anti-aliasing for their games without taking a hit to performance. Granted, that hardware feature was embedded in one of the system's chips, and part of the reason why it was possible was because it was so tightly integrated into the rendering pipeline. Having something like that in a breakout dock does seem unlikely.

The complexity and developer control are much stronger arguments against any specialized hardware in the dock. Developers don't like having control yanked away from them, even if the objective is to provide better performance.

 

I don't think the current hardware is having it, if the console is basically a nvidia shield, it turns out the new shield is a maxwell tegra too instead of pascal. It now cost 99€ with 16gb internal (vs 32 on the switch). That would put the switch tablet itself at similar price, we know the 2 joycon pair, cost around 80€ and the dock is 90€ for whatever reason. That give us the split about the 300€ starting price.

Nintendo have been talking about incremental upgrade as a strategy leading to the switch, I think the long term game is to have "part" replaced without the consumer feeling it's a full new console. If 2 years from now they sell a single or an upgrade tablet, it will be around 100€, you don't have to repay the joycon nor the dock, then a new dock at 100€ because you have a tablet already, it's like stealth upgrade instead of totally new system in terms of perception ...

That would explain why the online is mostly relegated to app to handle account. They want to trivialize the device to smoothen the cost of upgrading, not tying account strongly to device reduce the attachment to it, it became just a swapable part. That's quite an elaborate strategy if true.

 

My thought wasn't to move the electronics from the Switch to the dock. It was about duplicating the electronics found in the Switch but with higher clock rates, better cooling, etc to allow for running your games at higher resolutions. The Switch would retain its portability because it'd still have a complete copy of the electronics sans any extraneous features like more storage.

 

What I want to know is why is no one addressing the blatantly obvious issue that the controller looks extremely painful to use for more that 10 minutes at a time?

Look at this thing:

Look how cramp inducing painful that looks!

Look at the guy's thumbs!

In the promotional video no less!

The controller should have just been symmetrical, it should have been much bigger, the thumb sticks should have stuck out more, and the right thumb stick is clearly in a terrible location.

I would like to think that there will be alternative controllers for the sides of the switch, but I know this will NEVER happen and if it does it will only come at the end of its life after hoards of people say something about it.

Oh, well. I guess I'll just get the pro controller and only play it on my TV.

 

It's Nintendo. We're used to the idea of controllers that look uncomfortable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_controller

 

Hey now, some of us that happen to have three arms love this controller!

 

Nintendo could make the account attached to an email not to a device, more in line with the other appstores.

 

Am I the only one worried that we didn't got any spec reveal yet? I know nintendo usually doesn't boast the specs of any of their hardware, that its not that important for their own games (hell, if Breath of the wild was developed for the Wii U, it MUST run fine on ANY newer reasonably powerful SoC)... but while Maxwell -> Pascal will not make a big difference anyway (AFAIK not much has changed architecture wise), I would still like to know just how bad the SoC is. 0.5 to 1 TFLOPS, while a boring synthetic number, DOES make a difference. True, the X1 chip run at a higher clock might get it nearer to 1 TFLOPs and thus in range of the XBOX One at least.
Oh well, guess we have to wait for the first people to take their Switches apart and look inside.


I have to say, many of the critical voices on youtube were worried about the sudden shift in tone between the early reveal vids, where nintendo focussed on the "console gaming on the move" aspect, and the sudden switch (no pun intended) to concentrating on motion control shenigans again.
I don't think many want to play skyrim with motion controls... or Zelda, for that matter. And the 1-2 Switch "game"... app... contraption looked positively stupid, if I may say so. Definitely like a tech demo sold as a full game... for a tech that has been demonstrated over and over since the Wii days.


I really hope Nintendo ramps up their first party efforts and start churning out GOOD sequels for their old and new cashcow series.
Mario looked... weird. Meh. I think a more traditional Mario without the stupid realistic looking city would have been received better.
Zelda. While I might be won over as a big fan of the SNES Zelda never gotten warm with the 3D Zeldas, I kinda see why the critical voices bitch and moan about the open world shenigans. The world DOES look kinda empty. And it clearly shows at places that this title had to cut down the graphical glitz. Hope they can polish it a little bit until release.
Mario Kart. While I love the fact that they are bringing back the battle mode (huge mistake with Mario Kart 8), and they seemingly are working on other things too, this is simply a rerelease of the Wii U title with some remastered bits. Not exactly that exciting to be honest.
Splatoon 2. Yeah-ah.... there might be a hardcore splatoon fanbase now. I am not so fussed about it. And seemingly not much has changed from splatoon 1 to 2.

Where the hell is a new and exciting Metroid? A new Super smash bros? I understand that Nintendo wants to keep some stuff back for other years, but until now the line up of release titles and games for this year does not look that hot. Don't think Zelda alone can sell this thing, especially when Wii U sitting on store shelves still units might now be given away for free almost, and also get a Version of breath of the wild, which, given the SoC in the Switch ends up as one of the worse possible option, might look and play almost the same as on the switch, just in fixed 720p instead of MAYBE the option of 1080p if the switch is docked.
Don't think Skyrim on the go is still such a hot topic with about 3 hours off tap playtime at best, and Skyrim on the switch shaping up to be the age old original for 60 bucks while other consoles get a remastered version for the same price.


I really hope the Switch will do well enough to bridge nintendo over, even though I am less and less interested with every new gimmick ladden console to invest in their stuff when Nintendo expects me to pay a premium for their underpowered hardware because of motion control galore I will never use once the novelty wears off (which it did with the Wii a long time ago).
The PS4 also is now filled to the brim with stupid gadget input controls I will not use. There at least I get a decent amount of power for the price, and don't feel like I am only paying for novelty features I will not use. And I get a decent controller out of the box, instead of having to add 70 bucks on top of the already high base price for the Switch, which ends up in the same ballpark as a PS4 pro once you add all the stuff needed for comfortable couch gaming with a pal.

I am not sure the current line-up of games and the limited gaming on the go capabilites are really worth the downgrade in power from the PS4 Pro vs the Switch when you are not interested in the motion control shenigans and you don't need a new android tablet.


In the end, for me, a single hit game could sell the console to me, given the price has come down until then. Give me a Metroid game that rocks. Maybe the new Zelda IS as good as the fanboys hope, and I DO want to give a 3D Zelda a chance. I might end up buying the system I am so skeptical about now.
Until then, I am waiting for Horizon Zero Dawn to sell me the PS4 Pro. Or not, if the game sucks.

 

Practically post you've made in this thread has been nonsensical. Buying a console has never been about buying a powerful gaming device. It's always been about getting access to the games you're interested in without having to worry if the next title that comes out will run or not. If buying a powerful device is important to you then just buy a laptop.

 

Well, that is your opinion. Just like I stated mine. Maybe to often. Got too much time to post at my hands right now.


But I would say that getting your moneys worth is ALWAYS important when buying a piece of hardware. If it is just as important to you when buying a nintendo console as it is when buying a laptop is personal opinion above everything else.
As stated, IF the switches line-up of games would look better, it might not matter to me as much too. If I get a good game that looks reasonable and runs fast enough (I don't worry too much about 30 Hz or 720p upscaled as long as the game has been built to look and play well this way), I don't worry about it. If I want to play the newest cross platform title at the best graphical settings possible, I do so on my gaming rig with a GTX 1070 in it.


But currently I feel like investing in a piece of hardware hoping to get the software I want in the future, maybe. Besides Zelda, maybe, nothing else looks this fresh and new and frankly, good. I am sure some of the games will have some of Nintendos magical polish applied in the end and turn out better than I think right now.
Still, at the moment I am overly concerned with the hardware because the software just isn't there yet to sway my opinion. That is also the reason I gave the PS4 and XBOX One a pass 3 years back, more than the underpowered hardware at the time. And I wouldn't invest into a PS4 Pro right now if this one and only console exclusive that looks exciting turns out to be a dud, no matter if the amount of power for the price is more reasonable or not, at the current point in time.


If my constant bringing up of the weak hardware angers you I am sorry, I had hoped my newest would have made it clear that my biggest gripe is no longer really the hardware (because I guess firstparty titles will do fine with it, and I wouldn't get my hopes up for a very strong thirdparty support), but rather the firstparty line-up of games that have been revealed.
Maybe nintendo sold the games under their value in their vids, IDK. I have to say the vids where not that good IMO. That might have something to do with the games not being finished, or whatnot.
Still, IMO, a weak line-up. Had similar thoughs with the PS4 and XBox One, so its not me just bashing nintendo.

 

The N64 launched (in the US) with only 2 games (Mario Kart and Pilot Wings) and about 5 months later it was launched in Europe with Mario 64, FIFA, Shadow Of The Empire, Turok, all added. Eventually, it ended up having an incredible library which I honestly believe is the best a console has ever had.

Have faith; a library of Nintendo games will eventually come!

 

Oh, and Snipper Clips looks like a lot of fun!

 

The question is then, what would be the point in plugging the Switch in? Syncing Gamestates? Dual Computing? You'd basically have a system consisting of two systems, one for mobile and one for stationary and that would mostly just be a waste of money, for Nintendo mostly.

The biggest problems with the Joycons are that for "manly" hands everything might be a bit small and the D-Pad is basically 4 buttons instead of a unified set of directional inputs. Also because of their weird attempt at symmetry they aren't really symmetrical when using just one each with multiple people. The Left one has everything shifted to the left and the right one has everything shifted to the right.

 

Charging the device and you wouldn't have to switch the game cartridge between the dock and the unit itself.

 

So, all you would gain from having both is GameState syncing, for all that overhead and not much of a benefit. I also don't see why they wouldn't promote that you could basically play a game with the Dock alone, without a tablet as well if that was the case. After all all it would need would be a "cartridge" slot, if it had all the same electronics.

I'm not really trying to argue anything, it just doesn't seem feasible and from all I've heard I highly doubt the Dock does much more than provide external connections, constant power and better cooling (and thereby allowing the switch to run less down-clocked than in mobile).

 

If you consider higher clock rates due to better cooling not much of a benefit. Both Microsoft and Sony are currently in the process of releasing "new" consoles that are almost literally nothing more than overclocks of previous hardware.

Agreed. I believe the dock is just a charging station and little else.

 

I was speaking in comparison to what the other option of nothing but power and cooling in the dock would offer. Which also offers higher clock rates due to better cooling.
So, from having the duplicate electronics being cooled in the Dock or the tab being cooled in the Dock you wouldn't gain all that much.
Well, okay, at this point I'm not sure if the extra cooling in the dock is official already or if it's still just rumors.

 

My understanding is that the battery life isn't exactly stellar. Having the device run at a reduced rate may be more about extending that further than actually keeping it cool.

 

Anyway, I'm interested in the Switch and developing for it. I just hope that after so many years Nintendo will try to successfully capture a more mature audience again. The N64 was the last Console I owned and it was all Nintendo stuff up to then. Good old times, when Nintendo had the power and the game variety, with quirky as well as deeper and more mature games.

The Switch reveal trailer actually gave me inspiration for a game idea for the Switch, now all I need again is a team, the usual problem.

 

My thinking, too. It's not like phones and tablets need cooling systems for the amount of heat they generate.

I'm joining the conversation very late and haven't caught up on the thread, but I also believe the reduced CPU clockspeed may have something to do with not needing as much power when running the on-board display (720p) vs outputting to a 1080p external display. The math, I think I read, lines up to suggest this may be the case.

 

Yeah they do. Most smartphones these days implement some sort of throttling because they tend to overheat.

 

Sorry, I meant cooling systems as in big fans or liquid heat-dissipation systems. But you're right, throttling is a form of cooling system.

 

I got what you meant. What I meant is that if smartphones were intended to be used to full capacity for long periods of time, they would *need* a proper cooling system (fans and all).

For example. The GearVR for Galaxy S6 has an actual fan in it (that is cooling the phone) and one of the major complaints is that it still overheats (and sometimes shuts down) when you're playing a semi intensive GearVR game.

 

But in any case, it doesn't look like the switch dock has any cooling.

 

I'm all for motion control, I mean good motion control, not the lazy waggle, when it's implemented correctly it's awesome and actually improve interactivity. If the new skyrim don't have motion control I'll be sad. I mean two hand therefore two joycon sensing, plus it liberate button for other task which mean increase control.

Though I'm worried they haven't shown proper pointing device, pointing is the easiest and most impactful addition they added. It supplement nicely all the analog weakness.

 

I would like to buy one, even with so few titles at launch.
It looks like Zelda will offer enough distractions until more games come out for it.

For what it's worth, its primary appeal to me is that it is a portable with flexibility for stationary play and local multiplayer.

 

I really, really hope it does. No matter what I think of the console as a piece of hardware, I am still fond of the Nintendo games of old, just finishing up another playthrough of Super Metroid, and having started a Super Mario World Playthrough.
I am not so much onboard with some of the newer developments that Nintendo started with the Wii, but as long as the non-party games are playable with a good conventional controller and are not too gimmicky, and bring back the traditional Nintendo polished design, I am happy to ignore the gimmick galore.

One problem I see in the N64 to Switch comparison: Mario Kart 64 was a GREAT game. It was an exciting, new take on the Super Mario Kart formula that literally added a new dimension. Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U got mixed reviews. Maybe, if the Battle Mode that should come back is great, the game will be great again (at least for me). Still, this is not a new game, but more of a remaster.
The Mario game shown looked... weird. I am blaming their vid, which I think did a bad job in selling a Mario game. Mostly showing Mario running through scenery (which mostly looked out of place), and only at times showed new features and actual jump'n'run action... which if you ask me, should be at the core of a vid about a new Mario game.


Well, Nintendos Marketing has been hit and miss in the past, maybe I am interpreting too much into it. I hope Nintendo has learned from past mistakes, and prepares a great lineup of games behind the scenes.

 

http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii-u/mario-kart-8

88 is mixed now?

and... for comparison :

http://www.metacritic.com/game/nintendo-64/mario-kart-64