Ever since Nintendo announced that they were going to fully unveil their newest console a few months ago, I’ve been working to keep my expectations in check. The initial trailer seemed promising, but after the Wii U became the dampest of damp squibs, it was hard to get too hyped. Nintendo has been running headfirst into nonsensical decisions ever since the halcyon days of the Wii. It was truly impressive that games like Splatoonand Super Mario Maker were able to implement their design vision so thoroughly despite the retrograde online systems they were built upon and the elementary school kid’s toy feel of the tablet. But the Switch seemed to represent a switch change in direction for the company. There was at least an appearance of a necessary realization that the company had stretched themselves too thin, that maintaining two technically deficient systems that didn’t collaborate or even share the same online account had stopped being sensible a while ago. Putting the best ideas of the Wii U and the DS in one place is an appealing concept, and the teases of potential games to come were tantalizing. Don’t ask how many times I re-watched the few seconds of the new Splatoon and Mario games, scrolling through the video as if there was the chance that if I watched the video enough times, Shigeru Miyamoto would manifest out of the air and tell me some great secret about the Mushroom Kingdom that I’ve never heard before (Maybe Wario and Mario’s are the same person after all).

The presentation was an example of what makes Nintendo such a singularly creative and frustrating company. There are still plenty of questions about what numerous aspects of the Switch. I love that the controllers are called Joy-cons because I have an excuse to use the word Joy-cons in daily life, but they look like they were made for certain elected officials with tiny hands. How intuitive playing games with this set-up still seems unclear. The renewed development on motion controls is a tad surprising to me since I thought they were moving away from that control scheme. The idea of paying to play Switch games online seems laughable given how rudimentary these networks have been in the past, even if they’re throwing virtual console games into the deal. The launch lineup, Zelda: Breath of the Wild aside, looks alarmingly barren of support. 1,2 Switch looks like a mediocre clone of a much better Warioware game, and ARMS (again, great name) could be a decent party game, but it doesn’t appear to have anything deeper in it. Yet again, Nintendo appears to be making a system that will lack for system-shifting third-party titles and will be survived by the few first-party games they create themselves. This is far from surprising, but it’s still slightly disappointing to see.

That said, the first-party games we did see were Very Good. The vast, colorful spaces of Zelda continues to look incredibly attractive, and Splatoon 2 just looks like more Splatoon, but the original game is such a jubilant, strange thing that I don’t really mind. It opened my mind to the wonder of what more welcoming multiplayer games could accomplish in the way Overwatchrevealed new avenues for a lot more people over the past year. If it was a launch game, I would probably get a Switch on day one. But it’s not, so I won’t.

But Super Mario Odyssey? That's the jam.

I can’t remember the last time a Mario game looked this unabashedly weird. Putting the plumber next to vaguely realistic cities and jungles is a jarring sight. It reminded me of Bayonettaand Uncharted, but instead of playing as a generically handsome white man, or a giant, sexualized witch whose bodysuit is made of her hair, you play as a stocky Italian man. The presence of (assumedly) actual human beings next to Mario raises a lot of questions. Does this mean Mario is a different species? What is the relationship between the Mushroom Kingdom and the rest of this society? What happens if Mario makes sweet, sweet love with a human woman? Can they make a baby? (I hope those last two questions are never answered. Call me a bigot, but I firmly believe that humans and whatever species Mario is should never be physically intimate with one another. Sorry not sorry.) Either way, the trailer is great.

I'm really looking forward to traversing around a pseudo-realistic world with Mario and his sentient hat and wreck Bowser’s life again. Super Mario Odyssey looks like the true creative leap after Super Mario Galaxy that the Wii U never got. As long as he doesn’t kiss any of the human women in the game. That is a step too far. I cannot stress that enough.

I was also looking forward to the presentation and, like you, I just can't understand nintendo sometimes. It seems they have been listening but also they haven't, the lack of a good amount of launch games makes me think that they decided to release the console earlier than expected. As someone who bought a wii u last year because of BOTW, i'm still deciding if I should buy the Switch for only that game, with the fact that it will run and look better as the driving factor.
Mario Odyssey looks great, at first I was scared because of real people thinking, like many, "Oh shit this is Sonic 2006", but then it went to crazy places like candy land, día de los muertos land and so on. While I really liked 3d World I agree with you that this looks like the next big step from Mario since Galaxy.
Lets hope that this console succeeds because, in the end, Nintendo is still a creative force unlike any other in this industry and any chance of losing them would be a terrible thing for everyone.
Also that bowser parental control video is great.

Zelda looks amazing.

The retailers need to announce some bundles, Im thinking Zelda, 1-2 switch and the Arms game in a bundle seems fair for £350.00 inc pro controller. Come on Nintendo, dont screw me.

The lack of games at launch Is the most disappointing thing for me, Zelda looks alright but how well is that thing going to run undocked?? Nothing else really stood out for me. Seems a bit on the pricey side for an under powered machine. It'll be €319 in Ireland which is nuts!

Just posting to say how goddamn satisfying it is to hear that *click* at the start of each trailer.

Well done Nintendo.

What console really had good launch games anyway? Zelda is a HUGE launch game. Last major launch game of that caliber was Halo for the orginal Xbox. Along with Puyo Puyo Tetris, i think the launch game are not the worst it could be.

They only seem to have 1 1/2 launch games, 1/2 switch and Breath of the Wild.

I think that Mario game looks bad.

Arms looks fun.

I'm disappointed that they haven't discussed storage at all yet.

@werupenstein: 32gb internal storage according to the specs on their site. Seems a little small to me.

@eroq: 32GB, really? That seems nuts. That will fit two games, maybe.

I'm looking forward to the Switch launch otherwise. People who say the launch line up doesn't look good are crazy. It's a console launch. How great was that PS4 launch? It wasn't. That console is still solid and very successful.

Arms looks much more interesting after seeing more gameplay and hearing you can do normal controls.

I wish the presentation had focused a bit more on other details and launch games. It's a bummer but then I remembered how garbage the PS4 and Xbox one launches were and so having Zelda at launch is more than enough for me.

maybe they talked about this in the past and i just missed it but... HOW COME NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT THERE IS V.O. IN ZELDA!?!?!?

also im surprised how much negativity i am seeing on the switch. i was already planning on buying it but while last nights presentation was really weird it definitely cemented my excitement. i think Mario looks rad, i dont have a wii u so i never played splatoon but i always wanted to, and zelda continues to look good. but aside from that i think ARMS looks kinda fun, and i think 1,2 switch could be fun at parties. but if either of those games cost more than say $15 Nintendo is out of their damn minds. also, while i wont buy it because i already own it on pc, i think being able to play Skyrim on the go would be great. all in all, i plan on buying one as soon as possible, i think it will be a great road trip device and i plan on taking a few road trips in the next year or so.

I thought the presentation was good, they covered everything I wanted to know within the first 20 minutes and had more details throughout the show. Yes, there are only a handful of launch games but I can't think of any recent console that has had a strong launch. At least it's got Zelda day one which is one of their biggest games.

My issue right now is honestly the price, it's a little too much right now to justify playing one game. I want to get one but I'm going to wait a while.

Anybody know if the Switch can run full performance as a handheld plugged into the wall?

All the pricing seems to be a bit high. Hoping Super Bomberman R and Puyo Puyo Tetris are on the cheaper side and not $60 games. Also worried about access to multiplayer and cost of a second controller.

@liquiddragon: i dont think they said. but my guess is no, since the screen is only 720p they dont need as much powerto get the same performance out of it. besides this thing is not a performance machine, i doubt games will run more than 1080p30 if not less than that like 900p and upscaled to 1080

My first thought is that I never wanna see the character Mario again. I'm sick and tired of the little plumber.

My second thought is that multiplayer paywalls shouldn't be a thing on any console. I want full access to the games I already paid for, the games the devs made with the servers that would otherwise be run by the devs/publishers, not by Sony or Microsoft. It's definitely a negative, another thing we can thank Microsoft for. I'm grateful PC players basically told them to fuck off when they tried it with GFWL. Console players accept everything too easily, but it's not like they have a choice on a closed platform. Nintendo at least had free multiplayer over the other thieves, a good selling point.

Yeah I don't like pay per month either... They were never really lauded for having free online. Reviewers and fora complained on and on about how bad the online was compared to the others. And seeing how much money the others make with it, we have ourselves to thank for it.

@zevvion: I believe they confirmed that Zelda was ~13 gigs.... Kinda unreal.

My main problem with it is that I'm not a regular multi-player. What do I do with my subscription when I don't feel like playing online? Most of my games don't even have multiplayer, but I wanna be able to fully use the ones that do. I'm not interested in free games. I already have access to the entire NES and SNES libraries, should I choose to play any of them again. I wonder what Nintendo IPs are even gonna have online MP. The new Mario? Zelda?

Wait a minute...

New York City...New Donk City

Donkey Kong street names...

King Kong ran amok in NYC

Donkey Kong as a villain confirmed for Super Mario Odessey!

@wmoyer83: F O L L O W T H E M O N E Y

I guess it sort of makes sense it doesn't have 500GB or 1TB of capacity since they have to assume you're carrying it around with you. But 32GB for a gaming system that will produce games of 20-30GB a year in or so, is... bad. How is that even supposed to work? You can just have one game with you at most? That defeats the purpose of that system.

DigitalFoundry had a great discussion on video about the London Event and German Event presentations. What they added to the discussion aide from first hand from those events, was some expertise about frame rate, resolution and comparison with Wii U. And, the outlook isn't totally negative either, they do a fair bit of discussion evaluating the leap from 3DS to Switch as a handheld and their point of view on that topic is very thoughtful.

I thought it was great.