Are You a Good Switch or a Bad Switch?

I'm with Jeff in that I'm more disappointed than anything after seeing all of this. Seems like they went more Wii direction than 3DS, and I'm not into it. I also thought the Mario game didn't look that good. Whatever, I'll keep my eye on it and will probably get one eventually. I may just look for a Wii U at a pawn shop to play Zelda.

@alucitary: I got the feeling that the market for the people that were willing to wait 6 years for a Wii true succesor is not as big as you or Dan think. At least not willing to pay 300 or being big enough as Nintendo wants to be.

I think Nintendo just cant get away from its traditional thinking when it comes to releasing new consoles.

The press conference itself was typical Nintendo. A lot of talking heads with very little actual gameplay shown. Some of the developers like suda51 were dragged onto the stage just to say that they think that Switch is a great console.

As many others have said the price of the console is too much and the console is even more expensive here in eu (about 345 euros or so). Also looking at the pretty empty launch schedule the switch users will have a lot of months where almost nothing seems to come out (at least from Nintendo). Nintendo has also been pretty great at burning the bridges with a lot of third party developers which means that they will have a very limited support from third party developers.

I think Nintendo is in for a rough awakening when it comes to the sales of switch. They even priced the accessories way too high.

I don't know the context since I haven't watched the video yet, but yeah... Knack was a fun, challenging, well-made game. That could've been a few hours shorter, but still.

Anyway, the Switch hardware and stuff looks neat. Worried about the lack of compelling games early on, but I'm sure I'll get at least a dozen high quality Nintendo games on it in the long run.

I was really hoping they would truly go for the hybrid angle instead of a follow up to the Wii U. As someone who loves handhelds I absolutely love the idea of the Switch, but once again Nintendo is making a really good case against their own product. As always buying a Nintendo product means going against your better judgement and hoping you won't regret it. Even in this situation where I really like the hardware (couldn't care less about the motion stuff and the joy-con sharing, but I love the tablet itself) but they just had to ruin it with the poor messaging in the presentation, terrible accessories pricing and straight up weak launch year. This was the point where they had to knock it out of the park and send a message to everyone that this wasn't going to to be the Wii U situation all over again. I think the premise for the Switch is better and it'll outperform the Wii U eventually, but I don't see this actually being a great seller unless they seriously step it up.

I feel like this thing is once again going to sell badly in the first year, partly also due to low availability. Third parties will have given up on it after two years max and we're back to only Nintendo games. They could've still salvaged it by having a stronger line-up of first party games, but they even managed to screw that up. What have they actually been working on for these past one and a half years where the Wii U and 3DS were for the most part being ignored? At that point they had to have multiple titles in progress that they decided to bring to the Switch instead of the original target platform. Where the hell are these games? The way this all played out feels like the worst case scenario for the Switch simply because it looked like Nintendo had it figured out for a moment and then suddenly reminded us of how clueless they are as a company. They and the Switch are not doomed by any means, but all of this could and should have been better.

When your main Launch Title (basically only game for months) is "Breath of the Wild" which was originally designed for the Wii U and the MAJORITY of your potential buyers already own a Wii U, its really hard to not think the Switch launch is looking to be terrible, to say nothing of the system itself.

I fully expect this system to end up an overall "failure" after a few years and (I know this will never happen) hopefully it will finally convince Nintendo to JUST STOP and focus more on being a publisher and 3DS.

The Wii U brought me back to being a Nintendo fan, and I've liked basically everything I've seen with the Switch. As for launch games I doubt I'll pick up anything beyond Zelda and maybe some downloadable stuff, but if they really lean into the portable/console hybrid thing over the next while and bring the smaller, quirkier 3DS-style experiences as well as the bigger, grand console experiences, I'll be quite pleased.

Got a pre-order in at Target.com yesterday for the gray one, still need the pro controller, Zelda & a micro SD card. First time I've had a launch console ever. Excited and really looking forward to that Mario. Crazy time to be a gamer, VR, 4K, now this Wii3 weirdness, very much so approve.

someone's got an ax to grind.

I'm just wondering, if their plan is to channel 3ds games and Wii u games into one unified system, where are all the 3ds like games? Just a complete lack of content on their part.. I will probably end up doing the same thing I did with the Wii u.. Buy it second hand 4 years in and pick up a handful of Nintendo games..

I think the Japanese business culture, of not telling your boss he's INSANE, is killing Nintendo. They must have some very market blind individuals at some key positions in the company who are pushing an agenda that has already failed. The Switch is doubling down on Wii U, not getting away from it.

Their plan is to make a better Wii U, and I do not think it is just my opinion that is insane. And, anyone desire to just ignore the Switch's motion control design will butt-up against the limited battery life if they want to use it as a portable.

It doubled down on Wii U. Its expensive as hell. The easy to misplace parts are expensive. There is not one part you can point at that Switch does better that they completion. Its just a stew of old ideas and mediocre parts.

• As a console the most expensive part, the screen is hidden and unusable while docked. So as a console where they money went -instead of for processing or graphics power- is into a screen that can't be seen.
• As a portable it lacks battery life, because the thing is really designed to be an at-home Wii U -TOO foremost, and a portable second down the list.

They say a camel is a horse designed by committee, but imagine if the design committee was Nintendo...so that horse has humps and tiny dachshund legs too.

One or two big exclusive games for the entire first 10 months of this console, with none at launch, is pretty god damn abysmal. What were Nintendo's teams even working on? I mean, they weren't making Wii U games, so...?

I wonder if you are going to be able to syn the Switch while undocked to a external Bluetooth speaker? If so they should make the external speakers look like mushroom kingdom mushrooms.

"Dan was an expert milker. He milked them dry."

"Yep, just went down the line. Beat em all."

...

*squints*

My lewd sense is tingling.

will there be pig milking DLC?

Guys, i don't think that's an udder...

Not sure what people expected/wanted out of this thing to warrant all the complaints. It looks like it will largely do what they said it would do months ago. The focus on motion controls/gimmicks is a little disappointing, but it doesn't look like they will shoehorn them in as much as they would with the Wii. Other than everything being overpriced, seems like a fine Nintendo console to me--about what you'd expect.

$300 would not be too bad... If it came with a pro controller packed in. $300 plus $70 for the controller I actually want is kind of ridiculous.

I was actually pretty on board with the Switch till I saw the price of the pro controller, the way the subscription game service worked (wtf?), and the very small line-up for year one.

As much of a "FAILURE!!!" this system might be, it really doesn't matter when you have a franchise like Pokemon and Mario you can pull out and sell by the millions.

If I could buy these games for 2x the price on PS4, I would. But I can't, so I'll buy a Switch. What can I say? Nintendo games make me happy!

Jeff to me is generally all critic and no feeling (pessimist/realist) on Nintendo stuff; Dan is generally like all feel and adds little to actual criticism. They should maybe learn from each other and balance out a bit to make for some great analysis.

I have no idea how the Switch is going to turn out, but my generally feeling towards it is apathy at best. I constantly think that Nintendo are making poor decisions but they have proved me wrong multiple times. I hope to be proved wrong again. That said, their idea of charging for online services and then only offering a random NES or SNES game for 1 month before taking it away again is straight up bad.

I think what you compare this to first will impact your opinion the most. I see this as a handheld I can plug into my TV. I see this as my 3DS replacement. The 3DS launched in 2011 for $250 (270 after inflation adjustment), had garbage games for over a year and still was very successful (yes it had a very rough first year but still sold about 10 million units). However if I looked at this as my Wii U replacement or PS4/Xbox1 rival I would probably be disappointed or more concerned. I think people are forgetting that all the 3DS support will now be going to the Switch.

Jeff's GTFOH scenario about Switch 'imaginary ping pong' was priceless ;-)

Nintendo going down the same gimmicksville cul de sac as they have in past decade, when what they should have done was waited for the Tegra X2 for better battery life and almost XB1/PS4 performance while docked and similar performance at 720p when mobile.

The inventive thing for Nintendo do was not to double down on what they've being doing for a decade, it's a pity really because aesthetically they've actually made a console that looks like a piece of consumer electronics and not a toy for once.

Look at your hands as you milk!

@yarbles: im sure waiting foe the newer chip would have sent the switch down another year or two at least of development hell, and then something ELSE better would have been out by then and we'd be asking the same question. all the while the wii u would have potentially stagnated further. maybe something along the r&d chain could have been tightened to make it possible in the same or close time frame, but we can only assume.

He explained his expectations in the video. A Nintendo console for him is a few Nintendo games a year. There are 5 or so games set to come out this year so that fits his bill. Not to mention things like Puyo Puyo Tetris which Dan can now play in English and on the go.

Not everything has to be fanboyism especially with direct context and explanations. Also the guy probably plays more games on PS4 and PC than Nintendo systems...

I wonder where the long rumoured "finished" Pikmin game is? I suppose Nintendo needed to hold a few reveals back for E3

Has Vinny ever started a stream after setting up the A/V first?

For those complaining about the price here is the Australian prices

Console: $470

Pro Controller: $100

Extra Joycon pair: $120

Extra dock: $130

The cheapest game is Has Been Heroes at $40 then 1, 2 Switch which is $70 most other games are $90 to $100 with the limited edition of Zelda clocking in at $190 and it doesn't seem to come with the console case that Reggie showed off on the tree house.

Yay Australia.

People wanted a unification of 3DS and Wii U, one place to buy all of Nintendo's games. They seem to have left all the 3DS games and developers out. Granted, Nintendo have been sending subtle hints this whole time that 3DS will continue for the foreseeable future, but if that's true they will have squandered the biggest potential behind the Switch. Instead, the presentation seemed to double down on silly motion controls and (expensive to implement) local coop play.

@kissthedevil: Add another $80 to the console and $10 to all the accessories, and you've got the NZ prices. And our dollar is basically at parity.

To me, I always end up buying Nintendo consoles in spite of what their dumb gimmicks are. You end up paying for shitty features you don't want (motion controllers, a touchscreen gamepad or in this care a "portable" system and some dinky controllers) while they skimp on things like storage capacity or competitive hardware.

Personally, I'd like Nintendo to stop making hardware and focus entirely on software, because people buy their systems only for their games anyway. If not, just make your console a simple box that what plugs in the tv and have a regular-ass controller with buttons and sticks and no extra bells and whistles.

Also, ever since they officially announced the Switch, I didn't quite understand the supposed hype and paradigm shift it might represent. Like, yeah, you can take your console games and play them on the go. That's what the PSP and the Vita were and people (including the GB staff) were very quick to point out how they would never want to play these types of games in a handheld fashion.

TL;DR: Nintendo make good, unique software, bad, unique hardware.

@ripelivejam: 100% agree with you, but sadly his comment kinda reflects Jeff in this video, he gets stuck on the 1, 2 Switch. If its for comedic effect or his general opinion i dont know. I found it odd that it took them until a questiob was asked to mention that it actually has a touch screen, something that they have had made a massive point of in earlier podcasts, but in this video it was just mentioned as a sidenote.

Also did they even mention Xenoblade 2?

My interest in this thing tanked pretty severely over the last 24 hours. I was cautiously optimistic but the pricing and lack of games I care about really killed it for me.

I feel for the people who feel like they have to buy it just for those few Nintendo developed games.

Jeff: -I'm not sitting here, going like: "It looks like that shitty Sonic game.." I'm like:" IT LOOKS LIKE THAT SHITTY SONIC GAME!"

@benderunit22: That'll be such a bummer though. No one else even tries to do interesting things with their consoles anymore, they're all too scared of the potential failure.

The switch looks great! Enjoyed this video a lot.

Is there any word on if it will support bluetooth audio out or have an ethernet port?

$250 was a price pulled out of the internet's ass with zero credibility and validation. still don't get why people are disappointed about that to the level they are. even if you feel the price is bad you still based your hopes on an unfounded rumor.

Travel back with me to the days of the Wii and remember those first moments you had some non-gamers try the system out. They had fun. So much fun that a huge number even put their own money down on a system that we know is underpowered and didn't offer many non-Nintendo games.

Now imagine you can take a Wii with you everywhere, you get two controllers in the base package, and the party games have evolved to encourage more fun social interactions. This thing is going to destroy on the market come March. On the 3rd when someone walks into a crowd of friends and says "Milk this cow with me", a huge number of converts will be made.

It's going to sell out again and good luck getting one before Christmas.

Well, between the rarity of the console come March and the thin line up for the year, I probably won't be getting one of these anytime soon.

I'm still playing Zelda on my WiiU though. That game continues to impress me.

@vinny I doubt you will have to explain to a four year old why "killing" is fun. Combat and aggression is pretty generic to the species. You have something I want I am going to take it from you and fight you for it - pretty much in the genes. Sharing and love is what you have to teach. Heart of Darkness/Lord of the flies/ reality.

i don't believe you.

Man, im tired of Nintendo chasing the wii money. This thing might do well for them but it just seems like there trying to do too much in one console.

@missashley said:

2 1/2 days later and I still don't understand it. Is it like good witch/bad witch? Is that a thing? 'Sandwich'?

2017's Please Stop award goes to.....

Wizard of Oz. Glinda asks Dorothy: "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?" after her house crushes the Wicked Witch of the East.