What is Nintendo Switch?
After months of rumors and speculation about Nintendo’s next console (codenamed: NX), Nintendo finally unveils its next piece of hardware
Nintendo Switch, currently slated for a March 2017 release, is designed as a video game tablet with detachable controller pieces that you can either place in a dock to play on your TV at home or play on the go with the tablet’s built-in screen.
Essentially, Nintendo Switch is fully functional as both a home console and a portable device.
Since the incredibly popular Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo Game Boy launched in 1985 and 1989, respectively, Nintendo has maintained separate hardware product lines for home consoles and portables. Although Nintendo’s home consoles have always been more powerful than their contemporaneous portable offerings (for example, compare the specs of GameCube and Game Boy Advance, both released by Nintendo in 2001), steady advancements in technology have allowed portable games to approach console levels of quality. For example, a generation ago, it would have been quite difficult to imagine a massive open-world home console game like Xenoblade Chronicles running on a portable system.
In 2015, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D was released for Nintendo’s current portable, New Nintendo 3DS.
Seeing an opening to merge the two hardware product lines and create a larger user install base, Nintendo Switch is the first Nintendo hardware offering that is both a home console as well as a portable. Nintendo was apparently able to achieve console-level quality in a portable by partnering with NVIDIA, who have their own line of high-end gaming tablets, to develop custom hardware for Nintendo Switch.
As Nintendo Switch was revealed through a short teaser trailer rather than a press conference at a gaming expo, there are many aspects of Nintendo Switch that remain a mystery. Two big mysteries standout and likely will remain unanswered until next year.
First, we do not have the final word on the pricing or specifications of Nintendo Switch. Second, we do not know the full list of titles which will be released for the system.
That being said, the teaser trailer showing off the Nintendo Switch might give us some clues.
The teaser trailer features footage of the previously confirmed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild along with a couple titles that appear to be expanded ports of Wii U games: Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon. This lends credence to the theory that the Nintendo Switch, despite fully functioning as a portable, is at least as powerful as Nintendo’s current home console, Wii U, and significantly more powerful than Nintendo’s current portable, the New Nintendo 3DS.
This also suggests that pricing for the Nintendo Switch will be more in line with console pricing ($300-$500 range) than portable pricing ($100-$300 range).
Furthermore, the confirmation that Nintendo Switch will be receiving expanded ports of some of Wii U’s best games all but ensures that other popular Wii U games, such as Super Smash Bros., will receive the expanded port treatment, with additional characters, stages, modes, etc.
Although Nintendo Switch’s reveal seems to have generated a significant amount of interest, it is an open question whether consumers are truly interested in the home console/portable hybrid concept.
Some investors were unhappy to learn that Nintendo will not be directly competing with the hardware capabilities of Sony’s and Microsoft’s home console offerings. However, Nintendo has sometimes succeeded in the past by opting to expand the market rather than trying to assert dominance over an existing market.
Furthermore, Nintendo has recently enjoyed far better sales in the portable market than in the console market. So, rather than split development resources and their customer base between home console and portable hardware, the Nintendo Switch allows them to have a unified development focus for a unified market.
Only time will tell whether this unique strategy will pay off for them.
