Everything We Learned About the Switch

The Nintendo Switch was revealed yesterday, and there’s a lot to go into so let’s not waste any time.

First and foremost, we now know the price of the thing: it’s going to sell for 300 bucks a pop, which is a bit more than we would have expected, starting March 3rd, 2017.

We got a closer look at the controllers (called Joy-Cons for some reason) as well, which have been a source of some concern amongst fans for their apparent… size issues. Kotaku posted a video I’ll link below with all the details, but in summary, the two controllers can function as separate controllers when removed from the control Switch Dock. Each one has a joystick, four face buttons, an accelerometer, and two little Left and Right shoulder buttons. The right Joy-Con has an ARP camera with some decent power to it, and can tell the difference between “rock, paper, and scissors” symbols, as well as read Amiibo data. On the left controller, there’s a “share” button. Both have vibration features, by the way (ladies). They can either be connected to the mobile unit, or slapped onto a Joy-Con Grip, which will make them function like a fairly standard Nintendo Pro controller. While a single Joy-Con is 50 bucks (and a pair is 80), up to eight can connect to a single Switch unit.



When the Switch is in handheld mode, by the way, it can still connect to other Switch units with local WiFi. No news yet if it can access the broader internet, but I’m not sure why not. The screen is 6.2 inches, and has a 720p display, which is bad news for you graphics-first folks. But here’s the worse news: Nintendo is claiming the system can get up to 6 hours of battery life, but “will vary depending on the software and usage conditions”. Thankfully they were a bit more specific, saying that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could be played for about three hours before running out of batteries, which… isn’t great. Fortunately, the system comes with an AC adapter, which goes into a USB-C plug.

Only 32GB of internal memory, but that can be expanded on the cheap with microSDXC cards. Good news for travelers, as well, in that this system is thankfully not region locked. So that’s a weight off our chests.

Of course, the system can go online, as I mentioned earlier. That said, you’re going to have to pay to play games online starting Fall 2017, marking this as the first Nintendo console with online fees… but then, they joined the online game late as well, so they’ve always been late bloomers regarding this stuff. The good news is that you’re not just paying for online services: people who pay the monthly fee will also get a free game every month. Talk about incentive! That said, it’s unclear at this point if they’re only free for the month (Like what Sony and Microsoft do), or if they’re free forever.

The Switch can also sync up with your mobile device. Right now, we’ve only got one example of that, however: the parental controls, which lets parents monitor and control how kids play on the system. Frankly, you don’t need to see the trailer, but it’s adorable so I’m posting it anyway.



Hey, speaking of, what good is a new console if we don’t have games? And Nintendo has a whole host of them to show off. I’ll post the big trailers below, for you to peruse at your discretion.

To kick things off, we got a brand-new Mario game to enjoy, which is actually set in something resembling reality! Check out Super Mario Odyssey!



We’ve got a Splatoon sequel, because of course we would. It doesn’t look TOO new, but it’s still pretty exciting.



We’ve got a strange new competitive boxing game, where two people face off with elastic limbs…



A sequel to the surprisingly good and highly underrated Xenoblade Chronicles…



A remake of Mario Kart 8, with improved battle mode…



A freaking Dynasty-Warriors style Fire Emblem, which I cannot even.



But of course, the highlight of the presentation was a four-minute long trailer for the next Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, which will be a Switch launch title and console seller. Remember when I said console exclusives were overrated? I think I was lying, because this trailer is what’s really got me excited.



Anyway. That’s basically everything we learned from the Nintendo Switch presentation. Still, if you want to see the whole thing yourself, the whole hour-plus presentation is available right below.



Now let’s see if it sticks, Nintendo!