Almost 24hrs have passed since the trailer for what now is known as the Nintendo Switch formally the NX, like many I thought this was an excellent showing on what the Switch is and how the much-rumoured Hybrid would work.
During the trailer, we saw various things, this has raised a bunch of question and knowing Nintendo over the past few years, how will they answer them.
There are some clear questions like battery life whilst on the go, I’m not much of handheld player that my Switch will likely remain docked. Yet this must be a concern for a lot of people interested in Switch.
Storage as in downloads, with Switch using Game Carts game saves will likely save straight to them like they do with 3DS but in the trailer Skyrim was shown which is soon to be released and remastered special edition for PS4 is around 20GB (I can’t get a concrete answer on the file size) and things like Call of Duty Infinite Warfare + Modern Warfare Remaster which we hope to see the likes of on Switch comes in at 130gb.
Now you can see how this might be an issue with Switch, not for game saves but downloading games as the system is designed for on the go, it’s not like the Wii U with limited storage where you can use an external hard drive to give you more, thing is you wouldn’t want to be lumping around an extremal hard drive.
Rumours are saying the Switch has 32GB built in which seems okay when compared to tablets which the system looks a lot like but you couldn’t download Call of Duty for instance, now looking at tablets iPads go up to 256GB only issue with this then is cost for Switch, are we going to see multiple SKU’s with different amounts of storage or are we going to get a base unit with 32GB then like the 3DS uses SD Cards which seem to go up to around 512GB.
From close-ups and people doing rewind of the trailer, no one has spotted a SD Card slot though this could be on the bottom of the system and that is one area we’ve not seen.
Now in the trailer, no one once used the screen as a touch screen now I’m not on big touch screens for games only thing is Nintendo have always been excellent with being able to play their back catalogue of games in some way, now with Switch being cartridge based and not being backwards compatible with physical Wii U games and being confirmed not with the 3DS either are Nintendo abandoning games that used the touch screen which would mean for things like the Virtual Console on Switch missing out on DS, 3DS and Wii U games.
That is a lot of history for Nintendo just to ignore hopefully it was all part of the trailer and things like the Hearthstone twitter account which is played using touch on tablets, tweeting Nintendo could this mean we could see a touchscreen.
Which brings me to my next question, how does Switch run as for a long time it was rumoured it would be running a custom Android OS which I’m not sure we will see due to it than being possibly rather easy to hack.
But could we see Nintendo with Switch and its portable nature try to get likes of Hearthstone, Fallout Shelter, Pokemon Go, Super Mario and the best of smartdevices on to Switch to bolster the games library.
Which comes to the real big one and main one part from maybe release date and price, is games from the trailer we saw The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which is also coming to Wii U, what looks to be two of the rumoured four remasters of Wii U games Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon, a brief showing of a new 3D Mario and two third party titles which seem to be Skyrim from Bethesda and NBA 2K17 from 2K Sports.
After the trailer Nintendo put out this showing all the partners they have bringing content to Switch.
Switch is a little different to the Wii U being a hybrid and we can go back and look at the announcement of the 3DS which showed the partners Nintendo have for the 3DS and you can look back and see that has been fine.
If we go back and look at the Wii though in 2011 we had 3 people from EA including John Riccitiello coming on stage to say how great the system is and we will see the likes of Battlefield 3 on the system (Was shown by John), Codemasters showing of Dirt, Gearbox showing of Alien Colonial Marines and people like Ken Levine talking about it in this video.
We got some in that video but not everything that was shown or said to be coming from these partnersand some partners like Konami haven’t even brought a game out on Wii U does leave me rather sceptical when after the trailer both Bethesda and 2K Sports put similar statements out: We are happy to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Nintendo" on the trailer. Both companies added, "While we are not confirming any specific titles at this time, we are pleased to announce our partnership with Nintendo and support of Nintendo Switch.
Now March 2017 is still a long way of and maybe announcing games like NBA 2K17 which has already been out for a month and will be 6 months old in March isn’t the right message to send out and same goes for Skyrim being ports of games that are 6 months old (more so if you go from Skyrims original release back in 2011 and not the remasters) being what Switch has to offer and the Wii U releasing with various ports of games out months even years before elsewhere they wish to avoid similar and just having these in the trailer to show what Switch can do with games we know from developers we know.
If both of those do come along with those as Nintendo offerings, it does seem very port / remaster heavy which for someone who owns one of the other systems and a Wii U it’s not very appealing.
I’ve got more question as well like we digital games carry over, does it have motion controls for Wii Virtual Console games, is there any sort of achievement/trophy system, will we able to share screenshots, stream games and much more but no matter how good the hardware is and if most of my questions answered in positive way it will always come down to one thing games and right now I’m not convinced, roll on 2017 for us to find out the answers hopefully before March the answer to these questions.
If you've not seen the trailer then I leave this here