Nintendo Switch Will Launch On March 3rd For $299, Won't Feature Region-Locking Software (cnet.com)

Nintendo has released more details about its upcoming Nintendo Switch gaming console. We have learned that the console will be launching on March 3rd worldwide, and in North America the console will be available for $299.99. What's more is that it won't feature region-locking for software, meaning you can play games from any region no matter where you buy your console. CNET reports: There will also be a Nintendo Switch online service that will be a paid service. It will launch as a trial with pricing to be announced later in 2017. For fans of imports of Japanese exclusives, it was announced the new system will have no region locking -- a big break from tradition for Nintendo. The Switch itself is said to have battery life from 2.5 to 6 hours and can be charged over USB-C. Nintendo says it will have portable battery accessories also available to charge on the go. The Joy-con is the name for new controller, usable in a combined controller style or separated into two halves to let two players play together. It will also be available in a range of colors for people who want to mix things up. The Joy-con has a whole bunch of clever tricks -- motion control, IR sensor, haptic feedback -- and a series of 'versus' game ideas called "1, 2, Switch" that let you play games (like a quick draw shooting game) without needing to look at the screen, just face each other down with the Joy-con controllers. Other games announced that need you to keep the full Joy-con all to yourself include 'Arms', a robotic boxing battle game, and Splatoon 2. Plus the new Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, which aims to deliver a 'sandbox' experience across many realms outside the Mushroom kingdom, including the real world. And this time his cap has come to life. For the more serious RPG fans, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was also announced for the Nintendo Switch. Followed by a very small tease for Fire Emblem Warriors. All up, Nintendo says there are over 80 games in development for the Nintendo Switch. If you live in New York, "a limited quantity of pre-orders for the #NintendoSwitch will begin on 1/13 at 9AM while supplies last," Nintendo NY tweeted.

Comments

Re:Subscription for online multiplayer

[Gadget_Guy]

You're dead to me, Nintendo.

I said the same thing when they introduced region locking with the Nintendo 3DS. I think I only bought one or two games from overseas for the DS, but I just don't want to have any worry when buying a game from a website which region it is for. And dammit, it's the principle.

I don't play multiplayer games, so it will be interesting to see how tempting the Switch is to see if I will stand on principle there too.

Additional Info

[mentil]

It has a 1280x720 6.2" capacitive touchscreen, and the battery will last ~3 hours when running typical games. Zelda is coming out on launch, 3/3, and same day on Wii U. It has 32GB internal storage, and the two SKUs differ only by joy-con color scheme. The storage is expandable by microSDXC cards, presumably eshop games can be directly installed onto them like the 3ds (unlike the Wii U.)
More detailed hardware specs (RAM?) have yet to be revealed, though. I'm particularly curious if it's more graphically powerful than the Wii U.

Re:Additional Info

[guises]

Games come on cartridges, similar to the DS but a little thicker. - This was important to me and I had to go searching to confirm this, so I thought I'd mention it.

Neither fish nor foul

[Anonymous Coward]

The 3DS succeeded because it was a relatively affordable, robust device with a small footprint and a clamshell design to prevent damage. I wonder how many parents are going to buy a large, $299 device for their kids when it looks like one drop could damage or destroy the thing. I wonder how many will get dropped as kids fiddle trying to snap on the controllers. Even the controllers look like they suffer damage on their runners / clips which break them. Oh and there's no backwards compatibility either. And the battery life is pretty poor.

So that's one audience this thing doesn't seem pitched for.

But perhaps people with consoles will like it? Except that even when docked, performance is likely to be terrible compared to rival consoles from Microsoft and Sony. Aside from that the device will be gimped by the same storage space issues that crippled the Wii U. So patches, DLC and all the usual stuff which people expect from a console won't happen.

So who the hell is supposed to be the target audience for this thing? Perhaps a Switch Mini will turn up in a year or so and make more sense of the platform. Maybe even a console-only variant. But as it stands it looks like a stupidly expensive not-very-portable, not-very-performant-console device.

Re:Neither fish nor foul

[DrXym]

Even docked I don't see any way to get close to XB1 or PS4 performance. Even if it runs at a higher clock or unlocks some higher mode it's still constrained by its form factor, the mobile chipset, it's low power draw and its (in)ability to dissipate heat. I wonder what 3rd parties think of a device that yet again probably has little chance of platform parity with its competitors.

Re:Double-dipping Nintendo

[hairyfeet]

It just amazes me console players will put up with this shit. Hell I can fire up MP on games I bought a decade ago on my PC and play all I want and it don't cost a cent, why in the world would I want to pay money to some third party which we've seen will happily pull the plug the second they can't nickel and dime enough shekels to make them happy?

Tough sell

[RogueyWon]

It's hard to see this being a major success, outside of the (aging, shrinking) Nintendo hardcore. The consensus on gaming sites (and their forums) seems to reinforce this. So do the markets; Nintendo's stocks have fallen around 5.75% since the reveal.

The stock price shift will almost certainly have been driven by the price. It's higher than expected by at least $50 (and realistically closer to $100). Sony and MS got away with even higher prices when they were launching the PS4 and XB1, for sure. However, those consoles were significantly more powerful than their predecessors. They also launched at the same time as each other. So in essence, there were two expensive consoles without many games in direct competition with each other, which actually negated those disadvantages a bit. Nintendo are launching a less powerful console against two cheaper and well-entrenched mid-cycle consoles with extensive games libraries. That's going to be tough.

The launch games line-up is also poor. Zelda looks pretty good, but there is a cheaper Wii-U version also available that doesn't look appreciably worse. The rest of the launch window looks pretty pants. The XB1 and the PS4 had the same problem, of course, but again, their near-simultaneous launch actually offset that as a problem.

Beyond the launch-window, the games lineup is nothing special. The same first party range that didn't do much to help the Wii-U. A couple of more interesting (but still niche) second party titles like Xenoblade 2. Third party support from a few companies with a long-standing relationship with the Nintendo DS line (like Atlus), whose games aren't yet even confirmed for release outside of Japan. And a tentative dip of a toe in the water from EA. The poor specs, eccentric hardware and unusual control configurations are going to put a lot of other third party developers off.

I think the console itself is also going to be very hard to market. It's not quite clear what the USP here is. The thing looks large and clunky by handheld standards; more awkward than a tablet or even a PS Vita. As a home console, it's badly underpowered compared to the competition. Nobody has quite explained yet why the hybrid configuration is such a good thing, and the attempts to date to do so have been toe-curling.

On the plus side, it's region-free. That's actually pretty huge news and is a sign that even the most authoritarian of the platform owners is now being forced to open up a little. I might actually buy one just to reward that, because the fear is that if the Switch fails horribly (as I fear it might), then Nintendo will swing back to region locking in future. But it is really hard right now to see a pathway to this thing being a success.

Re:Tough sell

[RogueyWon]

Almost every word of your post is factually incorrect.

The Wii-U did not out-sell the XB1. Not even close. The most recent "units shipped" numbers for the Wii-U are at 13.36 million, as of September 2016. The most recent equivalent number on the XB1 is 19 million, from January 2016 (so the gap has likely widened significantly since then, boosted in particular by the XB1-S release over the summer). Both numbers are "shipped" rather than "sold".

And don't mistake the fact that Nintendo sell hardware at a profit (which they don't always these days anyway and haven't consistently since the first 3DS price-cut) with them being profitable. Nintendo hasn't been consistently profitable since FY2010-11, which was the last year in which it reaped Wii-led mega-profits. Since then, it has flipped between loss and (small) profits, but with the main deciding factor being currency fluctuations. When Nintendo has reported an operating profit over this period, it has generally been on the basis of the 3DS. The Wii-U may not even have recouped its development costs, particularly after its abandonment by third parties led to licensing fees all but drying up and a number of first party titles such as Starfox Zero crashed and burned.

Moreover, the gaming section of Sony has been very profitable indeed since the launch of the PS4 (and, indeed, since the company got its house in gear in the latter part of the PS3 cycle). In fact, while Sony was a bit of a basket case until a couple of years ago, the company has bounced back strongly in recent years, almost entirely on the basis of its gaming division. Remember, whether a console is sold at a profit or a loss is not actually all that relevant - licensing fees are where the real money is. How MS's Xbox division is doing is a bit harder to judge, but they seem to have turned things around a bit over the last 18 months and are likely at least no worse than Nintendo now. As of late last year, Nintendo was posting some pretty awful financial losses.

It would be good if we could start to ditch some of the 2007-era narrative now. Nintendo's position today is a lot weaker than it was then, but we still hear the same old clichés trotted out.

Account management fixed yet?

[Revarg]

After dealing with the Wii and 3DS and the Nintendo account system I don't intend to buy a new Nintendo system till they get that figured out. Having to spend 2 hours with customer support to transfer my account from my old 3DS to a New 3DS is not an experience I'm looking to repeat ever. They need to follow catch up with Steam, PSN, and XBL, and make that easier before I'd even consider them again.