Don't Call Switch a Tablet, Also It's Not Here To Oust the 3DS, Says Nintendo (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on CNET: Don't call the new Nintendo Switch a tablet. And don't assume the shape-shifting device for gamers will replace the company's popular 3DS handheld, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said in an interview with CNET. With its latest gadget, Nintendo is playing to win the same game it has for decades: the one that takes place in your living room. "The form factor may be that it looks like [a tablet]," he said. "But...it's a home console that you can take with you and play anywhere with anyone." [...] "With Zelda, with Kart, with Xenoblade, I think the initial consumer for Switch will be more young adults with disposable incomes, given the price points and the large library," Fils-Aime said. That doesn't mean Nintendo is ditching its core audience. The company will continue to skew toward a younger crowd with the 3DS. "In the end, we want people of all ages engaging with Mario and Zelda and the content that's available across both platforms," Fils-Aime said.

Comments

Sorry Nintendo...

[MitchDev]

It's a New New 2DS with an dock for outputting to a TV....

I only want one thing

[Yvan256]

A good, real Metroid game. None of this "Federation Force" stuff.

Re:If it walks like a duck...

[darkain]

"in favor of motion control" - But the 3DS already had the accelerometer and gyroscope. This is more like "in favor is single-system multiplayer"

Yes, but no ...

[jxander]

It's exactly like a 3DS, except without 3D, and doesn't fold in half, and has removable controllers, and supports couch multiplayer, and ... well they both play games, so there's that.

It does kind of resemble a tablet, except it's a tablet with actual joystick and button input, instead of touch screen garbage. And honestly, that alone sounds like everything I've ever wanted from a tablet.

I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to

[Somebody Is Using My]

I don't really see the point of the Switch, for either Nintendo or its customers.

It wants to be a home-console system, except without the power to match the PS4 or XBox360, and without the huge line-up of games.

It also wants to be a portable, except without the convenient "drop-in-your-pocket" size, the ruggedness or (comparative) cheapness (enough that you can give it to your 10-year old without worrying if he'll break or lose it) of the DS line.

It wants to be a tablet, except without all the extra non-gaming features (email, Facebook, chat, web, even word processing) that modern tablets offer.

And while its controllers are "neat", they look - and early reports confirm, feel - terrible to play with over long periods of time.

Frankly, I think Nintendo would have been just as well to release a slightly updated version of the Wii and the 3DS and call it a day. Combining both lines into one jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none just doesn't seem to be a winning move. Nintendo seems to be sacrificing both lines - despite their claims that it is not a replacement for the DS - on the altar of the Switch.

Then again, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not anywhere near Nintendo's target market; I'm not ten years old . The requirements and likes of those markets are about as far from mine as you can probably get. The Wii and its games were amazingly popular with the pre-teen crowd and arguably the Switch is exactly what the kids want. But as a parent, I'd dread giving my kids a $300 portable device that looks as if it would snap in half if dropped (say what you want about the controls and graphics of the DS line, those things could take a beating).

Re:I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to

[elrous0]

Games don't need to be played on powerful systems to be performant, pretty, and fun.

Man, I'm sick of that argument. Nintendo fans has been saying that for over 15 years now, and it's still just as silly as it was back when Nintendo basically gave up trying to compete with Sony.

Yes, you can still have fun with an old Pong console from 1977. But if you release it to compete with modern consoles, no one is going to pay $300 for it.

The core demographic of Nintendo lines are not children, they are families and 20-somethings that aren't into whatever the latest Call of Duty is.

No, their core demographics are kids and nostalgic adults who won't grow up.

It is important when discussing poignant points like you have presented that we understand that Nintendo sells most of their consoles at a profit while Xbox and Playstation have largely been subsidized, and yet Nintendo still sells.

Actually, from what I understand that hasn't been true for several years now. They've been losing money on the WiiU from the get-go. The 3DS and a big bankroll they had saved up has basically been keeping them afloat.

Re:I don't get it... but maybe I'm not supposed to

[Dixie_Flatline]

As a game developer, I'll tell you honestly that in theory, Nintendo is right. Powerful consoles need huge pipelines. Games for XBox 1 and PS4 take hundreds of people to make, and every time the power goes up, our team sizes scale up accordingly. Game engines don't magically provide content on their own. Marshalling data into memory takes a non-zero amount of time. We need more animations, bigger textures, and more people working on AI, trying to make it seem better. (Spoiler: all AI in games is mainly smoke and mirrors; there's very little 'AI' going on there because it's wholly impractical.)

So making smaller games that play better on more limited consoles is a perfectly reasonable way to go. Indeed, we can see that when it comes to mobile platforms--platforms that are inherently more limited--Nintendo does very well. They've managed to keep that business going even in the face of the smartphone revolution that everyone thought would wipe Nintendo out.

The problem is that for the last couple generations, Nintendo hasn't provided a very compelling experience for developers OR gamers when it comes to their home consoles. A less powerful console is fine, Mario games can be great, Zelda is an excellent IP, etc. But you have to sell enough consoles to make it worth the while of 3rd party devs to come on board, and you have to make good tools for them to make games. I haven't personally worked on the Wii or Wii U, but I haven't heard anything good about those dev environments. (By comparison, I loved working on the PS4 and the XBox 360 before that. The PS3 was a complicated mess, and the XBone had terrible dev tools at the beginning.)

Anyway, the premise itself isn't incorrect, but Nintendo's execution of it hasn't been great. Nintendo should be leveraging its nostalgia value as hard as it can to get consoles out the door. Bundle Mario or Zelda in the box, make old Virtual Console games cheaper, whatever. Just get the consoles out the door. I *personally* think that the Switch looks ideal for me; I want to be able to play on the TV sometimes and in the bedroom sometimes. But if you want to attract the bulk of gamers, you'll need a solid 3rd party effort, and the only way to solve the chicken and egg problem of no games means no sales means no devs means no games is to bootstrap it yourself with your own great IP and marketing power.

Re: how about i call it a failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present: a random Xbox live user. Stick around while he tells us how many times he fucked our mothers.

Re:Don't call it a tablet?

[elrous0]

I'll call it what I've called every new Nintendo console in the 21st Century: An answer to a question that no one asked.

No One: "Hey could you make us an overpriced handheld that also doubles as an under-powered console?"

Nintendo: "Sure!"

Re:Don't call it a tablet?

[elrous0]

No One: "Oh, and could you also throw in a monthly fee for online multiplayer like Xbox Live and PSN, but make us use our iPhones for basic features that those services have provided for fifteen years now, like voice chat and matchmaking?"

Nintendo: "Yep, gotcha...."

No One: "And can you make it so we can't just transfer over all our Virtual Console games, so we have to buy them all over again?"

Nintendo: "We hear you. No problem."