No one was more excited than I was before Thursday night’s Nintendo Switch presentation. Having fully believed that the company learned from their mistakes and understood what made a Nintendo console great, I was ready to be blown away. Whilst the presentation had some highs like Super Mario Odyssey’s reveal and that dope Breath of the Wild trailer, the rest of it ranged from “OK” to “What the…”.
Over the last few years, Nintendo has foregone the on-stage keynotes in favor of their Direct videos; a move that has proved successful and it’s clear why. They simply cannot match the likes of Sony and Microsoft when it comes to bringing energy and nailing that “wow” factor. While I don’t think Switch is destined for the same fate as the Wii U, there's a concern that the system isn’t going to meet the expectations we’ve all heavily demanded of it. With that concern in mind, let’s break down what worked and didn’t work in Thursday night’s presentation.
The hardware looks great!
We had already had confirmed the hardware via the initial reveal video, but it was great to learn some of the finer details of the Joy Con controllers, which have nifty features such as enhanced rumble and motion controls. This looks like a slick piece of tech rather than the toy-ish nature of the Wii U. It’s something you wouldn’t have a problem playing in public or proudly displaying on your entertainment system.
One of the overall problems with the show was that a lot of the big announcements were made through press releases and the new Nintendo Switch site. This includes some of the hardware details, like the resolution and framerate. The system will run 720p60 as a handheld and up to 1080p60 when docked, which isn’t blowing anyone’s minds but falls at least within expectations. What is a little unfortunate is the 32GBs worth of internal storage, although this can be expanded with micro SD cards. This isn’t the worst news in the world, but if you want to move to a completely digital library you’re going to need to invest in extra hardware. Nonetheless, the hardware by itself seems to meet expectations. Oh and there's no region lock which is the cherry on top.
The games we knew would be awesome, seem awesome
The reveal of Super Mario Odyssey was definitely a shocker. It may be odd to see Mario interacting with regular humans, but the idea of a GTA-style Mario is fairly tantalizing. The closing video for Breath of the Wild will go down as one of the greatest trailers of all time – it was simply amazing. The port for Mario Kart 8 looks to be the definitive version of the game and Splatoon 2 looks like a great upgrade to an already awesome title.
The price and release date are great, however…
Plenty of people would have preferred a $250 price point, but the $299 is spot on. You don’t want to price it too cheaply, as it breeds the idea that the system itself is cheap. Of course, you don’t want to price it too high for the obvious reasons. And with the price of the accessories (which we’ll get to later), we’re seemingly getting a lot of bang for our buck.
No one expected a March 3rd release. Even the rumors that nailed the software line-up were predicting March 17th/21st. To know that we are under two months away from getting our hands on this system is great and was definitely an awesome way to kick off the presentation. It is worrisome, though, as there are some excellent looking games coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 within a month of the Switch's release. Horizon: Zero Dawn comes out in February and looks to be an ambitious RPG that could very well be PlayStation’s new trademark series. At the end of March, Mass Effect: Andromeda releases which will undoubtedly sell well. Spring has now become a very competitive season for gaming in terms of money and time — and Switch will be going against some heavy hitters.
That’s all the good stuff… Now, let’s move onto the bad, and downright ugly.
Online services are unclear and seem half baked
The breaking point of the presentation was the online services. Nintendo has failed us in the past with their online services; Friend Codes, Nintendo ID’s, Miiverse. It’s been an absolute mess.
The Switch does seem to be revamping online, it definitely doesn’t sound like the right solution. Nintendo promised to reveal more details on the service later – even though we are less than two months from launch with pre-orders being made. We don't know exactly what the online service offers and how we interact with it is unclear. This was the Switch presentation! If you’re not going to divulge finer details, it either means the service isn’t ready or you’re hiding something. My guess is a little bit of both.
So far, it doesn’t sound like there will be any Trophy/Achievement systems, you won’t be getting the great deals that services like PlayStation Plus and Games with Gold provide, and integration with the system is ill-conceived. All of your interaction with other gamers via voice chat is seemingly only achievable through an app on your phone, and the free NES/SNES game every month is only playable for the month it's offered rather than free for as long as you pay for the service. Nintendo has had over a decade to learn from Sony and Microsoft on how to create a robust online system, and when it matters most, it still seems like they can’t hit the mark. And if you're hoping you'll be able to bring all your Virtual Console titles across from previous platforms, you're dreaming.
Accessory pricing is untenable
While the pricing for the console itself seems reasonable, the accessory pricing is anything but. The Pro controller is $70 and will most likely be the most popular peripheral.
If you want to buy more JoyCons those are $80 for a pair or $50 a piece. Sure, they pack some cool tech, but it'd be better if they cost $25 and didn't feature an IR-Blaster and HD Rumble. And here’s the real kicker: an extra dock costs $90! If you want to play on multiple TVs without having to move the entire system it’s going to cost you a pretty penny. So whilst the upfront cost of this console is acceptable, you’ll be paying way more to trick it out. Combine this with the fact that there’s no pack in game and the Wii Sports/Nintendo Land-esque 1-2-Switch costs $50 dollars, the price continues to add up.
Third parties are playing it too safe
Personally, I don’t buy a Nintendo system to play third party games. I’m going to be very happy spending some time with Breath of the Wild until Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Odyssey release. However, the lack of third party support played a huge factor in the failure of the Wii U. It was awesome when Nintendo put out a list of third parties that were promising to develop for the Switch. However, what we saw at the presentation was… lackluster. Sure, we get Skyrim on a handheld, but it’s not even the special edition and is a 6-year-old game – I’m not buying it for a third time.
With the other third parties, the output is worrisome. A lot of titles are even more ports of games that have been out for years or if it is a new IP it’s named something like Project Octopath Traveller. These titles have the potential to be great and we know that the ports of games such as Rayman: Legends and Stardew Valley are proven successes. Nothing that Nintendo showed off from third parties came out and really impressed anyone. It was all too safe, and Switch needs to be taking as many risks as possible –and remember, Nintendo published a similar list of third party developers when the Wii U was announced.
Where are all the franchises?
Hallelujah, Breath of the Wild is launching with the Switch! Because if it didn’t there’d be rioting in the streets. Super Mario Odyssey is awesome, but it won’t come out till “Holiday 2017” which is such a nebulous timeframe that it wouldn’t be surprising if it was delayed. Rumors are that the game is pretty much done, but if that’s the case, launch it with the system! Nintendo has such a rich library for franchises that they can call on for the longevity of the Switch, but they seemingly refuse to touch it.
No new Metroid game was announced, a franchise in desperate need of a reboot. Donkey Kong is sitting on the sidelines, and for the love of god where is the Mother series? Pokémon Sun and Moon is rumored to move to the Switch with a revamped Pokémon Stars, but Pokémon wasn’t even mentioned.
You may think that it’s smart for Nintendo to hold their cards close to the chest, but it gives console owners very few titles to get really excited about. Say what you will about Sony, who continuously tease and show off games that are years from seeing release, but their conferences have people excited for their systems knowing they’ll have great content for years to come. What we know so far of 2017 Switch releases is solid at best and it's alarming that we know nothing about 2018 and beyond.
This is what it boils down to
Nintendo needed to come out of the gate at full throttle. They needed to not just have a good conference, but one of the great conferences and the Switch presentation was nothing more than solid. The tech and premiere titles look great, but everything else, I think we can all agree, is fine. Be honest with yourself: if Zelda wasn’t launching with Switch, would you even consider picking up the system right now?
Historically, Zelda doesn’t even sell units. Twilight Princess is the best-selling game in the franchise with 7 million copies sold on a console that sold over 100 million units. That’s less than Uncharted 4, a game that’s been out for less than a year on a system with half the install base. So no, Nintendo exclusives won’t save the Switch. My guess is we’ll see a groundswell of sales at launch with huge sales numbers around tentpole releases such as Super Mario Odyssey. This is exactly what happened with Wii U when Mario Kart helped increase sales figures by over 600 percent.
Nintendo seems to be destined to repeat the same mistakes, and this might mean they eventually bow out of the gaming hardware market. If that happens it’ll be a sad day indeed, and it will be no one's fault but Nintendo’s.
