The Nintendo Switch has been revealed some time ago, and i've not covered it as of yet. I guess i could say i waited for more to be seen, and more easter eggs to be found, but that'd be a cop-out honestly, but i guess it still works. Nintendo's console has been said from the get-go to be unique, yet the same. Easy to port games, but all sorts of new functionality, but the addition of being able to use the main one only- the ability to play games on one screen- usable as well. There's new functions there for developers, but they're not necessary.

...Unlike the Wii U, where the 2 screen setup was pretty much forced. But i digress. A lot more has been revealed for the Switch, mostly not be Nintendo themselves but 3rd parties, and i'm here to discuss what the Switch could do right, and where it might fall short.

Now. I want you to know- I'm no Einstein. I know what i'm talking about with computers, but not 100%. I'll get stuff wrong. So if you could give me some feedback on the more technical stuff in this post, that would be amazing. Without further disclaimers, let's get into the meat of this post.

Social
Our first topic is one of the major ways the Wii U fell flat on it's head- The social aspect. Gaming itself has become the Facebook for gamers, with PSN and Xbox Live sharing all sorts of features with Twitter, Facebook, and more. Miiverse was easily the odd one out here. Notifications were nonexistent, accepting friend requests/invites or even realising they were there wasn't wxactly as easy as PS4 or Xbox, and Nintendo Network wasn't perfect, but it was ok. With the creation of My Nintendo, Miitomo, and Nintendo's partnership with DeNA, these problems will all be rectified- mostly. DeNA is Nintendo's MOBILE game developer- so what's their purpose with the Switch? Well, they're gonna be handling the way notifications, accounts, or possibly even THE NETWORK for Nintendo's consoles will work. At the very least, we'll say a swift goodbye to Miiverse, and an improved account/social system with Nintendo Network. At best, we could say a goodbye to Nintendo Network itself, while DeNA will design the new network, Nintendo would put it into play.
This means Nintendo Network IDs could be attachable to more consoles other than 1 3DS and Wii U, it could help with the removal of Region Lock, accounts would be easier to create and with more personalisation, customization, and general settings to make your account YOU. Hell, we could see the DEATH OF MIIS THEMSELVES, with the Death of the Wii Line, though it's unlikely considering 3DS will probably keep Miis. Maybe we'll get a MAJOR system update for the 3DS to change all this, i don't know.
So, TL;DR, DeNA will be designing the social and notification aspect of the Switch, and we could see the death of Miiverse, Miis, and the Nintendo Network itself.

Brute force, or Efficiency?
Brute force is, well... Not something Nintendo has ever been known for, outside of the Super Nintendo. The NES was up against the likes of the Genesis/Megadrive, the N64 up against the diverse line-up of games on the Playstation, the Gamecube up against the like of the Playstation 2 its-freaking-self, the Wii against the PS3 and Xbox 360, and the No-Contest that is the Wii U vs PS4 and Xbox One. See that? Nintendo has had only 6 or 7 home consoles. Strange, isn't it? But i digress. Ever since the Gamecube, Nintendo's 3rd party support has fallen flat on its head due to lack of power or lack of efficiency. Emphasis on Wii U. "But the Switch only has 4 gigabytes of ram!" i hear you say. Well, so does my Macbook Air, and it would ABSOLUTELY TRAMPLE ANY Windows laptop of similar specs, and NOT because it's a Mac. It's called efficiency. These things are extremely efficient with how they handle memory, their CPU, GPU, and all that, and if Nintendo does this right, THEY TOO could trample the competition. They may make their RAM on the Switch go a LOT farther and make it more efficient, and they'll likely overdo it with the CPU, GPU and Video card, because, well, after failing to capture developers for a decade and a half, wouldn't YOU want to overdo it and capture EVERYONE? I know i would. We haven't been told everything about the Switch though. It may not be efficient, and due to being a tablet (While MOST tablets can be upgraded to near-PS4 specs if they're efficient enough) it may be extremely weak in its RAM, but not the CPU and GPU, which wouldn't go over very well. But Nintendo is one to experiment, and who am i to stop them? It went well with many of their games like Color Splash or TLOZ: ALBW, and they were both excellent games (The Paper Mario fans jus' be hatin because it isn't TTYD HD/2. Why do they do that? It bugs me...) so who's to say experimenting won't pay off? They say it'll be easy to port PS4 and Xbox games, so why make it only a tiny bit stronger than the Wii U, which failed due to lack of power? Exactly. I think they KNOW it's Do or die, and believe they'll do it right. Still, there's that chance something will go wrong, so we should proceed with caution.

The general idea of the Switch
The Switch seems to, at heart, be a normal console. It uses 1 screen at a time. It HAS a traditional controller, likely to be bundled with it. This time, instead of making the gimmick mandatory, Nintendo seems to be making a gimmick that supplements the console- instead of subtracting from the experience users get, because people won't develop because it's too much effort to make a motion control port over just porting a game- which is something that works extremely well with many of their games, like ALBW or Color Splash or 3D Land/World, and others, so why not take this strategy and translate it to the things they make games ON? Genius! Why didn't they think of that before, i don't know, but the fact they're taking this route makes me extremely happy. I love me my PS4, but i also love Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, etc etc. What do we NOT see on PS4? Those 3 franchises. I dislike Wii U, but love its games, so the fact they're making this more of a real console that gives us the things we love about Nintendo is absolutely amazing. It works for people who don't have time to be at home to play games, but in both scenarios, gives us an experience that combines what we love about PS4, and what we love about Nintendo. That's something no other company could match, so the idea of this console will be an excellent business decision for them, and a decision that will benefit all games.

Now. There's a lot of things the Switch appears to be doing WRONG. But, quite the contrary. They're actually extremely good decisions. Like the 16gb starting storage capacity! AAAAAND now several guns are aimed at me. C'mon guys, just, hear my out, ok? Let me explain...

Cartridges or CDS?
Ah, yes. The age-old question. Do you sacrifice Read-write speed for space, or space for Read-write speed? Well, in meme speak, "Why not both?" In this day and age, Solid storage has been proven to be the true form of storage, and if you didn't know already, Solid Storage today has been built off of cartridges of old. No moving parts, no space taken for a disc drive, and most importantly, NO SPEED LOSS. Why do PS4 and Xbox One make you download the games you buy physically? Because the discs are TOO DAMN SLOW, and they know it. Nintendo has made the right decision going with Solid Storage, as it will bring back up the meaning of physical games, (Literally the only reason you need physical games is because they force you to use the disc to play said digital games) and means that 2tb hard drives are NOT needed. You save the games right onto the cartridge and keep the data there, yet sacrifice no speed. Of course, since it's a handheld, people will want more space for digital games. And that's ok, Nintendo knows what they're doing! Do my knowledge, every console after the gamecube (from Nintendo) has had SD card slots, something that Xbox and Playstation has NEVER had, and is something that would benefit them greatly. So, i expect them to keep this trend going, especially considering this is half handheld, so why wouldn't they?

Nintendo is making a lot of great choices with the Switch that, while it may seem otherwise, will benefit them greatly, and will teach the competition a lesson, so even if you don't support the Switch, it WILL be important to you. Nintendo is going to slap some sense into Microsoft and Sony, and they're going to do it HARD.

Now, where could it fall flat?

Well, first we have the possibility of being weak, as well as power-efficient. We've known for a while it's not gonna have much RAM to go on, but if efficient enough it won't be a problem. But if the system is inefficient, the lack of RAM will be a massive problem, especially should they go over-the-top on the CPU and GPU.

Second, the battery life. This one could easily be a major problem, but could be summed up by saying if the system is efficient, you'll be OK, and it goes without saying that it'll have a portable charger for on-the-go, if it wants to hit everyone in the right spot.

3rd, the possibility of Region Lock. Don't even need to explain this one.

That's honestly about it. I can't really think of anywhere this could fall flat other than those. Everything here seems to have a solution. Dislike the lack of storage? SD cards, but even then it isn't necessary. Don't like the controller? There's a 3rd party for that. This console on its own, with no supplements, may have many shortcomings. But they all have extremely simple solutions to all of them, and that's about par for the course. It works the same for PS4, Xbox, Phones, PCs, and just about everything else.

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Hey everyone, thanks for reading. That's the end of part 1 of this series. Why are there several parts? Well, there's a lot to cover. Nintendo Switch is huge, from the game-changing ideas it's using to all the secrets we've found in the trailer alone, and that's not even mentioning the news we're getting from people outside Nintendo. Who said Nintendo held all the information? There's a lot to cover, from the idea of it changing the game completely, up to the idea of an ecosystem of products, a la Apple, with their iPhone and Mac lineup. Speaking of the idea of an Ecosystem of products, that is going to be what i next cover on this series. Stay tuned for the next post, which is going to be on the topic of an Ecosystem of products, from addons, to the controller, it's gonna be a good one, and i hope you all enjoy your week.

Or weekend.



I'm australian. Timezones, bro