Nintendo Switch

[Phonetic Hero]

Nintendo just did a Direct featuring some of the upcoming indie titles for the Switch:

 

...Also I'm doing music for Wargroove (14:23 in the vid) 

[MindWanderer]

Same here--I've only ever bought one or two consoles within the first year of their release before: the SNES and I think the Wii U.  The Switch already has a release schedule more than sufficient for me to want it, and it's not going to go on sale for a long time, so I figure why wait?

Although I am concerned about the reports that the left Joy-Con keeps de-syncing for some people.  I hope that's not a hardware issue, or at least if it is, that Nintendo gets together a nice streamlined system for dealing with it and compensating affected users.

[DarkeSword]

21 minutes ago, Phonetic Hero said:

Nintendo just did a Direct featuring some of the upcoming indie titles for the Switch:

 

...Also I'm doing music for Wargroove (14:23 in the vid) 

YO ITS THE BIG TIME SONNNNNN

[MindWanderer]

7 hours ago, Phonetic Hero said:

Nintendo just did a Direct featuring some of the upcoming indie titles for the Switch:

...Also I'm doing music for Wargroove (14:23 in the vid) 

Congrats!  The music in the trailer sounds great!  Not sure about the game, though--looks like like a fantasy Advance Wars, which I've had enough of at the moment.

Have to admit, that's a pretty good lineup.  Even though most of them are on PC as well, here's where the Switch's portability is a plus.  And the promise of handheld PC's, like the Smach Z, has yet to be fulfilled.  Might pick up some of those when I'm more caught up on my 3DS games.

[Phonetic Hero]

On 2/28/2017 at 2:35 PM, DarkeSword said:

YO ITS THE BIG TIME SONNNNNN

The support means a whole lot man :'D  Never thought I'd be here just 5.5 short years after joining the forums!  Goes without saying, but HUGE shout outs to the community for fostering my musical growth during some very formative years.  Wouldn't be where I am without y'all <3

On 2/28/2017 at 9:43 PM, MindWanderer said:

Congrats!  The music in the trailer sounds great!  Not sure about the game, though--looks like like a fantasy Advance Wars, which I've had enough of at the moment.

Thanks!  And fair enough, though if you're conflating AW with Fire Emblem, I think that's a bit of a mistake.  The two play really differently from a strategic perspective - I personally am not a big fan of FE (RPG elements take out a lot of the strategy), but I LOVE Advance Wars.  I haven't played a game that captures its take on the tactical genre since.. the last AW game, which came out almost a decade ago now (not to mention Days of Ruin was way different from the rest), so I'm just as excited to play the game as I am to write for it

[TheChargingRhino]

ONE MORE DAY PEOPLE!!!!

[MindWanderer]

10 hours ago, Phonetic Hero said:

if you're conflating AW with Fire Emblem

I've played both, and granted, while the trailer isn't heavy on details, superficially it seems to resemble Advance Wars more.  I don't see anything resembling the hero/RPG element that defines Fire Emblem.

In other news, it appears that Friend Codes are back, and are at least temporarily the only way to add friends.  Not that you can actually do anything with friends right now.  Guess we'll need another one of those "Friend Codes in First Post" threads.

[TheChargingRhino]

I still can't believe the Switch will have CARTRIDGES! 

A home console having CARTRIDGES! 

THAT HASN'T HAPPENED SINCE 2000! 

[Penfold]

Did anyone pick up the neon blue/red version?  I haven't been able to buy the system yet, but I'm drawn to the neon blue/red version.  I'd be curious to hear impressions about how that color scheme looks in real life.

Edit: I stumbled across the gray version at a store and just went with it.  Really nice feel to the system, and the joy-cons have been pretty comfortable so far.  Zelda is a beautiful game!

[AzureZeal]

Can we go ahead and post our friend codes here?

FC: SW-1460-8986-2212

Username is Gila Moo

[MindWanderer]

Mine is 5961-6763-3987.  Not that it's good for anything right now.

I have to admit that so far, I'm actually pretty disappointed with the Switch.  The controller disconnect issue is very real, and severe.  I was playing all weekend, about 7 feet away from the console, with clear line-of-sight to it, and I had drop-outs of about a second once every few minutes, and about one total disconnect every two or three hours.  One caused my death (auto-walked off a tower), and several caused me to restart puzzles or take unnecessary damage.  It wasn't just the left joy-con, either, but the left was worse.  This is pretty ridiculous--a 2017 console shouldn't be having a problem that the PS3 (2006) and even the Wii U didn't.  I may end up having to buy a Pro Controller, which I'd actually be pretty ticked off about given its cost.  If it's a mandatory purchase, that makes the console $370, which is absurd in this day and age.  Otherwise I thought the Grip was perfectly adequate, though the trigger buttons are a little small.

You also can't power off the console remotely.  You have to physically hold down the button on the console.  Presumably they thought you'd never want to power it off while connected to the dock, but I don't like power vampires.

In handheld mode, the screen isn't very well lit and is highly reflective, so I have a hard time seeing under less-than-ideal conditions.

So everyone who's waiting, good idea.  Keep waiting until the joy-con issue gets fixed and the OS gets more features.

Edit: Apparently, someone modded their left joy-con and substantially improved its performance, increasing its range to double that of the right joy-con!  So it's definitely a hardware issue, and Nintendo would have to look at a recall rather than a software fix.  In related news, the Pro Controller is still sold out everywhere, so I don't even have that option.

[TheChargingRhino]

Guys, the Coop predicted the Switch back in 2011.

Well, it having carts at least.

I can't copy and paste the quote, but here's the thread.

The quote is on page 3.

(scroll down a bit)

[TheChargingRhino]

I have a feeling that they just wanted to get Zelda out the door ASAP, cause we've had to wait over 6 years for it.

They should have just released the Wii U version and continued to fix up the Switch, THEN release the Switch version later on.

[MindWanderer]

I think it's the other way around--Zelda's been ready for a year or more, but the Switch wasn't.  But the Wii U was such a flop they wanted to release the Switch ASAP, so they stalled Zelda for it.

We'll see how it goes.  They did need Zelda as a launch title to get the Switch off the ground--if it was a port 2 years after the Wii U release, I don't think it would have helped as much.  But they clearly rushed the Switch out the door.  I think strategically they probably made the best move they could under the circumstances, but I admit the Switch's shortcomings are pretty severe.

Oh, and I found another problem: While sleeping, the Switch apparently "wakes up" very briefly once every 5 minutes or so.  I use an HDMI switch that detects active input, and every time this happens, it switches over.  My wife was trying to watch Netflix and couldn't because the input would get taken away every few minutes and she couldn't figure out why.  I had to fully power off the Switch to fix the issue, which is annoying since we keep our consoles in a locked entertainment cabinet (except when I actually play the Switch since I need line-of-sight).  Fortunately--and this doesn't seem to be documented anywhere--you can hold the power button down for I think 12 seconds to power it off rather than holding it for 4 seconds and using the menu (since that would require me to pull out the joy-cons to use it).  So now my needed solution is to both buy a Pro controller (out of stock everywhere) and for them to add a power off option to the Home menu.

[The Nikanoru]

52 minutes ago, MindWanderer said:

Oh, and I found another problem: While sleeping, the Switch apparently "wakes up" very briefly once every 5 minutes or so.

Do you think this is an 'internet ping' sort of thing, where it's checking/cycling for updates or an error in the sleep mode itself?

If it's just an internet ping thing, perhaps there's an option for limiting how often the system checks for updates?

If it's a sleep mode thing, can you get Netflix for the Switch directly and run from that?

 

1 hour ago, MindWanderer said:

They did need Zelda as a launch title to get the Switch off the ground

It wouldn't be a Nintendo console without a new Mario game and a new Zelda game to play on it!

 

On ‎06‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 11:48 AM, MindWanderer said:

joy-con

...This term is taking on a whole new context for me when it comes to pre-ordering brand new consoles.

[MindWanderer]

2 minutes ago, The Nikanoru said:

If it's just an internet ping thing, perhaps there's an option for limiting how often the system checks for updates?

If it's a sleep mode thing, can you get Netflix for the Switch directly and run from that?

I could check, but I doubt very much that you can modify how often it checks for updates.  Besides, the Wii U checks while it's asleep and doesn't disrupt anything.

As for the latter, HA HA HA, they don't have any non-game software for the Switch yet.  They haven't even said if they will.

3 minutes ago, The Nikanoru said:

ldn't be a Nintendo console without a new Mario game and a new Zelda game to play on it!

They've never released a console with both a Mario and a Zelda at launch, but you're right, only the Gamecube had neither, and that's their second-least successful console ever (not counting the Virtual Boy).

[MindWanderer]

Well, two small pieces of good news: Nintendo has said that Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon will be coming to Switch at some point in the future.

Also, Friend Codes are a little less onerous than they were on 3DS: If someone adds you using your friend code, you get a notification you can just accept.  You don't have to get their friend code and add them back manually.

[MindWanderer]

Well, my saga with the defective left Joy-Con has come to a conclusion.  It was actually really painless.  I did have to call them, but they emailed me a shipping label right away, and the call only took a few minutes.  Put the joy-con in the mail on Monday, arrived at the repair station Wednesday morning, was back in the mail by Wednesday afternoon and back in my hands on Thursday morning.  In total it was out of my hands for less than 72 hours.  And now it works great, played Zelda for a couple hours from my couch with the entertainment center cabinet closed with no hiccups.

Funny thing, though: I managed to order a Pro Controller on Amazon, which arrived Wednesday, but I had no time to play that day.  When I configured it on Thursday, both joysticks were miscalibrated (immediately noticeable because of menu cursor drift).  I calibrated the left stick using the system tool, no problems.  The right one, however, I couldn't--I entered the configuration tool and it would immediately click through the entire config process on its own, and still be off.  Fortunately, I hadn't applied the new OS update, thought what the hell, couldn't hurt, and that fixed the issue.  I haven't actually tried playing with the controller yet, though, so we'll see.

[The Damned]

OK, so now that I've had the opportunity to actually touch and hold one of these things, I can state an opinion about it. A friend managed to get one and just had it laying around when I noticed it.

First, yes, I did lick the game cart (Breath of the Wild) and yes, it tasted terrible.

Even with the joy-cons on or off, the Switch has some serious weight. Even though the specs say that the Wii U controller is 500-some grams while the Switch is about 400 grams, it just feels heavier. It's gotta be because it's so much thinner.

Next, the screen. It's not massive, but it's still pretty good for playing on. Compared to the Wii U screen, it's a lot clearer. That's likely due to the massive resolution difference. But it's still a really nice upgrade.

I just tried out a bit of my friend's BoTW game, which was in the first part of the game, and having played it just today on my Wii U. The Wii U version is still fresh in my mind, but I couldn't really pick anything out about how it looked or played from the Switch version. They really are pretty much identical.

I can now consider getting one... next year. By then, we should have way more games for it, and any hardware issues (screens, batteries, "bending" and all that) should be fixed.

[DusK]

Anyone else getting the bowed/bent/warped Switch issue? I'm noticing a slight bow on mine, but it's completely unnoticeable without a straight edge, so it could have come like that out of the box for all I know. Still keeping an eye on it.

[Thalzon]

I've had my switch in the dock pretty much since day 1. No warp whatsoever.

I did, however, experience slight left joycon weirdness after binge-playing Zelda for like 8 hours. But I usually play with the pro controller so it's less of an issue.

[Frederic Petitpas]

I had a whole month to go through Horizon Dawn while I waited for bestbuy to get some Nin, but it did not happen. Fortunatly, a good friend of mine got it after waiting 3 hours at gamestop (they were waiting for the delivery guy, 5 units, he was the 6th person waiting there but then a woman gave up cause she had to go back to work lol... and it cost him an hour of "no pay"). Plugged the Nin 20 minutes and it was not his style... YES. He had the grey controllers tho, which saddens me cause I've got a boy and a little girl, the blue and red ones would have been great for those 2 fighting lil fuckers ¬¬ ...
Regarding the console, I wasn't impressed at first ; i really hate the dock, the glossy screen is a pita when taking a dump, reflecting the bulb right above. Zelda... omfg, the controls, wtf ?? After about  4 hours I switched the Jump button. It makes more sense but still, terrible gameplay... BUT, I beleive, of course, it's gonna grow on me and become a 2nd nature, but right now it's so hard ! I made my way to the cocorico village, but it took me a lot of time... when I got the bombs, the boomrang, I was like yeahhh, this is zelda, at last ! It's funny how it reminds me of the very first one.

[Bleck]

the controls are fine

[zircon]

Ooh check it out! Nintendo's online service is apparently going to offer various classic games (more than one a month) Netflix-style with your online subscription.

"Nintendo Switch Online includes ongoing access to a library of classic games you can take anywhere!"

I brought up this exact thing (not originally my idea, but still) a few months ago:

Plenty of commentators have said this but it bears repeating: Nintendo has one of the greatest game catalogs of any developer/publisher. Just look at all the hype for the NES classic. Now imagine if they said hey, for $10/mo you get access to all VC NES and SNES games, Netflix style. For $15/mo, you get N64 too. They would be printing money. I'd sign up for it without a second thought. To see them propose $10/mo for online play and a single game is ludicrous. 

[MindWanderer]

Yes, but they haven't said how many games would be included.  Right now they're promising only three: Super Mario 3, Dr. Mario (NES), and Balloon Fight(!).

It's also still only $20/year (now a firm price), and they're putting off its launch until next year at least.  Maybe they'll use that time to build out the VC library.  Including just those three games is just a quirky, oddball decision.  Perhaps they're using those as a sort of demo for a higher-cost Netflix-like service?

In other news, Hori has released a diagram of their, perhaps appropriately, somewhat Lovecrafitian Splatoon voice chat headset.  It includes a splitter so you can listen to chat and game audio at the same time, and of course it also needs a dongle if you want to connect it to a newer iPhone.  No idea how it would work when your Switch is docked; perhaps they just assume you'll use your normal phone speaker/microphone in that situation.

I suppose future headsets could simply include dual Bluetooth antennas?  One to connect to the phone and one to the Switch?  Not sure if the Switch firmware would support that option.