With it being a couple of days since the reveal and my excitement has subsided enough for me to make a grounded opinion on the system, here it is.
First and foremost I am very, very excited about the Switch! It looks like an excellent system all around, offering you the ability to play it just as a home console with a controller; no gimmicks, no motion controls, no funky controller, just you and your system. I also love how it is a full on portable device that you can take on the go, and as far as we know, can enjoy with the same quality as you would sitting in front of your TV while it is docked. While I do have some concerns about each side of the screen being able to become its own, small controller (which I will explain in a bit), I think it is a clever idea and allows for immediate local multiplayer which has not been a feature on consoles for quite some time. As for the games, which while nothing has been officially announced (except Zelda), we saw what looked like 4 new Nintendo IPs and freakin Skyrim! If those 5 games alone make up the launch library I am going to have a very hard time not picking up all of them along with the console day one lol. I am also excited at the prospect of a new main Pokemon game coming to it since Nintendo has announced that their home console and handheld will be housed under the Switch from now on. This also opens up the possibility of it having an enormous library of games!
Now for what I'm concerned about. While there are some high end tablets out there, the Microsoft Surface Pro for example, those cost well over a grand. The Switch, if the rumors end up being true and as reason would dictate, will probably be $500 tops. Nintendo already announced that they will not be selling the Switch at a loss, so what this means is it will be significantly less powerful than the XBONE and PS4. You simply cannot squeeze that kind of performance and power into a tablet at that price point yet. When I've brought this up to people they usually come back at me with, "well, it can run Skyrim HD on it!" I don't doubt that it can, but what these people fail to remember is Skyrim is nearly a 5-year old game designed to run on 5-year old hardware. Even the HD version isn't even coming close to pushing the performance envelope in the way that Fallout 4 does, which I doubt will see a release on the Switch. Perhaps we'll find out that the dock also serves as a way of enhancing the graphics, but this leaves the question, how will games perform when not docked? This also poses a question of how well modern AAA games will be able to be ported to it without substantial downgrades to the graphics and FPS. My other main concern is the ability to use each side of the Switch as a separate mini controller when playing it on the go. From what I saw in the reveal video these things look super tiny! It will surprise me if they are actually comfortable enough to play a game with someone more than half an hour without your hand cramping up, especially if you have larger hands. I could be totally wrong about this, and to be honest I am withholding judgement until I actually have one in my hand, but it's hard to imagine that it would be good for long term play.
I am absolutely excited to hear more about the Switch and to hear more and more about its games as time goes by. Unless Nintendo drops some huge bomb regarding it, which I am having hard time even imagining what that would be, I will definitely be getting this system day 1. Contrary to what some people have been saying I do not believe for one second that this will end up being another Wii U in terms of sales, support, and a small library of first party titles mostly. I genuinely think it will do great, maybe even Wii great. Can't wait to get my hands on one and game my ass off!
