By Sean Willis, Terry Randolph, and Jake Rushing
In 2 days, the wait will finally be over. Nintendo will present a lot more info on Nintendo Switch that is set to release in March. They will present a lot of information for their upcoming console that we all have been dying to know. What games will be confirmed for development for Switch? How much will the console cost when it’s released? When in March will Switch be released? While we wait for the presentation, Terry, Sean, and Jake decided to chime in their thoughts and predictions for Nintendo Switch. If you’re looking to catch the presentation itself, you should check out the Nintendo Switch site here for more details.
Sean
Hope: Tegra Pascal, 256gigs of internal space, portable hard drive support, support for Wii U users migrating over, just one version of the hardware to buy.
Fear: 32gigs of internal space, low end Tegra chip, 128gig sdcard expansion limit, big F U to Wii U users, low end version with even less space at 300 dollars, “high end” version over 300 dollars, Virtual console slow trickle and limited migration support…. Again.
Overall: The Switch needs a good price point if it’s not going to compete directly with other consoles in terms of power. Many gamers are weary of Nintendo’s lack of support with the Wii U and are going to be hard to win over if lack of support continues. Why buy another console if they might just drop it right? Virtual Console which may be nothing more than roms in some basic emulators are still a high demand and should be easy for users to migrate over (for a fee… again…) or have crossover support (LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!) instead of a dead slow trickle that left fans to simply give up on it (or turn to hacking and homebrew.) Fixing these bad practises will be absolutely crucial going forward. If the price point is bad and the graphics don’t even try to keep up, its going to be a hard sell for anything over three hundred. If the price point is low even with the problems they should do alright so hopefully they know what they are doing. This may just be Nintendo’s make or break final chance, even with the 3DS still being successful. Oh and more Eshop sales for crying out loud, a dollar off a four year old game is not a dang sale.
Terry
Considering the commercial premiere of the Nintendo Switch, I’m guessing that Nintendo is going to have more Triple-A titles from various other studios. It’s also very easy to see why with the significant upgrade in system specs to the Wii U. Nintendo also needs to announce variety in their library too; the Wii U has been considered a failure for Nintendo due to various reasons. One of them being a lack of quality in games. The Switch is a result of Nintendo listening to fan criticism and still taking a risk to elevate the console to new heights. I’m also hoping that Nintendo announces significant hard drive space to be able to store a lot of saved files and downloadable games. One of the biggest issues to plague the Nintendo Wii U is only have 32 gb of internal storage.
I also there hast to be some sort of major Pokemon game coming for the Nintendo Switch. I usually go to this website if I need any information. Especially if the system is both portable and a typical console. The real question I’m sure is on many people’s mind: what type of Pokemon game will it be? A proper (like Red and Green version), Stadium, or Dungeon Exploration? It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with, but I can’t help but believe they’ll use Pokemon as some sort of launch game.
Lastly, they’ve got to show how they’ve already fixed the slow down problem when in portable mode. WIthout some sort of immediate fix, I don’t see the reception for Nintendo Switch being as strong as it should have been.
Jake
It’s hard to say what will come of the overall lineup given that the Wii U didn’t get a lot of love from third party support. However, with a lot of third party developers throwing their support behind Switch, it’s hard to think what kind of a lineup that Nintendo’s next console will have this time around. Maybe perhaps we’ll get Dark Souls Trilogy? Or maybe some Sega Genesis compilation? I hope that Bestheda will port some Elder Scroll and Fallout games to Switch. So far, there are already a good amount of titles that are reported to be coming to Nintendo Switch like Sonic, Dragon Quest, and even the long-awaited Beyond Good and Evil sequel. I just hope that more third party developers will remain in ship for longer than they did for Wii U.
As for first party support, it has been reported that Mario Kart 8 Remastered, Splatoon, Zelda, Mario and even a crossover Mario/Rabbids RPG that are all coming to Switch. There are even reports that there will be a third Pokemon title to coincide with Sun/Moon for 3DS. Since people are going to be all excited for the upcoming console, maybe perhaps they might have an opportunity to give franchises that are long due for a sequel a chance to shine on Switch. Hopefully they can work on a sequel for Metroid, or maybe Punch Out. Even Star Fox should deserve another chance after Star Fox Zero’s flop. As for virtual console, it would be a good opportunity to start offering Game cube games for Virtual Console in addition to many retro consoles they have at their Wii U eShop store.
If they hope to compete with PS4 and Xbox One without enough power to keep up, it should make up for it’s specs in price. If the console can start off at $250-$300, that might draw in some more skeptical gamers. And hopefully the games can go down to $50. Although it might be likely that the price will be $300 for the console and $60 per game.
If Switch is going to have so many titles available, it might be to their benefit that Switch will include a huge storage capacity, like at least 250GB of storage. But there might be a chance that they’ll have the memory down to 150GB to help keep the costs down.
I might be skeptical about what they show about the console, but chances are, I feel that they will amaze us as much as they amazed us on the morning they revealed Switch. If they have some games in development for Switch that were previously released for PS4, I think that will break the internet more than the Switch reveal did. If that happens, it might not be a bad idea to pre-order Switch first chance you’d get. I know for sure that I will. If everybody gets amazed, then they will want to pre-order the console themselves. If you don’t pre-order the console, or at least if you don’t get your hands on the console on launch day, you might not be able to get your hands on it until they restock the console again, which maybe it might happen in the summertime.