Nintendo did a lot of things today, but I think that the presentation for a console, which will launch in march, was rather bad. Besides pricepoint and battery life, my biggest caveats are the launch lineup and online services. Let me go a bit into detail here (tl;dr at the end):

• 300$ / 329€ / a million CAD / a billion AUD pricepoint
  There was a lot of hype and hope for Nintendo to launch the Switch at 250$ and - in my opinion - reasonably so. The Switch doesn't exist inside a vacuum. It's a hybrid and with that it's also competing with PS4 and Xbox One to some degree. Also, I at least expected a price parity between US and EU, but I guess the Euro is just too weak for that. Nonetheless, the Switch is now competing at the same price point with two established consoles (they are actually cheaper in EU). On a side note, the prices for accessories are just plainly insane.

• 2,5 - 6 hours battery life
  We will be able to play Zelda for ~3 hours, although we don't know at what brightness, volume and with or without Wifi. We will have to wait for real life tests, but I fear it will be closer to the 2,5 hours mark than to the 6 for most games.

• Launch lineup
  I'd like to quote Reggie Fils-Aimé from the Nintendo Switch presentation: "And man, what games?" - It seems to be clear to everybody except Nintendo that 3rd-party support doesn't really exist on Nintendo consoles. Combining console and handhelds should've enabled Nintendo to launch with more than just 2 new first party games - one being a Wii U port. Mario Kart in April (a port, I assume?), Splatoon 2 in summer and finally Mario Odyssey this holiday.

• Online Services behind Paywall
  Nintendo will now charge for online services, just like Sony and Microsoft. However, Nintendo failed to build an account system and online infastructure with the Wii, 3DS and Wii U, implementing a user unfriendly system for online gaming and "account management". This does raise the question if the new online services will be any good.
  From what I've read, some of the new features like voice chat will launch later this year. It also hasn't been clarified if the voice chat will also run only on the Switch or if it's using the mobile app on your smartphone. While it does seem unlikely in general, it kind of doesn't for Nintendo. That means the trial period isn't really a trial period - there simply aren't any real online services and with Mario Kart and Splatoon there aren't that much games that actually might use online gaming either.
  Another addition are the 20-30 years old NES and SNES games you can play for free for a month. No one mentioned the possibility to transfer the latest VC games to the Switch, so I'm assuming they aren't tied to the new account system and we can buy all those games again.

• Speculation: What about the fan noise?
  I hope it's just there to cool it for the docking mode, but there are fan inlets on the lower back of the Console and an outlet at the top, right where the fucking audio jack is. I highly doubt that it will make any noise during portable mode, due to the rumor about low clock speeds, but we'll see.

tl;dr: Not enough first party games during the launch window with a few ports, unclear what's going on with the online services.

The games and especially the online services are - at least for me - a big indicator that the Switch is a premature launch. It seems like third party developers only started development recently for the Switch (if at all) and Nintendo itself wasn't able to bring over any games from the handheld segment, which is kind of sad. I expected some ports of 3DS games with better assets, but there was just nothing. If I remember it correctly, the Switch got pushed back due to not having enough games in the launch lineup. Looking at it, I can't even imagine how bad it was last year.

The online services are a completly different stroy, though. They simply aren't there yet, which is crazy. They now have had roughly 10 years to come up with something and it's still not finished. If rumors are true that you'll need the mobile app for voice chat, I'll be at a loss for words, but it would be so Nintendo-ish.

So what is your take on the Switch? Is it ready for prime time or should they've waited until they had more games ready for the launch window? Do you miss some 3DS games on the Switch?

It's Switch Conference Night!

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