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[Nategc20]

3 hours is plenty. Where the fuck are you going to play this and not be able to charge your console throughout the day? Camping?

 

[Rodin]

Need more context. Is it 3 hours on Max settings (i. e max backlight, etc?) I can see this having a power saving mode. But I suspect the final product will have 5hrs.

Apparently the "max 3 hours" comes from a source within Ubisoft, so maybe it's 3 hours with particularly intensive games.

Oddly enough, nobody is giving two shits about the fact that apparently the console has better performances when docked.

 

[AmFreak]

I don't know what you mean?

Say the dock mode doesn't provide extra computational power - whatever comp. power the thing now has, it has it as a console and as a hand-held. For a console it doesn't matter (till a certain point ofc) how much power it consumes, but for a hand-held it matters.
That means you have to do a trade-off between these 2 cases.
But if you are able to provide extra comp. power to the console form only, why don't you then design the hand-held form in a way it can actually be used as a hand-held?

 

[Pizza]

I mean if you plug it in while you can during the day three hours doesnt seem that bad? Nowadays there are portable USB batteries for stuff like phones so even if you didn't have an outlet there's probably another solution for the battery problem.

The gamepad had that terrible battery life, but it was also required for the console. Three hours of turned-on time isn't that bad IMO for the times I'll be taking my home console out. Backpack camping seems like the only time the battery would prove to be a significant issue.

If I'm doing any of the stuff with friends in public like I'm the trailer, I'd plug the tablet in. My 2ds can be in sleep mode for days without an issue. Idk


Edit: the switch reminds me less of a handheld and more of one of these

So having a console require a power source for extended use seems reasonable. I'll probably toss the joy controllers and just put the tablet and four pro controllers in a bag. I'd be more concerned if the controllers had a trash battery life, but the Wii U to controllers are sweet in that regard

 

[jmizzal]

Honestly who plays a game for more then 3 hours on the go before being near a wall plug?

Its gonna have a cord to plug in the wall just like the WiiU game pad, when you get low charge it, are you people gonna be in the woods playing your Switch?

 

[IronicSonic]

I want a Nintendo home console so Im fine

 

[Alpha_eX]

I remember the Gamepad having crap battery life, and then I bought and upgraded the battery pack.

 

[Toxi]

I love how people are saying this is fine because the 3DS also had a shitty battery life.

 

[Muskieratboi]

1: I'm *reasonably* sure this thing's going to have an external charging cable. Nintendo's not going to be stupid enough to have the dock be the only way to charge the system...

Right?

2: Third Party battery packs are going to be the Number 1 accessory for The tablet. hands friggin down.

 

[Ganondolf]

I'm not surprised by how long the battery lasts. I expected it to be the same as the 3dsxl at best and if look like it will be.

anyone expecting longer than 3dsxl battery life with the graphical output of this machine has been fooling themselves.

with regards to the dock, I reckon that it just lets the SoC run at full speed and there is not addition ram, cpu or gpu in the dock.

 

[Pureauthor]

lol 3 hours. Fuck off with that shit.

 

[Soriku]

Be honest GAF, do you ever leave your house for more than 3 hours?

The dock thing sounds good though, I would be very disappointed if Switch is a 720p machine on TV.

I'm not even sure I have 3 straight hours to play outside.

 

[ghibli99]

Based on how quickly my tablet and phone batteries drain when I'm doing anything on it constantly (especially gaming), 3 hours seems about average. Personally, I'll mostly be using it undocked playing in bed at night for an hour or two. During the day/evening, it'll stay docked. I probably won't use it much OTG either. I'm still in. The battery thing isn't a dealbreaker for me.

 

[Vertti]

3 hours is horrible but I plan to use it home only anyway so no problem.

 

[guek]

3 hours is some game gear shit

Not at all, game gear died in under an hour

 

[TrueBlue]

I don't really play for more than 3 hours without a charger.

That being said, an hour or two more would be nice, and probably necessary to sell the portable angle. Either that, or make it easy to charge with a cable.

 

[Sloane]

What's the average for high-end tablets these days? My Galaxy Tab S is pretty spent after a two hour flight playing Deus Ex GO or whatever. Thing is two years old or something, but still.

 

[Darkangel]

I think their market research showed them that a lot of people only play their portable around the house, and that people prefer the larger 3DSXL.

I'm glad they went with uncompromised power since the battery life can be improved with future iterations.

 

[GDGF]

Be careful. If we complain about battery life too much, they'll just drop clockspeeds.

Lol good point!

 

[blankempathy]

People freaking out over a number with zero context and not on a final build. Geeze. Video games are stressful.

 

[Intel_89]

8 hours of commute daily? Damn I thought my 3 hours were bad.

Not daily, but every weekend I have to take a long trip to see my gf. About 8 hours total, thank god the 3DS/Vita exist otherwise I'd be bored to death.

 

[Cathcart]

What the hell I'm supposed to do on the roof after three hours.

 

[spliced]

3 hours average is what I expected, 3 hours max seems low.

Seems a bit fishy actually, so if everything on low playing something like Picross is 3 hours what is Skyrim at full gonna be 20 minutes?

 

[Oersted]

it can only come from devkits right now. nothing official yet except for the famitsu interview.

Thats why, if its true, is quite pointless.

It could be true, I honestly expect such numbers, but again, its pointless at this state.

 

[digita1alchemy]

If it can use micro USB I don't even care, I'll just bring a portable charger.

...

It won't use micro USB.

 

[OCD Guy]

Need more context. Is it 3 hours on Max settings (i. e max backlight, etc?) I can see this having a power saving mode. But I suspect the final product will have 5hrs.

Exactly.

There are a lot of variables that dictate battery life.

I can't see it being 3 hours maximum regardless of what you're doing with it. A game like Skyrim at max backlight is obviously going to take up more juice than playing downwell in the dark at minimum backlight.

But again NeoGaf have taken what Laura says as hard fact.

Me personally I'll wait for hands on from media and gaming outlets who at that point will provide context e.g playing Mario Kart online gave x amount of hours, playing x game gave x amount of hours etc.

Before anyone jumps on me, yes she's been right in some cases, but no leaker is 100% accurate 100% of the time.

The only difference between a good leaker and a bad leaker is that the good leakers will try and verify a rumour from more than one source. But they're not always right.

 

[pastrami]

we don't really know how they are running the system, this info comes from ubisoft devs who leaked info, there is still no direct confrimation, don't swallow word from word about it.

that said, the original 3DS lasted about 3:30 hours on the 5th brightness, about the same as this, it is similar, min-max setting are still unclear about the NS, but we should be waiting for that.

and even in that case, I'm not that concerned, I usually end up playing in a place where I can charge it at hand.

we must remember we are very delayed in battery energy developments, cellphones last about a day in this era, Nintendo isn't out of this cycle to magically put a 15 hour pack inside a system targeted to a mass market

My point is that making a comparison to the 3DS battery life is disingenuous. A maximum battery life of 3 hours is not comparable to a battery life of 3-5 hours.

Yes, the rumor might be wrong. Yes, it's a devkit so things might change. But people are reacting to the rumor. Saying the battery life is the same as the 3DS is a poor defense.

 

[MuchoMalo]

I really hope this uses micro USB so I can use a power bank with it. Really though, I guess we should have expected this as soon as we saw that it has a fucking vent. This is the gaming laptop of handhelds in every way.

 

[Irishonion]

I'll wait until the inevitable 2nd gen one with better battery.

 

[Amalthea]

Mebius Final Fantasy on my phone drains the battery like crazy.

 

[m4st4]

I mean, it's not like I'm going to spend five hours out in the open playing this. At most one-two hours... and if I'm traveling or whatever it'll come with a charger so whatever.

 

[zeromcd73]

All good. I would just rather use my phone when I'm outside anyway. Switch will strictly be staying home or for flights.

 

[Saint Gregory]

3 hours isn't going to work at all. May not even bother calling it a portable with that kind of battery life.

I guess it's possible that they may include USB3 fast charging like a lot of the new phones have but even then this thing sounds like you'll need to buy a separate battery backpack to make any use of it.

 

[Lucifon]

The Nvidia Shield Tablet on a K1 has about 3-4 hours battery life playing games at the absolute most, I'd say most scenarios less than that. Any modern chip with a HD screen is going to eat a battery when gaming at around this mark. Not sure what people really expected. Obviously this is pre-release too so they may be able to optimise things somewhat to squeeze out more juice.

We also don't know how it'll charge - if it's able to charge via some form of USB then there's a plethora of battery banks available which would make long travel (such as on planes) pretty comfortable.

 

[Leatherface]

3 hours of real game-play is acceptable to me. It's not great but I can't imagine being on the go and needing 3 entire hours to devote to gaming. It would be more of a pick up and play in spurts kind of thing, which is fine. Would be awesome if they used a standardized microUSB port for charging on the go though and hopefully recharge time is fast.

 

[Gator86]

That would put the battery life around that of the Wii U Gamepad. Less actually if that's the max.

The Gamepad's life was complete dogshit.

So why bother with portability?

Because there's still some cash to be made and it's not a competitive market. We all know they can't support two platforms by themselves anymore, so this is the compromise they're putting out there.

 

[Boney]

I just hope it doesn't have a terrible sleep mode like 3ds. That is a real problem.

 

[The God]

So realistically in this scenario, with a heavy 3D load taking input from two players and local wifi running, expect closer to 2 hours?

god those controllers look horrible

 

[ultrazilla]

Nyko and Hyperkin will come through with attachable batteries for the portable version of Switch, so I'm not too terrified of the 3 hour battery life.

There will be solutions for it so I wouldn't go cancelling pre-pre orders.

 

[The_Lump]

I'll wait until the inevitable 2nd gen one with better battery.

Maybe wait for the 1st gen one to land first

 

[MoogleWizard]

Hopefully they'll offer a high capacity battery that triples battery life separately like with the Wii U gamepad. Or one that would get it to 5-6 hours at least. Triple is probably unrealistic.

 

[Sesuadra]

Thats why, if its true, is quite pointless.

It could be true, I honestly expect such numbers, but again, its pointless at this state.

I know, I already wrote that on page 4 ;_;"

About the battery..we don't know if the battery in the devkit is the same as in the final version, we don't know what nintendo can do with optimisation until march..

and we don't know what 3 hours max means. 3 hours max when you play skyrim with brightness and wifi max/on? that would be awesome.

or 3 hours max with brightness on the lowest setting and wifi off while playing a not cpu/gpu intensive game/surfing/leaving it on the table turned on? that would be bad.

it is just not enough information to judge anything or to get any conclusions.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

3 hours?! DOA. this thing needs to be able to survive a 5-6 hr flight at the least.

gonna have to walk around with the tablet plugged into a battery backpack

 

[Hendrick's]

It's ok, in 2018 we can buy the Switch Lite with twice the battery life.

Wii U didn't iterate, so I wouldn't count on one for the Switch so soon after launch.

 

[RobotVM]

3 hours is plenty. Where the fuck are you going to play this and not be able to charge your console throughout the day? Camping?

If you go camping bring a batter pack to recharge it.

 

[XINTSUAI]

Knowing that will have two Bluetooth connections at the same time with the system when you are playing with the controllers not attached... 3 Hours sounds very realistic, I don't doubt that could be less than that, like 2 or 2.5 hours depending of the game.

 

[Aruarian Reflection]

This is on par with what any reasonable person would expect, which is why I was reserved while everybody else was getting carried away without any concrete details. The hype train is already derailing

 

[Leatherface]

god those controllers look horrible

yeah I am also pretty apprehensive about those. :\

 

[KAL2006]

Any word on motion controls. The original leak stated motion controls and advanced vibration

 

[Toadthemushroom]

it can only come from devkits right now. nothing official yet except for the famitsu interview.

Yup. It's highly unlikely the final hardware (shipping in 5 months) will have the same battery that's in the dev kit, or even the same placeholder X1 SoC.

I can't read the original piece right now as the site is down, but I'd be disappointed if the author didn't at least specify that these figures come from dev kits, and won't be representative of the final hardware.