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Does Switch allow 4 player local multiplayer on one console?

McHuj

Member
I haven't seen confirmation one way or another, but based on what's shown, my guess is no.

As much as I shit on the WiiU, it's been a lot of fun to play Mario Kart and 3D World with the kids on the TV. The Switch presentations make it seem we would need 2 consoles for this.
 
It will allow 4 player split screen in games built to support it. However, the screen cannot display a separate image than the TV, so games that support two players on separate screens- like Hyrule Warriors- is a no go.

This also means asynchronous multiplayer- like Chase Mii in Nintendoland - is gone too.
 
I have to wonder at the battery life for an 8 player split screen session, though presumably that's only reserved for games with a single view like Bomberman as per above
 
Bomberman is coming out on this thing too, would be kinda dumb not having a single screen 4 player mode in that.

I do wonder if you can connect multiple switches together when there docked to the TV, or is it only active when it's in handheld mode.
 
I've been wondering about this since the reveal, it's weird they're kind of avoiding it.

It's pretty obvious it supports 4 players using two sets of Joy-cons, so it explains games like Mario Kart and splitscreen working.

But nothing I've heard so far has shown it supporting 4 sets of Joy-cons or Pro Controllers. I don't think you could play Smash Bros. with a single Joy-con.

Yes, as far as I got it, Bomberman allows up to 8 players on 1 console.

I've been waiting on confirmation of this, because Bomberman will really settle it - to do 8 player it would need to either use 4 sets of Joy-cons or 2 Switches.

Has anyone seen explicit hands-on with Bomberman?
 
4-player splitscreen co-op with Mario Kart on 1 console was shown extensively.

Has anyone seen it supporting 4 sets of Joy-cons or Pro Controllers though? Because single Joy-cons are only half the story, you can't play Smash with only a single one.

This is the only post which answers the OP. Thank you!

It's pretty crazy how much the multiplayer aspects are muddled, and Nintendo calling wireless play "Local Multiplayer" doesn't help at all. I haven't seen any confirmation of above controller configurations beyond "well I don't see why it wouldn't" and I'm worried.
 
I am assuming you saw that image with 4 people playing Mario Kart 8 split screen with all 4 gamepads have 4 split screen,that doesn't make sense have split screen between 4 switches.
 
Has anyone seen it supporting 4 sets of Joy-cons or Pro Controllers though? Because single Joy-cons are only half the story, you can't play Smash with only a single one.



It's pretty crazy how much the multiplayer aspects are muddled, and Nintendo calling wireless play "Local Multiplayer" doesn't help at all. I haven't seen any confirmation of above controller configurations beyond "well I don't see why it wouldn't" and I'm worried.


You probably could, Smash on the WiiU supported using Wii controller on the side. Obviously not the best way of playing lol but it was possible.
 
I've been wondering about this since the reveal, it's weird they're kind of avoiding it.

It's pretty obvious it supports 4 players using two sets of Joy-cons, so it explains games like Mario Kart and splitscreen working.

But nothing I've heard so far has shown it supporting 4 sets of Joy-cons or Pro Controllers. I don't think you could play Smash Bros. with a single Joy-con.



I've been waiting on confirmation of this, because Bomberman will really settle it - to do 8 player it would need to either use 4 sets of Joy-cons or 2 Switches.

Has anyone seen explicit hands-on with Bomberman?

In the Treehouse part when they were playing Bomberman they mentioned that it's possible to play it with up to 8 players while setting up their local vs game. From the menus where they added the bots, it sure looked like it would be possible to play 8 player local coop too.

That's all I got though.
 
In the Treehouse part when they were playing Bomberman they mentioned that it's possible to play it with IP to 8 players while setting up their local vs game. From the menus where they added the bots, it sure looked like it would be possible to play 8 player local coop too.

That's all I got though.

That's good to hear.

It seems weird that Bomberman would support wireless local though, because you wouldn't gain much benefit over single screen, so it has me paranoid. It'd be nice if they just demo-ed it and got this over with, haha.
 
From the NoJ game pages. I guess the local wireless multiplay is for Handheld Mode?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
TV Mode: 1~4 players
Tabletop Mode: 1~4 players
Handheld Mode: 1 player
Internet connection: Up to 12 players
Local wireless multiplayer: Up to 8 players

Super Bomberman R
TV Mode: 1~8 players
Tabletop Mode: 1~8 players
Handheld Mode: 1 player
Internet connection: Up to 8 players
Local wireless multiplayer: Up to 8 players
 
Any indication of you can use any of the previous gen controllers with this system? I've got a bunch of wiimotes and Wii u Pro controllers at my disposal.
 
Any indication of you can use any of the previous gen controllers with this system? I've got a bunch of wiimotes and Wii u Pro controllers at my disposal.

Pretty sure this is a clear cut from previous generations. And it's better this way if it means that we won't have conflicting messages for controllers and every controller works for every game.

It was the worst for the Wii U, I hated that whole situation.
 
I've been wondering about this since the reveal, it's weird they're kind of avoiding it.

It's pretty obvious it supports 4 players using two sets of Joy-cons, so it explains games like Mario Kart and splitscreen working.

But nothing I've heard so far has shown it supporting 4 sets of Joy-cons or Pro Controllers. I don't think you could play Smash Bros. with a single Joy-con.



I've been waiting on confirmation of this, because Bomberman will really settle it - to do 8 player it would need to either use 4 sets of Joy-cons or 2 Switches.

Has anyone seen explicit hands-on with Bomberman?

They haven't focused on it because 4 player split screen on a tiny screen would look stupid, and they know it. Technically though, it would appear that there's no reason the switch would allow it in tv mode but not tablet mode unless they design the games that way, since there is a loss in performance.

I was thinking the same thing though. 4 player split screen on a tiny screen doesn't look like it would help their case selling this thing, and I wondered if they, in typical Nintendo fashion, go out of their way to avoid any feature that doesn't work with their gimmick.

Thankfully it looks like that's not the case, and any 4 player split screen you're not seeing is likely because then it would be apparent how difficult it would be to do that on the go, which is supposed to be the big selling point feature.
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing

This was something I hated on Wii U. What was the point of playing on the gamepad if they still split it up into 4 boxes anyway, for a tiny box for yourself?

This looks to be the exact same issue here with Switch. I don't understand.
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing

This is clearly a cut paste job slapping a screen image onto the tablets. I saw 4 player split screen on one switch yesterday from the NY event.

I don't know if you can each play with your own switch wirelessly with four people... but you can definitely play 8 player with two. Local wireless multiplayer is a really cool feature of this system that I haven't really been thinking about. I've got a bunch of friends getting them.
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing

There's an image in other thread i don't remember that shows 4 switches without splitscreen.
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing

Don't worry, we have a Gaffer that was at the Frankfurt event and he played Mario Kart in that set up. Everyone has their own screen.
There's even a picture of the game set up and running this way in the thread.

Here
 
So $280 worth of Pro controllers to play 4-player smash effectively w/o hands cramping up in 20 mins.
They'd be crazy if they didn't just support the GameCube adapter for smash again. The system has USB ports for some reason, I suppose.

many of their decisions seem crazy lately so who knows
 
Don't worry, we have a Gaffer that was at the Frankfurt event and he played Mario Kart in that set up. Everyone has their own screen.
There's even a picture of the game set up and running this way in the thread.

Here

Thanks for linking this. I'd read the OP but hadn't seen him confirm further down the thread that all 8 people were racing against each other. That's super cool.
 
From the NoJ game pages. I guess the local wireless multiplay is for Handheld Mode?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
TV Mode: 1~4 players
Tabletop Mode: 1~4 players
Handheld Mode: 1 player
Internet connection: Up to 12 players
Local wireless multiplayer: Up to 8 players

Super Bomberman R
TV Mode: 1~8 players
Tabletop Mode: 1~8 players
Handheld Mode: 1 player
Internet connection: Up to 8 players
Local wireless multiplayer: Up to 8 players

The "modes" aren't really a "real" thing. You could most certainly play 4 players for Mario Kart in handheld mode. A stand doesn't magically change anything other than practicality. The same is likely true of the "LAN" play. Docked or not the system can still connect to other local switches. I suppose it's possible Nintendo could lock things through software but I don't see why they would do that.

Also what technical sense would showing all four players in split screen on completely separate devices make? These things are each rendering the game independently. They aren't streaming video or something.
 
Don't worry, we have a Gaffer that was at the Frankfurt event and he played Mario Kart in that set up. Everyone has their own screen.
There's even a picture of the game set up and running this way in the thread.

Here
They're set up in two different modes though. The promo pic shown in this thread has them in tabletop mode (JoyCons off), whereas the Frankfurt event thread picture has them in handheld mode (JoyCons on).

I think the question here is, if people want to play tabletop mode with multiple Switches, how does that work? Can the following setups work in tabletop mode, or do you have to force single screen by going into handheld mode?
- 4-8 people on 2 Switches, each of them split screen
- 2-8 people on equal number of Switches, each of them single screen for each player
- 2-5 Switches for 3-8 people, where one Switch is used for split screen and the others are single screen for the remaining players
 
Hello people,

This picture has me worried

IMG_3264.jpg


So ... if I have 4 switches with my friends and play Mario Kart ... do we all have the screen splitted in the 4 tablets?

That would be really disappointing

No, this is reddit making things more confusing by overanalyzing.

The point of the image is to convey that the 4 people are playing within the same game, not their own game just next to each other.
 
This is clearly a cut paste job slapping a screen image onto the tablets. I saw 4 player split screen on one switch yesterday from the NY event.

I don't know if you can each play with your own switch wirelessly with four people... but you can definitely play 8 player with two. Local wireless multiplayer is a really cool feature of this system that I haven't really been thinking about. I've got a bunch of friends getting them.

It supports 8. Bomberman supports eight players on one system on one screen. Confirmed!

Dude don't get me too hyped here, I need you to be really sure about this haha. Tacking "Confirmed!" on the end reminds me of Trump. I need that hard proof!

8 player Mario Kart between 2 Switches would be expensive but at least within possibility.
 
No, this is reddit making things more confusing by overanalyzing.

The point of the image is to convey that the 4 people are playing within the same game, not their own game just next to each other.

That's an interesting point, and thank you everybody for the replies and pictures.

The picture shows 8 people with their own screen ... so I can assume if I have 4 switches, each with their own game, we can connect for local wifi multiplayer ... each with their own screen (not split) , right?
 
I have two questions...

1. Some have said Bomberman can be played 8 players on one console. How is this possible? Is there no limit to Bluetooth connection?

2. Is it possible to do 8 player Mario kart with two switches having both of them split into four? And if yes then is this possible even without two TVs? Can any combination be possible for example 6 players with 3 switches, 8 players with 7 switches etc? Thanks!
 
I have two questions...

1. Some have said Bomberman can be played 8 players on one console. How is this possible? Is there no limit to Bluetooth connection?

2. Is it possible to do 8 player Mario kart with two switches having both of them split into four? And if yes then is this possible even without two TVs? Can any combination be possible for example 6 players with 3 switches, 8 players with 7 switches etc? Thanks!

One of the posters above is claiming 8 player between two is possible, would be awesome. The really fine details will be hard to pull out until closer to release I think.

I'm not sure how Bluetooth works, but an Xbox One for example can have 8 controllers connected and obviously Wii U managed it for Super Smash Bros. Unless you're asking if there's a Switch limitation, which yeah, there's some mumblings about it being 8 but I've only heard the lightest of proof so far.
 
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