Nintendo's newest game console is coming: Here are the 10 biggest rumors about Switch by Ben Gilbert on Jan 6, 2017, 1:01 PM After years of waiting, Nintendo's finally got a new video game console on the way: It's called the Nintendo Switch. Here, look at it!  It's a hybrid console — you can play it at home, on your living room television (left), or you can take it on-the-go (right). Here's what we know about the console thus far: - It's called Nintendo Switch.
- It's scheduled to launch in March 2017.
- Nintendo has a gaggle of games starring its most prominent creations in the works.
There's of course much more to the Switch than that, but Nintendo isn't offering many explicit details just yet. Nintendo has an event scheduled for January 12 where we expect to learn more about switch, but in the meantime, reporters have been digging up as much info as they can. What you'll find below is a roundup of the most credible rumors about Switch, from the price of the console to the games you can expect to find when it hits store shelves this March. Alex Perry contributed to an earlier version of this story. SEE ALSO: We just learned a lot more about Nintendo Switch, the new game console from Nintendo It should be less expensive at launch than Nintendo's last console, the Wii U. The Wii U launched in 2012 with two models: a $300 base edition, and a $350 "deluxe" edition that came with more storage. That cost was way too much for a console that was seriously underpowered compared to the competition from Microsoft and Sony. It sounds like Nintendo Switch won't repeat that mistake. Laura Kate Dale of Let's Play Video Games has been the most reliable reporter when it comes to verifying Switch rumors, and her sources have Switch launching with a $250 base model and a $300 deluxe bundle that comes with more storage space and an included game. That puts Switch right in line with the base models of Xbox One and PS4, price-wise.
Though it'll be in line with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 price-wise, it sounds like the Switch isn't as powerful as the aging competition. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launched in 2013 at $500 and $400, respectively. Expensive consoles, no doubt, but that's with good reason: These are devices that were built to last for several years. Even still, new versions of both consoles either already exist (Xbox One S and the PlayStation 4 Pro) or are in the works (Microsoft's Project Scorpio). In the case of the Switch, it sounds like Nintendo's aiming for affordability over horsepower. Without getting too technical, sources tell Eurogamer that the hardware inside the Switch is less powerful than what the Xbox One is capable of, to say nothing of the PlayStation 4 (the PS4 is slightly more powerful than the Xbox One). That's good and bad: It means Nintendo can keep the console affordable for consumers, but it constrains what developers are capable of doing with the system. It also means you're unlikely to see multi-platform games on the Switch — stuff like "Call of Duty" or "Grand Theft Auto," for instance.
The home version of Switch is reportedly more capable than the mobile version. Unsurprisingly, the same report from Eurogamer says Nintendo Switch will be more capable when plugged in at home than when it's in mobile form. There's a simple reason for that: Power! As in electricity. Mobile gaming platforms — the original Game Boy straight through to the Nintendo 3DS, and your iPhone too — are limited tremendously by their reliance on batteries. Spend an afternoon playing "Minecraft" on your iPhone and see what happens to your phone's battery. As a result, the companies that make mobile hardware — Apple, Nintendo, Sony, etc. — intentionally build their hardware to balance horsepower with power use. You could make a super powerful phone, for instance, but the battery required to power it would be massive. So instead of doing that, they sacrifice horsepower for battery constraints. That constraint is removed, though, when you're plugged in to a "limitless" power supply (the wall). All of which is to say: When you dock the Nintendo Switch at home, it can "turn on" horsepower that it otherwise doesn't use (in order to save battery life when on-the-go). It's up to game developers to choose how to use that extra horsepower, of course.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider |
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