Start a virtual adventure from your sofa, then take it with you onto the bus: that’s the idea behind Nintendo’s new console Switch. But can this veteran gaming house manage the splits between mobile and console gaming?
Until now, consoles offered by Nintendo have been aimed at two neatly separated worlds: handheld portable devices such as the Gameboy and 3DS and home-based stationary ones like the Super Nintendo or Wii.
But now things have changed and the new Nintendo Switch is selling itself both as a console in the living room and something to bring on holidays or play on the way to work.
So far though, there are more than a few teething problems and not enough games.
When buyers open the packaging and see the sheer mass of accessories, they quickly learn that this all-rounder is not such a simple concept.
There’s a dock for connecting to a TV and then there’s the console itself, a small tablet with a 6.2-inch touchscreen that you connect to the dock when you want to play. Then the picture on the console appears on the TV. This works well and quickly.
The games are controlled by the Nintendo Joy-Con: two small detachable controllers with an analogue stick, eight buttons, a vibration motor and a motion sensor.
When playing on the go, the user attaches them to the right and left of the tablet, while at home they’re taken off and attached to the Joy-Con Grip.
With its built-in stand, you can also put the Switch tablet on a table and play with the Gamepad. However, since the display is very small, menu text becomes almost unreadable. Indeed the whole display seems to have been designed for children or people with small hands.
There will also be games that can only be played on the Joy-Con – uncomplicated titles like “Mario Kart” for example.
One weak point becomes apparent when changing between the different controllers – for example, the Joy-Con doesn’t easily separate from the tablet.
Internally, the console is much more solid – with its Tegra processor from Nvidia, it can display games such as “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” or “Just Dance” on the TV or tablet without problems.
Of course this chip designed for mobile devices can’t match the performance of the Playstation 4 or Xbox One. But it doesn’t need to for the colourful games generally associated with Nintendo.
One disadvantage is a fairly short battery life. According to Nintendo, it should last for up to six hours of continuous operation, but a test with “Zelda” lasted barely three.
In terms of memory, the standard 32 gigabytes is clearly too small for game downloads, but this can be easily expanded using an SD card.
The Switch with its dock, tablet, Joy-Cons and other accessories costs around 330 euros ($US350). The price is be reasonable in terms of performance, but additional accessories are very expensive.
The Pro Controller, a classic gamepad for home play, costs around 70 euros while a new Joy-Con set costs 80 euros. Fortunately you don’t really need to buy these expensive extras, and what comes in the box is sufficient.
Overall, unless you’re a Super Mario fanatic, it might make sense to wait a while before buying a Switch. At the moment there are too few interesting games. The most exciting title is “The Legend of Zelda,” which is also coming for the Wii U.
There are a few fun mini-games such as the party game collection “1-2-Switch” or the puzzle game “Snipperclips.” But that might not keep all gamers entertained until the new “Super Mario” title is released at the end of the year. – dpa
