For a long while there have been rumblings of the Nintendo NX but very little details were available on the upcoming system UNTIL LAST NIGHT! Finally we can stop calling it the NX as it now has a real name, the Nintendo Switch. While there still isn't a huge amount of information on the thing, there's enough for me to write a little bit about my thoughts on what they've done.
It seems to be a sort of home/portable hybrid where you slot a screen into a stand to play it on your TV like a normal system or you can take the screen out and play it like a portable system. This is a cool feature that a lot of people seem to be creaming their pants over and while I agree that it is pretty awesome, let's not forget that the PSP was doing that back in 2007. Also the main screen portable body thing just looks like a WiiU controller and the idea of walking around with that fucking thing and whipping it out on the train even makes me cringe a little bit.
Another cool thing we can take from the announcement is the two little slide in controller thingies can be taken out and shared with another player. In theory this means that a second controller for a second player will be built into the standard system which is an absolute godsend. Controllers aren't cheap so the idea that I can just buy the system and immediately start playing with another person seems really cool. Other features include the thing having a Tegra processor and the games coming on cards like the DS which is cool I guess, it means the games will look pretty good and not take up too much space in my house.
The one thing that really piqued my interested are the number of studios that have pledged involvement with the thing
ATLUS, Spike Chunsoft and Grasshopper ALONE are enough to get me interested in the thing. It's cool to see the amount of 3rd party support for the thing so hopefully the Switch will have a really cool library of games. Right now the games we know about are a bit meh with things like Skyrim and some Basketball shit alongside obvious stuff like Zelda and Mario. I am getting the general impression that Nintendo are trying to market this thing for a more core gaming audience rather than trying to make it all family friendly. Obviously the family friendly stuff is there but I'm getting the feeling they want that core crowd back in a big way.
This is is set to launch in March 2017 so only time will tell if it's any god or not. I'm not going to get my hopes too high just because I'm a bit jaded but it is looking to be something worth picking up as of right now. It would be really nice if it was region free....
