Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@themcnoisy What I've learnt playing the Switch is that the form factor does just work, it really does what it says on the tin. Similar situation to you last night, couldn't get near near my playthrough of RE7 on PS4 because my wife wanted to catch up on some TV shows so I just picked up the Switch and spent a couple of hours on Zelda then dropped it back into the cradle when done. It was great - I've been playing Zelda now since mid-March, am probably a quarter of the way through but I just keep picking it up when I have a spare thirty or forty minutes or if I can't get the TV.

@Ralizah and if you throw in Gamecube games, then the console is then on another level altogether. If Nintendo can somehow get Rogue Leader, Super Monkey Ball and F Zero GX up and running it will be the best handheld ever hands down imo. Then add in Odyssey and Splatoon for the AAA crowd and Disgaea and Xenoblade for the rpg fix and no real gamer can say they don't want one. I'm actually happy the games are a touch expensive, as long as they don't peddle micro transactions I'm way more happy.

@themcnoisy I mean, the big first-party games are normal console game price. I'll pay the same for a new Switch game as I will a new PS4 game.

It's too bad Nintendo was short-sighted and didn't include analog triggers, though. If they do eventually bring GC emulation to the system, games like Super Mario Sunshine are going to be difficult to control effectively.

@Ralizah Ahhh I never knew that. The fludd would control differently that's for sure.

Picked up Mario Kart, I love the way the instruction book is now the inlay of the cover which works with the transparent box.

I can't believe Mario Kart 8 is being pumped out by a tablet? It's magic. The tiny controllers in 2 player can't be used for long but it's loads of fun in battle mode. It looks great, mainly due to the cartoony artstyle, the dreaded Aliasing is prevelant throughout due to the lower resolution I've been lucky enough to play with on pro and its a big step back from Infamous or ratchet at 1800p.

As for MK8 its obviously great but far too weighted towards weapons as the last few editions. Top game though with tons of characters, tracks and modes.

@themcnoisy Yeah, I continue to be impressed that a little tablet can run MK8 more smoothly than the Wii U could. BotW was even more mind-boggling for me. Regardless of how underpowered it is in comparison to its beefier stationary contemporaries, the Switch is a marvel of modern technology.

I can't really adjust well to sideways joycon play, though. It's just uncomfortable. It's cool in theory, and I like that I can occasionally do mp with my nephew without investing in another controller, but I still don't see it as a viable control option.

@themcnoisy Of coure it's a big step back from Infamous or Ratchet at 1080p. Guess what the Switch console screen itself is? 720p! If that screen had the capacity for 1080p it would but that'd be a price hike.

But it's glorious 1080p on the TV and that's what matters.

or at least that's what matters to most.

@BLP_Software not 1080p.

I own a ps4"pro on s 4k tv. And they both run at 1800p.

@themcnoisy The point remains. If you want a 1080p and above screen of 6 inches in size you'd need to be ready to cough up loads. My phone has a 2k screen and is damn near £1000.

I think expectation is a problem in this industry. Being happy with ones lot seems rare nowadays. A tablet can't do what a brick the size of a very large doorstop can do. That's physically impossible, and as I've always said, even if it could, it would have to be huge, not very portable, incredibly expensive, and melt your hand from the heat with a battery life of mere seconds.

And honestly the fact it's a gorgeous IPS display means that I don't care what resolution it is so long as it looks good. And it looks good.

@BLP_Software I think you got ripped off in that case. There's no phone I can think off that is worth €1000+. I paid €399 for my OnePlus, and it has a 1080p screen. You didn't pay that much for a screen, that's for sure.

@Octane Well, it's more like £750-800 for the hardware, its the plan on top that take it up to £1000 for the two years.

Samsung Galaxy S8, by the by. The screen is nice but it has no reason to be 2k at that size.

@BLP_Software An iPad Mini 4 has a 7.9" 2048x1536 multi-touch display. It also has a 128GB storage - 4x that of the Switch as well as accelerometers, three axis gyros, wifi and bluetooth and a reasonable battery life - all for £330. Of course if you factor in the cost of the dock, the controllers etc - making a Switch with a smaller and lower res 1080p screen could still have been possible.

The problem with making a Switch with a 1080p screen is more to do with running games at that level on that hardware and delivering a 'reasonable' battery life. Is heat a major problem when docked? No - so it must be able to keep the heat down enough. Its primarily down to the battery life and extending that as much as possible. A 1080p screen would no doubt add a bit to the cost but the biggest cost would be to battery life...

720p on the tablet is a smart compromise, considering things look sharper on the smaller screen anyway.

I don't get the appeal of the whole 4K thing, honestly. If support for 4K happens as a side effect of technological change? Great! Advertising 4K support as the main selling point for a console makes zero sense to me, though. And it especially doesn't make sense to me when the resources required to achieve 4K could be directed somewhere else.

@Ralizah And then you have someone like me who can't get the benefit of 4k or HDR, in fact in many instances it looks worse, because of colour blindness.

Make it worse that many people don't know they are colour blind (I didn't for 19 years after all) and there comes a point where the arms race starts locking people out.

If HDR and 4k ever become the minimum and we lose the option to go lower...thats it. I won't be able to play games especially since many don't have colour blind modes. And I don't even know if that'd help on HDR due to the wider colour palette.

More So, I'd be paying for a machine that I can't use to it's potential. Why would I put an extra £100+ for features that make the experience worse?

I agree about the screen size and 720p is certainly not a 'poor' resolution for a 6.2" display.

I do however disagree with you sentiments regarding 4k. It appears to me that you either you don't have or never seen the benefits that 4k can bring to any medium - whether its TV, Film or gaming. Gaming is often a lot more obvious than TV/Film because film is generally 'softer' than digital art. Did you say the same (or are you too young) when TV's and consoles went HD? Why bother with a PS3 offering 600-720p when you could use the resources elsewhere? Did you say the same when the PS4 gave us full HD instead of 720p? Why bother with Full HD when the PS4 could do '720p' and use the resources elsewhere. I remember hearing 'similar' back when HD launched - why bother with it, doesn't change the story in Films, doesn't give extra content in TV series etc. People could still recognise actors/characters in SD so why bother with HD. It was also a 'premium' product and Sky (for example) were charging an extra £10 a month, HD TV's were a lot of money considering the price of a CRT TV yet MS and then Sony built HD capable consoles. The same is happening now with 4k and game developers - especially those making AAA multi-platform games are making 4k games - have done for years and only now are consoles catching up. It took them a while to deliver full 1080p too of course...

Maybe Nintendo should have put a 'smaller' (5") 540p screen on the Switch and used the saving in resources to prolong battery life.

I think the screen on the switch does just fine for portable mode and the 1080 looks good when docked. As my wife has repeatedly told me, it's how you use it. Zelda is as beautiful in its own way as Horizon though they are chalk and cheese when it comes to the look. It is why I don't think we will see many AAA ports to Switch. I think that the switch isn't intended as a substitute for current gen consoles but as a supplement. It was priced quite high for launch but I could see the base unit going down to closer to £200 within a year or so, maybe bundled with a game and that will make it very attractive to people who ready own a console or PC. I see my Ps4 as my primary console still but the switch is just fun and handy.

[quote=BAMozzy It appears to me that you either you don't have or never seen the benefits that 4k can bring to any medium - whether its TV, Film or gaming. .

[/quote]

@BAMozzy I have a question regarding that quote: What do you say to someone who simply cannot see the benefits of 4K and HDR?

Being colour blind means one simple thing: More pixels means more space for colour. HDR means wider colour gamut. Put both together, it means more times where I can't distinguish between colours and objects lose definition.

The jump to HD made me rely on colour blind modes a lot more simply to be able to see what was what on the screen.

There are people like yourself who want 4k standard. There are people like @Ralizah who want the resources elsewhere as they think what we have now is fine for the time being, and then there are people like me, who get no benefit from this push whatsoever.

I've seen games in 4K. The difference isn't appreciable enough for me to bother wasting money on a 4K set. Also, 4K is excessively resource heavy. The improvements it brings aren't equal to the demands it makes, imo.

Also, not sure what the point of strawmanning my argument is. Half of your post is shooting down arguments I haven't made.

As I said, 4K support happening as a result of technological evolution is fine. Pushing 4K at the expense of other things is not, however. At some point, the diminishing returns of this arms race are going to catch up with Sony, and they'll have to change direction. Versatility (Nintendo Switch) and VR seem like the big candidates atm.

@Ralizah @BLP_Software @BAMozzy @Octane @Rudy_Manchego sorry for kicking that all off. I'm not a big graphics are everything person. The switch is boss and does a great job.

But going from Infamous second son, ratchet, Titanfall and a few other games on the pro the Aliasing on switch docked is really really intrusive. I game on a 48inch hdr 4k TV. It's not an unbelievable amazing jump from HD gaming and by no means a must, but it is noticeable and I'm cp4 (color perception / color blindness) Aliasing has always got on my nerves and that's no different on switch. But other than that the switch is fantastic and I'm loads happy 😊 .