Hardware Poll: What is the Switch to you?

[supergamer368]

More people seem to think that the Switch is a banana than a home console. That's just sad.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Who the heck put BANANA As a option to vote on? Where is hybrid system console/portable?

 

[Bladexdsl]

Who the heck put BANANA As a option to vote on?

Veho

 

[Taffy]

I see the Switch as a banana

The Switch is a hybrid console. It can be plugged into a TV or be used as a handheld.

It's pretty unique.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Who the heck put BANANA As a option to vote on? Where is hybrid system console/portable?

But a banana can be hybrid AFAIK.
(but don't trust my words, I don't know much about farming)

 

[FAST6191]

Thus far I have only read the patents and seen a parody remix/edit of what I imagine is the original trailer.

Nintendo's next failure, and a means for me to continue to play wind up for those which have thus far failed to see the downward slide.

That said I reckon this failure is going to be less of a complete screw up to provide a platform, though I am not expecting a complete reversal there, and perhaps more of a too little, too late kind of thing.

I may well play with any shiny that results (if something is good I will take it from almost anywhere) but any intellectual or emotional investment has long since been obliterated, notions that they are ones providing something rare and hard to come by having ceased to be further back still.

Still feel like that?

I might add a few more things to it, but yes it would appear that I am some kind of prescient. I did not expect the hardware to be as wonky as it is and we have not yet had quite long enough for the heat deaths to happen. The online service is worse than I imagined it would be from a features and things to buy front.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

I might add a few more things to it, but yes it would appear that I am some kind of prescient. I did not expect the hardware to be as wonky as it is and we have not yet had quite long enough for the heat deaths to happen. The online service is worse than I imagined it would be from a features and things to buy front.

Wonky? I wouldn't describe the hardware as that. Rushed? Yes. Completely Functional? Yes.

I wouldn't consider the Online Service bad when it is far cheaper than the others if anything the fact they even give you a game for a month as well as discounts and offers for the £20 price for a year is good enough. Next is the fact they are far from completing their online service, the only reason I would suggest is that they're just testing the waters, we've already seen improvements in online such as how Super Bomberman R's online is actually playable now.
As for the idea of "too little, too late", what would even suggest that based on early sales and its record-breaking performance? As for the notion that the Switch's very concept isn't rare is ludicrous at best. There is not a single machine on the market that simplifies hybrid gaming like the switch, if you can name one, I will gladly concede that point, however, I have yet to see a machine as accessible as the Switch.

I would consider it unrealistic and more than pessimistic to suggest the Switch is a failure or even will be a failure. Can it be? Sure, but, will it be? No, you just can't make that decision, unless, of course, you are an analyst, which if may be so bold as to presume you are not. I remember Serkan Toto thinking the Switch wouldnt even sell 2 million in its first month. Well, it did sell 2.74.

 

[FAST6191]

I include long term reliability in my functionality tests and I am not expecting much there. The failures we have thus far seen speak to some very odd design choices and with it all I expect something quite radical in the future as far as the internals go.

Online cheaper than the PC? No? Oh well. Cheaper than Android and IOS?
Anyway if the peeps behind Nintendo's online services, charging, content and such can go home at night thinking they have done a good job then they maybe need to raise their standards, and coming from me that speaks to much. If this is more of a bare minimum to not be fired then I can respect the laziness.
" that they're just testing the waters, we've already seen improvements in online such as how Super Bomberman R's online is actually playable now."
Online is not really hardware dependent any more (it should just be data at this point, certainly is for near everything else) and as they came to market flagging. Were this some new company I could forgive something, this however is supposedly one of the big players in an industry and they have over a decade at this point to get it right. They get nothing from me but a derisive snort at this point.

On too little, too late I was going more for the system will be game starved, and it seems it is thus far.

Rarity of concept wise I did not say anything there. Its android predecessor and many android things in general seem to fulfil the handheld thing with a video out though.

"No, you just can't make that decision, unless, of course, you are an analyst, which if may be so bold as to presume you are not"
What would being an analyst allow? This is the internet, don't care what your job title is (give or take being a lawyer in the US for they have silly laws about legal advice) and you can say what you like, just be prepared to defend it.

It is still early days and I am waiting to see if the thing will lose all momentum and gather dust like so many wiis and wii u devices, possibly even 3ds, before it. Likewise I await the releases from the big publishers, the engine makers and whether Nintendo will manage to court both the devs that abandoned them for android and indie devs in general. I mean I would like it to die on its arse in fairly short order and Nintendo to then go software and maybe peripherals (possibly flagship android too) but that would be being too optimistic.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

I include long term reliability in my functionality tests and I am not expecting much there. The failures we have thus far seen speak to some very odd design choices and with it all I expect something quite radical in the future as far as the internals go.

Online cheaper than the PC? No? Oh well. Cheaper than Android and IOS?
Anyway if the peeps behind Nintendo's online services, charging, content and such can go home at night thinking they have done a good job then they maybe need to raise their standards, and coming from me that speaks to much. If this is more of a bare minimum to not be fired then I can respect the laziness.
" that they're just testing the waters, we've already seen improvements in online such as how Super Bomberman R's online is actually playable now."
Online is not really hardware dependent any more (it should just be data at this point, certainly is for near everything else) and as they came to market flagging. Were this some new company I could forgive something, this however is supposedly one of the big players in an industry and they have over a decade at this point to get it right. They get nothing from me but a derisive snort at this point.

On too little, too late I was going more for the system will be game starved, and it seems it is thus far.

Rarity of concept wise I did not say anything there. Its android predecessor and many android things in general seem to fulfil the handheld thing with a video out though.

"No, you just can't make that decision, unless, of course, you are an analyst, which if may be so bold as to presume you are not"
What would being an analyst allow? This is the internet, don't care what your job title is (give or take being a lawyer in the US for they have silly laws about legal advice) and you can say what you like, just be prepared to defend it.

It is still early days and I am waiting to see if the thing will lose all momentum and gather dust like so many wiis and wii u devices, possibly even 3ds, before it. Likewise I await the releases from the big publishers, the engine makers and whether Nintendo will manage to court both the devs that abandoned them for android and indie devs in general. I mean I would like it to die on its arse in fairly short order and Nintendo to then go software and maybe peripherals (possibly flagship android too) but that would be being too optimistic.

You couldve at least quoted or mentioned me .

The failures are far and few between, we arent seeing reports of widespread flaws, and those flaws such as the left joy-con and bent dock are being fixed by Nintendo for free.
You really should judge a console that has 2.74 million customers based on the 20 that had defective screens etc.

Is it competing with PC? No. Is it competing with mobile? No. Therefore what the PC and mobile markets do with online is of no consequence.
I haven't suggested online is hardware dependent, is very much dependent on the servers which have clearly improved, seeing as how before there were even dedicated servers, the only reason it was free before on the Wii and Wii U was because it was basically P2P, servers literally just connected users and put the pressure of running online on the people with bad down and up speeds. Nintendo can offer much more consistent experiences by having us find them, unlike Valve, Nintendo don't continually rake in money since they don't have a service like steam where they make so much money that having servers being free is of no issue.

Starved? In what sense? Of quality titles? Far from it, the console has had quite a lot of games reaching scores between 80 and 10. In a perfect world it would have more games, but AAA devs are very much playing the wait and see approach on this.

What would being an analyst tell me? That you know what the hell you're talking about when discussing topics such as market share.
Your last paragraph is more or less opinion and so I'm not going to reply to that.

 

[FAST6191]

It did start out fairly shortly after your reply but I got distracted.

I don't know the numbers of the failures, though from the pictures of the failures, teardowns and analysis done I stand by my earlier remarks. So they are fixing the failures? Some should not have happened (they were design failures that more accurate testing should have revealed) and given they would be dragged through the courts and mud if they did not then at best they are doing their job.

Nintendo not competing with mobile? The rise of android and IOS gutted DS homebrew, and throughout the 3ds lifetime loads of the devs that had been there for the GBA and DS making them all they were buggered off to android and such. Even those that stuck around frequently dual released.
Maybe there is a contingent of handheld fans out there but there are plenty that will take an acceptable offering for a walkabout games machine. To that end they are competing, so very much that your statement that they are not is mind boggling to me.

Not being hardware means it is software, being software they have had a decade or so to get it right by now. Their continued incompetence in this matter then forms the basis for my opinions here.
Speed of games was not really a problem, though some shoddy net code certainly did appear throughout it all. My bigger grievances are with the poor online stores, crappy accounts system, lack of services (owing to the bad OS design such a thing was easier said than done for the wii, no excuse for the wii u). Dedicated vs p2p is something of a distraction issue at best for me.
"Nintendo don't continually rake in money since they don't have a service like steam where they make so much money that having servers being free is of no issue."
Why not? They have one of the easiest to sell back catalogues in gaming. They should have hundreds of things up there and be raking it in hand over fist. Sell batches/old game collections, get some challenges in there, make an incentive for sales in various similar ways.

Competing with the PC. Not as directly but they are offering an online games service and thus there can be a measure of comparison made.

Switch library somewhat robust? Could be worse but I want spoiled for choice. I want 50 indie devs making multiple games each, I want every streaming service going, I want chat protocols by the dozen (actually I want a unified one again, or at least two or three and for them to be open source but that is not within Nintendo's power), I already mentioned how they could do amazing things (for the plebs anyway) with their back catalogue.

I agree that someone's profession in turn means they can reasonably be expected to have some knowledge about various areas. Not seeing the relevance here though.

 

[smileyhead]

The fact that 67 people voted for banana concerns me.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

It did start out fairly shortly after your reply but I got distracted.

I don't know the numbers of the failures, though from the pictures of the failures, teardowns and analysis done I stand by my earlier remarks. So they are fixing the failures? Some should not have happened (they were design failures that more accurate testing should have revealed) and given they would be dragged through the courts and mud if they did not then at best they are doing their job.

Nintendo not competing with mobile? The rise of android and IOS gutted DS homebrew, and throughout the 3ds lifetime loads of the devs that had been there for the GBA and DS making them all they were buggered off to android and such. Even those that stuck around frequently dual released.
Maybe there is a contingent of handheld fans out there but there are plenty that will take an acceptable offering for a walkabout games machine. To that end they are competing, so very much that your statement that they are not is mind boggling to me.

Not being hardware means it is software, being software they have had a decade or so to get it right by now. Their continued incompetence in this matter then forms the basis for my opinions here.
Speed of games was not really a problem, though some shoddy net code certainly did appear throughout it all. My bigger grievances are with the poor online stores, crappy accounts system, lack of services (owing to the bad OS design such a thing was easier said than done for the wii, no excuse for the wii u). Dedicated vs p2p is something of a distraction issue at best for me.
"Nintendo don't continually rake in money since they don't have a service like steam where they make so much money that having servers being free is of no issue."
Why not? They have one of the easiest to sell back catalogues in gaming. They should have hundreds of things up there and be raking it in hand over fist. Sell batches/old game collections, get some challenges in there, make an incentive for sales in various similar ways.

Competing with the PC. Not as directly but they are offering an online games service and thus there can be a measure of comparison made.

Switch library somewhat robust? Could be worse but I want spoiled for choice. I want 50 indie devs making multiple games each, I want every streaming service going, I want chat protocols by the dozen (actually I want a unified one again, or at least two or three and for them to be open source but that is not within Nintendo's power), I already mentioned how they could do amazing things (for the plebs anyway) with their back catalogue.

I agree that someone's profession in turn means they can reasonably be expected to have some knowledge about various areas. Not seeing the relevance here though.

Im in agreement with you on this, there shouldn't be any flaw's at all in terms on construction but its more or less of a given when discussing launch consoles, my ps4 overheated when I got it at launch, only issue with my switch was the minor left joy-con issue that didnt mean replacing my console entirely. But yes, they really should've made sure these small issues were never a thing in the first place.

I mean not directly competing with mobile, seeing as how most mobile users are casuals and could care less about Zelda. They could definitely take market share from the mobile games market but theyre two different beasts in my eyes. The types of games offered are different enough that I dont see any contention there. I accept that I could be wrong on that, though.

I don't really understand your point on hardware and software, if you could elaborate on that, that would be appreciated.
As for the poor services provided, this is something I cant really provide a justified opinion on for Switch until Autumn, but im open to the possibility things will change, they're definitely trying to be more forward thinking than they were with the Wii U.

I'd love that too, but we've got to be realistic, Nintendo really need to court devs back and theyre doing well with indie devs, their support for indie devs and track record is amazing in comparison to Microsoft and Sony.

That was a side point I had made. I'd take an informed opinion over a slightly informed one, no offence of course.

 

[FAST6191]

Have you looked at the higher end android market these days? Or indeed all the things that came on the shield. If you are assuming mobile still amounts to 2048, angry birds and whatever microtransaction laden bollocks that people throw at it around here then while there is still that there is an awful lot more to it all.

Zelda BOTW? Maybe, something more light and airy like the ones before it are a different matter entirely. Going from personal experience (I have been known to set up phones, replace batteries, screens and such so I see a lot of them) all the games the kids have are almost functionally identical to Zelda. See all the games from Marvel and DC if you like. In it you run around as a hero in a large open world, finding collectibles, battling monsters and working your way to completion.

When devs have to implement their own software for the network stack, write their own handlers for ssl and whatever else they want to do that most would consider something that should be handled by the OS maker/hardware maker. As such a dev then gets to say open socket, send data (maybe do a handshake/login check at various points). Failures here then speak to being behind times.

Autumn? So call that September and from March that means 6 months. 6 months is an eternity online, plus all the years before it when they could have tried to build some kind of unified service that it is no different to samsung releasing a new model or something.

Court devs back. I am as big a fan of a slow dance as anybody but sometimes you need to crowbar open the wallet, or let someone play with your toys.

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

Have you looked at the higher end android market these days? Or indeed all the things that came on the shield. If you are assuming mobile still amounts to 2048, angry birds and whatever microtransaction laden bollocks that people throw at it around here then while there is still that there is an awful lot more to it all.

Zelda BOTW? Maybe, something more light and airy like the ones before it are a different matter entirely. Going from personal experience (I have been known to set up phones, replace batteries, screens and such so I see a lot of them) all the games the kids have are almost functionally identical to Zelda. See all the games from Marvel and DC if you like. In it you run around as a hero in a large open world, finding collectibles, battling monsters and working your way to completion.

When devs have to implement their own software for the network stack, write their own handlers for ssl and whatever else they want to do that most would consider something that should be handled by the OS maker/hardware maker. As such a dev then gets to say open socket, send data (maybe do a handshake/login check at various points). Failures here then speak to being behind times.

Autumn? So call that September and from March that means 6 months. 6 months is an eternity online, plus all the years before it when they could have tried to build some kind of unified service that it is no different to samsung releasing a new model or something.

Court devs back. I am as big a fan of a slow dance as anybody but sometimes you need to crowbar open the wallet, or let someone play with your toys.

I'll add more to this in the form of an edit later. Anyway, the high end is a lot smaller a market share than what the one the switch is aiming for and most of those enthusiasts will have a PC anyways.

 

[DeslotlCL]

I voted for banana, because that's what the switch is. It's a weird thing that happens to has the ability to play games on it

 

[Enteking]

Nintendo left the home console business.

 

[DjoeN]

It's a Banana!

A banana can be sometimes be straight but mostly crooked
Is a banana still a banana when it's straight and not crooked?
Is the switch a console or handheld, or anything else we have doubs about and really don't know what it is exactly
therefor, everything that falls under that is a Banana!

(Also is a straight or bent banana a good reason to leave the EU?, Banana's are a good argument to state something! it's worth the discussion about the switch, is it a home console a handheld or a Banana, we should ask the EU to make a rule that says how it has to be!, just like they did with Banana's )

[EDIT]
Take my post not to serious

 

[DjoeN]

Banana...

I'd dig that.

You can even buy hardcovers to protect your Banana Switch:

 

[kai98yoshi]

It isn't a home console with handheld mode for sure. It is a handheld/ tablet with a TV mode. Just look at it! It's a portable device with a small display and a moblile GPU... only because of the docking station which allows you to connect your switch to TV it's still a small device. Furthermore the docking station doesn't offer any additional hardware power, it's just for HDMI, design and additional USB ports. It is Nintendo's fault that people think it's a home console because they have named it as home console although it isn't!? It's silly to compare its hardware power with the power of ps4 and xbox one. Both consoles are stationary consoles... they aren't portable and they are much bigger devices offering more space for hardware power.

 

[sarkwalvein]

It isn't a home console with handheld mode for sure. It is a handheld/ tablet with a TV mode. Just look at it! It's a portable device with a small display and a moblile GPU... only because of the docking station which allows you to connect your switch to TV it's still a small device. Furthermore the docking station doesn't offer any additional hardware power, it's just for HDMI, design and additional USB ports. It is Nintendo's fault that people think it's a home console because they have named it as home console although it isn't!? It's silly to compare its hardware power with the power of ps4 and xbox one. Both consoles are stationary consoles... they aren't portable and they are much bigger devices offering more space for hardware power.

Only because it is a tablet it doesn't mean it is not a home console.
What do you think defines a home console?
As for my absolute dictionary of the dictated truth, a home console is just any piece of electronic equipment that is intended to be used at home conected to a TV set.
So, if Nintendo sold the Gameboy back in the day with a mandatory dock included with every console to connect it to the TV, yes it would have been a home console and a portable.
Under this definition, the Switch is a portable handheld tablet home console.

If you are to go against definition, define what is a home console.
And no, power does not play a role on it, the fucking Wii was a home console.