Nintendo has finally decided to show off their new "home gaming system", code-name NX. It's time to see what Nintendo has up their sleeves and put all the rumors to rest.
GBAtemp will covering the announcement and the OP will be updated as new information rolls in from the preview. Remember, the video starts at 9AM Central Standard Time, so be sure to watch, and discuss your thoughts here!

Nintendo Official Site

Trailer

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It's called the Nintendo Switch. Rumors are true, it's a tablet with connectable buttons that you can play at home and on the go. Console Controller looks similar to the Xbox One's. Has small little remotes and supports multiplayer. NBA game being shown. 3D Mario title. When you connect the portable controllers the system goes from console to portable. Skyrim and Splatoon shown. Still coming March next year.

Press Release​

Detachable Controllers Reinvent Gaming

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In an introductory video released today, Nintendo provided the first glimpse of its new home gaming system and revealed that it is called Nintendo Switch. In addition to providing single and multiplayer thrills at home, the Nintendo Switch system also enables gamers to play the same title wherever, whenever and with whomever they choose. The mobility of a handheld is now added to the power of a home gaming system to enable unprecedented new video game play styles.

At home, Nintendo Switch rests in the Nintendo Switch Dock that connects the system to the TV and lets you play with family and friends in the comfort of your living room. By simply lifting Nintendo Switch from the dock, the system will instantly transition to portable mode, and the same great gaming experience that was being enjoyed at home now travels with you. The portability of Nintendo Switch is enhanced by its bright high-definition display. It brings the full home gaming system experience with you to the park, on an airplane, in a car, or to a friend’s apartment.

Gaming springs into action by removing detachable Joy-Con controllers from either side of Nintendo Switch. One player can use a Joy-Con controller in each hand; two players can each take one; or multiple Joy-Con can be employed by numerous people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily click back into place or be slipped into a Joy-Con Grip accessory, mirroring a more traditional controller. Or, if preferred, the gamer can select an optional Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to use instead of the Joy-Con controllers. Furthermore, it is possible for numerous people to bring their Nintendo Switch systems together to enjoy local multiplayer face-to-face competition.

“Nintendo Switch allows gamers the freedom to play however they like,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, President and COO, Nintendo of America. “It gives game developers new abilities to bring their creative visions to life by opening up the concept of gaming without boundaries.”

Developers can design their games supporting a variety of play styles, which gives gamers the freedom to choose an experience that best suits them. Some of the publishers, developers and middleware partners announcing support for Nintendo Switch are as follows:

Companies that will support the Switch
505 Games
• LEVEL-5 Inc.
• Activision Publishing, Inc.
• Marvelous Inc.
• ARC SYSTEM WORKS Co., Ltd.
• Maximum Games, LLC
• ATLUS CO., LTD.
• Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.
• Audiokinetic Inc.
• Parity Bit Inc.
• Autodesk, Inc.
• PlatinumGames Inc.
• BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.
• RAD Game Tools, Inc.
• Bethesda
• RecoChoku Co., Ltd.
• CAPCOM CO., LTD.
• SEGA Games Co., Ltd.
• Codemasters®
• Silicon Studio Corporation
• CRI Middleware Co., Ltd.
• Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd.
• DeNA Co., Ltd.
• SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
• Electronic Arts
• Starbreeze Studios
• Epic Games Inc.
• Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
• Firelight Technologies
• Telltale Games
• FromSoftware, Inc.
• THQ Nordic
• Frozenbyte
• Tokyo RPG Factory Co., Ltd.
• GameTrust
• TT Games
• GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC.


• UBISOFT
• Gungho Online Entertainment, Inc.
• Ubitus Inc.
• HAMSTER Corporation
• Unity Technologies, Inc.
• Havok
• Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
• INTI CREATES CO., LTD.
• Web Technology Corp

Screens





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It will be powered by a custom Nvidia Tegra chip.

Nintendo Switch is powered by the performance of the custom Tegra processor. The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards.

Nvidia Blog

Nintendo Switch Site

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Nintendo First Look​

The detachable controllers are called Joy-Con controllers.

Gaming springs into action by removing detachable Joy-Con controllers from either side of Nintendo Switch. One player can use a Joy-Con controller in each hand; two players can each take one; or multiple Joy-Con can be employed by numerous people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily click back into place or be slipped into a Joy-Con Grip accessory, mirroring a more traditional controller. Or, if preferred, the gamer can select an optional Nintendo Switch Pro Controller to use instead of the Joy-Con controllers. Furthermore, it is possible for numerous people to bring their Nintendo Switch systems together to enjoy local multiplayer face-to-face competition.

“Nintendo Switch allows gamers the freedom to play however they like,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, President and COO, Nintendo of America. “It gives game developers new abilities to bring their creative visions to life by opening up the concept of gaming without boundaries.”

Developers can design their games supporting a variety of play styles, which gives gamers the freedom to choose an experience that best suits them. Some of the publishers, developers and middleware partners announcing support for Nintendo Switch are as follows:

Nintendo Site

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

If that custom chip is anywhere close to their Parker chip we'll have a device that will compete with the PS4 and Xbone

No, it won't. vvvv

Yes, and by a lot. Even assuming that the system ran a vanilla full-blown X2, NVidia boasts that the chip pushes about 1.5 Teraflops, which *seems* to be more than the Xbox One. What NVidia doesn't tell you is that that's an FP16 (16-bit floating point), not an FP32 (32-bit floating point) result like the One, so the actual capability to push in-game graphics is slashed in half (two FP16 instructions equal one FP32 instruction), down to 750 GFLOPS, which is respectable for a portable device, but a far cry from the Xbox One. Another problem rises with cooling - the X2 is a 25W TDP chip last I've read, so using its full capabilities would require an active cooling solution. This is unlikely in a tablet, it's for automotive use, so the Switch will definitely have lower specs than that - probably in the range of 500GFLOPS to inch towards the 15W mark which is considered the top standard value for passively cooled chips.

 

[Mr.ButtButt]

So how long do you think we can hack into backward compatible firmware?

Last time it was quick for DS flashcart to work with 3DS, maybe it would be like that this time too.

who knows, it looks like a new type of cartridge, and no one even knows the specs/OS of the thing

 

[Xzi]

Personally for me I only buy Nintendo consoles for first party ganes, but I understand from a business point of view how third party is important, and for one I am sure that latest AAA games like red dead 2 are not coming to this device at all, although from a portability stand point it would be very unique and interesting though. It simply would be last gens excuse only because of it being *Cough* underpowered (not for me though).

From a technical standpoint, there's no reason that all the latest games can't come to Switch. The reason you aren't likely to see RDR2 on it is because Rockstar and Nintendo don't have any desire to partner up.

 

[linuxares]

It actually looks pretty good to me! I'm very impressed by it.

 

[WhiteMaze]

Better execution that I thought.

The fact that you get both a home console and a handheld, is an absolute win for me. I could care less about 4k resolution.

Well done Nintendo. Well done. Now if you fuck this up with no third party support, you won't see a single other penny from me.

 

[Null-project]

So kingdom Hearts 3 on switch is a possibility?

 

[RemixDeluxe]

You know Nintendo will release new skinned versions of it within a year or so of initial release, lol.

But only Japan and Europe will get those reskinned versions. The US will be skipped because Reggie says so.

 

[deSSy2724]

GiovanifY said the specs are from a devkit (and I trust him for numerous reasons) and devkits are in most cases more powerful than retail consoles. One thing is for sure, dont expect it to be powerful as Xbox One and PS4 (non ARM CPU can beat AMD/Intel processors in general).

I just hope that it wont lose 3rd party support like the Wii U which means it should be powerful enough and it seems like it uses a powerful ARM CPU at least.

 

[TemplarGR]

Guys, don't compare the Xbox/PS4 gpu with Tegra. The AMD gpu is a derivative from Desktop gpus, Tegra gpu is a low-power alternative. They have taken cuts on certain things, like fillrates, in order to keep power low. Flops may be similar, but not everything regarding graphics is a pixel shader... Not to mention that this thing will DEFINITELY have memory bandwidth limitations, given the form factor, unless a special solution we don't know about yet is used.

It won't compete even with the XboxOne, that is a given. Stop dreaming. Oh, and the Skyrim version didn't look remastered to me... It looked like the Legendary edition i am running on my PC right now...

 

[LuxerWap]

The GameBoy as grown over the years.

It's now known as the GAMEMAN!

 

[Bladexdsl]

what is up with that FUGE controller though? they expect people to use that thing?!

 

[Saiyan Lusitano]

Hope for 3DS & Wii U compatibility

Don't see why not. The NS GamePad can play Wii U games without a problem, the issue is how they'll go about it since NS is card-based,

I'm sorry for the confusion. I feel like sick just fit better in the sentence. It was pretty awesome. (Personally, i don't even use sick at all anymore lol)

I was just playing.

 

[TemplarGR]

So kingdom Hearts 3 on switch is a possibility?

A certainty. It will have cartoony graphics, so it will be easy to port without much loss of detail. And Nintendo is the most kid friendly console... It is a no-brainer. Just preorder it already

 

[Xzi]

No, it won't. vvvv

To definitively say it won't be on par with first-revision XB1 and PS4 is jumping the gun, to say the least. Foxi's post makes a lot of assumptions, one being that the base station won't have any form of active cooling for the unit. Another being that this is just an X2 chip and not a custom chip on a potentially Pascal-based architecture. Too many details yet to be revealed.

 

[TemplarGR]

To definitively say it won't be on par with first-revision XB1 and PS4 is jumping the gun, to say the least. Foxi's post makes a lot of assumptions, one being that the base station won't have any form of active cooling for the unit. Another being that this is just an X2 chip and not a custom chip on a potentially Pascal-based architecture. Too many details yet to be revealed.

You are just showing your ignorance regarding hardware. You only apply cooling ON THE CHIP'S surface, not the external plastic. Active solutions are fans, this is too slim to have a fan, this is a tablet through and through. Even if you use an air conditioner right above it at max cooling, it still won't do a thing. LOL.

 

[RustInPeace]

Noticing Capcom and Warner Bros. as partners, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat please? Warner Bros owns Netherrealm Studios, who develop the MK games. I wonder what Pokemon games will come out for it.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

To definitively say it won't be on par with first-revision XB1 and PS4 is jumping the gun, to say the least. Foxi's post makes a lot of assumptions, one being that the base station won't have any form of active cooling for the unit. Another being that this is just an X2 chip and not a custom chip on a potentially Pascal-based architecture. Too many details yet to be revealed.

Unless the stand removes the tablet casing, or the tablet has a weird vent on the back, that's not going to happen since you can't just use activate cooling on a plastic surface and expect better thermal temps. Even if it is some completely customized architecture it's not going to hit the raw power the GPU in the PS4/Xbone, that's a fact. Unless Nvidia is pushing a customized Xavier chip (which isn't likely at all), it's not going to hit the same graphical fidelity as an Xbone/PS4.

 

[SSG Vegeta]

This is somewhat what I expected... I can do all of that with a PC. Now, Bow down to the PC gamers console peasants.

You can DO all of that you say except take your pc games/ console games on the go.

 

[ken28]

No, it won't. vvvv

then again since its costum they could have traded some flops for 32-bit floating points. Maybe down to 1.2 - 1.0

 

[RustInPeace]

The confirmed theme song for the Nintendo Switch.