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

 

[PolloDiablo]

Don't expect this to be as powerful as the PS4/XBOX. Remember guys, this is a portable console after all.

Have you never opened a controller? All d-pads are just four buttons, no matter what shape the piece of plastic you press.

No, you are wrong. A D-PAD is a D-PAD, not 4 buttons.

 

[Sick Wario]

does anybody prefer the rumored name Nintendo CROSS over Nintendo SWITCH?

 

[Deleted User]

The cartridge rumor being true is one of the things I'm most happy about. Disc based formats needs to die, fuck discs.

Discs are horrible. I once put a disc down on a table, read side up, left it there for a minute, came back, and there was a scratch on it.

 

[Juiss]

No, it won't. vvvv

The xbone sits at 1.3 Tflops, which means the Switch is to the Xbone as the Xbone is to the PS4. Cooling is a good point but we don't know anything at this point, there could very well be a low profile fan in there (or a cooling solution in the dock itself) that only kicks in when you dock the console, and passive cooling can be achieved for portable use by simply downclocking the hardware when you undock the console (which looks to be the case). This doesn't mean anything however because it's a custom chip (whose specs we don't know) and not the X2

Tflops are meaningless however. Just look at Uncharted 4, one of the best looking games to have been released and it runs on the PS4's measly 1.8 Tflops, very few games, even on PC (where the most popular dedicated GPU boasts twice the amount of floating point operations of the PS4's GPU), come close in terms of visuals. Let me clarify, I am not saying the Switch will be powerful enough to run a title on the same level as Uncharted 4 (it's quite obviously not).
Nintendo's first party titles are known to be great looking while also running great, they know how to work with their hardware to give players the best experience both visually and gameplay-wise (60 fps anyone?) with their consoles' limited power. Since we've seen Skyrim remastered actually run on their console we can assume more third-party, multi-platform titles are coming, so now it comes down to who has the best exclusives, meaning Nintendo can compete with Sony and Microsoft again.
Now, again, this is all assuming devs actually give enough of a shit about the Switch to port games to it but that's besides the point. The NX can compete, only time will tell whether or not it will.

 

[KJ1]

So, I guess, the main "system" is the tablet thing unlike Wiipad.., and the thing in which we put in the tablet is like almost useless except for 'streaming' the vid/game on television!

 

[bowser]

Joy-con...what a dumb name. Or I bet they did it on purpose. They'll enjoy conning us into buying it and then release a better version later with a D-pad

 

[Foxi4]

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.

Except being considerably weaker, sure.

I thought that GFLOP number for the xbox one was in fp16 as well. Ah well, that's a bit dissapointing. I'm guessing it'll still be about double or so the Wii U though, eh? And maybe it'll be downclocked/less cores used while on mobile, and perhaps some cooling situation when docked? I know, a bit hopeful of me.

Nobody lists FP16 results besides the mobile industry, it's very deceptive, it only serves to dupe customers into thinking that their mobile chipsets are more powerful than they really are. Performance-wise I expect the final implementation to be above the ballpark of the Wii U (352 GFLOPS), but I doubt that it'll be twice as powerful - it'd eat battery life like a monster and overheat. Take the X1 as an example - the vanilla chip is rated at 15W with ~11W real-life consumption. It scores 40665 3DMarks on the Pixel C in Ice Storm 720p, yet "miraculously" the same CPU scores 57922 3DMarks in the same benchmark on the Shield TV. Clearly "f*ckery is afoot" when you see a discrepancy like that, the power consumption has to be adjusted to the form factor. Once you "tabletify" a chip, you have to account for thermal considerations, so stock values go straight out the window.

 

[Yil]

well pretty sure that is the cart slot bottom left. dunno why there is 2 though?

Wait, this thickness, it might actually have another hardware in the dock.

 

[munnimann]

I was expecting them to name it "Nintendo Wii U Too" or "New Nintendo Wii U".

 

[Deleted User]

I was expecting them to name it "Nintendo Wii U Too" or "New Nintendo Wii U".

The Nintendo Wii Us, or Wii They?

 

[Bladexdsl]

I once put a disc down on a table, read side up, left it there for a minute, came back, and there was a scratch on it.

now u don it

 

[Viri]

Nintendo better have a decent launch lineup, or this thing is going to probably flop. Then again, the PS4 sold pretty well with a shitty library so who knows. I might pick one up for BOTW, because holy shit, I'm really hyped for that shit lol. The name is still pretty dumb but clever at the same time, and I kinda find the console to look pretty fugly, at least it's not Xbone fugly though.

 

[Justin14p]

I was expecting them to name it "Nintendo Wii U Too" or "New Nintendo Wii U".

New Nintendo Wii U XL*

 

[Bladexdsl]

amazed they didn't name it the swiitch

 

[tarumbo83]

One thing I thought was interesting is that in the trailer they showed adults playing the system, not kids or a "family" scene like with the Wii/Wii U. I think it symbolizes how Nintendo is trying to cater to the mature demographic more, I honestly kind of cringed at Nintendo's previous ads where they show kids and middle aged women playing their systems. Also, NEW 3D MARIO GAME???

 

[Foxi4]

PX2 consumes only 80w and on par with a gtx 1060 workshop(have they revealed it yet?), with two dgpu and also the main board, and pretty sure a full gpu is the one with 25w tdp, which put the tegra x2 on only about 10w. It can be squeezed further to 5w for less heat and better battery life. And the volta version is also noted to be 10w with equal power as px2.
I would like to see a pc level console but switch may still be somewhat a peak of mobile at the moment.

The PX2 is an automotive module with active cooling, it clocks high TFLOPS rates because it features additional GPU cores on MXM boards on the backside of the unit, the actual Tegra SoC is nowhere near as beefy - read the fine print, silly.

EDIT: Upon re-reading I see your point, are you trying to approximate the X2's power consumption? That's a bit of a meaningless calculation as each chip is scalable, we'd have to have separate results for each GPU to speculate. We won't know how the power is distributed until we see the actual chip. It's apples and oranges because we're comparing a mobile and non-mobile implementation here.

 

[air2004]

So it's gonna be an overpriced tablet with an even worse battery life that's being passed off as home gaming console.

I think ninty just imploded.

 

[mechagouki]

Don't expect this to be as powerful as the PS4/XBOX. Remember guys, this is a portable console after all.


No, you are wrong. A D-PAD is a D-PAD, not 4 buttons.

So what's this:

And please explain how it differs significantly to this:

 

[PolloDiablo]

If it compatible with the 3DS. I'll sell it. Going miss 3D and dual screen for the handheld and motion controls for the console. Keeping my Wii U.

Dunno how they will have 3DS compatibility with the lack of a 2nd screen.
They could have implemented dual screen mode with the tablet + tv (just like the Wii U), but since the tablet needs to be attached to the tv dock, I guess that's not an option.

 

[SSG Vegeta]

The future is at hand jumps on board the NINTENDO SWITCH waggon just need a price nay sayers you reject this console you reject the future.