I think the new Nintendo Switch console, which comes out in a few days, looks pretty neat. I've got one on pre-order.
I expect nothing less than great first-party support for this system. Eventually. Sure, there's a new Zelda game at launch, and a new Mario game later this year (Holiday 2017 last time I checked). The rest of the lineup looks... how to put this politely? Like a pile of gimmicky tech demos with full-game price tags.
And, honestly, I expect nothing more than great first-party support. I mean, I own a capable gaming PC, a PlayStation 4, and an Xbox One. There's not much that could convince me that I'm better off getting a multi-platform title for the underpowered Switch. And third-party exclusives on a Nintendo console tend to be 90% shovelware. We've got Xenoblade Chronicles 2 coming out at some point, so that's cool, but I'm not holding my breath for a slew of awesome third-party games I couldn't buy for my PS4. If I'm wrong about this, I'll be delighted.
But this is the kind of stuff you expect when a new Nintendo console comes out. I'm not sweating it.
You know what else you expect from a new Nintendo console?
You expect it to be cheaper than the competition.
Nintendo's philosophy has long been to use already-available technology in innovative ways to provide unique experiences at a lower price point. I'm proud of that sentence, in a weird way. I don't think Reggie could have said it better.
And look, the Switch is $300! That's... well, that's roughly how much Sony and Microsoft are charging. Except those guys are giving you a 500 GB hard drive instead of 32 GB of built-in storage. Ah, whatever, those systems have been out for a while now, and they were more expensive at their respective launch dates. And so what if, for their $300 price, you're also getting a game!
Wait, really? The Switch doesn't come with a game? That's kind of a bummer, you'd think Nintendo would have worked really hard on a collection of minigames that showcase the Switch's unique features, like Wii Sports did for the Wii, and NintendoLand did for the Wii U.
Oh wait, I'm talking about 1-2-Switch. Well okay, that's more like it. So you open up your shiny new Switch and what's in the box?
The Switch console.
A set of two Joy-Con controllers.
A Joy-Con Grip.
The Switch dock.
An AC adapter.
An HDMI cable.
A crap-ton of documentation you're never going to read.
Yep, that's it, definitely no pack-in game. Do you want the aforementioned collection of minigames that showcase the Switch's unique features? $50, please. Fifty.
I'm going to assume, for the purposes of calculating the final price, that you do not want 1-2-Switch. I certainly don't, for 50 bucks. So let's say you want Zelda: Breath of the Wild instead, which is what I and most other folks will be picking up at launch. That's $60, but at least it looks like it's worth $60. We're up to $360, but that's not unreasonable for a new console and a game on launch day.
So, you can play Zelda: BotW in tablet mode with the Joy-Con controllers attached, or with the Joy-Con controllers detached using the Grip or just holding one in each hand. You can also play it on your TV with the tablet slotted into the dock. You can also play some games using just one half of the Joy-Con set, so you've got two-player support out of the box. Cool, hooray for options! How, uh... how exactly do you charge the controllers?
Why, by slotting them into the side of the tablet, of course! It's unclear whether the tablet will charge the controllers while playing in undocked mode, but it will definitely charge them when it's docked. What does that mean? It means that if your Joy-Con batteries die, you can't play games on your TV anymore--and possibly not at all--until they've recharged. Which takes about 3.5 hours. Hooraaaaaaaaaay.
But don't fret! You can buy a different Grip that lets you charge the Joy-Cons while they're hooked up to it! Only $30! And it's not completely clear, but it doesn't look like that Grip contains a battery of its own--it just lets you plug a cord into it to charge the controllers while you're using them. Why exactly is this an optional feature? Running tally: $390.
Now, you could also just pick up a second set of Joy-Cons so that you can swap them out as necessary. You'll always have a charged pair ready to go when you need them. And, honestly, you're probably going to want a second set anyway. It enables four-player gaming, after all, or two players using two Joy-Cons each. And you may as well keep that charging Grip, because you're both probably going to want a Grip to make the things more comfortable to hold, and they don't even give you one of the el-cheapo non-charging Grips for the $80 you'll be paying. We're at $470 now.
If you're like me, you hated the Wii Remote and the Wii U GamePad, and you hated them because they didn't feel like a video game controller. One felt like a TV remote and the other felt like a weird, thick-ass tablet. The Joy-Con controller system doesn't look like it's going to feel like a real controller either--and there's no D-pad on the Joy-Cons--and Nintendo knows a lot of players aren't going to like that. That's why they've been prominently featuring the Pro Controller, a standard, ergonomically-designed controller with two thumbsticks and the buttons you'd find on any other console's controller. It's almost like they're finally ready for third-party developers to port their multiplat games to their console. What would YOU pay for such a thing? Did you say $60, since that's what everyone else charges for a new controller? That's cute. It's $70.
We've hit $540. Do your friends also want to use a Pro Controller? Fuck them, they can buy one themselves if they want it bad enough.
So the ultra-portability of this system is a big selling point, but the tablet's battery is probably only going to last you 3 to 4 hours on a charge. No biggie though, if you're taking it to a friend's house, you can simply set up the dock there. Hey, now that I think of it, why not pick up an extra dock and just keep it by another TV in your house so that you can play it on either screen, as easy as that? I mean, it is seriously nothing more than a pass-through unit that connects the tablet to the wall outlet and to your TV via HDMI. That way you don't have to unhook the dock from the probably fairly complicated system of wiring in your living room; just grab the extra dock from your bedroom, where there's far less going on to get in the way of those wires!
$90. An extra dock costs $90. Remember in the last paragraph where I said that it's only a pass-through unit that connects the tablet to other things? I wasn't joking--it's a hunk of plastic that you plug a wall adapter and HDMI cable into, and it's got metal contacts that the tablet sits on, and it just passes the power and data through to and from the Switch tablet. All of the storage and processing and network connectivity and everything are done on the tablet. The dock is nothing but a conduit; a glorified stand that's inexplicably required to hook the tablet up to a TV. And they want $90 for it.
Sure, having a second dock is a luxury. Certainly not a requirement. But if you ask me to pay $90 for a plastic stand that could easily be replaced by a $5 cable if it weren't for proprietary connections, I am going to tell you to go fuck yourself.
So there you go; what started as a $300 venture turned into $540 once you've got yourself set up with a single game and a pretty decent set of control options. If you don't care about the Pro Controller, it's still $470. And if you're generous enough to grab a second Pro Controller because you love your friends that much, you're looking at $610. If convenience is worth enough that you'll allow Nintendo to extort you for the price of a second dock, $700. Plus tax.
So yeah, I genuinely am excited to see what happens with the Switch. I'd be excited even if the price for a decent setup were more in line with Nintendo's historical trends. But considering I'm in it for over half a grand and the thing still hasn't even shipped yet, and when it does ship I'll have precisely ONE game to play on it, I'm not only excited, I'm nervous.
