Random Thoughts – Randocity!

Back in April, I wrote an article entitled Why I’ve Not Yet Bought A Nintendo Switch. It’s now August and I’ve decided to take the plunge and buy a Switch based on a comment I heard about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I hadn’t yet played this game (in part because I was disappointed with the last Zelda installment). However, someone told me that it is effectively Skyrim. That comment piqued my interest. The Elder Scrolls series is one of my two most favorite video game series, the other being Fallout 4. I’ve always liked Zelda, but didn’t want to play it on the Wii U. So, I decided it was time to give the Switch a try (assuming I could find one in stock). After turning the unit on, it became quickly obvious just how limited this tablet really is. However, I am looking forward to playing the Skyrim port on a portable. Let’s explore.

Best Buy

As luck would have it, when I arrived at Best Buy to pick up my pre-ordered copy of Agents of Mayhem for the PS4 (haven’t started playing it yet for reasons that will become obvious), I asked a floor person if they had any Nintendo Switch consoles in stock. To my surprise, they did. I picked one up on the spot, and with it a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I also picked up a few Amiibo that I didn’t have and a Switch Pro Controller in hopes of avoiding the Joy-Con problem. I have heard the Joy-Cons can lose connectivity when operating wireless, dropping their connections mid-gaming. I had experienced this exact problem with the PS3 controller after its release and I definitely do not wish to revisit that problem on the Switch. Even the Best Buy floor representative confirmed the wireless disconnection problem with his own personal Switch.

Note, I also decided to picked up the Switch at this time because it’s still well before the holiday season when finding things in stock gets crazy impossible. I’m planning on playing Skyrim and wanted to have a Switch before Skyrim releases during the holidays (no release date as of this article). I would also like to see Bethesda port Fallout 4 over, but that’s probably a pipe dream. Let’s get right into the meat of this review.

Tablet Weight and Size

Starting with size, the one thing that I immediately noticed upon opening the box is how small this tablet actually is. My NVIDIA Shield, my iPad and my Galaxy Tab S are all actually much bigger than the Switch. Even the iPad mini is bigger than the Switch. Let’s just say that its much smaller than I had expected. In a portable, I guess that’s okay. Of course, after attaching the Joy-Cons, the tablet becomes much longer. As for setting it up, the tablet setup was easy and fast, unlike the Wii U which seemed overly complicated. The slowest part was setting up a Nintendo account (see below).

The weight of the tablet is average, not too light and not too heavy. After you attach the Joy-Cons, the weight becomes more substantial. I’ll probably leave the Joy-Cons attached most of the time because the Switch Pro Controller works spectacularly well even though it costs ~$70. Anyway, the screen is smaller than I expected, but it is still readable. However, the screen controls inside Breath of the Wild are far too small. In fact, this tabsole suffers from the same exact problem as did the PS Vita. The screen resolution is so high and the icons are drawn so small that it can be difficult to touch or read some of the text on the tablet screen. When played on a TV, this isn’t a problem. Though, the tablet screen is bigger than the PS Vita and the play area is quite nice, the tiny icon problem remains. Nintendo can fix this issue in later games, but for Breath of the Wild, it suffers a bit from the tiny icons when playing on the tablet screen.

Graphics and Game Performance

After playing Breath of the Wild for just 15 minutes, it is quite obvious. This tabsole is workhorse fully capable of producing solid frame rates on both the tablet display and through the dock on a large screen TV. In fact, the ability to switch back and forth between the tablet display and the TV display is so seamless, it just works without thought. Simply slide the tablet into the dock and it’s on the TV. Hooking the dock up to the TV was a cinch.

What accessories does the Switch support?

• microSDXC and microSDHC cards
• 32 GB built in tablet memory
• card slot for games (they’re card based)
• Amiibo support (both on the controller and on the tablet)

Interestingly, there are tablety features missing such as:

• No cameras (rear or front)
• No microphone
• No stylus (interesting because the 3DS was all about the stylus)

However, the Joy-Cons have a unique slide attach system. This means that in the future such devices as microphones and cameras may become available as slide-on accessories. It is unknown if the slide-on accessories can be stacked. Hopefully, Nintendo did design the slide-on accessories to be stackable. Even if they aren’t stackable, you can still use the Joy-Cons wirelessly when other accessories are connected.

Joy-Cons

I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss these controllers. These controllers (light gray – right, blue/red – top) slide onto the left and right side of the tablet (or the left and right side of the adapter). They’re nice enough and have a good joystick feel, but overall they’re only just okay. The buttons are too small for my liking. When you take the Joy-Cons off and attempt to use them separately or attached to the Joy-Con controller adapter (pictured right), they still don’t improve much. The real improvement is in using the Switch Pro Controller (pictured below). Interestingly, in addition to the Joy-Con adapter, there are two slide-ons included for each Joy-Con that attaches a wrist strap. I guess because of the Wii and people breaking things by throwing them at the TV, Nintendo has learned its lesson. Needless to say, these two wrist strap attachments do provide the Joy-Cons with a more polished, finished look and feel when attached. Interestingly, Nintendo did not include simple rounded end closures for the sides of the tablet itself to make the tablet also look finished when the Joy-Cons are detached. The unfinished tablet side ends just hang out to collect dust and dirt.

Switch as a Tablet

In this day and age with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Apple’s ever larger and larger iPad versions, coupled with the iOS or Android, these modern tablets are both functional as productivity and browsing devices, but they can also be used for high intensity gaming… with controllers even. Clearly, only Apple tablets support iOS. However, many many tablets support Android. In fact, Android is likely to become the operating system of choice on tablets, far and above iOS or Windows in deployments. Why? Because it’s open source, it’s designed to work with tablets, it performs well and it’s well supported. It also means that there’s a crap ton of applications already available on this platform.

Unfortunately, here is where the Nintendo Switch completely falls down. Nintendo has opted to use its own proprietary operating system to drive the Switch. This has the obvious downside of not running any existing apps or games. This means that as a Switch owner, you are entirely at the mercy of Nintendo to provide every app you could ever want. And herein likes the biggest problem.

While the games run like a champ, the Switch cannot become a useful tablet itself because it does not benefit from inheriting existing games or apps from Android. This is entirely the problem with the Switch in a nutshell. When you power the Switch on, you’ll quickly notice that there are a very very limited number of games in the Nintendo eShop. In fact, there are so few, it’s probably not worth considering the Switch as anything other than a Nintendo gaming system.

Switch as a Game Console

Unlike the Wii U that offered a dual display (the Gamepad touch screen in addition to TV screen), the Switch can only display on the TV or the tablet one screen at a time. When docked, the tablet display is covered and disabled. With the Wii U, you could use the Gamepad screen for maps or inventory or other useful drag and drop features. With the Switch, that’s not possible. That Nintendo has dropped the two screen idea entirely is a bit unusual. I did like being able to perform certain gaming tasks (i.e., rearranging the inventory) on the second screen. Yes, it was of limited use, but having the second screen for certain gaming tasks made a lot of sense.

Nintendo never learns

By now, you would have thought that Nintendo would have learned its lesson from failure of the Wii U. Yet, here we are… back in the same boat as the Wii U. This means that, yes, it’s a tablet but, no, you cannot use it for anything other than gaming. Nintendo, if you’re planning to design a device like this, you also need to understand the bigger picture. This is a tablet. As a tablet, in addition to gaming, it should be able to run standard apps that are found on both Android and iOS. Unfortunately, there is nothing available (not yet anyway). In fact, the Switch is currently missing the most basic of apps such as Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, a web browser or any other social networking app. While the OS may support sharing some content to some of these services, that’s as far as it goes. You cannot use the tablet as a general purpose device. Such a shame as this means that you will have to carry the Switch around with another tablet or device.

In fact, as a Nintendo device, it doesn’t yet even support Miiverse, not that that’s a big loss. It also doesn’t currently support StreetPass (and may never). That’s a bit odd for a portable gaming device produced by Nintendo. You would think that Nintendo could at least support its own social platforms out of the gate.

Nintendo Login

The bizarre choice to require a Nintendo website ID instead of the Nintendo Network ID to log into the eShop is completely unexpected. Like the Nintendo 3DS, I fully expected to type in my NNID login and password and be on my way. Nope, I had to run over and create a brand new login ID through the web site, then link it to my NNID, then use that new login and password to have the Switch login. Bizarre. Nintendo seems to make these arbitrary and haphazard changes with each new console iteration. I’m not yet even sure what benefit jumping through this hoop actually provides. Though, once you log into the Nintendo Web portal, you can link in your Facebook and Twitter accounts. So, perhaps it’s a way to link your social networks? *shrug*

The one thing that irks me is that you must type in your Nintendo Login password each time you want to enter the Nintendo eShop. Why it can’t remember your password for even a few minutes is frustrating. Better, give me the option of saving my password on the console so I don’t have to type it each time. If you want to add a security feature against accidental purchases, require a separate four (4) digit pin code which must be typed before each purchase. Typing in four (4) numbers is far easier than typing in a long password string. Figure it out Nintendo.

Nintendo Online

With the introduction of the Switch, Nintendo has created (or will create) an online service. This service, I’m guessing, is to be similar to Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. I’m assuming it will offer multiplayer gaming and other perks, but we’ll have to wait and see what it intends to provide. It doesn’t officially launch until 2018 and will sport a $19.99 a year price tag (though you can pay monthly). Whether or not that’s the final price tag remains to be seen. Considering that both PSN and Xbox Live are well more costly than that, I’d fully expect Nintendo to raise the price of this online service in short order. After all, it’s not inexpensive to build and maintain services in AWS or Google Cloud or even in your own data center.

Overall

The Switch is definitely great at gaming. However, because Nintendo has chosen for the Switch not to be a general purpose tablet or run an operating system with a boatload of existing software (i.e., Android), it will only ever be a single purpose gaming tablet. Personally, I think that’s a huge mistake on Nintendo’s part. Nintendo is gambling an awful lot on this limited tablet design. I personally believe this gamble will not pay off for Nintendo and may leave the Switch as dead as the Wii U. Thanks for thinking ahead there Nintendo. For playing Nintendo game franchises (Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, Pokemon, Splatoon, Metroid and so on), the Switch will do fine. Barring the upcoming Bethesda port of Skyrim to the Switch, I can’t foresee much in the way of non-Nintendo franchises or other blockbusters being developed or ported. In fact, Nintendo probably paid Bethesda a boatload to get Skyrim ported. However, I wouldn’t expect third party ports to continue much into the future. Nintendo will, once again, be forced to give up on that idea of wooing AAA titles to the Switch … which will ultimately limit the platform to Nintendo properties (the entire reason the Wii U failed).

The Switch will become just like the Wii U, the third most popular game console. It will sell to those parents who trust the family friendly nature of Nintendo’s games. However, for adult gaming or using this tablet as a replacement for the iPad, nope. It has a nice enough hardware design, but it just has too many shortcomings to be the end-all of tablets. Because it does not support general purpose tablet use, a parent cannot justify it as an educational tool or even a browsing tool, unlike an iPad or Samsung tablet at around the same price point. Sure, it supports Nintendo’s game franchises, but is that enough? No.

Personally, the Switch is just a little too weighty (and way too lacking of general tablet features) to carry it around all of the time. Instead, I’ll use it at home like a console when docked or use it as a portable around the house when I do laundry and such. If it had Android, could access to the Google Play store, had access to an existing library of tablet games, supported a browser and included other general purpose computing features, I could much more easily justify carrying it with me all of the time. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen with this version of the Switch. Perhaps Nintendo can make this right with an OS update, but certain things cannot be solved in software (i.e., lack of a camera or microphone). The lack of a microphone will seriously hinder multiplayer usage.

The final takeaway is, don’t go buy a Switch expecting anything more from this tablet than playing Nintendo game franchises. For the price of the Switch as a tablet, it’s way under-designed.

Hardware Build: 5 Stars
Hardware Features: 4 Stars (missing camera and microphone)
Software / OS: 1.5 Stars
Joy-Cons: 3 Stars
Pro Controller: 4 Stars
Overall: 3 Stars

Agree or disagree with this review? Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the Nintendo Switch.