Nintendo Switch

Article by Tyler 'Brent' Shadow

Hi. Today I want to talk about the Nintendo Switch.

In case you’ve been living under a proverbial (or literal, who knows) rock, the Switch is Nintendo’s newest offering to the console market. Released on 3 March 2017, it’s been a huge success, having sold just under 15 million units by the end of 2017. That’s more than the Wii U has sold in its entire lifetime, which has been out since the end of 2012. Well, what’s so great about it, you ask? Let me tell you!

First off, the Switch can be played in handheld mode or plugged into a TV via HDMI. Why is this great? Well, you can take your Mario Kart with you on the go! Or, you can play on  your 80-inch TV hanging on the wall. This is amazing for so many reasons. One of the big things is that this is seamless. You can pause the game on the TV, undock the Switch, attach the JoyCons (the controller units), and unpause and keep playing. It’s seamless to go back the other way, as well. The joycons connect via bluetooth, so the range is pretty good on them, too. We’ve played from two rooms away with no major issues.

There is also a great lineup of games out already for it, including Zelda: Breath of the Wild; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; Super Mario Odyssey; as well as some A-titles from other platforms, including Skyrim.

The joycons are great and can be used by people with a wide variety of hand sizes. My wife loves it as well. Another great feature is that the joycons can be used in tandem (left and right together to make one logical controller), or you can actually use them each individually as their own controller for two-player action!  This works in mobile mode, too. The switch has a little kickstand on the back that you can use to set it up on a table. You can detach the joycons, and change their configuration and all of a sudden you can play with two people! This is great for Mario Kart, especially. You can race split-screen right there on the table.

The main con I have is battery life. Depending on what game you’re playing, you can only get about three to four hours out of it before it needs to be charged again. It does charge with a USB-C cable. I tried testing it with a battery pack with a generic USB-C cable, and it did not charge. I think it requires more power than what my battery puts out. You can get car chargers for it, though. In handheld mode the resolution is 720, and it’s 1080 when docked.

I hope to review some of the great games for the Switch in the future. This is a very high-level overview of the console. I love it, it’s one of the best selling Nintendo consoles in recent memory, and they seem to have plans to keep it around for a long time.