You watched the reveal trailer didn't you? So... by now you probably know that the Nintendo NX is actually called Nintendo Switch, and it's more or less what we all thought it'd be: a hybrid console, which works under your telly, but with a detachable screen.
In short: you'll be able to take it with you when you leave the house to use public conveniences, and carry on playing your games while braying like a mule in lavatory cubicles.
What we hadn't guessed on was the way the controller - which Nintendo calls its "Joy-Con" - would work. In short: the two extremes of the controller are detachable and modular.
You can either click them together onto some sort of base unit to make a bulky, more traditional controller, detach them and hold each section in a separate hand - a bit like the Wii nunchucks, so that you're able (as the reveal trailer showed us) to play games while slouching in your economy aeroplane seat like an insufferable pig - or slot them either side of the detachable screen, and hold it like a handheld.
You can also give one to a friend, turn them sideways, and use them separately for multiplayer games. Which is a nice touch. Nintendo also revealed a more traditional controller - which looked very DualShock/Xbox pad-y.
Is this the first time a Nintendo console hasn't featured the iconic Nintendo D-pad? I think so. Progress, brah.
In short: you'll be able to take it with you when you leave the house to use public conveniences, and carry on playing your games while braying like a mule in lavatory cubicles.
What we hadn't guessed on was the way the controller - which Nintendo calls its "Joy-Con" - would work. In short: the two extremes of the controller are detachable and modular.
You can either click them together onto some sort of base unit to make a bulky, more traditional controller, detach them and hold each section in a separate hand - a bit like the Wii nunchucks, so that you're able (as the reveal trailer showed us) to play games while slouching in your economy aeroplane seat like an insufferable pig - or slot them either side of the detachable screen, and hold it like a handheld.
You can also give one to a friend, turn them sideways, and use them separately for multiplayer games. Which is a nice touch. Nintendo also revealed a more traditional controller - which looked very DualShock/Xbox pad-y.
Is this the first time a Nintendo console hasn't featured the iconic Nintendo D-pad? I think so. Progress, brah.
OFFICIAL BLURB
Here's how Nintendo describes Switch: "In addition to providing single-player 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.
"Nintendo Switch rests in the Nintendo Switch dock that connects the console to the TV and lets you play with family and friends in the comfort of your living room. By simply lifting the Nintendo Switch console from the dock, it will instantly transition to handheld 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 a train, in a car, or to a friend’s apartment."
Here's how Nintendo describes Switch: "In addition to providing single-player 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.
"Nintendo Switch rests in the Nintendo Switch dock that connects the console to the TV and lets you play with family and friends in the comfort of your living room. By simply lifting the Nintendo Switch console from the dock, it will instantly transition to handheld 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 a train, in a car, or to a friend’s apartment."
IMPRESSIONIST
My first impression is mixed. On the one hand I'm relieved that Nintendo have done such a good job of selling the basic concept behind the Switch. Certainly, it's easier to wrap your head around than the Wii U. I like the detachable mini-pads, but I don't see much on offer that gets me particularly giddy.
This isn't another Wii. It's not the bold new concept in video gaming that we'd perhaps been promised. It's just a mash-up of under-telly console and handheld. I can't see it breaking through in the way that either the Game Boy or the Wii managed. Portability is nothing new - and Nintendo had handheld games playing on your TV back in the early-90s, when it released the Super Game Boy adaptor.
More worryingly, the reveal trailer seemed at odds with the Nintendo we know. On screen we saw Mario, Zelda, Splatoon - brands that are synonymous with Nintendo's family-friendly approach to gaming.
Yet exclusively the people playing the games were horrible twentysomethings, trying a bit too hard to prove to us how much fun they were having. You could've lifted the Switch controllers out of the picture and replaced them with tumblers full of booze and ice, and it would've looked like an advert for Southern Comfort.
Particularly that one they used to play in cinemas where people kept going "Soco... oooh... I'll have a Soco... Soco, please". You know: the one that made me want to go up to the movie screen and rip it open with my bare hands.
The reveal trailer ends, inexplicably, with some sort of e-sports showdown in a massive arena, as if to underline that they don't want the likes of me coming within 100 metres of the Switch. They could've saved some money, and just flashed the words "PISS OFF" on the screen.
I suppose that's my initial concern: who exactly is Switch aimed at? What exactly is it offering that we don't already get? The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have the market pretty much sewn up. There's a depressing sense behind this first glimpse into the marketing of Switch that Nintendo wants to have its cake and scoff it, that it's trying to speak to the same people who are already playing on the Xbox One and PS4. Or maybe I've got it wrong.
My first impression is mixed. On the one hand I'm relieved that Nintendo have done such a good job of selling the basic concept behind the Switch. Certainly, it's easier to wrap your head around than the Wii U. I like the detachable mini-pads, but I don't see much on offer that gets me particularly giddy.
This isn't another Wii. It's not the bold new concept in video gaming that we'd perhaps been promised. It's just a mash-up of under-telly console and handheld. I can't see it breaking through in the way that either the Game Boy or the Wii managed. Portability is nothing new - and Nintendo had handheld games playing on your TV back in the early-90s, when it released the Super Game Boy adaptor.
More worryingly, the reveal trailer seemed at odds with the Nintendo we know. On screen we saw Mario, Zelda, Splatoon - brands that are synonymous with Nintendo's family-friendly approach to gaming.
Yet exclusively the people playing the games were horrible twentysomethings, trying a bit too hard to prove to us how much fun they were having. You could've lifted the Switch controllers out of the picture and replaced them with tumblers full of booze and ice, and it would've looked like an advert for Southern Comfort.
Particularly that one they used to play in cinemas where people kept going "Soco... oooh... I'll have a Soco... Soco, please". You know: the one that made me want to go up to the movie screen and rip it open with my bare hands.
The reveal trailer ends, inexplicably, with some sort of e-sports showdown in a massive arena, as if to underline that they don't want the likes of me coming within 100 metres of the Switch. They could've saved some money, and just flashed the words "PISS OFF" on the screen.
I suppose that's my initial concern: who exactly is Switch aimed at? What exactly is it offering that we don't already get? The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 have the market pretty much sewn up. There's a depressing sense behind this first glimpse into the marketing of Switch that Nintendo wants to have its cake and scoff it, that it's trying to speak to the same people who are already playing on the Xbox One and PS4. Or maybe I've got it wrong.
SLAB RAT
As clever as the design of the Switch may be, I'm also concerned that it just looks like a black slab. The combined joypad(s) are horribly bulky. Nintendo would've been wise to think harder about the aesthetics of the thing, instead of trying to once again camouflage their games hardware amid the jungle of consumer electronics we already have under our tellies.
Look at the NES Mini: it's a shamelessly retro design, and you can only play old games on the thing, but everyone wants one because it looks cool and cute. The Switch just looks as cold as every other dull box you already own.
What pulled Apple out of the fire when Steve Jobs returned to the company he founded? It wasn't the iPod: it was the iMac G3... and people didn't want it because of what it could do, but because of what it looked like. Remember the GameCube? Remember Game & Watch? Switch seems to be Nintendo following, not pioneering, like it used to.
Looks aren't everything, but everything about the Switch needs to be bang on. It needs to stand out from the PS4 and the Xbox One and smartphones... not merely consolidate things that already exist.
CLIFFHANGER
Nintendo is in a precarious position. It's a long way from being the market leader it once was. The Wii U was a disaster for the company, its handheld sales are down, and though few of us would argue against its expertise at making games, its brand has been hobbled and allowed to drift.
The Switch needed to go all out, it needed to clutch everyone by the throat - people who've never owned a console, lapsed Nintendo fans, the young, the old... basically the kind of audience that played on the Game Boy, the Super NES, the Wii... It needed a return to its roots, as the games company for everyone.
“With this first look at Nintendo Switch, I hope fans are already imagining the possibilities of having the freedom to play when, where, and how they want to,” chirrups Satoru Shibata, president of Nintendo of Europe, while bouncing up and down on a sofa, Tom Cruise-style.
Thing is... we're already doing that. We play console games in our living room, and games on our phones or iPads when we're out. I can't see Switch being the machine to change any of that, or drag too many of us away from it.
Maybe there's something they're not telling us. Maybe the tech-specs will blow us away. Unfortunately, given its dimensions - and the apparent size of the cartridges it will seemingly be using - it's difficult to imagine that Switch is going to be able to compete with the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of raw power.
Admittedly, Nintendo has never been about that... but if there was ever a time in the company's history where it needed to throw every resource it has into its hardware, and onto our screens, and really push the envelope in terms of conceiving of new ways to play games, this was it.
On first glance, I'm not certain they've done enough. Though it pains me to say it - because I love Nintendo, and I love the games industry all the more for Nintendo being one of the Big Three - a hybrid system seems like the most boring and obvious route they could've gone.
As clever as the design of the Switch may be, I'm also concerned that it just looks like a black slab. The combined joypad(s) are horribly bulky. Nintendo would've been wise to think harder about the aesthetics of the thing, instead of trying to once again camouflage their games hardware amid the jungle of consumer electronics we already have under our tellies.
Look at the NES Mini: it's a shamelessly retro design, and you can only play old games on the thing, but everyone wants one because it looks cool and cute. The Switch just looks as cold as every other dull box you already own.
What pulled Apple out of the fire when Steve Jobs returned to the company he founded? It wasn't the iPod: it was the iMac G3... and people didn't want it because of what it could do, but because of what it looked like. Remember the GameCube? Remember Game & Watch? Switch seems to be Nintendo following, not pioneering, like it used to.
Looks aren't everything, but everything about the Switch needs to be bang on. It needs to stand out from the PS4 and the Xbox One and smartphones... not merely consolidate things that already exist.
CLIFFHANGER
Nintendo is in a precarious position. It's a long way from being the market leader it once was. The Wii U was a disaster for the company, its handheld sales are down, and though few of us would argue against its expertise at making games, its brand has been hobbled and allowed to drift.
The Switch needed to go all out, it needed to clutch everyone by the throat - people who've never owned a console, lapsed Nintendo fans, the young, the old... basically the kind of audience that played on the Game Boy, the Super NES, the Wii... It needed a return to its roots, as the games company for everyone.
“With this first look at Nintendo Switch, I hope fans are already imagining the possibilities of having the freedom to play when, where, and how they want to,” chirrups Satoru Shibata, president of Nintendo of Europe, while bouncing up and down on a sofa, Tom Cruise-style.
Thing is... we're already doing that. We play console games in our living room, and games on our phones or iPads when we're out. I can't see Switch being the machine to change any of that, or drag too many of us away from it.
Maybe there's something they're not telling us. Maybe the tech-specs will blow us away. Unfortunately, given its dimensions - and the apparent size of the cartridges it will seemingly be using - it's difficult to imagine that Switch is going to be able to compete with the PS4 and Xbox One in terms of raw power.
Admittedly, Nintendo has never been about that... but if there was ever a time in the company's history where it needed to throw every resource it has into its hardware, and onto our screens, and really push the envelope in terms of conceiving of new ways to play games, this was it.
On first glance, I'm not certain they've done enough. Though it pains me to say it - because I love Nintendo, and I love the games industry all the more for Nintendo being one of the Big Three - a hybrid system seems like the most boring and obvious route they could've gone.
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