NINTENDO SWITCH; YES, THAT'S THE NAME

Steam simply has a super customer friendly method. A portion of what you pay for your games goes to Steam. If you've never bought anything from Steam, you have to pay a 5 dollar monthly fee in order to use services like reviewing and commenting: that's to prevent trolls and assholes from just abusing the system.

Nintendo has a different policy: GIMME!!!

author=LockeZ
Dude, minimum 2.5 hours of battery life sounds great. There aren't many laptops that get that kind of battery life when you play games on them, mine only goes for about an hour with games running. My cell phone can play FF Record Keeper or Hearthstone for about 45 minutes. The 3DS might run for 2.5 hours if you turn the sound and the 3D off.

I'm assuming that battery life is if you're using it as a handheld console, right? If you're using it just as a controller I'm sure it lasts for weeks.

Yeah, I’m probably going to use it as a handheld more than anything else, since I have to share the T.V. with two other people at home. 2.5 hours isn’t probably that bad for something like this, especially since I only play games nowadays for 2 hours at a time, but I dunno, I kind of think that they could have done better with this in the back of my mind... Oh well, you’re probably right.

author=Cap_H
It makes Vita absolutely obsolete too.

People still play with the Vita? I thought that thing died out years ago...

I think Vita still have some edge over phones. Games for example. There is very few of them on phones, which are both enjoyable and long. The vast majority are basically arcade titles (Record keeper is like an arcade Final Fantasy) or technically limited (controls suck) titles from eighties.
On the other hand vita has good controls and exclusive games like Ys and Tales of Hearts.

author=LockeZ
Really, your cell phone is.

You mean your cell phone. I’m still one of the only millennials that still doesn’t have one yet.

author=Backwards_Cowboy
If you're at home I think you can just plug the USB/AC adapter directly into the tablet portion even when it's not in the dock. I can't remember if it's sold separately or not, though.

Knowing Nintendo I’m pretty sure it will be sold separately.

Also, I found this article from Polygon pretty interesting regarding online play and stuff - but this part is really what caught my eye:

Nintendo also said that these SNES and NES games will come with online play, however. How does that work? Does that mean these aren’t straight ports or emulations, but games that have been completely reworked?

If this is true – holy shit! Are you telling me that I can potentially play the original Super Mario Kart or Super Bomberman with people across the world, games that were made over twenty years ago? Holy shit, that would be awesome!

As far as Nintendo Switch goes, I can say I had some hype when watching the presentation, and part of me REALLY wants to preorder the thing, but I made that mistake with the Wii U back in 2012. I want it, but I'm going to wait and see how it performs before I consider buying the thing. Maybe I'll wait until Splatoon 2 and Mario Odyssey come out.

I love my Wii U, so the existence of that console isn't a deterrent at all to me buying a Switch.

Nintendo is in a really weird position right now. Everything seems to be hinging on the success or failure of the Switch, but, really, Nintendo's true strength is their vast array of IPs. They have dabbled in smartphones (finally) and with their massive stable, they can make a killing, which (almost paradoxically) allows them to indulge in gimmicky consoles/hardware for the foreseeable future. The Switch doesn't have to be a homerun for Nintendo - it can just be decent, even middling.

(But it could have been a damn homerun if they had ported their entire Wii U library to the Switch for launch. "Hey, look at all these games you wanted to play but didn't because you didn't buy a Wii U. Well, buy a Switch and you can now buy the entire Wii U library and play them")

I think my biggest issue isn't the system itself, but the way Nintendo has been lying about tech specs for nearly a decade. Granted, they never officially promised anything, but consider the past couple systems they've given us and what various Nintendo reps said they would do:

Nintendo 3DS: Gameboy Advance games will be on the eShop. Technically they were if you bought it at the original price point, but I've heard different stories of how well/poorly they run. Nintendo later said the hardware couldn't support emulating the GBA games, and it took too much time and effort just to get the versions for the early adopters to work. The games would later be ported to the Wii U to spite all of the early adopters of the 3DS even further.

Nintendo Wii U: Gamecube games will be on the eShop. Nintendo later states that they tried, but the hardware couldn't support the emulated Gamecube OS while also running the Wii U. Supports the Wii OS and games just fine, though. I remember a lot of people holding out on buying a Wii U until GC games hit the eShop, but that never happened.

They've been pretty conservative on what the Switch will offer as far as ports and the eShop goes, probably because they learned their lesson after two systems not working out like they thought.

Apparently it's sold out here, and we can't even buy it until around June?

My girlfriend is dogmatically going to buy one, so she can play the new Zelda on it.
I'll be done the new Zelda by then, on the Wii U. What's the big deal? The only thing interesting about it is the portability. But even then... do I really need it? I'm still playing Gameboy Color games!
Also, we got the Wii U. We played it maybe ten times since buying it. It's just collecting dust, and occasionally lighting up in the hopeful plea that we'll look.

But... you definately had an NES, Kentona. Where did it go? You sold me DQIV for god's sake.

... Do you not already own pretty much everything you'd want to play on it anyway?