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Thread: Nintendo Switch
Harrison 10:23 8th March 2017
Is anyone interested in the Switch? Or have you even purchased one yet?

It's nice to see another high spec handheld released, although in reality it's a bit bulky to carry outside and an easy target for theft. Plus I'm not sure I would end up playing it much as a portable and just leave it docked as a home console.

It's hardware specs don't look that amazing compared to ps4 and xbox one, as it's tech is firmly based on smartphone hardware, but the initial releases look to be traditionally well polished first party games.

One advantage of the hardware is that many developers already know it from mobilephone development, but then the other consoles have the big advantage of pc based tech, which is a lot more powerful and there is a lot more experience.

The obvious release game I'm interested in is Zelda, and it does look really nice. However it's also a swansong release on the outgoing Wii U. I still don't own one of those either, however there were a couple of games I wanted to play on that so I'm wondering if i would be better off buying a cheap Wii U and playing Zelda on that for now.

Are you tempted by the Switch?

Or do you think it's a bit of a pointless hybrid that's not quite a home console and not really a truly portable system either?

Have portable gaming systems had their day now we have smartphones?

Or do we play the waiting game and see how this system does?

I'm probably going to do the latter and wait and see. The ps4 and xbox haven't really had that many exclusives to really make them must have systems for anyone with a decent gaming pc. The Switch however might end up being one that does thanks to Nintendo always producing great first party games. If the Switch doesn't do well I can see this being their last home console and maybe changing to software development. It wouldn't be the worst thing to happen. I've always liked Nintendo hardware and they have been at the forefront in terms of controller design and ideas from most generations, but I don't see that as being so relevant now that PC, PS4 and Xbox hardware are all so mature and powerful. They could still develop controller hardware, even if not actual consoles.

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Harrison 22:05 12th March 2017
Very true about the screen. All mobile phones now have at least a full HD resolution, and many much higher. It's on par with those cheap supermarket own brand tablets.

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J T 03:42 21st March 2017
I'm of the opinion that resolution wars, especially on handheld devices, are getting far beyond diminishing returns and even perhaps a little self defeating.

At some point, a screen resolution is good enough. Extra pixels that can't really be distinguished just add unnecessary processor load and battery drain. Better that they have vibrant, rich yet accurate colour reproduction, good viewing angle, response time etc.
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Harrison 16:50 22nd March 2017
True. However I noticed a huge difference going from a 4" mobile screen with about a 720p resolution, to a 5" screen with a 1440p resolution. The crispness of text was greatly improved.

I think the magic number from a crisp display is 300dpi. The Switch falls far short of this and has actually been having a lot of issues with stuck and dead pixels.

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