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The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premi
by overcast 10y ago
The dock is pretty underwhelming from what I've seen. There is no protection for the screen, sliding in between two pieces of plastic. Pretty cheap, for a premium priced, and well engineered hybrid device, that will be taken in and out.
Semi-relevant. Breath of Wild looks like such a fantastic game, but it's completely ridiculous that the performance is often times WORSE in the docked mode. I'm hoping this is just crappy porting issues, and can be patched. But running only 900p, and getting 20fps shouldn't be tolerated.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoYes, the docked mode is grating at times. You've got these great mechanics and beautiful world but constant input lag. Very frustrating. I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play on a TV at a higher resolution, but it's a worse experience. It effectively makes it a mobile game. It's 2017! 1080p or 60fps should be the minimum. To be fair that's not doable at $300 on a mobile gpu, but as a console that's rough. re: screen + dock = scratches: https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/5xc6gw/using_the_switch_dock_may_scratch_the_screen/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/5xc6gw/using_the_... Some really odd design choices. v2 should be nice, though.
- overcast 10y agoDepressing. I was going to wait till much later to even consider purchasing this. But I definitely won't be until that's addressed. Why isn't the screen glass?!
- kalleboo 10y ago> Why isn't the screen glass?! Durability when handled roughly by children?
- bcook 10y agoI dunno. My ~3 year old neice has her own aging, hand-me-down iPad that she mistreats like it was any other $5 toy and it's been going strong for maybe 2 years.
- kalleboo 10y agoAnd yet somehow I see adults everywhere with cracked screens :p It could be the stronger glass Apple is using is too expensive for the price point Nintendo is aiming at
- vinceguidry 10y agoCracked screens happen when you drop it, and kids just don't have enough height on them to generate the forces needed. Also adults think nothing of putting huge padded cases on kids' iPads. I can't be bothered with a case for my phone.
- cmrdporcupine 10y agoI bought the Wii U version instead of a Switch because of the complaints I heard about the docked game. Played it tonight. Very very nice, my kids love it. I'll buy a Switch in a year once there's more games and they have the kinks worked out. If I feel like playing Breath again, I'll get it second hand.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI've been hoping they'll drastically lower the Wii U price so I can pick it up that way :)
- cmrdporcupine 10y agoSo far I'm loving it, it's like a kid-friendly, slightly simpler Skyrim. Though so far the atmosphere isn't as deep as the Zelda games have done in the past. Though I thought Skyward Sword was just annoying so this is a relief.
- slantyyz 10y agoYou can get refurbs and second hand Wii U's for pretty cheap.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoHmm the best I've seen is $200 which seems a bit much for a now previous console model with limited title support and low end hardware. I'll wait until I see it for $99 I think.
- _jdams 10y agoI bought a $199 Wii U refurb direct from Nintendo about a year and a half ago. Surely you can find a cheaper Wii U on craigslist or something..
- slantyyz 10y agoIn case anyone wants to see a comparison of Zelda between the two platforms, someone has already posted a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFON2UON3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFON2UON3k To my untrained eyes, the Wii U version seems perfectly fine.
- knodi123 10y ago> v2 should be nice Has there ever been a v2 of a nintendo console?
- JimmyAustin 10y agoGBA has three generations (stock, SP and micro), 3DS had 2 or 3, depending on if you count the XL. Wii had two (original and mini). Other then the New 3DS, none of these have been system hardware, but given that the Switch is built on a tegra chip, I can see it getting upgraded with full backwards compatibility at some point. Not to mention
- boondaburrah 10y agoHell I don't even count the GBA Micro, considering it couldn't run GB games despite having a Z80, simply because they dropped 5-volt support. That's not a refresh, that's just taking a dremel to the thing!
- cma 10y agoThe NES 2: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v-c-XkVH82w/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v-c-XkVH82w/maxresdefault.jpg
- darren_ 10y agoGBA sp, new 3ds. It's not unheard of.
- zerocrates 10y agoWell if you count the Switch as a portable, they've done at least one revision/refresh of almost every generation: Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, GBA SP, Game Boy Micro, DS Lite, DSi, 3DS XL, 2DS, new 3DS. They've actually really gone to town on revisions lately with handhelds. TV consoles are a different story. The NES and SNES had later variants, and there's the afterthought Wii Mini, and that's all I can think of.
- ClassyJacket 10y agoThey don't revise their home consoles much, but they do revise their handhelds. So... probably. This console seems so flawed and badly designed it kinda needs one, quickly. Gameboy > Gameboy Pocket Gameboy Advance > Gameboy Advance SP > Gameboy Micro DS > DS Lite > DSi 3DS > New 3DS Some of these revisions even had their own sub-revisions or regional variants like the Gameboy Lite. The Gameboy Color is the only one I can think of they didn't revise significantly, but you could argue that the Color itself was a huge revision of the Gameboy Pocket with a Colour screen.
- georgemcbay 10y agoEven ignoring the underwhelming performance, it seems ridiculous that you can't just choose to run in 720p mode when docked. I'd rather have my TV upscale the content than have the game be close to unplayable due to lag... the engine is clearly capable of rendering to a 720p framebuffer since it does that when not docked, just add an option to let me do that when docked...
- nicky0 10y agoCan't you set to 720p in screen settings?
- DaiPlusPlus 10y agoI suspect it would still render to 900, then downscale to 720
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sparkpeasy 10y agoI've played Zelda on Switch docked for 10 hours and have not yet once experienced input lag. It occasionally hits seemingly 20-25fps with a lot of enemies and environmental grass and such for a few seconds but that has absolutely not sullied my experience of playing one of the most thoughtful and enjoyable games of all time.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoGlad you've had a great experience and I agree it's a great game. Perhaps input lag is the wrong term or you just aren't looking but even just walking out into the starting area framerates start to drop and the game becomes noticeably slower. Try it in undocked mode and it's very obvious. If you are used to playing at higher framerates (which isn't uncommon seeing as other big console exclusives are 60fps usually at 1080p) it's a real difference.
- ebbv 10y agoWhat makes you say it's not doable on a $300 mobile GPU? There are phones out that cost $300 that have better performance than the Switch. Also it's really down to the software. They could have targeted 1080p resolution with 60fps with the new Zelda but they would have had to make sacrifices on draw distance, effects, texture resolution, poly count, etc.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoThat's my point, though. They clearly can't make a game with the features of BotW - draw distance, effects, etc without major compromises. Not personally aware of any games as full-formed as BotW that are running on $300 mobile sets. Though this could just be poorly optimized, which makes it more disappointing.
- ebbv 10y agoI don't think anyone has cracked making an open world game on a phone. But just from raw hardware specs perspective there are phones with more performance than the Switch.
- CydeWeys 10y ago> It's 2017! 1080p or 60fps should be the minimum. To be fair that's not doable at $300 on a mobile gpu, but as a console that's rough. It is possible on a $300 device, it's just that the Switch has lots of other design considerations (modularity, hardware controller costs) that drive the cost substantially up. You can definitely make a simple $300 tablet with good 3D performance, and indeed that's exactly what the Nvidia Shield is.
- pikzen 10y agoGoing from 720p to 900p is a ~50% increase in pixel count, but the bandwidth increase from docking is only 20%. And since it already chokes at times in tablet mode, this doesn't bode well for a fix that isn't lowering graphical quality.
- Dylan16807 10y agoThe memory only runs 20% faster (maybe?), but the GPU core runs more than twice as fast.
- anbotero 10y agoBut you know, in a review made by Digital Foundry, they found out Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) doesn't have physics applied to grass or a lot of environment objects when the character goes through them. Here, the grass has to realistically move to the passing of Link and also the wind. Also, the physics are handled by the CPU, which has a constant speed regardless of the mode the system is running at in order not to interrupt game logic like, you know, the grass, heh. I'm betting that's what's causing the drops, having to apply physics on the grass (and other objects on the environment). In any case, yeah, hopefully they'll improve it a bit with future patches.
- MBCook 10y agoI really do wonder how optimized the game is. From what I've heard (I'm waiting for a good digital foundry comparison video) it sounds like the game plays identically on the WiiU and the Switch in docked mode. The only difference is that the WiiU version runs at 720p instead of 900p. We know this started as a WiiU game, i'm wondering if this is another twilight princess where they did very little except up the resolution for the new console and we're not really seeing what the machine is capable of.
- Larrikin 10y agoHas there ever been a game released within a year of the launch of a console that displayed the power of the console? It usually takes a few years to really get the full power of the console
- ekianjo 10y agofor ps4 and xbox one thats not the case at all. You are talking about much older generations.
- vvillena 10y agoCrash Bandicoot for PS1 was so revolutionary that most studios were never able to catch on. Naughty Dog improved even more with Crash Bandicoot 2 and Crash Bandicoot 3, but the first game was already at the top of what the PS1 could do.
- vanderZwan 10y agoTime to post this series on the development of CB again. I'm sure the LISP fans here will love it, even if most of them will have already read it: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...
- whineBuster 10y agoIn other words: Spam?
- gdulli 10y agoI don't know how they justify selling it at the same price as the current gen consoles. You also have to pay extra for a real controller.
- Alreadyobsolete 10y agoAre the joycons not real controllers?
- overcast 10y agoCorrect, they are pretty uncomfortable.
- on_and_off 10y agothe joycons are real controllers too :). So far I don't want to switch to a classical controller. Especially since I use the gyroscope of the right joycon in order to aim more precisely.
- Rapzid 10y agoThe pro controller has gyro as well.
- on_and_off 10y agois it practical though ? With the joycons, I kinda wish I could draw a bow with both joycon in order to aim. Not sure if that would work, but I would like an easier way to aim precisely. Right now I am starting to miss my mouse.
- M_Grey 10y agoBecause they have legions of rabid fans who not only buy their products regardless of quality, but act as an army of apologists for them. The result ironically, is that unlike Sony's harsh lesson learned around the PS3, Nintendo has no such backlash to fear. The worst they can do is just own the portable market, and sell a few iterations of a console to their diehards, which are numerous.
- Strom 10y agoIf the screen is behind something like Gorilla Glass [1] like all the other tablets on the market, then that plastic will never scratch the screen. This is due to the way scratching and physics work. [2] A good reference is Mohs scale of mineral hardness [3]. Generally speaking, a softer material will not scratch a harder material. Plastics are really soft, glass and toughened glass are strong. There's a pretty good demonstration video on youtube. [4] -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_Glass [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardness [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ANcWQEUI8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ANcWQEUI8
- overcast 10y agoIt's not. The screen is plastic. I know how material hardness works.
- Strom 10y agoInteresting that you would call a plastic screen tablet well engineered. I imagine the dock is going to be the least of anyone's worries when they use this as an actual mobile device. Everything will scratch the plastic.
- Domenic_S 10y agoThe screen and digitizer are not fused, which means if you can handle the bezel adhesive (and get the replacement part), screen replacement isn't an issue. Compare against.. pretty much every other tablet.
- nissehulth 10y agoWaterjet teardown. https://youtu.be/qBVyF0I2Ruo?t=2m24s https://youtu.be/qBVyF0I2Ruo?t=2m24s
- overcast 10y ago
- dstaley 10y agoOne benefit of the dock being so simple is that it should be relatively easy to design a replacement dock that doesn't suffer from those issues. I'm thinking something like Apple's iPad Dock [1]. I think the dock design they went with is more kid friendly, so if you're an adult who is going to be mindful when docking your Switch I think something more minimal would be fine. [1] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images2000x2000/Apple_MC360ZM_A_iPad_Dock_721058.jpg https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images2000x2000/Apple_MC...
- Fej 10y agoCurrently, the only way to get HDMI out from the Switch is via Nintendo's dock. No other cables work. From what I understand, Nintendo is not planning to make a breakout cable or expand functionality in that area.
- dstaley 10y agoSorry, I realize my comment was unclear. I meant the actual board in the dock is quite small and easily accessible, so removing it and placing it into a new housing should be fairly straightforward.
- M_Grey 10y agoThis is Nintendo... in a year or two you can buy the Switch DS!!! Now with a charging port on top, 1080P, and more battery life! I mean... assuming by then it's not clearly another WiiU or worse.
- Razengan 10y agoYes, let's just make one product every 10 years and never make any incremental updates for people who like them and can afford them.
- josu 10y agoHis point is that all those changes could have been added to this version. No need to have a plastic screen, a 3 hour battery life or that stupid location for the charging port.
- M_Grey 10y agoDo you really think the only option other than selling you a new full-price console every couple of years, is a decade of PS3 or the like? Come on.
- Rapzid 10y agoMy biggest beef with the dock is that the switch ROCKS in it. If you press the game card side down you will experience this. Sloppy :(
- jwatte 10y agoThe dock plastic is softer than the glass so it won't scratch/wear the glass. As long as you keep it clean of other debris/grit!