Nintendo Switch preview: Return of the king

We are finally privy to all the details, price and release date of the Nintendo Switch. We have also finally got our hands on it and it’s good, it’s very good.

Driven by a modified version of the Nvidia Tegra X1 processor, we thought we’d be faced with a tablet masquerading as a games console, but this is the power of Nintendo at its best. Yes, the tablet unit drops to 720p when undocked. And yes, it has the basic feel and style of a tablet, but it’s so much more than that.

The Joy-Cons make an enormous difference.

We got to play several games on the new console at the dedicated Nintendo Switch Presentation event in London and used all the different control methods at our disposal.

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Starting with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we played with the Switch docked and using the new Pro Controller. It is smaller than an Xbox One equivalent, but feels well built and perfectly suited for comfort.

Bar the weird button layout of the game itself, which’ll take some getting used to thanks to being fairly alien to Xbox and PlayStation fans, the controller is responsive and logical. We suspect many games will be played this way.

As for the game, we played the identical demo to the one shown at E3 last June, albeit on the Switch rather than the Wii U. It would have been nice to have seen both versions side-by-side but we swear that draw distances are better and the game seemed a little smoother this time around. We’re not sure if it was running at 1080p 60fps but it felt like it.

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Playing Arms was an entirely different experience as we did so with the Joy-Cons only. It’s a fighting game where you box with a Joy-Con in each hand and is the closest thing to a Wii game we’ve played for a while.

To be honest, our demo was too brief to get a genuine feel for the game – save for a confusing battle with someone who’d played it far more often than us – but it did show us that the small, clip controllers are incredibly versatile and well built.

It’s a shame that the UK will be stuck with the grey ones initially, rather than the blue and orange variants we played with in our demos, partly because they help distinguish players in head-to-head local multiplayer. We’re sure that’ll happen in time though.

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Our last gameplay session for now was on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a special version of the superb Wii U title optimised and remastered for Switch.

Not only did this give us a great idea of how one of our favourite games of all time is shaping up for the new console – superbly, as you can imagine – but we also got to play it on the undocked Switch screen with the Joy-Cons attached.

We were told it was running in 720p at 60fps on the device – the max for the undocked unit – and it’s super smooth. Indeed, we’ve never seen a native tablet game running as well. It gives us hope that Nintendo really has created something new and different.

First Impressions

Whether the Nintendo Switch will compete with Xbox One S, PS4 Pro or the Project Scorpio when it arrives at the end of the year is debatable. However, it might not need to.

Unlike the Wii U, the Switch is a big departure for the games industry. It’s not a traditional games console, nor is it a portable tablet. It is something in-between and we feel could find an all-new market. It truly offers high-end quality gaming wherever you go and will therefore appeal to a wide user base.

At least, that’s our initial thoughts.

We came to the presentation event expecting good things but also, secretly, expecting to leave disappointed. We haven’t. In fact it’s quite the opposite.

We need more time with the Switch to get a firm grip on its potential but from this brief showing there is every sign the king has returned. Nintendo is back in the game.