If you’ve had a Nintendo 3DS in your pocket for the last several years you’ve gotten used to the idea of StreetPass, as well as Nintendo’s own social network Miiverse for the Wii U and 3DS. Though it looks like neither of those features will be in the upcoming Nintendo Switch.
David Young, Nintendo of America’s assistant manager of public relations, confirmed this information during an interview with GamesBeat on Friday at the Switch event in New York City.
“I can answer that we’re not going to be using Miiverse for Nintendo Switch,” Young stated in the interview.
Natsume has announced today that three new downloadable content packs are headed for Harvest Moon: Skytree Village for the Nintendo 3DS. The new bachelor and bachelorette character packs are set to be released on January 24th, with a Harvest Sprite Statue set to be available February 14th.
“We love surprising fans with new downloadable content packs and continuing to keep the game fresh and exciting,” said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume. “We hope players will take to the new bachelor and bachelorette, and that they will become fan favorites!”
Nintendo’s favorite squid kids will be arguing whether they should be Squids Now or Kids Now with the return of ink turf wars this summer for the Nintendo Switch. Revealed during the Nintendo Switch presentation in the typical humorous Splatoon style a cosplaying Ninty Rep made an appearance as the Squid Researcher who brought us updates on the original game’s Tumbler account two years ago.
Splatoon 2 will bring a number of new hairstyles, clothes and fresh threads for Squid Kids to enjoy on a whole suite of brand new battle arenas. In the reveal trailer we got a look at a new type of roller that can splat ink forward, a set of dual pistols that rapidly fire ink like a machine gun pistol and a whole bunch of new super weapons including a ink missile launcher and an INK JET PACK. It was also confirmed that Splatoon 2 will be playable either using the pro controller, the Joycons via motion control, Joycons via controller dock or on the tablet by itself in handheld mode.
Splatoon 2 will be released on Nintendo Switch sometime this summer and will feature a post-release free DLC campaign, similar to the one that brought a number of new pieces of content to the original game for months after release.
Nintendo finally answered some of the questions about the Nintendo Switch that we had been asking since last Fall’s reveal trailer. We know how the console will charge, how long the battery life will last and finally what exactly awaits owners of the new Tablet hybrid console once they unpack the box on March 3rd.
Charging – Nintendo Switch will charge using a standard USB Type C cable and wall-plug adapter.
Battery Life will last between 3 hours and 6 hours depending on the game being played and other factors.
Up to 8 Nintendo Switch consoles can be linked for local play via Wireless.
The $299.99 USD retail package going on sale on March 3rd includes:
Nintendo Switch Tablet
Joy-Con (in either color)
Joycon Grip
Two Joycon Wrist Straps
AC Adaptor
HDMI Cable
Those looking to buy some of these accessories are in for a heck of a surprise including the fact that the Joycons aren’t sold as a set but rather individually. The Verge had an excellent rundown of just how out of touch Nintendo’s accessory pricing is – and a reminder that these prices are in USD, so for those of us in Canada these prices are going to be even worse. Here are some of the highlights:
Joycons are sold separately for $49.99 USD each – meaning for a complete set you need to buy both a left and right Joycon. Seriously Nintendo $100 USD for an extra set of controllers? Why are these not packaged together?
The Nintendo Switch Dock, which is just a powered HDMI box that provides no additional CPU processing power or memory to the console, will be priced at $90 USD… Ninty dollars for a plastic dock that acts as a pass through for your television…
Pro controllers will cost $69.99 USD.
What do you think of these pricey accessories, less than stellar battery life figures and sparse launch line-up? Let us know in the comments section!
A good portion of Nintendo’s Switch presentation tonight was dedicated to the brand new controllers – dubbed Joycons – that attach to either side of the Nintendo Switch tablet itself or on the included “Joycon Grip” which forms the controller that we saw in the initial reveal video. All of these features we knew about this past fall but in typical Nintendo style, the Big N had a number of features for the Joycons that they kept close to the chest.
At launch the Joycons will be available in either a slate grey color scheme – seen in all of the advertisements thus far or a special edition blue and pink color scheme. The Nintendo Switch will have two retail skus to reflect these color variations, meaning you’ll be able to pick out whichever color your local GameStop has to have in their allotment of 3 consoles for launch day.
In terms of input we knew that the Joycons both feature asymmetrical joysticks and 4 face buttons on the top of the controllers. What we didn’t know: The small little nubs next to the joystick on the right controller and the buttons on the left are used for sharing screenshots and reading amiibo NFC data respectively. The little buttons on the top of the Joycons not only connect them to the Tablet but are also used as the L & R buttons when detached.
The Return of Motion Controls
Here is where stuff gets kinda futuristic:
Each Joycon has built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers for 3-D dimensional sensing (think Wiimote)
The right joycon has a built-in IR sensor that allows it to recognize 3D objects and the distance between the controller and the object,
Haptic feedback, called “HD Rumble” in the Nintendo presentation, allows for precision rumble and emulation of physical objects – like the sensation of ice cubes in a glass, according to Nintendo.
Here’s hoping that developers find new and interesting ways to use all of the technology that Nintendo is packing into their latest controllers. Lest it become underutilized like the DS microphone or the 3DS’ dual cameras.
