Well the Nintendo Switch (I'll just call it Switch from now on for simplicity) is, in my opinion a pretty awesome idea, but its execution has certainly met a lot of controversy, so before I start writing my own thoughts about it, let's review I read on the Internet say about the switch in good and bad ways, don't worry I'll say enough about later:
What People Say
Good:
- Hybrid concept, you can play both on the go, or on a large screen, like a TV.
- The Joycons allow for easy local Multiplayer
- Region Free
- The "Switching" is quick and easy to do
- Standard USB-C Connector
- The lineup does have some great games
- cartriges instead of discs
- The storage is expandable with micro-SD cards
Bad:
- The Switch is even weaker than a PS4
- There were not many games at launch, and the rest of this year's lineup in general isn't that great either
- The switch is too expensive, and the accessory too
- The screen is just 720p and it cant even do 60fps and 1080p in Breath of the Wild (BotW) on TV
- just 32GB internal storage?
- The battery runtime is bad
- You can't transfer saves
- The games are still locked to the console
- No Virtual Console
- Dock scratches screen
Counterarguments (or not)
so let's get to them one by one, beginning with the bad things:
Yes the Switch is weaker than traditional consoles, but then again the Switch is very small and light, and do I really need to remind you that you cant take your PS4 everywhere you want and for example play when commuting in the tram? While we're at it we also can speak about the 720p screen and battery life, since those go hand-in-hand.
Nintendo obviously used a 720p screen instead of a 1080p one for making the battery life not worse than it already is, I mean Let's be honest: 2-6 hours of battery life with 3 hours estimate for BotW isnt really that great, especially considering these are the Manufacturer's specifications and they more often than not are over-optimistic. But consider the Overhead in both craphics calculation and Display Control when using 1080p as screen instead of just 720p, the battery life would go from mediocre to abysmal or in the worse case, pretty much non-existent.
By the way as seen in Teardowns of the Switch, the battery is pretty much the Largest component in the switch (I obviously dont count the mainboard as one component since it essentially is just made out of all the components on it) and honestlyby talking this into account, it seems to make the thing a lot more relative, I mean, you can only put a certain amount of battery into it, otherwise it may go tremendously wrong, as seen with the Note 7.
now we get to Storage dilemma, 32GB internal storage, with actually just 27GB remaining after subtracting the OS, but expandable with microSD.
Many say, it's too little, especially since Dragon Quest Heroes 1 and 2 came as a bundle in Japan and it takes 32GB of storage, instantly forcing you to get a MicroSD card, and other games can also be quite large, BotW for example takes about 13GB, though that also comes as a cartridge.
The worst comparison that I saw was that people say that Playstation 4 or Xbox One come with no less than 500GB of storage, but there's a reason why the switch doesnt do that.
Both the Xbone and the PS4 come with HDDs which are very susceptible to shock, such as falling onto the ground or too harsh movement, and that espeiually when running. I had an HDD of my own fail years ago and I certainly wouldn't recommend putting an HDD into a mobile device like the Switch.
That's why they use flash storage which is in comparison a lot more expensive per GB compared to an HDD, you sure can get a 500GB HDD for about 40 Euro if you know the right places and Companies like sony who instantly buy millions of drives for their consoles probably get it even cheaper., in comparison, you probably won't get a 500GB SSD for much less than 150€. And SSDs are relatively large for a Device like this so they use more or less "normal" eMMC Flash storage, which certainly does its work well enough.
and 32GB as an entrypoint is okay in my opinion, especially since you can just throw in an mSD and call it a day. on The X360/Xbone you cant replace your harddrive (unless you like voiding your warranty, and on PS3/4, an HDD replacement is a lengthy process of backing everything up, downloading the OS to your computer, putting it on a USB stick, swapping out the drive (the easiest part of the whole process) then installing your OS from the USB Stick and then restoring the backup.
For comparison, the switch doesnt re-format the SD card but similar to the 3DS and DSi, it will just store it's data in a designated folder, meaning, if you want to switch (of course we need a pun for that) to a a different mSD, you just put it into your PC, move all the data over to the other card, and boom, you're done and can insert the mSD into the Switch, that process is essentially idiot-proof.
the more problematic point is that you cannot copy or move over your saves to another location, meaning if you lose, your switch, or you need to send it in for repair, your saves are gone. nothing funny in my opinion and Nintendo truly needs to fix that.
regarding the "games locked to console" thing, it has become a lot better in comparison to the 3DS. While on the 3DS you could only transfer your Licenses to the games, essentially meaning you need to have both a source and a target, that restriction no longer applies to the Switch, meaning you can disconnect your Game Licenses from that particular switch and reconnect them on another, this happens seperately from the account connection itself, which makes maintaining such things finer and in my opinion, also better.
That means you can sell your switch or send it to repair/exchange without having to worry about your Switch games anymore, while on the Wii U someone actually lost his whole digital library because he got a replacement and he let the whole thing go through his store and not through Nintendo, and nintendo certainly wasnt helping in the way they should.
The only problem that persists is losing your switch, having it stolen, or just forgetting to disconnect the registration or account from that switch. in that case, only nintendo can help you.
This is still a bad situation in my opinion, since on Playstation you can have up to 2 PS3s (although I am pretty sure it was 3 earlier), 2 PS4s (one set as primary being always able to play, while the second one has to be logged in to play the digital games), 2 devices from the PSP and PS Vita lines in any combination, meaing if you lose one, not everything is lost. and to make it even better, sony allows you to kick all devices out of your account with one click every 6 Months, meaing even if you lost all your Playstations, and had no slots left, they only take your games hostage for up to 6 Months.
The next point are the games. True the switch didnt have too much at launch and pretty much the only real selling point at the beginning was Zelda, but let's be honest here, I think there is a possibility of a soft launch, I mean the Nintendo switch is still out of stock at many places and you can still find many people on ebay trying to overcharge for the switch on a huge scale. and essentially just buying the Switch to sell it with maximum profit, in my opinion, an ugly business. But this shows that even though the switch's launch lineup could be better and it's essentially a soft launch, the Nintendo sold 2,76 Million units in less than a month (until March 31, the end of the fiscal year) and it has launched on march, and not the November/December-ish time of the year before christmas, so I think this was a pretty good launch and honestly I dont even want to know what would happened if they would have done a "real" launch.
But the Switch does certainly offer nice games, although not much of the "Nintendo Franchises" like Pokémon, Mario and whatnot, but precisely on the so-called holiday season (why even call it that way, there's not just one holiday in the year) Super Mario Odyssey is going to release and it's probably going to fire up the Switch's sales quite a bit, instead there are some very nice small games like Soldam, which is with its tetris and othello-like mechanics a really intresting and and recently it even has been translated into quite a lot of languages, Puyo Puyo Tetris, which combines the well-known Tetris with Sega's Puyo Puyo, which are both "action puzzle games" as I call them, and Kamiko which is a nice cheap retro-styled game which REALLY GREAT MUSIC, and in my opinion it's these small things that make the Switch even greater than it already is. No doubt Mario, Pokémon and all the other nintendo-exclusive franchises are awesome, but the Lack of 3rd Parties made the Wii U crumble, a LOT.
and while we are talking Games, let's go to the Virtual Console, a great way for nintendo to revive old games from decade-old consoles.
Yes The switch doesn't have Virtual Console, and this is something that needs to be fixed and I fully agree, especially with the Switch's ARM Chipset it should be easy to emulate all of Nintendo's portable Systems from The Gameboy up to the 3DS, although I dont think the DS and 3DS lines are going to the switch, simply because that with the Dual-Screen aspect of the DS it isnt going to be as good on the switch as on thr original, plainly because the whole concept is different. Playing a DS Game on an emulator also doesn't feel as good as doing it on the real thing. for the Home Consoles I dont know how much the Switch is capable of but the general consensus on the Internet seems that up to GameCube should be certainly possible, maybe even Wii, although I remove the Wii from the List because of control problems, the Joycons are great but they dont offer the IR for pinpointing. And before someone says that the right Joycon has AR, yes you are right, but the IR is on the back (pointing towards you) and not at the front (pointing to TV), which rules IR pinpointing out.
Another justified negative point is the Dock scratching issue where the hard plastic of the Dock can scratch the screen. I honestly never saw a switch in real life getting scratches from the Dock but it certainly is an issue and bad design on nintendo's side. With a little bit of rubber or fabric this could have easily been avoided.
Finally, the last negative point to discuss is the price, which is completely valid. the Switch costs 29990 Yen plus Tax, 299 US-Dollar before tax and there is no fixed price in Europe although at least here in Germany there seems to be a consensus of 329 Euro. Certainly not a little amnount, especially Considering that you can get the PS4 slim for about 269€ on Amazon and the Launch PS4 did go for 200€ on sales. and the big games aren't cheap either. Zelda costs 70€ for example and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 60€. Adding a Pro Controller, which you might want if you have big hands, adds another 70€ to the Equation, and if you need another set of Joycons, they certainly aren't cheap either, the cheapest place where I found them they were 75€ as a set, with the normal Price being 80€. They Grey joycons single (you cant buy colored single Joycons here) cost 40€ if you are lucky, but normally more like 45€.
but there's always that small line between expensive and justified I mean the Switch certainly offers a unique experience and things like HD Rumble don't develop themselves, so the quesion whether it's justified is a mystery for me at this point.
Well let's end being Negative and talk about the Positive stuff.
First we get the most obvious point out of the way: the Hybrid Experience. Gone are the times where I was annoyed about not being able to plug my 3DS, gameboy advance or whatever Portable console into the TV and play on the big screen. With the Switch it's possible to Dock this thing and Play on the TV, INSTANTLY. And it's another way of Nintendo saying that they aren't going to the Console war the classic way tyring to overpower the others like Sony and Microsoft try all the time, just to still be weaker than PCs, as always, nintendo goes the approach of uniqueness. the Wii and the Wii U had this too, and while the Wii U did fail miserably, I don't think that's the reason for it though.
Another thing which certainly helps the Hybrid Experience is the usage of USB-C as a charging port. Finally Nintendo is going the standard way as well, meaning we can connect the switch to any USB Power Delivery Compatible Powerbank or charger we like (sadly these aren't as common as those with Quallcomm Quickcharge because smartphone makers undermined a standard with a piece of [in my opinion] proprietary junk which should have been buried once USB-C came), meaning we can have in addition to the switch a 20000mAh powerpack and essentially get over 4 and a half times extra playtime.
Next up, we have the Joycons, two awesome little controllers (which you also can use on the PC), which also seperate from the switch can be used by seperate people, which is a nice concept, but it can fail quickly, if you have a game that doesnt prefer Controls with the stick but rather the D-Pad for accurate control (Soldam and Puyo-Tetris being 2 nice examples) because the individual joycons dont have a D-Pad but the Stick for direction controls, while the Arrows on the left Joycon essentially become their own set of ABXY buttons, but for Games like Mario Kart where you control with a stick anyway, it is a great concept to get Local Multiplayer working quickly.
the next Part are the cartridges, which actually got kind of mixed opinions since they are attributed by writers on the internet for having the fault of the Price increase of Switch games compared to those on the other consoles. While cartridges certainly are more expensive, without cartridges you cant have good portable gaming. I do know the PSP and its UMDs but they have their flaws. For starters UMDs, essentially just being small CDs can be scratched and ruin the entire game. and UMDs require motors to spin the thing, more mechanical parts means that it breaks easier, problems you don't get with cartridges, also on recent consoles with Blurays they usually install the whole game to reduce install time, which means that on a PS4, even the Physical games can require hige amounts of space on the drive, while Zelda on the Switch, when owning it physically takes less than 200MB of storage, and that is purely update data.
Now we have the Games, I earlier also talked about this when talking about the "bad lineup" people are mentioning, and as I said earlier, while the lineup could be better, there certainly are also gems in there.
Continuing, we have microSD cards, a part which recieved as much criticism as ir recieved praise. Unlike the Vita, you dont have to buy ridiculously expensive proprietary cards and unlike the Wii U, you dont have to wire up a Harddrive or plug in a USB Stick to get more storage (or in the case of the Original PS vita models, any storage at all in the first place), you just open the kickstand, inser the microSD and it's over.
Going on, we have what is actually my favorite part about the switch, it is REGION FREE! The first Home Console and the first Portable ever since the DSi to be region free, and it's glorious, especially since it isnt just essentially "half-free" like the PS Vita where you only could make one account and all digital purchases can only be from that account, the Switch, same as the PS3 and PS4 allow for multiple users, meaning you can set up user accounts from multiple regions and buy from whatever eshop you want for whatever reason.
Soldam isnt available outside of Japan? Who cares, I just buy it with my japanese account. a game a cheaper in the US than here in Germany? Thanks, I'll take it. And so on.
Personal Experience
Well let's go from Talking about the General praise and criticism to my personal experience with the Switch. I got my Switch on March 10, so I have almost 2 Months of Experience with this thing and long story short it's awesome.
Once I started the switch first the whole Drama of setting everthing up. the switch guides nicely and explains all the stuff, like removing joycons and using the Dock.
after setting the switch up, I checked the settings and to be honest, it has quite a nice set of settings, that didn't exist on the 3DS or DS, like for example being able to sync the time or set a time zone (and FINALLY, for god's sake, it can work with Daylight Saving Time), you can enable auto update of you like and it also has a really nice warning screen with delayed "yes" button activation, so you don't accidentially do stuff like delete your user account or reset the console. Also one thing that's FINALLY back is that you can use the buttons to work in the Settings menu. This may sound like nothing special to many, but on the DSi, the 3DS and the Wii and, according to friends on the Wii U too, you had to use the touch screen, the Wiimote pinpointing, pr the touchscreen of the Gamepad for doing any settings respectively, that is really annoying, especially for example if the touchscreen, sensor bar, or the gamepad is not properly calibrated, or or flat out broken.
After going through all the setup processes, for which you certainly don't need internet (which is embarassing even needing to waste a sentence for), you can essentially push in a cartridge and play, whether it's 1-2-Switch, BotW, or any other game you want.
If you have multiple users set up on your Switch, you will be asked which one to use, meaning the save data is properly split between the different users.
if you dont like cartridges (or the game simply doesnt exist in a retail version), you can also go to the eShop to download your games there, and from my experience, most of the Switch's games, that are available now, especially the Indie section, are only on the eShop.
The eShop is built fairly simple:
You had 3 (now we have 4) sections: Search, New, Best Sellers (that came in later) and Coming Soon. then you also have a place to enter codes (both game download codes, or gift card codes with money). the categories pretty much explain themselves, although it may be intresting to take a look at coming soon every now and then, because there may be demos of games available, that aren't out yet.
As already mentioned in the praise and critics evaluation section, the Switch makes Region Freedom for real by allowing multiple accounts from any country you like, no matter to what you have set your switch, meaning, you can have an account from your home place and a Japanese account (or even more, as I heard, up to 8 accounts are supported), I for example have my German Account as my main account, a Japanese account, and a USA account, allowing me to get games from essentially anywhere I want. and that's not enough. the games themselves don't care about Account Region either meaning you can keep your main account with all the saves, and pretty much not care about most data loss scenarios in the other ones. I actually do it that way myself.
now, let's get to the Most important part, the actual games. I got myself Zelda BotW in the limited Edition, primarily because I like Soundtracks, but a nicem large Master Sword isnt bad either, 1-2-Switch, because the Store just had to sell the Switch in a bundle, Puyo Puyo Tetris (from the Japanese eShop), Vroom in the Night Sky, Kamiko (also from the Japanese eshop) and Soldam Bloom Declaration (ofically translated name from the translation update, also got this from the Japanese eShop), I also played a few demos, but not that much.
I will go over them one by one.
Puyo Puyo Tetris (or I just call it Puyo-Tetris for short) is a mixture of the two "action puzzle games" Tetris and Puyo Puyo. It has a ton of characters you can play with, a story mode, modes to play alone, against a Computer opponent, or against other humans locally or over the internet, although I don't recommend going into the internet unless you either want to get stomped or are REALLY good at the game.
The best thing is that the story mode comes fully voiced and the Japanese Version certainly has awesome Seiyu (Voice actors). I did try the english demo, but I certainly didn't like the english voices (although that's entirely subjective) and quickly uninstalled the thing.
The most intresting stuff are the combined modes, which are called Fusion and Swap in the English version, and while I have quite some difficulties with Fusion, I have no problem swapping the CPU into oblivion.
This game actually has a kind of weird Price point: 5389 Yen, 30 Dollars or 40€, especially the large difference between US and Europe is something I honestly dont really like, and it is a really nice game.
Soldam Bloom Declaration is a game that is yet exclusive to the Japanese eShop. It recently got an update with translations for a whole lot of languages including German and English. The game is fairly simple in concept. you have to drop clusters of 4 colored fruits each, and when manage to enclose differently-colored fruits in one color, those different-colored fruits will change color othello-style. the target is to build rows (similarly to tetris), albeit that these rows have to be of a single color.and while you can in Tetris leave a column free and insert the "I" Block into that row to clear 4 lines in a "TETRIS!", in soldam, you can use the so-called "Clear Soldam"-Feature (I also call it the reference row), which puts a row of the last cleared Fruit at the bottom. for example you make and clear a blue row and and you a Blue row in the Clear Soldam. then you can build a huge base with essentially all Blue (and no we are not talking about One Piece here 🙂 ) but one column of different colors, doesnt matter which. and shortly before it's over you can insert a cluster with at least one blue fruit in a way that the whole column is enclosed in between that fruit and the clear Soldam, which alows you to instantly clear pretty much the whole board.
1500 yen as a price point is in my opinion okay, the game is nicely designed and I play it a lot.
Vroom in the Night Sky is actually one of the weirder Games in the eShop and despite all the bad reviews, I did have my fun and 100%ed the thing. I can't say too much about the English translation, because I played in Japanese, but the game did get an update which fixed some of the flaws that were even obvious in the Japanese version, such as the "Buyed" in the store when you already bought something was changed to "Sold Out". it certainly is a game, which I probably cant recommend for everyone, and it certainly has potential.
The game isnt that expensive, with 1000 yen or 9€ but you have to like it.
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is, well obviously the Main Game of the switch as of now. I personally think it's a bit hard especially for beginners and could certainly get an easy mode, I mean if a Hard Mode is possible via DLC, why not an Easy Mode. I honestly have seen the Game Over screen So often that it reminds me more of what the people on 9gag make Dark Souls look like, and I essentially call it the "Dark Souls on the Switch". But in general, the game isnt bad and has an Intresting story even though I am not in too much yet.
Zelda is quite an expensive game with the 70€ price tag, but I think it is pretty large at the end, and when you can work with the difficulty you probably also get 70 hours or even more in.
1-2-Switch is well, not a Game I played a lot, because I am a Single Player, even in Real life, I dont really have the people to play it with, but I did try some of the things essentially with me acting as both players, and well, This thing does work as a nice tech demo for some things but Wii Sports was by far a better tech demo for the Wii back then, especially since it was also possible playing it as Single Player and even I, a sports hater, played that a LOT. so in my opinion 1-2-Switch does have potential, but only when you have people willing to play with you.
I think the game isnt really worth its money.
Kamiko (which comes from Kami, which can be loosely translated as god or deity, and Miko, which is usually translated as "shrine maiden") is a retro-style Game, which seemingly is supposed to be speedrun in less than 30 Minutes, because to get a golden trophy Icon next to your time. Someone seemingly got it cleared in less than 17 Minutes, as far as the timer is concerned, I am not the speedrun-player and honestly I got lost a LOT in this game, but honestly even though the game is made for speedruns I think that the game should also be enjoyed slowly at least once and especially let the music sink in, becaise in my opinion, the music is THE MOST AWESOME THING of the whole game. while the retro-style 2D graphics certainly dont look bad, an option which allows for a bit "better" graphics (with the same 2D style, because nothing wrong with that, just a bit more detail and resolution) would also have been nice so it would not just be a feast for your ears but the eyes as well. Putting the tech facts aside the rather short Story is pretty much the following: You, Playing one out of three Miko, bestowed with a weapon have to Remove the Seals on the Torii Gates, to restore the connection to the Human World, of course with monsters and bosses in the way.
Your first option is Yamato, who has a Sword, which is probably the best choice for beginners, since the weapon is fast and just works, it is a bit weaker than the other two but is simpler and easier to use. her charge skill is a spinning attack with is really helpful to mow down many close enemies at once.
Then you have Uzume, with Bow and Arrow, which in my opinion was the hardest to use character because it's gonna get messy once enemies come close, since she can't do much close combat, and to top it, the weapon is slightly delayed, which certainly doesnt make things Easier, but she is a real help for the bosses since she essentially has a range of "until the next wall" and there are no walls while battling bosses, and with her charge skill being a whole lot of homing arrows, which really simplifies some hard times. The good things is that she can shoot multiple arrows in a combo. She first shoots one arrow straight, then 2 arrows slightly to the left and right and finally 3 arrows which are both straight and slightly to the left/right
Last on the List is Hinome, who has the Mirror of Yata, which behaves like a boomerang, and while the mirror is in the air, she can also utilize a dagger, for quick attacks, so she is a very intresting hybrid because she can shoot enemies from a distance, although not as far, as Uzume with her arrows, but but most awesome part of the Mirror of Yata is that it literally goes through enemies and will always get back to you, so you can throw it out and then run a bit, so it will return a different way, literally mowing them down at once, and still attack quickly close enemies in case that's needed, only that she always first needs needs to throw the Mirror, which sadly also has a slight delay, but with the fact that the mirror is objectively the strongest weapon, it makes sense to get a slight debuff. Her charge skill is essentially the mirror spinning around on the screen and wiping out some enemies who are in the way of the process, although this one is a whole lot more luck based than the other 2.
with a price of just 500 Yen, 5 US-Dollar or 5 €, this is a nice little cheap game which certainly is quite fun.
Of course Games are not everything, but the features are important in a general scale. with the switch being the first Nintendo console which has a real screeenshot function, the 3DS and the Wii U had something with Miiverse but that obviously needs internet and doesnt work in all games.
The Parental controls of the switch aren't bad, and with the right settings you can literally lock down the switch completely, so nobody can get in and do anything. The sad part is that you have to use the app for some more comprehensive settings like Playtime. At some points Nintendo really could also optimize the workflow of exiting parental controls. for example when adding a WLAN access point, you first go to the WLAN settings and search for networks, then you click on the network you want to add, which pops up the Parental control Unlock, after which it searches AGAIN, and then you can connect. and you have to go through that even if you already unlocked the parental controls.
One thing which Nintendo actually made worse is also the workflow when opening a locked game. instead of just asking for the PIN to start it like on the DSi, 3DS or Wii, it pops up a warning that you need to disable Parental controls temporarily with the button at the top of the screen (similar to Steam), which is still better than what we have on Playstation where you always need to go into the settings and disable the thing altogether and enable it later again, but still a step back from, "just ask when needed".
Talking about asking for the PIN though, the Switch REALLY needs to make one thing better: when you have "switch off device" enabled in your playtime settings, meaning that the switch will let you either enter your PIN or switch off, but the problem is that when you were in any part of the icons below you game list (News, eshop, Screenshot album, Controller quick settings or settings) the switch will immediately kick you back into the homescreen when you enter the PIN. this is especially annoying when you selected a certain news item on the Lock Screen and then you have to search it again in the TON of news that have been collected by now.
and one thing that's really weird is that when you want to enable the Parental Control again over the icon, it will ask you to close whatever game you are running, which is bizarre, because you dont have to close your game when entering standby mode which also enables the limitations of parental control again.
Some things where Nintendo still has problems certainly exist. To start off, the eshop. while in general not bad, the security aspect is problematic. you just have the choice between ask for password at every start of the eshop and do not ask at all, this can get a real annoyance very quickly if you like browsing the eshop just for the sake of it and Nintendo should look at Sony on how to do it better, on the PSN Store they only ask for your password when you actually buy something, and you dont have to enter anything for browsing, downloading demos, free games or free DLC.
Another Problem is that you cannot just turn off WLAN, you can try to go into Airplane mode and make exceptions for NFC and bluetooth, but that's 1) annoying and 2) not possible when the switch is docked in TV-Mode, which effectively means that you just have to pull your switch out if you want to disable WLAN, even if it's just to stabilize your framerate.
And then we have have profiles. while generally not bad, you dont have an option to lock them with a pin or whatever like on the PS4. meaning if you share a switch, they can just play with your savegames or pose as you in online play, which on many viewpoints is just bad.
From Problems to Weird Design Choices: Colored Single Joycons are (at least when I looked the last time) only available in japan and same-colored sets (I don't consider grey as a "color") just exist in Japan and America. This means that here in Germany you cannot replace a left blue or right red Joycon because these come with the Switch and the neon Joycon set is left red and right blue. and it continues that the switch is only available in Black with Grey Joycons or in Black with mixed Joycons. In Japan Nintendo had the Mercy to allow customization (you might want to open this link in a private window if you are logged in a Nintendo account that isnt from Japan) of an ordered switch, meaning that you can completely circumvent the annoying design choices and get a Black Switch with Blue Joycons and straps for example, while it is still Black, you dont have to go out for 75-80€ to buy another joycon set just to have both Joycons in Blue or red. And then you have 2 Joycons left over. if you dont do so much multiplayer, they are pretty much Useless (unless you want to use them on your PC)
More Weirdness for the joycons: the colored ones come with a Black strap, not grey but black, meaning they did take extra ressources to produce black straps just to bring people to buy the non-black straps. but there is a problem: The straps dont have the same color as the Joycons. (image from a German Amazon review) This is just embarassing, if they were included, it wouldnt be as bad but when you need to buy those they should at least look perfect.
It's not over yet. There's also The Joycon Comfort Grip, which is given along with the Switch, the most annoying part about this ordeal is it cannot charge the Joycons and Nintendo of course had to produce this extra, just so people have to throw more money at them,I thinnk it's ridiculous, they Seemingly sell the comfort grip seperately now for 15€ which is quite a lot for a bit of plastic metal and a few screws, and the charging function certainly doesnt cost another 15€, which arrives at 30€, the price for the charge grip.
Conclusion
Well Now it's over with overly praising and ranting about the Switch.
Long Story short, the Switch is a Great new Hybrid console which certainly stirs the market with the new Concept. And while it most certainly is far from perfect, I sure hope that it becomes a real success, because if not anything else, it is certainly unique.