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Nintendo announces new game console: the Switch

Entertainment | 21st October 2016

By nq_admin

  • Nintendo's new Switch console promises to be a game changer with its official announcement yesterday

  • The new console, that looks like a tablet you can attach controllers to its side, hopes to appeal to both home based gamers and also handheld gamers

Nintendo are hoping its new console, previously named the NX, will entice the millions of gamers they lost after the release of the Nintendo WiiU in 2012.

Nintendo released a short “teaser” which show cased what one analyst said to be Nintendo’s “last shot” at selling a home console.  A highlight of the video shows one guy playing a game from home on the television, then moves it to portable play in the taxi, on the plane and then back home and onto the television.

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Nintendo Switch can be seated in a dock to play games on a television or used as a stand-alone portable device and boast some top third party developers working on games such as Activision, Capcom and Ubisoft, three developers who moved away from producing games for its predecessor WiiU.

Another interesting announcement is that the Switch will use small cartridges to deliver its games, moving back to Nintendo’s routes.  The last time a home console used cartridges was back in the 90s with the N64 that homed groundbreaking games such as The Legend of Zelda and Goldeneye. 

To find out if people actually were interested we took to Twitter, and out of the 50 people polled, 75% said that they were excited for the release of the Nintendo Switch.  With over 8 million views of the announcement YouTube video, interest in Nintendo doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

However, not everyone got what the Nintendo Switch was, with some taking to FaceBook to voice their confusion:

Nintendo, however, are yet to reveal its technical specifications, so it’s hard to compare it to its competitors from Sony and Microsoft.  Nintendo has defiantly gotten people watching with anticipation and the wait isn’t as far away as you may think as it’s been given a March 2017 release.

As a huge Nintendo fan I was so happy to see not only a new Legend of Zelda game but also showcasing a new Super Mario game and Mario Kart game. For me, Nintendo do an amazing job at making software, so if all fails with the home consoles they have a great future in making games for other consoles.