Nintendo Reveals Release Date, Price and Games for Its New Console

The Nintendo Switch Presentation is over, so let’s run down the bullet points. And if you’re coming into this blind, know that Nintendo had already announced that the Switch is a hybrid console and portable, with a tablet that can be connected to a television through a docking station, and removable controllers called Joy-Cons that can attach to the sides of the tablet or slide into a shell that resembles a traditional controller.

So yes, tonight we learned the following:

1. It’s coming out on March 3, 2017.

2. It’ll cost $299.99.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a launch title.

4. Super Mario Odyssey, a new 3D Mario game set in a sandbox world that resembles New York City (a sign in the game referenced New Donk City), was announced for the holiday season of 2017. Game footage showed Mario using his hat as a weapon and a tool, riding some kind of lion-looking creature, and awkwardly interacting with semi-realistic looking humans throughout New Donk City. There was also a pretty awesome shot of Bowser wearing a white wedding tux with a top hat.

5. Splatoon 2, the sequel to one of the best original Wii U games, is aiming for a Summer 2017 release window, and will be supported by stage and arena updates and regular events after launch.

6. No new Mario Kart was announced, but footage that appeared to be from Mario Kart 8 was shown early in the stream and again at the end as part of a closing sizzle reel.

7. That $299.99 will get you the system, the dock, two of the Joy-Con controllers (which are mandatory to play the thing, of course), the shell used to convert those Joy-Cons into a more traditional gaming controller, and all the cables you need to hook it up to a TV.

8. The Switch will support online play, with chat and some kind of friend list.

9. The online play will be free at launch but will become a subscription service later in 2017.

10. The online play is not region locked, meaning you can play online against players from around the world.

11. The Joy-Con controllers can also sense motion and distance, which means Nintendo showed up a decent amount of Wii-style motion controller games.

12. Up to eight Switches can be linked together for local multiplayer, meaning you can flashback to the LAN parties of old with your new-fangled Nintendo tablet console.

13. The tablet’s battery life is pretty short. Depending on the game, a fully charged Switch will last between two and a half and six hours on the go.

14. Other games announced include 1, 2 Switch, which appears to be a minigame collection built around the Joy-Con’s motion controller abilities; Arms, an arena boxing game with spring-armed characters that also uses the motion sensing; Xenoblade Chronicles 2; Dragon Quest Heroes I and II from Square-Enix; Project Octopath Traveller, another new role-playing game from Square-Enix; Fire Emblem Warriors from Koei-Tecmo / Team Ninja; EA’s FIFA; and some kind of Shin Megami Tensai business from Atlus. Some games that we already basically knew about, including Dragon Quest X and XI and a version of Skyrim, were also briefly mentioned. Sega also announced they’d be working on Switch games, although no titles were released.

15. Suda 51 announced that Travis Touchdown, the star of No More Heros, which was originally a Wii exclusive, will be returning to a new game for the Switch. Little information was shared about this one, other than the fact that it doesn’t yet have a name and that it will also probably involve wrestling. (The translation was rough here, so it was hard to tell if Suda 51 was talking about Touchdown using wrestling moves, which he did in the No More Heroes games, or if he was talking about a separate game he wants to make that incorporates wrestling.)

16. A video showed near the end of the presentation showed clips from a variety of games that have not yet been mentioned in conjunction with the Switch, including Street Fighter 2, Bomber Man, Tetris, Minecraft, some Rayman and Lego stuff, something involving Sonic, and more. Much of this footage looked like it could be referencing whatever form the Virtual Console will take with the Switch; the Street Fighter 2 clip was definitely of older vintage.

And that’s all that we know as of 12:36 AM on Friday, Jan. 13, 2017. Tomorrow morning we’ll get getting some hands on time with the Switch at a press event in New York, so check back for some first-hand impressions.