Nintendo Reveals the Switch, its Handheld/Home Console Hybrid

So as it turns out all the rumors were true: Nintendo’s new console has been revealed and it’s both a handheld and a home console.

The Nintendo Switch (formerly known as the Nintendo NX) is Nintendo’s next step in bringing their success in handhelds to the home console market. Instead of just looking like its handheld brethren like the Wii U did, the Nintendo Switch will be Nintendo’s handheld console.

As demonstrated in the trailer below, the console can switch seamlessly from being played on your TV to being played on a handheld screen just by pulling it out of its dock. That handheld screen is the console itself, with game cartridges being inserted right into it, not the dock. The Switch screen can have two controllers, dubbed Joy-Con controllers, slid onto its sides. The Joy-Con controllers can also be used wirelessly if you want to set the screen down, which is made easy with a handy little stand it has built in the back. The console will have two controllers, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, which looks like a typical Xbox One-esque gamepad, and the Joy-Con Grip, which houses the removable Joy-Con controllers.

The Switch does indeed use cartridges, but very interestingly among the games shown in the trailer are some version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (possibly the remastered edition that’s on its way) and NBA 2K17. It’ll be interesting to see if these are full versions of these games or pared-down versions of what Nintendo’s competitors, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, are getting. The details of the Switch’s internals haven’t been released. If it does indeed match (or come close enough to) the processing power of the other consoles, it’ll be a major step-up for Nintendo, who have struggled over the last two console generations to convince gamers and developers that their consoles aren’t just for Nintendo’s own first-party exclusives.

Speaking of games, though, this was also our first look at whatever the new Mario game is going to be. It looks like the intrepid plumber is in some sort of colorful, desert town doing his usual thing like dodging Bullet Bills and jumping a lot.

Also shown off was the ability to connect two Switches wirelessly for multiplayer gaming, though more information about that wasn’t provided in the initial press release.

President and COO of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, said in a statement, “Nintendo Switch allows gamers the freedom to play however they like. It gives game developers new abilities to bring their creative visions to life by opening up the concept of gaming without boundaries.”

The Nintendo Switch trailer is embedded below. A partial list of developers and publishers working with the Nintendo Switch are beneath that.

The Nintendo Switch will release in March of 2017.

505 Games
LEVEL-5 Inc.
Activision Publishing, Inc.
Marvelous Inc.
ARC SYSTEM WORKS Co., Ltd.
Maximum Games, LLC
ATLUS CO., LTD.
Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.
Audiokinetic Inc.
Parity Bit Inc.
Autodesk, Inc.
PlatinumGames Inc.
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc.
RAD Game Tools, Inc.
Bethesda
RecoChoku Co., Ltd.
CAPCOM CO., LTD.
SEGA Games Co., Ltd.
Codemasters®
Silicon Studio Corporation
CRI Middleware Co., Ltd.
Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd.
DeNA Co., Ltd.
SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
Electronic Arts
Starbreeze Studios
Epic Games Inc.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
Firelight Technologies
Telltale Games
FromSoftware, Inc.
THQ Nordic
Frozenbyte
Tokyo RPG Factory Co., Ltd.
GameTrust
TT Games
GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC.
UBISOFT
Gungho Online Entertainment, Inc.
Ubitus Inc.
HAMSTER Corporation
Unity Technologies, Inc.
Havok
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
INTI CREATES CO., LTD.
Web Technology Corp
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD.
Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd.