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After years of waiting, Nintendo finally has a new video game console on the way: the Nintendo Switch.
It's a hybrid console — you can play it at home on your living-room television, or you can take it on the go. Here are the basics:
There's of course much more to the Switch than that, and Nintendo just offered a ton of new details. Here's everything we know about the Nintendo Switch, straight from the horse's mouth.
Here's what's in the box:
- A Switch tablet — the console itself is the tablet.
- A set of Joy-Con.
- The Switch dock, for connecting to your television.
- The Joy-Con dock/gamepad.
- Two wrist straps for making sure you don't lose the Joy-Con while playing a motion game.
- Two cables (power and HDMI).
What you see above is exactly what'll come in the box when Nintendo Switch arrives on March, 3: the Nintendo Switch Dock, the tablet-like console, and a home gamepad with the detachable Joy-Con in-tow. Notably, the controller is actually called the "Joy-Con Grip" — since you can detach each side of the Joy-Con bits and attach them to the Switch tablet, the Grip acts as a means of turning the Joy-Con into a more traditional gamepad.
Of note: Everything in the package is being sold separately. Want another Dock? You can buy one. Need just a left Joy-Con? Can do. Nintendo breaks it all down on its site.
The connection between the Switch and the Dock is a proprietary connector. In my experience, sliding the Switch tablet into the Dock was remarkably simple and easy. If you don't connect it perfectly on the first try, you can literally just slide the tablet around left and right until it connects. It feels like a natural fit, and there's a satisfying click when it's locked in. There is no learning curve.
That said, the Switch itself has a USB-C port on the bottom edge for charging. You can plug directly into an outlet from the tablet itself and play as long as you like (on a long flight, for instance). Notably, connecting the Switch to the Dock doesn't feel finicky (like connecting a smartphone to a speaker); it feels similar to docking the Wii U gamepad, actually.
The Joy-Con Grip gamepad has two offset analog sticks and four buttons on each side. There are also shoulder buttons and triggers on each side — the standard gamepad setup nowadays, more or less.
They slide in on each side of the Grip — there are rails on each side of the Grip which enable the Joy-Con to be easily attached. It's not a perfect gamepad solution, but it's the easiest one for the Switch that doesn't require buying a separate gamepad (more on that in a moment).
As you see above, the Joy-Con slide onto the sides of the screen, turning it into a portable handheld game console (similarly to the Grip). Each controller has a thumbstick and four main buttons. They can be used with the screen, detached from the screen, or used at home with the Nintendo Switch Dock.
Nintendo says the Switch lasts for about three hours while playing a game in portable mode.
As you can see above, Nintendo is offering different colors of Joy-Con. To start, they'll have the neon blue and red ones seen above, in addition to the standard set of gray Joy-Con.
As you can see in the image above, each Joy-Con can be held sideways and operated as its own gamepad. The thumbstick in the middle becomes the way you move, and the four buttons on the right side are for interaction. There are even two shoulder buttons on each.
You'll want to be careful not to lose these, as they cost $80 to replace. The same thing goes for those of you who want matching blue or red Joy-Con — they come in a package, but the package costs $80. If you'd prefer to just buy one to complete your set, they're sold individually for $50 each (for a left or right one by itself, to be clear).
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