Will you make the Switch!!

Nintendo are back! well that's the word going around from a lot of gamers and industry leaders, they released the console reveal trailer to much applause. They seem to have won back a tremendous amount of 3rd party support and really look as though they could get back in the game. I will admit the trailer did excite me, my inner child squealed a joy filled scream. I have much love for Nintendo my first home console was a NES some 25 years ago now, I still play a lot of Mario's retro titles on my 3DS quite often today. The last two home console generations however have seen Nintendo take a step away from the norm and try to innovate the way we play games at home much like they did with the release of the DS back in 2004 for handheld gamers. I guess the success of the DS prompted this considering its Nintendo's most profitable console to date with lifetime sales of around 154 millions units shipped.
        The Nintendo Wii released on November 19th 2006 and was a instant hit, it sported innovative motion controls and changed the way we played games in our living room. Much of the Nintendo Wii's success was due to it captivating such  wide audience. People who had never played a video game before could pick up and play Wii Sports on a Nintendo Wii and enjoy it. The Wii proved popular at parties and even in retirement homes, and with some great titles including one of my favourites Super Mario Galaxy has sold in its life time just over 101 million units. However even though the Wii sold in excess of 100 million units few people bought games, a lot stuck to the included Wii sports title which I will admit is endlessly re-playable and fun. This to me was the point where Nintendo started to loose its 3rd party support.

The Wii U launched November 18th 2012, Nintendo aimed to get some much needed Christmas sales, and also take a head start against Sony and Microsoft . Unfortunately Nintendo's unclear message and lack of hardware power lead to poor sales (only just over 13 million units to date) and saw Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's Xbox One take quick leads on Nintendo's console. Nintendo lost a lot of 3rd party support for the Wii U which also lead to large draughts of software releases for the console. Don't get me wrong I personally enjoyed my Wii U, I liked the ability to play on the tablet while the wife watched TV and the way the tablet's capabilities were worked into Nintendo Land were brilliant. Unfortunately for Nintendo consumers just didn't want a piece of the Wii U pie, which I feel was really disappointing as I think some of Nintendo's best games are on this console what with Splatoon, Super Mario 3D World, and Yoshi's Woolly World, these were great titles let down by there Console. 

Enter Nintendo Switch, Nintendo's latest entry and there take on a next generation console. Slated for a March 2017 release, Nintendo have so far teased us with a 3 minute trailer showing us a few of the consoles new features and glimpses of a few games possibly to hit the console hopefully at launch. What we know so far is that the console is a home/hybrid console. There is a dock station which connects to the TV in which the tablet slots into, you play on your TV like a traditional home console, however if you leave the house you now have the option of disconnecting sections of the controller attaching them to the tablet and removing it from the dock and continuing to play your game on the move. The difference between the Switch and the Wii U is that the Switch's tablet feature will work anywhere, you are not restricted to remaining within a certain distance of the home dock/console. Not much else is known at this point other than it will be powered by a custom Tegra processor which includes a NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture found in some of the top Geforce gaming rigs. Nintendo have announced there will be a Direct press conference containing much more details January Next year. So for now we wit with baited breath to see what other goodies will accompany Nintendo's latest entry into the console race. EA have announced that a few of there bigger titles will port over to the new console. I really believe Nintendo have possibly found there stride again with this one and am looking forward to what they reveal in the months to come. Check out the teaser reveal below...