In a three-minute “Preview Trailer” released this morning (and teased last night), Nintendo gave the world its first glimpse of the mysterious “Project NX”, more than 19 months after the company first launched its “dedicated gaming platform with a brand”. -new concept.” The system is called the Nintendo Switch.
As has been widely rumored, that “new concept” includes a console/portable hybrid system with two detachable, one-handed controllers sitting next to a tablet-style screen. Nintendo refers to these publicly as “Joy-Con” controllers, which “can be used by many people for a variety of gameplay options. They can easily snap back into place or slide into a Joy-Con Grip accessory, allowing for a more traditional controller.” The system also supports a Nintendo Switch Pro controller with a more traditional dual-analog stick form factor and supports local multiplayer gaming on multiple Switch tablets at once, according to a press release.
“In addition to single and multiplayer thrills at home, the Nintendo Switch system also allows gamers to play the same title wherever, whenever and with whomever they want,” Nintendo said in a press release announcing the system. “The mobility of a handheld has now been added to the power of a home gaming system to enable unprecedented new styles of video game play.”
The tablet slides into a small dock to connect to the TV, at which point the controllers can be removed and reattached to a central base separate from the tablet screen. On the road, the tablet appears to have a small built-in kickstand on the rear kickstand, allowing players to place it on a flat surface when playing from far away.
There is no indication in the short trailer whether or not the tablet has a touchscreen, a la Nintendo’s Wii U. The trailer does show a short scene of a user inserting a small, SD-like flash memory card into the top of the system. seems to confirm rumors that the system will not distribute physical games on discs.
The short teaser trailer briefly showed gameplay footage from The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, super marioand splatoon series, as well as third-party titles in the Skyrim and NBA 2K franchises. A Nintendo-published list of a “sample of Nintendo Switch partners” includes major publishers such as Square Enix, Sega, Konami, Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Take-Two, Warner Bros., EA, Codemasters, and more.
Nvidia has confirmed that the Switch will be powered by a custom Tegra processor that “is based on the same architecture as the world’s best performing GeForce gaming graphics cards.” No technical specifications have been provided yet, but Nvidia promised a “renewed physics engine, new libraries, advanced game tools and libraries [and] new gaming APIs to take full advantage of this performance,” as well as “hardware-accelerated video rendering and custom audio effects and rendering software.”
In the trailer, Nintendo reconfirmed its intention to launch the Switch in March 2017.