Nintendo Switch: What we want from the new console

Hey what's up everyone. I'm Jeff Bakalar. Thank you so much for joining us right now. I'm joined by Scott Stein. How are you sir? I'm good. How are you? I'm pretty good. We've had quite the week in the world of tech, specifically Nintendo. They have announced Their brand new hybrid console. The thing we've all been anticipating, all been expecting. The Nintendo Switch. The Switch. And it's coming in March 2017. It's like right around the corner. It's freaking five months from now, if you can believe it. And they've kept it under wraps up until now. We knew a little bit about the details and some of the stuff kind of checked out. So what was your first impression of that debut trailer? Released? Well it was kind of something we thought about even when the Wii U first came out. Right. We were talking about it that that game pad only worked with the console. And you think, well, they have a handheld, why doesn't all this stuff also work on the go? Sure. So in that sense it looks like the switch is that thing, it's a handheld and console. But it looks like it's More a hand held console, we were talking about that, too, that maybe it's a handheld plus a little bit of console thrown in, and then there's a lot of other questions about, like, you know, does that replace the 3DS going down the road? How interoperable is it? It looks like it's got a lot of pieces swapping in and out. But I mean it looks potentially like that all in one that we were hoping for. I think on paper, and when I say on paper, I mean this video yeah I think it looks pretty cool. Look I think Nintendo has earned the right, that massive catastrophic failure of the WiiU aside, I think they have earned the right for The sort of hesitation, but optimistic sort of hesitation, right? I think they've sort of earned that by this time. I think so. And it's, for how many years now, Nintendo's this company that we just expect weird things to happen with hardware. It's like what crazy thing are they gonna do? They've become that company. The Wii U with its crazy controller, and glasses free 3D, and even the DS with the dual screens. So I feel like this is another step in that like, what is this crazy idea hardware wise? And that's kinda half the appeal of what they're debuting. In fact, what we don't know for the most part, seems to be a lot of the games and software. Right. And how does this actually work All right, all we got/ that, clusters optimization is like Yeah. Okay, what's this little controller about? What happens when I dock it? Does the dock change the way the game thing works? Having that, and obviously, the big elephant in the room is what's the battery life gonna be like on that screen? For me- Exactly. So what do you think? What would you be happy with And what are you expecting? [LAUGH] That's a good question. So we've actually seen a couple things that are not entirely unlike this. I got yelled at on Twitter, saying it's not the same thing, but, it's not, but the Nvidia Tegra, there will be a Tegra processor in this. This thing, Nvidia had a Shield tablet, we've seen, that played games and also docked with a TV. And then you've had a couple things that have been almost like that, I feel like five hours would be what I would expect I think that's too high. And that seems way too high, right? Maybe anything lower than three would be awful. I think if it is three, that is a Massive upsetting detail. Yeah. No way this thing can have three hours. i think they're gonna say it's like four and a half. Yeah, I feel like for some reason I feel like five. If they come out and say five, I'm happy cuz all I really care about is that LA to New York plane. Right. Like I just wanna get across the country and do my thing. Do you think they're gonna have a battery pack What are the odds they're gonna have an extended -- This thing looks like it's seven inches, six to seven inches -- That's what I was wondering, what do you think? I think it's six and change, maybe seven. I think it might be, I was looking at It might be six? I mean look, that is wide, man, that is a wide thing. It is, but then there in that hand, yeah compared to a phone, so like an iPhone Plus is 5.5 inches, and all of our android, so it looks bigger than your big screen phone which would suggest 6 plus. Definitely- And the Wii U was a 6.2 inch. Right it's definitely bigger than 6. Hard to tell with all the angles, [UNKNOWN] close up, but, and the question is, how big do you want it to be? Cuz some of these games that they're showing, they're playing in split screen on that little screen. Right. Kind of like an iPad, so maybe it's almost an iPad, I mean I've had many 7.9. I think that's where we're going, I think the shield, how big was the shield? The shield was a 7 inch, I'm trying to remember. That's in the ball park of what the Switch is gonna wind up up being. Yeah. I think, go back to those controllers, they're called Play-Con controller. Or non, what are they? Joy-Con. Joy-Con controllers. That's like a convention. Yeah, come to Joy-Con and. So I wonder how that's gonna shake out You know, those things look real small. Super small. It's kind of like a little cute, I mean, you got the mini NES coming out. It almost feels like a continuation of the novelty thing. Yeah. Really, like little, mini controllers. You're playing, like, a cute, little table-top Nintendo system. For sure. I don't know. Again, all speculation. We haven't had hands on with it. We don't know exactly what's gonna be going on. Do those little joy controllers have little gyroscopes in them? Do they vibrate? Right. They need power because they're wireless- How long do they last?- How is that gonna work?>> Right is that three or four hours, is the whole thing fours in play, is it quick charge- Again that dock like I said that dock can't just be an HDMI breakout thing- No- There's gotta, maybe something else is going on in there It's got to play that 1080p to a TV but maybe on the screen it can only be 720p. There's a lot that we have to discuss.>>>There's a lot of questions. Nintendo hasn't been giving the answers. Nintendo did send back a couple of answers that were very vague, and one was that it will play all the games, suggesting it will play all the games in both modes. Right.>>> But again, will it play all the games in all, With all the extras. Will there be things in your docket, you get extra modes. And then you're like in away mode. Who knows. All I know is for a developer to program a game to work with all these different button configurations and control types. That is not an easy thing. Listen, we've gotta say goodbye for now, Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Lots of questions, maybe more questions than what we had before -- We had a lot of questions, yeah we were writing a story about coming up with how many questions and realized there were tons of questions, including price, And yeah, just what type of games you're gonna play on this. For sure. And does it even have a touch screen, we don't know. We don't know, big developer support list though, that's encouraging. That's big. That is really nice to see. But definitely make sure you keep it right here at CNet, we're gonna have all the latest on Nintendo Switch. Because as you can see, we're a little excited about it. See you guys soon. Thanks so much. [MUSIC]