87 Facts About Nintendo Switch

1.

The Nintendo Switch's design is aimed at a wide demographic of video game players through multiple modes of use.

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2.

Nintendo Switch opted to use more standard electronic components, such as a chipset based on Nvidia's Tegra line, to make development for the console easier for programmers and more compatible with existing game engines.

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3.

Sales of the Switch have been strongly tied to sales of Nintendo's first-party titles, with six games—The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Smash Bros.

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4.

Nintendo Switch had posted its first loss as a video game company in 2012 prior to the Wii U's introduction that year and would have similar losses in the following years due to the console's poor uptake.

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5.

The New York Times attributed Nintendo Switch lowering financial forecasts in 2014 to weak hardware sales against mobile gaming.

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6.

The "Nintendo Switch" name was selected not only to refer to the console's ability to switch from handheld to home console modes, but to present "the idea of being a 'switch' that will flip and change the way people experience entertainment in their daily lives".

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7.

Nintendo Switch was not focused on raw processing power but was instead looking to balance the overall features of the system, including battery life and size, as well as keeping in mind their limited development resources and timeline.

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8.

At this stage, Nintendo Switch referred to the console under the codename "NX" and described it as a "brand new concept".

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9.

At an investor's meeting in April 2016, Nintendo Switch announced that it planned to release the NX worldwide in March 2017.

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10.

At a Nintendo Switch shareholders' meeting following the conference, Miyamoto stated that the company had concerns that competitors could copy ideas from the NX if they revealed it too soon.

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11.

The following month, rumors began to surface surrounding the nature of the console, including its use of Nvidia Tegra hardware, being a "hybrid" device intended for both home and mobile use, controllers that can detach from the main device and be played separately, and that Nintendo Switch would distribute games on the console via cartridges and digital downloads.

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12.

At the time of the trailer's release, Nintendo Switch did not provide many details on features of the platform, though they planned to have events in 2017 to provide more details about the console.

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13.

Nintendo Switch did state that there are additional features that were not presented in the introductory trailer.

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14.

Nintendo Switch feared that a higher price would harm sales, which prompted them to not include any additional hardware or games.

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15.

Nintendo Switch abruptly withdrew from the Turkish market back in June 2012 when then-distributor Nortec Eurasia closed.

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16.

Tencent will continue to help Nintendo bring other Switch games through China's approval process via National Radio and Television Administration.

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17.

Nintendo Switch had exited the Brazilian market in 2015 due to high tariffs, but independent resellers have been trading the console in Brazil since March 2017.

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18.

Nintendo Switch is a hybrid video game console, consisting of a console unit, a dock, and two Joy-Con controllers.

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19.

Furthermore, the company has stated that the Switch and the Nintendo 3DS are meant to co-exist, considering the 3DS as an entry-level product for younger players.

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20.

Main unit of the Nintendo Switch is the console, a battery-powered tablet-like monitor that consists of an LCD screen measuring 6.

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21.

Nintendo stated that the Switch is a "single-screen experience", in that the player either sees the content on the console when it is out of the dock, or on the screen attached to the dock when the console is docked.

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22.

Nintendo Switch comes with two controllers, collectively called Joy-Con and individually called the "Joy-Con " and "Joy-Con ".

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23.

Kimishima suggested that the Nintendo Switch is part of a large ecosystem of devices, though the Nintendo Switch unit remains the core console element.

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24.

Nintendo Switch offers a Joy-Con Wheel, a small steering wheel-like unit that a Joy-Con can slot into, allowing it to be used for racing games such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

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25.

Nintendo Switch released Ring Fit Adventure in October 2019, which includes a Leg Strap to mount a Joy-Con to a leg, and the Ring-Con, a flexible hard plastic ring with Joy-Con mounting.

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26.

In February 2017, Nintendo Switch president Tatsumi Kimishima stated that it had been "studying" virtual reality solutions, but felt that comfort was a main concern.

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27.

Nintendo Switch ultimately unveiled a new Labo VR kit in March 2019, using a cardboard headset and viewer placed in front of the console's screen, in combination with attached accessories.

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28.

The Nintendo Switch uses a system-on-chip from the Tegra family of products, developed in partnership with Nvidia.

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29.

Nintendo Switch is primarily powered in Handheld mode by a non-removable 4310 mAh, 3.

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30.

Nintendo Switch gives the example of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild supporting approximately three hours of battery life.

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31.

Nintendo Switch offers the means for replacing batteries through its customer support.

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32.

The Switch did not support external storage units at launch, but Nintendo stated that they were looking into adding this feature in the future.

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33.

At launch, the Nintendo Switch did not support Bluetooth wireless headphones, though they can be connected if a Bluetooth adaptor is connected to the headphone jack.

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34.

Around July 2018, Nintendo quietly released Switch units with minor hardware changes and updated firmware to block exploits in the original Switch models that led to the ability to extract ROM images from game cards and software.

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35.

Nintendo Switch is produced between Taiwan-based Foxconn and Japan-based Hosiden, with Foxconn accounting for the largest volume.

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36.

Nintendo did not plan to sell the Switch below manufacturing cost at launch, as they had done for both the 3DS and Wii U at their respective launches; Nintendo affirmed that the Switch would be profitable from launch during its 2016 fiscal year earnings report, as the company saw the console as a key earnings driver for 2017 and beyond.

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37.

Kimishima anticipated that the Nintendo Switch will have lifetime sales numbers similar to the Wii, which sold 101 million units by 2016.

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38.

Fils-Aime said in September 2017 that their 2017 production target for the Nintendo Switch could be hampered by bottlenecks in individual components.

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39.

DigiTimes reported in October 2017 that Nintendo had further shifted the production rate for the Switch up to 2 million per month, with plans to ship 20 million units by the end of the year; the newspaper stated that the production rate was limited by component availability, and not by other factors of Nintendo's production process.

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40.

In June 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that Nintendo was starting to move some of its production of the Switch and two hardware revisions of the Switch outside of China and into Southeast Asia to limit the impact of new United States tariffs on electronics made in China.

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41.

The Nintendo Switch Lite is a single unit, integrating the Joy-Con as part of the main unit's hardware, and uses a smaller screen measuring 5.

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42.

Potential revisions to the Switch were observed by a notification Nintendo had sent to the Federal Communications Commission alerting the FCC to changes in the Switch's system-on-a-chip and NAND memory from its original design in July 2019.

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43.

DigiTimes corroborated reports of a new hardware version of the Switch, stating Nintendo planned to release a new version with an improved CPU and magnesium alloy body in the second half of 2020.

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44.

Bloomberg News continued to state that a higher-end revision of the Nintendo Switch was in the works, reporting in September 2021 that development kits for this new model had been received by several developers they had spoken to.

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45.

Bloomberg claimed that Nintendo pivoted on the high-end design and instead redesigned the base Switch model to use the OLED screens instead, holding off plans for the high-end Switch model release until at least 2022 after chip supplies had become more stable.

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46.

Nintendo Switch continued its white hat security program that it had with the Nintendo Switch 3DS.

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47.

Users studying the hardware determined that Nintendo has the capacity to permanently ban specific Switch consoles used to obtain software via this exploit from the Nintendo Network, as the Switch console includes a unique device identification code used as part of the validation to the Network.

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48.

In March 2017, Nintendo Switch said that they had plans to provide other methods for registering friends, including through third-party social media and via Nintendo Switch Network IDs.

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49.

Nintendo Switch did not launch with any multimedia-oriented features, such as a web browser, a messaging system or support for video streaming services.

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50.

Fils-Aime said that because the Nintendo Switch is geared as a gaming console that is far different from what their competitors offer, they had focused on achieving that goal first and foremost, and did not see media support as a differentiator from their competitors.

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51.

Games for the Nintendo Switch can be obtained through either retail channels or digitally through the Nintendo eShop.

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52.

Nintendo Switch otherwise allows publishers to set the price for a game, only requiring the list price be the same for physical and digital releases, if a physical release is made.

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53.

Game cards at the time of the Switch's release had a 32GB capacity; Nintendo had planned to introduce 64GB game cards by the second half of 2018, but had to push this back.

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54.

Early examples of such games on the Nintendo Switch include Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Phantasy Star Online 2 and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey which were primarily limited to Japanese releases, while more recently Control and Hitman 3 will be offered through cloud gaming worldwide in 2020 and beyond.

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55.

Nintendo Switch recommends using the appropriate regional eShop for digital purposes for obtaining the best post-purchase support if needed.

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56.

Nintendo Switch opted to go region-free to reduce the amount of workload and cost to both themselves and developers in having to manage two or more regional certification processes and different ROM cartridge production pathways for those regions.

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57.

Further, eShop purchases, while still tied to the Nintendo Account, are not tied to the specific Switch console, as was the case for previous Nintendo hardware.

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58.

Once the user re-registers their account to a Nintendo Switch, they have access to download all previous purchases; however, a user can only have their account registered on one console at a time, and downloaded software tied to an account cannot be used if that account is not registered to the device.

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59.

The Nintendo Switch is not backwards compatible with other digital titles from previous consoles.

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60.

Electronic Arts' executive Patrick Soderlund said that Nintendo had taken a different track with attracting third-party developers to the Switch and have engaged Electronic Arts and other major developers throughout the development of the Switch, listening to their input, to help make the Switch more successful.

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61.

Some, like Yacht Club Games, who have ported Shovel Knight to the Nintendo Switch, noted that some of the major innovations in the Nintendo Switch, such as the Joy-Con, were not revealed to them until just prior to the January 2017 announcement.

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62.

Nintendo Switch offers several of these indie games as "Nindies" through the eShop.

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63.

Indie developers have found that Nintendo has had a significant role in the promotion and marketing of their games, including using the games to help promote the Switch itself, in contrast to Microsoft or Sony.

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64.

However, Baker does anticipate that Nintendo Switch will be much more open in the future, once they have addressed the necessary issues for curation and discovery of titles via the eShop.

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65.

Nintendo Switch had previously relied more on providing its own internally developed tools and libraries that third-party developers would use to develop games for earlier systems.

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66.

Unity Technologies, Epic Games, and the Khronos Group pledged support to help developers bring games to the Nintendo Switch using their game engines and middleware, Unity, Unreal Engine 4, and the Vulkan and OpenGL graphical APIs, respectively; for instance, the Unreal Engine toolkit was updated in February 2017 to provide beta testing for native support for Nintendo Switch games, with full support added by May 2017.

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67.

In March 2018, Nintendo announced it had gained support of YoYo Games' GameMaker Studio 2 engine for the Switch.

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68.

Positive analyses of the Switch's impact on Nintendo's third party relations were frequently laced with the caveat that Nintendo would have to work to transition their third party support from the Switch to the Switch's successor properly, something they had routinely failed at in the past.

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69.

The console's reveal trailer showcased footage from new titles in Nintendo Switch franchises, including Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Splatoon 2, as well as footage from NBA 2K18 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

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70.

Nintendo Switch did not launch with any bundled games or have any pre-loaded games or game demos; Fils-Aime stated that once they had decided on the price point and evaluated the forthcoming game lineup, they opted to allow consumers to choose which games to get rather than include one in the bundle and increase its price.

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71.

Fils-Aime said that Nintendo planned a "steady cadence of content" for the Switch after launch, avoiding the perceived situation with gaps between major releases for Wii U software.

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72.

Key part of marketing the Switch was to be "crystal clear in our communication of what the product was and what the product could do", according to Fils-Aime, so as to avoid similar issues with how they presented the Wii U While the Wii U was designed as a home console unit, Nintendo's lack of clarity on this point led to a general assumption that the unit, principally the Wii U GamePad, was more like a tablet, overshadowing the Wii U's other features .

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73.

Nintendo Switch believed that some consumers had mistaken the Wii U GamePad as being an accessory for the existing Wii console, rather than being the flagship feature of an entirely new platform.

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74.

Example, the October 2016 trailer was designed to show the various ways that the Switch can be used so that viewers would recognize that "each of its forms offer different play experiences for people to enjoy".

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75.

Nintendo Switch aired its first-ever Super Bowl ad during the United States broadcast of Super Bowl LI.

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76.

Chavez emphasized that Nintendo's overall marketing for Switch was not be "just a six to eight week launch campaign", but "really a 15 month campaign for us, to say nothing of our plans for 2018".

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77.

Kimishima felt that it was important, particularly for "career gamers", for Nintendo to get the Switch into players' hands, so that players could understand how the system differs from Nintendo's previous offerings.

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78.

Some expressed concern that the Nintendo Switch failed to address the issues that led to poor Wii U sales, and was aimed at a small audience.

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79.

However, other analysts found that the pricing factors indicated the Nintendo Switch was a more robust console, and would likely sell better than the Wii U, with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild being a key sales driver.

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80.

Analysts believed investors felt the Switch was very risky and were unsure if the unit would draw new audiences to Nintendo.

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81.

Many users reported issues with defective pixels on the LCD screen of the console, which Nintendo Switch has stated "are normal and should not be considered a defect".

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82.

Retailer GameStop reported that initial sales of the Nintendo Switch were "phenomenal" and on track to surpass the Wii U based on their historical sales data, with merchandising director Eric Bright saying the Nintendo Switch has had "one of the highest attach rates of software and accessories to a device that we've seen in a long time".

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83.

Nintendo Switch continued to show strong sales throughout its first year of release.

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84.

NPD Group adjusted their future performance of the Nintendo Switch to follow more closely with the Wii's lifetime sales rather than the Wii U's.

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85.

In September 2017, Nintendo announced a partnership with Tencent, the leading publisher for mobile games in China, to bring their title Arena of Valor, the international version of their mainland Chinese game Wangzhe Rongyao, to the Switch following its December 2017 release in Western markets on mobile platforms.

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86.

The suit alleges that Nintendo Switch is aware of a defect that causes the controllers to register movements without the joysticks being touched, but does not "disclose the defect and routinely refuses to repair the joysticks without charge".

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87.

Subsequently, Nintendo Switch filed lawsuits initially against several resellers of Team Xecuter products in 2020, and in one case, settled with the reseller for.

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