New gaming consoles

Article n°1: Nintendo Switch: Everything You Need to Know About the Ambitious Shape-Shifting Console

By Alex Cranz

In just a couple of short months, Nintendo’s first console since 2012, Switch, will be here. Nintendo made the console’s existence known last October, but until tonight was completely mum on any and all details. Now we know a lot more about the company’s shape-shifting console. So here are the facts.

Design

The Nintendo Switch looks like a whole new breed of console, but fans of the Nvidia Shield will find a little familiar ground. Like the Shield, the Switch is a chunky tablet that plays games. Also like the Shield, it can be connected to a television so those games can be played on a bigger and prettier screen.

But the Switch uses a special dock to send signals to the TV. Drop the system onto the dock and instantly go to playing games on the big screen—no obnoxious pairing or wireless connectivity requirements. More importantly, the Switch has what could potentially be a better controller. The Shield came with a big, fat, separate controller that you connected to the tablet via Bluetooth. The Switch has that option too, and calls it the “Switch Pro.”

But the Switch’s Joy-Con controller looks like the fun one, and as it closely resembles the Switch logo, it’s safe to say Nintendo is hoping we like it as much as its logo designers do.

 The Joy-Con controller (available in multiple colors) is made up of two small palmable controllers, each with a joystick and 4-button layout. When playing on the tablet you can connect the controllers to each side, effectively turning the Switch into something like a gargantuan Sony PSP. But the controllers can be disconnected and used separately, which might be useful for games that require motion controllers like with the old Wii, or for when you want to have some quick two-player action.

When the Switch is docked into the TV, the controllers latch together around a giant battery back. That should give you more playtime, but the controller plus battery pack configuration also looks huge. Like original Xbox One controller huge. So that might, just maybe, be a downside for the tiny handed people among us.

The inside of each controller has two shoulder buttons.

It does look like Nintendo wants you to use the Joy-Con controllers in both hands. Nintendo’s introduced depth-sensing sensors so the controller knows where it is in relation your body, and a new style of force feedback that Nintendo claims can perfectly mimic the clink of ice in a glass.

These sensors also allow you to play games with other people that don’t require you to look at the screen. Instead you face your opponent, and as Nintendo’s hardware designer said, “Look them in the eyes.” Nintendo’s first example of the tech was launch title 1-2-Switch which lets you do sword and pistol duels in your living room.

Nintendo’s dramatization of the depth sensor.

Specs

Specs continue to be frustratingly scarce. We still don’t know what kind of resolution the tablet has or what it will playback on the TV. We don’t even know how fast the wi-fi is.

But here’s what we do know:

The Switch features a capacitive touch panel.

It charges via USB-C.

Battery life will depend on the game, with Nintendo saying it could last anywhere from 2.5 hours to 6 hours.

Wi-fi is, naturally, built in, and the system will support linking up to 8 Switches together for old fashioned wireless multiplayer gaming.

The system runs on a custom processor from Nvidia that’s rumored to be based on the architecture in the Shield tablet and console.

Games

Because the Switch has some really incredible tech in the Joy-Con controllers, a number of the launch titles are focused on the new gimmick. That includes 1-2-Switch, which was developed in-house by Nintendo’s hardware team to show off the capabilities of the controller and is a collection of quick games, and Arms, a fighting game that lets your onscreen avatar punch opponents every time you punch the air in real time.

Splatoon 2, the sequel to a popular Wii U title, is also making an appearance on the Switch, but won’t be available until later this year. Same with the next Mario game, which is due in the fall of 2017. The little Italian plumber will be appearing Super Mario Odyssey, an open world game that appears to be, at least partially, set in a city full of normal sized people. If there is something none of us ever needed to see, it was Mario in the real world again.

Rounding out the first party games are Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Fire Emblem Warriors. Neither of which appear to have official launch dates.

Oh, and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which will launch with the console on March 3.

For third party support, Square Enix is planning to make three different Dragon Quest games, Atlus and Sega have both promised games, and Bethesda is porting the nearly six-year-old Skyrim. There’s also a sequel to the excellent (if 10 years old) No More Heroes. No More Heroes was one of the better, and certainly more stylish, games to drop on the original Wii. 

And EA is turning the Switch into a real console contender with the announcement of a new FIFA game for the Switch.

Unfortunately most of these games don’t yet have release dates beyond “sometime in 2017,” which makes the official number of launch titles pretty dang tiny.

Release Date and Price

The Nintendo Switch will be available in all major territories March 3, 2017 and retail for $300 here in the US. Also, for the first time ever, Nintendo’s console will be completely region-free, which means you’ll be able to play Japan-only games on day one in the US.

The Switch will be available in two configs. Both will be priced the same, but one will have gray Joy-Con controllers and the other will have one neon red and one neon blue Joy-Con controller.

Nintendo will be having a second event tomorrow here in New York, and Gizmodo will be there, trying out Zelda, Skyrim, and maybe even Mario.

Article n°2 : First look: Nvidia Shield 2017

By Nick Pino

Take your video streaming to the next level

Nvidia isn’t changing much with its 2017 Shield TV. But the changes that the Santa Clara-based company is making – both to the design that’s now 40% smaller, the decision to include a remote inside the box and Android TV – are going to make a world of difference. 

In that way it’s best not to think of the next-generation Shield as the second incarnation of the device, but as a great half-step improvement for those just jumping on the 4K HDR streaming bandwagon. 

But there’s one small caveat to get out of the way before we start: Almost everything you read here – I’d say about 90% of it – is going to be available on the previous version of the Shield. The Android TV update, local and online streaming and heck even the new controller will all be available for the ol’ 2015 Nvidia Shield.

OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s focus first on the design of the system.

Design

The headline here is that it’s 40% smaller than before, bringing it from about eight inches wide down to about five. It’s able to shed some plastic by dropping the micro-SD card slot that used to hang out on the back and retail in only one hard drive size – 16GB. 

Its diminutive stature actually makes the console smaller than the included controller, something which has also gotten a facelift for the new year.

The 2017 Shield TV controller is less bulky than its predecessor and much more angular. The surface of the controller is covered in a triangle pattern that, in some ways, makes the controller easier to hold in your hand. These new controllers won’t offer the touchpad that you’d find on the ones that shipped with the original Shield, and that’s because Nvidia said those were a holdover relic from the “web browser on your TV” craze. 

But while the latest controllers say goodbye to the touchpad, you can still find a built-in microphone on each and every controller. That’s used, among other reasons, to activate Google Assistant – a Siri equivalent built for Android devices.

Nvidia Shield with Google Assistant

We’ve seen Google Assistant on a handful of devices before – including the Google Pixel smartphone and Google Home – but this is the first time the company has allowed its AI to escape the confines of a Google-made product. 

What makes having Google Assistant so special on the Shield is that it’s always listening to you through the microphone on the controller. If you don’t have the controller handy, the Nvidia Shield remote – formerly an optional accessory that’s now getting packed into every Shield box – will work just as well by holding down the microphone button.

Want to see how your favorite sports team is doing? All you need to do is ask. Need movie recommendations? Google Assistant has you covered. 

Of course one application of this is that the Nvidia Shield can now be the centerpiece of your smart home – thanks both to Google Assistant integration and a new product Nvidia showed off at CES called Spot that works like a smart microphone. Plug Spot into any outlet and the always-listening microphone can now control the Shield from wherever you are in the house.

Micro-console gaming and streaming services

But the real reason you should want to pick up the Nvidia Shield over, say, a Roku Premiere or Amazon Fire TV is because the Shield is inarguably the gamer’s streaming device. 

Like the last iteration, the 2017 Shield will be able to play both Android TV games as well as titles taken from Nvidia’s online streaming service GeForce Now. 

During a demo of the new Shield, one of the guys from Nvidia demonstrated GameStream by streaming Titanfall 2 from their PC a few feet away to the Shield that was hooked up to the main TV in the room. Streamed gameplay looked smoother than it did on the original, though we still noticed a bit of screen-tearing here and there throughout the demo. 

Once you’re done with your game session, you’ll probably want to kick back and binge-watch your favorite show or movie. To that end, expect some one notable improvement to the Shield platform in 2017: Amazon Prime Video. 

By some way and we’re not sure how, Nvidia got Amazon to agree to put a Prime Video app on the Shield – Amazon, the company who refused to sell Chromecast on its store because it “offered a less than ideal streaming solution”. 

That said, even if you’re using the 2015 Shield you’ll still be able to watch your favorite Amazon shows like The Grand Tour, Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle.

Early impressions

There’s clearly a lot to like about the new Shield – though, admittedly, it might not be worth upgrading from last year’s model if you’re already using that as your primary streaming box. 

That said, we really appreciated the streamlining of the controllers, the addition of Amazon Prime Video to Android TV and the integration of Google Assistant for the first time outside of a Google-made product. 

Nvidia Shield 2017 will be available in the first part of 2017 and will cost $199 (around £160 / AU$270). 

Resume: 

Today, the gaming market is full of new gaming consoles and futuristic accessories thanks to the biggest companies. We can think about Virtual reality and new gaming controllers.  In my first article we can see the new Nintendo switch, a brand new gaming consoles that appear to be very exciting. It combine switchable controllers and an independent screen. The second article talks about the reshape Nvidia Shield, which appear to be a good compromise between gaming consoles and PC. His predecessor who integrated a screen directly in the controller was a big upgrade at the time but was a bit useless. The 2017 model is a good news.

In my mind those two products are very interesting because they combine performance and praticality because of their size. It is a new way to have fun everywhere you go. In fact you just need an internet connection and a screen or the integrated tablet of the nintendo switch. It just looks like PC platform needs to be worried about those new performing compact consoles.