5 quick takeaways from the Nintendo Switch annoucement

Striking while the iron is hot, shall we? Not more than a few hours ago, the Nintendo Switch was annouced as the next home console from the japanese company - with a catch: it's a modular device that you can hook up to your HDTV, or carry outside and play on the go on a (supposedly touch) compact display. Just a look at the announcement video embedded below, and you can see how the whole thing screams Nintendo Difference from every angle: the diversity from the traditional setup of the PS4 and Xbox One is stark. And there are a few key concepts that we can already associate to this new product to better understand the impact of its nature on software development.

It's a crossroad between home consoles, portable devices and smartphones, and it can lend itself to all these kinds of gaming experiences. Developers will have the outmost freedom in terms of design, ranging from orthodox couch experiences to casual mobile stuff and everything in between. They will even be able to create specific mechanics for specific scenarios of use in the framework of a single game. Once again, Nintendo came up with a console able to provoke software maker's creativity, without treading too far from its recent past: it's basically a more refined take on the WiiU that accounts for true portability while not messing with the 3DS's market position. In particular, the fact of having two tiny controllers in the portable setup brings up interesting social applications.

The company should not be afraid of tackling highly popular genres as third person action adventures or shooters, bringing its own exquisite taste for quality, refinement and incremental experimentation as a precious added value.

It's powered by a custom new generation NVidia Tegra chipset, which makes it very easy to port stuff from mobile to Switch and viceversa, while offering enough power to support home console level contents. Unfortunately, the exact specs of the machine remains unknown, with only The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (this one as a simple proof of concept, not an actual product) giving a rough idea of its power. It should be noted, though, that Nintendo specifically required *fast* APIs, audio and video renderers from NVidia, so we might be looking at something that in the right hands, may produce visuals not too far behind the PS4 and Xbox One's. Support for resolutions higher than 1080p, though, seems unplausible at the moment.

Third party publishers are there, but... as per usual with Nintendo, we'll have to wait 12 to 18 months to actually see whether they'll stick to the console, or slowly distance themselves from it just like it happened with the WiiU. You may have noticed a change in tone for the advertising campaing of the Switch, which appears to be focused much more on the so called "millennials" rather than the whole family. New software propositions from Nintendo itself outside of their well known brands may encourage third parties to be just as daring and caring: the company should not be afraid of tackling highly popular genres as third person action adventures or shooters, bringing its own exquisite taste for quality, refinement and incremental experimentation as a precious added value.  

The aestethic element seems to have taken a backseat this time around. The Switch is definitely not the best looking console from Nintendo, and not because of its grim choice of colours: the Joy-Con specular design is neat, but when attached to the massive central square element that makes them work as a traditional joypad they look very awkward, especially in comparison to other more refined controllers. The rest of the components (the TV connecting base, the secondary display etc.) sports an angular, deep black design that frankly isn't anything to write home about.

A proper acknowledgement of e-Sports is probably one of the most interesting parts of the Switch announcement. We can see people bringing their own consoles to a tournament stage in the video, and crowds of people cheering them. Considering how crucial is Internet viewership to all of this, we might as well speculate about an alleged newfound interest from Nintendo towards the online world. The Nintendo Network, the StreetPass and NFC technologies, the Miis and their social features may receive special attention from now on and grow into a more cohesive, better integrated and connected whole.

Paris Games Week 2015: What is GT Sport exactly? (Hint: not GT7)

Last night, in the context of the Paris Games Week, Sony made sure to drop a series of announcements to set the stage for PS4's 2016, and build up the hype: we finally had a pretty sharp release window for fans favourite No Man's Sky, a gorgeous announcement trailer for Quantic Dream's next epic Detroit, an unexpectedly solid lineup for PlayStation VR and much more. But I don't think many people expected Kazunori Yamauchi to step onstage with Jim Ryan, and reveal the next installment in the legendary Gran Turismo series: it is called GT Sport, and it comes with official backing from the FIA as a bonafide, officially recognized motorsport.

Remember that tagline, because it says a lot more about the game than Polyphony Digital and Sony actually revealed on stage: carefully avoiding any reference to Gran Turismo 7, the presentation focused on (1) the aforementioned endorsement, (2) a prominently competitive structure and (3) the presence of two online game modes that ties with real life rewards from FIA itself to the best players.

It was a very different introduction than any other Gran Turismo title so far: for the first time in the franchise history, no relevance was given to the number of vehicles, tracks and modes included in the game. The typical encyclopaedic approach of the series to the world of racing was nowhere to be found, strongly suggesting that we better not confuse GT Sport with a mainline GT entry: the scope, the objectives and in turn the contents seems much more specific.

So what does it means for fans of the franchise eagerly awaiting for a full fledged seventh installment? Well, that is a tricky question to answer, as the Gran Turismo crowd is particularly loyal to the brand and mostly willing to pick up anything that comes out of Polyphony Digital: at the same time, I wonder what their attitude is towards a product that feels especially gauged at the most competitive fans. Will the chance to root for particular manifacturers and nations be enough for the average players?  

One of the few certainties about GT Sport lies in it sharing the strict core values of the Gran Turismo experience, namely the aestethic and dynamic qualities. Vast improvements will be made to those elements thanks to the power of the PS4, Yamauchi said, included the unexpected support for PlayStation VR. However, we've got nothing on how the developer plans to create value for the less-than-Schumachers among us.

EDIT: Just in time for Jim Ryan confirming the obvious, GT Sport is neither GT7, nor its Prologue.

The Street Fighter V case and the PS4/PC exclusivity

Dear videogames fans, I guess your usual feeds have already filled you in about the waves raised by the Street Fighter V leak. The game was supposed to be one of the megatonic announcements by Sony for its imminent PlayStation Experience, with the PS4/PC exclusivity being the obvious shock factor. And the shock certainly manifested itself in the form of very harsh opinions about the supposed "theft" of such an important title to the vast Xbox crowd. Before investigating, though, another look at the corpus delicti can't hurt:

Street Fighter V Teaser from Laurent LaSalle on Vimeo.

Beautiful, huh? So beautiful that Capcom is scrumbling right now to remove any trace of the teaser, but the damage is done already: except resounding turnarounds, the Xbox One audience will have to wait before getting access to Yoshinori Ono's latest fighting sensation. Sony and Capcom just like Microsoft e Crystal Dynamics, then, but where the Rise of the Tomb Raider deal struck like a bolt from the blue, the japanese affaire doesn't come as a complete surprise.

The jolt lies all in the weight of the game: we're talking about the same Street Fighter V that according to Ono-chin, wouldn't have had a decent budget until 2018. Assuming that Sony has partially funded the game's development in exchange for a timed exclusive, we may be looking at a connotation of the console war where the fight for third parties attention becomes a long term theme of the current hardware generation. As the development costs continue to rise, the software makers are more than happy to evaluate risk-limiting solutions and recoup their costs as soon as possible.

On the other hand, the hardware manifacturers are well aware that an expertly timed release - even if just temporary - can have a huge effect on console sales, even before the actual game's launch. Imagine how many PS4 are being sold right now following the announcement, in close proximity with the year's end holidays. Those are well arranged circumstances from a financial standpoint, and the subsequent disappointment of a large chunk of consumers becomes nothing more than a distraction before higher interests. Immediate advantages: this is the fundamental value of a gaming industry whose internal balance is getting more and more unstable.

To those videogamers worried about this state of things, I would recommend a little bit of optimism. Street Fighter V will come to any successful platform, as it's always the case with Capcom. Victory comes to those who can wait: even the good old Gouken would agree.