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Nintendo Switch Price, Release Date, Specifications: What the Headlines and Rumours Say

Nintendo Switch Price, Release Date, Specifications: What the Headlines and Rumours Say

By Rishi Alwani | Updated: 13 January 2017 21:24 IST

Highlights

The Nintendo Switch may be priced at $250 (around Rs. 17,000)
Nintendo Switch could be region-free
It looks set to launch with a Zelda and a Mario game

The Nintendo Switch will finally be revealed at an event in Japan that will be live streamed the world over. However, since the Switch’s initial teaser video back in October, a flurry of leaks have made public a number of things Nintendo would have liked to keep you in the dark about.

So if the Nintendo Switch Presentation is too early (or late) in the day, depending on where you are, or you simply can’t watch it live, take a look at what is expected from the house of Mario.

How to Watch the Nintendo Switch Launch Event Live

Nintendo Switch price

Barely a month after Nintendo’s October 20 video, it was reported that the Nintendo Switch would cost between $250 and $300. This was first reported by blog LetsPlayVideoGames which stated that UK specialist retail chain Game would sell the basic Nintendo Switch unit for GBP 199.99 (approximately Rs. 16,500), with a separate version having more storage and a game going for GBP 249.99 (approximately Rs. 20,750).

Earlier this week, these claims were backed up by Japanese financial paper Nikkei stating that the Nintendo Switch would cost JPY 25,000, which works out to US price of $250 (around Rs. 17,000), if we go by Nintendo’s previous pricing history.

Nintendo Switch release date

Several reports have suggested a March 17 release date for the Nintendo Switch. This would tie-in with Nintendo confirming a March 2017 release window. We won’t be surprised to see different release dates for different regions, albeit all taking place in the same week.

Nintendo Switch games
Over the past few months we’ve seen the likes of Mario, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Pokemon Stars — which could be the Nintendo Switch version of Pokemon Sun and Moon — being mentioned as possible launch titles for the console.

Skyrim, Splatoon, and a quirky cross-over featuring Mario and Ubisoft’s Rabbids, could be launch titles as well. In addition to these, we could see third-party exclusives like Beyond Good and Evil 2, and even indie titles such as Seasons of Heaven down the line.

Don’t expect every game to come to the Nintendo Switch though. Sega, for example, has confirmed that the likes of Yakuza 0 and Persona 5 are PlayStation exclusives.

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Nintendo Switch could be region-free and may not have 3G or LTE support
The lack of 3G or LTE was unearthed by eagle-eyed Redditors digging through the console’s FCC filings. Digging deeper, users from popular gaming forum NeoGAF have stumbled upon the possibility of the device being region-free.

“AC Adapter input: AC 100 – 240 V, 50 / 60 Hz, 1 A is a power brick with worldwide compatibility. This heavily points towards the console being region-free,” suggests NeoGAF user Thraktor. Incidentally, the Wii U had the same specifications.

What this means is, like the PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One S, the Nintendo Switch may not need a stepdown transformer or another adapter if you buy it in a country like the US, but plan to use it in another country, for example, India.

It might also mean Switch games, unlike games for the the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U, could be region-free as well — so what you buy in a country that supports the NTSC U/C standard would work fine in other nations that use the PAL format like India, and vice versa. This however seems unlikely given that Nintendo made it tough to make Miitomo account if you weren't in a country where it launched.

Other interesting slivers of information parsed from this FCC filing include support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, including 802.11ac MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0, as well as having been tested in and confirmed to work in temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) to 35 degrees C (95 degrees Fahrenheit). And there should be support for USB Type-C charging too.

NIntendo Switch specifications: slower than PS4 and Xbox One?
According to Digital Foundry, the Nintendo Switch is slower than the PS4 and Xbox One. In addition to this, there’s a definite performance difference between its home console and handheld use cases, as reported earlier. The Nintendo Switch developer kits allegedly sport the following specifications:

Four ARM Cortex-A57 cores, max 2GHz
Nvidia second-generation Maxwell architecture
256 CUDA cores, max 1GHz, 1024 FLOPS/cycle 4GB RAM (25.6 GB/s, VRAM shared)
32 GB storage (Max transfer 400 MB/s)
USB 2.0 and 3.0
1280x720 6.2-inch IPS LCD
1080p at 60 fps or 4k at 30 fps max video output
Capacitance method: 10-point multi-touch

Nonetheless, given that Sony has released an iterative variant of the PS4 and Microsoft plans to do the same with the Xbox One, we won’t be surprised to see a more powerful Nintendo Switch down the line.

Nintendo Switch could let you record gameplay video like the PS4
One of the accessories for the Nintendo Switch could be a controller made by Hori — a well-known Japan-based accessory manufacturer. It resembles the Wii U Pro controller with one interesting addition — a record button, the icon for it is what you’d find on a VCR or recording software.

This could imply that the Nintendo Switch may have some form of gameplay recording feature. It's an interesting move for a couple of reasons.

For one, Nintendo’s stance on user-generated content has been seen as antagonistic by many. Secondly, it looks like it’s implemented in a fashion similar to how Sony designed the DualShock 4 with its Share button. That's a little surprising as Nintendo is usually known for putting its own spin on industry-accepted trends. As for other accessories that could launch with the console, you can count on system cases, gel guards, headsets, adapters, and travel game cases to name a few.

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Nintendo Switch will play cartridges with a maximum 32GB capacity
One of the earliest rumours doing the rounds was that the Nintendo Switch would use cartridges - this one has already come true. Dubbed as GameCards, they will plug into the Nintendo Switch in order for you to play. Though the company hasn't commented on the capacity of a GameCard, most reports claim it tops up at 32GB of storage.

The source of this is Macronix. It has been a longtime partner of Nintendo, and is responsible for the cartridges used in the Nintendo 3DS. Unless this refers to a yet to be announced Nintendo handheld, which seems unlikely at this juncture, or a Nintendo 3DS game that requires high capacity storage, it would be used with the Nintendo Switch.

Are you looking forward to the Nintendo Switch? Or are you waiting to see more games before deciding? Let us know via the comments.

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