Following the announcement of the Nintendo Switch this morning, I figured that would be it for news aside from random publishers and developers announcing they’re committed to the platform. What I didn’t expect was Nvidia to come out and be like, “Oh, yeah, that’s us," as Nintendo traditionally is just as vague as Apple when it comes to internal specs on their devices. Per Nvidia, the Nintendo Switch is powered by the Tegra processor.
The cool part here is that the Tegra is no slouch in the performance department. Quad core, supports 4K, and has the power to run all sorts of high end games. This announcement makes the Switch seems like it will sit somewhere in between the Nvidia Shield Portable and the Nvidia Shield Tablet, but running Nintendo games.
The problem with the Shield (And don’t get me wrong, I have one, it’s a nice device) is that all that power really doesn’t mean anything when your software library is limited to ports of mobile games and older console titles. Nintendo could be on to something here if they harness that power, but for things like a next-gen Zelda or Mario Kart. It is really going to blur some lines though, as it feels like it’d occupy the same product mental space as a tablet, except the games will inevitably cost $60 instead of $0- A good thing for hardcore gamers, potentially a no-brainer decision (not in Nintendo’s favor) for parents, however.
I’m excited to see how it all shakes out, and for the Tegra to finally land in a device people are going to buy.
