Digital Foundry's impressions on the Nintendo Switch: (they played it at the London and German events respectively)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lyvgeJJw0
A very good video by them, probably the best impressions I have seen or read so far.
Partial summary: (for those that cannot watch the video right away)
- impressed with its industrial design and it is a step up over past Nintendo consoles
- However, they feel it is like the Wii U 2.0. The visuals of most of the games they played at the event resemble "those of the Wii U generation".
- if the Switch was not a "tremendous portable" they think it would be a disaster to release it. (they claim a lot of the games they played are lower than 1080p)
- their opinion, very little evolution in what the games are offering.
- Docked view performance is less impressive than they thought it would be:
Claim ports of games with simplistic graphics like Bomberman and Disgaea 5 looked awful at the event because they are less than 1080p and
Bomberman was also 30 FPS.
Other games:
- they also blasted 1-2 Switch. It can be played without a screen or monitor. They dubbed it "disposable entertainment" and inferior to
other minigame compilations. They liked Nintendo Land on the Wii U, but disliked 1-2 Switch and feel it should be bundled with the system instead of a separate $40.
They feel 1-2 Switch is a collection of very basic games that one would download for free from an app store.
- Zelda, Bomberman, and Skylanders are all 30 frames per second. The rest of the games at the event were 60 frames per second docked or undocked (albeit they
admit the other games are not so impressive visually).
Positives:
- must perceive it from a handheld perspective. Ultimately, the Switch is stunning as a handheld, but underwhelming if you only look at it as being a home console.
- Zelda BotW runs at mostly a locked 30 FPS when undocked, unlike what they played at E3 2016 on the Wii U.
Runs at 900p on the Switch (docked), 720p (undocked), 720p on Wii U.
- screen on the device a 720p IPS which is a big upgrade over the 3DS resolution (400 x 240 screen) or the Wii U's gamepad screen (800 x 540)
- they enjoyed Arms and really like the art direction, and controls
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Zelda BotW were very impressive undocked experiences for them
Concerns:
- Splatoon 2 and Mario Odyssey are 720p native resolution and 60 FPS when docked. They are concerned about how the undocked resolution would be like.
(undocked system runs at 40% of the GPU clocks according to them)
- the port of Skylanders is very blurry looking on the Switch. (IMO): It may be a sign of the system's limitations or due to early or sloppy development .
- no anti-aliasing on Splatoon 2 or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (the Wii U versions of MK8 and the first Splatoon did not have anti-aliasing either)
.
