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[Pif]

None of those scenarios are realistic. Unless you want to totally cover your controller with both hands or play with the joycons behind your back.

Still upset though. A 330€ piece of tech shouldn't have such weak signal. Will still get mine day 1, if it is not up to snuff, will return it.

 

[The Maverick]

Guys just wait until (insert Nintendo product here) releases to complain. We don't know how much (insert problem here) will affect things. Relax.

Lol. This seems like an oversight, one that might cost them a bit. More reason to not rush out a console to meet an ending fiscal year.

 

[Harlock]

Maybe sitting with crossed legs and the joycon behind the leg can cause similar issues.

 

[daxgame]

Uhm... maybe the "oh yeah... well, glad I bought the pro controller" crowd ?

I think they're just relived they bought one in case there are problems on launch day. Nobody is "giving them a pass".

 

[StereoVsn]

Then there's the Reggie scenario:

"After following up closely with the Nintendo staff working in our recent Switch events, we felt that players felt more immersive when they were playing in handheld mode than in TV mode. With the Switch we have a new minimalistic approach to everything, from the UI, to the available information pre launch, and so on. After a few internal tests, we realized that the best way to experience docked mode is quite close to your TV, but we didn't want intrusive messages popping up during gameplay, so we redesigned the power output of the joycons to slowly reward the player with erratic feedback. This allows him/her to get closer to their TV's while adjusting their playstyle until the sweet spot is found, increasing fun and adding a natural challenge to your new Nintendo Switch experience."

The situation is beyond ridiculous and how this dissent get caught by QA is quite puzzling. I feel it's going to be scenario 3 and "You are a holding it wrong" excuse but Reggie marketing speech from above is certainly possible.

 

[Auto-Reply]

Maybe if you have too much iron in your blood (eaten spinache lately?) then that will block the signals! Sounds plausible?

 

[Stairouais]

Then there's the Reggie scenario:

"After following up closely with the Nintendo staff working in our recent Switch events, we felt that players felt more immersive when they were playing in handheld mode than in TV mode. With the Switch we have a new minimalistic approach to everything, from the UI, to the available information pre launch, and so on. After a few internal tests, we realized that the best way to experience docked mode is quite close to your TV, but we didn't want intrusive messages popping up during gameplay, so we redesigned the power output of the joycons to slowly reward the player with erratic feedback. This allows him/her to get closer to their TV's while adjusting their playstyle until the sweet spot is found, increasing fun and adding a natural challenge to your new Nintendo Switch experience."

Haha. I totally expect this response.

 

[pringles]

Hopefully this can be fixed/improved with a patch. I'm willing to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt here since I've never had an issue with their products.

 

[A.D. Skinner]

No preview events mentioned it, only now they do. I agree with the guy who said they've tuned them to have longer battery life.

 

[MThanded]

hmmmm

Maybe I'll wait for a hw revision.

Definitely keep an eye out on this news.

 

[gofreak]

None of those scenarios are realistic. Unless you want to totally cover your controller with both hands or play with the joycons behind your back.

Tests to expose the problem in an obvious or reproducible fashion may seem contrived, but multiple journos reported problems in regular 'non-stress-test' scenarios and gaming, no?

 

[GlamFM]

Suddenly I feel REALLY good about canceling my pre-order.

Will probably jump in around christmas and get:

- a cheaper console (bundle?)
- possibly a HW revision
- Virtual Console

Yep, feels good.

Feels right.

 

[Rafus]

This is kind of... scary?

 

[senahorse]

None of those scenarios are realistic. Unless you want to totally cover your controller with both hands or play with the joycons behind your back.

Still upset though. A 330€ piece of tech shouldn't have such weak signal. Will still get mine day 1, if it is not up to snuff, will return it.

Sure they are, I play my games on a projector, all av gear is behind me, effectively replicating the "behind the back" test.

 

[Castef]

Uh-oh.

Ok, I was on the fence, I think I'll just wait a little bit.

 

[retardedrockstar]

Antenna design issue?
Can be improved if the Bluetooth isn't Tx-ing at full power when in this config.

 

[Fbh]

Wasn't planning on getting one at launch.
Then we were told we would get a gift card from the company I work for (as thank you for the hard work last year) and have been thinking about spending it on a Switch.

But I think I will definitely give it a month or 2 to see how widespread this (or some other) issues is

 

[Lucifon]

None of those scenarios are realistic. Unless you want to totally cover your controller with both hands or play with the joycons behind your back.

Still upset though. A 330€ piece of tech shouldn't have such weak signal. Will still get mine day 1, if it is not up to snuff, will return it.

I think where it might become an issue for me is where I sit with my knees up and the controller on my lap. This actually sometimes causes my PS4 Dual Shock to do the exact issue described here. My XB1 pad never does it though. If it's similar to that then meh it's pretty easy to avoid, but if it's a more noticable issue I'll be concerned as to me it sounds hardware related not software.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

Definitely gonna wait now...

If you play with the joy cons separately against the side of your laps, then you could probably run into this problem.

Geez

 

[big_z]

No preview events mentioned it, only now they do. I agree with the guy who said they've tuned them to have longer battery life.

most likely although its odd they didn't set it to boost single when the cons aren't attached to the main unit. the battery life in them is like 20x the longer so its not like they have to be conservative.

 

[badnewsbeers]

Seems like this could've just gone in the OP of the other thread

Thank god you're here to sort this out.

In reality, this is easier to find. Thanks OP

 

[SmokedMeat]

I attended the Nintendo Switch Preview Event in Munich in January and couldn't notice any of this, but in the video it's clearly shown that there is a issue.
Still can't imagine how this is causing issues during normal play because usually you don't cover the Joy-Con with both hands or hold it behind your back. Also (at least I don't) who sit's 10 feet away from it's TV/console?

Ten feet isn't an enormous distance. Especially if you're playing on a big screen.

 

[GlamFM]

 

[Alienous]

This could be the sign of a bug. The Joy-Cons maybe don't go into a "free mode", which enables a stronger signal, and stay in a "Grip-Mode", which sends out a weaker signal and uses the design of the grip to save battery-life. This would explain the wired difference.
Bugs also can always happen, even if the product it tested millions time. Let's hope, it's something like this.

I'd imagine the Joy-Cons have a good understanding of when they are attached to the Switch console and when they're not, considering games like 1-2-Switch, so that seems unlikely to me.

 

[Moose84]

Suddenly I feel REALLY good about canceling my pre-order.

Will probably jump in around christmas and get:

- a cheaper console (bundle?)
- possibly a HW revision
- Virtual Console

Yep, feels good.

Feels right.

I doubt there'll be a price cut 6 months in. You go ahead and wait, then spend the same money you'd spend today, I'll spend the next 6 months playing amazing games and loving my Switch.

 

[Ghost]

Seems pretty bad, it's one thing to say "People don't play games with hands behind their back" but I'm sure a lot of people will be putting their Switch dock out of line of sight, in cabinets or whatever.

Someone in a board room in Japan just opened a brown envelope marked 'Switch ambassador program'.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I didn't preorder a Pro Controller as I'm already dropping enough money to play one game. Now I'm worried the experience is going to be frustrating due to the joy cons.

I don't think there's been a single piece of good news about this launch.

 

[Enkidu]

Are Bluetooth systems just the chip or do they hook into an antenna like wifi chips do? If it's just the chip then there shouldn't be any fundamental hardware limitation? Unless they sourced special 'low power only' BT chips

You can buy Bluetooth modules with integrated antennas, but that just means someone packaged a Bluetooth chip and an antenna on a small PCB and sold it. Otherwise it is the same as with WiFi, you need a separate antenna (and if you ignore the 5GHz band, you can use the same antenna for both WiFi and Bluetooth). The maximum output power of the Bluetooth chip used is unknown however, and might indeed be a limiting factor.

I dunno, my bluetooth earphones have a noticeably weaker connection if I have my phone in my left pocket while I'm wearing my smartwatch.

That could be due to any number of things, but the frequency hopping scheme Bluetooth uses is quite robust. The watch and the earphones are not sending on the same frequency at the same time. Are you sure that it's not simply your hand getting close to your phone which will almost certainly degrade its Bluetooth performance (especially if the phone is already in your pocket).

 

[Zedark]

What are you trying to point out?

 

[Scrawnton]

What are you trying to point out?

That we shoud all cancel our preorders, obviously.

 

[tolkir]

That we shoud all cancel our preorders, obviously.

Feels good. Feels right.

 

[Pif]

Sure they are, I play my games on a projector, all av gear is behind me, effectively replicating the "behind the back" test.

Well you are certainly a minority.

Gotta get a Pro controller or wait for a joy con revision. That setup is gonna bring you this stutter problems for sure.

 

[oti]

Is this a Polygon chart?

 

[Kikorin]

Asked a friend that received his yesterday and said he had absolutely no problem after all day of play, I hope all will works fine for me too.

 

[Rafus]

Here in th office we will have it in a room with a table and things between us and the console, and also various people looking and playing. It's possible that we'll have this kind of issues.

 

[KingSnake]

I just measured how far my couch is from the dock and it's exactly 8 feet. Which begs me to believe 8ft is the sweet spot. Because the closer I get the less wonky the controls get.

I did numerous tests just now with different configurations, docked, tabletop, 6 feet, 10 feet, covering the joycon, uncovering it. What I found is hat obviously the further you get the less responsive they become. However the only really weird outlier in my testing was simply sitting 6 feet away, lounging with my hands to my side, neither joy con covered, and yet still after some time the sensing would just get completely wonky. Sitting about 4 feet away I noticed that if my hands are by my side but pointing at the screen everything's perfect but as soon as I drop my hands to a more comfortable position, the calibration once again gets weird and has a few dead spots. If I put the joycon behind my back for example, then the party's over. There's barely ever any response or all the inputs are delayed. That one is more understandable I guess since it correlates to the gamexplain video, but doesn't at all explain why it's still messing up 6 feet away when simply lounging.

I also opted to try some of these variables with the grip since I figured the grip would force me to point the joycon more so at the tv/dock but surprisingly I found out that it too had some issues. I tried holding the controller in many different ways, all comfortable ways like I imagined I would hold it if I'm playing for a long period of time. Simply holding the grip in front of me seems to work just fine, however if I decide to bring the grip up to my chest (for example when I'm laying down) so that the buttons are facing it and that the top of the controller is facing my face, it completely stops working. Right joycon can still rotate the camera but link simply won't move. So the position of the joycon seems to really play a large part in how it's detected.

Also, man I can't believe how long I just spent rotating a damn dot around a circle just to see if a controller is working properly! On a new console no less! I really love the joy con too and I'd rather use them instead of a pro controller so I'm hoping this signal issue can be fixed with an update.

Like, just now I put my phone down after reading some responses, picked up the grip with the joycon attached (I'm laying down on my couch) and I'm holding the controller very normally upright with the face buttons facing me and the top of the controller facing the ceiling, you know, a completely normally way to hold a controller, and in a menu I've already had it not register two of my inputs and three of them were delayed.

I hate hate hate giving you guys bad news like this because god damn this system is awesome in every other way but this connectivity or sensor problem is really bumming me out :/

Edit: I see some people thinking of cAnceling their preorders and man that was never my intention with these tests. The console itself is rad as hell and I can only imagine Nintendo HAS to have some sort of fix for this. The only reason I did those extensive tests was to be as transparent, and so everyone knows what the CURRENT state of these consoles are. But yeah ok really hoping that there's some sort of statement and more importantly a fix, cause gah dahm dat Zelda.

Thanks you for the detailed info.

I'll repeat, if there is a problem, don't show me someone covering the whole thing, ask that guy that first reported so many problems. It can happen, there can be problems with hardware. That gamexplain video is something else, i mean cmon, it's the equivalent of what happens if i put a dualshock4 or a wiimote up my ass? Will it work? Let's find out!

None of those scenarios are realistic. Unless you want to totally cover your controller with both hands or play with the joycons behind your back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6w536jv1g8#t=16m40s

What GameXplain tried to do was trying to see what causes the already reported connection issues and I think they should be praised for it, not trying to downplay it. Yes, they aggravate the issue by putting the hand all around the controller but that's just to highlight the issue itself.

 

[Guymelef]

Dont care. Must play Zelda.

Wii U doesn't lost signal...

 

[GinoFelino]

Hey boy, those are some mighty nice arrows you got there

Wii U doesn't lost signal...

'Please don't buy a Switch'

 

[Steve.1981]

Suddenly I feel REALLY good about canceling my pre-order...

I hear you. I'm so excited to get a Switch, but had to cancel mine due to unexpected financial difficulties (and the realisation that I can still play Breath of The Wild on my Wii U, duh...) but this news has softened the blow quite a bit. I definitely don't want my first impressions of the console to be frustrating and negative.

 

[me0wish]

That we shoud all cancel our preorders, obviously.

No VC, No browser and no activity log?! who would keep their pre-order other than mindless fan boys?

 

[GlamFM]

I doubt there'll be a price cut 6 months in. You go ahead and wait, then spend the same money you'd spend today, I'll spend the next 6 months playing amazing games and loving my Switch.

A bundle for christmas does not seem far fetched.

 

[Alastor3]

what's the difference between Wiimote and joycon in term of wireless? So the joycon use bluetooth?

 

[Zedark]

No VC, No browser and no activity log?! who would keep their pre-order other than mindless fan boys?

Lol, no trolling detected at all!

Edit: or was it parody?

Edit 2: it was, sorry!

 

[GinoFelino]

No VC, No browser and no activity log?! who would keep their pre-order other than mindless fan boys?

I really can't tell when people are joking anymore

 

[me0wish]

Lol, no trolling detected at all!

It was sarcasm

 

[Zedark]

It was sarcasm

Sorry, gets really hard to tell at times.

 

[GinoFelino]

It was sarcasm

Oh phew.

 

[KingSnake]

Why are you so obsessed with what other people are doing with their orders and money? How does that affects you in any way?

 

[mindsale]

I hope my Pro controller shows up on release day so I can play the console I bought, especially considering I can't use it for anything but games.

 

[Jonnax]

I hope my Pro controller shows up on release day so I can play the console I bought, especially considering I can't use it for anything but games.

Has it been said that the pro controller can't control the UI?

Because that's the same mistake they made with the Wii.
You can't start a GameCube game without the WiiMote.