Nintendo finally revealed many of the Switch 2's mediest details this morning,
and so far, gamers don't really know what to think
with reactions ranging from, whoa, cool, to, wait, what?
It felt good to finally hear numbers and words,
like 7.9 inch, 1080p, 120 Hertz LCD display,
4K output while docked, only fans could make that happen.
There's one in the dock, and it was kind of surreal
to finally see Nintendo confirm those outlandish rumors
about the new Joy-Cons being used as a mouse.
Not only can you 360 no scope in Metroid Prime 4,
in some games, you can dual-wheeled mice,
like some kind of gamer god, the blessed offspring of Lord Gaben himself.
Goombas tremble and weep at your coming. If you're more of a normal controller person, though,
the new Switch 2 Pro controller has rear buttons.
Just give them a little tickle. Then things got even more interesting.
The new game chat feature brings Nintendo's party chat technology into the 21st century,
specifically the 2010s. Nintendo's essentially invented discord calls
for the Switch 2. You can chat directly with your party using the mic on the actual console, okay?
Whether you're playing the same game or a different one, you can stream your gameplay at a cinematic frame rate
and even use the new Switch 2 camera to add in your face.
Then there's Game Share, which is exactly what the rumor said it was.
The Switch 2 can host a local multiplayer session between other Switch 2 or previous Switch 1 consoles,
even if they don't own a copy of the game. While I've seen some PC, Xbox and PS5 players
being kind of dismissive of these features, since they seem to largely just be worse versions
of the features those players have, you know who doesn't have them?
Your grandma. Perhaps because she passed some time ago,
but the point Nintendo's reinvention of existing things
doesn't stop there, though. While many Switch 2 games will be available
on physical game cards, some will simply have Game Key cards,
which will give your system a Game Key
it can use to download a game?
No, it's very disorienting, stay with me. The idea makes sense, especially now that the Switch 2 comes with 256 gigs
of storage, which you're gonna be filling up with hot new Switch 2 games,
like Switch 2 Welcome Tour, a tutorial app
that is not free. There's also Mario Kart, there's also a new Mario Kart,
Mario Kart World, which finally lets the racers loose in an open world,
injecting a bit of Diddy Kong Racing, eh?
You shouldn't have said that. Hey, look, you can be a cow. Frankly, I'm more excited for Donkey Kong Bonanza,
the character's first proper 3D adventure since Donkey Kong 64,
the game that gave us the DK rap.
Why am I doing this to myself? I'm 22 years old. We also got a new Zelda game?
It's Hyrule Warriors. Okay, I'm sorry.
I'm more interested in Drag X Drive, a flashy wheelchair basketball game
that makes use of the dual-wielding mice thing, but is apparently not hosted by RuPaul.
But in a sentence, I found even more unlikely to be said during a TechLinked from software
made a Switch 2 exclusive multiplayer game.
It's called Dusk Bloods, featuring characters that are like vampires,
but they can only come outside after dusk.
I made that up, I know nothing about the game. The Switch 2 is also getting a healthy assortment
of ports, including Elden Ring Tarnished Edition and Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition.
And then, to give your system a bit of a break, you can play the GameCube games
added to the more expensive tier of Nintendo Switch Online.
Speaking of older games, turns out backwards compatibility is kinda complicated.
There's Switch 2 Edition games, which are Switch 1 games that have been updated,
optimized, and added 2 to ensure compatibility,
which isn't a given. Nintendo says most Switch 1 games should run fine,
but some games currently have issues after starting up,
or even during startup, as detailed by Nintendo in this helpful table,
featuring an entire column that says the same thing
all the way down except for the Fortnite entry. You coulda left that column out completely!
This is what I'm mad about! Others are, rightly, disappointed
that the Switch 2 will cost 450 US dollars
when it launches on June 5th. In Canada, it'll be 630!
Well, at least Japan will get a Japanese-only version for around 333 USD.
And Nintendo seems serious about preventing scalping this time around.
Not only will that version only be able to link a Nintendo account
that was created with Japan as the region setting,
pre-orders for any version of the Switch 2 will be limited to Nintendo accounts
that have demonstrated sufficient loyalty to the Mushroom Kingdom.
The requirements appear to differ between countries, but at a minimum,
you'll have to have paid for a Switch Online membership for a year, played Switch games for 50 hours,
and opted in to share your usage data with Nintendo.
Now, I can already hear the heavy breathing and imagine the nostrils flaring,
but hey, this is just for pre-orders.
Anyone can buy one when it launches.
And scalpers are crazy now. I think it's time for drastic measures.
I mean, this will be more effective than Amazon boldly limiting GPU purchases
to Prime subscribers. Yeah, that'll stop them.
Okay, I'm doing less quick bits because the Switch 2 story took way too freaking long.
I mean, we all wanna go home, I think, right?
I'm like, enough! The Switch 2 ain't the only console handheld
rolling into town. ASUS and Xbox have performed some decidedly unsubtle teasing
of what is probably the Project Canon device
whose existence was leaked recently. Another leak this week points to the existence
of a specialized Windows UI that involves booting into full screen mode,
presumably an Xbox themed one at launch,
which is further proof that the idea of a console is becoming just a PC.
In the same way that many animals throughout evolutionary history have simply become crap.
AMD has responded to all those reports of dead or otherwise borked Ryzen 7 9800 X3D CPUs.
In a statement released to press, Team Red basically agreed with Asrock's unsatisfying update
confirming a glitchy BIOS caused some startup issues,
but it's not causing CPUs to burn out. And even if it was, the BIOS has been updated now anyway.
Meanwhile, there's still this Reddit mega thread with over a hundred Ryzen chip owners reporting issues,
mostly on Asrock boards. Sometimes you don't get a satisfying conclusion.
And the Wikimedia Foundation says AI crawler bots
are straining their servers as they contribute to a 50% increase in downloads of multimedia content
since January 2024. Wikimedia says although AI crawlers only account
for 35% of traffic overall, they're responsible for 65% of a heavier type of traffic
called bulk reading, involving rapidly visiting large number of pages,
including less popular ones. Not sure if killing Wikipedia
has been part of the AI safety conversation yet.
I can't wait to have future historians analyze the humans of this era's decision
to trade their single greatest repository of open information in exchange for chatbots
that can improvise what they think sounds like a good answer.
Rocks are healthy to eat.
Yeah, that sounds right. And I had more to say, but we're literally out of time.
Tell you what, come back on Friday and I'll give you another tech news update.
As long as Nintendo doesn't decide to force me to talk about them so much again, that was pretty rude.