The world's been patiently waiting for details about Nintendo's new console for months, and after the company revealed the name and confirmed the dual console/handheld approach last October, it was only a matter of time before we had a release date and a price. That changed during a presentation in Japan this evening, where Nintendo revealed the Switch would arrive in the United States, Japan, and several other countries simultaneously on March 3 for $300.
The accessories aren't cheap, though. A Pro Controller will run you $70, an extra Joy-Con Con controller is $80. Wanna buy those Joy-Con controllers (left, right) separate? $50 each.
As we already knew, Nintendo intends for people to play their Switch both at and away from home. One massive concern, however, has been battery life. At the event, Nintendo said people can expect between "2.5 and 6 hours" of battery life, depending on the intensity of the game. Nintendo says you can get about three hours of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Nintendo's slowly dipped their toes into online services with their past few machines, but they're apparently making a bigger investment with Switch; the company will be charging for it—starting in the fall. It'll be free when the Switch is released in March, but that'll change. It's unclear what Nintendo will be using to justify a subscription, nor what the price is. (I've always hoped Nintendo would charge for a Virtual Console subscription, but I know that's unlikely.) We do know that subscribers will get access to free NES/SNES games each month, and Nintendo will be adding online play to multiplayer ones.
In Nintendo fashion, they put an emphasis on the hardware's unique qualities, such as "HD rumble," an advanced take on the company's once-pioneering rumble technology. To illustrate, they unveiled 1,2 Switch,a game primarily played by "face-to-face interaction." In other words, you're not spending time looking at the screen—you're holding the detachable JoyCon controllers and judging the next move based on what your opponent is physically doing. 1,2 Switch will be available when Switch launches, though it (sadly) doesn't seem like a pack-in.
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