Would you buy a Switch with 4G or GSM and how much more would you be willing to pay?

[KBG29]

Nuvendil said:

I don't find what you propose evil. I find it a colosal waste of time and resources.  Rather than developing a call and text app and spending money and time negotiating with Verizon or T-Mobile or whatever, I would rather they keep their efforts laser focused on a game-centric experience.  The proposed functions are readily available in countless devices you can get for zero dollars up front, they are completely superfluous and would not influence sales a bit.  More is not always a plus, sometimes it's just fluff.  Nintendo has publishers and developers to negotiate with, an e-shop to improve, numerous quality of life improvements to make to the OS.  These are far more important to their success than 4G functions and a call and text app.  Doesn't help btw that the Switch doesn't support Bluetooth headsets and therefore you would have to use a wired headset to even make calls.  

Captain_Yuri said:

In addition to that, apps and features such as that require reserved resources such as CPU and Ram for the device. More features you add in, the less avaliable resources the devs have to build games. Now for most people, normal calling and texting is generally not enough, they want skype, whatsapp, facebook, hangouts, snapchat and etc apps which all need to run in the background. And of course, if you have social media, you need a camera function cause most people want to take pictures of everything. Phones can do that easily because phone's aren't dedicated gaming devices so there is no resource allocation required apart from the system OS but with dedicated gaming devices, there has to be resource allocation in order for the developers to know how much they can use so they can make the most out of it.

Having basic calling and texting would only satisfy a minority of people while the rest who want all these social media as well as many other kinds of apps will always get a phone. It certainly isn't worth it for Nintendo to get all the licensing rights and what not just so a few people can have functionlity that majorty use other devices for anyway. Most people don't know this but the game of LTE functionailty isn't as simple as asking Nvidia to put in an LTE chip inside and making it work. There are many kinds of LTE such as GSM and CDMA. The patents for CDMA is held by Qualcomm in the states and that is a far different chip than anything that Nvidia has. So in order for them to work, it will have added costs and there are many other issues too such as battery life.

As technology advances these things become easier and cheaper. Handhelds have to evolve or they will become obsolete, and we will loose the option to even have mobile gaming form factor devices. If the Handheld market does not evolve the only option for mobile games will be Smartphones, which as mentioned are not built with games in mind. Right now, it may not look like their is a market for a well made gaming phone, but no one has ever tried to make it happen. If Switch had a 4G option, and could make calls and text, it would turn the mobile industry upside down. The inital costs and negotionations, would be well worth it in the long run. 

It is vital to the future of gaming that both Handhelds and Consoles, continue to grow, and keep up with the rest of the industry. If these devices do not keep up, we will all be stuck gaming on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, PC, Smartphones, and Tablets. That is a future I do not want to see. I want the hardware and OSs in the hands of companies that put gaming first.