Global Hardware 14 September 2019 (PS4 Tops 100M)

[Ganoncrotch]

PAOerfulone said:

Ganoncrotch said:

It's always nice to have a 3 line attack post about how someone posts nonsense.... which then contains 5 mistakes. Impressive in a way.

Regarding the "content" of your post though, you talk about the good points about the Switch Lite, that is to say it is cheaper than the regular Switch, however it is cheaper at a cost of fair number of features and components that the base model comes with, Smaller screen, No Docking, No native support for full sized USB devices, far smaller battery capacity, no stand for tabletop play / youtube viewing etc. The Lite is cheap... for a reason, that reason is the things it cannot do which the base unit can do.

Just think about a game like Smash Ultimate on the Switch Lite, sure... you get the game on a cheaper machine, but you've got an amazing 8 player local gaming experience on a system which is handheld only, also if you wanna connect GC controllers to the Switch Lite you're going to need to power one half of the GC controller adapter from a different USB device as the Switch even with a USB-C OTG adapter only has 1 USB-C connector, so you couldn't even use the GC pad while the system was charging after you bought a stand to hold it in place for tabletop play.

So aye, cheap, for a reason... actually for a whole lot of reasons.

Here's the thing, though.

Aside from the smaller battery capacity, (which really isn't that much smaller than the revised Switch model's capacity), kids (their parents) and dedicated handheld gamers, the two audiences that the Lite model was made to specifically cater towards and Nintendo's bread and butter, are not going to give two shits about any of those missing features.

There was no such thing as tabletop play before the Switch, so without it, it's just a matter of going back to what worked before; The screen is around the same length and width as the 3DS in its entirety; Smash 3DS players did just fine playing that version of the game in handheld only, they're going to be just fine playing on the Switch Lite, hardly any people will feel too bad that they can't play one game with one specific control scheme just because the system is unable to support it and the people who still play Smash Bros. with a GameCube controller are a very, VERY minor portion of the audience anyways; And who buys a Nintendo handheld to watch YouTube? 

The Lite model is cheap for a lot of reasons, and for those two audiences, it's cheap for the right reasons.

I can't say who buys a Switch to watch youtube but I can tell you that youtube is one of the highest downloaded things from 2 of the stores I have accounts for the Switch on (EU and US) most of my friends list people have the app and by now have around 100 or so hours at least in it watched on there, I think my own time on Switch is around 95 hours of content @ youtube.

As for the things it lost though, it's not just a less battery capacity than the current revision of the base Switch, it also loses gyro controls which... lets be honest, how many times have you seen people QQ @ Switch ports of games for not including Gyro support or people praising ports which either include it from jump or ones which add it after the QQ has gone on (Doom comes to mind here for the QQ) but aye, Splatoon sniping is made so much easier on a Switch using Gyro to get that last bit of aim in at times, Breath of the Wild actually has a couple of shrines which 100% require Gyro control to complete, so Switch lite owners will not be able to 100% the killer app of the Switch without investing in a controller with Gyro which... means a pair of Joycons (and a charging controller for them) or else a Pro Controller, both of which come close to 100e. HD Rumble is also gone... which meh I don't care about it but again it's used in a few instances in Mario Ody to let you know about location to things or there are other titles which make use of the feature for some feedback in puzzles.

Again for GC control support being more or less not available on Switch lite that would mean someone getting something like the recently released Grid Remaster on the system would miss out on the amazing addition of using GC controllers because of how they had analogue L/R buttons as that is pretty much a common thing in racers now to use analogue control for Acceleration and Braking and Grid made a good job of promoting the GC controller as a means to get that control in Grid on Switch.

Don't get me wrong btw, looking at this post and others in the thread it might seem that I'm saying that the Switch Lite is not a good device, and that's not the case at all, for the size and weight of the machine it's an amazing piece of hardware, something that size being able to play a game like Witcher III in 2019 is like it's from the future being honest with you, and at €200 it is a fucking Steal, keep in mind at that price point, there is no other way to get that game on a console which costs that, both PS4 and the X1 both have an RRP above €200 (PS4 RRP is €299 and the Xbox1SAD has €250) so the Switch has the lowest price point of all the systems while offering the game in a portable form factor as well as the battery screen and controller built into the machine, like I said it's like a handheld from the future.