Gadgetory

and good morning on Tuesday March seventh it's time for an earlier edition of the 359 podcast episode 190 and today we have Alfred Inge and Roger Cheng and I'm fired oh man nice that's right I'm pretty forgettable I get it good sorry guys I got distracted first interesting is what happens when we start early I know throws everything off all 20 minutes Ivan copy either so we've got a great show it is all about the Nintendo switch today we've got our special guest Scott Steiner a lot of time what the switch is gonna give us in his impressions thoughts whether or not the thing is even worth buying so I'll just get it going if you have any questions leave in the comments section and Scott will answer them all yeah we yes anything in about three minutes 59 seconds and ask anything okay that's scary ama AMA we're just asking for trouble yeah I know ok now I i I'm is serious i've been playing this thing for like two weeks so yeah and i played a lot of nintendo hardware to show you heard scott bring it on bring it on here we go we're gonna get this podcast recorded put your comments and questions and trolling and all you want in the chat we'll be back in three minutes and 59 seconds from 32 welcome to the 359 when we talk about the top tech news of the day and all the little crap with wanna throw in I'm Roger Cheng I'm Alfred Aang and what does his special guest Scott Stein who spent an extensive number amount of time with a Nintendo switch yes before that Alfred you got some numbers on how well the switch is done yes so Nintendo of Europe is reporting that it's got the largest launch weekend ever you know beating out the wii which was you know a hit for nintendo sure and then in japan not so much so so in its first two days it's sold about a three hundred and thirteen thousand copies or units of the switch whereas the we had about 370,000 and it's a first okay still often do see a start ee you alright so on to the switch scott is this going to be like the hot selling wii or it going to be like the disappointing wii u I'm holy wood right now and I'm thinking about it as I hold in my left hand I think it's in between and clearly it's got a lot more heat than the wii u people are really talking about it I on the other hand I think the we had it was kind of like avatar Titanic I feel like it was like it just kept going and going ago absolutely and z total female yeah you just kept buying in and buying it and wii sports kept going so the question really is is the novelty or the interest will keep growing through right now it's a really soft launch i think in terms of the number of games it's the holiday when when the mario game arrives when you've got all that does it does it become a huge seller do they have enough in stock i think it's like not till the end of the year do we really know that question because like how many people are in buying consoles in the middle of the summer right well I mean look for folks who are interested in buying it now though like is el de enough to justify the purchase or is it is the the breadth of games that's available right now good enough for you yeah I mean Zelda is fantastic we all know that and what if you don't know that it's fantastic I think it lives up to all of the accolades I think it's game design I think it's one most exciting game since Mario 64 Wow and it's gigantic but you could also get it for the wii u the questions do you have a wii u i don't know if i don't know if you have a wii u i do not yeah i think odds are you probably don't but is it worth Spang all that for it i mean if you get that one game i look back to like the n64 only had two games when it came out pilot wings and mario 64 really I looked this up classics damn not too crazy ly two games um but you know it was mario 64 and it was great so if you have a game that you could play for a hundred hours plus okay maybe that justifies and holds you over for a long time and there are a couple other games I still feel like I wouldn't recommend it to most people it kind of falls to me and this may sound like a real drop down I put in the Apple watch category in the sense that I would know that you can't wear it though Apple watch earned its way to I think being the best smart watch out there right now of course a lot of others have fallen off I think it's it it's got a lot of interesting things that a lot of people who like them I wouldn't necessarily go out there and say get an Apple watch alright so it's not necessary i don't think the switch is necessary i don't think it's earned its way yet it's interesting best and worst thing about this thing let's switch I think the best thing is it is the proposition really works between the the portable and the console ok you know so that's really cool worst thing is probably also that in a way because it sounds weird but sometimes is everything I've been thinking out sometimes it feels too big sometimes it feels too small and I'm kind of weighing this out like you know it's it's a really big hand held but also it's a portable console but as the console got too many things that don't really feel as comfortable as a regular big console like those controllers and also obviously the game selection which you want to be bigger it is early days but I the problem really is to me the virtual console no no retro games no NES games and no way to do anything with your old content other Nintendo consoles you could get at least take wii games or something all right oh that's pretty much all the time we've got that was a lot that was a lot to process bottom line yes or no would you buy this thing would you tell someone bite this thing i would buy it right now because i was by a new tech but if you're really curious about it you could wait alright for more of these stories you cuz i dont seen it I'm Roger Tsien I'm Alfred hang I'm Scott Stein thanks for listening alright we have some good questions brewing up in the channel right all right and uh get ready Scott because they're all coming out for a night I just gonna go Chum the corner here we go that's not a weird some coffee some french roast with no sugar okay I'll cool story it's bitter like a switch cartridge oh oh nice what you did there yeah all right Matthew wants to know like a teabag no oh my god we should mix which T switch to make some delicious which team cartridge you want to switch might be the only know that were a good drink for the belong forgotten sadly for gun open tap show oh my god that's good wearing we make switched into this which tr1 worry makes which T Matthew in the chat once entered no he said I heard a rumor at that the screen on the switch scratches easily any truth to that are we going to need screen protectors and cases for the switch really good question i have not done stretch testing on the unit here now that's because i've been trying to hold it delicately and we've been wanting to do photos and other things with it it concerns me that the case that was sent along with the switch review unit head screen protectors so you know also there was no mention of Gorilla Glass or anything like that I mean not that nintendo's initially going to say that but usually if something really nice is in a feature set for a system you'd mention it yeah I'd be concerned about it definitely it's a big screen and it feels more fragile than any other Nintendo hardware i can remember because the old systems even his route to reaches for it I'm like careful with it um yes he drops it face down but it's uh yeah it's a big expansive glass it is the others you can fold up and then the days of the gameboy and stuff who care those are like little I don't know I didn't care about that back then why didn't we care about I'd scratch stream on ice cracking ice cream yeah okay yeah we can I was also he too young to care about the sort of thing like really care about it i like when it happened to be i got was sad but yeah like I wasn't too concerned it adds character if anything Oh God alright next how annoying is the charging port it's us bc i'd say oh us bc I think it's great that as USBC however I've noticed that it doesn't really charge that rapidly even with the included charger it's a bit of a slow charger especially reviews to a phone you know you have to charge it for almost I feel like it feels like you have to charge it for like I'm totally guessing here is that into a full charge test but you know it's it doesn't it feels like you have the charger for almost like half to two-thirds as long as you were playing it plus when you're playing it and keeping it plugged in it's not really charging up that much and there have been reports and we're still testing this that if you use USB see depending on the weather it's a USBC or a USBC and on the other end it does weird things sometimes it might charge slowly sometimes the other device might use it is a battery there were reports about macbooks in it like the macbook sucking up the switches battery because the USBC can always do a little vampire umbilical cord thing so um yeah it's going to require some experimentation but it's great that you just Nintendo is that proprietary cables so yeah that's awesome you just pick up another between that and nes classic now we just maybe need to refine the USBC technology yeah I'm hoping it also means that they come up with something that doesn't need a doc like why don't could you just get a cable with a splitter mm-hmm that actually needs a dog well it has a doc that comes with it but there's no like but I'm not plugging regular yet I didn't see the tear downs and may I just being oblivious but they said there's no real Hardware in there I wonder if the doc is even necessary could you just make a travel cable yeah or like Apple really has kind of situation yeah cuz it's us bc i mean you're just outputting to hdmi and and then an extra USB and extra USB ports now i've heard some difficulties with charging like if you're in gameplay and the unit might not charge completely during that time like it might peek out of like seventy nine eighty percent is there any merit to that i didn't see that okay but i don't I find what I'm looking as I'm playing right now I'm at half battery life I tend to find the battery throughout the days i'm charging or trying to play into other things is not in a fully charged state so it's interesting question yeah I feel like it's one of those batteries that I'm kind of having to like babysit a bit sure you know I'm not like oh great it's fully charged awesome it's a more like even if I'm putting in the dock for a while I might take it out and be like oh it's it feels like it's about two-thirds do you think there's ever going to be any aspect of like a extra charge pack battery pack kind of thing travel pack yeah I mean I hope there are official ones that may be attached a little bit easier or charged in a better way I think it'll be a ton of those because I don't think Nintendo is really there's no I don't think there's a licensing program I mean I think just us bc things are going to start emerging they're already a lot of weird accessories for the switch this might be one of the the largest collections of weird accessory things we've ever had for a game system because between us bc and the number of ways to play that you're a lot of people selling stands and extra things and cases and cables it's like an accessory sellers dream um sure that's part of Nintendo's master plan all right we got more than a few people that want to hear what your perspective is on the build how do you feel about the actual build and how solid it is good question and I want to throw something that I don't have consent someone's going to ask me but I'm just going to put it in there that is interesting to know and it relates to build it feels solid the funny thing about this with the joy cons connecting here is that I'm not gonna say it feels flimsy but you can feel a little bit of like you'll give little give hmm this is a little weird I think it's solid though because there are metal rails on the side but it kind of freaks me out on the other hand it is nice that as far as a replace ability thing when you realize that these are slide-out replaceable control things compare that to a veto or 3ds it means right that you could wear these down and get new ones sure those controls are pretty expensive right they're expensive but the fact that you could do that is a kind of repairability thing which is nice you know we know the pros roll it like what seventy eighty dollars right the pro controller yeah what does it take for replacement joy cons or actually it's easy for both yes we won okay yes it's expensive you don't want to do it and some games that are coming out like hair of your stuff kids I know and get ready because games like arms we don't have a lot of multiplayer yep at arms the Robo boxing game yeah once you have a second and one has each other so have a second pair of joy cons yeah that's when you go shopping for the dollar ad on perhaps that's a lot of money yeah but now no but it's a lot money there's nobody well okay can I also say yeah go ahead no just you know you told me yesterday you've let your son try this out yeah he's tried this and he's tried to Nintendo classic and it serves a surprising yes illusion right what can I get to have one set because I want to build quality a bit more all right all right you gonna say okay build quality I'll get to it for one here of second because I'm just gonna say it at some point kickstand sucks but we I think if you've tried it you know that it listen it listen it's a it's it's fine most consoles don't have kickstands right that's nice those consoles you don't do em right where listen and that's it's nice and a lot of cases are going to have them however it doesn't have adjustable angles that's kind of annoying yet to have really flat surface in a short amount of time somebody's going to develop a open a dress on yet or kickstand version like the company yeah somebody's going to come up with a better idea like a resting box that is adjustable and all that that'll come in this case here actually is a kickstand there you go so air is a stand is it so a lot of them are gonna have just come with a case is that no accessory or what's that you have to buy it so yeah twenty bucks I'm just going just out there no one's ever gonna live up to the gamecube lunchbox handle I know I don't wait I don't like that the cartridge door is one of those pull out doors with plastic I feel like that's gonna fall off at some point and while you're there we've got people in the chat who want to see a cartridge show us that tasty little nugget yeah can I say one more thing about build that you didn't know there's a vent at the top this is the one thing that freaks me out there's a big vent you been what's a little weird is when you're playing games on the handheld the fan turns on and you can feel a little hot air come out a little little little warm breeze if you put your face close don't be nice during the summer to never seeing that actually it will actually be nice in the winter yeah I've never seen any and all the nose I'm not used to Vince Oh God um imagine if it was made by microsoft and they had the xbox fan in there well it reminds me the surface tablet where I'm where the surface had the very subtle vent that winged the surface pro and you could hear the fan kick in so is that the cartridge that's the cartridge really small and it is looks like an SD card don't don't taste it don't taste it many people house officers put their tongue on that now I know me too me oh okay just me Alfred all over it Oh No non-tax I'm not a monster it tastes bitter taste look it's not like it's gonna burn your tongue off it just go but it's gonna make your kids spit it out dijanna garbage already actually I'm not sure about that cuz I just put my tongue on it and it's not like it went oh my tongue burned up I'm dead it is I just hate it I go oh I think you've got enough journal taste after like I just drank really bitter yeah I'm old right my tongue I've got old tongue so all right let's slam through a couple more questions Oh while we're at it how what is the storage capacity on one of those um don't drop it on the coffee um storage capacity I actually I don't know but I think it's pretty high these are multi gig um I mean Zelda's on there so I mean more people saying that was about thirteen gig or something like they didn't get 128 gigs on what car this size nowadays so I can't that's the thing it's not that exciting is 16 gigs is on an assumption it's a fancy SD card and it won't be long until somebody figures out how to pirate one of those I don't know the exact amount but this is basically like yeah I think it's in the SD card it's so funny that we've gone back to cartridges that was at am I alone in that yeah after we've been in discs for so long antenna have been doing that for a while with our handhelds nobody like you said with like the 64 like that was the last real cartridge system and but the handheld's did it so it's like if you're a 3 D CIR it depends on which way you're coming exactly but like right if you're a 3ds vida person you're like oh this looks like a veto card in fact it looks exactly like a veto card just thicker but yes if you're a console person you're like what we're back what is this postage stamp victim now also you could really obviously lose this so don't you know keep those keep those sixty dollars i need a handy bag like that i mean a shocking they don't have more local storage honest with you it's yeah it has micro SD so at least but it's like 32 gig on board which will get filled up i think i have 25 gigs free right now you know really weird and I haven't experiment enough with this are the stories and and in the element with the switch which is that a local storage for games for game saves that it's on your switch once again it looks like Nintendo has not made transfer of that to other switches possible or or you know family sharing like what happens what happens when you buy a second switch because I'm yeah I'm traveling it's my handheld now my son doesn't have a console he's gonna get second wouldn't sure once your switch breaks down and you can't transfer your game saves well they have the same they have the problem with the 3d I swear it's like call Nintendo and they can help it sounds like it'd be kind of a mess but we I got to ring you back in because going to run out of time surely uh my son I was going to talk about to but we can we do that for one sec well I sure go ahead yeah or unless you another but what was like at home yeah it was like no I felt like I'd to be careful with it around him it's not easy to attach the controllers and attach that stuff he actually really loved one to switch and it made me rethink how I talked about that because I think it is a fun kids game it's silly I don't think it's called a staying power but he liked that he loved fast rmx racing was great snipper clips a lot of good multiplayer games but the funny thing is we also got the NES classic yeah and he loves it and when his friend came over they I said which do you want to play he's at nes classic and all he did was play megaman 2 they played castlevania to the elastics man yeah and ER and i said why did you pick that one he's like because it's great and it's got a lot of great games and so any amino right piece about this so keeping out for it but any is classic one and one my eight-year-old over so a if you can get one still but that's why I say it's okay to wait on the switch so we got to talk about dead pixels before we go recurring in the chat yes yeah the glitch right no coming full circle with the durability looks like we're gonna have to give this thing a torture test Nintendo's call someone to get you some give some such a torture test but the you know I dead pixels yeah Nintendo is apparently said and gonna fall put them away in here back but about what the support is for that you were saying that they're not going to support placing over that dead pixels are normal um those reports coming out but I'm nice right like I need to investigate this as well what I'm noticing on I don't have dead pixels on the unit i have i do have it's it's not really crisp off angle you know i think you get a was it edge lighting you get um yeah it's not it's it's ok screen it's not the greatest screen and my expectations for screens it's not as good as the screen on the vita even the the non oled one on the vita slim it's not as good as that one it's fine it's um maybe you want better than fine um and that yeah that goes back to other concerns I mean I've I've concerns about all that what happens with the with the controllers and some people are having problems with the left droidcon which I didn't have but my Wi-Fi isn't up and good on the switch yeah my range is I only get about one bar on the on the switch downstairs I have my router all the way upstairs which is stupid but none none of that's where the you know that's what runs in but nothing else downstairs has had problems and the switch is showing very cut local reports of that to that Wi-Fi is an issue for some units and I that no will it have a browser someday I don't think Nintendo is interested in that stuff when when alpha and I talked to them they repeatedly said that that's not their interesting games first it might also be a duck as far as maybe how much the system can push without feeling taxed all right it's highly likely that they're gonna have some kind of netflix app on it though or some kind of streaming thing but streaming they're pursuing nothing so much yeah all right before we go they should do at least kid you know educational apps or if they've some developers who can work on that but that's a nap not just a standard browser yeah your browser before we go what does everybody think would be the answer like what are the other console manufacturers going to respond to this with we already know that we're getting mega like tanks on to the next PlayStation and Xbox coming down the line but are there going to be psp vita revivals are we going to see another kind of wave of court abilities taken I feel like there's the markets bifurcating and nintendo's have got this mr. of niche that they're going after nostalgia Millennials whatever Microsoft and Sony have a lock on sore the gamer market that's absolutely doubling down on more powerful systems better graphics the full home experience but do you think this will reinvigorate the portability I don't think so now partially because most people already play games it is red pyramid their phone yeah right and that's a problem they're going after a market that's already come out there I think the people who live and breathe right hendo Microsoft and Sony I think they understand like going into that mobile side things I mean it's tough for it's a much tougher market now than it was in Gears past room because we spent so much time our phones on the go right there's very little competition Nintendo's trying something that's unique I don't actually know if it'll it'll all pan out if it goes beyond the hardcore Nintendo fans but yeah it's admirable that they're trying they're acknowledging that like there needs to be more of a mobile experience here but I don't know if people actually call for that or into that it's got yeah I think you're right Roger I think it's a question of like the veto often felt too big to taking my bag on trips and it sounded ridiculous but I remember I was like I love the games on Vita I was a big big fan of the games on Vita I thought the indie stuff is great but then it's like one more thing to carry and it's like the kindle or anything else I feel like they're looking at a kindle or a surface tablet type philosophy somewhere in the middle with what the switch is and then indie developers interesting that they're getting on board or I think have feet in both mobile and console doing middle range games there's an interesting market for that that it's hard you can get them on pc but you it's not easy to get them other places so and he's done a great job on playstation with those maybe that could be a market for this but it might be too thin sliced yeah like I think Microsoft may be pursuing that with just through the surface channel like oh yeah you know that they may eventually they want everything to be working on Windows 10 they say everything is a Windows 10 device including xbox so in some ways Microsoft might be going there Apple might weirdly be exploring that with the ipad down the road I feel like they already kind of our but like you had extra controllers and you know and you could connect and be kind of there I don't know if they're going to do it but it could but I feel like PlayStation doesn't have yeah i don't i don't see it happening and i don't think i think the big consoles have a lot more horsepower and they're also pursuing VR which Nintendo can't do I don't know vieras going to take off as much as we thought but it's still going to be there and be a maid na are 2 and B be factors Alfred well I don't think it's fair to compare to the switch to the Vita especially since I think this which is slightly more powerful and the Veda is and in the same science Nintendo's kind of going for both a home console and mobile console whereas the Vita doesn't really have that docking kind of capability I think that's what Sony might be moving toward in a way you know we're gonna have these these consoles that you can you know play games on your TV and play games with your friends and things like that while you're going on the move I do think Nintendo you know I think people will be buying into into the switch to be honest just because of that ability to play with your friends on the move and then playing like at home like with the dock right right yeah Nintendo one thing to keep an eye on is in 10 doh does often have its finger on hardware trends and ideas they do a really good job with that when the we came out everyone went to Motion oh yeah and we you came out as much of a failure was they understood the idea of second screen yes which became a factor through tons of stuff over those years they saw something and we're on to that so I think our something in the air with this their problem with that second screen concept is like we already have those second screens right yes our tablets our phones all right we're ready I got we have we got one more just because I've been unintentionally ignoring this and they're being very adamant about it do how do you think developers will take advantage of the power of the switch as brief esha can because we're at it yeah no I think that I think they could I thought I said what Alfred said this thing can go all the way up to console level so it means that you could go handheld console not worry about it kind of like pcs I think it's almost like a pc thing where you could Oh play game from you bought on steam on a laptop take it with you I think this is exploring that for console and I think that's a huge development and will be good for developers I can't wait to see more peripherals come out on the unit make it look a steering wheel oh and multiplayer is that gauge if you know him as a game developer was really excited about that on Twitter and I was thinking that's a sign that people are thinking about those controls local multiplayer might start evolving in different ways alright we gotta wrap things up there if you like anything you saw or heard here check us out on cnet our podcast is also available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music we'll see you all tomorrow thanks everybody