You are watching Cold Fusion TV
Hi, and welcome to another Cold Fusion video
I love innovation
and I think its great when companies take a risk
in a mature industry and have a successful outcome
The Nintendo Switch is seeming to be one of those stories
In this quick video, we'll see what's going on
Nintendo was a powehouse of home and portable gaming
in the '80s, '90s and early 2000s
They had smash hits with the Nintendo Entertaining Systems,
N64 and Game Boy series, respectively
The company provided endless hours of entertainment
for millions around the globe
But recently, things haven't been as bright
After the release of the original Wii console
they've been struggling to find their groove, until 2017, that is.
In recent months, it looks like they have found the perfect formula
The Nintendo Switch
A mobile gaming unit that turns into a full console
in one seemless experience
Released in March of 2017, the Nintendo Switch has become the fastest selling gaming system
in Nintendo's history
The company sold 906K units
in the month of March, in the US
and the Japanese market brought more than half a million devices in that same period
All of this, was of new record for Nintendo
Strangely enough, the biggest hurdle to selling even more Switch units
was Nintendo's ability to manufacture the device
According to one spokesperson
"Shipments have not yet been able to keep up with such high demands"
In response, the company recently announced plans to double production
This will mean an additional 8 million Switch systems
to be manufactured by April of 2018
The switch isn't the fastest selling console of all time though
That title belongs to the PlayStation 4
Launched in November 2013
4 million units were already sold by December of that year
But to Nintendo's credit
the Switch was launched at a very odd time
in March, well before the holiday season
putting it at a disadvantage
So, what's the technology behind the Nintendo Switch
and how are they able to fit a game console in such a small form factor
The secret is what appears to be a nVidia Tegra X1 chip
I used the word 'appears'
because Nintendo hasn't given the official word
on what chip they are using
But the people that have teared down the device
say that the chip looks the same as a Tegra X1 chip
The X1 chip has 256 graphics cores,
and uses something called a Maxwell Architecture
which is also found in nVidia's desktop graphics cards
this architecture, is designed from the ground up
to be powerful, scalable and power efficient
In a video that I did back in 2014
I talked about the previous generation of the Maxwell Architecture
and got a bit of a hard time from people,
when I said that this would be part of future of gaming
It obviously goes without saying that PCs
and high end consoles are still much more powerful
The bottom line is that for the first time
All platforms can share a common game engine
Its very reasonable to think that mobile technology
would never get up to the graphic standards of PCs
and modern game consoles
but this attitude is quite reminiscent
of those who said that motor car would never overtake the horse and carriage
saying never, means that there is a 0% chance of that event happening
Thats probably not the smartest thing to say in this situation
Right now we are at the very infancy of mobile computing
What we have today, will be looked at in the future as the first pioneering steps
perhaps to conversions or perhaps to something else
And just think
in 2015, if this mobile graphics power doubles
which is the prediction
a lot of people might have to accept the fact
that next generation mobile, has arrived
So, what do these rapid sales show
It shows that the consumer has an appetite for something new
The gaming console, reimagined
It also shows, that if done correctly
there is a huge market for truely portable gaming consoles
Though, with all of that being said, its
not just about the hardware
The games have to be strong too
or else the hardware is pretty much useless
This is where nVidia's own Shield tablet felt short
The gaming strength of the Switch came in the form of just one game
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
with 1.3 million copies being sold
and 925,000 of them, being on switch
this Zelda title is the fastest selling Nintendo launch
in its 127 year history
More people bought the game, than the actual console
The reason for why this is, is still debated
but regardless, a 100% attach rate is crazy and pretty much unheard of
To put this all into perspective for Nintendo
the only real case when something similar happened
was back in 1996
when the company released the iconic Nintendo 64
it sold 350K units in the opening weekend
which sold out to about half a million in the first 4 months
This is while its partner title, Super Mario 64, reached to 300K mark
Investers are happy about the Switch too
Nintendo shares have risen more than 5%
as of Friday, 14 April
but as most of us know
the stock markets are very twitchy these days
and don't really mean a whole much any more
but its still somewhat of a positive sign, in regards
to the brand perception of Nintendo
It hasn't all been smooth sail for the Japanese firm though
there's been complaints of build quality issues with the Switch
including the warping of the units
scratched screens, when putting the system into
the dock to enable the console mode
and some controllers have said to have troubles connecting
Hopefully, most of this will get resolved as manufacturing scales up
So, all in all, I really like a story like this
and this is good to see
The Nintendo Switch is truely a new type of console
and its great to see a company like Nintendo
taking this kind of risk
and have it payoff in a seemingly big way
Obviously, its too early to
call this gamble as being out of the woods a 100%
But its definately a good start
And if the Switch gets more solid gaming titles
things can only get better for Nintendo
and the consumer
Anyways, that was just a quick little video about the Switch
breaking Nintendo's sales records
Thanks for watching guys
Feel free to subscribe to this channel
if you just stumbled across it
And ofcourse, I'll catch you guys again soon from the next video
Cheers guys
Have a good one