- So I recently bought a Nintendo Switch reluctantly,
and I actually like it a lot,
but it's also made me mad,
well mad at Microsoft.
Today, I'll tell you why I think they're blowing it
in the handheld console market,
because they don't have anything there.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
Okay, I don't wanna review the Nintendo Switch here.
There are plenty of videos on the internet.
I'll share some thoughts, though,
at least on a basic level.
First of all, I go back very far with Nintendo.
I'm 41 almost, so I started off in 1987,
like everybody else with the original Nintendo.
I had the first Game Boy,
and then I kinda grew out of it.
I did have a Cube, I did have the Wii,
but I never really enjoyed those,
and I felt like Xbox just became sort of
my default gaming system,
because there's just more adult stuff on there,
which sounds kinda weird,
but I like violence, like a lot of people,
and so I avoided the Switch for a long time,
but some things have changed.
Now I wanna talk about the hardware, first of all.
It's 720p, it's got a plastic screen.
The build quality is okay.
It seems durable, but this isn't amazing hardware,
and the ergonomics on it aren't very good.
I did put a case on it,
which makes it feel better,
but now I can't really use it to connect to the TV,
so this isn't amazing hardware,
and for all the talk about it becomes a console
because you can connect it to your TV,
well, all they mean is it has a USB type C port
on the bottom, which is awesome,
you can use it for charging, but it's display out.
This isn't magic if you run a Windows PC,
and have a type C port.
It's just that,
so what really sold me on it, though,
and why I really enjoy is not the Nintendo thing
with Mario Kart and Mario Odyssey and Zelda.
Those are fine, those are staples.
You know that already.
It's all the indie stuff
that's coming onto this.
So if you go on Steam a lot,
and you buy those $15 or $20 games,
or even the $10 ones,
the real experimental weird ones
that tend to be Gens,
a lot of people like them,
that's all on here now,
and to me, that's kinda crazy,
because I never thought we would see a lot of Steam content
on a Nintendo device.
But then what really piqued my interest was Doom.
Not the old, old Doom,
which would be kinda cool,
but the new Doom is on this.
It runs!
Sure, it runs at 720p and 30 frames per second,
but again, the experience, mobile, it's awesome.
It's here.
And why I really like it is the fact
that there's something nice about a handheld console,
whether you're on the couch,
you're in the backseat of a car,
you're on a bus,
you're just traveling,
or you're out for the weekend,
there's something more intimate
about using a device like this,
where it's just closer to your face
versus console gaming.
Now I kinda miss that.
I've been using the Xbox One for a very long time now,
and I have awesome TVs, 55 inch, 65 inch,
humble brag here, 4k displays,
all that kinda stuff,
and it's a great experience for certain things,
but I kinda miss just playing silly arcade games,
and that's what this does.
So you can probably see where this is all leading,
which is Microsoft, who do not have anything like this.
So I get there are challenges.
We'll just leave it at that,
and yet, Microsoft, to me,
is poised to really create a really unique device.
Let's go down the list.
First, they have the hardware team,
the Surface group.
They are very good at creating hardware,
and I know they can make a much better device than this.
They can probably also do it without charging $1000.
Let's just say $400 or $500 would be kinda fair, I think.
But give me a higher res display,
better ergonomics, better quality design.
I'm all for it.
They have the IEP.
So we're talking about Xbox 360, Xbox One,
the Halo franchise.
Microsoft has been working very hard
on backward compatibility,
running old games on a new Xbox One.
In fact, a lot of the press recently
have been jumping on this,
going, hey, this has actually turned out
to be way better than expected.
Microsoft is serious about it.
Yeah, well, can you imagine
running the entire Halo franchise on this device?
It could do that,
or why not going back to your Xbox 360 games
and running a bunch of your favorites on there?
And this brings me to nostalgia.
I kinda hate nostalgia,
in the sense of being marketed towards me.
I see a lot of people falling for it,
whether it's Nokia re-releasing old phones now in 2018,
or Nintendo themselves,
selling a mini version of their own console for $150,
just to run a few games that seem strange now, in 2018.
Yet people buy it all the time,
and people fall for it,
and it's because we're at a stage now in technology
where you can actually have memories of this stuff.
Microsoft has a lot of nostalgia legacy
that they're just not leveraging.
Like, say, could you imagine them putting,
just making this a portable Xbox 360?
In and of itself, that would sell a ton, I think.
Now I know a lot of people are gonna say,
yeah, but what about 4K gaming,
and 60 frames per second?
Basically with the Xbox One X,
and to me, that's fine.
Keep the One X for that,
and keep that platform pushing that way.
You don't need that, though.
The Switch is proving 720p
and 60 frames per second is good enough for most people.
I mean, look at the size of this thing!
It's not even tiny.
Who's gonna carry this around in a pocket?
You can't, right,
so you need a case for it to protect it.
This is still selling a lot, though,
so I feel like Microsoft could honestly
do a ton of work in this area,
and improve upon it,
selling it towards adults.
I've often talked about Razer
and a lot of people say, oh, Razer's so expensive.
They sell, literally, a $4500 laptop,
yet it sells well.
Why?
'Cause there are people like me,
who are old enough to remember
playing games in the 80s and 90s
who now are adults
and wanna spend that money.
Well, Microsoft, you could do that, too.
Sell us back our old memories
with your old platform.
They also have, besides the hardware team
to make this happen,
they have the controller team,
who's been making Xbox controllers for years,
so they got that figured out.
They also have Azure and Cloud computing on their side.
They also have the Microsoft Store,
where they can sell Windows games, PC games,
Xbox games.
They have the whole infrastructure there.
Like I'm not sure why they're not doing this.
Internally, Microsoft is kinda already agreeing
that the console wars are over,
and I know that's gonna be shocking to a lot of people,
where you're still saying, oh my God, PS4,
and they still have Gods of War
and all the new games out there,
and I get that,
but that's not where the real competition
is gonna be happening in the next five to 10 years,
which is Cloud computing, Cloud gaming,
game streaming and all that
and that's where Microsoft is now pivoting towards,
and they're gonna beat Sony there,
because Sony does not have that infrastructure.
Well, add 4g to this.
Add 5g to this.
Let me do streaming to this.
I mean, there are just so many opportunities here
you guys can give me better examples,
probably, in comments,
of where Microsoft could actually make this happen
and make this a success.
As far as what it should run,
well, Microsoft can figure this out.
I'm not here to answer all their questions,
but we know about Windows Core OS,
which is a very basic version of Windows,
has a lot of stuff stripped out of it.
Put that on there,
maybe with an Xbox UI.
They can do that with C Shell,
and use that Windows store.
Allow me to put apps on it.
If I could just run UWP apps on this,
like Sling, Hulu and Netflix,
well, that's something right now
that the Nintendo Switch can't do, either.
You can also make it very social.
That's the cool thing about this technology.
People take it around with them.
They wanna use it locally to play games,
like matchmaking is a big deal.
You have that infrastructure to make that happen.
I don't know where Microsoft is on this.
I have not heard any rumors
about a handheld coming.
I've heard, internally,
they're not keen on the idea.
I'm sure there are a lot of economic reasons
why they said, oh, this is probably a bad idea,
but I think Nintendo has really proven that the Switch,
which a lot of people wrote off,
it's gonna be a failure,
is now a huge hit.
I think that's proven the fact
that this can work.
Microsoft is there.
They have all the infrastructure to make it happen,
and they're not doing it.
Come on, guys.
Let's get it together.
So there's my rant on why Microsoft
should make a handheld console.
Am I wrong?
Did I leave anything out?
Tell me what you think in comments below,
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Thanks for watching, everybody, take care.