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Comment by tvanantwerp | Hacker News Reader

Of the featured use cases, gaming on a plane is the only one that made a ton of sense to me. (Binging on Stardew Valley on a laptop during my last trip to China actually helped a lot with jet lag recovery.) The other featured cases, I'm not so sure. I definitely miss the days of my youth when my friends and I huddled around a TV split four ways. But I also don't see us returning to gaming together in person either. The most bizarre use case featured is for esports--I see no advantage to using the Nintendo Switch versus a more powerful console or PC in competitive gaming.

As a piece of hardware, this looks really cool and innovative. But I don't actually know if the product-market fit is there.

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Despite the non-existence of children in that video, don't forget they still sell a lot stuff to children. My kids aren't old enough to be running around with 3DSs with all their friends yet, so I don't know how prevalent it is in practice. But if everyone who had a Wii could also that easily pick it up and cart it somewhere, that would be a huge network effect compared even to the 3DS. There is a very good chance this could become a Thing for that age group, and given how children are, it could simply become expected that you have a Switch.

Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.

> Also... since no one else has mentioned it yet and it's not really worth its own comment... this is a wildly better name than "Wii". The Wii was a success, but I'd say in spite of the name.

Swiitch? ;)

> But I also don't see us returning to gaming together in person either.

Really? I gather with friends to play Smash on a gamecube every two weeks or so. Bring a few beers, play some good music, pass the controllers around and it's lots of fun. I also co-op a lot with my girlfriend.

I know theres something pleasant about the older smash games, but the new one is really just as much fun and supports 8-player matches. If you are already meeting >4 people bi-weekly get them to cough up some extra cash, or just buy cheaper beer for a few months and get yourselves a wiiu.

There's a crowd that prefers GameCube + CRT for the extremely low latency.

the older smash games such as melee have a higher technical ceiling also, which a lot of people enjoy. For example, the competitive melee scene has never been as big as it is now, even though the game was released 15 years ago.

But why buy a new device when the old plays just fine? We can also all have a copy of the game and the console at home. Everyone brings their own controllers. It's fun and cheap.

Limiting to 4 players allows the night to be more than gaming night. If all 12 of us are there, it allows for some rotation (most of the time, we will be 4 to 8). While some of the guys/girls are playing, some others can be spectators or be at the kitchen table talking or having some beers. We can even rock both smash and board games at the same time!

The gamecube is really our main console... funny thing is none of us were gamecube lovers when it initially came out. Lots of PC, PS and Xbox players among us. Our only Nintendo time is when it's time to play together.

I vastly prefer gaming with people locally to doing it over the internet so there definitely is some market there for it but it remains to be seen how big it is

rooftop patio party turns into ... huddled masses around a tiny gaming console? kinda unrealistic, imho. however, it's still quite innovative and i'll probably pick one up "for the kids." :)

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