The switch is smaller than my current graphics card. The switch + ALL of its accessories is (rough estimate) slightly less material than what is inside my PC case. Certainly far less electronics. Most of the Switch accessories are just plastic.
edit: If the one metric you want to maximize (or minimize) is electronic waste, the ONLY device you should own is a high-end smartphone that you carefully maintain so that you can replace it only after at least triple its expected (2 year) lifetime.
Plastic are a big waste. Most of my computers made 10 years or more, always find someone that need one, or a part that can be reused. No need for new GF every year...
Plus the more modular nature of the components/accessories means that it is possible (though unlikely) that upgrades for different components may be made on a module-by-module basis. Which translates to less waste overall.
In terms of computers/consoles made 10+ years ago I think the same comparisons still apply. There are plenty of old consoles still in use today. Though old consoles were certainly less modular than old PCs.
I think the Switch is particularly targeted at non-hardcore-gamers.
Actually it would only make sense as a purchase right now if you're a hardcore game dying to play Zelda.
I made this mistake with gran turismo on PS3... I have only the PS3 for Gran Turismo and clearly was a waste.
I can understand the hype over Zelda but like many of other game because of his content that is cheap, boring start to degrade now. See the live streaming on youtube, almost every youtube guy that stream is on the end. Two weeks after. In 1 months we will not talk more about Zelda.
A few of the glitches in the game:
- Water doesn't exist, you just walk on the bottom of lakebeds, all the fish behave as if they're on dry land
- Magnesis and Stasis do not work (but you can just walk underwater to get to those chests)
- The game locks up often, typically during auto-saves
- Graphical glitches, big cyan and magenta polygons, flicker constantly on screen
- All humanoid characters, including Link, sink about halfway into the ground
- Animals will randomly disappear, AI behaves weird around the non-existent water
- Frame rate is extremely troubled
- You can't beat many of the shrines, including the first few, so you need a save file to escape the first area
So imagine trying to play through the shrines without Magnesis or Stasis. What do you do? The game itself is actually pretty flexible: instead of lifting metal boxes and spheres you can use bombs to knock them in the direction you need. You can use arrows and other weapons to knock around far away objects. Still, many shrines are impassable.
CEMU is not anywhere close to a substitute for the console, and it will be months to years before it has the same accuracy as say Dolphin.
To compare, I've been playing Super Mario 3D World at 4K and it's gorgeous. It looks and performs far better than the Wii U version once you install a precompiled shader cache.
So while BotW is currently unplayable on Cemu, I suspect that won't be the case in 6 months or so.
I personally always thought the screen on the controller was dumb, I owned a Dreamcast and thought it was annoying then, so it didn't bother me. But you might feel different.
- can't take a playstation on the train/plane/subway/car
- can't stream Playstation Now on the train/plane/subway/car
If this iteration of Nintendo's console would have a been your standard home console, I wouldn't have bought it. It being a hybrid made me pull the trigger, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.