If you somehow missed the Twitter explosion last night, the full Nintendo Switch reveal happened, unloading a ton of details about the company’s $300 console.
The Switch will go on sale on March 3rd and will have a “fully featured” online service via WiFi that includes multiplayer support for classic and modern Nintendo games. The service includes an online lobby, voice chat, and a free NES or SNES game download each month. It will be free at launch as a “trial” but will move to a paid model come fall.
“Subscribers will get to download and play a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES) game (with newly-added online play) for free for a month,” Nintendo wrote on its site.
The Switch is a tablet console that can plug into a TV via a special dock, with a gamepad that can be disassembled into two smaller controllers (which can, in turn, be attached to the sides of the tablet).
For MMO enthusiasts, there appears to be only one prospect for the Switch so far: Square Enix’s Dragon Quest X. Not a lot is known about it, but you can check out the trailer on YouTube (embedding is unfortunately disabled for this one). While the new Mario and Zelda games are skewing to more of an open-world sandbox experience, it’s unknown what (if any) online elements they will contain. Bethsoft did confirm that Skyrim is indeed on the way for the system, so that’s a plus for Elder Scrolls fans at least.
