Nintendo says Switch won’t replace the 3DS

Kyle Orland

A Switch Joy-Con sits alongside a 3DS XL, just as Nintendo says the Switch will sit alongside the 3DS in the marketplace.

Kotaku

With the Nintendo Switch acting as both a fully portable system and a TV-based console, you might think that the hardware is intended to serve as a replacement for both the Wii U and the 3DS. But while the Wii U has already been discontinued, Nintendo insists that the 3DS will continue to be supported well into the Switch's lifespan.

"In our view, the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo Switch are going to live side-by-side," Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime told Wired in a recent interview. "They’re going to coexist just fine. We’ve done this before, managing two different systems."

While it's definitely true that Nintendo has managed two (or more) systems at the same time in the past, the company does not usually maintain two portable systems concurrently for very long. Back in 2004, for instance, Nintendo revealed the Nintendo DS as a "third pillar" in its hardware line up, alongside the existing Game Boy Advance and GameCube platforms.

While Nintendo would technically support the Game Boy Advance by printing new games through 2008 and producing hardware through 2010, internal and external attention for the system dried up quickly as the DS quickly put an end to the long-running Game Boy line.

This time, however, Fils-Aime told Wired that "3DS has a long life in front of it," and that Nintendo sees the Switch as "at its heart, it’s a home console that you can take with you on the go." That suggests the 3DS will continue to be the place Nintendo funnels games designed to be played portably, while the Switch gets games more tailored to the TV experience.

As if to drive that point home, Nintendo has also announced that the Switch won't support StreetPass, the 3DS feature that lets players passively share data wirelessly when they pass in the real world (the Miiverse social network, which works across 3DS and Wii U, is also not coming to the Switch).

Some other Nintendo Switch tidbits that have come out in interviews and statements since Nintendo's weekend Switch announcement and hands-on time last week:

• Those that subscribe to the Switch's paid online service will be able to download and play a free NES/SNES game every month. But Nintendo has now clarified that those free downloads will be limited to a specific game every month, and that those downloads will essentially be rentals that expire at the end of the month."Essentially you’ve got access to that game for a period of time, and then after the month there’s a new selection," Fils-Aime told Wired. "You’ll have the opportunity to buy it, but [after] that month we’ve moved on to another game."
• As expected, the Switch gets a slight overclocked power boost when plugged into a wall outlet and TV through the included dock. Digital Foundry observed that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild runs at 720p resolution on the Switch in portable mode, but 900p resolution when docked to an HDTV. Both versions run at a steady 30fps, according to Digital Foundry.
• Speaking of The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo has revealed the game takes up 13GB of space when downloaded to the Switch. That's just over 40 percent of the system's 32GB of built-in storage for a single game. That storage can be expanded via microSDXC cards up to 2TB (though 512GB is currently the biggest such card available for purchase), and it seems like such an expansion will be necessary if you want to download and store more than two or three big-budget games on the system at once.
• The Controller Grip included with the Switch hardware does not actively charge the Joy-Cons away from the core tablet; you'll need to buy a Joy-Con Charging Grip from Nintendo for $30 to do that. That said, the Joy-Cons can last roughly 20 hours away from the Switch tablet, according to a Nintendo representative, and will charge while connected to that tablet, so that Charing Grip doesn't seem especially necessary.