My 9 yr Old Son Is Asking for a Nintendo Switch for Christmas

you can play it on the shitter.

FWIW the switch has fortnite. It also has games likely more geared toward your son at age 9.

Pros:

- Unlike the Wii U, the Switch is getting a lot of 3rd party and indie support, so its library is more than enough to support whatever your son might be interested in. Supports Fortnite as well.

- Can take a shite while pwning newbs.

- Even though hardware is inferior, development for it makes most performance and graphical tweaks hardly noticeable unless you’re just looking for it.

Cons:

- Graphics leave something to be desired even in docked. I don’t imagine your son is a graphics and frame queen but even in docked some games like BotW run at a shaky 900p.

- The sacrifice of having highly inferior hardware for portability to an extent pretty much eliminates them from ever having a game like God of War or Spider-Man on the Switch unless Panic Button (a porting company) pulls off more miracles like Doom and Wolfenstein.

- The online also is subpar, but you could look at it 2 ways. On one side, the online is only $19.99. That’s $40 less than Microsoft and Sony but at the same time you get what you pay for. Their online store doesn’t have these insane deals and most of their big time games stay full price even during the holidays. If your son is looking to stream Netflix and all his favorite internet mediums outside YouTube on the Switch well...he’ll have to think again.



As far as the Switch vs. the XBONE exclusively?


I’d say the Switch’s library at this point in time easily is.....I’ll say more top heavy than the XBONE. Phil Spencer hasn’t said it outright, but basically has admitted by buying about 15 game studios in a years time that he realized that their variety of titles and big time games was lacking on this generation. There were some bright spots sure, like Cuphead, Ori and Nier etc. (the latter of which was a Steam and PS4 port) and they of course get all the multiplats. But by not getting exclusives they were handicapping their sales.


What are they compete with Smash with? Halo? Forza? Not really trashing the XBONE on purpose, it’s just that they’ve marketed graphical superiority this generation way more than they should have without focusing on games. But the next generation is when you should be really interested in Xbox. They’ve really invested in gaming this time around.

I can play diablo 3 in bed with headphones while my wife sleeps and don’t wake her up with a huge bright screen. Also, Diablo while dumping is nice. Doubt your 9 year old kid will play Diablo, but he can play other games while dumping and/or in bed.

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They can easily take it to sleepovers

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Another area where me and my wife differ from some. We pay money for something like that, it only leaves the house if we're with you because it will just end up lost somewhere.

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it only leaves the house if we're with you because it will just end up lost somewhere.

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Same. I let my (then) 8 year old son take my 3DS XL to camp one time against my better judgment because I don't play it much any more and he said "everyone" was bringing their portable game systems for an hour of screen time. I take care of my stuff, so it looked essentially brand new. He dropped it getting out of the car and it also had all sorts of fresh dings and scratches all over it...after a single day. Never again (until he's buying these things with his own money).

I only let him bring the Switch out of the house under rare circumstances and when I'm with him.

ETA: It's not just that the 3DS had scratches. That's expected for a portable system. It was the fact that he was so cavalier about dropping it. He just didn't seem to care that much, I suspect because he didn't need to save for it.