Amazingly enough, someone has legitimately gotten their hands on the Nintendo Switch. The system was shipped out early to NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot, who has since then shot multiple videos of it, giving us our first look of the UI of the system, its settings menu, and a general unboxing video (of course).
The UI looks smart, slick, and extremely fast- a far cry from just how slow and juvenile the UI on the Wii U was, and even far less bloated and more streamlined than the PS4 and Xbox One UIs. It seems to be very Android-ish. There is a possibility that Nintendo here is just channeling what works (and for mobile UIs, Android is probably the best example for you to emulate), but on the other hand, there is also a very real possibility that the Switch OS is based on Android- or at least on AOSP, if not Android proper.
Now, before you all begin to freak out- you won’t see any online functionality in these videos, such as friends lists and profiles, because hiphoptherobot has smartly decided not to take the Switch online for now. The Settings menu does indicate that friends and profile functionality is enabled once the system is set up for online, so there’s no need to stress out about Nintendo not allowing that from the system itself. As for the Activity Log, that is a popular 3DS and Wii U function that still exists, but is no longer on the system- it appears as though that has been relegated to the Parental Controls mobile app.
You can check out the three videos below. For some reason, even something as mundane as this has me ridiculously excited. March 3 cannot come soon enough.
https://www.facebook.com/nintendolife/videos/10154907584319651/
https://www.facebook.com/nintendolife/videos/10154905769924651/
[Thanks Nintendo Life]
