Will people ever bring their Switch to Tournaments?

[TheMisterManGuy]

When Nintendo first revealed the Switch in October of 2016, one demonstration they gave for how the console's portability could enhance gameplay and design was eSports. Because all the data and hardware is in the tablet, rather than the dock, Competitive players could bring their own Switch console to the tournament, and insert it into Tourney/Nintendo provided dock, along with a possible Wired LAN connection to compete. Splatoon 2 was used as the example, that means all your stats, weapons, and customizations can be used in any tournament you compete in with ease. In theory, this could revolutionize how developers design competitive games as well as solve the problem of stat customization features in eSports titles. Because customizing and acquiring these in-game enhancements is on the player, it saves tournament organizers the trouble of going through all that hassle themselves, as it's now the player's responsibility to have enough of that equipment. So far though, there haven't been too many games that used this opportunity yet. Splatoon 2 and ARMS come the closest, but most tournaments and players still use company provided consoles for playing. However, with Smash Ultimate right around the corner, will people actually start using their own Switch's for tournaments instead of those provided by the TO or Nintendo?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Most local tournaments rely on the community to provide set-ups. Usually you get a discount on the venue fee for bringing a console + monitor. The Switch's portability will make this even easier though the kinda scary thing is that it does make it easier to steal... For the most part, I don't think it really changes anything; the nature of a tournament here means everyone has to play pretty routinely on other people's set-ups anyway both because you really don't have enough floor space in most venues for player count/2 set-ups and because obviously if we're playing on your console we're not playing on your opponent's console for that game.

 

[Fell God]

I certainly wouldn't

 

[Veggi]

I think it would be cool if players could bring their own console and then have battles where players could use their own spirits.

But there's like 100 reasons that wouldn't happen.

Like:

1.) A lot of competitive players are extremely opposed to trying new ideas.

2.) They probably have a good reason to be wary of spirits because they look really grindy and unbalanced.

3.) It would probably hurt attendance to need every player to bring their own console.

4.) Players would also need two TVs to make use of two different consoles, unless they want to play in handheld mode. Which they won't. Not even sure if handheld mode is compatible with a LAN cable.

Theoretically, Nintendo could probably rectify this by simplifying the spirits system or allowing Amiibos to transfer spirit loadouts but...that probably won't happen and it still probably wouldn't be adopted even with that.

But let it be noted I will be first in line to try out competitive spirit battles. Maybe it will find some sort of presence in online battles.