The Tribune

Nintendo is trying to Switch it up. The Japanese video-game company revealed details Friday about its hotly anticipated Nintendo Switch, a video game console that also serves as a hand-held gaming device, during a global rollout on Friday.

The price in the U.S. will be $300, a bit above the $200 to $250 that analysts were expecting. It will debut March 3. The Switch is the first major hybrid console/hand-held gaming device.

“Nintendo Switch is a new way to play,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime at a packed event in New York, where several hundred reporters tried out games including the fantasy game “Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and the fighting game “Arms” on the device.

The Switch features a large hand-held controller designed for both hands that works with the console. You can also snap off the sides of that controller to serve as separate left- and right-hand remotes, which Nintendo calls Joy-Cons, for two-handed play — sort of like Nintendo’s older Wii controllers.

But there’s more to the Switch’s Lego-like tricks. You can also slide a flat screen resembling a tablet out of the main console and attach the Joy-Cons to it, and suddenly you have a new independent hand-held gaming device.

All that makes it possible to use the Switch as a regular handheld, put the display on a table, or use a TV screen as a monitor.

Nintendo is promising an immersive, interactive experience with the Switch, including online play and letting you use the remote controller for games that don’t require constant attention to a display.

Nintendo officials in Japan used the Joy-Cons to play a gun-duel game. Motion sensors offer tactile feedback from games, such as feeling virtual water poured into a virtual cup. In another game, characters’ arms swirled out during combat when players punched the air while holding the controllers.

“It’s a totally new kind of game,” said Kouichi Kawamoto, who oversaw “1-2-Switch,” a gun-duel game that requires players to look each other in the eye. “It’s about having fun with communication.”

YURI KAGEYAMA,

AP Business Writer