How to prepare for Minecraft Bedrock on the Nintendo Switch.

First, it was months, then weeks, then back to months. But we are back to weeks and now the time until for Bedrock on the Nintendo Switch launches goes down as the days go on. With that, there will be new players joining the Bedrock Community as well as old players who are joining on a new device. But there is a bit of thing which new players should know or prepare for when Bedrock launches on the Nintendo Switch and a new wave of players is introduced to the Bedrock Community.

Screen management

This is an image of Helen Angel using the touchscreen.

The Nintendo Switch has a portable screen. I am pretty sure we all know that. But some people may not be aware that the Nintendo Switch screen (while in portable mode) has a touchscreen. This is optional for developers to develop for and the Bedrock team have seen this and used it to their full advantage. From the image above, Helen Angel is using the touch screen to reorganise her inventory.

Maps and Exploration

One of the main differences between the Legacy Edition of Nintendo Switch and the Bedrock Edition of the Nintendo Switch is that the worlds in the Bedrock Edition are MUCH bigger than those on Legacy Edition. Which means quite a lot of exploring. Which may mean getting lost. However, since the Bedrock Edition has coordinates in the world options, you can enable them before loading up your world. It may be the best option or another option you have is to carry A LOT of maps with you if you want to show off to your friends where you have explored.

Here is the difference in maps.

One other difference is the map crafting on the Legacy Edition will give you an 1:8 scale to the world, whereas the same recipe on Bedrock will give you a 1:1 scale to the world and then you expand it using paper, as you can see above.

Storage

Storage is KEY in the Bedrock Engine. While it is a different code base and the worlds can get *smaller* in file size, due to how big they are, you can fill it up quite quickly. The worlds are *infinite* (about 12 million blocks by 12 million blocks in each direction per dimension) in Bedrock so as you can expect, the file size will fill up quite quickly.

Here are some of the options in the windows 10 version. It will be the same on Switch.

On top of that, Bedrock has the marketplace. The marketplace is a place to buy content such as skins, texture packs, worlds made by approved creators such as Sphax, Blockception and more! Well these DLC can be quite spacey so keep a few Megabytes or even gigabytes free for worlds and DLC.

Microsoft Account

Here is a way of logging in.

A Microsoft account will be needed to play with people on other devices other than a Nintendo Switch. A Microsoft account can also be used to buy DLC you bought on other Bedrock Devices or to play servers. If you already log in to a Windows 10 computer or play on Xbox Live, then you already have a Microsoft Account. You can either log in with an email and password or use another method on your Windows 10 PC. I would recommend you create a Microsoft Account now to save the hassle for when Bedrock Switch launches or otherwise you can not use a Microsoft Account but it is recommended that you do.

World Conversion

Here was our first look at world conversion by Roger and Damian (MinecraftUKLive)

On the launch of Bedrock Nintendo Switch, it has been confirmed that the world conversion will be better then what it was on the launch of Xbox One. For anyone who is unsure, on Bedrock Xbox One and Nintendo Switch you can/will be able to transfer your world from the Legacy Edition to the Bedrock Edition. This has improved over time.

Knowing the different menus

Here is the Bedrock survival crafting menu.

Here is the Legacy Console Edition automatic crafting menu

The Legacy Console Edition and Bedrock have quite different menus. From the launch screen to the menus in the game. I would recommend that you look to see how they are different to get used to them for the launch. As you can see, the survival menus between Legacy and Bedrock is quite different.