If that came off as cynical well then there's two reasons for that 1) I'm sort of a jerk and 2) it's always worth pointing out Nintendo are not your friend, they don't need you to defend them and not necessarily every decision they make is a work of innovative inspired genius.
That leads me to their recent Switch announcements and look; I don't hate it, I will own one at some point in my life, it will probably have some hot games on it. I'm also not predicting doom and gloom or suggesting this new device won't be a success, it's just that I'm fairly sure it's not going to get Nintendo back on track after the Wii U.
A decade ago Nintendo make a big comeback with the DS and Wii; two relatively cheap devices released in a time before the Thatcher dream bubble popped and some people actually had money. Both had clear, simple, fresh controller concepts and released with some strong software that took advantage of said concepts. Some of the hardcore fanbase were upset that they were clearly not the target market with a lot of """casual""" titles taking up the lead lineup, but they were cheap enough where even those people could think "ah well, it's gonna have that new Mario on it I suppose".
Those were followed up with the 3DS and Wii U; two names that make sense to "gamer" people and exactly 0% of the rest of the population. The 3DS was the perfect name for a device if your goal is to confuse mums into not buying it for their kids, it also had to deal with that baggage about potentially melting children's eyes. The Wii U was...what even was the Wii U? Even the fanboys weren't sure what to make of it when it originally announced. It also confused people with its message of "you can play it and still let other people use the TV!" Wasn't one of the selling points of the Wii to gather families around the TV? Now Nintendo were telling the TV to ostracize the videogames back to the bedrooms where they belong.
Don't fucking @ me with links to the Metacritic page for the Wii U where there's 25 exclusive games with a 75%+ score, nobody cares about the Wii U. Well I kind of care, I had a lot of good times with it, but I'm a major videogame jerk, and my Wii U has still been unplugged for at least three months. You can argue the merits of the hardware or the games library all day long, but it's an absolute fact that the mainstream pop culture penetration of the Wii U was essentially zero.
However Nintendo have achieved mainstream success through other ventures, most notably Pokémon Go, which was popular enough for Monday Night Raw to reference it to appear hip so you know it was a big hit. It's too early to tell but it's looking like they might have enough monster hit in Super Mario run as well. In recent years they've also backtracked on their DLC policy and built add-on content models for Smash Bros and Mario Kart. Between their recent hardware failures and these successes, it looked like Nintendo were latching on to the idea that people care about their software more than anything else. We like their characters, their design philosophy, their fresh takes on established formats such as Splatoon, and maybe they should focus their new hardware on being the best software delivery service possible and not waste their time on a new Swiss army knife controller.
Before we knew any details the "NX" sounded great! A portable console that you can plug into the TV instantaneously sounded like the perfect answer regarding whether anyone actually needs another console in their life. All it needed was good software support, if they focused on getting a strong Virtual Console library and third parties to accompany their main titles we would have the best possible follow up to the good ideas buried within the Wii U!
And look, it all still sounds good, I absolutely love the idea of a home/portable console hybrid, the ability to play a big budget console game in my hands was my favourite feature of the Wii U. But if you're going to focus on software (which Nintendo should be since they're not challenging Sony or Microsoft on hardware) then PRIORITY NUMBER 1 should be make the hardware as cheap and simple as possible. Instead, we have a $300 device with some confusing controller gimmick where it breaks apart into little pieces that both have motion controls and HD RUMBLE (I have minor panic attacks whenever the doorbell goes off, so my only interest in this feature is whether can you turn it the fuck off) and so on.
This controller "innovation" comes with a million questions; are Switch games really going that much motion control support? Do they expect you to break the controller apart while you're playing to use them? Is it just to support downloadable Wii games? Do they expect people to play those portably, y'know, have Resident Evil 4 set up with the little stand on the train and do the waggle quick time event in your seat? Or will the motion controls work like a Sixaxis and like...suck? Can the plastic wear away when you're separating and reattaching the pieces? Does it break easy? What do I do if my jerk kids lose them or my jerk dog eats them? Are they comfortable to use? With my giant man hands crush them to baby pieces? Will all games be able to be played both at home and as a portable realistically?
You know what doesn't have any of those questions? A FUCKING XBOX CONTROLLER. Have buttons on the actual device, and bundle it with a cheapo normal controller for home play. If you want Wii games to work on this thing, make it compatible with the Wiimotes we already have! Instead the console price has been inflated with a bunch of potential extra huge costs for additional controllers and so on in the name of having a gimmick which only confuses the purpose of the console. You don't gimmick a gimmick, and this bollocks with detachable controllers only distracts from the hybrid nature of the console that should be its main sell.
Concerns about the controller, lack of games initially, Nintendo still being weird about online and the larger than expected price are going to slow down early sales, and considering I'm not convinced by the current third party support the fact that Nintendo haven't chosen to make a Wii-scale hardware push doesn't make me optimistic for the future. All it had to be was a Vita you dock into your TV with support for some legacy controllers for under £200 and I would have been on board regardless of what else they announced!
Pre-orders are selling out, and yes, you, lifelong Nintendo fan reading this and probably getting a little salty, I know YOU want one of these things. I want one of them too! Just not right now for that price. It's everyone else I'm worried about, a lot of people pointed out that the initial ad featured no children whatsoever, and between the high price and easily to lose expensive parts Nintendo do seem to have developed their least-appropriate-for-children console since the god damn Virtual Boy. My mum, who has a Wii and DS and plays them both fairly regularly, isn't going to want one of these things, people who want one dedicated games machine are going to be better off with a PS4/Xbone or maybe even a 3DS. So in its current form and at its current price, who is the Switch for?
The answer is, sadly, the core Nintendo fanbase, which doesn't seem like a problem until you realise that's all the Wii U was for as well and they seem to be on track to make a slightly better version of the exact same mistakes. And that's fine I suppose, it'll make money, people will like it, but with the quality of their output and genuinely exciting advances into mobile games I see no reason why Nintendo can't be a major pop culture force once again. For whatever reason, they seem content to hollow themselves out into a niche company and milk their already established fanbase forever. They've already proven they can make tons of money doing that, so good for them I guess! Still don't want any Amiibos though...
Right now, the Nintendo Switch isn't a console I'm excited for or see any kind of positive future in, it's just another piece of plastic I have to buy if I want to play the new Mario. Maybe I'm a jerk, but I think that's disappointing!
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