Boldly Going Handheld Only

The joy of playing games unshackled from a TV

I picked up my turquoise Switch Lite back in April after scouring the internet for several days, desperate to finally try my favorite company’s current console. In retrospect, it feels sacrilegious that I waited so long to update the hardware I was playing on, but I just couldn’t let go of my Nintendo 3DS.

The little guy was still going strong nine years after release, but with new releases completely avoiding the old handheld, I decided it was finally time to retire it and move on to the current device. The bigger question I asked myself was why it took so long to say goodbye to the 3DS? Was it the unique stereoscopic visuals, or the dual-screen creativity that Nintendo adopted in the mid-2000s for the original DS?

While both of those traits were memorable and attractive for the console, I decided that it was my unreal devotion to playing handheld devices that kept me from buying a Switch for so long. Despite the console having the ability to be used both on the TV and on the go, I felt it was too pricey to be bought just for the handheld aspect of it. In came the Switch Lite and the rest was history. But why do I refuse to play games in anything but a handheld setting for the last several years, and what does it say about a gamer depending on their preference for either…