The Nintendo Switch Is the Console We’ve All Been Waiting For
Surprise! Who would have thought Nintendo was going to be the company that brought a true omnichannel gaming experience to the market? Surely Sony or Microsoft would have beaten them, right? I haven’t been more excited about a gaming console in a very long time. Simply put, the Nintendo Switch is killing it.
The Nintendo Switch has taken the gaming landscape by storm. Though the console was released just a few days ago, it’s already Nintendo’s fastest-selling gaming console. I was fortunate to have gotten in my preorder at Best Buy a back in January, and it happened to be delivered a full day before official launch.
A hybrid gaming system, the Nintendo Switch is designed to be played at home and on the go, with a near seamless experience. It’s incredibly fast and, when compared to other consoles, quite affordable. It’s also super intuitive to use. Take the tablet with you wherever you’re going. Once you make it back home, just drop the console back in the Switch dock and voila, sit back in front of your television set.
Getting the Gaming Experience Right
With the Switch, Nintendo has gotten the complete grasp of what it means to have a sit-back-to-mobile experience. It’s a great handheld, with a charging dock that sits with your TV. When you’re ready to leave the house, you grab it, and go.
PSVita tried a hybrid approach, but it didn’t catch on because of the game support. Oh, and many PSVita owners experienced hardware failure, like I did!
In my opinion, the Nintendo Switch console itself is a little bit too wide, and potentially awkward to hold for long durations. But the screen is great. And there are these nifty joy-cons which you can pull off of the controllers, share them with friends pretty easily, and even enable the multiplayer experience on the go!
Multiplayer Is a Thing Again
Lately, the two big players — Sony and Microsoft — seem to have been shunning the whole concept of friends sitting around a split screen playing together. Instead, in their world, all gamers should go home, don their headsets and enjoy their massive screens while playing with their friends — and strangers — virtually.
Yeah, yeah. I know there are restrictions on frame rate and processing power that doesn’t make split screen feasible or easy…But what happened to the good old party game? Don’t you miss a debaucherous round of Halo? Or those intense down-to-the-wire races?
The Switch has nailed the modern multiplayer experience. But come on: Where are those awesome multiplayer games we’ve grown to expect?
OK, the Launch Titles Were a Bit Weak
While the Nintendo Switch is awesome — why else would the console be flying off shelves — there are some downsides to the product.
For example, the launch titles were a bit weak. Yes, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game — the game we all “remember” Ocarina of Time to be, but a whole lot better. It’s an instant classic.
But where are the rest of the killer titles? No Mario Party? No Mario Kart? No Mario Anything?
In Any Case, Buy a Switch!
I’m a self-professed gamer fanboy. I have been for ages. Growing up, I dabbled with every single system out there. I wanted to get each and every one of them on launch day. I vividly remember the launch of Xbox, signaling Microsoft’s first venture into the gaming world to compete against Sony and Nintendo (and the demise of Sega).
That said, I haven’t been more excited about a console in years. It’s the first time a gaming system has actually made me take some time out of my day to play. It’s that good.
The Switch is sure BUY for me. Go grab one with Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Or if you have to wait — the console is out of stock at most major retailers — let’s see what happens in April with the next couple of first-party title launches. This, with the debut of Mario on iOS and Android…Nintendo is just getting started, again.
