Culture

Nintendo Has Decided The Future Of Video Games Is…Cardboard

by Sam Langford  18 January 2018
cardboard nintendo

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Nintendo has boldly announced that its next video game venture will be, uh, made of cardboard?

Playing with cardboard boxes instead of video games sounds like the kind of thing desperate, technology-fearing boomers yell at passing youths to assuage their fears of irrelevance, but this is for real. It’s called Nintendo Labo, it’s for kids and big kids alike, and it involves making accessories for your Nintendo Switch out of good old cardboard.

Naturally, the internet is making fun of this, but it’s actually pretty cool. Here’s how it works: you order a kit including a Nintendo Switch cartridge and cardboard templates, and the cartridge guides you through the step-by-step process of assembling whatever accessory you’ve chosen to make — a fishing rod, a tiny car, a piano.

Once you’ve built it, you can use the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers to do something interactive with your cardboard creation, like steer your car around, play your piano, or use your fishing rod to play a mini-game involving…well, fishing. There’s also a cool kit that lets you assemble a cardboard robot suit kids can wear to go smash stuff in-game.

If we lost you at “cardboard robot suit”, here’s Nintendo’s launch video to explain a little better:

For kids especially (the target market, after all) this stuff actually looks really cool. They get to build and interact with stuff, and thanks to the instructions displayed on the Switch, learn a bit about motion sensors and the other tech that makes this work. Some outlets are also reporting that the cardboard patterns may be released for free, meaning it may be possible to just buy the corresponding game cartridge and use your own cardboard.

Anyway, if you’d like to buy some expensive but pretty cool cardboard to try for yourself, Nintendo Labo is officially released on April 20 (4/20, and it’s $69 USD — nice).