Culture

Is The Nintendo Switch Shaping Up To Be The Most Confusing Console Ever?

Nintendo, it's not to late to ditch the Switch.

by Osman Faruqi  21 October 2016

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Overnight Nintendo released details of its new gaming console, the Switch. The ‘hybrid’ console can be played at home on your TV as well as on the go, through the use of a portable tablet screen. The trailer for the new console really emphasises how portable the whole thing is supposed to be (and features an upset dog, for some reason).

If that video didn’t do anything for you, try it again with Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’ playing in the background.

If you’re a fan of Nintendo and its stable of Zelda and Mario games, chances are you’ll be drooling at the thought of the Switch, which is due for release in March next year. But suspend your love of Mario Kart for a second and it becomes clear that the Switch is… a confusing mess. There’s some innovative features there, no doubt, but all up the new console looks like it’s trying to do too many things. It comes across like a gimmicky toy designed to appeal to hardcore Nintendo obsessives and no one else.

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The Good

Before we drag the Switch too hard, let’s acknowledge the positives.

It’s portable. If the console works like the trailer suggests it will, you’ll be able to go from playing it at home, to keeping the game going when you jump on public transport for your commute. That’s pretty cool.

The games are probably going to be awesome. Zelda and Mario are two of the most successful and popular gaming franchises in the world for good reason. They are incredibly fun. Nintendo has confirmed new games in those series’ as well as a port of Skyrim. 

Beyond that it’s hard to think of anything else to get excited about it.

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The Bad And The Ugly

The Switch looks awful. Just awful. It has too many parts, there’s too much fidgety stuff going on and it looks like a bad knock-off of the PlayStation Vita

Here’s the Switch:

And here’s the Vita:

 

I was always on Team Nintendo and I’ve never owned any PlayStation product, but let’s get real: the Switch is a knock-off of the Vita. No question.

Other than the Switch’s portability there seems to be nothing new to the console. The visuals look indistinguishable from the Wii U and the game-play mechanics look the same. There doesn’t seem to any reason to fork out hundreds of dollars for a new machine that just plays the same games Nintendo has been producing for years, especially since the games don’t look any prettier.

The new portable controller is called the “Joy-Con”. That sounds like a Hillsong gathering, or a sex toy expo. It’s a dumb name for what looks like a frustrating bit of hardware. If they’re so good, why is there another controller you’re expected to use at home (according to the trailer). Why are there two separate charging docks, one for the console and one for the portable controllers? If you’re going on holiday, do you have to lug around the controller charging station with you? Doesn’t that negate the whole portability element?

The fact that you’re running a relatively powerful piece of hardware (compared to an iPhone, for example) as well as two wireless controllers means battery life is probably going to be a nightmare. The more you think about the reality of how the Switch is going to work, the clearer it becomes the whole “Take it anywhere you want!” aspect is likely to be way more difficult than the trailer makes it look. And once you take away the portability, all you’re left with is a pretty average home gaming console.

The Switch is shaping up to be the Windows 8 of consoles. It’s trying to do everything. It wants to be a tablet, a portable gaming device and a home console, but doesn’t look like it can pull any of it off.

I have no doubt that Nintendo fans are going to go wild. The company is doubling down on its “Let’s make gimmicky toys and throw in some video footage of Zelda and Mario to hype up the nostalgia factor and make everyone forget we’re releasing a useless piece of hardware” strategy. If people have stuck with Nintendo through the bizarre and unnecessary Wii U period, they’ll probably stick with them through the Switch release as well.

There have been a lot of terrible gaming consoles released over the years, but in the past decade or so we’ve been lucky. The various iterations of the Xbox and PlayStation have been excellent. The Wii was great fun. But the Switch has changed all that. Not since the Sega Dreamcast have we seen a console as misjudged and mistimed as Nintendo’s latest offering. It doesn’t solve any problems, it doesn’t do anything previous Nintendo offerings didn’t, and it looks terrible and incredibly unpractical.

Nintendo, it’s not to late to ditch the Switch and bring back the greatest piece of gaming hardware every released: the Power Glove.