We’re Not Afraid to Say It: The Nintendo Switch Is Gonna Suck

We finally saw the new Nintendo Switch today (formerly the Nintendo NX).  I have to admit, it wasn’t what I expected.  The system appears to be a portable tablet that can link up to a television through an docking station.  The joystick controllers, nicknamed or re-named “joy-cons,” can attach to the tablet making a handheld device, detach and become a separate controller, or decouple and become two separate controllers for cooperative or competitive play.  The system uses cartridges that are about the same size as 3DS games which are also very portable.  From what I can tell, the Nintendo Switch is a portable device that uses cartridges to let you play handheld games on your television.  That’s the new system, and – yeah – it seems almost ridiculously outdated already.  If anyone ever asks you what the phrase “being analog in a digital world” means, you can point to the Nintendo Switch.

You can play Splatoon on the new Nintendo Switch. SPLATOON!! Hey, where are you going?

Look at this video announcing the release of this system.  My heart sank in my chest while I watched this video.  Here you see a cool traveling guy playing the game system on a plane, which I can already do with my phone, or DS, or Vita.  He looks ridiculous with his little mini-console and it doesn’t help that he is seated next to two actual grown ups who didn’t need to bring all their toys on the trip.  We watch active basketball players put down the ball to crowd around an almost comically tiny screen to play NBA2K.  Watching that, you’re struck both by the contrast between actually playing basketball and playing NBA2K (seriously, who plays basketball and then immediately plays NBA2K?  What’s next for these guys? Watching Hoosiers? Drawing pictures of the San Antonio Spurs?) and the fact that they would clearly be having more fun playing this game on a big screen at home.   Then there’s the lonely woman who makes the socially intelligent decision to drag her video game system to a party of friends who apparently have never seen video games before (they seem like stereotypical indigenous people astounded by modern technology).  What a great idea this is; wouldn’t you want your weird lonely gamer friend to drag over their video game system to over to your party?  Seriously, I don’t know what world we are watching here, but this isn’t Earth.  The more you watch this video the more ludicrous this system seems; maybe – outside of your phone – video games should stay at home.  Certainly these people, crowded around their tiny screens holding little mini-controllers – look like their playing a game meant for a small child.  That is not a good look. 

This Zelda game could only be improved by the opportunity to experience playing it on a bus.

The game system’s chief selling point is that it’s portable, but so are a lot of game systems these days.  My phone, for example, has a lot of games I can play.  Sure, there aren’t huge epic titles on my phone, but maybe I don’t need to play a huge epic title when I’m out in the world; maybe for the hour or two I’m interacting with the public, Angry Birds will suffice.  And when am I going to play this portable device? On my drive to work?  While I’m eating lunch?  Am I going to break out this game system while I’m waiting in line at the DMV?  I suppose it’s nice that I can simply slide my game system into a friend’s port and play my games, but I can also log into my Playstation account on a friend’s Playstation and access my games from there.  Besides, if I’m traveling places that don’t have that port (or staying in a hotel), I suppose I’ll have to bring the port, which is basically like just packing up your Wii U and taking it with you.  Unless, of course, I’m just running a quick trip and then my gaming choices are going to be the Nintendo Switch tablet or my phone, and my phone has the advantage of being able to do a lot of other stuff as well.

Mario explores a brightly light but utterly deserted city in this Red Dead Redemption mod.

Meanwhile, the games on the Nintendo Switch have that trademark classic Nintendo look, meaning they look just like the games from ten years ago.  The unexpected title in the video was Skyrim, which is a great game from five years ago, which is admittedly an improvement for Nintendo (seriously, it’s hard to imagine any other system bragging about providing you the chance to play Skyrim).  There are surely more games coming, but they are likely to be similarly classic in terms of graphics and gameplay.  It’s amazing that at a time when virtual reality and augmented reality are really taking off, Nintendo is diving backwards into the games we played as kids and college students.  Once again, they’re betting on nostalgia. Heck, the video itself looked like a forgotten commercial from 2001.  There was very little new in there (other than another Zelda game) outside of the portability.  When you think of all the things people have been complaining about with Nintendo for the last decade (the dated graphics, the dearth of titles, the uninspired games), portability is never on that list.  We don’t want Nintendo to make give us games we can play everywhere, we want Nintendo to give us a reason to play these games at all.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was announced today at the same time as a new game system that will never be able to play it.

It probably didn’t help that the new Red Dead Redemption game was also announced on the same day, and that game looks pretty incredible.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Nintendo Switch will be able to manage those graphics any time soon.  Sure, the Nintendo Switch may have some great features that we don’t know about.  But right now, this looks like another annoying, tone-deaf, ridiculous misfire from Nintendo.  While other systems seem to be pushing the boundaries of what games can be and how they can be experienced, Nintendo is doubling down on its strategy of focusing on the past.  They are making familiar games more portable, rather than new gaming experiences.  It’s hard for us to get excited about that, and we’re not alone.  Maybe Nintendo will surprise us, but for now we’re saving our money for the next Playstation 5.