For as long as I can remember, Nintendo has done its thing. This was never more evident than in 2005, when I started working for Eurogamer and when Nintendo was preparing to announce a new console codenamed Revolution. As far as we were concerned, this was going to be a competitor to Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Except it wasn't. The console, presented as the Wii, was something else.
The Wii was the moment when Nintendo excused itself from a rat race for raw power consoles and instead focused on fun, on being a toy maker. It launched a machine that was comfortable and safe, less powerful than rival consoles, but instead strove to be different. We scratched our heads in bewilderment and delight as legendary game creator Miyamoto-san demonstrated the Wii Fit fitness game on an E3 stage, wobbling happily on a balance board peripheral, and held plastic steering wheels in the air. to play Mario Kart with friends and we threw Wiimotes at our TVs like they were bowling balls.
I clearly remember that people didn't give the Wii a chance at the time. Yo I remember we didn't give the Wii a chance at the time, but how wrong we were. It rose to 100 million sales, making it the best-selling console of that generation, and reached a mainstream audience beyond the typical circle of people captured by gaming. Games like Wii Fit sold in the tens of millions and spawned entire fitness franchises. Nintendo had not only created a new console, they had created a completely new way to play.
And nobody expected it.
Fast forward to the Wii U in 2012, and okay, we hit a bump in the road, but still, here was a Nintendo willing to try things – to demonstrate not just new hardware but also new ideas. I'm still not sure I understand what it was even though I had one; This was a console with a touchscreen controller, a second screen, presumably intended to merge the worlds of DS and Wii. But it didn't really work; or rather, there weren't enough games that convincingly demonstrated how could job, so it was financially a failure, leading Nintendo's late president Iwata-san to take a huge pay cut, which he wishes other companies were doing now.
However, without the Wii U we probably wouldn't have the Switch, which took all the feeling of the Wii U, all the good ideas, and realized them in a way that worked. A console that was also portable and, above all, that you could take with you outside the home. Once again, this was Nintendo competing with imagination and finding new ways to play. And the Switch was a huge success, becoming Nintendo's best-selling home console, with over 140 million sales, only slightly behind the DS with 150 million sales.
Generation after generation, Nintendo surprised us with new ideas, even when the ideas themselves seemed insignificant. From DS to 3DS wasn't a huge leap, but do you remember using that 3D slider for the first time? Magic… or, well, maybe a headache. Wii U to Switch: a nailed concept. Switch to switch 2…
Hey?
I can't have been the only person who watched the Switch 2 reveal yesterday hoping to be surprised – the only person expecting to be Nintendo-d. Yes, numerous leaks had revealed almost every aspect of the new console before today's announcement, but Nintendo would still have a surprise left to play, surely. A Miyamoto up his sleeve. As the trailer progressed, I prepared myself for something unexpected, unforeseen. A secret compartment housed in the back of the machine that turned it into a flute or something, I don't know! Something. But there was nothing. All I saw was a design that I already know very well. Joy-cons that behave a bit like PC mice and a mysterious C button were as mysterious as they looked.
Where is the imagination in all this? Where is Nintendo in all this, the toy maker?
I'll tell you what it reminds me of: it reminds me of Apple. There was a period of time when Steve Jobs would stand on the stage at Apple and routinely bring out a piece of hardware that would reorient the technological world. Here's an iPhone! Or here's an iPad! And the world would gasp at the imagination of all this. He seemed incapable of doing anything wrong. But now I don't feel any emotion when I see Apple. It's just similar looking iPhone after similar looking iPhone. It's predictable.
Nintendo represented the unpredictable in gaming for many years. In a world where console design has become homogenized, where the elaborate has been removed from the comprehensible – at least as far as the innards are concerned – Nintendo was the only company focused, it seems, on remembering what it was back in the day. business of doing: games – fun. The approach was so holistic that I began to think less of Nintendo consoles as devices and more as toys.
But what if Nintendo goes Apple's way now, sucked into the vortex of iterative updates and sanity?
I'm worried about two things. One is that this could be the final form of Nintendo gaming machines forever. Perhaps, as with the rectangular smartphone, we have reached the end point in terms of form factor, from a design point of view. I doubt Nintendo will ever make a stationary console to put under a TV again, so until foldable screen technology is cheap and reliable enough to include in a design, this overall Switch design might be just as good. as it seems.
The other thing that worries me more is that Nintendo might have lost some of its creative value or become more conservative. Of course, there has been a change in leadership in recent years. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has a background in game creation, while the company's current president, Shuntaro Furukawa, has a background in accounting. Does that have anything to do with it? Have you adopted a more cautious attitude? By the way, that doesn't mean it's the wrong approach. From a business perspective, this – the Switch 2 – could be the perfect move, and a healthy business means a healthy Nintendo, which can't be a bad thing. There's also a chance that Nintendo will let its imagination do the talking in the games, rather than the hardware.
Look, never count out Nintendo, I've learned that the hard way, but I still can't shake a feeling of disappointment at the reveal of Switch 2. A feeling of meh-ness. A neutral reaction to something I should be talking enthusiastically about with colleagues and Eurogamer readers. Even worse is the realization that this will likely be the end of Nintendo hardware for years to come. And then I wonder again: what happened to the Nintendo that used to surprise people? Is that all?
For a contrary opinion, see Donlan's article: If Switch 2 is for sure, then I'm Jason Statham and I want to star in it. I won't blame you.