Thoughts on the Nintendo Switch now that it’s out

Nintendo Switch is out. I still haven’t bought one. Wasn’t planning to right away, as I’m habitually not an early adopter when it comes to game consoles. Here’s my thoughts anyway.

After reading reviews for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I figured I would definitely buy a Switch. Before, I wasn’t entirely sure. I’m very intrigued to give it a play. One thing that worries me is the fact that your equipment wears out and breaks. I think that has potential for an under-utilized play mechanic, but on the other hand I think it’s a design choice that runs the risk of turning the game into a never-ending grind fest to keep up maintenance on your kit, and I don’t necessarily like the feeling of being on a treadmill.

I never bought a Wii U, either, and I still have yet to hear an announcement that Super Mario Maker will be coming to the Switch, which is insane. How can they not bring SMM to the Switch? It has to happen, right? Only, I’ve heard nothing. Since LoZ:BotW is also on the Wii U, maybe I should just buy a Wii U on clearance, save money, and enjoy both games?

But there are a few other interesting new titles that will be coming out on Switch in the near future, like Blaster Master Zero, which looks like a phenomenal remake of the original.

I was at GameStop earlier today, and to my surprise they actually had the Switch and accessories in stock. I looked at them, but didn’t buy. I’m put off by reports that there are reliability issues with the right-JoyCon control. When it comes to game consoles, I am almost never an early adopter, and stuff like this are a chief reason why. But I am also struck by how absolutely tiny the controls are for the Switch. I understand the console needs to be small enough to be portable, and I read that the controls are small, but in person they’re still shockingly small, even forewarned. I haven’t actually held one to see how they feel in the hand, but my initial impression is, “Geez, I sure hope they come out with an adult-sized JoyCon pair.” But I’m doubtful this will come to pass.

I also just heard that game saves aren’t transferable between Switch consoles, which is pretty lame. I hope that Nintendo rectify this, and allow game saves to follow a user’s account, or even be shared between user accounts so that friends can send each other game saves.

Update 3/07/2017

I’m back to undecided on the Switch.

Early reports from users suggest that the Switch hardware has a number of issues that are simply not acceptable. I believe these issues are addressable, but Nintendo really needed a flawless launch if they wanted to have a hope of recapturing the marketshare that they lost due to the unpopularity of the Wii U.

Joy-con connectivity failures, attributable to how the devices were designed and/or assembled. Potentially fixable by re-routing some wires inside the controller, or by using a bit of soldering know-how. But really this is a warranty problem, plain and simple. These are defects that Nintendo should own responsibility for, and fix for free.

Dead pixels on the handheld screen. Maybe I shouldn’t care about this very much, since my main use of Switch would be as a TV console, but Nintendo’s policy is that dead pixels are a normal property of LCD displays, and that they don’t fix them because they don’t consider them to be broken. WTF, Nintendo.

The more I think about it, the more I wish the Switch weren’t trying so hard to be innovative. I think what Nintendo did to make it a viable console/handheld hybrid is amazing, but I think the result of hybridization is compromise. Switch compromises as a console because it lacks the processing power that full consoles like the PS4 and XBox1 have. It compromises as a handheld because of it’s somewhat inconvenient size and relatively short battery life.

That means that the only innovation left is with the joy-con. And while they do have some of the most clever design aspects we’ve seen on a controller to date, such as the HD rumble, their multi-use, multiple configuration design, and being packed with features, here too are compromises. The joy-con are tiny and not necessarily the best in ergonomics. And they have some reliability issues that Nintendo simply must address quickly and completely.

For what I would personally want out of a next-gen Nintendo console, it would be to be able to play games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, at full 1080p, or even 4K resolution, with a good, full-size controller like the Switch’s pro controller. I’m very unlikely to take advantage of the portable/handheld aspect of the Switch, nor am I very likely to use Switch as a party/social game platform. I do think it’s cool that Nintendo are thinking about such use cases, but they are simply not use cases that I see myself doing much, if at all.

I find myself wondering what hackers like Ben Heckendorn will do with the Switch. Ben Heck has made himself into a minor celebrity over the last 10 years or so, by doing ingenious hacks of old gen consoles, minifying and re-building them into portable/handhelds. These are very cool projects, but the Switch already gives us this. Nintendo appeared to have beaten Ben Heck at his own game. Or have they? Perhaps a hacker like Ben will hack the portability out of a Switch, and add hardware to it — a beefier CPU, GPU, more RAM, improved cooling and overclocking, turning it into a more serious current-gen console system, to allow Breath of the Wild to run without slowdown.

That would be an interesting and worthy project.

Leave a Reply