Hello, everyone. Today is St. Patrick’s Day and also marks the release of Modern Masters 2017, but neither of those things are what I’m here to talk about. As you may or may not know, Nintendo just released a new video game console on March 3, the Switch. It’s more of a hybrid between a home console and a handheld, though, and I get the feeling they were kind of trying to make a “Wii U 2.0”, going for a similar idea to what they had with the Wii U but improving on it. Whether this counts as the first console of generation 9, a second entry into generation 8, some sort of “generation 8.5” (perhaps a bit like the PlayStation 4 Pro and that Scorpio thing with the Xbox One?), or something else entirely at a point when console generations are getting muddy remains a riddle for the ages, or at least for the time being. I imagine, though, that this is as good a time as any to discuss my feelings about this new console and what it means.
And quite frankly, I am not impressed. It’s really too early to say for sure (hey, this is a speculative post, not a “whole picture” one), and I know the majority of consoles don’t have much to offer at launch, but even if I had the money (which I don’t; I’d be surprised if I managed to save up enough for a single game these days), that Switch would be sitting there collecting dust for a while, because none of the games released or announced for it so far are ones that I care about. Sure, Breath of the Wild has been getting glowing praise from the critics, but that doesn’t mean much; unless I find a critic whose game tastes are nearly identical to mine, their opinions are all but worthless. I don’t play Zelda, I don’t play open-world games in general (even if they are Mario ones, so Super Mario Odyssey isn’t on the table either), most of the other series I like either don’t get releases on Nintendo consoles (Trails) or flat-out don’t get games anymore (Mega Man), and I’ve learned my lesson about spending more than $15 for a game that I might not like, mainly by way of a whole lot of Nintendo 64-related—and, to a lesser extent, 3DS-related—hype backlash. So right now, as with so many other modern consoles, while the Switch may have a few games to play, its stock of games that I actually want is like what Mega Man X’s partner would be if he ate a whole box of donuts every day: a big fat zero.
I’ll admit, though, that with the Switch being a Nintendo console, the situation isn’t as futile for it as it has been and still is for previous consoles (hellooooo, Microsoft), and it’s likely that it will eventually get something I won’t be able to resist…but on the other hand, Nintendo hasn’t exactly been treating all their different series well lately, nor subseries within them. Need I bring up what they did with Paper Mario and Metroid? Let’s count up the badges of shame: Releasing games generally considered to be too much of a deviation from the normal formula at the worst possible times, after already treading on thin ice with their predecessors; basically sticking their fingers in their ears and going “la la la, I can’t hear you” in response to fans telling what kinds of games they do want; and to add insult to injury, throwing huge copyright tantrums over fangames that were closer to what people would like and slapping them with DMCA takedowns (see: AM2R). And I’m not even that interested in Paper Mario or Metroid, so why do I care what happens to them? Well, when two or three of your neighbors’ houses have caught fire, you just might want to invest in a sprinkler system. If they can drag those series through the mud, what’s to say they won’t start doing the same for the ones I do like? How, after that, can I be sure to get another good Donkey Kong Country game, or another solid Yoshi game? (Actually, maybe let’s not use Yoshi as an example, since that subseries honestly has had more bad games than good. Boy, the pickings for good Nintendo series are slim these days…) I mean, there’s something to be said for empathy here.
Okay, so the game selection is cabbage. The console itself, though, it seems all right. I’ve heard conflicting information about how durable it is; some people have apparently scratched the thing just by putting it in the dock, while somebody else had to drop it 11 times onto concrete before it got put out of commission (and not even permanently), so I really can’t say much on that subject. I actually like the idea of a home console/handheld cross, though. Sure, it means it won’t be as powerful as a dedicated home console would be, but I feel like that really isn’t much of a drawback these days, even though it might be to some people. I actually almost feel sorry for the purists, being that picky…I grew up with video games on a 256×224 screen, on consoles with 5-bit color depth and as little as 128 KiB of RAM (yes, that’s kilobytes…or kibibytes, technically, but who’s counting?), as well as 64 KiB each for audio and graphics, and it was more than adequate to make some excellent games. So when I hear people throw a huge hissy fit over, say, a game only being in 720p instead of 1080p, it mostly just gives me the urge to either laugh, sigh, or start belting out Weird Al’s “First-World Problems”. You have to wonder how long it would take such people to go insane if you cut off all access to any consoles made before 2013. I guess there’s a little Cranky Kong in all of us, though. I assume that it will no longer support playing on the TV and using the handheld screen for something else like the Wii U did, which is a shame, since I thought that was also a decent idea, even if no Wii U games I ever played used in in a meaningful way. (No, touching blocks and blowing into the microphone in Super Mario 3D World doesn’t qualify as meaningful.) I’m also glad they decided to use cartridges this time around. I guess it was more pragmatic than anything else, since a disc drive wouldn’t be very feasible for a handheld, but I prefer cartridges to discs anyway; they’re much more durable and load faster. And with today’s technology, capacity isn’t nearly the concern that it was for the cartridges of the ’90s. Currently, the Switch cartridges come in sizes from 1 to 32 GB, though they could make them bigger if they used SDXC or something instead. And these things are tiny, too, only about as tall as a 3DS cart and maybe 65% as wide. They’re also apparently coated with a bitter chemical (a denatonium compound) to prevent children from attempting to eat them, though I wonder if that would be problematic for adults who might, say, touch one with a damp finger and then unconsciously lick it later. I’m actually kind of curious now how nasty they taste, and I don’t usually lick my game cartridges.
In any case, I reserve full judgement on the Switch until it’s had some time on the market for a few years, but I’m still not particularly excited about it. These days, pretty much every console and game manufacturer is guilty until proven innocent when it comes to making meaningful contributions or not (I guess Falcom and maybe Yacht Club Games might get a pass? Possibly Retro Studios, too.), and the Switch has done nothing to counter that. It’s a nice idea, but we shall see if it actually pans out. Nintendo should ensure that they’ll have a library that is reasonably high in quality, quantity, and variance; they should address any problems that crop up with hardware or software; and they should get that stick out of their butt about copyright. Not necessarily in that order of priority.
From a Mind of Eternal Chaos 