Take yourself back to the year 2006. One product was dominating the sales, and if you hadn’t gotten one the day of release, chances are that you couldn’t find one for weeks to come afterwards. The Nintendo Wii took the entire world by storm. It sold over 101 million units worldwide in the first quarter of its release, a sales record that would later be broken in just one month in just the U.S. alone.
Fast forward six years later and Nintendo attempted to replicate the success with the Wii U, and they didn’t. The Wii U sold incredibly poorly in comparison to the Wii, selling only 13.02 million consoles as of June 2016. However, since around 2015 rumors began to surface around Nintendo’s next console, and now, less than six months from its March 2017 release date, we finally know what it is!
The Nintendo Switch was shown off for the first time ever this past week with a reveal trailer. And that’s it. Yeah, it’s still kind of disappointing, but I’ll get into the details in just a bit. The major thing is that, unlike the Wii U, the system has a gimmick that isn’t super gimmick-y, but at the same time is easily understandable for almost anyone, just by looking at it.
The Nintendo Switch also:
o Looks sleek and well designed
o The Wii U looked cool for continuing the Wii’s visual style, but plenty of confusion came from that. Was it an accessory to the Wii? Did you need a Wii to play with it? The Switch answers all those questions within the trailer. It has its own controller, its own design and it isn’t an addition to the Wii or Wii U.
o In previous years, Nintendo has lost the third-party support from developers with it being almost non-existent on the Wii U. Third Party support is games made by developers like Activision, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. It isn’t made by Nintendo, but it’s also not an exclusive to the system. Those are your "Call of Duty," "Sonic the Hedgehog," "Dead Rising," "Silent Hill," "Resident Evil," etc. While Nintendo lacked significant third party support for the Wii U, they released a list of third party developers who have pledged support to develop for the Switch, including Electronic Arts, Epic Games, FromSoftware, Bandai Namco, Konami, Square Enix, Take-Two, Telltale, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive, and Bethesda. And that’s not even half of the full list.
o A Major issue with the Wii U was that it was difficult to understand. You had to always play with the Gamepad, but it wasn’t always utilized well in game. It was difficult to explain what exactly it was. Plus, it seemed like you’d be able to play your games anywhere, but that was later revealed to be “anywhere on the same wi-fi network as the main console." The Switch has removable controllers from the sides of the main tablet console that can connect to form a normal sized controller. You don’t have to hold the entire tablet when playing, and the tablet can be taken anywhere to play with. So, you can truly take it on a plane and to the park, like what was shown in the trailer.
Yes, you would be correct to assume that I am very excited for the Switch. However, while I think there is a lot to like about it, there are still some aspects that trouble me:
o Complaints with the Wii and Wii-U were that they were significantly less powerful that the Sony and Microsoft consoles that were also available at the time. While the Switch shows off some good-looking games, those are just video clips of the games. We don’t have any system specs to see if it is more powerful, less powerful or even just the same level as the XBOX One or PS4.
o It won't be using discs.
o In the trailer, there is a moment where you see someone push a 3DS style game card into the tablet. So, what does that mean for the Wii-U? Nintendo has been offering backwards compatibility for its consoles, starting with the Wii, allowing players to play their Gamecube games on Wii, and their Wii games on Wii-U. But what happens now? Backwards compatibility is a huge discussion right now as Microsoft is still adding more XBOX 360 games to be playable on the XBOX One, and Sony is still facing outcries for no backwards compatibility at all. Nintendo has said that it will not support physical backwards compatibility for old 3DS and Wii-U games, but that’s all they’ve said. Plus, if part of the philosophy of the Switch is to ditch the clunky Gamepad controller’s permanent use, then why would you offer the ability to play older games that would require either the Gamepad or two different screens?
o People love Nintendo’s handhelds. While it would be great to see previously handheld exclusive series, like "Pokemon," the "Mario & Luigi" RPGs, "Professor Layton" and "Phoneix Wright" make a jump to the home console world, where does that leave the 3DS market? The 3DS has recently surged in sales, even passing the sales of the Wii-U by over 30 million units, as of December 31st, 2015. Now what about them? Does Nintendo abandon them completely? Will they continue releasing games exclusively to handhelds despite this new system having what appears to be an all-in-one philosophy? Does Nintendo stop production of 3DS software completely and risk alienating this market?
These are all valid concerns, and it also doesn’t help that, like I said, we know almost nothing about the console. Normally I would say wait until next year’s E3 conference, the conference where game companies detail their plans for the next year and beyond to the press, but the system is launching before the next conference. We are less than six months away from the launch of the Switch, and we just learned what the real name of the console is and what it looks like! I think that this could be the system that brings Nintendo back to the forefront of the gaming industry.
However, I’m also worried that the lack of information on their part could put wary buyers off, especially considering the want of peace of mind after the Wii-U’s failure. What will I do? Well, if I knew how much the thing is going to cost, what the launch games are and if I had money, I would probably preorder it. Because regardless of what the system ends up being, I think that as long as Nintendo makes the next "Mario Kart," "Zelda" or "Mario platformer," and that they make it good, the system will still provide what Nintendo always provides; pure fun. That is, after all, what Ninten-does.
