We are approaching the 2 year anniversary of Switch's reveal trailer. Has your reaction to the Switch changed since then?

Video Games
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“Nintendo Switch”… Like all new console names, it sounded so foreign and bizarre at first. Had I been younger, I would have assumed “that will never catch on” due to how ordinary and non-console-like it sounded. But we had been through that with the Wii before. It started sounding natural after some time.

It was clear that Nintendo was trying to send a very clear message. This is a new unprecedented pursuit for them. And to this day, it still feels that way from a marketing standpoint.

When I first saw the console, I was genuinely unsure whether most people would go for it though. To me, even though the marketing felt new, in many ways it felt like Nintendo was still doubling down on their failing Wii U concept of off-TV play. The controllers in the video - which we now know as joycons - looked far too small, limited, and awkward to use in the horizontal position for muliplayer. And the system’s form factor guaranteed that it would be less powerful than its competition who were already getting even more powerful upgrades.

But, fortunately, the gaming community and public at large has seemed to embrace the device. 2 years later, I do see this as the best direction for the company, and genuinely well thought out - although still not quite as revolutionary as they were during the Wii and DS era.

It’s getting better 3rd party support than we’ve seen in decades from any piece of Nintendo hardware. And its form factor has even gotten me to double dip on a title or two. Plus, it’s internal design was genuinely as state of the art as you could hope for from Nintendo, which is something we hadn’t seen from the company since arguably the GCN days. And those joycons are suprisingly enjoyable to use even for my adult-sized hands.

Even though I am a Nintendo fan, and was going to be there on Day 1 for the launch no matter what (nothing beats a new Nintendo system), I genuinely misjudged the Switch’s market potential. I thought it would sell between the GCN and the N64 in terms of numbers, and it looks like it will easily eclipse both of those systems when all is said and done.

How did you feel after seeing the trailer? And have your impressions changed over the course of the last 2 years?

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I was really relieved when they finally dropped the Wii name and I thought the switch was a good direction for them, Nintendo can’t compete with Sony and Microsoft but they don’t need to and I don’t think they would want to and as such the switch makes sense.
I have been disappointed with the joycon reliability plus the switch online and lack of virtual console have been a bit of a let down but I’m hopeful for the future especially with a redesign/refresh on the way.

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I was super happy to see Nintendo make a thing that was both portable and also connects to your tv. Honestly, I thought all of our phones would be our consoles by this point. Come home from work, dock your iphone/android to your tv an boom gaming time.

Now 2 years later, I just bought Luigi’s Mansion for the 3DS and I can’t believe I am saying this. I hope we get a Newer 3DS or another type of portable device. I am seeing a lot of games designed for the tv and its rare to get some of those games that are bite sized. Sure, because you can put any game to sleep they all become bite sized.

I am very happy with the switch, I would like to see more content from Nintendo but it seems indies and 3rd parties are actually viable know so its not so bad. As someone who owned the Wii U. This year hasn’t been the best for games on the Switch. I do like that they are porting Wii U games, but I think they should all be much cheaper ($40 or less) and they should not treat those releases as the game that came out for this quarter.

I always somehow feel content starved from Nintendo but that is probably because I am avid consumer of their content.

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They should port Super Mario Maker to the switch, so I don’t have to buy a Wii U.

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I love it and my reaction to the trailer was super positive. It felt like something totally new at the time and it still feels “new” to me today. I’ve started using mine portably a lot more often than I did when we first got it, and I think that’s just how the lineup of games has changed since the start. Zelda and Mario and Splatoon felt like BIG SCREEN games to me. The things we’ve gotten in 2018 feel more handheld by design plus I’ve shifted toward more arcade gaming and indies on the machine… both of which are great for portable with the ability to go screen vertical!

It’s the most diverse gaming device ever made. Play it on the TV or portable. Play it with regular controls, motion controls, a Pro controller, use the touch screen sometimes, other times a joycon sideways. Play with friends on the couch, at the dining room or office table, or even play online whether you’re at home or portable. Play how YOU want to play. It’s brilliant.

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I honestly don’t even know why it has been such a success. Or why the WiiU failed so hard. I mean I really like both but it seems so arbitrary to me.

All I know is that if I see an appeal or not doesn’t matter to the success of a console so I don’t really try to guess. Gimmicks or not if there are good games I’ll buy it.

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I think launching with Zelda was a big reason. And just the name of the thing is better too. And it’s also easier to convey conceptually.

That’s really it.

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Wii U was a fine system that was killed by a name. They were so committed to the Wii name because of its success that they completely overlooked the fact that it would create confusion with most of those customers who owned one.

If Wii U had been given the same treatment as Switch, we’re talking about Nintendo staying on top IMO.

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I don’t like that being the reason since I hated it when they did the same thing with Twilight Princess. What made me not buy a Wii for years after it came out. And the Wii was a huge success as well, name and all.

Don’t know how much an effect a launch Zelda has on the general public, but it must. WiiU had what? A bunch of ports and a side scrolling Mario, then kinda a drought for years with more ports so I guess as much as I like the system it’s failure makes sense. Sure I think that New Mario WiiU was the best of the series but it’s not going to sell as many systems as a big 3d game.

I mean sure, and I even overheard people’s confusion at stores but to me it wasn’t too different then Nintendo and Super Nintendo.Think the kind of games they used as system sellers had more of an effect. Nintendo consoles seem more effected by having something big at launch or so it seems.

The public just seems to have latched onto the Switch in a way that is bewildering to me. A big 3d Mario and Zelda make sense as system sellers to me but not to the extreme level of success that it seems to be getting. I’m happy for it but it just seems more arbitrary then anything to me.

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I don’t think so, because I think Nintendoland is absolutely phenomenal and would have been a serious system seller if people knew that the system itself was new and not some kind of Wii add-on.

Never forget that Target was so confused they actually advertised the tablet like it was a Wii add-on!

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Also, Switch is exciting to people because of its versatility as I noted above. It meets the requirements of almost every game player, young and old, tall and small, TV or not TV. It’s not arbitrary at all. The software sure doesn’t hurt either.

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Ehhh. I liked the game and played it a ton but can’t really agree. It is super fun and appeals to the mass casual market that made the Wii a success but it really isn’t the kind of game that creates massive buzz. I can at least understand the hype behind a new big open Zelda game even if it would apeal to less people overall then a game like Nintendoland. It is shock and awe while Nintendoland is “just” good fun. Shock and awe sells while good fun is something that you are happy that the system that you already bought has. Or something.

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I feel like the masses flocked to the Wii because it was a fresh idea that had never been done before. The casual people of the world got behind it, and it catered to that market like no other. It snowballed like crazy, and every household had one.

By the time the Wii U came out, the casual market had their fill, and Nintendo needed to get back on the “normal” gaming market bandwagon. They needed to appeal to the regular gamers.

They failed hard. They wanted to keep the casual gravy train rolling, but everyone had already shelved their Wii systems in favour of other things. The casual market wasn’t ready to fork out the money again, and the normal market wasn’t ready for the portable idea.

The Switch is a full 11 years after the Wii. Long enough to pique the interest of the casual player, and a perfect time to also appeal to the hardcore gamer. It was a mixture of both worlds with great usability, accessibility, and versatility. The timing was perfect. The Wii U was failing and the world was literally clamoring for Nintendo to fix all of its mistakes.

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Gotta echo apathetic on this point… It’s a great game, but not a system seller. It didn’t have the same appeal as Wii Sports did.

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I think my reaction has changed, but only because the Switch ended up succeeding beyond even the least sceptical expectations.

I was very excited to see the reveal trailer and the concept still remains very exciting today: a device that, out of the box, gives you the most flexible way to enjoy console-style games anywhere you like - local multiplayer included! It’s the true realisation of that idea which always felt half-baked with the PSP and Vita, yet Nintendo’s approach in designing the Switch more like a laptop (heat pipe, two power modes, full sized control inputs, marketing it as a home gaming system) made it work while setting expectations far higher.

But at the same time it was easy to be sceptical. The initial list of publishing partners was slim. Many questions had gone unanswered. And the Wii U’s performance on the market didn’t fill me with confidence that publishers would support it out of the gate.

Fast forward to today and it’s clear Nintendo not only nailed the concept - designing a portable console we didn’t know we wanted - but their biggest achievement wasn’t in that reveal trailer. I honestly think the best thing Nintendo did with the Switch was a complete revamp of their platform publishing processes. The dev kits are cheap, and publishing is significantly easier. Like on iOS or Steam, publishers can submit a single universal game file to the eShop, adding language support when it’s ready to make it available in more countries. There’s no need to submit and maintain several versions of the game or find new publishers to do so like on previous console platforms.

This meant that on the back of the game-changing BotW - which really did change the conversation around the Switch - Nintendo was able to quickly build a library of games from a variety of publishers. It’s why that initial launch lineup of five games changed into a dozen by launch day, and why the platform ended up having something like 700 games by the year’s end.

In a nutshell, then, I think the initial trailer still shows an exciting concept, but the real excitement came from what wasn’t shown in that trailer. That extends to stuff like how fast and convenient the Switch is to use - a lot of the unanswered questions in the trailer turned out to delight us.

That said, it’s clear the age of the bespoke Nintendo system is behind us, and that makes me a little sad. While the Switch is a great machine to fit in with the current age of multi-platform development, it’s almost the opposite to Nintendo’s handheld lineage: quirky devices offering new gameplay toolkits to developers, survived by entirely unique libraries of software. The Switch’s hybrid approach still forces developers to support the traditional Gamepad setup served up by the Joy-Con controller, and the market is so fragmented today that publishers don’t have a business case to make complete exclusives for the Switch like they would previous handhelds. Basically, I would have hoped third party support would have been more interesting by now. Capcom and many other publishers have yet to release a single original game! The Wii had Zack and Wiki long before this moment.

Then there’s Nintendo’s first party output. The biggest games, from BotW to ARMS to Mario Odyssey have been fantastic. But it feels like Nintendo has stopped making those smaller projects. You know, games like Pushmo/Pullblox, Picross 3D, Endless Ocean, Hotel Dusk, Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball, Calciobit, Steel Diver, Pilotwings Resort, MaBoShi. Today, they are either focusing on AAA or mobile games, with nothing in between. I thought their funding and publishing of Snipperclips on launch day would herald a new age of second-party development, similar to what the Wii and DS had. Despite that game shifting over half a million copies we’ve had nothing to follow up from it, nearly two years later…

Still, Labo is a delight. Anyway, I digress. This rather long post is how I found myself thinking about the Switch two years after its reveal. It’s simultaneously one of Nintendo’s most promising and boring console systems.

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Yeah, I think the emphasis Nintendo paid towards complete backwards compatibility with Wii peripherals and software limited what they could do with the Wii U. And Nintendo misread where the market was going. We were heading towards cloud/internet connected secondary devices, and the battle for attention was becoming a lot fiercer.

While it wasn’t what people wanted, and while it was definitely a flawed system at launch, I still really appreciate the Wii U today for having a lot of individuality since it’s clear Nintendo themselves didn’t know what would enthral people again. This article captures what that appeal is much better than I can - I highly recommend reading it (or at least skipping to the last section, titled “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On”)

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The first Switch trailer was a huge relief when it came after the disastrous and demoralizing Wii U era and all the endless months of non stop drip feed, regurgitated “NX” rumors and unlike the Wii U, the trailer immediately did a great job of messaging the hybrid purpose of the system and why customers should want it (it’s probably no coincidence the NOA marketing guy who was in charge of all the awful Wii U ads was fired earlier that year).

Anyways Switch has amazing games AND I can play TATE shmups on it with ease, what more needs to be said? :grin:

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Have a Switch but it hasn’t really set my world on fire like I thought it might. Then again I’ve been gaming less and less in general so it might just be a natural by-product of that.

Also, I had my portable console gaming revelation with the Wii U so I sort of already had my mind blown by that experience. This also meant/means that many of the games I’m interested in playing on Switch I played on Wii U.

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gotta be honest, i’m not playing it on the go much so for home use it’s been cool…even got in on a cheap-o family plan to try out the mock VC.

so far my only complaint was that i was too dumb to really understand how TWEWY’s control setup would work from docked mode, hooo boy is that not great

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Its success is still a bit of a mystery to me. I take public transport everyday and I still am yet to see someone with a Switch (just loads of people playing games on phones) and as a home console it’s very underwhelming (especially online). That said as someone who was a big fan of the Wii U, if nothing else I am happy to see its excellent library get a second chance on the Switch.

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My initial reaction was very positive because I had been on the HD hybrid console bandwagon for a long time, after being a late and unhappy adopter of both the Wii U (with its slow OS, lack of games and bulky, cheap-looking tablet) and the 3DS (weirdly low res and wonky 3D implementation before the N3DS). When we got more details, halfway between the reveal and the launch, I was really offput by the high price of… everything. But I warmed up to it after reading that the entire console package was very competitively priced for the tech inside (tablet and joycons).

Since then I’ve been very happy with the experience of using the system and the games we got the first year. 2018 was fine for me (have more than enough of a backlog) but it was undeniably a little more lackluster. Not just because 2017 was such a big year for all-new Switch releases, but because I was expecting higher output with the move away from two separate platforms. I know Nintendo has their reasons, but I want the 3DS to be done and would have preferred games like Samus Returns and the Luigi’s Mansion remaster to be on Switch instead. I was expecting all these “A” or “AA” games to be on their new hardware and it seems like a waste to continue seeing this divided effort continue well into 2018.

The paid online service has been a huge disappointment and currently feels like I’m just paying for what used to be free with almost no upside. We should have built-in voice chat for all games and a messaging/chat system for friends. As is, it feels like an oddly quiet and isolated online community – a lot worse than the Miiverse. The free offline/online games each month are a neat idea, but the execution has been terrible. We have to wait so long to get too few titles and they’re mainly the oldest, most outdated NES games. This would improve dramatically if it were a mix such as 1 NES, 1 SNES, 1 GBA and 1 N64 game… with the occasional treat of a Gamecube or Wii game. And why no free modern games like every other paid service? Why aren’t there weekly/monthly discounted games for paid subscribers like with PS Plus? Awful all around.

Besides that, I’d really like a sturdier, compact Switch. It just doesn’t feel like a true, effortless handle like a GBA, 3DS or Vita, due to its large size and the detachable joycons that are sort of weak points that can loosen over time. Wishful thinking, but if they can at least slightly ramp up output of original AA/AAA content for 2019, and greatly improve the paid service, I’ll be more than happy.