Home EntertainmentGaming Give it a rest, killjoys: Nintendo doesn’t need a new hardware gimmick to surprise and delight

Give it a rest, killjoys: Nintendo doesn’t need a new hardware gimmick to surprise and delight

by Eclipsnews
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And there you have it: the Nintendo Switch 2 has been unveiled. From the feverish speculation and rampant leaks, it was pretty clear that whatever Nintendo revealed, the speculation from fans, influencers, commentators and analysts would be intense. A few minutes of snazzy renderings of the wandering machine, deliberately low on detail, would work just fine.

Of course, some of that commentary would be intolerable. It took me minutes to see my first “I want more and I want it now” meltdown, with an overbearing demand and tempestuous anger Veruca Salt would be proud of that. Like Salt, these people damn well deserve to be dumped in the landfill. Be damn patient.

But I noticed another thread in the responses that surprised me: the idea that by releasing a relatively iterative sequel to the Switch, Nintendo had somehow lost its spark of creativity. Is the Switch 2 a capitulation to the Switch’s mission to ‘surprise and delight’ players, as explained by the late Satoru Iwata when that console was still known as the NX? Well, um, no, it’s not. And to think that is, quite frankly, foolish.

In the Switch 2 I see a path that Nintendo has trodden before. I sometimes think that the earth-shattering nature of the Wii and DS has distorted the way we think about the company. The truth is, Nintendo hasn’t always been one to weather big swings. In fact, Nintendo has done a lot of this kind of sequel-based hardware.

What is the Super Nintendo, if not a gently iterative, powerful successor to the NES? It is, and I’ll tell you what else it is: one of the best consoles of all time. That includes the Game Boy Advance, which is literally an ‘advanced’ version of the hardware that came before it – its biggest innovation was a few extra buttons, themselves borrowed from the SNES.


The Nintendo Switch 2.
Do you think this is surprising? Delicious? | Image credit: Nintendo

I would never argue that either of these machines, both slam dunks, lacked the spirit of Nintendo. It was just delivered in different ways; in new control methods provided by peripherals or carts with technology packed into them, or simply in a clever new gameplay design that the beefed-up hardware makes possible. When I think of Nintendo Surprising and Delightful, I think as much of the astonishing design language leaps from Metroid 1 to Super Metroid or the exuberant joys of Wind Waker’s art as I do of Wii Bowling.

And even on the Wii and Switch, some of the greatest joys came via external peripherals anyway – in the gym alone, the balance board and Ring Fit exist as an addition to the hardware, and were nowhere to be seen at launch.

Even when iterative sequels were less successful, such as with the transition from the N64 to GameCube, Nintendo quietly found ways to create beloved and memorable cult games that stood out from the rest of the market. But the same can be said on the other side of the coin: the 3DS offered a fun and exciting new system-changing gimmick, but it turned out to be just that. a bit of s**tallowing most of the innovation in the games to come from beautiful design rather than screaming new features.


The switch 2.
What new innovations will Mario Kart Switch 2 bring? | Image credit: Nintendo

It’s true that the machine itself is no surprise. It’s exactly what I expected; a refinement of a design that works brilliantly. The Switch arguably relaunched the concept of what portable gaming can be, and in the Switch 2’s design you can easily see an invigorated and validated Nintendo taking a side-eye at the deluge of nicer PC handhelds and saying, “well, we can match That”. The Switch 2 will also have one thing these machines will never have: Nintendo’s infectious, upbeat approach to game design.

The Switch 2 gets new features. The deliberately vague trailer has hints at this: the joy-cons dragging across the surface like mice, immediately conjuring up thoughts of Mario Paint, or Maker, or an Xbox collaboration for an Age of Empires port. New, more powerful Joy Cons will likely lead to a range of new peripheral capabilities that could lead to further innovation.

Some of the biggest new features may also be inside the machine. I’d be the first to say that we’re quickly approaching, if not already, a point of diminishing returns in terms of graphics hardware upgrades – but hardware upgrades aren’t always about visuals. Better hardware can bring scope and scale, something that doesn’t always just mean ‘bigger’ – it can mean new gameplay ideas.


Switch 2 - Mario Kart racing start gameplay
Do I spy 24 starting positions? | Image credit: Nintendo

I guess what I’m ultimately saying is that it’s too early to judge. We can absolutely make the argument that this was a poorly thought out reveal. If your machine looks almost identical to its predecessor, perhaps your first trailer shouldn’t just focus on looks. But ultimately, if I trust any company to pull a rabbit out of a hat, it’s Nintendo. The hardware is the same, that’s true – but we’ve really been here before, and in every less contrived generation Nintendo has continued to ‘Upend the Tea Table’, as Miyamoto was known to dowith game design and clever, crazy add-on peripherals, anyway. And I certainly wouldn’t underestimate what Nintendo could do in terms of game design with a significant amount of more processing power.

In short, without seeing what Nintendo is planning to do with this new hardware, all this hand-wringing is very stupid. And oh god, we’re going to have to listen to all this nonsense until Aprilright? Open the stasis chamber.

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