The Nintendo Switch is poised to become the highest selling console of all time. I honestly didn’t think that anything would dethrone the Nintendo DS or the PS2, both of which achieved their sales at a very different time, before the rise of cellphone gaming and, for the PS2, at a time when DVD adoption was in some ways more important than games.
But on the Switch’s 7th anniversary it has slowed down but has not stopped selling and with at least a year left as Nintendo’s primary machine and undoubtably some long tail years after that, it looks like it will get there. It’s a remarkable achievement, especially coming off the Wii U, and it reflects a system perfectly designed for the time when it was released and supported with some of the best software gaming has ever seen.
So why doesn’t it seem like a bigger deal to me?
I’ve had a Switch since launch. The fan has burned out on my unit so unless it’s cold out I have to direct an external fan to prevent it from overheating but the unit still works, and so does the pro controller I picked up with it and have played almost everything with since then, spending only minimal time in portable mode.
I’ve played at least some games on the Switch every year since its release, and generally it has had a couple titles that have been favorites in all my top 10s. Breath of the Wild remains my favorite game of all time. Tears of the Kingdom was my favorite game of last year, and Mario Wonder was my third favorite; an impressive showing. Just last month I fell briefly in love with Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe, so it’s not like the system has been gathering dust for me in its latter years (though I didn’t turn it on for about a month before then.) There are lots of other games I’ve really loved on the Switch, like the entire Xenoblade Chronicles series, Mario Odyssey and 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, and the Animal Crossing game that took the world by storm. I’ve also loved some classic emulated stuff like Mario Galaxy and the fantastic Sega Ages ports, and some (temporarily) exclusive indies like Hades and Neon White (both played on the Switch and absolute top games in the years they were released.) There are a number of Switch games I still really want to play, some of which I already own, so it’s impossible for me to argue that the Switch is lacking in software.
The Switch has also had a decent cultural impact in my circles. I have three close friends who own Switches, at least if you count one who bought it for his son, and from anecdotal evidence it seems to be the console most relevant among kids. On the other hand, I don’t really see Switches played in public the way I did PSPs or DS/3DS systems, but that may be a function of its size. I know that the 3DS and Vita were much more manageable on the train for me than the Switch has been. However, it’s clear that Nintendo has not lost any of its cultural cache, as demonstrated by the incredible success of the Mario movie and the various Nintendo merchandise and apparel you see out and about. Video games are bigger than ever, and the Switch is part of that.
However, I think that part of why the Switch doesn’t ‘feel’ huge can be seen in the ways in which gaming has evolved. Among young people Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft are ascendant. Minecraft and Fortnite are on the Switch, of course, but they don’t “live” there. The same is true for the vast majority of the Switch’s third party support. If you count indies (or even if you don’t) the Switch has enjoyed more third party support than any Nintendo home console since the SNES, but almost all of those games are on other platforms and perform better there. Yeah they put Mortal Kombat 1 on the Switch, but who would ever play it there if they didn’t have to?
And this non-exclusivity also defined the Switch’s early years, which were driven largely by Wii U ports. Of course there were some amazing exclusives, like Super Mario Odyssey or Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but without the Wii U’s software lineup the Switch’s early library looks very different, with games like Arms failing to make anything like the impact that something like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (the Switch’s most successful game) did. Even though I never had a Wii U and I played those ports, this impacted my perception of the Switch’s identity.
On a similar note, the Switch hasn’t spawned a single major Nintendo IP, and is the first system not to do so, despite its long lifecycle (it will be 8 years, the longest home console cycle ever for the big N.) The Switch has a lot of big games and great games, and they’re almost all ports or sequels. To some degree that’s just where gaming is these days, but the PS4 at least spawned IP like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn. The Switch? Nintendo has barely tried.
And all that adds up to the ways in which the Switch feels more like a handheld than a home console in a lot of ways. Developers have worked miracles with it but it has been underpowered since the day it launched. It has often been a compliment to other systems rather than a primary platform for hardcore gamers, most of which have praised it mostly for the ability to play on plane flights and in hotel rooms. Nintendo has focused on it as a place to put games from its already successful franchises rather than a place to grow new IP and experiences. And it’s impossible to blame them, considering the incredible success it has had.
Part of my perception of the Switch is undoubtably that I’m getting older and no console will ever wow me the way the systems of my youth did, especially since technological innovation in games has slowed to a crawl. Part of it is my own personal indifference to the idea of handheld gaming. But I think that the Switch also represents Nintendo fully giving up on competing with “AAA” gaming and focusing on a difference slice of the market; one that I can appreciate and enjoy but that just doesn’t feel as “big” to me, for lack of a better term. Arguably they started this with the Wii, but the Switch is the culmination of that very successful strategy. And so for me it will go down as a system that I enjoyed a lot of games on and was well worth owning but that fundamentally wasn’t “for” me.
When the dust has settled the Switch will have carved out a very important niche in video game history. It will be the biggest selling console ever (probably.) It will be the home of some of the biggest games of its time. It will represent the childhood console and object of nostalgia for a generation of kids. 15 years from now the Internet (if it still exists as it does today) will be full of “hey, remember how great the Switch was?” articles and videos. But right now, I can’t ‘feel’ that, and it makes me feel a little bit out of touch. Oh well. We all get old. At least I had Zelda.
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