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Nintendo is a toy company. You don’t buy their hardware thinking that you’ve got a device which is going to take over your living room, delivering television an
by hug 9y ago
Nintendo is a toy company. You don’t buy their hardware thinking that you’ve got a device which is going to take over your living room, delivering television and games and voice recognition and baking you cookies. You buy a big ol’ expensive toy. The kind meant for kids, but also the kind that’s such a good toy that you’ll love it even if you’re not a kid.
The Switch, of course, did it perfectly. Daaaaaad don’t want to go out I haven’t reached a save poi... oh wait. Can’t play Switch because your mother is watching TV? Yes you can. Want to play Mario as a fun, motion controlled casual scroller? Yep. Want to play Mario as the single best speed-running title around with a pro controller? That too.
The Wii was a fantastic toy! Well executed motion controls, with games that took advantage: The kind of game that a six year old and sixty year old could play against each other in a fair match.
The DS, a plasticy clamshell with the heritage of the bomb proof gameboy, was in the hands of kids everywhere, that graphics by necessity somewhat simpler, but no less satisfying.
And then: the Wii U. It was not whatever the aforementioned things were, or maybe it was in a failure-of-execution sort of way. I never saw a kid particularly excited about playing the Wii U. Too much video game, not enough toy.
The Switch doesn’t have gimmicks, it has features. It’s not a primarily first-party console, it has hundreds of indie games on the Eshop from a dollar up. It’s not great because it can be played in the hand and on the TV, it’s great and it can do those things.
- rhizome 9y agoExcellent comment. "Resurgence" only makes sense in a business horserace, or in measuring media coverage. Nintendo has always been going strong, knows exactly WTF they're doing, executes with precision more or less, and is pretty much always successful. A resurgence in attention has nothing to do with the company.
- Feniks 9y agoGameCube and the WiiU? Nintendo owns its survival on handhelds. Pokémon prints money since 1996.
- throwawayfinal 9y agoGamecube was a success. It wasn't a wild success. It also was the hardware foundation for the Wii (seriously, the wii is a gamecube and an arm chip smashed together). Wii U was probably profitable. Not a success like a company like Nintendo needs, a strategic misstep that didn't impact their fortunes significantly. Hardware-wise it was a very direct descendant of the Wii (and gamecube). Relatively low development cost. The games developed for it are being ported to the switch to great success.
- Crisco 9y agoJust a quick correction, the Wii was still PowerPC based like the GameCube. It just took both the GPU and CPU and upped their power a bit, but was not different from the GameCube in any real significant way.
- IntelMiner 9y agoThe Wii did have a few distinctions from the GameCube. However they abstracted them in an interesting way The Wii itself was still a G3 PPC chip, just add a few hundred Mhz It also had more RAM (which allowed the "Twiizers" attack over a decade ago) All the Wii-centric functionality (USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, SD card, etc) was abstracted away inside an ARM co-processor inside the GPU. Named "Starlet" by the homebrew community Wii software was then written that would simply poke at the API's it exposed to add that functionality
- Crisco 9y agoAh, yeah totally forgot about starlet. It's been a while since I messed around in the Wii homebrew scene, but that was basically got me interested in cybersecurity in the first place when I was in middle school. I should go back and look at it now that I actually know what I'm doing (more or less).
- rainbowmverse 9y agoNintendo follows a similar pattern to Microsoft where they alternate between failures and wins. Also, Nintendo doesn't own Pokémon.
- giobox 9y ago> Nintendo has always been going strong, knows exactly WTF they're doing, executes with precision more or less, and is pretty much always successful Perhaps, but I'd definitely class the Wii U as a misstep - sold poorly and clearly wasn't the right device for the market at that time. I really don't think Nintendo was sure at all what it was doing with the Wii U. I've seen some theories that the reason the Switch has been so great is that given the relative failure of the Wii U they didn't have time to screw up the Switch with the usual supply of badly implemented software features that Nintendo have a bad habit of doing. Unlike the Wii, 3DS etc there is no step counters, web browsers, virtual console, streaming services, audio recorder, pointless low quality stereo cameras etc at launch on Switch - just a simple, lean focus on fun games. The 3DS and Wii were especially bad for pointless built in extra software. I'd honestly be perfectly happy with my Switch if none of those features, perhaps with the exception of Virtual Console, ever come back. I also love how Nintendo are really embracing the indie game community with the Switch, a pleasant surprise given the less than brilliant relationship Nintendo has had there in the past.
- jacobush 9y agoAnd Wii U would have succeeded, had they called it something else. Most people were like, oh a "Wii"? Got one already, check, keep browsing for Christmas presents...
- marpstar 9y agoAgreed. It wasn't until about a year after it was released that I realized it was a different system. It seemed like a new controller for the original Wii.
- Impossible 9y agoProduct differentiation was a big problem for Wii U. At one point a friend of mine asked me how much a Wii would sell for, this was well after the Wii U launch. I asked "Wii or Wii U" and she said "What's a Wii U?". The Wii U Gamepad failed at delivering the play however you want, whenever you want, experience that the Switch successfully executed on. It was the right direction but the implementation wasn't quite useful enough. I wouldn't have bought a Switch if I couldn't play it as a handheld, for example.
- SimeVidas 9y agoA toy is by definition only for children. The Switch is a video game system for all ages, so it’s not a toy … unless you think video games are only for children.
- 32bitkid 9y agoI'm not sure I agree with this definition of a "toy"; to me is an item used primarily for "play" (or not exclusively for "work"/"productivity"). Play is most definitely not restricted to children.
- SimeVidas 9y agoEither all major video game consoles are toys, or none of them are. And since they are designed for all age groups, I wouldn’t call them toys, because that unnecessarily associates them with children.
- eric_h 9y agoWhenever I buy a new piece of electronics (say, a new iPhone or a new laptop), I call it my new toy. Toys aren't just for kids, just like fun isn't just for kids.
- SimeVidas 9y agoYes, and I call my cat baby. That‘s fine but in discussions, we should stick to the words’ actual meanings. When you say, video game consoles are toys, you‘re (inadvertently) making a statement that video games are for children. That‘s what you sound like, whether you like it or not. It‘s because most people associate toys with children. So let‘s acknowledge that, and use terms that highlight that video games are for all ages, instead of the opposite.
- hug 9y agoI am quite nonplussed by your linguistic prescriptivism. It is, however a moot point in a discussion about Nintendo's products. I appreciate your efforts to remain cordial, however. (In case you didn't get it: All of those words once meant or possibly still currently mean the opposite of the way in which they're being used in this comment. Language is what you make of it.)
- theDoug 9y agoNintendo is also a 128 year old entertainment company. These are some of its recent toys, and to their credit it seems to me they deeply understand (like Disney) how to serve as a home for beloved characters and re-release new twists on their adventures across decades. Other characters, now homeless with their platforms and companies shut down, now make appearances in the Nintendo-world.
- kbenson 9y ago> And then: the Wii U. It was not whatever the aforementioned things were, or maybe it was in a failure-of-execution sort of way. I never saw a kid particularly excited about playing the Wii U. Too much video game, not enough toy. Well, my kids love it, and it hits a few of the points you mention. My 8 year old son loves the fact he can play with a few friends (or his sister and a couple friends. They play Minecraft on it all the time, and when it's just him and someone wants to watch TV, he uses the Wii U tablet to play without a TV. It really is the midpoint between a Wii and the Switch. Add to that stuff like Just Dance and New Super Mario Bros (which allows 4 players at once, in coop or less than cooperative styles), and it really is a good toy for groups of kids.
- Tiktaalik 9y agoIf you look at the Switch and the Wii U, it feels to me that they probably stemmed from the same pitch: "Wouldn't it be great to have a home console that you can take away to the other room for when someone else wants to use the TV?" The difference is that the tech with the Wii U wasn't good enough yet to make a really great product. With the Switch it is now cheap enough to make a really high quality product.
- Waterluvian 9y agoWiiU felt like a bundle of compromise and business pressure. Switch feels like a lesson learned.
- Rapzid 9y agoI like this insight. It means they doubled down on the idea; and won.