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Nintendo fucking nailed it with the Switch. It captures the dream of having one "computing" device with you for everything and all of the play modes are so poli

by bane 9y ago

Nintendo fucking nailed it with the Switch. It captures the dream of having one "computing" device with you for everything and all of the play modes are so polished they don't feel like gimmicks. Back during the Wii days, there were comments that compared Nintendo to Apple in terms of philosophy and industrial design. This is them at the top of their game again...everything just works...no muss, no fuss. There's a very simple and elegant core philosophical concept to the Switch that they relentlessly pursued until all the edge cases were filed down. Turn it on, you pick up your game right where you left off in about 5 seconds. Controllers sync in seconds, the dock as a charger and TV connector is seamless, the joycons work beautifully, the mobile experience is top-of-the-line. It comes out of the box ready for multiplayer, something no console has done since maybe the SNES. And the initial software releases are diverse, fantastically produced and incredibly enjoyable. This is the part where Nintendo's fundamental DNA as a toy company comes into play. It's their job to generate joy, not wow with consumer electronics. It's like every interaction with the system is designed to instill confidence and a preparation for fun. The system is powerful enough for general computing, but they've cut out all that stuff and focused it on gaming. It doesn't even come with a web browser. There's some knocks against Nintendo for not getting on-line play, and I think that's true. But philosophically, Nintendo wants you to get together with your friends, because that's more fun. I can imagine whiteboard meetings at Nintendo where they analyze the shortest path to joy and maximization of player fun as serious discussions. I just hope they can keep the software coming so they can sustain this. Nintendo deserves to be top dog for a while. This is a great time to be a gamer and this makes Sony and Microsoft just look like their going through the motions at this point.

byron_fast 9y ago
If they made a Switch with LTE capability and a web browser, that would also be awesome. When I see how people react to their phones now that they are used to handhelds - with the constant feeling they've lost control and breaking changes are inevitable - it's only a matter of time before Nintendo wins other markets.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Maybe that would play in other countries, in the US I think would work just as well as the 3G support on the Vita. I had one of those come up but surprise surprise I never hooked it up to the cell network. Why would I? Just cost a whole bunch of money for something I’m not really going to use. Look at what happened with Apple. They managed to get “special deals“ from the carriers to allow the new Apple Watches to be on for ‘only’ $10 a month. Of course it was something like $17 or $18 after all the taxes and fees. And they were had been Android smart watches you could add to your plan for only five dollars a month before hand… but the carriers were nice enough to “fix” that. I’m not a huge online gamer, but even if I was I don’t feel like $20 a month just to use my switch. If I want to do that I’ll use the free tethering I have. If I had kids? I don’t see why I would pay $20 a month for each of them either. The idea of putting cell radios and everything seems nice but the truth is that in the US it’s worthless because it’s so expensive to use. As for a web browser? I have my phone. Frankly I’m happy that the switch is nothing more than a gaming machine. I can sort of see the idea of using it for Netflix watching since it has a decent size screen. I can’t imagine myself ever opening the web browser once. Featuritis one of the problems that Microsoft had this generation. The WiiU had it also. It’s nice to have a focused device.
- bane 9y ago
  It could be, but I feel like the relentless focus of the device is what makes it so great. I would guess that almost no time at all was spent thinking of ways to compromise the system to make sure browsing was a good experience.

by bane 9y ago

byron_fast 9y ago

If they made a Switch with LTE capability and a web browser, that would also be awesome. When I see how people react to their phones now that they are used to handhelds - with the constant feeling they've lost control and breaking changes are inevitable - it's only a matter of time before Nintendo wins other markets.

MBCook 9y ago
Maybe that would play in other countries, in the US I think would work just as well as the 3G support on the Vita. I had one of those come up but surprise surprise I never hooked it up to the cell network. Why would I? Just cost a whole bunch of money for something I’m not really going to use. Look at what happened with Apple. They managed to get “special deals“ from the carriers to allow the new Apple Watches to be on for ‘only’ $10 a month. Of course it was something like $17 or $18 after all the taxes and fees. And they were had been Android smart watches you could add to your plan for only five dollars a month before hand… but the carriers were nice enough to “fix” that. I’m not a huge online gamer, but even if I was I don’t feel like $20 a month just to use my switch. If I want to do that I’ll use the free tethering I have. If I had kids? I don’t see why I would pay $20 a month for each of them either. The idea of putting cell radios and everything seems nice but the truth is that in the US it’s worthless because it’s so expensive to use. As for a web browser? I have my phone. Frankly I’m happy that the switch is nothing more than a gaming machine. I can sort of see the idea of using it for Netflix watching since it has a decent size screen. I can’t imagine myself ever opening the web browser once. Featuritis one of the problems that Microsoft had this generation. The WiiU had it also. It’s nice to have a focused device.
bane 9y ago
It could be, but I feel like the relentless focus of the device is what makes it so great. I would guess that almost no time at all was spent thinking of ways to compromise the system to make sure browsing was a good experience.