Nintendo Switch Breakdown(Pt.2): Nintendo and Innovating Consoles

Last time, I talked about how Nintendo's new Switch made such a splash. This time, I'm talking about how the Switch came about, the nature of Nintendo as a company, and about how reinventing the wheel can cause a fundamental change in an industry.

Nintendo has always been a strange company. They have a very, shall we say, unique way of innovating. Rather than innovating their games constantly and simply upgrading their consoles to be more powerful, Nintendo has always tried to reinvent the wheel and innovate their consoles constantly while their games have been lacking in new ideas, usually relying on cheesy gimmicks. This strategy has, as anyone who pays attention to the gaming industry knows, been rather hit and miss. The Wii had hit home particularly hard, especially with grandma, who, despite you telling her at least a thousand times, can't differentiate between R1 and R2. And between the square and x buttons. And just left and right in general. So motion controls were useful for her. The Wii U on the other hand, well...

That crashed so hard it made that Great Depression-level stock market crash that that astronaut saw as he was exiting out of orbit way too fast as all his systems blue-screen look like a rock dropped from shoulder height.

Too much? Too- OK it was too much. But it's true! That thing was a tablet I watched Netflix on and that's about it.

The Switch is the culmination of years of learning through this method. But one important lesson they learned was that, frankly, you NEED those innovative games. The Switch marked the return of Nintendo as a gaming giant, not only by merit of their console making, but also the sheer number of fun and innovative games that they have hammered into that console. But at the same time, the Switch made those games all the better by making them mobile. This combination is what blew the competition out of the water. And might come close to conquering the Steam sales as for wallet destruction.

HA. Kidding.

The Waiting Game

The finale of the 2 part article on the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo itself is going to be put off a week. As to prevent roving bands of pitchfork enabled hate, here's some music that seemed appropriate

For ironic reasons.

Nintendo Switch Breakdown: How Nintendo Mixes Home Consoles with Handhelds

Nintendo's new Switch has seen itself some incredible sales. After just one quarter(April through June 2017), the Switch, despite it's somewhat soft launch, managed 4.7 million shipments. And I think I've found out why. It's not obvious, especially with the console's launch titles being primarily singleplayer. Spoiler: It's not that satisfying click. It's because of how it mixes the benefits of a handheld console and a home console. Specifically, how you can take multiplayer on the go.

I figured this out while playing the demo(yes demo, I'm dirt poor) of Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition. You can play with another person, either in a co-operative fashion or in a small one on one to two on two game of soccer(or football for those of you in the sane countries). The first thing that popped in my mind was, "this would be fun to bring to school and play with others."

And then I realized that I could.

The thing is that there are three main reasons buying a home console over a handheld: the increase in performance, the TV screen, and the ability for multiple people to play on one console. That last on is the most important. The ability for multiple people to play on a single console, while on the go? That blends together both of some of the most important parts of both the handhelds and consoles. Bringing this thing to a party means that multiple people can play at once without any setup.

This is how you innovate a console, Nintendo. In fact, I should probably talk about how Nintendo innovates it's consoles.