Is The Nintendo Switch 2 Weird Enough?

Earlier today, Nintendo revealed the Switch 2. In many ways its what everyone wanted and hoped for: A new version of the Switch that’s more powerful, sleeker, and supports all the old games. However, is this new console too…safe? Boring? This is what Kotaku’s staff debated shortly after the reveal, and here’s our lightly edited debate straight from Slack.

John Walker: God I’m SO BORED of the Switch 2.

Zachary Zwiezen: Speaking of Switch 2… Is this the first time Nintendo has done the “Slap a 2 on it” thing? How Sony of them.

Carolyn Petit: Yep.

John: I think it’s very indicative of a company that’s suddenly got awfully unsure of itself.

Zack: Oh exact opposite!

Caro: Oh no, I think they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s not a “fun” name the way Super Nintendo Switch would be, but it’s the smart play.

Kenneth Shepard: They want to avoid a WiiU situation IMO.

Zack: YUP. In many ways lol.

John: See, I disagree. I get that they’re VERY sure this is a savvy marketing move, and they’re onto a good thing, and on and on and on.

But 15 years ago, they’d have called this something way better, and made it much weirder. Hence, unsure of themselves. They don’t think the “Nintendo” way of doing something would work.

Caro: But everything was different 15 years ago. The Switch is still an outlier in the console space.

Zack: Yeah. 15 years ago Nintendo was still selling a home console and a portable console.

Ethan Gach: RIP Iwata

Zack: I also think the Switch 2 will still be weird in some ways we don’t know yet. The mouse stuff is weird! Cool, too

Caro: I mean, doing something “weird” in this case would almost certainly be a failure from a business standpoint. The Wii, while “weird,” was also savvy business-wise, as it didn’t make sense for Nintendo to compete with Sony and MS at their own game.

John: Yes, but it was weird.

Zack: So was the virtual boy.

John: Nintendo just announced an iteration of their current console and put a “2″ on the name. That’s REALLY unlike them. It’s weird because it’s what everyone else does.

Caro: Yes, but there is not an opportunity today for them to do something that is both “weird” and that would be that successful IMO.

Zack: Also, I bet if you asked Nintendo designers they wouldn’t call any of that stuff weird. Just new ideas they were trying

Caro: The SNES wasn’t weird. it was basically the equivalent for the time of the Switch 2.

Zack: Gameboy Color was basically just Gameboy but color. Nintendo isn’t above iteration.

John: No one expected a Wii, and at the time everyone said it was a mistake because it was so technologically weak.

When the Switch was announced, there was SO much discourse about how it couldn’t compete with the other consoles because it was so weak.

I think if Nintendo had done something totally new and weird and original, they could have still had a huge amount of success. And sure, make the Switch XL at the same time.

Caro: Like what? What’s your amazing “weird” idea that could have done gangbusters today for Nintendo?

Zack: And not break compatibility with hundreds of games.

John: That’s the point! Only Nintendo could come up with it!

Caro: [indifferent face emoji]

Yeah I mean, times change. I just don’t see that opportunity today. Maybe it will arise again in the future, but right now, this was the play.

John: I think you’d have said the same post N64, post GC, etc. And post Wii!

Caro: I would not.

John: Clearly the Wii U was NOT the move, but I love that it WAS the move.

Caro: I mean, post N64 maybe, Nintendo didn’t really get “weird” with consoles until the Wii.

John: Here were my two AMAZING suggestions in my Switch 2 Disappointed piece:

“It’s a wearable piece of tech that uses holograms, or a bizarre twist on AR where the flagship Mario game uses our house furniture for platforms.”

Zack: I hate it.

Caro: Right, that sounds like shit.

Zack: Ask Apple how well AR is doing.

Caro: There is no way that would have a high adoption rate. No way.

John: THEY AREN’T REAL PITCHES!

Zack: Well my reaction was very real. lol.

Caro: I know but like, you’re just presuming that Nintendo can, under any and all marketplace circumstances, generate ideas for consoles that would be both groundbreaking and hugely successful. I don’t see a basis for that at all.

Zack: Also, after the last decade of merging all their software development into ONE platform instead of two distinct divisions (portable/home) the Switch 2 was always going to be the play.

John: If you said to me after the GameCube, “Come on then, think of something,” I wouldn’t have replied, “Um, a thing with a sensor bar and two sticks you wave around.” And if I had, you’d have said “hate it.”

John: “Oh you mean like the Kinect? Yeah, GREAT idea.”

Zack: The thing is Nintendo still does weird shit in the Switch era. Its just stuff you buy for the Switch. Like Labo. Which is a better way to do it.

Caro: Yeah.

John: Everyone should read my brilliant article.

I still hold out hope that the Switch 2 will have some surprises. That little lens spotted in the Joy-Cons is something Nintendo will likely use in some really innovative ways, even if other developers never notice it’s there. I often think about one of the most wonderful aspects of the Switch—the all-too underrated Labo. Those cardboard packs, in conjunction with the peculiar controllers, that had you build working pianos, fishing rods for fishing games, and even a remote-controlled bug creature. It used the Joy-Con’s haptics to move around, and the infrared sensor as a tiny camera! That was bloody incredible! That was astoundingly imaginative, and I have high hopes that Nintendo has similarly inventive plans for using the new Joy-Cons’ tech. I like to imagine they’ll have pushed it all a little harder to third-party developers this time, so we can see some of the wonderful madness that appeared in the first few months of the Nintendo DS.

Zack: Yeah, that’s my point! Don’t need to make something weird, just include weird bits and build off that.

John: You people would never have allowed the greatest gaming device of all time, the Nintendo DS.

Zack: God I hated the DS. lol.

John: “Two screens, only one is a touch screen, and they’re an inch apart? And it’s a clamshell? Fuck off you British idiot.”

Ethan: The weird bits are included in 5 games that aren’t that good and everyone moves on.

Zack: We should post this chat, lightly edited as a VG chat for tomw morning/later today.

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