I opened my laptop this morning, as I normally do, and logged into Twitter, as I normally do. Upon doing so, I refresh the page so that Twitter doesn’t notify me of “What I Missed” and a single tweet catches my eye. It was a tweet from TheJWittz, a popular Pokétuber and Nintendo enthusiast, that simply said “NX.” Curious, I noticed that “Nintendo NX” was trending, so I looked into it only to find out that a mere thirty minutes away, Nintendo was going to officially reveal the NX to the world. It was, for lack of a better phrase, the moment of truth.
I have been very critical with Nintendo lately, what with the failure by the Wii U to keep me motivated about the future of Nintendo as a company. After two systems with gimmicky control schemes, I was craving something more traditional, something that I could just sit down and play with a standard controller in my hands. Not only that, but games that didn’t rely solely on those control schemes the likes of games from the Gamecube era and prior. Knowing Nintendo’s track record of late and their constant, almost obsessive desire to stay innovative and creative—on top of a few “leaks” in the past few months—I was almost guaranteed to see something even more off-the-wall and one-dimensional from the reveal of their newest console. And when that was finally confirmed, I could finally be done with Nintendo and their shit for good. My body was ready for one last ride.
I can honestly say that the trailer makes it look good. So my hesitant love for Nintendo continues.
It is a gimmick, absolutely, but it’s a gimmick that doesn’t intrude upon the games and the manner with which one can play them. At least, that’s how it seems from the video. That is 100% amazing news to me, as someone who despises the Wii U and its clunky Wii U gamepad, and the fact that so many games encourage you to use it. I can finally look forward to a console that is just that: a console. A portable one, sure, but a console nonetheless. I don’t even care about the fact that it’s portable. It has actual (detachable) controllers that can be used in any which way, but none seem to be the “primary” way. It’s a gimmick that lets people choose the way they want to play, and where. All this time leading up to the NX’s reveal, I was horribly pessimistic and certain that I would look at the console and shrug it off immediately. Now, I’m actually pretty excited. I want to know more, I want to test it out for myself, and most importantly, it looks like from the video that the console will include a much more varied library of games. Halle-fuckin’-lujah.
Of course, there are still some questions left for the new system. Some valid questions I’ve seen from feedback of the video consist of battery life of the tablet included, the hard drive of the console, the storage space size, and the price (though a “leak” theorizes it’ll be at $299.99). My main concern isn’t even for the console itself, but for the line-up of games that will be available for it at launch and afterwards. The trailer hinted at a new Mario game, a new Splatoon game, an NBA2K title, and even Skyrim: Remastered. I didn’t much care for Splatoon, though the inclusion of third-party games excites me, along with a new 3D Mario game. The only question is, will the quality of games be affected by the system like the trailer implies it won’t? Or are they just saving that for later? And will Nintendo finally go and produce games that actually feel like new games instead of “games” that feel like uninspired rehashes of older games? Time will tell, but I’m a lot more optimistic about the whole thing than before this morning. Good job, Nintendo.
The new system is called “Nintendo Switch.” And that’s a really stupid name.
The Visualist's Veranda 