Nintendo Switch 2? Nintendo Switch 1.1, more like. During Nintendo Direct, Nintendo’s Wizard of Switchness (I’m pretty sure that was his actual job title) claimed the new console “isn’t simply an improved Nintendo Switch”. But it kind of is.
As Nintendo reeled off a list of specs and features, my brain translated what was being said. We’re basically getting the original Switch, but a bit bigger and more powerful, with a few fancy new tricks by way of Joy-Cons that can pretend to be weird-looking mice, and a C button that unleashes the horrors of multiplayer voice chat. And you know what? I’m here for it. Well, except for the chat.
Time was, I’d be smashing out a column slamming Nintendo for having not shaken up gaming again. But the truth is, I’m at an age where games blaze past at such a rate that it’s insanely hard to find time to keep up. I’ll be having a lovely day, convinced just last year I was merrily shoving shiny discs into a Dreamcast. Then an evil person will say, no, the Dreamcast’s debut wasn’t even this century. In fact, head back the same amount of years again and you’re in the mid-1970s, surrounded by beige wallpaper, flares and ABBA.
Child’s play
However, the main reason I’m drawn to the Switch 2 is because of the sheer amount of fun I’ve had with the original Nintendo Switch. I’d cunningly used a retro-games box to encourage our resident youngling to move on from pawing at glass screens for gaming. But the Switch was her first proper console. And it was a revelation. I lack the time I’d like for games, but the Switch became a space for quick after-dinner gaming sessions. I even put up with regular drubbings in Mario Kart 8 and Nintendo Switch Sports that suggested I’d somehow misplaced my reactions back in the 8-bit era.
Alongside these multiplayer larks – and platforming fare from Mario, Rayman and everyone’s favourite C-list Nintendo star Kirby – I also carved out tiny chunks of time to explore indie hits on the Switch. And while many exist on other platforms, I’ve never felt the need to move on from our first ‘family console’. Until now. Because the Switch 2 feels like a way to extend everything I like about console gaming for another few years.
Money for old rope
So, sure, the Switch 2 might not be that exciting in some ways. It doesn’t have screamingly new screen tech. It doesn’t revolutionise gaming in the way the original Switch did. And not even in the manner consoles like the Wii and Game Boy managed. Also, you do get the distinct impression Nintendo is a really big fan of money. Price tags on high-res updates to existing Switch games! An eye-watering 75 quid for the physical release of Mario Kart World! But right now, as a time-poor dad with a decades-long love of gaming, the Switch 2 feels like what I need.
Natch, I might grumble five years from now if the Switch 3 rocks up with a 4K 9.2in display, an H button to project your hologram on to remote friends’ faces, Wii games on Nintendo Switch Online, and little more. But today, I’ll take a Switch 1.1 with a pile of kid-friendly games that’ll keep me and the nipper occupied until she decides she no longer wants to play video games with her old man. And even when that happens, the new GameCube classics will help me wallow in the child now having her own life and my own youth being in the distant past. Until someone wallops me with a Goomba and tells me to bloody well pull myself together.
