The Switch one year later – My dream Nintendo console

A year ago today the Nintendo Switch was released in Australia, it’s been a long year and a lot has happened with it but there’s one thing that’s stuck with me for the year.

In my review of the Nintendo Switch after a week with the console I wrote this;

I can’t wait to see what the Switch experience looks like in a year, if it’s not already a must have now. It will be by then.

For now, I have my dream Nintendo console.

A year later the Switch experience is pretty dang good, while there’s not been a ton of changes to the OS, we’ve got it where it counts, games. Nintendo’s steady stream of titles, indies galore and third-party games I never thought would happen. Imagine where we’ll be in a year.

That last sentence of the review, however, is the one I wanted to talk about. A few people asked me what that meant last year and I explained it on Twitter but now I want to explain it further – and how this year has proved that sentence even truer.

All my childhood I was never at home, whether it was working in my parents small business or at family events on the weekend (when you’re Italian you don’t have a weekend where you’re not helping a family member out or at the cousins. It just doesn’t happen). There was never enough time day to day for me to fully enjoy a home console. I had a Nintendo 64 as my first console, and played hours of that during school holidays and such but a portable gaming life I lived.

The Game Boy Advance is probably my most adored console. At the time it copped a lot of crap for being a port machine (wait), but it was the first time I got to play Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, F-Zero, and Link to the Past that wasn’t at a demo kiosk or at a friends place. Similarly, a lot of the NES Classics that came to the system is the first time I played those too.

But life in the portable space wasn’t perfect, while the Game Boy Advance (and the Color & Pocket before that) had a lot of great games but they were, especially at the time well below what you’d get on a console. I always yearned to be able to play Animal Crossing at any time I wanted, not have to jump back into Majora’s Mask for an hour and try and steal the TV back from my parents. The disruption of having to stop and start and chop and change – or drag your cartridge and system around – it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Fast forward to today and things are different – but still kind of the same. I work, I have responsibilities and family events but also I have to share a house with a partner. Sitting down in front of the TV and doing nothing else for hours – it just doesn’t happen – still!

And that’s where the Nintendo Switch is so great, not only are you getting the full console experience on a console, but there’s a huge number of games coming to that are ports. I wonder if people are experiencing a game for the first time like I experienced Link to the Past for the first time all those years ago.

The Nintendo Switch isn’t a ‘portable’ console in the old sense of the word, we’ve got full console experiences for it. Nintendo’s teams are all on it. Third parties aren’t dumping a port studio on it to make crap spin-off games for it. We’re getting the full FIFA, the full Doom, Skyrim, L.A Noire and that’s just in year one.

This is why the Switch is my dream Nintendo console, it fits in with my life perfectly and has everything I ever imagined as a kid on it. Imagine you had a portable Nintendo 64 or GameCube back in the day, it would have been absolutely mind-blowing, it’s only now the tech is possible.

For me, it’s now hard to play games that aren’t on the Switch, to sit in front of a TV and be restrained, to only be able to play it at home and not take it on holiday or to work (hey boss). I’m still going to have to though and that’s alright.

The one thing that would be great for year two? Let me play those games I played as a kid on it and complete the circle.