TheNintendo Switchis one of the best selling consoles of all time, and that leaves the Switch 2 (or whatever they end up calling it) with mighty big shoes to fill. But when you really get down to it, the Switch isn’t actually that good. Sure, it’s central gimmick is smart, but it doesn’t have a great battery life, it’snowhere near as fast or graphically adept as its peers, ithas a notorious issue with Joy-Con drift, it struggles with barebones online functionality… and yet, close to 150 million of them have been sold. Why? The games.
This is what makes a console great. Some have impressive features under the hood, or offer larger playgrounds for devs to create their work in, but a console is a delivery system. There is no ‘great DVD player’, only great movies to watch on it. If a video game is a meal, the developers are the chef. The console is the plate. The design elements of the console, that set what it is capable of, might be the restaurant where this all takes place, but in the end, the console is the plate. It is nothing without food. You need the games. The Switch had them. Will the Switch 2?
The Nintendo Switch Is Its Own Golden Era
When you look at Nintendo’s roster, the Switch has been an unprecedented era for massive hits. The bestZeldagame? That’sa Switch game. The second best Zelda game?That too. The bestMariogame? That’sa Switch game. The bestAnimal Crossing,Fire Emblem,Mario Kart?Switch game,Switch game,Switch game. It would be pushing it to say the bestMetroidgame is a Switch game, butDreadis up there, right?Pokemonmight not have gotten the memo, andKirby’sinstalments have been okay to good, but most of Nintendo’s bankable classics have had the game of their career in Switch colours.
Super Smash Bros.is an odd one, as many harken back to Melee, butUltimatewas at least the most popular and complete version of Smash.
You might say this is just recency bias, and since games are a technological artform, it stands to reason that the ones made for the most technologically advanced machines are best. But as Pokemon and Kirby prove, that’s not always true. Plus, nobody said that when the Wii or even the GameCube were the current consoles. Then it was ‘oh that’s just nostalgia talking’ when we praised the NES, SNES, and N64 as superior.
The issue, of course, is ‘where do you go from here’. Despite personally liking it the least, I have the most faith in Zelda. The team behind both games pushed the Switch to its limit, especially with Tears of the Kingdom. Those games were inventive on a foundational level, and I suspect whatever Zelda game comes next will take advantage of the Switch 2’s arsenal. Mario, similarly, rarely misses when it comes to mainline games.
How Can The Switch 2 Improve On The Switch’s Line-Up?
We may well see some new games for the Switch 2. While they didn’t all become overnight icons, the Switch brought us a few new series likeAstral Chain,Ring Fit, Labo, andSplatoon(nobody counts the Wii U). Its increased power will also see it be a more viable third-party console, no longer its own ecosystem. But mostly, Nintendo has always relied on old favourites.
If Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Smash perfected the art of what a ‘complete’ version of their games would look like, what can they offer the Switch 2? The same thing but it looks a little better and the loading is faster? I’m not sure that’s enough. The Switch didn’t offer the same thing but better, it offered a new and improved version of many classic titles. How do you take the new and improved and improve it, while making it seem new?
This is the challenge facing the Switch 2. Technologically, for all video games and video game consoles are difficult to make, it is not hard to improve on the Switch on that front. Its graphics are dated, its online play misses featuresXboxandPlayStationhave had for a decade, and the controller makes you veer left without you ever touching it. The killer ‘switch’ gimmick aside, these are not the traits of a best-selling console. The Switch is on that pedestal because of its games. And the Switch 2 is going to need all the help it can get.
