[dlbucci]

And well deserved, too! I was pretty much done with console gaming after the Wii. That was the most excited I ever was for a console (since I was 13), but after the launch, I never played it nearly as much as my GameCube.

I played about 5 games on my Wii U, and didn't even plan on getting a Switch, but my oh my could I have not been more wrong! I think the portability and the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics) was a true winning combo.

Also, I was just thinking today how it's crazy that Nintendo has been the dominant portable console maker basically since the Gameboy in 1989. There were some competitors, but nothing ever took the throne, just 33 years of being the King. Really impressive!

[celticninja]

Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system, followed by the game gear, but their cost meant it most out to the more affordable Gameboy.

I think though, what won it was not the hardware but the software. The switch is a great handheld console and a good console in dock mode. But Breath of the Wild was worth the cost of the console alone. I liken it to GTA IV or GTA V, but for my kids. It is a beautiful open world that really knocks out of the park every aspect, music, graphics, gameplay, puzzles. It is a beautiful game and I believe it is a major reason the switch is so successful, or at least it's launch period was.

I also think that the portability is a huge factor, I know many households where they have a PS5 or and XBOX and a switch. Few people will buy all consoles but the switch being portable means it has the extra edge when deciding on a second system.

[gfxgirl]

Not just it's portability. I've seen kids in coffeeshops. Their mom is reading a magazine and the kids have put the Switch on a table using its stand and then use the controllers to play 2+ player games. No other handheld I know of has ever done that.

[telesilla]

I've done the same waiting for the dryer to finish in the laundromat while traveling! Mariocart for two is a great travel companion.

[el_oni]

Before i started work i would sit in the car while my partner was getting treatment and play switch. When she came back to the car between appointments we could play mario kart. Such a good system

[dustymcp]

This is why se bought it for family gatherings or the likes where kids gets bored, we just bring the switch and the kids can 4 player with the other kids in Mario kart

[type_enthusiast]

Absolutely agree on Breath of the Wild. I think every successful console has The Game that really differentiates it (speaking as someone who never had a console growing up, just Sierra games).

Having got a Switch for my son - Breath of the Wild is that game for Switch, but is also possibly the best game made so far. If you haven't played it, don't argue - just play it.

[distantaidenn]

My fiancé got me an OLED Switch and BOTW this past Christmas. When I first started BOTW, I was like...umm...what do I do in this game? Then I realized: ANYTHING I WANT. Already have over 150 hours in the game. You can literally just wander around and enjoy. Find new and clever ways to kill enemies -- or befriend them if that's your style. You can play the game the way you want and at your own pace.

Yeah, the game has some flaws, but I'd say it's the most rewarding game experience I've had in my 30+ years of gaming. You know a game is good when you don't even want to finish it!

[tokamak-teapot]

Defeat Ganon. Load saved game. Keep exploring. It is amazing that I still keep coming back to it after ‘finishing’ so many times. Wanting to complete all the shrines not just so I have that satisfaction, but because they are fun and interesting and the journey is too.

Then there is master mode, which is mainly just harder, but when you’re getting good at fighting it ensures you are challenged to get /really/ good and not rely on power / armour / buffs, especially in the challenges where you start with nothing.

[shotta]

For me the Switch was solely a Zelda rectangle. I didn’t explore beyond that game at all for over a year. The store seems bad for discovery, but the online community is awesome. I’ve discovered new (to me) genres of game that I love and have gone back to older consoles to find similar games. The switch reset me back into gaming. If that makes any sense!

[rosege]

I remember the glory days with a N64, GoldenEye and 3 mates. That was definitely a peak gaming fun time for me back in the day.

[imiric]

If you have a powerful PC, playing the Wii U version of BoTW at high resolutions and frame rates with Cemu is an absolute joy. I haven't gone back to playing the Switch version since the experience is so much inferior.

[0-_-0]

Botw at 4K and 75hz is amazing

[laumars]

I much preferred the GB to the GG. The former took 3 batteries and lasted months. The latter took something like 6 batteries and only lasted 3 hours. While the GG was undoubtedly a better machine hardware wise, that counted for nothing when your batteries ran out mid road tip.

[Xenoamorphous]

I think the most impressive hardware-wise was the Turbo Express. It was released in 1990, just a year after the Game Boy and Lynx and same year as the Game Gear.

It had a 400x270 screen vs 160x144 in the Game Boy and Game Gear and 160x102 in the Lynx.

It was basically a portable TurboGrafx and could run Street Fighter II (which was also released for the Game Boy but it was miles behind).

[chronogram]

It was released in Dec 1990 for $250, a few months later the price was raised to $300. The sound in it failed frequently, and the display had a high rate of pixel defects. It burned through 6 AA batteries in 3 hours. I don’t know what the original price for the AC adapter was but it was big so probably not cheap either.

The TurboExpress is a classic example of the “any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands” saying.

[Xenoamorphous]

I don’t know about reliability but battery life seems about the same or little worse than a Game Gear or Lynx, which also used 6 AA batteries.

And price is an entirely different matter, but surely a factor in its commercial failure.

[saghm]

Breath of the Wild released on the Wii U as well, as did the pre-deluxe version of Mario Kart 8 and what was at the time arguably the best Super Smash Bros game yet (some people prefer Melee, but Brawl was notoriously not great, and Ultimate obviously had not come out in the Wii U's heyday). I'm not sure good first-party games alone can completely carry a console; people need to be hooked in first before they start considering the platform, and the Switch had the most intriguing hook there's been so far.

[mpyne]

Honestly the Wii U had an amazing library of games. Nintendo squeezed a bunch of extra juice out of Switch using nothing more than straight ports of Wii U games onto the more popular Switch.

But like you say, the Wii U hardware just didn't fly off the shelves like Nintendo had hoped. Though there is a big difference between Nintendoland as a launch title and Breath of the Wild.

[astura]

The Wii U had some really fantastic games.

It really suffered, however, from having such wonky hardware and bad marketing. I own a Wii U, I own all the games you mentioned on it (other than BotW because I don't usually buy games at launch - I bought BotW on switch though) and I, personally, still found the hardware confusing.

It's really great that almost all Nintendo published games have had switch releases, because more people can experience them.

Nintendo has sold more than twice as many copies of the latest animal crossing game than they did Wii U consoles. Which is just crazy to think about.

[TehShrike]

I had a Game Gear, and that battery life was pretty rough. The Switch definitely wins in that regard

[satysin]

The funny thing is the Game Gear and Switch battery life are actually very similar at 3-5 hours.

It varies a little with the Switch as with lighter games and low screen brightness you can get 6 or so hours but playing something like Zelda BOTW you get around 3 hours max before needing to recharge.

I find it interesting we’re still in that 3-4 hour battery life space thirties years later. I guess it makes sense as most people will want/need a small break after 3 hours with a handheld so gives you some time to charge it so I expect Nintendo aim for that 3 hour minimum.

[fullstop]

> The funny thing is the Game Gear and Switch battery life are actually very similar at 3-5 hours.

The switch has much better battery life than that in the models released after the initial launch. You're spot on with the release model, though.

[satysin]

Indeed the newer Switch OLED model does have better battery life albeit still around the max 5 hour mark for most games apparently edging up to 7 hours for less demanding games (according to a brief search anyway).

[mashc5]

The switch got a refresh in 2019 (two years before the OLED model was released) that almost doubled battery life [0].

[0] https://www.techradar.com/news/the-updated-nintendo-switch-b...

[PhineasRex]

I had a Game Gear growing up and 3 hours is way more battery life than I ever got out of that thing. 1 hour is more in-line with my experience.

[chrisweekly]

My Switch went unused for a couple months, and now the battery is completely dead. :(

[chrisweekly]

... it won't power on even when plugged in, and apparently replacing the battery is my only recourse. This feels like it should be a solved problem, some kind of tiny spare / buffer to prevent a drained battery from effectively bricking the device.

[InvaderFizz]

This is usually a solved problem, but crops up occasionally. What is happening is the charge level is dropping below a level that the charge controller recognizes the battery at, so it won't even attempt to charge.

This can sometimes be rectified by just dumping 5v into the battery for about 30 seconds, bringing its voltage up high enough for the controller to do its job.

The Switch seems to have exceptionally dumb power state situations it can find itself in. That is not just limited to the Switch, but apparently the power adapter has its own issues and needs to be unplugged for at least 30 seconds to be reset if it too enters into a faulty state.

You can attempt the right voodoo incantations with your switch:

1. Don't use the dock for any of this process.

2. Unplug the PSU from the wall for 1 minute or more.

3. Hard reset the switch by holding the power button for 12 seconds.

4. Plug the PSU into the switch and let it sit over night.

5. Repeat step 3.

If that doesn't work and nothing else is damaged, you get to take out about 20 screws to get to the battery and either replace it, or jump start it to revive it.

[JohnJamesRambo]

The Sonic game was rough. You could barely see what was going on and coming up next on the little screen.

[laumars]

Yeah, that screen refresh was harsh. Plays much better on TFT modded game gears though

[Izkata]

> I think though, what won it was not the hardware but the software.

Not even just new stuff: I had Grandia II on the Dreamcast as a kid, and thought I'd never play it again. Then I found out it was ported to the Switch, and that was the tipping point that got me to buy it a few years ago.

[fullstop]

> Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system, followed by the game gear, but their cost meant it most out to the more affordable Gameboy.

It doesn't matter how powerful a handheld system is if the batteries only last an hour or two.

In the era when the lynx and game gear were released, NiMH batteries were not mainstream yet, and NiCd were not as suitable for the application. I knew a few kids who had the Lynx and they realistically could not use it unless it was plugged into the wall.

[astura]

I got a Game Gear when I was a kid. It was a thrift store find, otherwise my parents would never spend that kind of money on a toy.

I played it for literally a half hour before the batteries ran out. It didn't come with a power cord and batteries were very strictly rationed in my house growing up, so I was never able to play it again. I was heartbroken.

Again, I got only a half hour of play out of a video game console. Parents sold it several months later when they realized how useless it was.

I don't know how a product like that could even be released on the market - it's basically false advertisement. It's been nearly three decades and I'm still heartbroken by it.

[charleval]

> Atari lynx was possibly the best handheld game system

I'm sorry but I have to disagree. The best handled game system was undisputably the Nec PC-engine GT (was called Nec GT turbo in my country) -> https://www.google.com/search?q=nec+gt+turbo

[riffraff]

I owned a Lynx and it was incredible to have something with colors when the competition was the original B/W Gameboy.

But I was the only one I ever met to own that, which meant I could never trade games or share the excitement. The lower cost Gameboy had "network effects", and so ended up being a much better buy for a random kid.

[laumars]

It wasn’t just the cost. The difference in battery life was night and day. The reason I bought a GB back as a teen despite better consoles being around was precisely because I wanted something that would last for several hours on the long drive to Grandmas house. Neither the Lynx nor the Game Gear had that longevity.

Tbh I think the full colour portable systems were just released a few years too early.

[Aeolun]

> I also think that the portability is a huge factor

At least out here, I’ll often go to the park and see little clusters of 10 year olds, either all wrapped around one Switch, or all playing together on their respective Switch. I’ve never seen that before, even with Gameboys.

I don’t know exactly why, but they did something right.

[thebruce87m]

If you want GTA for kids, get Lego City Undercover. It’s an absolute blast.

[Foobar8568]

The Atari lynx was burning through battery like nothing, was it 4 or 8AA for like 1 or 2 hours of gameplay?

[bane]

Same boat. After the Wii I was done. If I wanted to put money into gaming it was going to be on PC. The Switch isn't the most powerful, or has the best library (Nintendo first party games notwithstanding), or the most portable, but it's "good enough" at everything in the way VHS and MP3s were/are. It also helps that it's relatively inexpensive to get into, and has a huge indie game scene. So while you may not get the best version of "Soldiers on a Battlefield 2022" or whatever, there are hundreds of semi-exclusives.

Getting a console and a portable in one unit was also brilliant and something that neither Sony or Microsoft can do with their "most powerful hardware first". Nintendo cares about things that affect the gameplay experience, and Microsoft and Sony care more about how cool the software is. Orthogonal purposes but it lets Nintendo, a relatively small company, compete globally and effectively against two 9 million pound mega giants.

[lelandfe]

Without detracting anything from your other statements (the comparison to MP3 is excellent), "notwithstanding" is doing a lot of work in the line, "Nintendo first party games notwithstanding." Nintendo's games are the reason folks buy a Switch.[1] It's pretty unbelievable the record they (and especially EPD) have:

1. Breath of the Wild was game of the year for most publications, is considered by some the greatest game of all time[2], and single-handedly sold the console for many people I know

2. Super Mario Odyssey is generally heralded as one of the best Mario games ever made and shipped 22 million copies

2. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the best selling fighting game of all time

3. Mario Kart 8 is the best selling racing game of all time, and the 7th highest selling video game of all time

4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the 13th highest selling video game of all time (2nd highest in Japan)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_... (and apropos of nothing, compare to PS4's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStati... - Switch's top 6 best sellers all moved more than PS4's #1)

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/the-best-100-video-games-of-all...

[nmfisher]

Every single Nintendo console I've owned has basically been a very expensive Zelda machine. In a hypothetical world where Sony/Microsoft/someone else acquired the rights to Zelda, I'd expect Switch sales to be at least 50% lower. The incredible strength of their first-party titles is why Nintendo can get away with underpowered hardware, shoddy controllers, crappy software and a big whopping Nintendo tax.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I always wonder why hardware matters. Look at the retro game market. I’ve spent more money lately re-buying old games than new ones. BOTW looks spectacular simply because of artistic choices. And I quickly racked up far more hours on my Switch than my XBOne simply because I could play on the TV, pull it out of the dock and play on the go and never had to turn it off. It just slept. Booting up a console is so archaic. And for what? Graphics that I tuned out eventually?

Which is not to say good graphics are bad. But there’s certainly diminishing returns. After a point it sure as hell isn’t giving me more entertainment value running a space heater.

[iso1210]

There's been over 100 million switches sold and 26 million copies of Zelda. Even if every single person that bought Zelda would have not bought a Switch, that would still put over 75 million switches sold.

Even the best selling game - Mariocart - is on fewer than half of the consoles.

[hackinthebochs]

Momentum has a lot to do with whether third parties invest in your console. The fact that BoTW pushed console sales early on gave third parties incentive to develop content for it, which then allowed the buy rate to be sustained past the boost BoTW gave it. So the fact that only a quarter of the consoles are bought with/for BoTW, its importance to the consoles success is much greater than the buy ratio would suggest.

[fullstop]

I don't know if this holds true for BOTW, but historically Zelda has not sold well in Japan despite its success in Western markets.

[iso1210]

I don't do games much - I've got KSP and Civ 6 on my desktop, and we had a Wii, and now a Switch.

The killer games on both Wii and especially Switch are the Lego ones.

I've not heard of Zelda before.

[nirvdrum]

A surprisingly large number of first party Switch titles were on the Wii U first and didn't drive sales. It's amazing how much marketing and even the product name help. I think Nintendo made the right call to delay BotW on Wii U for a dual platform release. In the end, I'm surprised they bothered with the older console at all, but it probably engendered good will amongst its die hard fans.

[ace2358]

It did this one. I bought the WiiU and waited 4 years for breath of the wild. If they had moved it to be a switch only title I would have cried and bought a switch :p

Ms did it with flight simulator. They said it would be on XBox One. But it never came :(

[cableshaft]

Not really surprised, the new flight simulator is super ambitious and requires crazy resources. I doubt the Xbox One could have done it justice.

[ace2358]

I understand. But it was advertised as coming to the Xbox one. Then it quietly never happened. You can’t even stream it as part of their Xbox cloud gaming service which is really annoying. It’s especially hard to get a series X in AU. I’m not sure they’ve even been officially released here at some retailers.

[Aeolun]

> were on the Wii U first and didn't drive sales

Have you seen that thing? No matter how great the software. That ugly lump was never going to sell.

[nirvdrum]

I've got one and my family still has a blast playing it. Aesthetics are obviously personal. I won't say it's the nicest looking fixture in my living room, but I also think the PS5 looks ridiculous. Its name was probably Nintendo's biggest misstep.

That said, my point was that the Switch's success isn't due to the library alone. Due to Nintendo's decision to port most of its Wii U exclusives to the Switch, we have the rare ability to compare the sales performance of the two.

[yucky]

The Wii U is both the most underrated console ever, and most poorly named console ever.

[bane]

That's a really good point. In fact I did buy the Switch to play both BotW and SMO. I keep forgetting that Nintendo first party titles are so dominant in sales vs. other large franchises. I keep thinking they're just large on the one platform.

[cableshaft]

Yeah I own like 100 games on the Switch at this point (most first party, several good third party, and some cheaper retro or indie games), and those two games are still the best games to me on the Switch, by far. I kind of doubt they're going to be topped, even by their sequels.

BOTW, SMO, Baba is You, Persona 5 Royal, Outer Wilds, Subnautica, The Witness, God of War (2018 version), Nier Automata, Slay the Spire are all masterpieces of design in the past 5 years, for my tastes.

[celticninja]

BOTW was a huge factor in the switch's early success IMO. Not just because it was a Nintendo exclusive but because it was such an amazing game. For me GTA IV AND GTA V are the pinnacles of their time for great games. BOTW was the equivalent but for a wider audience.

Unfortunately for my kids it was one of the first games they really played, so they have been spoilt, very few games will ever get close to that, especially in a world of Fortnite.

[pdimitar]

...And not to detract from your point as well but I absolutely didn't buy the Switch for Nintendo games. The only one I actually like is Mario Kart 8 and even that I play like once every 3 months for a few hours.

I bought the Switch for Diablo III and a good number of bullet hell / beat-em-up games. Bought plenty of those and I am thoroughly enjoying them.

I recognize I am an outlier but the Switch is very capable of giving you a lot of enjoyment if you hand-curate your picks from the indie scene well.

(As a personal opinion, the Mario franchise being milked to eternity is exhausting to watch sometimes.)

[duskwuff]

> (As a personal opinion, the Mario franchise being milked to eternity is exhausting to watch sometimes.)

It's not a traditional game franchise, though -- there's no overarching Great Mario Plot that's being advanced through a series of games. It's more of a set of familiar characters and a barebones setting that Nintendo can apply to a wide variety of games, ranging from the traditional platformers to RPGs (Paper Mario), minigame collections (Mario Party), sports games (Mario Tennis), puzzles (Mario's Picross), dancing (DDR: Mario Mix), pinball machines...

[morelisp]

An aside: are you using an arcade stick? I’ve been thinking of getting back into STGs after a 10ish year break and can’t figure out which of the (pricy!) Switch sticks are any good.

[pdimitar]

No but I'm just about to order the HORI mini-stick. I have the Pro controller and it's definitely an improvement over the joycons but the arcade stick is something else entirely when playing games that don't require the right mini-stick on the controller.

[morelisp]

Yeah, I have a Pro controller for Monster Hunters, but DoDonPachi was hard enough when I was ten years younger and owned a decent (Xbox 360) stick. I don't think I stand a chance today on anything you have to hold while you play.

[noobermin]

To help the thread, this is the Nintendo way of "lateral thinking with withered technology.[0]" They for example choice lack of color for the Gameboy for the sake of battery life, that is, using cheap technology that can be replicated and mass produced well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_... From the venerable Gunpei Yokoi, who helped develop the original Metroid and the Gameboy

[zitterbewegung]

Nintendo figured out when the xBox came out that if you weren't Sony and or Microsoft you would have a really hard time competing in the space so they tried just to focus on making consoles that had some kind of gimmick and optimizing on having fun and they had a clear domination over the mobile space.

I would say that the Switch is their response to Apple as being off balance on the mobile space and they were easily defeated by just focusing on a fun and portable console that also can be plugged into a TV. Really the Switch has a NVIDIA Tegra 1 and the rest of the console is Nintendo's design.

[jmcgough]

Way before xbox, this has been their strategy since before they were making video games. Gunpei Yokoi, who came up with the idea (and practically nintendo's entire electronics division), called it "lateral thinking with withered technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_...).

[lelandfe]

Classic example of this:

Sega Game Gear: full-color screen, $150, 4hr battery life

Nintendo Game Boy: monochromatic screen, $90, 30hr battery life

[celticninja]

Yup the game gear was technically better but the cost difference meant the Gameboy was more ubiquitous and so that's what sold.

Also for the switch, a lot of kids who had Gameboy's when they came out are now working and can afford a souped up handheld alongside their main console.

[mcphage]

Technically more powerful. Better… well, not with no battery life, it wasn’t.

[jmcgough]

Honestly I think the games library is why gameboy outsold game gear, and why nintendo continues to dominate the mobile console market

[bobthepanda]

I think my favorite summation is that Nintendo laughs about being second-rate all the way to the bank.

To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

[dorchadas]

> To Apple's disadvantage, only touch is a pretty terrible interface for a lot of video game genres, and also mobile pretty quickly became pay to win crapware.

The latter is why I hate gaming on my iPhone. And battery life after a year or two as the apps update to handle the newest and best specs, leaving older phones behind. I do enjoy some of the ports, but I can also buy a lot of those on my Switch anymore, so there's no need.

[pa7ch]

I think the switch just runs a modified freebsd for an OS too.

[jayd16]

>Getting a console and a portable in one unit was also brilliant and something that neither Sony or Microsoft can do

Actually the PSP had video out. Really just a marketing thing.

[djrogers]

Did it have a dock and come with removable controllers like it was always intended to be used with a big screen? Nope, it did not.

It’s not ‘just a marketing thing’ when a product is designed in a completely different way, with different goals.

[jayd16]

I mean, it was the controller in an era of wired controllers.

[philistine]

What if you needed to recharge your PSP battery while playing? It had video out, but it was never designed for a couch experience. It was the typical Sony let's do all the things at once mentality. No one bought it for that reason alone, but it, and all the other weird features of the PSP, probably helped it become the only viable portable competitor to Nintendo in 30 years.

[salamandersauce]

You plug it in? It's literally plugged into your TV already it's not a big deal to plug the AC adapter in the other side. The PSP Go had a dock for connecting to your TV and supported using a DS3 controller for TV play. Of course nobody bought a Go and nobody bought a dock for it. But they did kinda sorta get the concept.

[alpaca128]

Too bad Sony then decided to get rid of the video output in the PS Vita even though it was possible (the dev kit had HDMI) and contrary to the PSP it actually made sense as at this point mobile hardware was so much better due to the smartphone industry. One of many small mistakes that made the Vita much less enjoyable overall.

[reissbaker]

The (affordable) technology of the time didn't allow for easy dock/undock experience like the Switch does. That doesn't mean it was "just a marketing difference," the product experience was worse and wasn't designed to easily be used as both a portable console and a dedicated living room device.

[Aeolun]

> If I wanted to put money into gaming it was going to be on PC.

I think people that are otherwise PC gamers make for a great audience for Nintendo. They don’t need any power, they already have that on the PC. What they want is to be able to carry the thing around and play anywhere they want.

[smoe]

I bought the Switch in part because of portability, but almost never ended up using this way. I used to game a lot as a child and teenager but almost stopped entirely once my job involved sitting in front of a screen all day. But I still like playing some games I can pick up to kill half an hour here and there, completely casual. The game selection, is perfect for this. Or a couple rounds of couch co-op. I have zero interest to play hyper competitive games with random people over the internet. The Switch really brought back the fond memories I had when first being exposed to gaming, when I kept going to my neighbors home to play Super Nintendo games against each other

[dorchadas]

I do love the portability of my Switch, but eve more I do love how casual it is. And how a lot of their games, while they can be played multiplayer, are focused on single player stuff. They've great single player titles, and that keeps me coming back to Nintendo regularly (especially their mobile stuff, I'm pretty sure I've owned at least one iteration of everything since the Gameboy Pocket).

[selfhifive]

I'm always impressed with how much risk they take from generation to generation.

N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, and Switch.

GB, GBA, DS, 3DS, and Switch.

All of them feel like a generational leap instead of the incremental improvement model of other companies.

[laumars]

Interestingly the Wii is more or less the same hardware as the GC but with upgraded specs. In fact the Wii even has GC ports on it (for GC controllers and memory cards) and plays GC discs. Additionally the Wiimote was originally designed to be an add on for the GC before Nintendo decided to release it as the primary controller for their next console.

[Alex3917]

I mostly lost interest in AAA games when I was 14 or so, but the Switch has been great for going back and playing some of the games that came out around then that I never got a chance to play. The idea of closing out of all my work stuff and rebooting into another operating system is just a complete non-starter, but the Switch is perfect just to grab whenever I'm backing up my hard drive, upgrading my OS, the Internet is down, etc.

[bluedino]

I was around the same age. A bunch of things all factor into that, that 14-16 age

[Alex3917]

Yeah for me it was just the beginning of high school. It was pretty obvious that if I kept playing Ultima Online or whatever for 10 hours a day then it was going to destroy my life, so I gave it up before freshman year started.

Every couple years I'll get into a game and spend a few weeks playing it, e.g. with Breath of the Wild a couple year ago, but I purposely don't let myself play games that just go on indefinitely like WoW. Whereas that's not an issue with indie games that only last five or ten hours.

And similarly, it's been fun going back and playing Baldur's Gate, which I never got to play when it came out.

[KennyBlanken]

> the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics)

To be specific: 720p and severely degraded effects, textures, models, anti-aliasing, etc - and you'll be lucky to get 60fps.

The Switch has about as much horsepower as a ~6 year old mid-tier Android phone.

[styfle]

The nice thing is that most games don’t _feel_ underpowered on Switch. Sure the graphics don’t look as good but it’s not laggy in the games I’ve tried.

For example: Immortals Fenyx Rising is cross platform, but it feels smooth. I would rather play on Switch than other consoles so I can occasionally play while traveling. It’s really nice to have the same game, same save point, with same controller on the TV or on the go.

[Agentlien]

My job these last few years has mainly been focused on trying to get games running smoothly across all platforms and finding workarounds or optimizations for switch has been the biggest part of it. It's so incredibly weak in comparison to any other modern console. It's literally a mobile SoC from 2015.

As a user, however, the switch is by far my favorite console. It might not look as flashy but I can play almost any game I want anywhere I want.

[msh]

Nah. It got the power of a really high end 6 year old Android phone. And with the fan it can provide more power than the same soc in a phone form factor.

[hajile]

Theoretical power and actual power in phones are quite different. Phones throttle their chips down to nothing very quickly.

[firecall]

> Also, I was just thinking today how it's crazy that Nintendo has been the dominant portable console maker basically since the Gameboy in 1989

Imagine how many they would have sold if the iPhone didnt exist!

[14]

I really enjoyed the PSP or PlayStation portable. It was the first thing I ever hacked and played games for free. Set me on a path. But I do love my switch greatly. It appeals to me with the kid friendly games. Watching my 5 year old develop his hand eye coordination makes my heart melt.

[andrepd]

I must be about your age and damn, I played so much Wii. I must have >200h on several games: both Mario Galaxy's (one of my favourite games), Wii Sports Resort, Smash, etc.

On the contrary my Switch is almost exclusively a BotW machine x) bar a few indie games here and there. I must be getting old

[theshrike79]

I literally didn't even notice the WiiU release :) I heard the rumours and forgot about it. The next time I saw anything WiiU related it had already been in stores for a while.

I don't know a single person who got one even near the release. _Everyone_ had a Wii though.

[k__]

This.

But the Wii failed pretty hard in terms of games.

After the 5th mini games collection it became pretty boring...

[dartharva]

> the power to run pretty much any modern game (albeit with worse graphics)

Huh? Any modern game?? I'm pretty sure just a small fraction of modern AAA titles is available on the Switch.

[jquery]

That used to be the case, but modern game engines like Unity make it easy to plop out an switch-capable version. The hardware is similar enough to a normal PC that it’s a matter of just turning the graphics down (way, way down). It certainly wasn’t a majority at the start but now more than half of new AAA releases have a Switch version.

That said, buying a switch to play AAA games is not ideal. I find the graphics compromises too great, myself. Indie games (only certain genres like platforming), visual novels and Nintendo-first-party games are what I find the switch excels at.