Nintendo Switch is impressive, but needs more games
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a good start for the Nintendo Switch, which will satisfy hardcore gamers, but casual players will probably expect a broader selection than the paltry nine titles that come with the console
Nintendo’s new Switch console – released worldwide on Friday – tries to address that by letting you play it anywhere. You simply yank the Switch out of its docking station. It functions as a tablet with a built-in display, so you don’t have to worry about finding a TV. Games typically work without a persistent internet connection. Once you’re back home, just slide it back into the docking station to play games on a big-screen TV.
The Switch works like a traditional game console when you want that; it offers portability when you need that.
The big question, as it so often is with Nintendo, is whether it will be able to deliver enough games. When the console starts selling (in Hong Kong it is retailing for HK$2,340), the Switch will have a paltry nine titles, leaning heavily towards familiar franchises such as Just Dance and Skylanders. By contrast, Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One had about 20 games each at launch.
A new hardware introduction is big for any company, and even more so for a company in such a state of transition. Nintendo’s Wii U console bombed when it came out in 2012, and its long-held dominance of the portable game market has been usurped by smartphones and tablets. Its two big successes of 2016 – Pokemon Go and Super Mario Run – were made to be played on other companies’ devices. Pokemon Go wasn’t even developed in-house, but under licence by a California company called Niantic.