On the birthday of Nintendo’s beautiful oddity, an ode to its strange powers.
When I first heard about the Nintendo Switch, I didn’t understand it.
Would we have to stand inside the tablet somehow?
I saw wires tangling everywhere.
Then came the lifestyle adverts.
I still didn’t understand it.
After a while I saw my first Switch.
Oddly enough I was in a trendy coffee shop with exposed brick on the walls.
Martin Robinson showed me a bit of Zelda and I suddenly understood - or thought I did.
So suddenly I was on board.
100 percent Team Switch.
But guess what, I still didn’t understand it.
I just thought I did.
I only properly understood it a few months later.
This was long before Covid.
I had no idea.)
Anyway, part through the week my Switch arrived.
And then I understood.
It’s Nintendo, but Nintendo when you’re lying in bed recovering from MS treatment.
It’s Hyrule and Mario Kart circuits anywhere in your house.
Yes, in trendy restaurants with exposed brick.
I have seen two big explosions of games over the last few years - one wasPokemon Go, obviously.
The other was the Switch.
People you knew but never knew to show an interest in games, and suddenly they were involved.
This is Switch, isn’t it?
The console for every place, a console for every kind of person.
Outside, inside, the Switch works.
There’s more of course.
The indie boom on the eShop, astonishing first-party stuff and the odd ingenious third-party game.
I often think back to a great video game print ad from the glory days of magazines.
Nokia N-Gage of all things.
You are doubly inside with a game.
And this is so much more potent with a console you’ve got the option to take anywhere.
Inkopolis Square in bed.
Hyrule while you wait at the doctor’s.
Rooster’s coffee shop while you’re inside a Starbucks.
What does Nintendo do?
It spots harmonies and connection points that nobody else has really spotted, or really thought about.
And then it amplifies.
And it puts in the effort to make it all feel effortless.
