Nintendo Switch: Nintendo's New Console

Nintendo was always different. In the 8-bit era, it decided to create a console that defied the entrenched prejudice that video games were for kids, and designed its NES to blend in with other household items, with a sober design akin to a VCR. When no one even thought about virtual reality, it came out with a console like Virtual Boy. Sure, it was a failure... so what? Nintendo tried to bring virtual reality into homes in 1995!

When all other companies were already on 32 bits, in the middle of competition against the Sony PlayStation monster, Nintendo said no to CD/DVD support and stuck with cartridges, jumping straight to 64 bits. Then came the minidisk (GameCube), the DS with its touch-sensitive screen, then motion controls (Nintendo Wii, record-breaking sales) and finally a very strange hybrid, like the Wii U.

In recent years, every time Nintendo announces a new console, the doomsday prophets return with the same tune, dedicating entire pages to pessimistic predictions. And yet here is Nintendo again, stepping hard and not burning out, as it has been doing since 1889. None of the companies that today manufacture consoles can boast of having sustained their business for so long.

I make all this long introduction because Nintendo has just announced its next console, the Nintendo Switch (whose trailer you can see below) and there are already many saying: "Meh, not what I expected..." And that is exactly what they don't understand! It is never what you expect with Nintendo. NEVER WAS! Where do they think its success as a game and console development company lies? Nintendo started selling playing cards, don't forget. It knows much more about changes and, of course, about games than any other tech corporation, which only understands hardware and the power of a CPU.

In short, the Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console that can be played on a TV but also carried like a tablet in your backpack. In its tablet format, the controls go on the sides, but they can also be separated to prop up the screen and recline while playing. The controls are quite modular and even allow two players to use just one controller (each using a "half") or each with their own full controller. This is great, because you can meet a friend in a square and play right there, without needing extra parts, sacrificing a bit of comfort to make the most of the moment.

Inside the Nintendo Switch is a custom Tegra processor, directly from Nvidia, about which little is known. It will be based, the press release says, on the same architecture of the best GeForce graphics cards, and will have hardware-accelerated video playback and custom software for audio effects and rendering. On this, many are worried that the Nintendo Switch could fall a step behind current consoles in terms of performance and graphical display. But, as I've already explained, those people don't understand anything.

History has always shown that for a console to be good, it only needs to have fun games, there is no other way. Nintendo knows a lot about that, very much. Just with its own titles (developed in-house) it has managed to make each of its previous consoles worthy of the name, even the least successful ones. The story with Nintendo Switch will not be different. I loved it.