Switch Day Arrives!

Today is the day the Nintendo Switch is finally available!

Nintendo Switch, for your TV and elsewhere

I am generally not much of a console gaming person.  Our Wii, heavily played for a stretch, now gathers dust, while our PlayStation 3 is pretty much exclusively used to stream/play video.

I am not even a big Nintendo fan.  I already had a personal computer long before the NES of such nostalgia was available in the US.  And while I have a 3DS XL, it should have “For Pokemon Use Only” stenciled on the side.  I bought Mario Kart for it at one point, but only played it a couple of times.

I am still interested in the Switch.  It doesn’t quite have the lure that the Wii did a decade back when the combo of a new user interaction paradigm and a low price relative to its competitors made it extremely attractive.  This time around you can find XBox One and PlayStation 4 packages priced below the Switch base price of $299.

But Nintendo has gone in a different direction from the Xbox and PlayStation Bobbsey twins.  I am not sure it is the “New Era in Console Gaming” that Nintedo is claiming, but it is a divergence.  There is no hard drive, the unit having returned to the use of cartridges to distribute games. (Which may leave an unpleasant taste in the mouths of some.)  Nintendo has also fiddle with the controller idea again with a new gimmick.  And then there is the portability aspect of the unit.  As somebody in a single television household, not requiring the TV to play games is actually a pretty big bonus.

All of that is interesting, and the price isn’t a huge barrier to entry.  It is the games that will make the decision for me.  I haven’t played the Zelda series, so a new entry there doesn’t help much, nor will the inevitable Mario titles.  A REAL Pokemon title might lure me, or a Pokemon title that integrates with the 3DS like the Wii and the DS connected.  So I am just keeping and eye on the whole thing.

How about you?  Is the Switch on your list?  What is the big selling point?

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