Odd time to blow out candles. Between the impact of the Coronavirus that is gradually being felt ( at least on the Japanese chart sales ) on its hardware sales and the hypothetical first big Direct of the year that is being desperately begged in the beginning of a year so far very poor in terms of videogame news - to the point where we are wondering if the virus shook up any initial plans for major videogame companies -, the Switch had experienced more "serene" times to celebrate its birthday. For it has now been three years since the Switch was released in the world on this day of March 3, 2017.
The Japanese manufacturer was expected to operate a 180° turnaround after the commercial boom of the ugly duckling Wii U, and performance below its big sister the DS for the line of 3DS consoles ( although it still managed to sell more than 70 million copies globally ) which has for some time now unofficially completed its life cycle in general indifference. So there enters the Switch - a technically portable console but which can connect to a TV output thanks to its dock -, including a hybrid concept that, while not new in the industry, is here perfected - finally hitting the nail on the head and offering back to the company its best commercial performance since the Wii days, to the point where for a console deemed "complementary" in its genre to more hardcore consoles like the PS4, Xbox One, and other Pro-PC Master Race, has according to latest sounds of corridors already managed to exceed in 3 years the total sales of the Xbox One in almost 7 years - around 50 million even if Microsoft continues to do the ostrich regarding any official sales.
An impressive blow for a technically outdated console - Nintendo having stopped the race for power for years - which however caught up very well on its main quality : its catalog of games. While it is true that support of third-party publishers on the Switch is not really the most exemplary in regards to the ratio new games-overpriced ports, although there has undeniably been a margin of progression over the years ( especially if we hold it in comparison to the Wii U’s famelic game library ), it's hard not to admit that all categories of players can largely find their preferred genre of game in the meanders of the eShop, even if it begins to look like the Steam store as Nintendo is somehow letting in questionable piss-poor excuses of a game ).
We could still go on a little bit, as a Nintendo fan since I was a kid that still has some things to say about the Switch. But if we make abstraction of the console’s major flaws, we find ourselves with a sense of freedom - freely adaptive to the requirements of players who have to adapt to their daily schedule - as no other hybrid console has proposed so far. The idea of playing games like The Witcher 3, Overwatch, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Warframe, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein, and even games initially exclusive to the Xbox ( Ori and Cuphead has been consistently ranking in the eShop charts ), and soon Doom Eternal and The Outer Worlds on a portable console would have seemed impossible, ludicrous, a waste of resources and time ( depending on your respective fanboy position ) some years ago. And yet, the Switch is well on its way to welcome even more videogame hits in the future that are just waiting to be received on the best modular finding on the market in the name of the Switch. In any case, it has got plenty of time : the Switch is still only in the first half of the life cycle planned by the shareholders of Big N. Who knows if they will be able as always of the best and worst in the years to come in terms of support ?
As a reminder, the week following the Switch's first anniversary has seen the arrival of a general Direct ... which had been the site of announcements for ports of big third-party games ( Okami HD, Undertale, the remastered Crash Bandicoot trilogy, South Park : The Fractured But Whole ) in addition to the insane teaser for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. At the dawn of the Switch's third anniversary, is Nintendo still hiding potentially big cards in its game ?
Anyway, how are you enjoying the Switch three years after its release ?
An impressive blow for a technically outdated console - Nintendo having stopped the race for power for years - which however caught up very well on its main quality : its catalog of games. While it is true that support of third-party publishers on the Switch is not really the most exemplary in regards to the ratio new games-overpriced ports, although there has undeniably been a margin of progression over the years ( especially if we hold it in comparison to the Wii U’s famelic game library ), it's hard not to admit that all categories of players can largely find their preferred genre of game in the meanders of the eShop, even if it begins to look like the Steam store as Nintendo is somehow letting in questionable piss-poor excuses of a game ).
So yes, we’re desperate not to see the long-awaited return of some Nintendo franchises placed under artificial respirator ( F-Zero, Pikmin, Advance Wars, Kid Icarus, and so on), we’re desperate to have in 2020 a "Virtual console" composed only of (S)NES games ( When the N64 ? the GameCube ? Game Boy Advance titles ? say other third-party consoles like Sega ? ), a user interface too simplistic and severely stripped of multimedia functions such as Netflix, Crunchyroll, Spotify, the Internet Browser, etc... a shitty online system and a completely archaic voice chat system, a console with often failing hardware ( aside from the Joy-Con drift, the Switch suffered from the beginning of regular technical setbacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb-srOfRqNc ), a monetary policy mostly disproportionate and sometimes scamming given the questionable interest of some aging ports ( the famous switch tax )... and so on. We could still go on a little bit, as a Nintendo fan since I was a kid that still has some things to say about the Switch. But if we make abstraction of the console’s major flaws, we find ourselves with a sense of freedom - freely adaptive to the requirements of players who have to adapt to their daily schedule - as no other hybrid console has proposed so far. The idea of playing games like The Witcher 3, Overwatch, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Warframe, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein, and even games initially exclusive to the Xbox ( Ori and Cuphead has been consistently ranking in the eShop charts ), and soon Doom Eternal and The Outer Worlds on a portable console would have seemed impossible, ludicrous, a waste of resources and time ( depending on your respective fanboy position ) some years ago. And yet, the Switch is well on its way to welcome even more videogame hits in the future that are just waiting to be received on the best modular finding on the market in the name of the Switch. In any case, it has got plenty of time : the Switch is still only in the first half of the life cycle planned by the shareholders of Big N. Who knows if they will be able as always of the best and worst in the years to come in terms of support ?
As a reminder, the week following the Switch's first anniversary has seen the arrival of a general Direct ... which had been the site of announcements for ports of big third-party games ( Okami HD, Undertale, the remastered Crash Bandicoot trilogy, South Park : The Fractured But Whole ) in addition to the insane teaser for Super Smash Bros Ultimate. At the dawn of the Switch's third anniversary, is Nintendo still hiding potentially big cards in its game ?
Anyway, how are you enjoying the Switch three years after its release ?
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