If Switch 2 is the end of innovative Nintendo, there’s something to be sad about

Nintendo has been doing its own thing for as long as I can remember. Never was this more evident than in 2005, when I started working at Eurogamer and when Nintendo was preparing to announce a new console, codenamed Revolution. As far as we were concerned, it was supposed to be a competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. But that’s not true. The console introduced as the Wii was something else.

The Wii marked the moment when Nintendo abandoned the rat race of powerful consoles and instead focused on having fun, making toys. It released a machine that was conveniently and confidently less powerful than competing consoles, but instead it doubled down on its differences. We scratched our heads in delight as legendary game creator Miyamoto-san demoed fitness game Wii Fit on stage at E3, joyfully swinging on the balance board peripheral, holding plastic steering wheels in the air to play Mario Kart with friends and throwing Wiimotes at our TVs as if they were bowling balls.

I distinctly remember how people didn’t give the Wii a chance back then – I remember that we didn’t give the Wii a chance at the time – but how wrong we were. Sales grew to 100 million, making it the best-selling console of that generation, and it reached a wide audience beyond the typical gaming crowd. Games like Wii Fit have sold tens of millions and spawned entire fitness franchises. Nintendo didn’t just create a new console, it created an entirely new way to play.

And no one expected this.

Fast forward to the Wii U in 2012, and okay, we hit a bump in the road, but still, here was Nintendo willing to try something – showcasing not just new hardware, but new ideas. I’m still not sure I even understand what it was, even though I had it; it was a console with a touch controller, a second screen, supposedly designed to merge the worlds of the DS and Wii. But it didn’t really work; or rather, there weren’t enough games to convincingly prove how this could job, so financially it was something of a failure, prompting the late Nintendo president Iwata-san to take a huge pay cut, something I wish some other companies would do now.

However, without the Wii U, we probably wouldn’t have a Switch that took all the Wii U vibes, all the good ideas, and executed them in a way that worked. A console that was also portable and, most importantly, that you could take with you from home. Again, this was Nintendo competing with imagination and finding new ways to play. The Switch was a resounding success, becoming Nintendo’s best-selling home console with sales of over 140 million, just behind the DS with sales of 150 million.

Generation after generation, Nintendo has surprised us with new ideas, even when the ideas themselves seemed insignificant. The transition from DS to 3DS wasn’t a big leap, but do you remember the first time you used that 3D slider? Magic – or, well, maybe a headache. Wii U to Switch: concept realized. Switch to switch 2…

Hm?

I couldn’t be the only person who watched the Switch 2 presentation yesterday and hoped to be surprised – the only person who hoped to end up on Nintendo-d. Yes, numerous leaks have revealed almost every aspect of the new console in the lead-up to today’s announcement, but Nintendo is sure to have a surprise in store. Miyamoto in his sleeve. As the trailer continued, I braced myself for something unexpected, something unexpected. There was a secret compartment in the back of the car that turned it into a flute or something, I don’t know! Anything. But there was nothing. All I saw was a design that I already knew very well. Joy-cons that act a little like computer mice and the mysterious C button were as mysterious as they come.

Where is the imagination in all this? What does this have to do with Nintendo, the toy manufacturer?

I’ll tell you what it reminds me of: it reminds me of Apple. There was a period when Steve Jobs stood on the Apple stage and regularly pulled out some equipment that reoriented the world of technology. Here’s the iPhone! Or an iPad! And the world would gasp at the imagination of it all. It seemed like he could do no wrong. But right now I don’t get any excitement watching Apple. It’s just similar iPhone after similar iPhone. It’s predictable.

Nintendo has been the epitome of unpredictability in gaming for years. In a world where console design has become homogeneous, where detail has been removed from the understandable – at least as far as the internals are concerned – Nintendo seemed to be the only company that seemed focused on remembering what it was in the business of making: games – fun. The focus was so holistic that I began to think less of Nintendo consoles as devices and more as toys.

But what if Nintendo now goes the way of Apple, caught in a vortex of repetitive updates and rationality?

Two things worry me. First, this may be the final form of Nintendo arcades, now forever. Perhaps, as with the rectangular smartphone, we have reached the end point of the form factor in terms of design. I doubt Nintendo will ever go back to making a stationary console that fits under your TV, so until folding screen technology becomes cheap and reliable enough to be considered in design, the overall Switch design may be as good as it gets.

The other thing that worries me more is that Nintendo may have lost some of its creative nerve or become more conservative. In recent years, of course, there has been a change in leadership. Nintendo’s longtime president, Satoru Iwata, had experience making games, while the company’s current president, Shuntaro Furukawa, has an accounting background. Does this have something to do with the fact that he instilled a more cautious approach? By the way, this does not mean that this is the wrong approach. From a business perspective, the Switch 2 might be ideal, and a healthy business means a healthy Nintendo, which can’t be a bad thing. There’s also a chance that Nintendo will let its imagination do the talking in the games rather than the hardware.

Look, never rule out Nintendo—I learned that the hard way—but I still can’t shake the feeling of disappointment at the presentation of the Switch 2. Feeling fur. A neutral reaction to something I should be excited about with my colleagues and Eurogamer readers. What’s worse is the realization that Nintendo hardware is likely to stick around for the next few years. And so I wonder again: what happened to Nintendo that used to surprise people? This is all?

If you want the opposite opinion, read Donlan’s article: If Switch 2 is safe, then I’m Jason Statham and I want to star in it. I won’t be mad at you.