I still have a readable computer storage of Christmas Day 2001 . After a break of the day of eagerly unwrapping my gifts , my parent roll out one more surprise that I ’d been so desperately anticipating . I bust off the wrapper newspaper and there it was : the Nintendo GameCube . Without a second of reluctance , I pull it out of the box and started thump and dig every button on the picayune boxful . It was n’t just a fancy new electronic gimmick ; it was a toy .
That used to be the two-fold function of a video plot console . Each one was unpredictable , bring completely new innovations or gimmicks that begged to be played with as much as the game . The ones that did n’t at least got playful with their conception . That ’s slowed with each evanesce generation . Vibrant colors has been replace with smuggled and livid plastic . Xbox console designs now boundary line on brutalist . Everything is easy converge to one coordinated vision of what a picture game console looks like .
With theNintendo Switch 2 , it take care as though the epoch of “ fun ” game console design is over for now . That ’s not a spoiled thing by any mean value , though its just a small bittersweet .
End of an era
The other days of place consoles were a genuine wild W . With so many company trying to break into the mart , manufacturer had to find ways for their systems to stand out . That transform to a lot of experimentation with what a console looks like , but also how games control . There ’s a tactile joy to something like theAtari 2600 ’s vainglorious rubber joysticksor spinning paddle controllers . They console was a plaything , one that even the most hardened of adults could n’t aid but fool around with .
This spirit hold strong throughout early console generations , especially as freshman like Sega and Microsoft entered the wash , offer up their own unequaled variations on a motif . We see a slew of dissimilar console design , color , controller layout , and inner services . That mad sprint give us some of thebest video biz consolesof all time .
Things started to switch around the mid-2000s as both Sony and Microsoft lock down what a PlayStation and Xbox looked like . Color gradually faded from their console designs , controller became standardized . It appear like we were bug out to move towards a mod vision of what a console should be . That idea was becoming less about toy and more about all - in - one life style brand that could sit down on an amusement nub without draw too much attention to themselves .
Nintendo was always the elision to that rule . Where PlayStation and Xbox zigged , Nintendo zagged . That attitude give us innovations that totally upend how we think about gaming devices . When the Nintendo Wii was a success , both Sony and Microsoft had to scramble to figure out their own answer to it . Its musical theme were n’t always successful — just look at the disastrous Wii U — but they were earnest efforts . Nintendo realize that play was at the heart of gambling , and that extended to the console itself .
TheNintendo Switchhad that toy component in its own right hand when it launched in 2017 . There was nothing quite like it at the sentence , so merely goofing around with it was a pleasure . I call up have friends over that year and joyously demonstrating how it could be docked or how its Joy - bunko popped off . Its bright red and blue Joy - cons invite that form of play , signaling that it was still a gimmick for the young at heart deep down .
The Switch was so ingenious that it solicit to be repeat . Valve was the first ship’s company to truly tap into what made the machine particular with theSteam Deck . That pass to a longsighted wave of competitors , from theMSI Clawto theLegion Go , all of which only offered light variation on a theme . Now in 2025 , hardware Creator have already standardise what handheld PCs wait like . The chief difference between any given gimmick is in spectacles , not unique features .
And so it comes to no surprisal that Nintendo too has been swept up in that sea change . compare to any Nintendo cabinet that ’s come before it , theNintendo Switch 2is the safest , most button up composition of hardware Nintendo has ever made . It looks precisely like its last console and basically works the same way . Its colourful Joy - cons have been replaced with black unity that only boast light nods to its replacement ’s iconic color palette . The experimental IR sensors , which Nintendo abandoned as cursorily as it put in them , are gone . It ’s only a better Switch , one that would n’t look out of place next to a Steam Deck . That ’s exactly what it should be , but it ’s undeniably finds Nintendo work out with a dissimilar sort of originative liveliness .
There ’s still a bit of that toy ingredient left , though its minimise . I look forward to adhere its magnetic Joy - cons on the system . It also features one reliable innovation in the fact that a Joy - con can be move around like a computer mouse . Maybe that last feature will play a big function in how game are played on Switch than Nintendo is let on .
For now , though , theNintendo Switch 2feels like the ending of a gaming era I grow up on . When even Nintendo has figured out a repeatable template for its system , you have intercourse we ’ve reached the end of the experimental phase angle . There ’s nothing wrong with that , either ; the Switch really does feel like the thoroughgoing gaming gimmick and I would receive piles of organization like it . There ’s just a nostalgic part of me that feels for those kid who will be spread out their Switch 2 on Christmas morning and dashing straight to the game rather than marveling at the charge card powering them .
