Happy Birthday Nintendo Switch!
The Nintendo Switch turns 8 years old today, the Nintendo Switch 2 is on the horizon, slated to be released somewhere this year. And I got inspired after reading this article (https://www.nintendolife.com/features/these-past-8-years-have-been-a-privilege) to write my own story about gaming and the Nintendo Switch in particular.
I've always been a gamer. I started out with the Gameboy Pocket, playing Pokemon Gold to death. I then graduated to having my own PC and playing games on there: Commandos 2, Age of Empires 2, The Sims, Simcity 3000. I later on had a Nintendo DS, playing lots of Mario Kart on it. I then switched to a Playstation Portable, the PSP. Playing Final Fantasy Crisis Core for many hours in bed.
Then I went to college, played League of Legends, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft with my friends. And then I got a job and a girlfriend, and I quit gaming for a couple years.
Then we bought an apartment, and I had some cash to spare and bought myself a PS4 in 2016, an act of rebellion as I never was allowed a console to hook to the TV when I lived at my parents. So having a place and TV to myself, I now enjoyed all the Uncharted games in glorious HD on my own couch!
I played loads of games on my PS4, then covid hit and I replayed all my games on the PS4 and doubled down on my life of gaming. The Last of Us 2, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Ghost of Tsushima are the games I dunked many many hours in during the lockdowns in 2020. My wife got the big TV to binge doctor's drama series on Netflix, and I got a smaller TV next to it to game all day long. Life was great.
Then in 2021, my whole world changed: I became a dad. And suddenly it wasn't so easy anymore to get lots of uninterrupted TV time. I had already bought a Nintendo Switch as a casual device to game a little on the go and on the couch while watching TV, but little did I know that was going to change. The Switch would become my go-to device. I've read this many times on the internet (reddit mostly): the Nintendo Switch is the ultimate dad console!
You can pause games whenever, you can start the Switch and be back in the action in as little as 5 seconds. So it's perfect to game a little, put it down when the little one is screaming that he needs a diaper change, and then once he's asleep again, pick it up and continue right where you left.
Turn based games and deckbuilding games work best for this: Slay The Spire, Balatro, XCOM, Civilization, ... Perfect to play in between dad duties and/or while watching TV.
Another plus for the Switch is that developers have been porting their 'older' games from the PS3/early PS4 era onto it. The era where I didn't game for a couple years. So all those remasters and ports from games from that era: I'll happily consume them for the first time, on the couch and on the go!
Happy birthday Nintendo Switch! It's been a great time! Looking forward to becoming a dad again soon and picking up the Switch 2, which will hopefully become a dad console once again!
To finish off, here's my top 10 of Switch games that I think you should pick up:
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Pokemon Scarlet/Violet
- The Witcher 3
- Slay the Spire
- Dave The Diver
- Dredge
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
- Portal Companion Collection
- Into The Breach
Written without the use of generative AI.