When Nintendo Switch released in 2017, it was immediately received as indispensable, for its convenience as a home/handheld console hybrid. The power of a home console in the palm of your hand, playable anywhere and on the go. With this design, however, were tradeoffs. Lower power: the Switch could not play any current gen games. Additionally, since the system is designed for mobile, you get the convenience of a mobile system, by losing the conveniences of home applications. For the most part, this couldn’t be helped—Nintendo had to prioritize the gaming experience for all “modes” of play. Yet even with these reasonable limitations, the Nintendo Switch remains lacking in this respect, extending to the design of the Switch 2. If you are an Xbox or PlayStation player, you might find it jarring if you ever use a Switch.
Staying on the Console
There are several compiling reasons for the Switch being inadequate as a home console. One of the notable details is the Switch’s weakness as a media player. Since it does not take discs, there is no blu-ray player installed. You are unable to play any form of physical media besides Switch games. Along with this, there are few streaming apps to cover up for that weakness. No Netflix, no HBO Max, no music apps. You may think this isn’t a big issue—yet even the 3DS had Netflix and an internet browser. Games are games, and that still hasn’t changed with the Switch. But one of the conveniences of a home console since the Nintendo Wii was that there was no need to get off the console.
On current gen home consoles, there’s no need to get off to watch films or shows, nor to play music or surf the web in some way. It feels at “home,” replacing everything you’d do with the monitor or TV’s minimal functionalities. So when you take a break from the game, you simply go to the home menu to watch, listen and even search something up. All the necessary apps are already there. Aside from the unpopular Crunchyroll and Hulu apps, players aren’t able to stream the biggest shows and movies. To aid this further, other home consoles actually have a marketplace to purchase other media. It is intuitive and accessible straight from the main menu. And there’s more to the general user interface (UI) than that.
User Interface and Tracking Progress
The Switch gives the user a sleek and simple UI, but is equally bland and quiet. The Xbox Series X allows for customizing the organization of the home menu, including creating custom themes. Both Series X and PS5 have achievements for every single game, tracking your journey as a player. These, for home console players, might be taken for granted—must-haves that you don’t consider not having. When players complete a certain level of goals on PS5, they earn tiers of trophies. It acts as an incentive not just to finish the game but to ‘complete” it, playing all possible content. For some, this is part of their gaming process, a layered form of game design on the console itself. And it is merely a way to track progress—the Switch has a lot of catching up to do.
Messaging and Voice Chat
Another important aspect of home console gaming is sharing experiences with friends. There are indispensable features on non-Nintendo consoles: a party system and a messaging system. Very simple, but again, taken for granted. Without needing to go on your phone, you can call a friend up on the console or send a text. You can get multiple people on a party chat, as you are all playing the either the same games, or completely different games. This is one of the biggest reasons for gaming, being the social aspect. The absolute most popular games, such as Fortnite and Call of Duty, are literally “multiplayer” games. What enhances the experience of any multiplayer game is a voice chat system. Voice chat is already a part of the party systems but allows you to talk to strangers in a game. So not only is messaging or speaking collaborative: it is also competitive.
Many veteran gamers would argue that speaking to the opposing team is part of the essential experience of a multiplayer game. The Nintendo Switch, although having Fortnite, does not have any form of voice chat on the console. There is practically no communication between the user and others at all. The closest version of this on Switch is not even on the console itself but an app on your phone. It is impractical and seldom used. Nintendo is not known for putting voice chat or messaging in their consoles, sure—but it should be so simple. In fact, on the sequel system Nintendo Switch 2, they did add a form of chatting with GameChat. However, the console requires that you have a Nintendo Switch Online membership and still doesn’t allow messaging. They give in, but remain lacking.
Hardware Limitations
The mobility of the console overrides many of those core issues, evidently being one of the highest selling consoles of all time. The big tradeoff in hardware capabilities, however, is the raw power of the Switch. Home consoles tend to be at the forefront of graphical technology, aside from Nintendo in recent years. It doesn’t help that Switch was in competition to consoles roughly two generations ahead of it in graphical fidelity and performance. Ports are always expected to be toned down on Switch, with fans hoping for simply a playable form of the game. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it did make select third-party games unable to have a presence. Call of duty was not on Switch; modern Resident Evil was not on Switch—neither was Elden Ring or GTA V. The ship has sailed with these titles.
Gaming for many is playing their favorite live-service or multiplayer game while streaming shows or movies in between. A lot of players simply idled while on party chat, loitering around in-game. Even when the Switch 2 reintroduced that social aspect, it hardly had the power left over to reasonably stream gameplay to friends. The Nintendo Switch quite definitively cannot offer certain features purely out of its hardware limitations. This plagued the system throughout its life, showing its inevitable limitations. Funnily enough, some of its flaws were seen in phases by day one buyers. Nintendo was slow to respond to multiple issues.
Addressing Concerns
Proving the point of the Switch as a poor home console is its revisions during its life cycle. Unfortunately, the console was rushed to the consumers by Nintendo when the failure of the Wii U was made obvious. One of the sad outcomes of this is that the battery life nearly doubled in a hardware revision, leaving day one users in the dust. The users were effectively “testers” of the product, with many features missing. Nintendo would constantly, but slowly, update the console. They were not very responsive to user concerns, only addressing a few of them since the system was released.
The problems were small, yet varied. Themes were stuck to black and white options only. There was no Nintendo Switch Online subscription service until a year after release. It took Nintendo five years to release folders, named “groups.” It took four years for Bluetooth functionality to be added. In addition to this, the poor wireless strength of the Switch made playing online more of a struggle—a bane for home consoles. Nintendo made little to no efforts to improve this, allowing for a whole generation of poor connectivity. As long as they played the games and kept purchasing, Nintendo let users scream at nothing. It left users pent up.
Multi-Console Gaming
To be clear, the Nintendo Switch is a great console. It offers features not on any other home console. Its design describes one of the purest gaming experiences available, making it quick and easy to hop in and out of a game. Aside from missing functions available on prior handhelds, the Switch is arguably the best mobile console, period. The issues laid out here are not counter to that. What these problems signal is that the Switch is ultimately complementary to true home console experiences. It does not do enough to replace gaming on other devices to be your only device—your central hub for gaming. Nintendo themselves hint at this, expressing that they target different markets than their peers—such as Xbox and Sony—have a stake in.
Players like myself have the Nintendo Switch as a complementary console. It doesn’t mean my Xbox wins over the Switch. But it does describe the failure to address how the Switch functions, as a home console. The Nintendo Switch 2 aims to improve on the original but acts as an iteration of the same. It will never have all the streaming apps; It will never let you stream gameplay online to Discord or Twitch. It will also never have a messaging system or a truly seamless form of communication between friends. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the Switch does its job so well. It focuses all its hardware and software functions on creating the perfect mobile experience. That seems to be enough for the current player base of over 150 million users. Funnily enough, the Switch ended up being a funny example of how disappointment can still be fun.
