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Without Pokémon, 2022 Would Have Been A Sad Year For Switch

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Image: Jim Cooke (G/O Media) / Kotaku

Pokémon saved the Switch in 2022, which was also the year that the console officially started to feel old.

As we approach the Switch’s sixth anniversary, it feels like Nintendo’s innovative hybrid gaming device has finally peaked and is now on the decline. Missing features and poor online experiences that were once easier to forgive have started to feel more frustrating. Even the latest visually impressive first-party games like Kirby And The Forgotten Land and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 struggled to mask the hardware’s aging limitations.

2022 was the unofficial year of the Kirb.
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

Don’t get me wrong. The Switch’s release calendar was still lowkey stacked month in and month out. The OLED version continues to bring out a level of vibrancy in games big and small that helps make up for some of the technical drawbacks. And despite never receiving a price drop since it launched, the Switch remains an extremely competitive gaming option when stacked up against pricier alternatives like the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Steam Deck.

Still, a meaningful hardware refresh has never felt more overdue. 2022 was the year of the missing Switch Pro, and the year it felt like Nintendo’s existing handheld hybrid went from punching above its weight to under-delivering on the promise of its core conceit.

Great games, chugging hardware

Nintendo made up for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom being delayed this year through sheer quantity of new releases. On the first-party side Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario Strikers: Battle League, and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes anchored the first half of the year, while Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Splatoon 3, and Bayonetta 3 delivered heavy-hitters in the second half.

Gaps were stuffed with many of the year’s biggest indie games: Sifu, Citizen Sleeper, Nobody Saves the World, Return to Monkey Island, OlliOlli World, Shredder’s Revenge, Tunic, and Neon White. Square Enix’s 2022 JRPG bonanza was well represented, including Switch exclusives Live a Live and Triangle Strategy. Plus big ports like No Man’s Sky, Personal 5 Royal, and Nier Automata brought over some of the best games of the last console generation.

At times Arceus gives off the vibe of a Nintendo 64 game in HD.
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

It’s safe to say, however, that it might have still felt like one of the quieter years on Switch if not for Pokémon Arceus: Legends and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. In addition to selling tons, both games also perfectly represented the platform’s growing pains this year: they iterated on the series’ tried and true collectathon formula in creative and refreshing ways while also looking like ass and running badly.

On the Arceus side, the game’s open world often looked empty and flat. On the Scarlet and Violet side, framerate drops, constant pop-in of objects, and rogue glitches held back an otherwise ambitious new blueprint for the future of the mainline Pokémon games. It’s hard to know how much these shortcomings are due to the Switch’s old chipsets, a lack of development time, a particular set of design trade-offs, or some combination of those and other factors.

This screenshot is not as pretty as I remembered it.
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

A modern spec sheet probably wouldn’t hurt though. Even Xenoblade Chronicles 3, a sprawling RPG with big open environments that look much better than what you’ll find in Pokémon, brushed up against the limits of the Switch. The frame rate was far from stable in the later half of the game, and the sweeping vistas themselves lose all sorts of detail and definition the second you move away from them. This didn’t stop Monolith’s game from feeling and looking great when in motion, but it does mean that almost every screenshot I have from my time with it is full of jagged edges and washed out textures. Bayonetta 3 was even worse.

Switch Online is still a drag

Another game that gets at the increasing duality of the Switch is Splatoon 3. A gorgeous and colorful sequel with even more content and features, it nevertheless is held back by Nintendo’s online infrastructure. It’s 2022. Splatoon 3 is one of the best competitive shooters out there. And you will almost certainly spend at least part of any gaming session mired in disconnects or other connectivity woes.

It’s especially notable considering some of the biggest shooters around like Fortnite and Apex Legends are also on Switch, and those games also don’t require players to download a separate app to use voice chat. These problems were easier to ignore when Nintendo’s online service was free, but as the company continues to double-down on its monthly subscription service, subpar online performance continues to be a sore spot.

Last year, Nintendo launched the Switch Online + Expansion Pack, a $50 version of the service that raised the price in exchange for access to Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games, as well as various bits of Switch DLC. It felt like a terrible deal at the time, and nothing over the past 12 months has done much to change that.

That’s not to say that Nintendo hasn’t been diligently filling out the Netflix-style retro library. Notable additions included Earthbound, Shining Force II, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

In total, Switch Online received five more NES games, six more SNES games, 17 more Genesis games, and 11 more N64 games this year. Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games remain MIA, however, as do notable third-party SNES titles like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI.

As rival services like PS Plus and Xbox Game Pass expand and evolve to include some of the biggest new releases and cloud gaming, it’s hard not to look at Switch Online and feel like it comes up short, despite being significantly cheaper. Switch Online did experiment with week-long free trials for games like Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe this year, as well as add a new Switch Online missions and rewards feature, but four years into the service’s life it still feels like it’s struggling to justify itself.

Netflix is never coming

If Switch Online still seems like an underwhelming value proposition, the base console user experience remains absolutely barebones. The Switch firmware received six updates in 2022, and the only notable feature added was “Groups” which allows players to organize their game libraries into folders. It’s nice to have and was long overdue, which mostly serves to underline just how little the rest of the console experience has changed since launch.

Despite the popularity of the Switch, Nintendo has never prioritized social features—-and that didn’t change in 2022. There’s no way to search for friends, send them messages, or gift them games. There’s no social feed to speak of when it comes to wondering what they are playing, buying, or sharing. Again, this has been the status quo, but as each new year passes, the fact that the Switch hasn’t improved on any of it becomes more glaring.

*Sigh*
Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

The apps never came this year, either. For years the joke was that you could get Netflix on every modern Nintendo device but the Switch. The streaming wars are in full swing, with services like Game Pass including complimentary subscriptions to Apple TV and Disney+, neither of which exist on Switch. Hulu remains the lone exception, joined last year by Funimaiton and this year by Crunchyroll.

The Switch has been outpaced by app integration in other areas as well. Spotify has been a mainstay on PlayStation and Xbox for years, while social hub Discord was finally added to both this past year. Neither are on Nintendo’s platform, which is especially surprising considering how many communication shortcomings would be solved by the arrival of Discord. The Switch didn’t get achievements or home screen themes in 2022, either.

So…Switch Pro when?

When the Switch released in 2017, holding games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey in your hands and taking them on the go was a powerful revelation. In 2022, thanks to the bar already raised by Nintendo half a decade ago, it’s somewhat less novel.

At the low-end, an explosion in cloud gaming peripherals and third-party handhelds means you can stream Assassin’s Creed Valhalla alongside Dead Cells to a bunch of competitors’ portables. The experience isn’t great but it’s often good enough.

At the high-end, Valve’s Steam Deck went from a trickle of pre-orders to on-demand availability, and let people take Steam hits from The Witcher 3 to Vampire Survivors to the bathroom and beyond. It’s clunky, the battery life isn’t great, and it’s a much less streamlined user experience than the Switch. Valve is also selling the device at a big loss. And yet while it’s only sold less than 2 percent as many units as the Switch so far, it’s shown the massive leap handheld gaming is capable of since the latter first shipped.

The Switch OLED is nice but it’s no Switch Pro.
Photo: Nintendo

While Kotaku has mentioned a mythical Switch Pro in every State of the Switch review since 2018, this is the year it went from “when is it coming?” to “where the hell is it?” Many fans expected Nintendo to reveal upgraded hardware at E3 2021. Instead, it revealed the Switch OLED: a fancy screen atop the same basic guts for $50 more. This led to a lot of questions about repeated Bloomberg reports that Nintendo was gearing up to release a 4K successor to the Switch, but Nintendo’s past history alone says we’re due for a new Switch.

The Nintendo DS launched in 2004. The DS Lite followed in 2006. The DSi in 2008. And the DSi XL in 2009. The first and last iterations of the device showed a long range in terms of improvement. The 3DS launched in 2011. A 3DS XL arrived the following year. A 2DS was added to the lineup the year after that. And a New Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL launched the year after that, both of which notably played a handful of games the earlier versions of the system couldn’t run. The Switch is already two years older than the PS4 was when the PS4 Pro came out, and older than the Wii U was when the Switch launched.

The global pandemic, which created shortages for semiconductors that affected everything from cars to smartphones, no doubt threw any traditional timeline for a Switch Pro out the window. At the same time, that hasn’t stopped the Switch from continuing to age in the interim. From Joy-Con drift to finicky Wi-Fi reception, the console has succeeded despite notable design flaws and shortcomings thanks to its brilliant form factor and exclusives.

The form factor is becoming less and less of a differentiator though, and despite the development wizardry at Nintendo, old hardware is starting to catch up with it. We’ll see if 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom can replicate the magic of Breath of the Wild on a six year old machine. By the time it comes out in May, the gap between them will be even bigger than the one between GameCube’s Twilight Princess and the Wii’s Skyward Sword.

           

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After 10 Years I Finally Got A Wii U, Here’s What I Thought

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used properly, Nintendo was really onto something with this tech

The fact that so many console exclusives now find themselves on the Switch is a credit to the quality of the games. What if Breath of the Wild had only come out on Wii U? Would it still be a fantastic game? Heck yeah! Would it have had the impact that it did? No way. Sure, there were a couple of missteps – Twilight Princess remains a boring Zelda game, HD or not (don’t @ me, please) – and most third-party studios did only the bare minimum to support the GamePad, but the overall hit rate on first-party titles really was something.

And this isn’t even to mention the Wii-ked (sorry) Virtual Console! I have had an absolute field day going through the eShop and snatching up every title that I have been wanting to play for years but never got the chance to grab a physical copy. Yes, this was made all the more pressing by the knowledge that the Wii U eShop will be closing in the next few months and my time is therefore limited, but boy what a rush!

Of course, I can’t talk about Wii U games without at least touching on Nintendo Land. This is a weird one. It’s not quite Wii Sports, nor is it quite Wii Party, but it is a fantastic display of what the GamePad could be used for and had me and my willing friends in stitches with its uber-simple minigames.

Mario Chase remains a highlight and a prime candidate for party nights going forward, and while there are some games which feel like they are repeating the process a little too closely, there is enough variation to show that, used properly, Nintendo was really onto something with this tech. I’m still not quite sure what I was supposed to be doing with those coins and subsequent prizes, but I had a good time doing it all the same.

The Experience

Image: Damien McFerran / Nintendo Life

True, the GamePad is great when it works well, but when it doesn’t it is at best redundant, and at worst a weighty distraction. I played through a strange selection of games over the past month, some used the GamePad effectively (Rayman Legends, Twilight Princess) but others — many others — found no use for it. Quite why I was playing Assassins Creed III (a game series I generally cannot get behind) is beyond me, but seeing the GamePad subjected to being the home of a dull map with no care or detail paid to it made one thing very clear – this was a good bit of kit desperate for a purpose.

a piece of gaming history that is so brilliantly weird, I doubt we will ever see something as inventive again

That is perhaps the thing that I came back to more times than anything else in my last few weeks with the Wii U. I played up on my TV, at my desk, even in bed, but at no point did I feel like I knew what the console was trying to do. Is it a fun handheld? Yeah, kinda. Is it a fun home console? Yeah, kinda. But why be average at both when you could be really good at one?

Long before the Microsft was boasting of Xbox One that ‘this console will play your games, it will stream your TV, it will massage your feet and it will do your taxes!’ the Wii U was kind of doing just that. It was much to my surprise to find a video camera, TV remote, streaming options, and a (defunct but cool-sounding) social media platform all built into a console which I had foolishly assumed was all about the games. I’d be intrigued to spy on a parallel universe in which the global pandemic happened five years earlier and mankind turned to the Wii U’s video chat to keep the economy running. Many of these features are not functional anymore ten years down the line, and the lack of direction seems like a bit of a mess (is this for games, for TV, for social media?) but the ambition is there. This is a brilliant mess indeed.

After a month of playing the console that I rejected for so many years, I don’t think it is fair to call the Wii U a failure (unless you are talking financially, in which case it is difficult to disagree). Yes, at the time it may have been a marketing disaster with some pretty big gaps between major game releases, and my heart goes out to all of the fans who stood diligently by it. However, now we can see it for what it truly is, a piece of gaming history that is so brilliantly, confusingly weird, I doubt we will ever see something as experimental and inventive again from one of the ‘big three’ console manufacturers.

If you play as I did, then you get a chance to be selective with a console for which there are, admittedly, a fair few lows. You get to play the best first-party games without needing to wait for months for the next, the entire virtual console library is right there with GBA, DS, and Wii games to boot, and the marketing campaign is so far in the past now that I think I can safely say that this is a console in and of itself and not just a Wii accessory.

Both I and the Wii U are 10 years older now and we are both all the cooler for it.



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Technology

Random: Wii U Owner’s Son Stuffs A Bunch Of Switch Carts Into The Disc Drive

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Image: Nintendo Life

If you’re even remotely present on the veritable hellscape that is Twitter, then you’ll have no doubt seen a meme in which gamers take photos of their Switch console docked with a game disc from another platform resting on top; a metaphor of the user’s desire to see a port of said game arrive on Switch.

Very droll, we’re sure you’ll agree, but ultimately a harmless way of inviting a few likes and retweets. But what if you tried it the other way around? Popping a Switch cart into the disc drive of a Wii U certainly sounds like a recipe for disaster, and unfortunately that’s exactly what one owner in North America had to deal with after their son got his hands on both systems.

In a post on Twitter, user Jose A Cruz shared photos of a gutted Wii U console in order to remove a bunch of Switch carts from the disc drive. Looking at the photos, it looks as though there are four carts in total, and while it’s not possible to see all of them, we can see that three of the four are Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Mario Party Superstars, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

How this exactly came to be is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the owner’s son mistakenly thought the Switch carts would work on the Wii U? Maybe it was an act of rebellion? Regardless, we’re just picturing the look on the poor owner’s face when they realised where their missing Switch carts were – imagine!

Thankfully, it looks like everything ended on a positive note; in a follow-up tweet, the Wii U disc drive appears to be working fine and the Switch carts have been safely removed with no sign of damage. Happy days!

Let this serve as a cautionary tale, however; if you have children – particularly young ones – then be sure to keep your valuables well out of reach. Switch carts might taste pretty disgusting, but that doesn’t mean they won’t end up in other hard-to-reach places!

Have you lost a Switch cart only to find it in the most perculiar of places? Share your own stories in the comments below!



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Microsoft, Nintendo Won’t Raise Console Prices Despite PS5 Hike

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Image: Xbox / Nintendo / Sony / Kotaku / tostphoto (Shutterstock)

Earlier today, Sony announced that in most regions, the PlayStation 5 would see a price increase as a result of inflation. In response to this news, people began questioning whether other console makers would enact similar price increases. The answer, at least for now, seems to be no. But both Nintendo and Microsoft were careful to leave open the possibility of future price hikes.

After Sony confirmed that, due to ongoing global inflation, both versions of the PS5 would see price increases in multiple regions—including Canada, Mexico, China, and the UK—the next obvious question many had was: Would any other company make the same drastic move? This is the internet, after all, a place where people constantly yell at each other about which console is better or worse and concoct conspiracies to explain why sites write good or bad news about consoles. So of course, if Sony does something, people have to pick sides and start asking questions about Xbox and Nintendo.

Kotaku reached out to Xbox about the Sony PS5 price increase and if the company had similar plans to increase the price on the Xbox Series X or S. Microsoft’s response is a bit wishy-washy, mentioning no firm plans one way or the other.

Here’s the full statement:

We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 and the Xbox Series X is $499. This also applies to other markets and their current pricing.

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Humble Bundle’s Summer Sale

Game and Save
Great news for PC gamers out there looking to save money and add more games to your backlog which you’ll eventually get to. Humble Bundle has kicked off its Summer Sale in which you can save up to 90% on games.

While it did confirm that right now the price hasn’t changed, it leaves open the very real possibility that as inflation gets worse, the tech company could decide to increase the price on one or both of its Xbox variants.

Read More: Xbox Boss Says Exclusives Aren’t The Future While Company Buys Up Exclusives 

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Nintendo’s President Shuntaro Furukawa told Nikkei Asia that currently it is “not considering” a Switch price increase, adding that the company doesn’t want to price people out of buying its uber-popular console.

“Our competition is the variety of entertainment in the world,” said Furukawa. “And we always think about pricing in terms of the value of the fun we offer…Nintendo has sold more than 100 million Switch units so far, and it’s important to maintain the momentum of our overall business.”

Still, this statement leaves the subject of pricing open for Nintendo to change prices on the Switch if needed. However, Nintendo in a way did already increase the price of the Switch via the improved OLED model released last year. This is often how Nintendo increases prices on its consoles without having to do a more traditional price hike like Sony.

It’s likely both companies are closely watching how markets, critics, and fans react to Sony’s PS5 price hike as they contemplate how to handle inflation moving forward. And as the gaming market begins to slow a bit following the huge numbers it saw during the pandemic, you better believe companies like Nintendo are open to different ways to help keep their boats afloat as people start to have less income to spend on video game consoles and games.

 

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Technology

Nintendo Prepares For 3DS & Wii U eShop Closure With Scheduled Maintenance

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Image: Nintendo Life / Damien McFerran

This week is pretty significant in the world of Nintendo – with the Japanese company previously announcing it would “no longer be possible to use a Nintendo eShop Card to add funds to an account on Nintendo eShop for Wii U or Nintendo 3DS”.

This will take effect “as of” 29th August 2022, and it seems Nintendo has now taken the next step towards this. The ‘NinStatusBot’ Twitter account reveals maintenance has now officially been scheduled for early next week around the same time:

Consider this a reminder then to add eShop card funds to the 3DS and Wii U eShops while you still can. Updates for both of these eShop storefronts will be entirely discontinued on 27th March 2023. After this, purchases will no longer be available, but you’ll still be able to download your existing library.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai recently reminded fans about these same closure dates, mentioning how this would be the “last chance” for everyone to get any games they really want, that may not be ported to other platforms in the future.

There are still some workarounds when it comes to adding funds, which you can read more about in our extensive guide:

How are you feeling about the eShop closures? Have you got everything you want at this point? Will you be making any last-minute purchases with your funds? Leave a comment down below.



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Technology

Random: Masahiro Sakurai Reminds Nintendo Fans About 3DS & Wii U eShop Closure Dates

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Image: Nintendo

As you probably know by now, Nintendo is discontinuing the 3DS and Wii U eShop as of 28th March 2023. And later this month on 29th August, you’ll no longer be able to add eShop card funds (aka points) to accounts.

This is happening worldwide, and as a result – Nintendo fans around the globe are grabbing certain digital titles before the deadline. Even the Super Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai is making the most of these digital shops while he still can.

Here’s a rough translation of his most recent social media post (via Google translate) – essentially reminding fellow 3DS and Wii U users of the closure:

“In a little over two weeks, you won’t be able to add points to 3DS and Wii U…I’m patrolling the e-shop thinking it’s my last chance. Because of the touch panel, there are probably many things that won’t be ported to other models.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t specify if he made any purchases, but as he noted – a lot of the games using these systems’ touch screens, might not necessarily get ported to other platforms in the future. We can’t imagine he is thrilled about older Super Smash Bros. DLC being retired, either.

The 3DS and Wii U eShops aren’t the only things coming to an end – with Sakurai announcing earlier this month that he was almost out of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate screenshots.

You can learn more about the upcoming eShop closures in some of our previous posts. It’s worth noting the sales of Fire Emblem Fates will end on 28th February 2023 and its DLC is available until 27th March 2023.

Learn more about Nintendo’s 3DS & Wii U eShop closure:

Are you making the most of your time with these eShops, like Sakurai is? Any specific games you’ll be picking up before it’s too late? How do you feel about the whole closure at this point? Leave your thoughts down below.



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Technology

Mario Kart 8 Update Brings Manslaughter Back To Coconut Mall

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch received its second wave of Booster Course Pass DLC today, which adds eight new courses and finally fixes an old one. Let’s just say Coconut Mall’s Shy Guys aren’t so shy anymore, and if you get too close you will get merc’d.

The first set of new courses arrived back in March, one of the most anticipated among them being Coconut Mall, a breezy classic from Mario Kart Wii remastered for the modern game. But there was just one problem: the Miis that ram players near the end of the course were replaced with Shy Guys. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the Shy Guys no longer drove. Their cars remained stationary. Mario Kart fans were disturbed.

Well, in an extremely rare turn of events, Nintendo listened to fans and restored Coconut Mall’s death alley to some of its former glory. The Miis are still Shy Guys, but they now ratchet slightly forward and start spinning around in a spiral of vehicular carnage.

Today’s DLC also adds New York Minute (Tour), Mario Circuit 3 (SNES), Kalimari Desert (N64), Waluigi Pinball (DS), Sydney Sprint (Tour), Snow Land (GBA), Mushroom Gorge (Wii), and Sky-High Sundae, an entirely new level exclusive to MK8. Waluigi Pinball is a cult-favorite deep-cut. Mushroom Gorge returns with its infamous Gap Cut intact. Sky-High Sundae is a visual feast. But Coconut Mall’s Shy Guys are still stealing the show.

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Today’s update isn’t just a content drop, though. Nintendo is also still tweaking the underlying game. With the arrival of March’s DLC, it patched Item Boxes to make them regenerate faster after players pick them up. Today it did so again. The developers also increased the number of time trial ghosts players can download from 16 to 32 and adjusted how far vehicles get thrown based on their weight.

It’s far and away the most Nintendo has ever updated a game five years into its lifecycle, let alone one that was originally released on the Wii U back in 2014. While some analysts claim Mario Kart 9 is already in the works, there are still another 24 courses coming to MK8 through the end of 2023. No doubt by that point the Shy Guys will be tearing up more than just Coconut Mall and the Item Boxes will regenerate faster than Nintendo’s lawyers can send a DMCA notice.



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Technology

The Nintendo Switch Features Most People Forget About

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Photo: Nintendo

The PlayStation 5’s Accolades feature has allowed users to offer awards to fellow players in multiplayer games, the idea being it’d help foment kindness and camaraderie in the gaming community. But Sony formally retired it from PS5 this week for one reason: No one used it. Most people (hi) didn’t even seem to know it existed.

This spurred a thought exercise: What other gaming consoles still have useless features? Take the Switch, for instance. Sure, Nintendo’s hybrid handheld has plenty of quietly helpful little tricks, like its universal zoom function. But it also has some that could probably get purged without anyone caring—or even noticing.

The “Find Controllers” Function

Of the slew of options in the Switch’s “Controllers” menu, the “find controllers” function far and away collects the most dust. Open it, and you’ll see a menu containing a list of Joy-Cons paired to your console. Hold down the “A” button over the Joy-Con you’re looking for and it’ll rumble. Quietly. At, like, animal-hearing frequency. It’s intended to help you locate any detached Joy-Cons that may be misplaced, but isn’t really effective enough to do its one job—Never mind that you actually need at least one Joy-Con on hand to use it in the first place.

Sadly, there’s no console function that addresses the scourge of Joy-Con drift.

The “News” App

Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

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Most of the seven permanent icons on the Switch’s home screen are genuinely useful shortcuts to submenus. One, however, is used only by the people who accidentally click on it: the “News” app. Open it up and you’ll see a reverse chronological feed of digitized press releases from the annals of Nintendo’s marketing machine. (You can also see the three most recent “stories” on the left bar of the screen when you boot up the console.) But if you’re looking for gaming news, you’re not going to read it on a gaming console—which you’ve presumably booted up to, y’know, play games. You’re especially not going to read it on that console if the text is so very tiny. You’re far more likely to get your news from a favorite gaming site.

Voice Chat

Despite what you may have heard, yep, the Switch has voice chat! Kinda. It’s a convoluted mess. On PlayStation and Xbox, if you want to get voice chat going, you…plug in a headset and get voice chat going. On Switch, however, you have to go through a multi-step process and boot up a companion smartphone app. Nintendo could scrap its voice chat without anyone caring. Really, if you’re using a smartphone app to talk to your party members, Discord is right there.

Keyboard Support

Everyone hates punching in a password (twice!) to buy something on Nintendo’s eShop, what with the console’s small touchscreen keyboard. This workaround doesn’t function in handheld mode, but you can plug a USB keyboard into the dock and use that to type instead. But also: the time it takes to pull out a keyboard and plug it into the Switch’s dock probably takes longer than whatever task you were initially trying to circumvent. (If you must get into the eShop faster, just deactivate the password requirement.) Nintendo could likely lose keyboard support without much uproar.

Screen Lock (or, well, that it’s an option)

Screenshot: Nintendo / Kotaku

Yes, the Switch’s screen lock feature is indeed enormously helpful, dare I say essential. Turn it on, and you’ll give your console a purgatory of sorts between its waking and sleeping states. You’ll then need to tap the same button three times to use your console, which can prevent it from inadvertently turning on when, say, it’s rustling around in your bag. Honestly, it shouldn’t even be an option: It should be the standard. Get rid of the choice, I say, and let screen lock be the standard.

Dark Mode

I’m kidding! I’m kidding. But hey, on this note, wouldn’t it be nice if the Switch had more color themes for its backdrop? Hello? Hey, where’d you go?

 

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Guy Replaces Mazda MX-5 Parts With Nintendo Wii Accessories

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For the last month or so, TikTok user Tyler Atkin (@ttptng) has been taking parts of his car—like the steering wheel—off and replacing them with Nintendo Wii accessories. Please do not try this at home.

Driving a 1995 Mazda MX-5 Miata—now renamed the Wiiata—Atkin first replaced the car’s factory standard steering wheel with the Wii’s tiny plastic Mario Kart accessory (complete with Wii Remote tucked inside it):

Next, he replaced the gearstick with a Wii nunchuk controller:

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MX-5 floormats? What is this, a car show? Get that shit out of there, and replace the front floor coverings with Wii Fit yoga mats:

With all that stuff in place the Mazda handrake grip was looking decidedly out of place, so it had to be replaced, this time with a comically large Wii Sports baseball bat accessory:

All of which is pointless if you can’t actually play a Nintendo Wii while in the Miiata, so yeah, he then removed the car’s stereo and slid in a whole console to replace it, adding a small screen to the dash in the process:

All that was left now was to take the car out on the road, something that technically worked, as you can see in this video:

I mean, yes, it drives, as you can see. And the gearstick/handbrake replacements are purely cosmetic choices, so whatever. But trying to turn the car with a wheel that small does not look like a fun (or safe) time! And surely getting out of a tight parking spot will look something like this?

The answer to that and any other concerned questions about safety and suitability are: who cares, these aren’t permanent additions, they’re a joke made for the internet, one we have all enjoyed.

If you liked Tyler’s videos, this Wii stuff was just part of his Mazda build tinkering, which also includes…replacing the Wii wheel with the Forza Horizon disc.

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Technology

Nintendo Warns Fans to “Immediately” Stop Using Old Hardware

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Nintendo has issued a warning to fans to “immediately” stop using some of its old hardware. If you’re on the NES, SNES, N64, Game Cube, Game Boy, DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U, or any Nintendo gaming console from yesteryear, you don’t have to worry. This time, “hardware” does not refer to console. However, if you’re using the “Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector (NTR-010)” or the “Nintendo Wi-Fi Network Adapter (WAP-001)” — released in 2005 and 2008, respectively — Nintendo suggests you stop due to security issues. 

The warning comes from the official Nintendo Japan website, so it’s possible some meaning and vital context is being lost in translation, but it’s clear that Nintendo warns against owners of these items from using them, especially continuously. 

“Regarding the network devices ‘Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector (NTR-010)’ and ‘Nintendo Wi-Fi Network Adapter (WAP-001)’ released by Nintendo Wi-Fi in 2005 and 2008, please stop using them from the viewpoint of security protection and switch to commercially available network devices,” says Nintendo.  “These products have been around for more than 10 years since their launch, and we have confirmed that there are the following concerns when they are used continuously.

The statement continues:

“If you continue to use these devices, there is a risk that they may be illegally accessed from the outside, or that the connected terminal may be infected with a computer virus, etc. For customers who are currently using it, please stop using it immediately and switch to commercially available network equipment for security protection. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and ask for your understanding and cooperation.”

It’s unclear why this statement has all of a sudden been issued, as these devices have surely been vulnerable from a security standpoint for a while, but clearly, the issue was recently brought to Nintendo’s intention. As always, we’ll keep you updated as the situation evolves. In the meantime, for more coverage on all things Nintendo, click here.

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