Some people never moved past the N64 — for some older folks it was the SNES, and for younger tykes it was the GameCube — but I feel like everyone has their Nintendo rig that is their forever console. I’m pretty sure mine has finally arrived; the Nintendo Switch is my forever console.
I was a Genesis kid growing up, and, I mean, really, how lame would it be if I just stopped there? The Genesis? Really? (Okay, so I loved the crap out of the Genesis, but I knew I wasn’t going to stop there. Not yet.)
The PSOne swept me off my teenage feet and came really close to becoming my forever console (back then we just called it the Sony PlayStation, but it got rebranded as the PSOne around the time the PS2 came out), but the disc drives keep wearing out. I went through five PSOne consoles before I had to give up on that idea. As it turns out, lack of CD drive is a critical component of a forever console.
Also, when I look back, so many of those PSOne games haven’t aged well. It’s a good thing I didn’t stop there.
So for a while there, it was looking like the forever console thing had passed me by. Discs are the future, man, and the future is now.
When the Nintendo Switch came out, I wasn’t planning on getting one. But one early morning, fellow Half-Glasser Julian gave me a call to let me know the Switch was in stock at Target and I’d better get out there before they’re all gone. This was launch day, mind you, so that was a pretty huge deal. It was like 7:30 a.m. and I hadn’t had my coffee yet, so I wasn’t thinking clearly and FOMO got the best of me. I rushed out and got a launch-day Switch (which is still the last console I got on launch day — cough, PS5, cough).
I played the ever-loving crap out of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but then I put down the Switch and went back to my PS4. The Switch sat there collecting dust for more than a year.
Then, something amazing happened. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out and rekindled an addiction I thought I’d finally shaken after several hundred hours of Smash 4. By that point, the Switch’s library had expanded considerably, and now that the launch-year doldrums had been left behind, this was a console with a pretty freaking huge library. Once I started taking my Switch to work with me (so I could play Smash with my co-workers during breaks), the Switch’s true potential finally dawned on me. This is a full-on gaming console that I could take more places than just the bathroom. This was the real deal. (Yeah, I should have realized this sooner, because pretty much every Switch ad was about this, but I was never really an on-the-go console guy before the Switch came into my life.)
I got into this weird habit where I would re-buy games I already owned, just so I could play them on the Switch. Even if I wasn’t going to bring them on the go with me, I at least knew I could if I wanted to (and really, Smash is still the game that’s seen the most travel time). I got into the even weirder habit of making sure I buy everything physically. I made a few exceptions, but I even went so far as to import a copy of Stardew Valley from Japan.
The reason for the physical games thing is because I realized at some point that the Nintendo Switch is my forever console. Who knows how long Nintendo will support the Switch eShop, especially after the chaos Sony recently unleashed on the digital games market? I’m not taking any chances. When I own a game, it’s mine until the cartridge wears out.
I’m amassing a huge pile of games at this point. My game library is just plain bonkers, especially because Limited Run Games keeps putting out physical cartridges of the games I initially passed on because they were digital-only. My Switch cartridge-buying habit is out of control!
But the thing is, I really do think I will be playing the Switch forever. It’s an amazing piece of technology, and while it’s not a powerhouse by any means, it plays some really great games that I never expected, such as Diablo III, Doom Eternal, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. And that’s to say nothing of Nintendo’s incredible first-party lineup (which includes a vast majority of stuff that was on the Wii U, which was a terrible console with an outstanding first-party lineup).
Yeah, I’ll still keep buying consoles. I have a gaming laptop on the way and I’m still trying to get my hands on a PS5. But even so, I’m pretty sure I’ll still be playing the Switch 20 years from now. It may not still be the same Switch — they do wear out, after all — but it will be my Switch and my pile of game cartridges.
Long live the Nintendo Switch!
