The Switch is neat and tidy rather than premium exactly, but I do remember the first time I picked up a DS Lite. I was really impressed. The DS Lite (unlike the original DS, DSi, or 3DS) had a double-skinned cover with a thin transparent plastic shell over the coloured one, which gave it a lovely sheeny appearance, and everything just fit together beautifully. The audio design was a delight as well. I loved that this quality was lavished on something "for kids", and that it was so unlike the sort of sterile metallic slabs that companies like Apple would spend the next decade and more designing.

It's a great way to get a premium feel out of cheap materials. I wish more modern (cheaper) electronics would learn from what Nintendo has been able to do.

This sort of design for joy rather than for prestige, reassurance, solidity, sensation of quality engineering, etc is what you hope for from Nintendo. They do have a pretty decent track record at it, and their most successful designs in that respect are also some of their biggest hits.

Teenage Engineering does joy better than anyone else I can think of, but it's impressive when the huge companies do any of it. Remember when dumb mobile phones became commodity enough that industrial designers really got creative? Thinking KDDI in Japan, especially the Infobar. Some manufacturers still do that but don't have the software chops to complete the thought.

I'm not sure quality is the issue, all of my old Nintendo consoles still work years later (SNES, GBA SP, Gamecube), they simply seem to eschew cutting-edge (and often less reliable) technology.

I've owned four Xbox 360s, three PS1s, two PS2s and two PS3s...there's often a price to pay for packing too much new technology into a game console.

If you want to play your switch in a decade buy the Pro controller.

There is a very well known issue with Switches analog sticks failing en masse, with people having to replace them after short period of time, less than a year.

And since Nintendo uses Apple approach to pricing, the replacement joycons are insanely expensive.

I mean, I'm one of the ones complaining about stuff like this, but I also have a NES, SNES, GC, and their peripherals working like a charm. Meanwhile my Xbox 360 just randomly stopped working and my original Xbox died a long time ago.

I can't speak for the quality of ps4 or Xbone controllers (seems fine?), but as far as intensely-used technology goes Nintendo does vastly better than most hardware.

(I also still have a working Gameboy, which puts it alongside only a Nokia phone I have as far as durability goes. That piece of tech has SEEN things).

EDIT: I will say the joy-cons definitely aren't the best Nintendo has put out, but the problems there pale in comparison to the D-Pad issues we've had GC-on.

The Wii may have sold a lot of units, but it didn’t get _played_ as much as its contemporaries in large part due to the fact that Nintendo refused to release a high-def version, right when the world dumped all their old TVs en masse.

The Wii U nearly sunk the damn company. If the 3DS hadn't been popular, Nintendo would be where Sega is by now.

It's fine, excellent in fact, to go with tried-and-true tech, but you also need the foresight to see what's inadequate.

This is revisionist. Nintendo is a pile of cash with a game development arm attached. Unlike SEGA, Nintendo could release a thousand unpopular consoles and still keep going.

For example, my joy cons have problem with losing their connection or having input lag when reception is lacking. I've seen this on other switches too, so it's not only mine. Compare this to my Xbox 360 controllers, I can walk to a different room and still play without this issue. This is just bad/cheap design.

Games are forced to use vsync, even when it ruins the game. Rocket League has much more input lag, compared to other hardware due to this. Actually lots of Switch games have more input lag than for other systems. Nintendo could care about what quality other developers are allowed to publish, but they don't.

The build quality of the switch itself is also so-so. The screen has low contrast, the wifi doesn't have great reception. Let's not even get started on the usb design.

All this would be okay, if the hardware and software was really cheap, but it isn't.

You can make the best hardware possible, but practically no companies can achieve Nintendo level quality.

If you're only going to play a selected few Nintendo Games, such as Zelda, Mario and Mariokart, sure. But to be honest here, Zelda and Mario isn't very nice to play portable. Doing boss fights portable is certainly possible, but also so much harder.

I really wanted to like my switch, I really wanted to like the portable experience, but in the end I realized that portable works best for slow indie games and docked works best for a few first party games.

I probably would have enjoyed a cheap Xbox One and a used Playstation Vita more.

Even some indies look better than the best Nintendo titles.

The Switch also has an MSRP of $300. The iPod Touch is about $200, but for a much less complicated piece of hardware that gets to draft on the volume discounts from producing the iPhone.

ever since the gamecube, and maybe before then, nintendo has been on a divergent path from the likes of other console makers. they do not seek to compete in hardware power.

nintendo's true problems lie in online and cloud services, like account management and online multiplayer, and just pure laziness in game development and implementation. they get away with it somehow.

Ah you're one of those "how do they keep getting away with making more Mario games?" people.

The secret is that they don't release mainline games very often. You don't get a new one every year. You get one every 3-4 (or Metroid 6-10) years.

And when you do get a new installment it's just as fun and joyful as the previous ones.

They do need to get their shit in gear with the online stuff though. And emulation. They could and probably should acquihire a few companies to deal with those. If they made their entire back-catalog available on an official emulator that works one this and the next generation console, they'd be set forever.

Though they've already got enough cash in the bank to run for 50 years even if they stopped all new sales.

It could also be because I got 'hooked' on Metroid because of Metroid Prime, and IIRC that one also was a bit more linear by virtue of the hint system.

no, i'm not. that's not what i'm talking about at all. what i'm talking about are poor features within their games, which are typically centered around the online and multiplayer aspects but also others as well. for example, the new animal crossing: new horizons is chock-full of these types of things. their games are indeed fun but they can also contain extremely frustrating elements. nintendo's fanbase is even more rabid than the likes of apple, and so frustrating elements get washed out, so to speak, in the community.

and as you point out, these games undergo long development cycles. it's generally unacceptable that they don't take care of these issues or add on more to their games.

I'm a huge Nintendo fan because, despite glaring problems, the kind that warrant a special Nintendo-specific eye-roll, their games and consoles also offer stuff others don't. The highs make the lows tolerable.

I absolutely hate so much about New Horizons, and most of it is 'typical' Nintendo. Bad online/multiplayer, endless repetitive dialogue gating core functionality, and weird hardware limitations (two people on one Switch? enjoy a single shared island!).

And yet here I am playing it about as much as I played Stardew Valley back when that was 'hot'.

Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?

i find the "people value things differently" a lazy way to dismiss objective issues people have with the products.

> Do you really think that I and so many others are spending hours playing a game with so many flaws just because it's Nintendo?

in a way yes. i'm playing the game too btw. i'll stop soon because the stuff i feel they were lazy and/or stubborn on is starting to really wear on me. if they would have just applied even a modicum of effort to the multiplayer aspect and upgrades to the game, then animal crossing: new horizons would be an amazing game. instead, families are out buying entire new switch consoles just to be able to enjoy a game, among other things. so please tell me what other gaming company could get away with that? just the one-to-one relationship between island and console alone is enough to go insane, not to mention how confusing it is to understand before purchasing a switch and game in the first place. what other modern game do you know of that's like that, where a game instance / save file is forever tied to a single console? that's just one issue. i honestly do not know of a single company that could get away with it besides nintendo because (1) people have to come to expect inanity from them in these aspects and (2) since it's nintendo.

other companies, that people don't like, like activision, EA, ubisoft, etc., will get raked over the coals if they do something gamers don't like. of course, a lot of that is with microtransactions these days, which are horrible, but they will also get called out on other aspects. usually, those companies will at least attempt to address it because they're forced to. nintendo only addresses what they want, and they absolutely refuse to address online play in a sensible way. and their fanbase just roles with it and will downplay issues. they have online issues in every single game they release, and it nearly ruins the games. it's why i don't play splatoon, mario kart, or super smash online much or at all anymore. they make it way too difficult to do so, so much so that i stop playing the wonderful games.

It should have been a true open world, with real-time battles. Basically Breath of the Wild, but you can deploy Pokemon instead of different weapons.

no, they do not. they do on a very focused subset of what they feel the details should be, but they do not broadly apply this attention to fine detail across the entirety of a game. there are always very harsh transitions from "wow, look at this detail" to "what, how did this even make it into the game?" that really stand out.

there is something with every game beyond being considered a feature request that can only be attributed to either laziness or stubbornness or both.

They also felt the need for the original 2DS as a more child safe design than the original 3ds. The 2DS XL on the other hand has a very thin top shell - even I've managed to break a screen on one by putting a laptop on top of it in a bag.

The gameboy series, original 2ds/3ds and DSi are tanks though.

Other benefits would include: easier to develop for due to familiarity, better battery efficiency (as opposed to gamegear), and lower manufacturing costs as well.

Likely the know that the experience matter more than the hardware. Which is something the original mac got right too, as it wasn't very powerful either.

Compared to the 7 which feels like a flimsy piece of trash? Meh they both feel about the same.

Additionally, Apple is bigger, selling significant more units of their devices, which are also more expensive, while having a better standing in the industry. Nintendo on the other side was taking a gamble on whether the switch would even sell good enough to survive. So price-calculation for both companies is quite different, with apple having more money to invest in premium than nintendo.

Maybe the rumored switch pro some day will up nintendos premium-game?

I don't even mind it not feeling "premium" whatever that means, but those are reasonably basic things to consider in material choice. I don't mind that when the joycon is attached, I can sort of flex the connection bar, or that the screen plastic itself is very soft to be scratched, as long as the hardware doesn't essentially try to kill itself.

Does everyone still feel this way about Apple?

I still can remember the first iPhone I had. The 3G just felt really great in my hand. I probably played with that more than a 13yo will play with his balls. Then the first retina and machined metal feel. It all felt like this was the top of the phone world. But ever since then the iPhone just feels like another phone. I don't feel anything special about the X as its just another in long line of iPhones. I stick with apple because I like iOS compared to how android behaves. Apple could make a plastic phone and I wouldn't care or think less of it.

The switch on the other hand I am enthralled with. My wife, at 40, has gotten into gaming because of it. I'm sure if Nintendo partnered with Apple it would be a highly machined and precisely designed piece of hardware, but I would find it hard to believe it would matter.

I guess what I'm saying is I no longer associate quality of a product with the materials as long as they don't break on me. My switch has lasted 3 years which is about a year longer than any iPhone I've had where I've wanted to upgrade because the phone feels slower than it used to.

Also, the ergonomics, which I didn't think would bother me, is really bad. I can play hours with the Switch Pro controller, and 30 min with the regular controller before my hands hurt. I don't know if it's because I'm old, but the Gameboy Color never bothered my hands like this.