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Nintendo scored a big hit in 2006 with the Wii. Its 2012 sequel, the Wii U, landed with a thud. But if at first you don’t succeed ...
Launching March 3 to mostly positive critical reviews, the Nintendo Switch is the company’s latest bid to make a gaming console for everyone ... but is it right for you? Polygon’s Nick Robinson joined Recode’s Kara Swisher and The Verge’s Lauren Goode on the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask to say that the answer might depend on how attached you are to the Nintendo of the past.
“Something I learned late in life is, I have a ton of affection for Nintendo,” Robinson said. “I will follow them to the ends of the Earth, no matter how many irritating, frustrating mistakes they make. I preordered this thing for that reason, and have been really pleasantly surprised.”
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The Switch is short on games at the moment; Robinson said the best is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is also available for the Wii U. But another winner is Snipperclips, a party game that, at least in Nintendo’s ads, adults can pick up and play.
“I went to a party and I was like, ‘Just so I can talk about it on the podcast, I should probably take the Switch to a party and see if there’s any validity to bringing this thing to an event like that,’” Robinson said. “People liked it!”
“I brought it and set it up on the counter, snapped the controllers apart and handed it to two people who had never used the thing before,” he added. “I took a lot of photos at that party that wound up looking like Nintendo promotional photos. It was just people standing around this weird little screen having a great time and handing it off.”
“So you ruined the party completely, right?” Swisher asked.
“Yeah, it was just awful,” he replied. “Decimated it.”
On the new podcast, the trio also talked about some early hardware glitches that have plagued the Switch, why the new Zelda game is so good and whether you should play games on the Switch while walking down the street (no!).
Have questions about the Nintendo Switch that we didn’t get to in this episode? Or have another tech topic on your mind? You can tweet any questions, comments and complaints to @Recode with the hashtag #TooEmbarrassed. You can also email your questions to TooEmbarrassed@recode.net, if Twitter isn’t your thing.
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
