I still have a clear memory of Christmas Day 2001. After a morning of eagerly unwrapping my gifts, my parents rolled out one more surprise that I’d been so desperately anticipating. I tore off the wrapping paper and there it was: the Nintendo GameCube. Without a second of hesitation, I pulled it out of the box and started poking and prodding every button on the little box. It wasn’t just a fancy new electronic device; it was a toy.
That used to be the dual function of a video game console. Each one was unpredictable, bringing entirely new innovations or gimmicks that begged to be played with as much as the games. The ones that didn’t at least got playful with their design. That’s slowed with each passing generation. Vibrant colors has been replaced with black and white plastic. Xbox console designs now border on brutalist. Everything is slowly converging to one unified vision of what a video game console looks like.
With the Nintendo Switch 2, it looks as though the era of “fun” game console designs is over for now. That’s not a bad thing by any means, though its just a little bittersweet.
End of an era
The early days of home consoles were a true wild west. With so many companies trying to break into the market, manufacturers had to find ways for their systems to stand out. That translated to a lot of experimentation with what a console looks like, but also how games controlled. There’s a tactile joy to something like the Atari 2600’s big rubber joysticks or spinning paddle controllers. They console was a toy, one that even the most hardened of adults couldn’t help but fool around with.
This spirit held strong throughout early console generations, especially as newcomers like Sega and Microsoft entered the race, offering their own unique variations on a theme. We saw a slew of different console designs, colors, controller layouts, and internal services. That mad dash gave us some of the best video game consoles of all time.
Things started to shift around the mid-2000s as both Sony and Microsoft locked down what a PlayStation and Xbox looked like. Color gradually faded from their console designs, controllers became standardized. It looked like we were starting to move towards a modern vision of what a console should be. That idea was becoming less about toys and more about all-in-one lifestyle brands that could sit on an entertainment center without drawing too much attention to themselves.
Nintendo was always the exception to that rule. Where PlayStation and Xbox zigged, Nintendo zagged. That attitude gave us innovations that completely upended how we think about gaming devices. When the Nintendo Wii was a success, both Sony and Microsoft had to scramble to figure out their own answer to it. Its ideas weren’t always successful — just look at the disastrous Wii U — but they were sincere efforts. Nintendo understood that play was at the heart of gaming, and that extended to the console itself.
The Nintendo Switch had that toy factor in its own right when it launched in 2017. There was nothing quite like it at the time, so simply goofing around with it was a delight. I remember having friends over that year and gleefully demonstrating how it could be docked or how its Joy-cons popped off. Its bright red and blue Joy-cons invited that kind of play, signaling that it was still a device for the young at heart deep down.
The Switch was so ingenious that it begged to be replicated. Valve was the first company to truly tap into what made the device special with the Steam Deck. That led to a long wave of competitors, from the MSI Claw to the Legion Go, all of which only offered light variations on a theme. Now in 2025, hardware makers have already standardized what handheld PCs look like. The main difference between any given device is in specs, not unique features.
And so it comes to no surprise that Nintendo too has been swept up in that sea change. Compared to any Nintendo console that’s come before it, the Nintendo Switch 2 is the safest, most buttoned up piece of hardware Nintendo has ever made. It looks exactly like its last console and fundamentally works the same way. Its colorful Joy-cons have been replaced with black ones that only feature light nods to its successor’s iconic color palette. The experimental IR sensors, which Nintendo abandoned as quickly as it introduced them, are gone. It’s simply a better Switch, one that wouldn’t look out of place next to a Steam Deck. That’s exactly what it should be, but it’s undeniably finds Nintendo working with a different sort of creative spirit.
There’s still a bit of that toy factor left, though its understated. I look forward to sticking its magnetic Joy-cons on the system. It also features one true innovation in the fact that a Joy-con can be moved around like a computer mouse. Maybe that last feature will play a bigger role in how games are played on Switch than Nintendo is letting on.
For now, though, the Nintendo Switch 2 feels like the end of a gaming era I grew up on. When even Nintendo has figured out a repeatable template for its systems, you know we’ve reached the end of the experimental phase. There’s nothing wrong with that, either; the Switch really does feel like the perfect gaming device and I would welcome dozens of systems like it. There’s just a nostalgic part of me that feels for those kids who will be opening their Switch 2 on Christmas morning and dashing straight to the games rather than marveling at the plastic powering them.
