Skip to main content

PC Gaming and Nintendo are tighter than the Mario brothers

A pioneer in video games, Nintendo has built an empire on an army of loyal enthusiasts. From competitive kids to nostalgic adults, the company’s compelling and intuitive titles have always struck a chord with the masses. Among them are PC owners looking for something different — and finding it in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Nintendo offers truly exclusive titles, unique form factors, and pick-up-and-play mentality at the opposite end of the gaming spectrum from computers. Most PlayStation and Xbox game are available on a PC – and better for it. Nintendo, though, operates in its own world.

Real exclusive

While it’s hard to agree with exclusive titles from a consumer standpoint, it’s clear that Nintendo has the best collection. It’s easy enough to start with Mario.

Nintendo has consistently rolled out new editions of classic favorites in the Mario Kart and Mario Party series, as well as spreading out into basically every genre imaginable. There are puzzle games in several flavors, multiple distinct turn-based RPG series, and every sport from tennis to the Olympic games — not to mention the Donkey Kong and Luigi-focused spinoffs.

There’s no equivalent to Super Smash Bros on the PC.

Beyond the plumbers, Nintendo’s lineup includes some of the most popular games ever. Two major RPGs, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Fire Emblem Warriors, both have confirmed launches for the new Nintendo Switch handheld, and rumors are still swirling around a Pokemon release. There’s also a massive back catalog of classic titles that Nintendo has no reservations tapping into through its “virtual console” store.

That’s not to say the Playstation 4 and Xbox One don’t have their own great exclusives. The Halo series is a perennial favorite, and deeper titles like The Last of Us and Bloodborne, as well as PSVR, continue to draw crowds over to Sony. But these are exceptions to the rule. Most games, from Grand Theft Auto V to Dark Souls 3, are available on PC. And these games are often better on PC, with superior graphics, and mod support that leaves consoles looking like the inferior way to play.

Portable gaming that’s truly portable

Nintendo has always been able to claim two major points that gaming PCs have yet to conquer: battery life and portability.

While classic Nintendo handheld systems lasted for hours on end without swapping the batteries, newer options run anywhere from 3 to 7 hours, depending on the console. The Switch is quoted at 2.5 to 6.5 hours of gaming on a single charge, which sounds short until you consider all our favorite gaming laptops claim that during mixed workloads. In most cases, a gaming laptop will struggle to endure even an hour of actual gaming. Gaming laptops aren’t true go-anywhere systems. They rely on power outlets.

Nintendo Switch: Hands On
Jeffrey Van Camp/Digital Trends
Jeffrey Van Camp/Digital Trends

The Nintendo Switch is compact enough to play on an airplane, and you can pick it up to take it with you. In short, it offers access to gaming at times when no PC is available. Nintendo’s previous mobile systems often filled this gap for PC gamers, and the Switch will continue to do so. Only now, PC gamers don’t have to worry about missing out on the most mainstream Nintendo titles, which often appear first, or only, on the company’s home console.

Anyone can play

Nintendo’s focus on easy to learn, hard to master games has made it the ideal ecosystem for casual players, and even people who have never picked up a controller before. While the stereotype of PC gamers hiding away in dark rooms is increasingly misleading, there’s a kernel of truth there. Apart from a recent exploration of the genre by games like Nidhogg and Rocket League, most PC games focus on providing an experience for one player at a time, or many over the Internet.

You can take the Switch with you, something the PC struggles with.

Nintendo has built an empire for its home consoles on some of the best couch games around. They’re all intuitive, a trend that picked up with the introduction of motion controls for the Wii. Even people who had never played video games in their life could pick up a Wiimote and play a round of tennis, or help you collect stars in Super Mario Galaxy. We have seen a handful of PC games with couch co-op in recent years, but it’s an experience that is, for the most part, foreign to the platform.

The Switch fills the “party machine” role a PC often can’t handle. Its controllers are classic and intuitive, and will immediately make sense to anyone who picks them up. The 1-2-Switch! Collection of minigames is the perfect example. It’s an unassuming title with simple, no-explanation-needed games. As we saw with the surprise hit Wii Sports, this sort of game has an enormous potential, and a surprisingly high skill cap, that draws in players instantly.

Shared passion

Even as PC gaming hardware squeezes into smaller form factors, and developers look for ways to ease the transition into the living room, there are some things a computer just can’t do. No gaming laptop will last a long flight, and try as they might, couch co-op games are still rare.

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have limited appeal to many PC gamers because they share these flaws, and lack the PC’s strengths. Game development is growing more homogenous, with only a few standout exclusive titles on each side. The only truly exclusive library belongs to Nintendo.

So don’t be surprised when you see gamers who normally argue over the benefits of AMD or Nvidia hardware bonding over a round of Splatoon 2.

Brad Bourque
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brad Bourque is a native Portlander, devout nerd, and craft beer enthusiast. He studied creative writing at Willamette…
Nintendo’s upcoming Zelda Notes have an overlooked perk: item durability repair
Link fights a Zonai in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 Edition.

The Nintendo Switch 2 editions of both Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will work with a new app called Zelda Notes, and the app has been extensively discussed. It introduces tons of new features like navigation help, auto-build sharing, and much more, but you can also use it to repair your weapons in-game.

Nintendo wasn't clear on this feature, and even on its features page for Zelda Notes, it simply says "Test your luck once per day in Zelda Notes. Get hearts, meals, or other effects based on the result." Popular Zelda YouTuber Zeltik uploaded a video that highlights some of the features, showing the potential bonuses a player can earn through the Daily Bonus effect. One of those is "Equipment Repairs."

Read more
The Nintendo Switch 2’s launch game lineup is more exciting than you think
Donkey Kong punching through a crystallized banana in Donkey Kong Bananza.

The Nintendo Switch 2 was fully unveiled April 2, giving us slew of console details and new game announcements. One of the biggest surprises is that it'll get a brand new 3D Donkey Kong game as one of its first big games. Though rumors of the game's existence had been floating around for years, its confirmation -- especially over that of a heavily predicted Mario game -- has made for a strange and incredibly welcome change of pace.

If it wasn't already clear, I think this switch up rules.

Read more
The confusion around $90 Switch 2 games proves how broken the internet is
The Nintendo Switch 2 playing Mario Kart

If you're a gamer who has been on Facebook or YouTube in the past week, there's probably a good chance you've seen people arguing about the Nintendo Switch 2's pricing. My Facebook algorithm has interpreted my interest in the system as a sign that I want to see a constant stream of angry memes about how much it costs. While I've seen concerns over the hardware itself dying down, the one complaint that's stuck is the price of its games. My feeds are filled with engagement memes daring commenters to justify Mario Kart World's $90 price tag.

There's just one problem: Mario Kart World does not cost $90, at least based on what we know right now. No currently announced Nintendo Switch 2 game appears to either, but it hasn't stopped that detail from spreading on a fundamentally broken internet.

Read more