Welcome to Games for Breakfast, a new feature series here on BagoGames!
Games for Breakfast, written by Features Editor Angelo De Bellis, is a daily opinion piece of about 250-500 words—I gotta keep it brief—that engages topical game news. Every new post will go live at 9am EST so that you can grab your cup of coffee and read a brief account of a particular gamer’s take on the latest goings-on in the industry.
When the Wii was preparing to launch, I yearned to learn everything about its user interface–I wanted to know where my games would be selected for playing, I wanted to know when and how the News and Weather channels would arrive, and I wanted to know what the new Mii thing was all about. Fast forward a handful of years later and the excitement was the same for the Wii U. And then add a few more and you’ve got the Switch launch: a few leaked screens of the UI and a video that released last night by NeoGAF user hiphoptherobot that details the entirety of its interface.
The excitement leading up to the launch of the Switch was the same, but now that I’ve actually seen what the UI is all about, and not from Nintendo might I add, the excitement is gone because it’s just so bare bones. Aside from your typical settings and profile management functions that are expected in a device of this kind, the only kind of new things are the unique jingle that plays upon the startup of the console and the News area, which seems to be nothing more than a space for propagandist updates and such. While there is something to be said about the clean look of the interface–it reminds me of the days of the original DS when the idea of a robust UI wasn’t really a thing with Nintendo hardware and gaming was all that mattered–a capable piece of hardware like the Switch should have some other fun features. For example, the Wii U had its very own social network called Miiverse.
What do you think about the Switch’s interface? Do you think future software updates will take it to where it needs to be? Or do you like the simplicity of its design?