Nintendo Labo: Worth all the Hype?

<p>Check out the podcast Chris Gravelle and I did on Labo above&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In a world filled with iterative console cycles&comma; pushes towards the most powerful consoles ever built&comma; 4K resolution graphics and VR&comma; Nintendo is just being Nintendo as usual&comma; having us play with cardboard&period; And I couldn’t be happier&period; On January 17th&comma; Nintendo announced their new Labo project&period; Labo is essentially software for the Switch that interacts with real-life cardboard DIY projects you build&period; The software goes through how to build the projects step-by-step&comma; similar to LEGO&comma; and then allows you to use what you built in different minigames&period; Once again&comma; Microsoft has the most powerful console ever released&comma; Sony has VR support for the PS4&period; Nintendo has cardboard&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">The potential for Labo in the future is amazing&period; Currently&comma; there are currently two sets announced featuring both the software and cardboard &lpar;dubbed Toy-Cons&rpar; going for &dollar;69&period;99 and &dollar;79&period;99 each&period; While I imagine DLC and new Toy-Cons for the Labo game itself are planned if the reception is positive&comma; Labo’s future could possibly extend far beyond its own game if done right&period; Just think of the possibilities to integrate the Toy-Cons into pre-existing Nintendo games&period; Make a Master Sword for <&sol;span><i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">Zelda<&sol;span><&sol;i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">&period; A kart or steering wheel for <&sol;span><i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">Mario Kart<&sol;span><&sol;i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">&period; Some big &OpenCurlyQuote;ol gauntlets for <&sol;span><i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">ARMS<&sol;span><&sol;i><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">&excl; Truly&comma; with the DIY nature of the Toy-Cons&comma; the chance for integration is limitless&comma; and that’s what makes me so excited about Labo&period; While the minigame collection and projects currently announced seem fun and novel enough&comma; it’s the future of Labo that is truly exciting&period; Besides integration into current Nintendo games&comma; who knows what else they’ll do with Labo&quest; I mean&comma; only Nintendo could think of an idea as original and different as this&period; What they do with it in the future&comma; nobody could predict&period; Edutainment is another big market that’s possible for Labo to influence&period; The possibility to open the world of engineering and similar career paths through Labo is something very possible&period; Using Labo in conjunction with current games&comma; new software specifically use for Labo&comma; amiibo &lpar;or cereal box&rpar; functionality&comma; education&comma; Labo has so many markets it can be used in&comma; and I imagine over the years&comma; as they did with amiibo&comma; Nintendo will figure out when and where the best uses for Labo are in a variety of different ways&period; <&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;133589" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-133589" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-133589" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;01&sol;25143444&sol;H2x1&lowbar;Labo&lowbar;Generic&lowbar;enGB&lowbar;image1280w-1024x512&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"500" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-133589" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Labo&comma; Nintendo<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;d like to jump back a bit and talk about the pricing structure of Labo&comma; however&period; The variety Toy-Con set is currently priced at &dollar;69&period;99&comma; with the robot set being &dollar;79&period;99&comma; and inherently&comma; these prices aren&&num;8217&semi;t bad&comma; as you are paying for an entirely new Switch game with the sets&period; However&comma; there are some possibilities of how Labo releases could be structured that worries me&period; My hope is that with each Toy-Con set that comes out&comma; the software itself is the same base game as all the others&comma; and you could buy the Toy-Cons with or without the base game&period; From there&comma; if you already have the game&comma; you can get the corresponding software as DLC for the base game&period; My worry is that Nintendo will make each Toy-Con set have a different base game that you have to buy separately&period; While this does seem overall unlikely&comma; the pricing structure going forward could go many ways&comma; and I’m hoping Nintendo doesn’t get all EAish with how they decide to price Labo&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-weight&colon; 400">Overall&comma; I love Labo&period; It is absolutely so Nintendo in every way possible&comma; and only they could think of an idea as smart as Labo&comma; that has the potential to reach so many different types of audiences&period; The Switch’s second year is crucial to showing that they’re dedicated to this system and that content will be consistently released such as year one&period; And Labo is only going to continue to prove that Nintendo is back&comma; and will continue to stay one of the most innovative forces in the industry&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;