Every Time Nintendo Revolutionized The Video Game Industry
Let’s face it: Nintendo is quite possibly the single most important video game company out there, especially when we take a look at all the revolutionary contributions it has made to this industry. Not to undermine all the significant innovations other gaming companies (like Sony or Microsoft) have also brought to the table, but the Big N remains unmatched in this department to this day.
Nintendo has been developing software and manufacturing hardware for over four decades, which has allowed it to create both innovative video games and consoles. As a result of its long lifespan, Nintendo has revolutionized the gaming industry on more than one occasion (too many to count all of them in one article), so in this retrospective, we’ll take a deep dive into the most important ones in the history of this legendary company, from the creation of the control scheme that every other company replicated, to the popularization of hybrid systems that can be carried everywhere.
The Simple Genius Of The D-Pad
I urge you to grab any video game controller that you have lying around your house (or just search for an image on Google) and take a look at its button configuration. I’m 100% sure that, regardless of which console that controller belongs to, it has four directional buttons in the shape of a cross. This is what we call a D-Pad, and this simple but effective type of input configuration was single-handedly popularized by Nintendo back in the early 80s. Of course, “Popularized” is the keyword here because, like most innovators in any type of industry, Nintendo did not directly create all of these world-changing inventions, but it refined and repackaged them in ways that inspired other companies to replicate them.
Many classic arcade games (like Blockade or Vanguard) already used four directional buttons that functioned very similarly to what eventually became the D-Pad, but everything changed when Nintendo released the original Game & Watch in 1982, which featured the cross-shaped design we all know and love. This primitive but groundbreaking handheld system was created by the legendary Gunpei Yokoi, one of Nintendo’s most talented and most influential inventors/designers. It all started when he saw a bored salaryman on a train playing around with his calculator, which prompted him to create a small gaming device that could be used to kill time. This way of thinking resulted in the creation of the Game & Watch family of systems, all of which had a built-in digital clock because they were originally created with said busy salarymen in mind.
The first few Game & Watch models contained very primitive games that required little input from the player, so they didn’t really have many buttons. But the Game & Watch port of Donkey Kong (Nintendo’s iconic arcade game of the same name) was notorious for being the first one that had four directional buttons in the shape of a cross that allowed players to control the main character in four directions: left, right, up, and down. This was such a simple but brilliant idea that only a genius like Yokoi could come up with it, and its introduction would end up changing gaming forever. Curiously enough, however, Yokoi and his team worked on multiple prototypes before landing on the final D-Pad design, which goes to show that sometimes, even if an idea seems obvious in retrospect, you may still need some trial-and-error to turn it into reality.
Needless to say, the D-Pad didn’t become the standard for video game controllers just because of the Game & Watch systems, as it made an even bigger impact when Nintendo reused this concept for the controller of its first home console, the Famicom (also known as Nintendo Entertainment System or NES outside of Japan). From that point onwards, almost every video game console utilized a D-Pad (or a similarly shaped button configuration) to allow players to move their in-game characters around. Nintendo obviously reused it in all of its subsequent systems, like the SNES, the Wii, the 3DS and even the Switch, but other companies began copying the D-Pad shortly after its introduction: the Sega Genesis, the TurboGrafx-16, the original PlayStation and even the original Xbox, all of them featured a D-Pad varietal, as it quickly became an unofficial industry standard.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though, because Nintendo patented its original DPad design back in the 80s, which explains why only this company’s controller has them in the shape of an actual cross (+). This, of course, never stopped rival companies, who kept using this configuration, but avoided infringing on Nintendo’s patent by redesigning their D-Pad imitations so they’d have another shape, like a full circle with arrows or four separate buttons that aren’t connected.
D-Pads were eventually overshadowed by analog sticks during the dawn of 3D gaming (another Nintendo innovation that I’m also going to discuss in this article), but they can still be found in every single modern controller, like the PlayStation 5’s DualSense Controller or the Xbox Series’ Controller. While some titles still use it for movement, most modern AAA video games prefer to reserve the D-Pad for menu management and selection, which is still very useful and is undeniable proof of how big an invention this directional button configuration truly was. At the end of the day, it still has a solid place in the industry, even 43 years after its introduction.
We Wouldn’t Have Console Gaming If It Weren’t For The NES
While claiming that Nintendo single-handedly saved the gaming industry as a whole would be false, it is true that this company helped popularize and normalize video games as a concept, especially in North America, where the infamous Video Game Crash of 1983 had completely ruined the reputation of this wonderful audiovisual medium. The constant oversaturation of poorly-made Atari 2600 titles with little-to-no quality assurance that were released in the early 80s made most American consumers see video games as cheap children’s toys, a passing fad that would slowly die in the following years as more and more people stopped playing and buying them.
How did Nintendo overcome this? With one of the most brilliant marketing strategies ever created in the history of this industry. Instead of advertising the North American version of the Famicom as a video game console, the company changed its name to Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and sold it alongside a Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.), making it seem like it was an entertainment system that the entire family could enjoy together. Combined with its brilliant Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt dual pack and the NES really stood out from all the video game consoles that came before it. This worked perfectly for the Big N, since the NES was the biggest home console of its time, and it pretty much became synonymous with the term “video games” in general, as reflected by the fact that most parents at the time called any gaming system a “Nintendo”, regardless of which company had manufactured it.
As I have already discussed many times here on GameMite, the release of Super Mario Bros. was particularly important for both Nintendo and the entire industry, because this simple but revolutionary 2D platformer proved that video games were not just about getting high scores, and that they could be true adventures with characters, stories, settings, clear beginnings, and clear ends. Super Mario Bros. sold over 40 million units on the NES, which led to Mario becoming the face of Nintendo and one of the most recognizable fictional mascots in the entire world, surpassing even Mickey Mouse in terms of popularity. On top of that, this ambitious little platformer directly inspired the creation of thousands of other video games, from other classic icons like Sonic the Hedgehog and Crash Bandicoot, to even more modern platforming endeavors, like Astro Bot.
The massive worldwide success of the NES reignited public interest in video games and encouraged more and more families to purchase one for their households. This was the beginning in a decades-long chain effect that led directly to the modern video game industry we know today: the success of the NES inspired other companies (like Sega or Atari) to create their own competing systems, Sega later released the 16-bit Sega Genesis and started the infamous 90s “Console Wars” against Nintendo, this fierce rivalry accidentally led to the creation of the Sony PlayStation, which also inspired the creation of the original Xbox, so and so forth. Would the video game industry still exist without Mario and the NES? Maybe. Would it be the same? Absolutely not, especially considering these two products single-handedly saved the North American side of industry, which is arguably the biggest one in the world, during the mid-80s, and their impact and influence can still be felt in other parts of the world, like Europe and, of course, Japan (That’s Nintendo’s country of origin, after all).
Handheld Gaming Wouldn’t Be The Same Without The Game Boy
Handheld video game consoles that allow players to play video games anywhere they go have pretty much existed since the 70s, way before the Game Boy came out. Even Nintendo dipped its toes into this interesting format in the 80s with the aforementioned Game & Watch series of electronic devices. But the arrival of the Game Boy in 1989 still changed absolutely everything, as this little grey brick singlehandedly popularized and revitalized handheld gaming as a whole.
Why was the Game Boy so successful? Well, it’s actually very simple. This console was notorious for being surprisingly rudimentary and limited for its time (its screen could only display games in black and green!), especially when compared to its direct competitors, like the Atari Lynx or the Sega Game Gear. However, it was also an extremely accessible handheld system that could be bought at a reasonable price and had a collection of simple games that anybody could enjoy, like Tetris or Super Mario Land. It was basically a portable NES, and Nintendo slowly made a bunch of high-quality exclusives for it, like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Kirby's Dream Land, or Donkey Kong ’94.
The Game Boy even had a surprisingly long lifespan, mainly because the release of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue in 1998, combined with the sudden rise of “PokeMania”, allowed Nintendo to keep selling even more units during the final years of the system. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn to learn that the Game Boy sold over 118 million units in total and now sits comfortably in the position of fourth-best-selling video game console of all time.
The Game Boy made handheld gaming affordable and accessible to mainstream audiences and, naturally, other hardware manufacturing companies wanted a piece of that pie. Nintendo’s biggest rivals during the 80s, Sega and Atari, threw their hat into the ring by releasing the Game Gear and the Atari Lynx, respectively. While these two systems were significantly more powerful than the Game Boy, they paled in comparison to Nintendo’s little handheld in terms of exclusives, sales, and cultural impact. The Big N dominated the handheld market for decades, as it kept releasing new systems that were more powerful and more ambitious than the last one, like the Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS, and the Nintendo 3DS.
The only company that even came close to competing with Nintendo in the world of portable consoles was Sony. In 2004, it released the PlayStation Portable, which made a huge impact because it was basically a portable PlayStation 2 that made the Nintendo DS look like a child’s toy in comparison. While Nintendo’s dual-screened system did manage to beat the PSP sales-wise (with over 154 million units sold), Sony’s first handheld gaming console was still relatively successful, as it sold over 76 million units worldwide. The success of the PSP cemented Sony as a major player in the handheld market, but unfortunately, it wasn’t able to keep that momentum going, and its next portable console, the PlayStation Vita, was a critical and commercial failure for a variety of reasons.
Unfortunately, handheld gaming as we used to know it has died in recent years, mainly due to the rise in popularity of mobile gaming on smartphones. Nevertheless, the massive cultural impact of the Game Boy can’t be underestimated, as the name of the system alone is still synonymous with handheld video game consoles around the world, even if Nintendo technically dropped that branding in the mid-2000s. It’s not all bad news, however, because the Big N hasn’t completely given up on this market: it released the Nintendo Switch in 2017, a hybrid system that works as both a home console and a handheld device, while also carrying on the spirit of the original Game Boy and all of its other portable consoles. This, of course, was yet another one of Nintendo’s groundbreaking creations that I’ll discuss later at the end of this article.
The Nintendo 64’s Analog Stick Changed 3D Movement Forever
The early-to-mid-90s were quite a puzzling time for the gaming industry, as the dawn of 3D gaming brought many challenges with it. Developing video games with a whole new dimension in mind was certainly not easy, and most studios struggled with finding an efficient way of allowing players to move around their in-game characters. Think about it: the D-Pad (which was already the standard at that point in time) could only move characters in four directions (left, right, up, and down), which was very limiting, seeing as characters in 3D environments should be able to move in pretty much any direction. As a result of this limitation, most games with early 3D graphics – like Star Fox, Ultima Underworld, or Doom - had very simple movement that didn’t take much advantage of the third dimension. Another frequently used technique during this time was the infamous “tank” control scheme, in which players had to use the lateral buttons of the D-Pad to change the direction of their character before pressing up or down to make them go in that direction. This was an effective method of gaming movement at the time, and it was popularized by early survival horror games like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil, but it did feel awkward and cumbersome, which is why it slowly died off in the early 2000s.
Nintendo had revolutionized how movement in 2D video games was designed with the introduction of the D-Pad, and it did the exact same for movement in 3D video games when it introduced the Nintendo 64 and the Analog Stick. Just like it had happened before, the company didn’t actually create this type of input method, seeing as many old-school systems and arcade machines had similar control sticks, like the Sega MotoPolo, the Atari 2600, or the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System, not to mention that several alternate controllers with joysticks were released for several personal computers and consoles. Nevertheless, these primitive joysticks didn’t really allow for full 3D movement, and they felt quite stiff in comparison to the much more impressive and revolutionary analog stick that Nintendo would introduce in the mid-90s.
In 1995, Nintendo revealed its then-upcoming newest console, the Nintendo 64, and its designated controller, which boasted a big analog thumbstick in the middle. This was seen as a major gamble at the time because the colossal failure of the Atari 5200 had made most console manufacturers distance themselves from the idea of controllers with joysticks instead of D-Pads. But Nintendo didn’t care, because its talented developers and designers had created the N64’s controller while making the very first Mario game with 3D graphics. Shigeru Miyamoto and his team were playing around with the idea of Mario running and moving around 3D environments, and they needed to make the plumber’s movements feel efficient and satisfying, so the analog stick was slowly built around this idea.
In case it wasn’t obvious, this project ended up becoming Super Mario 64, which was one of the Nintendo 64’s launch titles. This worked perfectly for consumers because this game was the perfect way to introduce them to the world of 3D gaming, and the analog stick made Mario’s movement feel organic and diverse, since he could actually move in any direction instead of being limited to just four. It should be no surprise to learn that Super Mario 64 is considered one of the most revolutionary and influential video games ever made, which was only possible thanks to its symbiotic relationship with the N64’s analog stick.
The success and impact of this new type of control stick were perfectly illustrated in the impact it had on the Nintendo 64’s biggest competitor, the PlayStation. Sony’s first foray into the video game industry came out almost two years before the Nintendo 64 and, as a result, it technically beat Nintendo to the punch in terms of releasing a home console that was capable of running 3D graphics. However, the N64 had something that the PS1 didn’t: an analog stick. That’s right, the original PlayStation Controller only had a standard four-directional D-Pad and some of its most iconic exclusives, like Crash Bandicoot or Tomb Raider, possessed very limited 3D movement. This wouldn’t change until 1997, when Sony released the DualShock Controller, which had not one but two different analog sticks in it (one to move the character, and the other to move the camera). Ape Escape was developed around this new controller, and it brilliantly showcased to players what could be done with this innovative dual-stick setup. This ended up being quite fruitful for Sony, and it led to every subsequent PlayStation console – from the PS2 to the PS5 – to launch with their own version of the DualShock Controller.
Nintendo had done it again: it set a brand-new industry standard, and after the release of the N64, everybody wanted to make a video game controller with an analog thumbstick that could allow full 3D movement in 360 degrees: the Sega Dreamcast had one, the original Xbox had two (as well as all of its successors) and, of course, Nintendo kept using this type of control stick in almost all of its home consoles, not to mention that the Nintendo 3DS became notorious for being the company’s first handheld device to have an analog stick. Most video games nowadays are in full 3D, so it’s safe to say that gaming in general wouldn’t be the same if Nintendo had never introduced the analog stick on home consoles.
The Wii Was Responsible For The Motion Controls Craze Of The Early 2010s
People always dreamed of getting rid of the limitations of traditional controllers and being able to control video games with their own real-life movements instead. Multiple companies tried (and failed) to popularize motion controls during the 80s and 90s, but the technology at the time wasn’t capable of replicating a person’s movement one-to-one without making the entire experience feel awkward or frustrating. There was the Sega Activator, the U-Force, and even Nintendo dipped its toes into this experimental market with accessories like the Power Glove, all of which are seen today as relics of an ancient time in which motion controls were a far-fetched idea that was almost impossible to achieve. Naturally, as technology evolved, other companies began trying out various ways of creating accurate motion controls, with one of the most notorious examples being the PlayStation 2’s EyeToy, a webcam that could recognize the user’s movements so they could interact with games that were specifically designed for it. This was a novel and fascinating idea that sold relatively well, but the EyeToy was also seen as a gimmick, and its game collection was quite small, which is why it failed to make a bigger impact on the industry.
Even though the concept of motion controls existed within the industry for decades before the Nintendo Wii was released, Nintendo’s seventh-generation console was still able to completely reinvent and popularize this unconventional control scheme. This seems to be Nintendo’s MO: not to create a revolutionary invention from scratch, but to take something that people had already been playing around with for decades and “fix” it in a way that it becomes more palatable to general audiences. If there’s something you should take away from this retrospective is that Nintendo is not only full of talented designers, inventors and developers, but also of brilliant marketers that know how to advertise the company’s products in ways that makes them stand out from the competition, and the Wii’s iconic “Wii Would Like To Play” ad campaign is the perfect example of their innate talent. In this series of commercials, two Japanese businessmen would show up in random people’s houses and offer to play the Nintendo Wii with them. It was unique, it was quirky, and it efficiently showed how the console could be enjoyed by the entire family, even if most of its members had never touched a video game system in their entire lives.
This is the basis on which the Wii became a worldwide phenomenon in the span of a few months, and it was just what Nintendo needed at that time. After the failure of the Nintendo GameCube (which was not a bad console per se, but it did perform significantly worse than its competitors, the PS2 and the Xbox), the company knew that it needed to do something bold and unique that would catch most people’s attention. Shigeru Miyamoto himself claimed that, shortly after the GameCube’s launch, he and his team began coming up with ideas for a device with a unique interface, because they had come to a consensus that a console shouldn’t be all about its graphical power (And, to be honest, this was a clever shift in direction, because Nintendo was slowly falling behind its competition in this area). This led to the creation of the Wii, which relied on wireless motion-sensing technology to replicate the player’s movements, which were done with both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk. The final result was a very simple control scheme that still feels quite primitive today, but it did work quite well, as it never felt cumbersome or awkward to control. The Wii also boasted a vast catalog of high-quality exclusives that brilliantly implemented this innovative technology: from party games that were accessible to all audiences, like Wii Sports and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, to action-adventure titles that resonated with more traditional gamers, like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, or No More Heroes. The Nintendo Wii was a colossal commercial success that sold over 100 million units in its entire lifetime and is now the seventh best-selling video game console of all time.
The influence of the Wii’s motion controls could be felt a few years after its initial launch. In 2010, PlayStation announced and released the PlayStation Move, a motion controller that was compatible with the PlayStation 3 and could be used in its own collection of exclusives, most of which were casual party games that were reminiscent of Wii Sports. This was an explicit attempt at capitalizing on the Wii’s success, and, curiously enough, it did work relatively well for Sony. The technology of the Move was admittedly quite impressive and a lot more advanced than the hardware utilized for Nintendo’s console, but even though it reportedly sold over 15 million units, it failed to meet Sony’s expectations, not to mention that it didn’t really have a true impact on the industry. It’s safe to say that the PlayStation Move is now remembered as another weird Sony experiment, alongside the EyeToy.
But the most infamous example of the Wii’s influence is the Kinect, an Xbox 360 peripheral that Microsoft also revealed and released in 2010. This device worked very similarly to the PS2 EyeToy, as it was a motion-sensing camera that allowed players to use their movements to control their games, without the need for any physical controllers. The idea was definitely quite novel and was brimming with potential, but unlike the PlayStation Move (which worked as intended), the Kinect was riddled with technical issues, and it really struggled with faithfully replicating people’s movement. While it technically didn’t sell poorly at all, the Kinect put a massive stain on the legacy of the Xbox brand and is now considered one of Microsoft’s biggest failures. In retrospect, it’s quite curious to see how both Sony and Microsoft, who supposedly used more advanced technology than Nintendo, failed to replicate the success of the Wii, and their respective motion-controlled devices were nowhere near as appealing and accessible as Nintendo’s innovative eighth-generation console, which was four years old by the time the PS Move and the Kinect came out.
But the Big N didn’t keep its arms crossed, as it released the Wii MotionPlus in 2009, an add-on that made the motion controls of the Wii more complex and more accurate to the user’s movements. This was an impressive little accessory, but unfortunately, Nintendo didn’t utilize it to its fullest potential. The list of Wii games that required the Wii MotionPlus to work was very short (only five in total), but some of them, like Wii Sports Resort, Red Steel 2, or The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, were surprisingly solid experiences that showcased what this accessory was truly capable of. Nevertheless, none of this prevented the Wii from becoming a highly influential system that redefined the gaming industry until its final days. Nintendo not only tried to replicate its success with its follow-up, the Nintendo Wii U, which maintained the Wii Remote and Nunchuk but also boasted a brand-new controller with a touch screen called the GamePad, but the hardware of the Wii’s controllers obviously influenced the design of the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons as well. Even modern VR headsets, like the Oculus Rift/Meta Quest or the PlayStation VR, have controllers that are very reminiscent of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk (as a matter of fact, the PlayStation VR is compatible with the PlayStation Move). Whenever somebody thinks of motion-controlled video games today, the Nintendo Wii immediately comes to mind, which is a testament to how incredibly impactful this weird little console truly was.
Hybrid Consoles Are Here To Stay, And It's All Thanks To The Nintendo Switch
It’s curious to see how some of Nintendo’s biggest and most important innovations were created out of necessity after a previous product failed to meet expectations: Nintendo’s late arrival to the 3D era led to the creation of the Nintendo 64’s analog stick. The relatively poor sales of the GameCube directly inspired the creation of the Nintendo Wii. And this still happens today, because the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2 wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for the colossal failure that was the Nintendo Wii U. The follow-up to the Wii underperformed for a number of reasons – like questionable branding, a limited selection of exclusives that failed to use its unique GamePad controller, a lack of third-party support, etc – so Nintendo was set on creating a new system that wouldn’t feel like its direct successor, something that would provide a brand-new way of playing games. This ambitious mentality led to the creation of the Nintendo Switch, a video game system that immediately caught people’s attention due to the fact that it could be used both as a handheld device and as a home console.
As previously discussed in this article, Nintendo revolutionized both home console gaming with the NES and handheld gaming with the original Game Boy, so combining both mediums in one single system was a brilliant idea that ended up being extremely beneficial for the company. Despite some initial mixed reactions, the Nintendo Switch was received positively by fans and critics alike, and both camps praised its revolutionary hybrid capabilities. But that was obviously not enough to keep people’s attention. After all, the Wii U also presented a novel idea for a gaming console that should have had a bigger impact, but its lackluster collection of exclusives left a lot to be desired. Nintendo knew not to make the same mistake again with the Switch, which is why this hybrid system launched alongside The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an open-world Zelda game with groundbreaking open-ended gameplay that changed the gaming landscape forever (especially the open-world genre). And that was just the beginning, because the following months were filled with releases of incredible Switch exclusives that made purchasing the console more and more enticing, like Super Mario Odyssey, Bayonetta + Bayonetta 2, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and countless more. At the end of the day, the Nintendo Switch was an innovative console with an excellent catalog of exclusives that took advantage of its distinctive features, not to mention that its third-party support was especially important because it offered something its competitors couldn’t: the ability to play games like The Witcher 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or DOOM on the go. All of these positive attributes allowed the Switch to become the third best-selling video game console in the span of a few years, with over 153 million units sold in total.
As we have already discussed many times throughout this article, Nintendo did not invent the concept of hybrid consoles with the release of the Nintendo Switch, but it made it accessible to a broader audience, while also inspiring its competitors to try to replicate its success. In the past, other companies toyed around with the idea of consoles that could be played on a TV but could also be brought to other locations, like the Sega Nomad (which could play Sega Genesis titles on the go) and the PlayStation Vita, which had cross-play connectivity with the PS3 (although it was relegated to games that were available on both systems). But, as always, Nintendo succeeded where other companies failed, seeing as the hybrid capabilities of the Switch were designed to be as simple and concise as possible. It’s a handheld device with two JoyCon controllers that can be detached at any moment, and which then can be connected to a Dock (which has to be plugged into a TV). The shift from handheld mode to docked mode it’s surprisingly quick and, unlike other hybrid systems that came before it, it works because it requires no faulty internet or Bluetooth connection.
The Nintendo Switch was an instant hit and, as always, rivaling companies didn’t take their time to try and replicate the success of this revolutionary hybrid format. Like I mentioned before, Sony has been offering options for Remote Play for its consoles since the early 2010s and they’re still available on PlayStation 5 today, but it also released the PlayStation Portal in late 2023, a handheld device that is basically the Sony’s answer to the Nintendo Switch and, as such, allows PS5 users to play any game in their collection on the go. Xbox didn’t fall far behind, as Microsoft partnered up with Republic of Gamers (AKA ROG) to create the ROG Xbox Ally, a modern handheld that can play Xbox Series X/S titles. And if that wasn’t enough, its Xbox Game Pass service made playing console games on handheld devices easier than ever before.
But, of course, the biggest impact the Nintendo Switch had on the industry was its influence on the creation of the Steam Deck, a handheld device made by Valve that allows Steam users to play any game in their collection on the go. Of course, Valve had been making consoles (which were known as “Steam Machines”) long before the Switch was revealed, but this still didn’t prevent outlets from comparing the Steam Deck to Nintendo’s successful hybrid console. Nevertheless, the Steam Deck still sells very well and is considered the quintessential handheld PC gaming system, not to mention that its success spawned various similar products, like the aforementioned Asus ROG Ally or the Lenovo Legion Go. Even though most people prefer the Steam Deck to the Nintendo Switch, it’s safe to say that Valve’s handheld wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for Nintendo’s hybrid console. Valve has even admitted that the Nintendo Switch OLED paved the way to the Steam Deck OLED, so it is evident that the company is looking at Nintendo for ideas.
Back in 2013, Nintendo was heavily criticized for sticking to the Wii branding when releasing the Wii U, as it was difficult for casual consumers to differentiate the consoles, which is why the Nintendo Switch looked and worked so differently from its predecessors. However, it was a great idea for Nintendo to stick with the Switch branding for its spiritual successor, the aptly-named Nintendo Switch 2. The hybrid format worked perfectly for its previous system, so there was no real need to get rid of it. The Switch 2 works just like the Switch 1, but it's way more powerful, and it boasts a few extra features, like the Joy-Con’s new ability to turn into a Mouse. It is now November 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for over five months, and it has already sold over 10.35 million units. While there are some things about this console and its release that can (and should) be criticized, it has proved to be an undeniable success for the company, which means that Nintendo will most likely stick to this hybrid format for many years to come.
Julián is an Argentinian journalist, writer, and researcher with a love for retro gaming, anime, and manga. Julián is always eager to share interesting stories about the fascinating video game industry.
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