Bring back that Nintendo “feeling”

A lot of people, including myself, obviously love the Switch, but it still feels like Nintendo’s most sterile console. The Wii went all in on motion controls and Miis, which featured in tons of niche games like Wii Sports, and carried over to the 3DS. That handheld had features like StreetPass, encouraging a sense of community among its adopters, and even packaged in minigames that used the Miis that you collected from interacting and walking past other 3DS users. There used to be an offbeat whimsy to the kind of experiments that Nintendo would bundle with its systems that never really found its way to the Switch. Hell, it doesn’t even have customizable backgrounds, which feels like such an easy layup given how beloved Nintendo’s first-party properties are. There’s so much room for improvement in this department, and it’d probably do a lot for my own engagement with the console. I wasn’t necessarily glued to either my Wii or 3DS for the quality and quantity of games on them, but I did find myself coming back because they felt like unique and playful systems that engaged me in a way other consoles didn’t. Let’s get back to that. — Moises Taveras