The following is something I wrote today for my personal journal in the excellent Everlog app (highly recommended), which I thought I would share with all of you with some minor edits.
Today is the launch day for the Nintendo Switch 2 that people have been hyped for since it was announced back in April of this year. It’s been a hot topic from that day, and well done to any of you who got your console that you preordered or somehow managed to snag the day of release. Much sympathy to those of you who got screwed over on your preorders.
I didn’t buy one, and don’t plan to get one until likely there’s an OLED model. I’m not a hardcore gamer, and never have aspired to be one. They are there to distract and entertain me when I need it, and that’s where video games have always been in my life. But with the release today of the Switch 2, there was a wave of nostalgia for me. Why? Because Nintendo made the first console I ever was given that was purely mine. Each time they release a new one, it’s been at a point in my life where everything was quite different to the previous release. I never get this way over a new Sony or Microsoft console, because it feels like Nintendo has been there at every stage for me.
When the NES was released, I ended up getting one somewhere around the mid point of its lifecycle as a kid. It was the first console that was actually mine. Before that, I had to share things with my older brother. But when I got the NES, that was my first actual console for just me. If you ever played one, you know those games were almost all brutally punishing for the most part. I was around 8 at the time, and would get a new game every semester that my grades remained at a B or better. That’s where I became a fan of Mario, Mega Man, and Castlevania. Pretty much my whole life outside of going to school was playing games that I’d rent from a local video store.
Then a few years later, the Super NES came out. Another milestone in my life there, because I was living with my grandmother at the time and was about to dive into being a teenager. Strangely, the priorities didn’t change all that much from when I was a little guy with a NES. I still had to maintain the grades to get a new game every semester. The only addition to that then was being into girls. (A much more expensive pursuit!)
Then after that, the Nintendo 64 arrived. I was in another new location then, living with my mom in her small little townhouse. The interests remained virtually the same, and I even had a part time job around that time for the first time in my life. Which was useful because I didn’t have the good grades for a new game deal my parents offered me as a little kid. So that job supplemented me getting the games I wanted for myself. (At least what wasn’t being spent on going out with girls. Still more expensive!)
By the time the Gamecube rolled around, I was looking adulthood dead in the eye because I had finally graduated high schooll. As I look back on that time, I can remember getting one of those was among the easiest decisions I’d make during that time. Because that’s also when I was looking at what college I wanted to attend. I was back in my grandmother’s house because she needed a lot more care due to her age and declining health. That’s also the reason I didn’t head straight for college like most would have.
When I got my Wii finally, I was in college and living alone. My grandmother had passed away, and that was the first time in my life that I really was on my own. Not many can say they lived alone at that particular age, but you can say I was fortunate or not very, depending on how you look at it. As ridiculous as I looked playing with the Wii mote for some of those games, I’m kinda glad there wasn’t any witnesses to see it, to be quite honest. I have no story for the Wii U, never bought one and was entirely uninterested.
Then we have the Switch, which I bought very late into the life cycle of the console and still play today. That system marks me finally being on my own and trying to build a life for myself. That had its ups and downs, but it felt like everything was full circle at that point for me. As those consoles evolved, so had my life. That’s why each new one feels like it marks a new stage of life for me, and more because this Switch 2… It doesn’t. There’s not that many stages left at this point, which is a little depressing when I think about it. But that’s how life is sometimes.
Over the years, it dawns on me how Nintendo and its games were there for me through it all. That’s also a big reason, I think, that the company is so beloved among people today. Those games and systems were there for millions just like me, and it holds a piece of our childhood that we treasure. I’d love to hear your stories if you have them, feel free to share them in the responses to whatever social media account you follow of mine.
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