Uncovering 6 Reasons You May Not Love the Nintendo Switch

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the launch of the Nintendo Switch. Over that point in time, Nintendo has done a lot of things right, but more than a few things wrong with the system. What are six of our things that we dislike the most about the Switch on this sixth birthday? Let's take a closer look.

Friend Codes:
As a father of two, I completely understand the idea behind keeping your kids safe while they are online. I get that. But friend codes are not the way to do it. Friend codes are a terrible way to gatekeep access to online servers and friends to be able to play online. It is old, antiquated, and needs to go away on the next generation of Nintendo hardware.

Missing big name franchises:
For all of the success of the Nintendo Switch, there are still big name franchises not on the platform. There has not been a version of Madden NFL football on a Nintendo console since the Wii. Think about that, it's been 10 years I believe. There's no Formula 1 racing games either. Until 2 years ago the MLB the Show games were missing. This is the third best selling system of all time yet you do not have cornerstone titles in your library. That needs to change.

Really old, really outdated hardware:
Nintendo has typically not had the most powerful hardware in the generation it is in, but man, the Tegra processor that the Switch uses was already out of date when the Switch launched in 2017. 6 years have not done it any favors. It struggles to keep up with what players are expecting today, in a lot of games have been reducing the resolution to make up for hardware shortcomings. Again, the hardware needs more horsepower.

Joy-Cons Lack D-pad:
One of the things that I dislike most about the Switch and handheld mode is the lack of a traditional d-pad on the left joycon. I understand the idea is that you can use the Joy-Con as a controller in a pinch if you are in tabletop mode. But come on, you're telling me Nintendo couldn't make a small fortune selling left joycon only options that had a D-pad? They'd make a killing!

Joy-Con Drift:
Knock on wood, I have been lucky that I have not been affected by Joy-Con drift, but that doesn't mean it's not out there. It's very real, and Nintendo is even been sued over it. They need to make their hardware more reliable and bolster their offering. Gulikit offers a hall sensor-based Joy-Con joystick, I would love to see this on the next iteration of the Switch.

Cannot Dock Switch Lite
This just seems petty to me but the fact that they disabled the option to connect the Switch Lite to a television at a hardware level really irks me. There's no need for them to redesign their PCB for this, they could have left it on the board and given users an option to have a less expensive Switch. Since you can't go between handheld and TV mode does the Switch designation even really fit the Switch Lite?

Few, if any, streaming service options:
Yes, I know I have my tablet, my smartphone, other devices that I can consume content on. But sometimes it'd be really nice to simply be able to do everything through the Switch. Look at the Xbox and PlayStation, both are game consoles first, but both also have the most popular streaming services available as separate apps. Again as I stated earlier, this is the third best selling console of all time, why does it not have these features?

While the Switch is far from perfect, and these are six very high profile misses in my book, I still think it is a terrific system. That being said, what are some of your nitpicks about the Nintendo Switch? Let us know in the comments below.

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