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Why I Should Have Trusted My Instincts With The Switch.
The buyer’s remorse is something we’ve all subjected ourselves to at some point. An affliction expedited by a powerful and corrupting desire of indulgence that we are either resistant too or eventually succumb too. The convenience of online retailers and auction sites only compounds the issue, with muted goading or pre-emptive marketing that interprets your buying needs through your personal online consumer habits. It can be tough to resist the urge not to purchase something instinctively rather than evaluate a composed appraisal that determines whether you really need that new ironing board cover or not. Bidding on an item comes with its own specific criteria for inciting this intuitive demand for ownership too, by introducing a pathological fear of losing an item you don’t actually own. Before long you’re so consumed with the idea of ownership that you’re left justifying to your spouse that an NES Classic, costing in excess of £150 is actually a lucrative investment. But I have to wonder whether “Non-buyers” remorse can be considered a legitimate failing?
When the Nintendo Switch was unveiled I was intrigued. Sure there was some apprehension concerning this composite hardware considering the Wii U’s abject failure to distinguish itself from its pervasive forbear, but Nintendo have never been one to simply apply greater accentuation to its power and compete directly with Microsoft and Sony, but rather innovate their hardware with creative flourishes that are identifiably Nintendo, if not always ostensibly aware of its functionality limitations, like the GameCube’s compromised software capacity. Yet there is something unequivocally exciting about Nintendo and their endemic influence over gamers, with the Switch demonstrating an infrastructure with incredible potential.
I immediately thought of the practical applications that could be applied to an exclusively portable series like Pokémon. How a full-fledged RPG Pokémon game, compartmentalized into a composite device, that’s both a traditional stationary console as well as portable one is a dream merger the industry desperately needs, even if we don’t realise it. Then there’s Super Mario Odyssey, a resplendent and infectious addition to the already bloated Mario series, that looks like an achievement God could have created instead of the heavens and the earth if he/she had a greater ambition and more time. You observe the Switch success knowing that your initial appraisal was vindicated, yet feel crucially dejected because you didn’t have enough conviction to actually buy it when you had the chance.
“Amazon UK here, resolving all of the pertinent questions concerning the Switch.”
I’d considered pre-ordering the Switch, but opted instead for cautious optimism, that meant waiting until after launch to assess whether or not it was in fact a viable alternative to my preferred console, the PS4. A wise and thoroughly mature decision I’m sure you’d agree….yet now I’m not so sure. Perhaps that impulse could have been a cathartic validation for its purchase? A big part of me regrets not getting it when I knew I could have saved for it. To have been part of a now growing community that has once again embraced Nintendo’s idealistic sensibilities, that has seen Nintendo endure as the industries most recognisable brand for over 30 years. I’m sure this feeling of exclusion will pass, in time, but the advent of Super Mario Odyssey has only ratified a potential notion that has steadily propagated since the Switches critically venerated release: that the Switch is the single most important device Nintendo has ever created. And I’m missing it!
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