Switching Up My Life Part I: The Launch
Remembering the Switch launch and the lead up to the chaos.
“If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.”
-Bob Dylan “The Times They Are-a-Changin’”
It’s hard to believe that just around the corner is June 5th, 2025. The launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. A console that was a TRUE revolution. One that will be remembered more for how it got many people back into gaming that left, or that saw millions through a global pandemic, or one that changed the lives of the very people that held it.
The Nintendo Switch was proof that gaming CAN in fact, change lives. Just take a look at the many comment threads about the upcoming console on sites like IGN, NintendoLife, Reddit, BlueSky, and so many others. Everyone has a story, everyone can trace the Switch to something significant in their lives. More so than any previous console in history.
The Playstation 2 may have sold the most, but more people bought it as a DVD player than a game console.
The Nintendo DS line came in second, but it was more for the casuals to play stuff like Brain Age. Let’s be honest, how many were sold to mom and dad, grandma and grandpa with Brain Age, Personal Trainer Cooking, Crosswords DS, or the many other non-gamer titles and once they were done, they were put in a drawer?
The Nintendo Switch, however, was a true gaming handheld. Sure, you had your Nintendo usuals, but you also had AAA games that honestly had no business running as good as they did. You also had some that….well….didn’t run so well. Nevertheless, it was a console that truly changed not only the way people played, but also their lives as well.
I present myself as one such example as you’ll see in these stories, but our origin story doesn’t start on March 3rd, 2017.
It instead starts on November 21, 2012.
THE PROTOTYPE
It was November 21st, 2012, Thanksgiving Eve to be exact. I had previously went to the WiiU Experience in New York City a few months prior and absolutely loved the console. Especially it’s ability to play games off the TV screen. More on that in a little bit, but unfortunately, when pre-orders began, I had a dentist appointment that I couldn’t get out of as a tooth of mine needed to be fixed and I had it for a few months prior. So, needless to say, I was bummed when I went to Gamestop afterwards to find that there were no more pre-orders available.
Launch day came and I was really depressed about not being able to score one. As many people learned with the Switch 2 pre-order debacle recently, if you don’t get a Nintendo console AT LAUNCH, good luck finding one for months afterwards. It’s been the way since the Super Nintendo launch at the earliest.
But, I was in luck. One of my best friends (who sadly passed away a few months ago) informed me that Nintendo New York was stocking them in daily on a first come, first served basis. She wasn’t able to get a pre-order but she was able to score one at the store the day she told me. So, I took a small bag and took the train to her apartment to stay the night.
Three A.M., I woke up, showered, and we headed over there to be first on line. This way, I was guaranteed to get one. Especially since I wanted the 32GB deluxe set and not the 8GB console. Sure enough, we were first on line and for the next five hours, not only were we treated to some more die-hard Nintendo fans like us, but also a Pitbull concert as next to Nintendo NY is Rockefeller Plaza where NBC’s Today Show had their concert series.
Around eight in the morning, we were given wristbands, guaranteeing us our consoles of choice and were given a check list with the games we wanted to get. Nine A.M., we all went in and I grabbed my deluxe set and went on my way.
I already had New Super Mario Bros U and Batman Arkham City at home. But, adding to that, was a couple early Christmas presents from said friend: Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge and ZombiU. Ninja Gaiden 3 was already bought, but ZombiU was bought that morning as I loved the sessions we played the previous night with her sister and boyfriend. It was a game I wanted to play at the Experience we went to, but didn’t have enough time as that had the longest line to play.
I know lots of people wound up shitting on the WiiU, but I loved it. Mainly because of the “off-TV mode” that it had. In many games, either swipe the screen down or press the minus button and you were able to play the game with just the tablet. As a gamer that was more portable and with always something on in the background, it was a godsend.
Another reason it was a godsend was because all you needed to play was a plug. You didn’t even NEED a TV to use off-TV mode. Many times and many places I lugged that console along. Any place with a plug, I brought it, much to the surprise and puzzled looks of people. Many of those people, didn’t even know such a thing was possible and I’m sure I got the console at least a few dozen customers after seeing me use it in public. The biggest one though, was bringing it with me to the VA Hospital when I had to accompany my Pops during his four times a year that he went.
This was even MORE attention getting as the younger vets loved what they saw and wanted to try it. The older vets were curious as they never seen such a device before.
”Is that a DVD player?” “You can play games on that thing?” “Well, how about that?”
It always got attention whenever I brought it, to the point that I was asked when I came the following times if I could set it up in the lounge. Which I did, with additional WiiMotes, and the good times they had warmed my heart as they were able to forget what was ailing them for at least the few hours I was there with my Pops as they played Wii Sports, NintendoLand, Mario U, and even ZombiU.
My Pops would go for his eye doctor and since we had to rely on transit to bring us there and back, we’d have to wait for at least five or six hours before our return trip arrived. So, we had plenty of time to spare. Why NOT give the men and women who served our country a chance to have some fun?
The fact that you could play off-TV with the device (whenever it worked as sometimes, especially after a few years, it would drop signal even with the console next to the tablet) felt truly revolutionary. Ahead of its time to the point that I’m sure people were a little weirded out by it. Especially the ones who had played the Wii the last generation and thought that it would be as simple. I hoped the next one would improve on the WiiU. Maybe something that was a lot slimmer and easier to use.
On October 20, 2016, that’s exactly what we got….
SWITCH IT UP
October 20, 2016 was a day that everything changed. Before this, there was a fine line between handheld and console gaming that despite the best efforts of handhelds like the Playstation Vita that preceded it or the Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable that preceded it, handhelds still never got close enough to console gaming where you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
However, with the Nintendo Switch, the handheld WAS the console. The console WAS the handheld. It’s as if Nintendo looked at the off-TV mode of the WiiU and the rise of tablets like the Galaxy Tab and the iPad and said about handheld and console gaming….
And on October 20, 2016, both it was. For the first time, you could take your console game with you on your tablet with just a few easy steps. I was salivating. I knew it was going to be HUGE. But, I wasn’t concerned about that. I just knew I had to have it.
Especially as for me, it was the most trying time in my life up to that point. A few months prior, my Pops passed away. My life for basically twelve years taking care of him as a caretaker was done. I had moved into that house, finally escaping years of physical abuse to take care of someone who always tried his best to take care of me. A person who himself was abused by my mother and was pretty much left in a really bad spot due to her tricking him into giving her $100K to buy her third of the house that my grandmother left her when she died. Caring for him is what saved my life and kept me out of trouble and now, all that was gone.
On top of that, I had just entered into a new relationship with a woman who was finding her own identity after escaping her own troubled family. She came to stay with me to help me with my Pops in the last few months of his life and now was in a place of her own, in the very city where I roamed: New York City. While the stay may have ended, our relationship was growing. It was to the point that if she wasn’t at my house, I was at her apartment.
I was on the cusp of real dramatic change and this new “hybrid console” was coming at the right place at the right time. HOW right, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of.
January 13th, 2017 while the world slept, we both were at GameStop in a rough part of my city as the first two on line to get our Switches. There was only twenty four allotted to the entire store, twelve of each color scheme. It wouldn’t be much of a problem even with that number, as by the time the store opened at ten that morning, there was maybe only five or six more people behind us.
Let’s be honest, folks. As much as people wanted that thing, not many folks are willing to go to “the hood” in order to get it. But it’s what came to my advantage every time save for a couple times where I couldn’t make the pre-order. I was easily able to get pre-orders in as people’s fear of places such as the one I live in made them line up instead in more favorable areas. Only two exceptions to that point? The aforementioned dentist that made me miss the WiiU preorder and when I wanted to get the Vita first edition bundle, only Best Buy carried it around my area.
We also found out that it was going to be a MIDNIGHT launch as well. First time I was at one of those in a long while at that point as with my Pops wandering around like he was in the few years before he died, I couldn’t leave him alone.
Still, with a few friends including my new squeeze who’s never been to a place like this at night, it was going to make for an interesting night.
HOW interesting, I didn’t even know until launch night……
READY FOR LAUNCH
Broad Street was the scene as I went ahead to get on line for the midnight launch. While we did have preorders, I still wanted to secure our units. Especially since the following morning, I’d be having the bathroom redone as the lead pipe that was behind the shower BURST a while prior and we had to tear apart the WHOLE BATH and replace it with this shitty bath fitter looking thing.
But, that was tomorrow. This was TONIGHT and TONIGHT I’d be getting my paws on my Nintendo Switch along with my partner and a few friends of mine, a couple of whom haven’t met her yet. So that was going to be interesting. What would soon be even MORE interesting was that my sheltered partner was gonna see more of the hood than she bargained for.
STREET FIGHTING MEN
So, while we were waiting for our Switches, we got a real life version of Street Fighter. One that we had ringside seats for. The story went that the dude in black tried to steal the bike of the guy in beige while he was coming off the train from work. The initial confrontation happened down the street at the Subway shop.
Side note: that Subway shop would close almost a year later as it was robbed in broad daylight by a guy who had a gun in his lunch box. The police station was down the street, not even a block away and despite this, and the guy running PAST the police station, no police ever caught him. That’s how inept and stupid our local law enforcement is.
But anyways, the fight soon spilled over to us a few stores down and gotta say, for her first time, she did pretty well.
After a few minutes, much like Urban Champion, the cops showed up and the fight stopped.
But not before a bit of shit-talking as the guy in the beige with a bloodied face, challenged his opponent to a rematch the following day.
Now whether that match happened, I can’t say as I didn’t know much more past that. But soon after the fight ended, we went inside as I guess the store manager figured it was better to let us inside than to risk more bullshit outside and near nine P.M., we waited out the last few hours inside.
After a few hours of chilling, playing with the Switch station, talking with other gamers, and a side trip where we had to locate an open bathroom as a lady can’t very well pee in public, it was 11:45 and we were ushered into two lines. One for those like us who fully paid so we could just pick up our stuff, and another for people who have yet to pay so they can complete their order and grab it at midnight.
Midnight came and we had our Switches in hand. We grabbed a bite to eat on the way home and after wards, we eagerly setup our Switches. Mine in the bedroom, my partner’s in the living room, and the others on Wi-Fi.
It was already almost 1:30am when we started to set everything up and I had to be up at 10am for the bathroom people, so my enjoyment of the console would have to wait until later. I set up the console in the bedroom to download my games overnight, laid down with my partner and knocked out.
Unfortunately, I wound up getting a sinus infection a few days later. For those that have had them, you know how bad they can be. For those that never, it’s something I’d only wish on my worst enemies. But hey, at least I had my shiny new Switch to tide me over. Despite the multitude of games I purchased that launch day, I kept coming back to one in particular: BREATH OF THE WILD.
Now granted, at first, I hated it. Especially when you CLIMB A FUCKING MOUNTAIN AND IT STARTS TO RAIN OUT OF NOWHERE…..but with time, practice, amiibos, and me almost wanting to break my console, I finally got the hang of it and I was hunting down temples like Rambo hunted those cops in First Blood.
It was a pleasant distraction and it also brought me closer to my partner as we would not only swap spit, but also tips and notes for the game. If one of us was stuck, we’d help the other out and vice versa. We even had a group chat on how to clear the various temples, where to find certain items, cooking formulas, etc etc. Yes we had the guide. I even had the hardcover version of it, but it didn’t tell us everything. Just what we absolutely needed to know.
A game like that, a guide can only get you so far as there are INFINITE possibilities. Just look at the many speedruns of the game, one of which took place as recently as the Switch 2 Experience. There was a ten minute time limit in the Switch 2 version at the booth and this motherfucker beat it in SEVEN.
I cannot wait until June 5th to relive it over again with updated graphics and gameplay, especially in 4K on my TV. With the Zelda Notes app, it’ll be like I was in that group chat again, but with actual in game results. I haven’t played BOTW in a few years, got frustrated with Tears of the Kingdom, so I’m hoping that the improvements made to both will make my next visit really worthwhile.
While there’s plenty of stuff to play on June 5th like Cyberpunk, Street Fighter 6, Yakuza 0, Bravely Default, GameCube Classics, and this little game called Mario Kart World, it’ll be a real treat to visit that Hyrule one more time, with FEELING, not to mention the memories that it made me over the past eight years.
It has seen me through so many events. A global pandemic, a six year relationship with this woman that unfortunately ended nastier than a divorce, my coming out as trans, the political climate here in America and throughout the world, watching as the bad things that could’ve been prevented were allowed to manifest, my own health issues with the diabetes and the injuries I’ve been dealing with that’s left me unable to walk for long most days, friends drifting apart, fighting with a few friends who had their own health issues and losing a few, so much in between.
THE most challenging eight years of my life.
Despite the contenders that came afterwards that I have such as the Steam Deck, Analogue Pocket, PlayStation Portal, et al, NOTHING has replaced my Switch. It may have been upgraded to OLED and customized as my very own, but it’s still the same spirit as when I first picked it up that cold March morning in 2017.
Even with the sequel console Nintendo Switch 2: Electric Boogaloo coming in less than a month, I’ll still be returning to that original dance partner of mine. Because even out of Nintendo’s mouth, there’s still gonna be a few dances she can do, that the new girl on the block can’t. The new one may have a lot, she may be upgraded and more refined, but sometimes, you want that old girl that gave you so much. Especially one as exceptional, as Nintendo Switch…..