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Nintendo's Newest Switch Accessories Are DIY Cardboard Toys (theverge.com)
sqorbit writes: Nintendo has announced a new experience for its popular Switch game console, called Nintendo Labo. Nintendo Labo lets you interact with the Switch and its Joy-Con controllers by building things with cardboard. Launching on April 20th, Labo will allow you to build things such as a piano and a fishing pole out of cardboard pieces that, once attached to the Switch, provide the user new ways to interact with the device. Nintendo of America's President, Reggie Fils-Aime, states that "Labo is unlike anything we've done before." Nintendo has a history of non-traditional ideas in gaming, sometimes working and sometimes not. Cardboard cuts may attract non-traditional gamers back to the Nintendo platform. While Microsoft and Sony appear to be focused on 4K, graphics and computing power, Nintendo appears focused on producing "fun" gaming experiences, regardless of how cheesy or technologically outdated they me be. Would you buy a Nintendo Labo kit for $69.99 or $79.99? "The 'Variety Kit' features five different games and Toy-Con -- including the RC car, fishing, and piano -- for $69.99," The Verge notes. "The 'Robot Kit,' meanwhile, will be sold separately for $79.99."
You buy the game, it comes with cardboard. If you ruin the cardboard you can download the plans directly from Nintendo for $0 and make it yourself. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
At first glance I made this mistake too. For some reason they've chosen to focus their marketing effort on the cardboard, and not on the game that you play with the cardboard. This gives the impression that you're shelling out really a lot of money for some punched cardboard that have have to assemble yourself. In fact, that $80 robot kit comes with a $60 game. The cardboard is just a substitute for the plastic controllers which were so popular on the Wii.
If you look at it in that light, the cardboard is an improvement: It's cheaper than the plastic controllers, it's more environmentally friendly, it takes up less shelf space, etc. The only downside is that it's not as sturdy. This is possibly a large drawback.
The confusing bit is that they don't call the game a game, they call it "kit software," and it makes up a very small part of the advertising. I think they're trying to spin it as educational, and the fact that you have to assemble it yourself is a positive because... creativity. Or something. The problem is this gives the impression that this whole business is way overpriced.