Early Reviews For The Nintendo Switch Are In

By Mark Fritz

The Nintendo Switch is a hit with gamers and reviewers alike, though critics agree the console may have some storage issues. Lose your console and you’ve lost your progress.

The Switch, Nintendo’s NTDOY seventh home console, went on sale last week to generally rave reviews, particularly for its flagship game “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” which GameSpot called “a breathtaking masterpiece.” It gave the game 10 stars out of 10.

The Switch’s big innovation is its versatility, Kotaku said in its review, calling it the Swiss Army Knife of video game players. “The Switch’s big idea is that it isn’t just a home console; it’s a portable console that can be plugged into a dock and converted into a living room console.”

But that portability leads to a potential problem, Wired and other critics noted: “Lose your console while traveling, or have it stolen, and your progress is unrestorable.”

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Nintendo’s previous consoles had backup capabilities. For the Switch, all data is stored directly on the machine.

Nintendo told Kotaku, "At this time, it is not possible to transfer save data from one Nintendo Switch system to another,” hinting that some method of external storage may be in the offing.

There were also reports of a syncing glitch in some of the device’s controller, called Joy-Cons. Nintendo sent out a quick fix.

“The Day One patch for the console appears to have solved the issue for some owners, but it persists elsewhere,” Wired said.

PC Gamer said much of the Switch’s success is in the hands of third-party developers to keep the console “relevant.”

“We know the system can't compete with the hardware muscle that Sony and Microsoft have to offer, so Nintendo must keep the Switch appealing with solid software options,” PC Gamer said.

Those concerns aside, the demand for the console is huge, with lines reported from Japan to Great Britain and across the United States after the product debuted in stores.