Looking back at how Nintendo pitched the original Switch

It’s been more than eight years since we were first introduced to the Nintendo Switch. What was once seen as a bold new concept and a reinvention of Nintendo’s console business — a move that initially spooked investors — now feels pretty normal. Widespread adoption certainly helped. Since 2017, Nintendo has sold a staggering 150 million Switch systems, and in 2025 the company hopes to keep that success going with the forthcoming Switch 2.

As we inch ever closer to Nintendo’s big showcase for Switch 2 in the form of a dedicated Nintendo Direct, let’s look back at how the company originally pitched the Switch and what promises it made about the system’s capabilities.

In October 2016, Nintendo lifted the veil on Switch, which it had previously been referring to by the codename NX. The company revealed the system with a video that highlighted the Switch’s most central feature: the ability to play games like a console connected to a TV and to play them on the go.

Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch focused primarily on the console’s portable nature, but a few other features were also highlighted. Joy-Con controllers could be detached from the console, plugged into a shell called the Joy-Con Grip, and shared with a friend for multiplayer games. Up to eight consoles could connect to each other for local wireless play.

Other features Nintendo touted at the time included:

• A capture button on the left Joy-Con that “players can press to take instant screenshots of gameplay to share with friends on social media.” That feature has since been downplayed somewhat, as Nintendo pulled support for posting screenshots to X (formerly Twitter) in 2024.
• An NFC touchpoint for using amiibo figures in games and an IR motion camera “that can detect the distance, shape and motion of nearby objects.” The IR motion camera wound up being used in about a dozen games, like 1-2 Switch, Nintendo Labo, Ring Fit Adventure, and WarioWare: Move It!
• “HD rumble,” which Nintendo touted as the most realistic subtle vibrations ever seen in one of its controllers. “The effect is so detailed that a player could, for example, feel the vibration of individual ice cubes colliding inside a glass when shaking a Joy-Con,” Nintendo boasted. “With HD rumble you can experience a level of realism not possible through sights and sounds alone.”

“Nintendo Switch allows gamers the freedom to play however they like,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, then-president and COO of Nintendo of America. “It gives game developers new abilities to bring their creative visions to life by opening up the concept of gaming without boundaries.”

The company also teased the online multiplayer service that would later be revealed as Nintendo Switch Online, and a smart-device application coming in summer 2017 that would “let users invite friends to play online, set play appointments, and chat” with other Switch players.

Nintendo highlighted six games as part of its reveal, a mix of first- and third-party software: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, NBA 2K18, Super Mario Odyssey, and Splatoon 2.

Fils-Aime showed off the Switch on U.S. television in December 2016, giving The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon a crack at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Fils-Aime told an excited Fallon that he could “play the game any way you want,” bragging about Breath of the Wild’s “if you can see it, you can go there” open world.

Of course, Fils-Aime also made a big deal about the Switch console itself, making a dramatic reveal of the ability to play a game on a big TV then instantly switch over to portable mode and take it on the go.

In the months leading up to the Switch’s launch, Nintendo continued to beat that drum, explaining the system’s three play modes — TV, tabletop, and handheld. The following hardware overview video is a concise example of Nintendo’s messaging: you can “switch and play” games with Switch’s unique motion- and infrared-sensing controllers for unique experiences like Arms and for more traditional games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

After launch, Nintendo Switch quickly proved itself and achieved “the highest sales for any system in Nintendo’s history in the first five days after its release,” according to a CBS This Morning interview with Fils-Aime. In that TV appearance, Fils-Aime once again talked about the “game changer” for Switch being that gamers could have that “big-screen experience” but also play games in “the taxi, the Uber, the subway, whatever it is.” 

But he also talked about Nintendo’s family-friendly strategy and the long-standing mandate that the company makes games for players “from the age of 5 to 95.” That mandate came from the late Satoru Iwata, who instructed Nintendo’s game designers to cater to all possible players, not just those who grew up with (and stuck with) Nintendo from its 8-bit days.

Suffice it to say, the continued messaging that the Switch could be played anywhere, any way, and by anybody landed with consumers. Thus far, Nintendo has seemingly cleaved to that same approach for Switch 2, even though tens of millions of fans have heard the message loud and clear by now. But Nintendo still has more to say, and we’ll learn soon how the company plans to keep interest in the idea of a console-handheld hybrid for years to come.