007: Lateral Thinking: a eulogy for the Nintendo Switch

This is the dream of Jack and Gunpei

Andrew

Jun 03, 2025

tax calculator device game pixel art vector illustration 23876742 Vector Art at Vecteezy

Episode

Listen to episode 007 of Dialogue Tree here.

All other platforms can be found at dialoguetree.cc.

Introduction

I started writing this episode 8 years before I even had the notion to start a podcast. When it came to actually putting it onto virtual paper, it was both tremendously easy and tremendously hard. Trying to summarise 8 (actually, 40) years of history, of culture, business and all that personal stuff, is a challenge. An opportunity, some might call it.

You should always approach any white man talking about a video games console on the internet with extreme caution. So, I should try to explain why this episode exists, what it aims to do, and what you might get out of it.

In this episode, I try to talk about why the Nintendo Switch is what it is. I try to talk about why and how it succeeds. I try to talk about what it means in the broader context of the games industry. And, of course, I talk about what it has meant to me. I don’t blame you if you’re not interested in that last bit, so I try to keep it brief, whilst expressing what is universal about the Switch experience, what we’ve all taken from it.

There is history, but I’m no historian. This is no Did You Know Gaming or Nintendo Forecast level documentary. I’m no social theorist, so don’t expect any grand insights into how the Switch, particularly during the pandemic, changed our relationships with each other. But, I think I articulate a few points that haven’t been done to death elsewhere, in ways that aren’t explicitly harmful to your ears. I think there’s a few good lines in there. As ever, for better or for worse, there’s a load of original music.

Ultimately, I intended to write a celebration of this platform. It has faults of course, but leaves the industry, and us, in a better place than we were when it arrived. Before the shiny new guy arrives, it’s time to spend a moment with the old friend, looking back at where they came from, and to the long and winding road that lead us from a Kyoto shinkansen, to the top of the world.