How do people feel about the Switch 1's lifespan now that it's run its course?

#1
Fun With Despair
Mostly curious to ask here because I feel like Minus World has a pretty wide variety of opinions when it comes to this kind of thing. I remember when the Switch 1 came out, I thought it was really cool conceptually and I felt like it had some really great and creative launch window titles that really carried it through the first couple years, but that's about where my praises end.

2024 was a fine year for Switch games as well, but honestly the entire mid-life era of the console felt completely fucking awful. A total drought of good first-party titles and nothing but third-party titles that ran like total dog ass. Even some of the first-party titles weren't free from this as time went on, and the thing started to show its hardware's age long before the Switch 2 was even a blip on the radar. As a result, even some of these later titles that actually had some level of power behind them in terms of quality or desirability sort of ended off the lifespan of the console with a wet fart because everyone I knew who wasn't just pirating them already didn't end up playing them because they didn't want to play anything on the Switch.

Some here are a lot more switch-positive than I am though, so I'm curious to hear what others thought.
#2
Draku
It had a fantastic first couple of years and then the WarioWare games were pretty much the last great things to come out for the console. I was barely using my Switch by the time WW Move It! came out is the thing, so I whipped it out for that, had an excellent time, and then it collected dust until the Switch 2 release.

Scarlet and Violet were great "late" games too but the Switch 2 update definitely feels night and day compared to how they performed originally.

It was too weak for 3rd party titles to perform well enough and first party support dried up hard in the last few years like every Nintendo console, made worse by the fact that the Switch 2 took so god damned long to come out. Bowser's Fury was fucking 2021 man, I've been waiting for a proper followup to that style of play ever since.

Switch 2 has more than enough power to right the issues with the Switch 1 and it looks like it'll have a pretty decent first year itself. I hope it holds for a bit longer than the original did where you could tell everyone including Nintendo was sick of how weak the Switch 1 was.
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#3
Spritanium
Lots of good memories. This was the first Nintendo home console you could really take other places. The gamecube had a handle but it's not like anyone wanted to lug around the composite cables and power brick. The Wii U finally had HDMI but the gamepad was the least portable thing ever invented. The switch packs into a carrying case dock and all, and I played it a lot more often with a lot more people than I otherwise would have. I hope they keep doing this form factor forever, my only real complaint is that the A button isn't an A button anymore while playing with joycons and older people find it extremely confusing (they are correct)
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#4
Money
I really appreciate the form factor and playing BotW portably at launch was an unmatched experience, but the second half of its lifespan it definitely felt like it was limping along a bit, especially power wise. It really felt like they intended to release a Switch Pro or the Switch 2 before they finally did, but just couldn't manage on the production side due to forces outside their control. Meanwhile, a lot of the early big Switch 2 games were originally in development for Switch 1 until they realized being on there would severely hamper them, so we were just kinda left in a holding pattern until everything was ready. I really hope Switch 2 has legs, it really seems beefy enough to sustain itself for a good while so far but we'll have to wait and see.
#5
T-man
I really loved the Switch, I was totally on board as early as the reveal trailer, but it wasn't without its fair share of issues. From the shitty ass Joy-Cons, to the dock scratching the screen, and even a more obscure issue where the housing cracked at one of the screws. It definitely began to show its age over the years, but I don't think a console with the power of the PS3 with the form factor and price point of the Switch was particularly egregious. I replayed a lot seventh generation favorites and even tried a few new ones and I was happy to have them a tap away from Nintendo games. These incredibly late ports may have taken the piss with their launch MSRP but it wasn't long before you could get your BioShocks, your Borderlands, whatever for a ten spot or so. I played a couple PS4 games downported to the system, while muddiness and a reduced framerate was expected, I remained impressed in the context of a game designed for more powerful hardware being scaled down to something weaker while retaining its identity. It many cases it was simply more convenient to play these games on a platform I was more inclined to use despite the compromises I would have to make to do so.

Nintendo themselves definitely relied heavily on Wii U ports, and if you're someone who is staunchly opposed to them I can see how the Switch is an undesirable platform. I personally sold my Wii U before the Switch was even close to being announced so it was nice to have the software rescued from such dog shit hardware, I don't know how people who went the whole generation without Mario Kart 8 Deluxe because they had Mario Kart 8 on Wii U did it. I do wonder about Nintendo's release cadence now that that well has run dry. While there is no accounting for taste, Nintendo did a pretty good job of having something new every month or so for the entirety of the Switch's life and that was due in no small part to having a dozen Wii U ports to fill the line up.

tl;dr good console i really liked it despite its shortcomings
#6
Kabuto
The switch one convinced me to never buy another console again because none of the Nintendo originals I care about are good anymore, and I realized perhaps I am simply too old to enjoy a Mario and not that Mario is bad
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