Marseille edit
Nintendo obviously makes nothing as others. We waited for them on Amiibo or a new episode of Animal Crossing, Kyoto’s firm takes everybody by surprise and announces that Nintendo Labo, "a new interactive experiment on Nintendo Switch for the children (and older children) ".
Cardboard-based.
Between toy and video game
But what is it all about? Nintendo Labo can summarize by the formula: "build, play and discover". With pre-cut cardboards, thread, rubber bands and other elements, you can build your own toys. Nothing is extraordinary there. Only the second movement of the formula: the game.
In fact, the toy (called Toy-con) is designed to serve in applications for la console Nintendo Switch. Let’s take an example: in the trailer released on Thursday, January 17th in the evening, we could simply assist a demonstration of ... cardboard piano! According to the returns of the journalists who were able to try, it works perfectly. The reactivity is immediate and we find ourselves in composing up melodies.
But how does it work? How can a simple pressure on a cardboard’s touch produce a sound? The technology of Nintendo Switch comes into play. Finally, it would be tempted to talk about its peripheral features since motion gaming or the HD vibration were left now in addition to the benefit of the traditional Mario Odyssey or Zelda Breadth of the Wild game-play. In the case of the piano, we insert a controller Joy-Con on the side. Its camera reads the reflecting stickers that you have stuck to each touch and which correspond to a product by the software. Ingenious.
But there isn’t a camera which make a contribution. Therefore, it is possible to make a cardboard car perfect thanks to the high-definition vibration of Joy-Cons, the Switch touch-sensitive screen acting as monitor! Nintendo comes from none other than the principle reinvention of the remote-controlled car!
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Return to the childhood
There is something fascinating in this capacity of Nintendo to follow the own way with an impertinent success. Whereas others make in the technological escalation to create the virtual or mixed reality, Nintendo invents a form of reality increased with a brilliant mix of high and low tech in Do It Yourself spirit. "Switch in mode Michel Gondry", to resume the bright formula of the journalist, Patrick Hellio. Facing these modest cardboard objects, it is difficult not to think of "the lateral thinking of the old-fashioned technologies" of Gunpei Yokoi, the father of Game Boy.
With its Lab, Nintendo suggests us taking up simply with our child's soul. If it is all designed for the youngest, there is no doubt that the concept risks to please the adults as shown the dithyrambs of the journalists who were able to try it since the potentialities of the concept are immense. Today, we have a piano and a remote-controlled car. What about tomorrow? One sword and a shield for Zelda? Firearms for Doom? One of the launching packs has already planed to transform your toddler a kind of … Transformers!
Besides, Nintendo returns to its core business by putting the recreational activity in the broad sense in the center. It is also the Switch’s idea with its hybrid concept lounge - mobile allowing to play where and when we want. Except for that, the game is not that video. It does not take place on the only screen. It is not virtual. The playful pleasure also comes from the creative possibility to build something with its own hands. Who did not experience a feeling of pride by ending an convoluted puzzle or a model of impressive Lego?
The art and human beings
Moreover, it is not impossible that the artistic aspect overrides the playful sector. We know that the creations can be personalized thanks to felt-tips, color bands and other stickers. But we can expect that some go farther with original works. It’s useless to say that we consider here a nugget as social networks of type Instagram.
Besides, Nintendo shall provide human beings with a more and more virtual and connected video game where the contact is made by screen or Internet connection interposed. The local multiplayer is reinvented under the shape of a construction set where we manipulate, talk to each other, and collaborate. We think obviously of the family and imagine without the evil of Switch parents gamers holders to buy Nintendo Labo for their offspring. It is advisable to specify that the educational dimension was not forgotten. It is the third point of the formula: "discover". Once the construction is finished, the child can discover on the console screen the way to function this technology, an original and soft way for the youngest to apprehend it.
After all, far from the technological course engaged in Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo pursues its collection of hybridization for an experiment of game which is always funnier and newer. Being simultaneously tactile and virtual, pixilated and material, playful and creative, solitary and collaborative, Nintendo Labo carries its name: it is the laboratory of the playful interactions to come.
Make an appointment in the future on April 27th with a pack "car/peach/piano" of (most probably) 69.99 Euros and a pack "robot" of 79.99 Euros.
Article written by Thierry Randretsa