Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour should be a pack-in. Let's just stipulate that from the beginning. Even the relatively low $10 price tag feels too high for what is essentially a promotional tool for the system itself, walking new players through its functionality and various features with a cute and tidy presentation. Charging a premium for it--any premium, at all--is frankly confusing. All that said, now having spent some more time with Welcome Tour, I was pleased to discover one underrated utility for it: It feels primed for introducing kids (or adults) to STEM and industrial design concepts in a way that's charming and approachable through its interactivity.
The thought occurred to me as I was reading a note explaining the small, almost-imperceptible gap between the Joy-Con controllers and the body of the Switch 2. The blurb was explaining how having the controllers flush with the system would impact the practicality of the magnetic connection. In another, related spot, it showed an internal cross-section of the magnetic connectors of the Joy-Con and how they have a lipped U-shape to make a tight connection with enough give that you can comfortably pull them apart with the release switch. These kinds of fine details, going into the weeds of how and why Nintendo made specific design decisions for the hardware, felt like a gold mine for kids interested in STEM fields.
This aspect of it isn't immediately obvious. Nintendo Switch Welcome Tour opens up in sections as you collect stamps detailing different aspects of the hardware, so for the first several minutes, that means your avatar walks around the surface of the console and finds kiosks that pop up as you approach, and which deliver not exactly thrilling details like telling you what a button does. In my short hands-on session, I was making a point to see as much as I could, so I sped through finding stamps to open up new sections, skipping over aspects I had played during my first time playing the game at the Switch 2 reveal event.
The fourth or fifth section delved down inside a controller, showing a fully intact circuit board that at least appeared genuine. Given the other deep-dive aspects of the hardware showcase, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just an accurate rendering of the inside of a Joy-Con. That said, I won't be the one to find out, because in a characteristically hyper-careful Nintendo move, it makes sure to have a little man tell you before you enter that you definitely should not actually open up your Joy-Con. Don't try this at home, kids.
And aside from the in-the-weeds hardware, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour does have some neat software demonstrations to get across the basic ideas of its features. The frames-per-second demonstration is a neat way to familiarize newcomers with how higher FPS feels smoother. The original Super Mario Bros. running on a larger display and unfurling to show the entire stage is a novel way to explain that pixel density has skyrocketed over the last few decades. One demonstration even showed how the HD Rumble can be used to approximate sound. Those are cool bells and whistles that altogether help paint a detailed picture of the design decisions that went into making the Nintendo Switch 2.
It's just too bad that this well-put-together showcase of the Switch 2's features and industrial design is gated behind a price tag. As a free piece of software preloaded onto every system, it would function the way the name suggests--as a welcome tour for new owners, packed with little interesting nuggets of information and secrets to find. It could even help inspire the next generation of hardware engineers. But only if they see it.
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The thought occurred to me as I was reading a note explaining the small, almost-imperceptible gap between the Joy-Con controllers and the body of the Switch 2. The blurb was explaining how having the controllers flush with the system would impact the practicality of the magnetic connection. In another, related spot, it showed an internal cross-section of the magnetic connectors of the Joy-Con and how they have a lipped U-shape to make a tight connection with enough give that you can comfortably pull them apart with the release switch. These kinds of fine details, going into the weeds of how and why Nintendo made specific design decisions for the hardware, felt like a gold mine for kids interested in STEM fields.
This aspect of it isn't immediately obvious. Nintendo Switch Welcome Tour opens up in sections as you collect stamps detailing different aspects of the hardware, so for the first several minutes, that means your avatar walks around the surface of the console and finds kiosks that pop up as you approach, and which deliver not exactly thrilling details like telling you what a button does. In my short hands-on session, I was making a point to see as much as I could, so I sped through finding stamps to open up new sections, skipping over aspects I had played during my first time playing the game at the Switch 2 reveal event.
The fourth or fifth section delved down inside a controller, showing a fully intact circuit board that at least appeared genuine. Given the other deep-dive aspects of the hardware showcase, I wouldn't be surprised if it's just an accurate rendering of the inside of a Joy-Con. That said, I won't be the one to find out, because in a characteristically hyper-careful Nintendo move, it makes sure to have a little man tell you before you enter that you definitely should not actually open up your Joy-Con. Don't try this at home, kids.
And aside from the in-the-weeds hardware, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour does have some neat software demonstrations to get across the basic ideas of its features. The frames-per-second demonstration is a neat way to familiarize newcomers with how higher FPS feels smoother. The original Super Mario Bros. running on a larger display and unfurling to show the entire stage is a novel way to explain that pixel density has skyrocketed over the last few decades. One demonstration even showed how the HD Rumble can be used to approximate sound. Those are cool bells and whistles that altogether help paint a detailed picture of the design decisions that went into making the Nintendo Switch 2.
It's just too bad that this well-put-together showcase of the Switch 2's features and industrial design is gated behind a price tag. As a free piece of software preloaded onto every system, it would function the way the name suggests--as a welcome tour for new owners, packed with little interesting nuggets of information and secrets to find. It could even help inspire the next generation of hardware engineers. But only if they see it.
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