Nintendo’s new console the Nintendo Labo, launching in April 2018, is one of the big uproars in the news of video games. It is in the Game Informer magazine and all over the Nintendo twitter page.  The trailer for the Nintendo Labo has effectively hyped the product, but what is the Nintendo Labo?

 The website describes it as follows: “Nintendo Labo combines the magic of Nintendo Switch with the fun of DIY creations. Build a 13-key piano, a fishing pole, even a motorbike. Add your Nintendo Switch console to power it up and… Hold a recital, catch a fish, win a race. With Nintendo Labo, the building is just as much fun as playing. Having fun discovering how it all works- you even invent new ways to play with each Toy-con creation.”  Wow, it sounds like it can do a lot.

This ‘new game’ requires the Nintendo Switch console, which is sold separately from the Labo. There was a recent “Nintendo Power” podcast on SoundCloud that talked about the new console along with some other things. IGN posted, “Nintendo introduces Nintendo Labo, a new, customizable way to play the Nintendo Switch!” on Twitter.

Not everyone has bought into all the hype about this product. Student Holly Bradshaw stated, “I think it’s stupid, I heard most of the people who could afford the Switch were young adults and teenagers, some of the people who own one are a bunch of my friends here at Bob Jones. I’m 16; I don’t see the value in it why would I want to make a cardboard bow? My little brother is 8 and I don’t think a lot of kids his age will not see a lot of value in it. They have other games they play. He would stay for 10 minutes and then just walk off to do something else.” 

Sophomore Aidan Griffith said, “I think it’s kinda stupid, but I don’t know if it will work until it comes out because it kind of looks like flimsy cardboard and it looks insanely expensive.” Graham Jones, also a sophomore here, stated, “It’s doomed to fail really. No one’s going to soak that much money into it.”

It seems like there’s a lot of people who don’t see the point with the new console, but we’ll have to wait and see if it catches on in April.