Nintendo Labo Brings Nintendo’s Most Quirky Creativity to Nintendo Switch

Nintendo recently revealed a new experience coming in April for the Nintendo Switch called Nintendo Labo. We’ve seen some odd and interesting Nintendo peripherals in our time, but this is truly one of the most creative ones to come out of them yet.

The entire concept of Nintendo Labo is to create physical objects that attach to your Switch console and create some kind of interactive experience. This idea of having the player physically build a contraption then use it in tandem with their gaming system will be quite enticing to kids and even to adults who like to be involved in DIY projects.

The kits will provide pre-cut modular cardboard sheets for various objects which you build and attach to your console. It’s an interesting melding of the concept of virtual reality but brought into our lives in a functional way. Nintendo is dubbing these objects ‘Toy-Cons.’ What I find particularly intriguing is the way that things interact.

Let’s take the piano, for example. After building a little piano and placing the Switch in it along with the Joy-Cons on the sides, pressing keys will translate to appropriate sounds in the software. This is done using the IR sensor as a motion sensor to detect which keys are pressed. I imagine the Toy-Cons will take advantage of all of the Switch’s features in order to make these objects fully functional, including gyro, buttons, IR and maybe even NFC. These are very intriguing ways of making use of a consoles features, and poses for some really exciting ways to light up a kid’s day. To top it off, the Toy-Cons are customizable with your own stickers or drawings, or using pre-made Nintendo ones that can be bought.

Nintendo Labo will be launching April 20th for the Nintendo Switch. Two initial kits will be available: the Variety Kit being sold at $69.99 will provide different Toy-Cons such as the RC Car or Piano in order to help facilitate interesting experiences; the Robot Kit being sold at $79.99 will provide a robot Toy-Con which is wearable and transforms the player into the robot. Both Kits will come with software appropriate to the included Toy-Cons. While the price may seem steep, only time will tell whether these experiences prove to be worth every penny. Be sure to check out the video below for a good demonstration of how Nintendo Labo will work. You can bet we’ll be waiting to try these out come launch!

- Teepu

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