I hate how bland and lifeless the Switch UI feels

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

It's either one if these:

- Nintendo doesn't give a damn. Knows their customers will buy anything.

- It's supposed to resemble a mobile device. Do you have menu music or motifs in your Phone? Tablet?, and even if you do, did they came natively?

- It's the "simplicity" era. Logos going flat, UIs being minimalist, excessive use of symbolism. Even fonts has lost their charm.

It's ALL of these and that's part of the reason I never bought Switch.

 

[Vetusomaru]

For me Switch is the last video game console I ever bought and I don't think I'll buy a future console, even Nintendo one. Especially with them screwing Pokemon franchise, one of the main reasons I kept buying Nintendo consoles. Thank goodness most third party company games are released on PC too.

Post automatically merged: Nov 9, 2024

All Nintendo consoles (except Virtual Boy) aimed to the wide, casual audience and yet they had so much soul, including their marketing. Yet Nintendo Switch despite being the most successful Nintendo console and having many great games it's the most soulless Nintendo console: from the menu till the marketing. What went wrong?

 

[CoolKid575]

I feel pretty neutral about it. I do prefer the aesthetic of the the 3DS / Wii menus due to them actually having some personality. But on the other hand, they could be rather slow (3DS especially often took multiple seconds to back out onto the home screen while playing heavier games) while the Switch's home screen is lightning fast.

 

[Hippocampus_Hamster]

What weirds me out more is that there's no themes at all, not even basic color changes beyond light or dark modes. 3DS pushed themes hard, but the Switch just has the blandest available options. Really, the whole console has suffered from being what was likely a rush job (it was supposed to be the stop-gap after the Wii U flopped, after all), and the menues are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[AmandaRose]

Really, the whole console has suffered from being what was likely a rush job (it was supposed to be the stop-gap after the Wii U flopped, after all),

It was hardly a rush job. Development of the Switch started in 2012 so it had 5 years of development before coming out.

 

[Kioku]

A small tradeoff for better performance. The charm of the old systems is still there in a way. Fun sounds!

The first sentence makes no sense.

Some of you say things like "you play games on it, not stare at the menu" but forget that the UI is the first step in that process. It's boring, bland, and 100% lazy. Big, lifeless squares that you can't even organize properly. Menus and submenus that look more like concepts than finished product. Not to mention the store front is still a slog.

The DS had more life in it's UI and all it offered was fkn pictochat. I don't know about you, but I actually enjoy sifting through the interface to find things. Changing how it looks to fit me as a person. It's weird how limiting it is. Especially this late in to its life.

 

[Ryab]

The switch has no menu music, is too simplified, and just feels lifeless. The Gamecube menu captured that early 2000s feel, The Wii Menu felt like a TV, The Wii U menu felt very calming to me, but the switch is just all simplified. I just hate it. The same can be said about the Xbox consoles. The OG Xbox and 360 feel so great, but the One and Series consoles feel so bland.

This isnt just a Nintendo thing sadly. This is just the way the industry is headed. Very simplistic bland menus. They were very stylized in the 2000s to mid 2010s but after that they all just started getting more and more simplified.

 

[Hippocampus_Hamster]

It was hardly a rush job. Development of the Switch started in 2012 so it had 5 years of development before coming out.

4.5 years of modelling and fussing about details. Half a year of "oh crap, our main console is tanking, we need this shipped ASAP". It shipped with a gen-old processor at the time (now several generations behind), stick drift has been exceptionally bad this generation, their online service continues to be a joke, and overall performance of the units has been on the lower side (though Nintendo consoles haven't been at the cutting edge since the N64).

Honestly, even before Iwata passed Nintendo has been stumbling even as they've been succeeding as of late, even just going by the hardware side of things.

 

[CherikoM]

I like the minimalistic ui, the only thing I wish is that I could change the component colors (solid colors are enough)

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Yes. Minimalism is killing creativity. Companies need to learn that you can have some creative flair and still have an easy to use UI.

Also, cmon, we don't even have folders. That is such a basic thing, which every smartphone and PC has and has had since the very beginning. Not being able to organize your games in any way really makes the experience of starting a game much more annoying than it needs to be.

4.5 years of modelling and fussing about details. Half a year of "oh crap, our main console is tanking, we need this shipped ASAP". It shipped with a gen-old processor at the time (now several generations behind), stick drift has been exceptionally bad this generation, their online service continues to be a joke, and overall performance of the units has been on the lower side (though Nintendo consoles haven't been at the cutting edge since the N64).

Honestly, even before Iwata passed Nintendo has been stumbling even as they've been succeeding as of late, even just going by the hardware side of things.

GameCube was at the cutting edge.

 

[Marusu]

Also, cmon, we don't even have folders.

We do. unless you're talking about the Home Menu, which is exclusively sorted by last played.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

We do. unless you're talking about the Home Menu, which is exclusively sorted by last played.

We do?

 

[Marusu]

We do?

We’ve had them for quite some time now.
https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/how-to-use-folders-on-nintendo-switch