Weird Nintendo, I've always felt, is the best Nintendo. From well-known oddities such as the Ultra Hand or Love Tester through to deeper cuts like the Chiritori, a remote control vacuum cleaner that was an early precursor to the Roomba, or the Unirack, a shelving unit that came with its own set of handkerchiefs and a secret compartment to squirrel them away in, all so that children could conjure them out of thin air in a performative trick for the whole family, it's where the heart of the company lies. Storage units and disappearing acts? Now that's the Nintendo I love - the toymaker extraordinaire, taking everyday items and imbuing them with a little magic.
All of which was very much present and correct in the enigmatic reveal of a new piece of kit coming to the Nintendo Switch, a brief trailer smartly positioned well away from last week's Direct - a move that tells you a fair amount about where this particular device is being marketed. And that trailer will also have given you a fair idea of what to expect from what's officially dubbed the 'Ring-Con'. It's a rubberised ring that's just about shoulder width, and in which you can place a Joy-Con to track your movements alongside various other magical uses.
I'd say there's been nothing like it before, but that'd be a lie. The Ring-Con is, to put it bluntly, a pilates ring, and it's not as if introducing fitness devices like this is entirely unprecedented in the world of video games. There's Nintendo's own Wii Fit, of course, while the accompanying leg strap you place another Joy-Con in and attach to your thigh reminds me of 2009's EA Sports Active, one of the better games to have come out of the fitness fad around a decade ago.
from Eurogamer.net
No comments:
Post a Comment