11-year-old gives Nintendo Labo high marks
But box of do-it-yourself fun doesn’t come cheap
If Nintendo is going to make a splash selling the creative Nintendo Labo cardboard gaming kits that become available Friday, Labo must appeal to gradeschoolers such as my 11-year old son Samuel, not to mention dads and moms.
Judging by Sam’s high praise, Nintendo has a hit on its hands.
“Good job, Nintendo,” Sam told me. “Nintendo is amazing. It’s addictive.”
At the same time, while Sam was engaged as we built and subsequently ran a remote-control car made of cardboard, I can’t predict if his enthusiasm will wane over time.
Given a choice to play with Labo or with his smartphone, he chose the latter on two separate occasions. But he also pushed me to play after finishing his homework one evening. And told me he wanted to play again the next night.
Nintendo Labo is a bit difficult to pigeonhole, but think of it as a first-of-itskind product that marries Nintendo’s Switch portable video gaming system with pieces of cardboard that a child can bend and fold into various so-called “Toy-Con” projects, including a miniature piano (that can play real notes), fishing rod and robot.
You get to make the toys guided by helpful step-by-step animations that appear on the required Nintendo Switch. Then, after creating the toys, you have the satisfaction of playing with them and along the way can discover how the tech comes together.
None of this comes cheap. The required Nintendo Switch lists for $299.99, and the Labo cardboard is pricey too: $69.99 for a variety pack with five projects, or $79.99 for the robot kit.
Labo isn’t likely to turn your kid into a coding whiz, and there isn’t what I’d call an overabundance of education. But you and your youngsters will get a healthy dose of do-it-yourself enrichment, and there is a “Toy-Con Garage” mode that neither Sam nor I graduated
to that promises to “introduces basic principles of technology in a fun way” and teach very simple programming.
One possible cause of concern is the cardboard itself; I fret about its longterm durability. And you have to be careful removing various pieces off the perforated cardboard sheets. Depending on the project, there are other items to keep track of — rubber bands, washers, stickers — and the game card you must insert into the Nintendo Switch.
You also might have to charge your Switch in the middle of everything, which can be frustrating.
The first thing Sam and I built together was a simple cardboard housing for one of the Switch’s removable “Joy-Con” controllers, a project that didn’t take long and was more of an exercise to get us comfortable with Labo.
We then moved on to create the aforementioned car, placing both JoyCon controllers into compartments inside this cardboard vehicle so that it could move wirelessly via touch controls on the Switch display. The car took about 15 minutes to build and brought joy to Sam. The vehicle even has a camera — that is, there’s an infrared camera on one of the controllers. From the screen on the Switch, we could see what the car saw as it drove along our floor.
Building the fishing rod proved to be more difficult — somehow, we couldn’t seem to match up the cardboard pieces with the diagrams on the Switch screen and wondered if we had inadvertently removed a piece we shouldn’t have. But that didn’t stop us from starting on an even more ambitious exercise, the robot project, Sam’s favorite challenge. We won’t finish the project ahead of this review, but Sam is eagerly pressing on.
Meanwhile, as a parent, I think Nintendo has struck the right tone for kids. The onscreen instructions supply encouragement (e.g.: “Push it through the opening as far as it will go. (It might be difficult, but you can do it.”))
Sam and I appreciated that you can easily manipulate the touch screen to view animated instructions from different angles and easily rewind or skip ahead as necessary.
The good news for Nintendo, I suppose, is that lots of people already own the Switch, which Nintendo said at the end of last year was the fastest-selling home video game in U.S. history. As of December, U.S. sales of Switch were north of 4.8 million units; Nintendo has sold more than 10 million units worldwide. Labo gives some families a good reason to purchase a Nintendo Switch and others another reason to use the one they have.
Sam’s final grade reflects his enthusiasm: “I think it’s going to be the hottest new craze.”