Don’t get bored – get cardboard
Nintendo Labo combines hi-tech and low-tech in a bold new fun accessory
I MAGINE the meeting to which Nintendo’s latest innovation was pitched.
“Right, everyone,” says the impossibly young rising star who came up with idea, standing nervously before a carefully-crafted presentation.
“We’ve just shipped yet another cutting-edge console that leaves all the other console-makers asking themselves why they didn’t think of it first.
“Here’s what’s next: accessories made of cardboard.”
In most companies this would be met with silence, perhaps a bit of laughter, then a P45.
But this is not most companies, this is Nintendo. The idea is met with applause, a massive marketing budget, and a promotion.
And that is how Labo was born. Maybe.
However it happened, I’m glad it did, not least because it shows Nintendo is still at the top of its game, making things other companies wouldn’t even dream of.
Labo, which finally went on sale last week in the UK after months of fanfare, is a series of accessories for the Nintendo Switch console, which you buy as flat-packed carboard sheets and build yourself.
They are not games as such, but add-ons for the Switch.
“Our goal is to put smiles on the faces of everyone Nintendo touches,” said Satoru Shibata, Nintendo of Europe’s President. “Nintendo Labo invites anyone with a creative mind and a playful heart to make, play and discover in new ways with Nintendo Switch. I personally hope to see many people enjoying making kits with their family members, with big smiles on their faces.”
At the moment two kits are available. One allows you to build an impressive-looking contraption you wear to control an on-screen robot to do all sorts of things (smash up buildings, fight friends, that kind of thing).
That kit is called the Robot Kit.
The Variety Kit allows you to build five accessories (which Nintendo calls Toy-Cons) – a piano, a motorbike, a fishing rod, a house, and two cars.
The software to use the devices after you’ve built them comes included with the kits and allows for all sorts of new ways to play.
A ‘secret’ Toy-Con Garage mode in the Labo software also allows you to create your own accessories, which you can build yourself from anything, and use a rudimentary programming system on the Switch to control how they behave.
You can even customise the official Toy-Con’s software to do your own bidding.
This is just the beginning for Labo, though, and there are more kits planned.
It’s an absolutely wonderful idea, especially at a time when everyone else seems to be trying to think of ways to get you to look at your screens even more.
Who would have thought that among 2018’s innovations, top of the wish-list for a lot of people would be a box containing few cardboard sheets, some rubber bands, and a piece of string? Only Nintendo could pull it off.
The Variety Kit costs £59.99, and the Robot Kit £69.99 from Nintendo, and both include the Labo marker kit, with which you can customise your creations, and a pencil case. There’s also an official Customisation Set (£8.99), which includes loads of stickers and stencils to truly make your creations your own.