Nintendo Labo isn’t going to work on the Switch 2

Nintendo revealed the Nintendo Switch 2 yesterday, but beyond showing off the console – which I can safely describe as a bigger and presumably better Switch – it didn’t say much about what the Switch 2 can do. But there is one line in the press release about what the Switch 2 can’t do that has me … well, not worried, but perhaps a bit crestfallen. “Certain Nintendo Switch games may not be supported on or fully compatible with Nintendo Switch 2,” Nintendo says. I don’t know about you, but my immediate thought was they’re talking about Labo.

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Nintendo Labo didn’t set the world on fire, but it remains one of the most fun, weird, creative, playful things Nintendo has ever done, and yes I will die on that cardboard hill. For those of you who didn’t get the pleasure of assembling a Labo kit yourselves, here’s a brief description of what it was like.

Each Labo kit was a collection of so-called “Toy-Cons,” which would be assembled out of flat-packed cardboard following an interactive instruction manual not unlike IKEA furniture. Once assembled, you’d insert the Switch Joy-Cons into your cardboard creation, and through some combination of motion sensors, the all-important IR sensor on the right Joy-Con, and a hefty sprinkling of software, that cardboard would be transformed, alchemy-like, into something that felt unusually playful. Those tactile Toy-Cons – a piano, a steering wheel, a camera – could be used in simple games, and users could even create their own experiences, not unlike Nintendo’s later Game Builder Garage.

In short, it was amazing.

In our 2018 game of the year list, I called it “one of the most ‘Nintendo’ projects ever made” and now, four years after it was quietly taken out back, behind the box store, and shot, I find myself somewhat emotional reflecting on what Labo did and how ephemeral it was. Nintendo hasn’t so much as glanced in Labo’s direction in years, and the omission of the IR sensors in the Switch 2’s new Joy-Cons is another reminder that this product is well and truly dead.

But for a moment, if you will, I’d like to reflect back on what it was like when it was alive, and I’d like to take a moment to thank the “Monster Cat,” as my then four-year-old son dubbed him, the inhabitant of the Variety Kit’s Toy-Con House. The House accepted the right Joy-Con in its chimney, the Switch display on its front, and then a collection of adapters that would slot into the left, right, and bottom of the House. The combination of adapters would create different scenarios on the screen. It was simple, funny, and genuinely novel.

While the arc from paper to plaything constituted much of our enjoyment, the Monster Cat was different. My son would take him out regularly, his House a permanent fixture of our living room for years. The House itself has been fixed several times over, and the adapters – which took more of the physical abuse – are literally held together with tape, glue, popsicle sticks, and stickers. It’s an incredible physical testament to the kind of play that Labo enabled, and one I sadly didn’t share with our second son, who was born in 2018.

I didn’t really process that Labo was being liquidated in 2021 – Nintendo was characteristically cagey about its abandonment, removing its website entirely before saying it was still available. You know what retailers love? Storing large boxes that aren’t selling, and whose manufacturer won’t even maintain the most basic of marketing surfaces.

By the time I clocked what was happening, I followed some stock trackers and hurried to the usual box stores, where inventory had unsurprisingly been liquidated. I managed to snag an additional VR Kit … when what I really need is an additional Variety Kit. Our Monster Cat needed a new home. Sure, Nintendo has released the files so users could figure out a way to get them remade – admittedly, a very welcome preservation effort for this most unusual of games – but some searching hasn’t resulted in anything that seems reproducible. (Other nerds, if you can point me in the right direction, my email is here!)

I know people are bummed that the Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be playing it safe, and the reveal video didn’t do much to disabuse anyone of that notion. The Switch is a hit! And I think we all hope the Switch 2 is another hit … but I hope that some of that outside-the-cardboard-box thinking that resulted in a product like Labo isn’t being left in the recycling bin. Who knows, maybe that optical mouse sensor could get us into some trouble. A next-generation Monster Cat might like a mouse.

(I love you, Monster Cat).