There is a lot to love about the Nintendo Switch. Even with more powerful consoles out there, the console/handheld hybrid offers players the freedom to take console-grade games with them on the go and an increasing library of great AAA and indie games to play wherever. But it is not perfect by any means, and Platinum Games producer Hideki Kamiya recently took the opportunity to remind everyone of that.
Being one of the key figures behind such franchises as Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Bayonetta, as well as one of Platinum’s founders, Kamiya certainly knows a thing or two about the gaming industry. More than that, he’s well known for letting others know what he thinks in a rather honest and blunt fashion, often being unafraid to use insulting language in the process. This week, he aimed his sights on one certain aspect of the Switch, that being the design of its home screen. Specifically, the UI failures of that design.
As it stands currently, if a Switch user has more than twelve games on their console, all games beyond the twelve most recently played titles are dumped in a single “All Games” page. This isn’t so much a problem for those with fewer games, but for those with a lot of games, it can be a hassle having to wade through nearly their entire library to access a certain game. It’s an especially baffling choice since Nintendo’s previous consoles, the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, let players sort their games into folders for easy access, a feature the Switch has yet to receive nearly three years after launch.
And Kamiya didn’t mince words when voicing his disapproval of this decision, writing the following on Twitter (as translated by NintendoSoup): “The Nintendo Switch's Home Menu is a piece of crap, all of the sh**ty gigantic game icons are lined up in a row, but the rest of the games are tossed into a trash can called 'All Games'...I wonder have they (the people that made the menu) ever played the Nintendo fan boys' Switch?”
Now, it’s always possible that Nintendo could actually fix up the Switch’s UI and allow users to finally organize their games properly. However, that would only solve one of the Switch’s many longstanding problems, including a relatively poor online infrastructure, an even poorer voice-chat system, and the controller issue known as “Joy-Con drift.” And since Nintendo has remained rather silent with regards to the console’s shortcomings, it remains to be seen if it will be compelled to address any of them anytime soon.
Nevertheless, the Switch remains popular, and Platinum Games continues to develop games for it. Last year, it found acclaim with the console-exclusive Astral Chain, and now it is working on another Switch exclusive, the long-awaited Bayonetta 3, which Kamiya recently offered a development update on.
Source: NintendoSoup
