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NINTENDO: A LABO OF LOVE

18/1/2018

27 Comments

 
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When I was three or four,  I went on a family holiday to a caravan park in Dimchurch.

One evening, we attended a talent competition in the clubhouse, during which the host - Uncle Ricky Dinkle (no, really) asked for boys and girls to come up on stage and sing him a song. At my sister's urging, I lined up with the other children next to the stage, ready to give my showstopping rendition of The Wheels On The Bus.

I had long curly hair back then - admittedly, not much has changed - which might be why Uncle Ricky Dinkle greeted me by saying "Here's a nice little girl". 

"I'm a boy not a girl!" I corrected furiously, to waves of laughter from the audience.

Uncle Ricky recovered well with a comedy double-take, apologised, and asked me where I went to school.

"Bay school", I huffed.

"Bay school?" asked Uncle Ricky.

"No - Bay school," I replied, becoming increasingly frustrated by someone who seemed intent upon misrepresenting me.

"Bay school?"

"NO! BAY SCHOOL!"

Admittedly, I was recovering from having most of my teeth knocked out by a swing - for which I'd required years of painful dental treatment. My speech wasn't perhaps the most easy to understand, so I can almost forgive Uncle Ricky for not realising I was trying to tell him that I went to "play school".

​Bear with me. We're getting to the Nintendo bit.
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CARDBOARD HOUSE
It was not any old play school I attended, but one which was run by my mother.

One time, needing a play house for the nursery, she enlisted the help of my grandad, whose knack for DIY - he was a mechanic in the war, before becoming a chimney sweep, of all things - I have failed to inherit. He had the brilliant notion of making the house out of cardboard. 

What he built was a work of genius. Instead of some flimsy thing, he produced a structure durable enough to withstand the aggressive play of nursery age children. He glued corrugated cardboard panels together to make the sturdy walls, door and roof, then gave the whole thing of couple of coats of gloss paint, making it even more stable. 

I mean, it was brilliant. I was stunned by his feat of engineering, and told all the other kids repeatedly that my grandad had been responsible. I was so proud.


It's possibly a weird thing to say, but from that point onwards I always felt cardboard was an underrated medium. I had one recurring fantasy as a kid, where I imagined a costume of the Wampa from The Empire Strikes Back, but made out of cardboard. I didn't have the skill to make such a thing, but I thought it could be made by someone cleverer than I - and relatively cheaply.

Indeed, my favourite toy was a cardboard Death Star - the plastic version they got in America was nowhere near as good, and probably twice the price. Cardboard offered more bang for your buck, and I never understood why it wasn't used more by toy manufacturers.

Of course, cardboard has made a bit of a comeback in recent years, thanks to Google's cardboard VR headset. Now, however, Nintendo is taking it to the next level.
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LABO ADORE
If you missed the announcement video, Nintendo's Labo - yes, let's get the sniggering out of the way now - will arrive as a couple of sets of make-your-own cardboard objects (Toy Cons), into which you slot the Switch and Joy Con controllers.

From April, you'll be able to build interactive pianos, houses, motorbikes, fishing rods, robots, and - most impressively - some sort of mech suit, which works with what looks like a bona fide Nintendo Switch VR-ish game. 

I mean... y'know... it's literally the best idea ever. It absolutely, one hundred percent, delivers on the promise of the Switch, while also tapping into something which kids instinctively understand: the potential of cardboard as a material which can ignite the imagination. Heck, Nintendo is even encouraging users to colour in their Toy Cons with felt-tip pens!

Furthermore, the initial two sets will be priced below £100 - making them (relatively) affordable. 

What it really does for me is underline something which I'd already believed instinctively; the lower-specced Switch is already about a million times more exciting - for me - than, say, PlayStation VR.

Virtual reality has yet to have its potential unlocked. As impressive as the technology is, beyond that feeling of "being there", I've yet to seen a single application which really justifies its existence. It remains a novelty - and one, lest we forget, which is expensive, and mostly only offers a list of reasons why it still hasn't broken through to the mainstream.

I mean, take your pick from making some users want to throw up, to sensory deprivation, and looking like an idiot while using it.
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NOVELTY ISLAND
Of course, critics are going to complain that Labo is a novelty, but at least it's cheaper than VR - which is also, at this stage, a novelty. Plus, is it really any more of a novelty than a Lego set? Certainly, its price is comparable to Lego. As is its name, for that matter. 

Point is, when everyone was raving about VR as the future of gaming, I kept thinking: "But it isn't... it can't be..."

And thus far I've been proved right. Sales of high-end VR systems have been disappointing.

I honestly believe the Switch should point the way forwards for gaming. It takes the potential of our hobby - in the way that supporters desperately want us to believe VR has - and expands on it in a way that is fun, accessible, and approachable. And now Labo really unlocks the kid in all of us; we all played in cardboard boxes. We all made bases, or robots, or houses out of them. 

By embracing the most lo-fi of technologies - cardboard, for pity's sake! - this most Nintendo-y of Nintendo's ideas highlights how misguided the VR faithful has been. You can argue that Labo and PSVR are targeting different demographics, but it underlines the gulf between much of the technology-obsessed games industry and what punters really seem to what.

Where Nintendo's competitors' attitude to progress is to stuff more technology into its hardware - oh, look: <YAWN> now the games are in 4K and have dynamic something-or-another - Nintendo looks at the hardware it has already and tries to figure out how best it can wring every last ounce of fun out of it.

In short: Labo seems to favour play over specs. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is what games and consoles should always be striving to do.
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27 Comments
MENTALIST
18/1/2018 10:28:11 am

Conversely, my kids got one of those colour your own cardboard playhouse sets for Christmas once. Colouring the thing in kept them amused for about three times as long as is lasted once it was up, because the thing disintegrated embarrassingly quickly and it all ended up in the recycle bin.

I'm very skeptical about this. The fishing rod and handlebars look like prime contenders to be crushed by over-enthusiasm. The little bug-things seem quite clever, but what are you supposed to do with them, other than move them about a bit like a £300+ oversized hexbug?

The house thing seems like it's producing something equivalent to a £3 Toca Boca game.

I think a lot of the potential of this is going to come down to software, and how well were the Eyetoy, the Wiimote, Playstation Move or Kinect serviced in the end?

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Lummox60N
18/1/2018 10:28:32 am

I really hope this is going to be as popular as it deserves to be.
But many parents will be bewildered by the concept and disinclined to "invest" in cardboard, what with the perception of it being so ephemeral.

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John Veness
18/1/2018 05:55:37 pm

Apparently the designs will be freely downloadable, although you'll need to supply your own corrugated cardboard. You'll also still need to buy the game on cartridge or eShop.

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MENTALIST
18/1/2018 10:41:16 am

Also: "is it really any more of a novelty than a Lego set?"

Lego sets are reusable, cross-compatible general purpose construction toys. These things are single-purpose peripherals, which work with a set piece of software that they're sold with. If there were some sort of publicly available project construction kit, or SDK to go with these toy-cons, or the ability for the public to publish their own ones, they might be comparable.

Anyway, I sound really down on this, but I'm not really. In fact, my own hypothetical cardboard AR toy market that I just made up there has piqued my own interest - although such a thing is more likely to manifest itself as a copycat product using mobile phones.

I might even buy a Labo set, since I've already got the Switch, but not until after I've seen reviews, and preferably not until after the first wave of starry-eyed initial love-ins.

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Col. Asdasd
18/1/2018 11:26:04 am

"Lego sets are reusable, cross-compatible general purpose construction toys. "

Is this really true, though? Modern lego sets seem to have ever-more specialised pieces that aren't good for much except their intended model.

I agree Labo looks like pretty disposable cupboard-fodder and I don't expect the hype to last much longer than the initial few weeks of sale. But Nintendo have rather defied expectations lately, so who knows?

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MENTALIST
18/1/2018 11:49:28 am

Whilst 10 or 15 years ago, your complaint would have been fairly valid, nowadays, Lego sets are far more often built up of ingeniously reused small parts.

My favourite example are the horns of Master Wu's Dragon from the Ninjago line which are white plastic croissants (the miniature Lego Dimensions version has one croissant for both horns, and the back of its head). Although there seems to have been an odd trend this years with using specially-shaped parts for the dragon heads in the Ninjago movie, and Elves sets. But underneath, they're articulated with Technic joints, and their bodies and limbs are shaped with standard 2 and 3 length curved pieces.

Spiney O’Sullivan
18/1/2018 12:57:54 pm

Lego have really scaled back on the set-specific parts since (as I understand it) it was killing them financially for a time. New sets are much cleverer about reusable pieces. They’re still pricey, but the toy’s build quality and creative potential makes it probably the best toy brand ever.

Actually, a Lego version of this could be incredible. A new Mindstorms on a less imposing system. Labo looks neat, but limited compared to Mindstorms.

(I have always been a sucker for Lego, and would love to see the toy’s creative potential genuinely reached by games, as I’ve been profoundly underwhelmed by their mostly samey and uncreative game output)

MENTALIST
18/1/2018 01:30:13 pm

@Spiney Arguably Lego Boost goes some way to being the sort of thing you're describing. It comes with various sensors and inputs, but I think the tablet app you need to use is just for programming it.

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/boost

Spiney O’Sullivan
19/1/2018 10:38:09 am

@MENTALIST

That’s pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Fantastic.

Col. Asdasd
20/1/2018 07:29:06 pm

I will defer to your superior legspertise, gentlemen. I'm glad to hear it anyway as I used to love my box of bits (oo er).

Phil
19/1/2018 12:52:21 pm

"If there were some sort of publicly available project construction kit, or SDK to go with these toy-cons, or the ability for the public to publish their own ones, they might be comparable."

See: Fuze Code Studio, supposedly coming Q2 2018. Which will apparently interface with all of the Switch joy-con functions. Knock up some sort of cardboard origami effort to go with it and away you go.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
19/1/2018 01:49:14 pm

Now’s that is cool. Like a modern version of the old computers running BASIC.

I always feel that my generation of gamers was unfortunate in that consoles had come along and were at the time much more user-friendly than computers, meaning we could just consume games without really understanding what’s behind them (I have developed a whole thing about the mindless consumption that’s become prevalent in nerddom over the years...). Kids who grew up with the C64 or Speccy ended up with some nice skills out of their hobby.

DEAN
18/1/2018 11:09:44 am

Love it and bless Nintendo for doing it!

My kids will reduce me to a tinnitus-ringing wreck when I share this with them later today - can't wait!

It's going to be awesome making it with them and I know my daughter will have them plastered in stickers and artwork in no time at all.

And isn't that lovely? Proper family fun!

I'm not worried about structural integrity as cardboard can be bloody tough if done right. Prone to water damage, sure, but so is a laptop and that bugger's made of METAL!

Is it doomed to be little more than another fad? Who cares! Here for a great time not a long time :O)

And it's not expensive - not realistically - for £100 or whatever you wouldn't get much change (any whatsoever) from a cheeky Nandos and a family ticket to the cinema for a single poxy movie and 4 plates of chicken and chips!

Cheaper than chips (Nandos and that movie about police mo'bikes)

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Bruce Flagpole
18/1/2018 11:22:56 am

I'm excited for this...my kids should be at just the perfect age and they already love building things out of card and paper.
Sure, you can look at it as expensive for a few bits of cardboard and a (probably shallow) mini game collection...but I'd hope to get a lot more quality and fun family time out of this than say a couple of trips to the cinema, which would be about the same cost.

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Super Bad Advice
18/1/2018 12:11:23 pm

The more I read about this, the more of a genius move it looks. They're making the cardboard patterns free to download and print, so no problem with spares. And the projects have potential outside of just 'oh, that's nice'. The bug, for example, has the camera in it, so you can use it to go on little spy missions round the house. Or have a robot-wars sumo fight with another bug. Or get a load together and run races.

And how long before games come with optional makes? Ghostbusters game with a proton pack? Star Wars game with a lightsaber?

It's easy to be cynical, but you've got to love Nintendo for being as Nintendo as they could possibly be. Any kid with a sliver of imagination will lap this up.

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Voodoo76
18/1/2018 12:27:59 pm

I've no idea how successful this will be but I love the idea. You've got to hand it to Nintendo for coming up with this, I mean who'd have guessed on them releasing a load of cardboard to integrate with their most successful console in years. Not sure I'll allow the kids near it though, they'll only colour it in and go over the lines, bastards!!

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Nick
18/1/2018 01:11:49 pm

Didn't see that coming.

I do like the naive joyfulness of it all. The little cardboard antenna poking out of the top of the Switch is very cute.

It also feels very much like a product for our times. My cynical side can't help thinking just how happy the Nintendo execs must be with the recent moves to remove plastic from supply chains and the shaming of those companies that rely on it a little too much.

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Literally nobody
18/1/2018 01:12:25 pm

Specs are more important than gameplay

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RichardM
18/1/2018 01:41:58 pm

Rose tinted ones...

But no, I think it looks fun. I remember building the DeLorean (complete with biro scrawled flux capacitor) from carboard boxes as a child, and this brings back fond memories of that (those rose tinted specs again...). But yeah. My daughter would go crazy for this, and I think I’d like to be a part of that. Now to convince my wife we really do need a Switch!

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Roy (Stuart N Hardy fan)
18/1/2018 02:20:26 pm

Genius idea.
Only Nintendo could get you excited for a lump of cardboard.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
19/1/2018 10:47:05 am

This does look like a neat toy for kids, but to be fair, Nintendo fans could get excited about paying for a low-level Nintendo employee to come round to their house and punch them in the face.

“Miyamoto has recaptured the forgotten joy of schoolyard scraps! This has retroactively made Paul Tomkins’ merciless bullying into a fun memory!”

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
18/1/2018 02:38:28 pm

Impressed by your vivid memory, Biffo. I can barely remember anything before the age of about 6 or 7.

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Kelvin Green link
18/1/2018 04:11:44 pm

I'm with you one hundred percent, Biffster. I watched the video and I was excited by what Nintendo was showing, even though I'm sure I'm not the target audience, because it's a new (sort of) idea. It's not just more bits or teraflops or whatever, but pushing gaming consoles in a new and different direction.

It reminds me of when I first saw the Wii and I'm so happy to see Nintendo is still being brave and inventive. The industry needs Nintendo.

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Mrtankthreat
18/1/2018 08:09:53 pm

I thought you had sarcastically said boy school which would have been a nice little quippy retort. Kinda disappointed that wasn't the case.

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S Hawke
18/1/2018 10:46:27 pm

I'm looking forward to the Nintendo game where you play as a homeless and have to build a cardboard shelter to survive the night. You could ask your parents to get drunk and wee on it.

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Confused of Wiltshire
19/1/2018 09:25:09 am

Apologies, but i haven't heard anyone saying it out loud yet - is it pronounced 'Lay-bo', 'Lah-bo' or 'Lab-o'. I suspect it's the latter but I feel like they should have gone with a double b to make it certain.

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Hamptonoid
23/1/2018 08:03:35 am

I can't argue that the sets look amazing, but it is also the most batshit mental idea I've ever seen. Unless the cost of the kits is so low that it is truly disposable (like cardboard), then who is going to buy it? Of course kids love playing in boxes, but we all throw them away once the kids are bored of them after a couple of days. Are you really going to throw away something that costs "under £100"? Comparing it to lego - a product that can be reused countless times, passed on to the next generation, and sold on - is a nonsense. Presumably the target market is grown ups that have lots of disposable income for commodities, and no kids around to destroy them.

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