In the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic a bored, miserable, hunkered-down world turned to Japan for inspiration. Nintendo’s Switch console, and its Animal Crossing: New Horizons game stood ready to provide escape from crisis.
The 135-year-old company had evolved for this moment. The console was a revolutionary hybrid of handheld and home gaming system; the game was the classic Nintendo recipe of soothing, funny and engrossing. The Kyoto-based toymaker, whose machines have now entertained generations X, Y, Z and alpha, was in its element.
On Wednesday last week, Nintendo unveiled the Switch 2 — the follow-up to the 2017 console, the all-in commercial wager of Japan’s most globally adored company and, it hopes, another digital comfort blanket for troubled times.