Nintendo has never shied away from making colorful and zany consoles. This is the company that brought us the Game Boy Color (emphasis on the color) and delighted fans with an array of options like turquoise, yellow, and purple. Fast forward to 2021, and the Nintendo Switch has Joy-Con options like neon pink and green and a really bright red and blue, among others.
But in all their years, Nintendo has one glaring gap in its hardware offerings: There has never been a Wario-themed console. Sure, avid Wario fans could buy purple and yellow Joy-Cons for their Nintendo Switch or custom-mod a Game Boy of their own, but the man deserves more. He deserves a dedicated console.
Wario is already a character that’s synonymous with style. His color scheme, purple and yellow, would be absolute fire on a handheld. The perfectly paired complimentary colors would work great with a purple body and yellow buttons. Hell, the GameCube was already purple. Nintendo could have slapped on a “W,” added a yellow button, and called it a day.
It’s more than just looks. The premise of the latest WarioWare game, WarioWare: Get It Together!, starts when Wario and friends get sucked into a console of his own making. And WarioWare games have often been tailored to the consoles they were released on. For example, WarioWare Gold featured loads of touch-based minigames and allowed players to record their own dubs since it came to the Nintendo 3DS.
The series is also very self-aware of the hardware it’s being played on. The Game Boy Advance’s Warioware: Twisted, already got an enhanced game pack that added a gyro sensor to use with minigames. Why couldn’t Nintendo throw in a matching handheld to go with it? The series is called “WarioWare,” after all. A console could have been the actual Wario ware that we get to hold.
So what’s made the cut for the elusive exclusive console? Well, there’s been a lot of Pokémon. Pikachu alone has gotten a console release for pretty much every generation since the Game Boy Advance SP. The little creature was literally molded onto the Nintendo 64, for crying out loud. And while legendary Pokémon decals on consoles look cool, I just don’t have the same long-running connection to them as I do to Wario. Beyond that, Mario has gotten a fancy red-colored Nintendo Switch, and franchises like Animal Crossing and Splatoon have gotten either bundle releases or custom Joy-Cons.
There has been no shortage of character and franchise-themed hardware. It’s just that Nintendo has stuck close to a few tried-and-true franchises and characters. I think it’s time to branch out and make weird consoles again. It’s what Wario would want.
Source: Polygon
