Nintendo Labo!

For this week’s Appy Friday we are giving you a rundown on the Nintendo Labo. It’s a range of DIY toys to make the accessories for the best selling Nintendo Switch. Whether you’re a lover of music and want to make the cardboard piano or want to build your own robot, the Nintendo Labo range allows you to create anything.

The Nintendo Switch was a huge success for Nintendo when it was released in March 2017 and sold over 10 million units within the first 10 months of it being available which made it the fastest-selling console of US history.

Now Nintendo has produced the Labo which was announced in early 2018. Labo is a line of DIY toys that can be connected to the Switch or Joy-Con controller which opens up a new range of games on the Switch. The Labo acts like the extra accessories you could buy for the Nintendo Wii. Accessories like a steering wheel for Mario Kart, but with Labo, you make your own accessories out of the cardboard pieces.

When you buy one of the accessories from Labo it comes in a small kit. In the kit there are multiple pieces of pre-cut cardboard, specifically cut to create your own little constructions that Nintendo call Toy-Cons. Also in the kit, is the digital manual to guide you through building the toys on the Switch itself. The hope of the Nintendo Labo is to get people interested in the engineering of devices, design and gaming.

There are many toys available to create; a fishing rod to play the fishing game, you can make a piano, you can even build a robot suit that has a visor and backpack to turn you into a real-life robot! And you can even put together a small car to drive around your house. There are two main Labo kits, the first being the ‘Variety Kit’ which comes with several toys to make and costs £59.99, the second being the robot kit which allows you to build the robot suit and it costs £69.99 which was released April 27th, 2018.

On the Joy-Con controllers, there is an embedded camera and the console has a touchscreen. This means that if you have the piano Toy-Con, it can actually watch the piano keys to see which you are pressing and see how well you are doing. The Nintendo Labo has endless opportunities to make new and innovative creations. This makes the games more exciting and interactive, getting people involved in creating the toys themselves.

So, that’s this weeks Appy Friday. I think the idea of creating your own accessories is so innovative. It makes the idea of the Switch so much more ingenious, as no matter what your age, you can enjoy building the Toy-Cons. It’s very different from anything any of the console manufacturers have done before. Let us know if you would try the Labo or already have some of the kits!