It’s been nine years since the 2017 Nintendo Switch presentation

It was something ridiculous like 4AM. I slept through my first alarm. Eventually I stumbled out of bed, clumsily stabbed youtube.com into my browser, and stuck on the live keynote presentation.

Yep, it was early on January 13th, 2017 and Nintendo were on stage at the Tokyo Big Sight giving the world their first proper look at their then upcoming hybrid console. Of course we had our first glimpse at the NX, now Switch, the year prior via a flashy introduction trailer, but this was the proper unveiling, with all the details we were so desperately seeking.

The presentation went on for over an hour (condensed in the video above to under 30 minutes), and it had plenty of highlights, be that explaining how these odd new detachable ‘Joy-Con’ would work, what features they introduced — we can feel ice cubes inside them!? — to lots of neat game reveals. It was here we got our first look at ARMS, Splatoon 2, and of course Super Mario Odyssey.

Shinya Takahashi took to the stage to explain the philosophy behind this then new hybrid, succinctly sharing how this machine ties together Nintendo’s hardware DNA from the past near 40 years. It’s a great little bit from the entire presentation which I feel does a great job of highlighting how the Switch is essentially the culmination of all of Nintendo’s prior hardware experience — watch this if nothing else.

EA’s CEO even turned up to state his love of Nintendo and pledge support to the Switch — which in hindsight feels incredibly shallow, but at the time was an important nod of ‘yes, this thing has third-party support’.

The show ended in an amazing three-minute trailer for the upcoming Zelda epic, Breath of the Wild, along with confirmation that yes, we would be playing this on launch day in March.

I like to look back on this presentation form time to time, and reflect on where Nintendo was at the time — emerging confidently out of the wilderness of the Wii U era with a bold bet on their future. It’s a bet that paid off, and I’m thrilled it did.