Why Can’t Video Games Make My Life Easier and Put Everything on Switch?

A few days ago, I flew to Canada for a friend’s bachelor party, prompting me to flip on my Switch for the first time in a few weeks and browse the eShop for a game to play on the flight. I was bummed, though not surprised, to find there wasn’t much that interested me, or that I hadn’t played elsewhere. But when I look around at the games I haven’t spent more time with in 2017— Yakuza 0 and Persona 5, chiefly—all I can do is sigh at my inability to transplant those games to my Switch.

I dumped 15 hours into Persona 5 last month and really enjoyed it, but work obligations meant I had to move on. It’s been driving me up a wall that I haven’t spent more time with it; right as I put it down, everything started to click.

My problem is there are precious few hours in the day where I can find time to sit down in front of my TV (or computer) and play a video game. It only happens when my wife and daughter have both gone to sleep, and even then, it hinges on whether I managed to get enough sleep the night before to muster the energy to play something that late. More often than not, I go to sleep.

But there are plenty of moments during the day where I could sneak in more time with a game, if the game was able to come with me. My office (and TV room) have very little to keep my 9-month-old daughter occupied, and anything she might be into is probably an expensive electronic that’s better left untouched. In the rooms we’ve set up for her, though, there’s plenty of space for her to walk, crawl, pull herself up, and generally amuse herself, even while my immediate attention is occupied elsewhere. That “elsewhere” could easily be a Switch game.

And look, I know why this isn’t the case. There are rational, understandable reasons why so many games aren’t on the Switch. It may also be the case that developers, burned on their experience being a third-party in the past, are hesitant to commit time to Switch. So this isn’t a rational call to arms, it’s merely a plea from a parent who wants to play (and love) more video games.

Please, developers. More games on Switch…especially you, Atlus. Anyone else, parents and non-parents alike, in the same boat as me?