Hands on with Nintendo Labo

kind of is. Nintendo put a teaser video out on YouTube a while back, and lots of people were saying, Oh my gosh, this looks so cool, but you really have to try it out to see what it's all about. That's probably the reason why Nintendo brought me and my son up to San Francisco to test it out. We were there at a special Nintendo Labo lab with a bunch of other parents and kids, YouTubers, bloggers, all handpicked

to play with Labo before anyone else. All right, so what is It's a toy kit that comes with big pieces of cardboard and they're all kind of pre scored, so all you have to do is punch out the pieces and fold them together to create things. But here's the brilliant part. You follow on screen instructions on the Nintendo switch, which are really kind of elaborate. You can kind of rotate, zoom in and out see how things

should look and what you should be doing. Think about like if you ever play with Lego, how you follow those instructions, except these are much much easier to follow. So what do we built. We built a radio controlled car and here's how it works. You build like kind of the cardboard part, but we built the two Nintendo

controllers into it. Those became the wheels of the car, and then when you press the buttons on the Nintendo switch, the little RC car would actually go and it went by the two controllers sort of vibrating and on a smooth surface that would cause the cardboard to move forward. I know, it's ingenious and this is the kind of stuff that you get with the labbo. So once you're done building your creations, kids are gonna love decorating them. Now. Because we were at the Nintendo event, they had all

kinds of cool stuff at our disposal. Today, decorate with like little stickers and colored tape and markers and crayons and all kinds of neat stuff. None of that comes in the box, But if you don't want to find that stuff in a place like Michael's, you can buy these special accessory kit Nintendo's gonna sell for ten dollars, which includes a bunch of that stuff. We also made a cardboard fishing rod and this was really ingenious as well, so it took a while to put this thing together.

It was quite elaborate. And then it has like rubber bands in it that simulate pulling fish out of the water. So I know, again tough to explain, but the Nintendo switch slides into like a little cardboard base which shows images of fish on the screen, and when you pull the rod up, you feel the tension from the rubber bands as you try to catch fish, and I thought that was really cool. Nintendo really puts some thought into

these toys. Now, we didn't build the rest of them, but we did see all the various Labo toys in action. There's a house, there's a motorcycle, a piano, a robot suit and they're all elaborate and quite interactive. So with the house, for instance, you can play games on the screen like the Nintendo Switch. Screen becomes the front of the house, and then you insert little cardboard plugs into sockets on the side, and when you switch those sockets out,

you can play different games on screen. It's really weird but really fun. So in addition to making and playing, there's another aspect to the whole labo thing, and that's learning. Each kind of toy gets its magic through interactions with the Nintendo Switch. So, for instance, on the RC car, all of a sudden, you realize there's a little ir camera on the controller that can follow you around and you see yourself on the screen on the Nintendo Switch,

So that was cool. In the piano, for instance, it can change its tune by sort of seeing different reflective tapes that are on the cardboard plugs that you insert into that It all sounds a little confusing, Well, you just kind of have to play with it to understand, and I think kids will really get the hang of this as they figure this out. We had lots of fun building, decorating and playing with the creations, and I

think that's worth the experience of these toys. But your kids can also take it to the next level and really understand how they work. And they can also code them to do their own commands, so that's kind of cool too. I think this is a really unique way to use the Nintendo Switch to play more than just standard video games. But it's also kind of hard to grasp the concept, so I think that could make or

break the commercial success of this. So if you think back in Nintendo's history, They've had a lot of ups and downs. They're famous for making these sort of unique accessories for their game consoles. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Virtual Boy not so much, Light Zapper awesome, power pad awesome. Then there was that little gyroscope guy. I always thought that was really cool, but I don't really think it

was very successful. Bottom line, if your kid is into video games and building things like Lego Creations, I think you should give Labo a try. It launches April twentieth with two kits. There's a Variety kit which is seventy dollars that includes the part for the RC cars, the fishing rod, the house, the motorbike, and the piano. Then there's the Robot kit that's eighty dollars and that includes everything you need to build this pretty elaborate interactive robot suit.

There you have it. If you want to see the story on my Nintendo Labo feel you can go to my website. Just go to Rich on tech dot tv for the link. And if you enjoy this podcast, please review us and rate us on the Apple Podcasts app. That way more folks see the podcast and experience it. And thanks to everyone who has done that so far, I really do appreciate it. I'm Rich Damiro. Thanks so much for listening. Rich on tech dot tv. I'll talk to you real soon.