Enlarge / Ars’ Kyle Orland tries out the Nintendo Switch in its portable mode. (credit: Jennifer Hahn)

After multiple hands-on events around the world on Friday, press and fans alike now have an idea of how the Nintendo Switch plays and feels. It has games (though not many new ones). It has a nice screen and a slim portable form factor. It has an interesting controller proposition.

Underlying all of those, however, is a problem. The Nintendo Switch has an identity crisis. Worse, Nintendo is actively pumping fuel and fire into this problem. The company’s confusing—and apparently stubborn—system launch strategy revolves around a packed-in peripheral that adds cost, bulk, and use-case confusion, and it goes so far as to point out the system’s technical limitations.

This is the kind of problem that should seem incredibly familiar to fans of the gaming industry. That’s right: Nintendo is on the verge of its own Kinect-like moment.