Nintendo Announces Nintendo Switch Airport Lounges

While the flying experience remains awful for most travelers, no company has helped make flights [...]

By Marc Deschamps

While the flying experience remains awful for most travelers, no company has helped make flights more bearable than Nintendo. It started, of course, with the creation of the Game Boy and, all these years later, Nintendo Switch might just be the single best way to make air travel enjoyable. Nintendo seems keenly aware of this fact, as the company has announced pop-up lounges that will begin appearing in airports starting February 13th! The pop-ups will feature playable Switch games, giveaways and more. The company has not announced exactly which airports these pop-ups will appear in, or what games players can expect to find.

There are certainly a number of great options for Nintendo to display in this type of setting, most notably Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Regardless of what Nintendo will have on display, however, the program seems like a cool way to kill some time while waiting for a flight! Fliers tend to be a captive audience, particularly since TSA advises travelers arrive well in advance of their flights. The only way Nintendo could make the concept better is if they offered Switch consoles and games for sale in these pop-up locations, though that seems a bit unlikely.

Nintendo has managed to find a lot of success with Switch. The handheld hybrid released just under three years ago, and has managed to sell more than 52 million units, since. With exclusives such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX and the highly-anticipated Animal Crossing: New Horizons both set for release next month, it seems likely the console will continue to expand its audience.

Of course, Nintendo will have to do just that in order to compete with the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The company is intent on supporting the system in the long term, but doing so will require getting Nintendo Switch into the hands of gamers, not to mention the more casual crowd. Airport pop-ups seem like a great way to do just that.

Have you purchased a Nintendo Switch yet? Or are you still holding out? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!

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