Nintendo unveils cardboard Switch accessories

Nintendo has unveiled a range of cardboard accessories which can be added to the Nintendo Switch games console.

They can turn the Switch into a fishing rod, a steering-wheel, and even an intricate mechanical robot suit which gamers can use to play bespoke mini-games.

Called the Nintendo Labo, the cardboard accessories are intended to contribute to what Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima called the "new ways of playing".

These designs are being made available through kits which are selling for up to $80 (£57), alongside the software needed to play specially designed games with them.

Reviewers appeared to give thumbs up to the accessories.

Beneath much of these plans is the Labo's pitch to parents as an educational games console, offering children an opportunity to play with engineering concepts and maybe begin designing their own.

This is par for the course for the Switch, which was released targeting a different market segment than games consoles manufactured by Sony (Hanover: SON1.HA - news) and Microsoft (Euronext: MSF.NX - news) .

Both the latest generations of the PlayStation and Xbox have been competing to become the more powerful domestic computers, and there was little room for Nintendo to disrupt them in that race.

Instead of attempting to beat the technology giants at their own game, the Switch entered the market as a portable tablet, an evolution of Ninendo's Gameboy in many ways.

Launched alongside its flagship game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it won praises from reviewers and consumers for being different.

The cardboard accessories offered by the Labo are different again, and while they are unlikely to push the portable console into the hands of hardcore PC gamers, they may offer more creative types an opportunity to find, as Mr Kimishima said, new ways of playing.