How to Convince Your Parents to Get You a Nintendo Switch

It’s a tough ask. The Nintendo Switch is out, and it isn’t cheap. You probably don’t have enough money saved up to afford the $300 needed, let alone a copy of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which is, of course, essential).

Your only hope is convincing your parents that not only do you need one, but also that if you don’t get one there will be serious, potentially devastating consequences to your life. But parents are like Dark Souls bosses: tough to overcome. You need an argument, and it’s gotta be a good one.

Never fear, GameSkinny is here to help.

Implement this five-point plan, and you’ll be clicking, undocking, and on the move in no time at all with your very own Switch.  

Argument 1: It Will Teach You Life Lessons

If there’s one thing parents love more than educational stuff, it’s educational stuff that you will actually use in the real world. And the Switch has some games that will get you learning the fun way.  

With games like 1-2 Switch you’ll learn how to play baseball, perform yoga, eat a sandwich, calm a crying baby, and milk a cow. These, of course, are all essential things that you will definitely do at some point in your life.

And if you’re one of those rare, lucky kids whose parents insist that you need to count marbles on a regular basis, then simply show them the 1-2 Switch video and drop the mic — because they won’t need any further convincing. 

Argument 2: You Won’t Spend Hours On YouTube

The Switch is not an entertainment center. It’s a serious piece of hardware for serious people. Case in point: there’s no media player included. How can you waste hours watching music videos and looking at cats if the ability to do so simply doesn’t exist?

You can’t. 

If your parents thought about it really hard, they could almost class it as an exercise in responsibility and self-control. Maybe they’ll think:

“Hey, my daughter/son could have asked for a PS4 Pro, but they didn’t. They went for something with far fewer features, and there’s less chance of them viewing inappropriate material online!”

Place the argument in that context, and you’re almost certainly guaranteed to win them over.

But if not…

Argument 3: You Won’t Be Begging for Hundreds of Games

The launch window for the Switch really doesn’t have that many games — and the ones it does have, you may have already played on other consoles (or even PC). You’ll have to wait until later in the year to see a decent amount of stuff get released.

Furthermore, Nintendo’s online service isn’t going to be like the Xbox Game Pass. You won’t be paying ten bucks a month for over a hundred games. No, you’ll be paying less than $30 a year, for one game a month. And that game will be an SNES or NES game, so the probability you’ll want to play it will be minimal.

Look at it another way — your parents will be investing in a console that will actually help you play less and therefore improve the chances of you getting your homework done. How can they argue against that?

Argument 4: It’s Cheaper to Kill Two Birds with One Stone

Thanks to its portable nature, the Switch is not only the new must-have home console, but the new must-have handheld. And if you consider the cost saving of getting the Switch to cover both bases compared to, say, the PS4 and a 3DS, your parents would actually save money by getting you Nintendo’s latest hybrid.

That also means you can sit in the backseat on long trips to visit relatives and keep quiet. Think how much those hours of peace and quiet would mean to your parents. It’s almost impossible to put a monetary figure on it. 

Argument 5: All My Friends Are Getting One

When in doubt, roll out the peer pressure. Lay it on thick. Relay to your parents, in graphic, emotional detail, how much of a hit your social life will take if you don’t get a Switch. Recount the story of the kid at school who was shunned because his parents refused to get him a PS3 and — unlike his friends — he wasn’t able to headshot campers in CoD. 

If that fails to sway them, act miserable, mope about, communicate with one-word responses, and wait until they cave in. It will happen. 

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If you try these tips out and successfully manage to bag a Nintendo Switch, which argument worked the best? Let us know in the comments!