 Ask any parent 20-something or longtime video game fan what the most coveted gadget of the holiday season is, and the Nintendo Switch will be high on that list, probably at the top. Nintendo! It's been almost a year since the hybrid handheld launched, and it's still pretty hard to get your hands on one. And for good reason. The Switch is the most innovative console in nearly a decade, basically since the original Wii. Besides being immensely popular, the Switch also saved Nintendo. It's easy to forget how dire the company's console business was in the wake of the Wii U's failure. Nintendo found success with the 3DS and its sequel, but the handheld was not enough to keep the company's biggest franchises afloat, and sales of the Wii U painted a bleak picture of the company's future in the living room. Critics were telling Nintendo to exit the console hardware market, move everything to mobile, and call it a day. So when the Switch was first unveiled, fans were skeptical. Some thought Nintendo had made another gimmicky device with funky detachable controllers, an unorthodox docking system, and a mobile processor that can never match PlayStation or Xbox. Despite these initial concerns, the Switch proved to be a massive hit. This month, after only nine months on the market, Nintendo said it sold 10 million units, and many times that in software sales. It stole the show this year as the fastest selling home console in Nintendo's history, setting the course for the company's resurgence back to the forefront of the gaming market. So how did Nintendo pull this off? It's important to think of the Switch as the evolution of the company's previous hardware. It's always made wacky devices using nascent technologies like 3D and motion control. While an eye for innovation hasn't always paid off, anyone remember the Virtual Boy? The company has a history of success in handheld, starting with the Game Boy, and more recently with the Nintendo DS and the 3DS. For the Switch, Nintendo put portability above all else, and the company struck gold. You can play it on an airplane or in bed, or even on the subway. The device truly is a hybrid solution that transforms to enjoy games in a number of different ways, whether docked, handheld, or kickstand out using the detachable Joy-Con. There's versatility to choose how you want to play and where. It takes the concept of console gaming and turns it into an on-the-go social experience that gets you off your couch. Yes, you can play at home, alone, but there are plenty of options for multiplayer using both split screen play or local co-op. This has always been a part of Nintendo's DNA. Who doesn't love to play a friend in Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart? And that's where the Switch's success story becomes so heavily tied to its games. Nintendo made sure the first year of the Switch included The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, two incredible entries in two of its most prolific franchises. It's unheard of for a console to launch with a Game of the Year contender, and it's even less likely for a console to get two of them in its first year. But Nintendo was smart, and it had a new Mario and a new Zelda game in the works for the Wii U. It moved development to its new console and it shuffled its release schedule to make the must-own Switch titles out of the gate. Those two games have gone on to sell millions and win multiple awards. They also re-established Nintendo as the influential and innovative developer we've always known them to be. You can easily argue that the Switch would have never taken off without Nintendo's pre-built cachet, the company's behind some of the longest-running most beloved series since the beginning of gaming. Characters like Kirby, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, they've become cultural icons that go way beyond the core gaming demographic. But when Nintendo's hardware fails, fans have nowhere to play its games, and the company's reputation suffers if people aren't buying its software. Its entire business model depends on its cultural significance. So fans were desperately looking for a reason to cheer Nintendo on, hoping it wouldn't just fade away and peddle nostalgia. They found that in the Switch. The Switch is a Frankenstein of all the best ideas Nintendo's ever had. The 3DS showed Nintendo how a well-made handheld gaming machine with great games could thrive in a mobile-dominated landscape. Much like the Switch, the Wii shied away from top-tier graphics and realism in favor of motion controls, local multiplayer, and Nintendo's well-tested game design. The Wii U was definitely flawed, but it was an important stepping stone because it first introduced the idea of merging mobile with the home console. Where the Wii U was a tablet powered by a console that sat plugged into your TV, the Switch was the inverse, a console powered by a tablet. So while the Wii U's tablet screen was clunky and poorly designed and the device was a huge flop, it did pave the way for Nintendo to incorporate these ideas, alongside the benefits of the Wii and the 3DS, all into the Switch. The Switch is a proper portable console in all the ways the Wii U failed to be. It's still too early to judge the overall impact of the Switch. Consumers have been more than happy to excuse its bigger flaws because the first few games have been so amazing. But there's the online service that won't launch until next year, there's the perpetual supply problems that make just getting the thing an obnoxious struggle. Nintendo fans will be less forgiving next year when Zelda and Mario are old news, and it has to rely on other developers to help its platform succeed. But that's where the secret to the Switch's long-term success might be. Since launch, we've seen a bunch of interest from indie game makers and even big-name developers. Some really great games like Stardew Valley, Axiom Verge, The Elder Scrolls Skyrim, even the new Doom reboot have all made their way to the Switch. There's only going to be more to come. As it stands right now, Nintendo is the only player in the portable gaming market, and consumers have shown that they're really willing to buy into its vision. Sony already tried with its PSP and Vita handhelds, and the company says it has no plans to make another one anytime soon. Microsoft has also toyed with the idea of portable gaming with handheld Xbox prototypes in the past, but it's never taken the plunge. Apple and other makers of set-top boxes running Android, they've all tried to bridge the smartphone game market with a TV ecosystem, but mobile games on big screens have never really taken off. But without a constant stream of hot new games to play, amazing hardware becomes pretty much useless. So it's up to the developers to cement the Switch's future. Sure, Nintendo's planning a bunch of new games in its own franchises, like a new Kirby, a new Pokemon, a much-anticipated reboot of Metroid Prime, but those take years to make. In the meantime, the company needs to quench the thirst of players by working with devs to bring premium titles that are fun, innovative, but also complex enough to keep the Switch in the hands of consumers, at least until the next Zelda game comes out. Luckily, with all the consumer success of the Switch, Nintendo should have plenty of cash to do just that.