Welp, the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct has happened. The information is out there now, and unfortunately, it’s kind of a mess. There’s plenty to be excited about, but with each passing day, more and more news keeps dropping that appears to be chipping away at any hype those cool new games have managed to cultivate. Truly, Nintendo has lost the plot. 

The Switch was a miraculous little platform for Nintendo. They had been on a bit of a losing streak for quite some time. They managed phenomenal levels of success with their handheld lines, but their home consoles performed worse and worse with every generation. It wasn’t until the Wii where they finally managed to land a genuinely successful home console once again, but even that had its share of problems. While on the surface the hardware was an unbridled success, it had a profoundly unhealthy game ecosystem. A small handful of titles managed to break through to sell extremely well, but the vast majority of software consistently fell short of expectations, especially considering the humongous install base. This was followed up with the Wii U, an almost unbelievably ill-advised platform that was so thoroughly tone deaf and short-sighted I have no doubt it will continue to be studied for generations to come. But the Wii U was building toward something, and that wound up being the Switch. 

It was a brilliant device that hit the market at exactly the right time, with exactly the right kind of tech under the hood to remain affordable but still look nice, exactly the right game (Breath of the WIld) to take social media by storm, and a consumer-friendly price tag, especially in the face of much more expensive platforms from their competition. 

When Covid hit the world, Nintendo lucked into it coinciding with the release of Animal Crossing, and that perfect storm introduced a ton of new players to their ecosystem. They released a free jump rope game to keep kids busy during the pandemic, too. It wasn’t super cheap, but it was affordable, and it was greatly appreciated. 

It’s been one of Nintendo’s most successful product lines in the company’s over 100 year history, but time stands still for no one, and it was finally time to create a proper successor. The Switch 2 was inevitable, but it was never going to be a sure thing. The video game industry is incredibly fickle, and now that a number of other handheld PCs are on the market promising the same things as the Switch, its uniqueness has been diminished greatly. 

So a lot was riding on that Switch 2 reveal presentation. It needed to be a home run. Instead, they tripped over their shoes on the way to the plate, and while they eventually stood up and took a couple of swings, at least to my mind, they struck out big time. (That’s enough baseball metaphors)

The Switch 2’s price, given what it can do, isn’t completely unreasonable. The games are another story. Nintendo seems to have thrown off the shackles of having a set standard for pricing, instead opting to price their games based on whatever they think they’re worth. In principle, I don’t disagree with this. Artists should value their work. But you also have to take into consideration the world around you, especially if you’re a giant corporation like Nintendo. This has led to Mario Kart World, a game that admittedly looks amazing, to be $80. Coupled with a $450 system, Nintendo has successfully priced themselves out of the very market that made the original Switch the runaway success it was. The Switch’s pricing hasn’t changed in the 8 years it’s been on the market, but the market itself has. People here in the US don’t have as much money as they used to, and with the prices of everything else continuing to skyrocket, the Switch 2 is going to look like an easy pass for a lot of folks, especially that family audience they successfully courted with Switch. 

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They’ve also priced themselves directly into the line of sight of their competition. Before, the Switch was less expensive than everything else out there. Now, the Switch 2 will be more expensive than some PS5 and Xbox consoles, and even more pricey than the lowest tier Steam Deck. They’ve lost one of their major advantages, and it’s going to hurt them. 

They say they’re doing this because they believe this is what these things are worth, but if history has shown us anything, it’s that they’re also doing this because they think they can. The DS was another one of the most successful platforms in the history of the industry, so when the 3DS launched, they priced it way higher than anyone expected because they thought they could. Then it bombed, and they were forced to take a sizable hit for their hubris. Now, to their credit, the company’s higher-ups took pay cuts, they dropped the price of the system dramatically, and gave people who bought the 3DS early a selection of exclusive free games. 

Of course, the other factor that caused the 3DS slump was its game library, which Nintendo seems to think it’s fixed with the Switch 2. The 3DS’s price drop was coupled with Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, both of which were massive successes. My guess is that they think they can get away with this Switch 2 pricing scheme because the games are already there this time around. There are brand new Mario Kart and Donkey Kong games within the first 2 months of the system’s post-launch life. However, those games are also way more expensive than they’ve ever been before, so I highly doubt they’re going to have the effect the 3DS ones did. And then there’s the rest of what they’ve shown off. There were a LOT of 3rd party games featured, which isn’t inherently a bad thing. But the problem there was just how many of them were known quantities. Did we really need to spend that much time with Cyberpunk? This game is years old, and it still looks better on other platforms. Yes, it’s neat to see stuff like Star Wars Outlaws coming to the system, but why was there so much focus on old games? Even on Nintendo’s own properties. Switch upgrades are cool, but they’re seriously trying to sell us on Kirby DLC right now? I adored Forgotten Land and will gladly purchase this upgrade, but is there anyone out there who’s never played the game before really excited to drop $80 on it for Switch 2? 

And then, at the risk of overusing the word, there’s the absolute hubris of charging $9.99 for the Switch 2 tour software. In a world where Astro’s Play Room and Aperture Desk Job are free, on what planet, where you’ve priced your platform the same as your competitors, is this a good idea? Read the room, Nintendo. They knew the price was going to be a tough pill to swallow, which is why they omitted it from the presentation entirely. They needed to give folks a little something more to make it go down a little more smoothly. 

Yes, I’m glad Elden Ring is coming to Switch 2, but it didn’t exactly put on a good show. It’s going to remain a better experience on other platforms, some of which can be had for less money than the Switch 2. So, who are they trying to sell this to? 

Look, Switch 2 is going to sell great out of the gate. Early adopters and scalpers are going to swallow the initial stock in a matter of hours, but I’d be willing to bet sales are going to slow to a crawl shortly thereafter. Yes, the games largely look great, but the entire story of the system has become its price. Every story, every piece of footage, it’s all been met with a barrage of people complaining abouthow expensive it is. Then we learned about game cards that don’t have the games on them, the joycons will likely still wind up with drift since it’s now been confirmed they don’t feature hall effect sticks, the D-pad on the Pro Controller has been “improved” but we don’t know what that means, rumors of the Switch upgrades only having the original Switch versions of the games on the cart with a download code for the upgrade are running rampant, as is the assumption that physical games are going to be more expensive than digital (that is the case in Europe, but not in the US, contrary to popular belief), the screen isn’t OLED (even though it seems the new screen is still very nice), the battery life is worse than the original Switch, third party games (at least according to the Direct) still tend to run like garbage, the whole integrated chat thing is neat but not exactly new, the backward compatibility list features hundreds of games that won’t work on Switch 2 (yet), the UI is nearly identical to the Switch 1’s (same with the eShop), the system requires the use of new microSD cards (your old ones won’t work), it still doesn’t have system-level achievements, NSO games still have to be played with that hideous spotted border, the Switch 2’s boxes (especially the Switch 1 upgrade games) are grotesque, the top USB-C port can’t do video out, and the biggest bummer of them all, players in the US and Canada can’t pre-order the system. 

Those are just the problems that hit me off the top of my head. There’s more, I’m sure. But they all add up to so much negativity surrounding something that should have been purely joyous. With the system physically looking so similar to the last one, they needed to go the extra mile to convince customers that the system was going to be worth the upgrade, and it seems like they failed in that mission in a number of ways. There’s still time to course-correct. Nintendo isn’t deaf to the public's largely negative opinion of the Switch 2, but they’re already being forced into a defensive position, and so far they’re standing their ground on all their decisions, including the price. 

I’m getting one, because I’m a nutcase. But I suspect the vast majority of the Switch’s current audience is going to be skipping this platform, at least for now, if not entirely. And if Sony and Microsoft manage to get their handhelds out in the next year or two, and they manage to do the whole Switch concept even better than Nintendo does, they could quickly find themselves back in that 3rd place position they’ve been languishing in for generations. 

Then again, I’ve been wrong before. 

What do you think?