Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@Lazz
I did too. I never thought the console was priced unreasonably, especially the $500 bundle with Mario Kart.

I also thought PS5 and XS were priced reasonably, before they increased price not once but twice. Heck, even the NSW1 got a price increase lol. $230 for a Lite isnt bad, but given the Switch is in its 9th year its crazy to think all models cost $30-50 more than in 2017. Then again, it's at 154 million units sold and continues to sell. Nintendo was probably like "Crap... we gotta do something to funnel sales more toward NSW2. Econ 101- increase prices of all NSW1 models across the board to disincentivise purchases of Switch and incentivise purchases of NSW2."

And in fairness, it's a good plan. Really, it's the only one that makes sense to me as its a tactic to encourage Switch 2 sales. If you're gonna drop $400 on an OLED, may as well spend that extra $50 and get a Switch 2 with backward compatibility and be covered for the next 8 years or so.

What's really crazy though is even after the price increases, NSW1 still continues to truck along like nothing ever changed lol.

Switch2 is absolutely reasonably priced IMO, and as others have said - the MKW bundle was very competitive. My only bone of contention was the software price of MKW when purchased separately, which definitely felt fairly inflated.

When you consider also that the Switch2 price includes the dock & HMDI cable, the pricepoint is really quite decent I feel

And Resident Evil 9 joins the club of the game key-cards. Well, I was not expecting anything else but still when I saw it today in my local retailer for pre-order it hurt a little

In this case I am getting it on PS5.

Got my Switch Lite OLED with touchscreen support (Super5 Takai Udon hardware mod) today!

@Zuljaras
Every non-1st party game will be a key card, with rare exception. Certainly the big AAA.

Thats why Im so glad I switched to digital. I don't have to worry about sacrificing my hybrid play for physical. I recently sold 400 of my Switch games, all my remaining PS4, PS5, X1, XS and DS games since I ran out of room and own all the NSW games digitally anyways (at least the ones I really care about).

@JaxonH Good for you

As for me when I switch to all digital, I am also switching to not paying for games like in the good old days

@Zuljaras
...uh what? lol

@rallydefault

@Zuljaras
Ah, lol

But Horizon is a Sony property...

I have both a Steam Deck LCD and a MSI Claw A1M both I purchased at around £200 secondhand. I say £200 but the Steam Deck was £230 but came with a high speed Samsung Plus 512GB micro SD card so I valued that at £30 as a secondhand purchase. The MSI was about £202 and just came as it would normally with its own case and psu. It's the faster model with 1TB storage.

However I'm loving the Steam Deck, absolutely fantastic with Steam OS but the MSI Claw is a bit rubbish because of Windows so I'm gradually getting my head around converting it to Steam OS too. Windows is awful on these devices. The Steam Deck has brilliant battery life really and peaks at 15W TDP but is mostly below that. I get an easy 4 hours on the games I've been playing but I haven't been pushing the Steam Deck at all. The MSI claw is very poor but you can only really control TDP with Steam OS it seems. The MSI Claw has a ridiculous 28,000 passmark CPU score, about 3x the performance of the Steam Deck. Once I get the MSI Claw nicely setup it should be an amazing emulation device as well as for pc gaming but for the moment its not great. It feels like Windows is creating problems all the time but maybe Steam OS will as well on that device. It's clear that Steam OS and Steam Deck is a match made in heaven.

Despite the weaker performance I feel like the Steam Deck is the better portable device. It's on a more advanced fabrication process and uses less power. It feels like 15W TDP max is where you want to be.

However I feel once I've configured the MSI Claw correctly maybe it will be the better device. I have to say I don't really care about the higher resolution of 1080p and have not played anything yet at 120Hz. I keep intending to spend more time configuring it but end up just playing on the Steam Deck.

I also have to configure the Steam Deck for emudeck and heroic game launcher. A lot of the simpler games that seem better for portable use are on my epic account due to the free weekly games. Those are smaller, more pick up and play and use much less power.

Elden Ring for Switch 2 has apparently been delayed to 2026 so they can optimize the game more. Good call probably, I respect it.

I'd like to take back any implication I might have had that Switch 2 might underperform in the long term compared to Switch 1, since that was when I thought there was a chance that Xbox had any future at all. I'm now fairly certain it will sell Switch 1 numbers, more or less.

My concerns that Nintendo are being stupid and limiting how many people will buy their B-tier games because of their borderline "full price or nothing" policy with bare minimum sales are going to hurt their B-tier games for no good reason, I still maintain tho.

It's certainly hard to justify the "Switch 2 is a bad value platform" arguments once you add any kind of medium term thinking or awareness of the landscape. A couple of years from now it'll be Switch 2, a more expensive PlayStation or an entirely unsubsidised platform either from XBox/Valve/whoever. And Switch 2 is going to look, relatively speaking, very affordable

Yeah, to be fair, the game pricing controversy and the state of the middle class were practically the only things that were ever making me doubt Switch 2's success (and even then, I was fairly certain it'd outsell every Nintendo home console except the Wii and the Switch 1). If anything, when I initially came out of the big Switch 2 direct a few months ago it felt like Nintendo had perma-won the console wars, especially with the momentum they had with the Switch.

I'm still sad about Xbox's fall, but I'm glad that it's sort of forcing people to finally see the reality of the overall gaming space. Thousand-dollar portable PCs, a PlayStation 6 that's likely going to be at the absolute least 600 dollars (though I personally think more like 800) with 70 and 80-dollar games just like Nintendo... yea, a $450 Switch 2 doesn't look so bad anymore, does it?

Regardless, the next few years are going to bumpy and costly for the industry, and I don't wish any of the companies ill. I love this hobby and would have liked to see all of the Big 3 pull through, but it seems like we're gonna be back to the day of just 2.

@rallydefault Yup, this hobby is quickly becoming an expensive luxury - with quite high extremities, depending on your choice of system/s.

I still think the overall Switch2 pricing point is spot on, considering inclusion of the dock as well. Some of the software pricing though IMO is eye-watering (80$ for Mario Kart World, if purchased separately)

While it's cool that Switch 2 just gets 3rd party announcements randomly out of the blue now like PS/Xbox and hence suggests the Game Awards may end up being packed full of Switch 2 news, I admit I will miss when quiet times were a hint of a Direct incoming.

It's a sad state of the industry to see Kirby Air Riders for $70 where it's an extremely ambitious and content-filled game that took so much time and effort to make, and pretty much all what fans wanted (that is confirmed to be a full game not relying on post-launch additions), while Mario Kart World is $80, a decent game but is a pretty barebones experience and actively is against its fans.

As I've seen someone say before, Nintendo could fill 100 minutes full of new content for Kirby Air Riders, and 15 minutes with almost no new content whatsoever for Mario Kart World. The difference is absolutely insane, and it's very sad MK World will probably end up selling better.

To be slightly more fair to both, the last Mario Kart started as a game with the same amount of content as the previous three Mario Karts except without real battle courses this time, now for 10 more dollars. (with admittedly the very good but limited time deal of getting an entire 2nd full priced game for free)

Sakurai's last game is one of the most impossible, content rich video games anyone has made, arguably, even before DLC. And the previous Kirby Air Ride even I needed hours and hours across multiple rentals for me to even fully appreciate it as more than a decent rental.

I'm mostly saying this to be fair, since I prefer Kirby Air Ride to all but two Mario Karts so I'm way more rooting for this game regardless of what I just said.

@PikminMarioKirby
I'm sorry, but seriously, in what world is MK World "barebones"? That's just such an objectively false statement.

It has all the same racing as every previous Mario Kart, a new Knockout mode, and an entire world with hundreds of collectibles in Free Roam.

Every mode might not be for everyone, but for the sake of sanity and the English language, "barebones" is not an accurate term for that amount of content.