Jeronan

@Axecon It's such a cop out by Nintendo, with the lack of analog triggers. Plus on top the unfixed D-pad issues.

The fact I have to pay 130 euro for this Pro 2 controller here in Scandinavia makes it all so much worse, when the PS5 dual sense controller is 90 euro!

@dskatter CP2077 has cross-save across all platforms, so I hope the Switch has been included in that.

So if the reviewer has already played it on another platform, then for the Switch 2 version he could just focus on the technical stuff. How it runs, how it looks, etc.

@Michael0916 Ehh yes, because all other third party Switch 2 games (like CP2077) are normally priced.

@Michael0916 Here in Norway. I paid 599 NOK for Mario Kart Deluxe.

Mario Kart World is selling for 999 - 1090 NOK/SEK in Norway and Sweden and it's the same in Denmark.

We are being screwed over by the Scandinavian Nintendo distributor Bergsala AB.
The Switch 2 console is 6500 NOK / SEK and the Mario Kart World bundle I bought is 7500 NOK / SEK.

@Michael0916 Even with those added challenges you described, it just sadly doesn't change anything.

If you take free roam away, then Mario Kart World is actually a huge downgrade from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Gone are the unique kites you could collect.
Gone are the unique tires you could collect.

You could customize your kart and tune it with different tires and kites. All that seems to be gone now.
It was actually one of the most exciting features in Mario Kart 8 and you wanting to unlock everything, so you could personalize the driving characteristics of your kart!

They have could done so much more with Free roam, where you could actually do various quests/missions and/or challenges that unlock unique tires and kites and maybe new type of car customization options, to tune your kart.

It would have made Free roam actually a lot more fun and interesting.

Mario Kart World is so far a classic example of streamlining the game in the wrong direction and taking away features.

And the worst of it all is that Nintendo charges us 100 Euro for this game! While Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was 60 euro.

@vanmunt I think it's actually a huge problem for the Switch 2 and is holding it back now. Since NVidia DLSS is of no help when all these games are resolution locked.

This is also typical Nintendo for not being more pro-active by contacting studios/publishers to prepare patches for their games before the Switch 2 release.

It takes literally barely any effort to create a small patch that unlocks resolution and frame rates. It's the least they could have done.

Especially Microsoft was way more pro-active in this, with the release of XBOX Series X and the amount of games that were XBOX Series X ready with both resolution and fps improvements.
though sadly Sony set of course the greedy precedent with paid PS5 upgrades for 10 bucks.

@vanmunt Most Switch 1 games don't offer any improvement and will require willingness from the publishers/studios to offer a patch to unlock resolution and FPS.

I have a lot of Switch 1 games and almost all of them are major titles (as Im not so into Indie and shovelware stuff) and barely any of them showed any improvements, due to them being locked to very low resolutions and 30 FPS locks.
So almost all of my Switch 1 games don't look nor play any better on the Switch 2.

Only real and very noticeable improvement was Pokemon Violet. Ironically. So that's definitely a positive.

@Pillowpants There is sadly not much explanation needed, as there is simply not much to do in Free roam mode.

I have been driving around in Free roam last night for over an hour and all I found are those blue power-up challenges which are all the same (collect blue coins within the time limit ).

Other than that, I guess its the fastest way to collect gold coins, if you want to unlock all the different car options quickly.

Free roam has so far been a HUGE let down! and this was actually the feature I have been looking forward to the most.

@vanmunt I mean hardware wise the Switch 2 is obviously better. The larger size alone makes it ergonomically better for my large hands.

But when it comes to the games, it has been a bit of a huge let down so far, other than Pokemon Scarlet/Violet ironically.

A little bit disappointed so far.

Mario Kart World is honestly quite disappointing. Especially for 100 euro! Besides Free roam, it has far less features/modes as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Grand Prix mode feels very much Mario Kart 8 and free roam mode feels more like a gimmick to jump on the Open World game train, than anything else. All you do is drive around (gets old quick) and do some Blue Powerup challenges.

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet look and play significantly better. That is a nice positive.

But with my other Switch 1 games I have not noticed any real differences.

The paid Zelda:BOTW upgrade is an outright scam and total rip-off!

I literally copied my original game to the Switch 2 first and run it, before I downloaded the Switch 2 edition and run that one.
There is no noticeable graphical differences whatsoever! Nowhere near what they showed in the trailer.

So Nintendo either screwed up with the digital download of the Switch 2 edition on the EU eShop or we've been scammed.

It looks significantly better and finally smooth FPS.

On the other hand, the paid upgrade for Zelda:BOTW is just a rip-off! Hardly see any difference at all, other than smoother FPS.

It's a nice Mario Kart game, but the Open world mode is very lackluster and a completely missed opportunity sadly.

There is really not much to do, other than just driving around (which gets old real fast) and doing those blue coin Power Up challenges.

So the Free Roam mode feels more like a Gimmick to jump on the open world bandwagon, than anything else.

I must say the improvement with Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is definitely noticeable!

Super sharp resolution now and good FPS all around. No blurry stuttering mess anymore.

@MoldyPasta At least I hope it has a dark mode, like on Switch 1. That is all I care about honestly.

I am not really interesting in backgrounds, as how much time do you spend on the home screen?

@OrangeSoda The problem is that these games don't even consistently hit 30 fps. In a lot of cases the games suffers from terrible pop-ins and slide show performance and stutters occasionally.

@KingMike and Microsoft does only XBOX?

XBOX looks just a pet project for Microsoft, compared to its main business and income stream lol.

It's one of the most valuable companies in the world, next to Apple.

But all this is completely beside the point. We are talking about Playstation and XBOX, not all the other businesses both Microsoft and Sony have.
I only mentioned GamePass and why Microsoft has a huge advantage there with it being both available on XBOX and PC and overall being much greater value for money, due to First party titles and many good third party titles being available on day one.
Unlike Sony PS Plus Premium, that is only available on Playstation, with no day one releases.

@Medic_alert That is very suprising and maybe its in the US, as I don't know what its being sold for over there?

But here in Europe the XBox Series X costs the same as the PS5.
I paid 600 euro for my XBOX Series X at launch and the same again 3 years later for my PS5.
Before that I paid 450 euro for my XBOX One X Scorpio Edition.

So if the reported production cost of the XBox console was $500, which always goes down after 2-3 years. They must at the least break even (or at least a small profit) with sales in Europe, but definitely not at loss.

And now, because of global market situation and continuing inflation, the price of both Series X and PS5 have gone up to almost 700 euro.

But yeah, if they sell the XBOX Series X for under 500 bucks in US, then they would sell at a loss with the Series X.
Which surprises me, as after PS3/XBOX360 era, both Sony and MS wanted to stop selling their consoles at a loss and at minimum break even.

@OldGamer999 What isn't home about XBOX Series S/X ?

It's as home console as the Sony Playstation 5 digital/5.

I have both XBOX Series X and Playstation 5. They are both traditional home consoles.

@Medic_alert Microsoft has one huge advantage with XBox and that is that they dominate the PC market with their Windows OS.

PC GamePass is doing well too and with GamePass Ultimate (which I have), you can play games on both XBOX and PC.

So Microsoft doesn't need to sell as many consoles like for example Sony with Playstation, to make a profit.

You also need to remember that both MS and Sony's strategy with consoles has changed a while back. They no longer sell consoles at a loss, like they did in the past. They sell now with a profit. They already stopped with that with the previous generation.
PS3 and XBOX360 were the last consoles that were sold cheap and at a loss.

@Axecon Ehh not really. After playing both Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal..... Persona 4 Golden isn't holding up well at all.
It looks really rough and low res. Especially on anything larger than a PS Vita screen. Even in handheld mode on the Switch 1 screen it's barely passable. The port to PC and other consoles was a zero effort direct port without any optimizations.
It also misses a lot of the excellent QoL features that both Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royale have.

@Vyacheslav333 I just checked the Persona 3 Reload info.

Voice Direction:
The voices of the Japanese dub were recorded from scratch.
The English version features a mostly entirely new voice cast.

So yeah, at least the English voice actors were new.

I mean. It's been 20 years and voices change over so many years and it might be hard to get the entire original cast together again.

As I don't think they used the same voice actors for the Persona 3 remake either?
I think it was an entirely new cast of younger voice actors.
It still turned out to be an amazing game with excellent voice acting!

So I wouldn't be surprised they will do the same with the Persona 4 remake.

I am not really sold on Legends Z-A either. I never managed to finish Legends Arceus, as it just became so repetitive and boring very quickly.
What I have seen so far from Legends Z-A, it seems to have the same repetition with singular focus on night time battles.
So you either throwing pokeballs ad nauseum during day time and then fighting ad nauseum at night.

And that is the difference with the mainline games. They have so many different activities, to break up the repetition.

Well here in Scandinavia ( Norway, Sweden, Denmark ), the Nintendo distributor is doing the scalping!
Base console 650 euro and Mario Kart World bundle at 750 euro!

So I have absolutely no desire to buy a Switch 2 any time soon.

Wow. Instead of 10 meter draw distance (grass/pokemon), we now get 20 meter draw distance on the Switch 2.

Must have been a huge undertaking by Game freak to update that one line of code.

@TheExile285 It could never have been for storage reasons, as the old games aren't that big in size at all. Especially 1.5 and 2.5HD/remix.

More than likely that it was too much work to get them to run on the Switch 1.

@WhiteUmbrella
Valve's whole core business model is Steam. A digital only PC game store platform!
They themselves started the whole digital only race back in 2003 and when it became so successful, others took note and wanted a piece of the cake and started their own digital storefronts.
GoG is one of the earlier competitors at that time and launched back in 2008.

And much later Ubisoft and EA started releasing their own launchers with Digital Store, with Epic Games coming late to the party.

Then we had Google's failed misadventure with Stadia, which was sadly just released too soon and internet not being ready for Cloud only gaming at the time (Many countries, including large parts of the US, have bad internet services).
Now both XBox Cloud and Sony PS5 Streaming are actually working really well and I use it often.

PS. Just because you are able to side-load games on a Steam Deck (which is just a pet side project for them), doesn't mean that Valve very much locks you into Steam's ecosystem and all games bought on Steam, only work on Steam.
So lets not kid ourselves. Valve's core business "IS" Steam and they want you to buy games on Steam and lock you into their platform! Which they have been doing since 2003.

When it comes to Nintendo, the first eShop released on 3DS back in 2011.

TDLR; Buying games digitally has been fully embraced and accepted on PC for the past 15+ years or so and you are very hard pressed to even find a physical PC game copy in a store these days.

But somehow on Game consoles it's super duper evil, even though most of it is completely out of the hands of Console manufacturers Sony and MS (for example) nowadays, when major game publishers push for Live service games and games that require a constant internet connection and don't even work offline. A lot of these games stop working, when they shut down these game's servers. Especially Ubisoft has gotten major critique for this, with many older games no longer playable! But other major publishers like 2K, EA and ActiVision are no better.

@WhiteUmbrella We don't know yet. Everything is pure speculation at this point, since Nintendo refuses to release the full specifications of the Switch 2.
Hell, they never did for the Switch 1 either and tech sites had to wait till they got hold of the official console and run bench tests themselves to get the actual numbers.

So we have to wait for the same with the Switch 2, till tech sites get hold of the actual console in June and manage to run bench tests on them (and take the console apart and analyze everything).

Either way. The Switch 2 SoC has double the Core count and almost 3x the GPU specs of the AMD Zen 2 SoC in Steam deck.
So if we cut this in half in handheld mode (similar to Switch 1 performance benchmarks), the Switch 2 should in theory still be able to outmatch the Steam deck in handheld mode.

Again! All speculation at this point, until someone posts some real benchmark results of the Switch 2.

@WhiteUmbrella Oh my.......

You do know that the Steam Deck has an AMD Zen 2 SoC?
AMD Zen 2 was officially released in 2019.
Which means that the design specification for this SoC "on paper" was probably finalized around 2014-2015.

This custom AMD Zen 2 SoC for the Steam deck isn't coming anywhere near the SoC specifications of the Switch 2.

6 nm AMD APU
CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32)
APU power: 4-15W

Especially the GPU capabilities of the Steam deck are serious weak point now and why none of the major game releases of the last 2 years even run on the Steam deck and the few that do, run extremely poorly with terrible resolution and other compromises.

The AMD Z1 / Z1 Extreme are way more capable SoC's, but they are quite power hungry and need serious cooling. The fan noise on the Rog Ally and other PC handhelds is crazy. I thought the fan noise on the Steam deck was already annoying.
So I understand why Valve skipped the AMD Z1 SoC line and wait for a next generation that is hopefully more power efficient and able to deal with a lower fan noise.

Since they are using Unreal Engine and it having multi-platform support, a port to the Switch 2 should be a pretty straightforward process.

People are so wrong. It's not even funny!

A lot of you don't understand the CPU / GPU design and manufacturing process and release pipelines.

Intel, AMD, Apple, Nvidia silicon. The design specs of a new generation CPU and/or GPU are often already finished on paper 4-5 years before actual release.
It takes a hell lot of time, going from a technical specification to actual mass-production and release of a new CPU/GPU/SoC.
Especially if they are also switching to a new nM manufacturing process. This takes a lot of time in preparation, testing, validation, certification, etc.
This is a very deliberate process and they are doing it this way for a good reason.

So when it comes to the Switch 2 SoC, it's pretty reasonable to assume that the Technical Specification "on paper" was finalized in 2021.

@TAndvig That is on Nintendo, as they try to keep everything secret for as long as possible and are notorious for not giving out any technical details on their products.

So people are forced to wait till after they get hold of the physical product and take it apart and then pray, when they report on it, they not getting CoD'd by Nintendo's overzealous lawyers.

Meanwhile, both Sony and MS freely report all the technical details and capabilities ( SoC, RAM, Storage, etc. ) of their consoles for everyone to see.

@macaron35 Seeing that the Switch 2 here will be 40% more expensive than the Switch OLED, I have a feeling that the Switch OLED will sell well a good while longer.

It might actually be legit, since if the Switch 2 cartridges are MicroSD Express. It's very much possible the smallest available memory module is 64GB.

The vast majority of SD cards are used in video/photo cameras and some Android phones that have a slot for it.
And these days no one is buying small cards anymore, so it makes no sense to develop and produce anything smaller than 64GB these days.

@elpardo1984 It's really a shame they seem to have seemingly abandoned Super Mario Maker.

It was such a cool concept and would love to see a Super Mario Maker 3 with 3D map features.

@BriskSunrise So a game gets invented, designed, developed and released all within a single year? Right!

I am done here. You people can´t be reasoned with and will defend Nintendo no matter what. Its crazy.
Even all that happened with Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. /sigh

@Toastmaster Exactly! You hit the nail on the head.

The old Nintendo we knew and love, under Satoru Iwata, no longer exists. It passed away along with him (may he rest in peace).

Nintendo today is as anti-consumer as it can be, outright hostile and more busy filing frivolous patents on game mechanics.

Games like Zelda: ToTK and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet would never have released in the state they were in, under Iwata's reign.

@Mgalens I have both XBox Series X and PS5 and had a lot of problems with Remote Play on my Wifi mesh network.

I solved it, by connecting both my XBox and PS5 with network cable to my Wifi router.

I think it has to do with the poor WiFi hardware (and perhaps also poor WiFi drivers) on these consoles.
So when I connected them by wire to my WiFi router, it instantly solved my problems with Remote Play on both my consoles.

I use my PS Portal regularly, playing from my bed in the evening and have zero issues with input lag or latency.

@sanderev Here in Norway (and rest of Scandinavia) we have to pay 650 euro for the base Switch 2 console and 750 euro for the Mario Kart World bundle.

New Switch 2 games, like Mario Kart World are priced at 110 euro and the Pro 2 controller costs 120 euro.

Since both my son and me have our Switch console ( I have the OLED ). Buying a Switch 2 is completely out of the question with this kind of pricing.

Here in Scandinavia, the Switch 2 will now be the most expensive console on the market, with most expensive games and accessories.
While before Nintendo was always the lowest priced console and always be considered the most family friendly option. But no more.

@sanderev Wrong again. PS Portal does not require to be on the same WiFi as the PS5.

You were complaining about the price of PS Plus Premium and that you need it to use the PS Portal.

Yes it offers a lot of benefits and makes the PS Portal way more usable with that subscription, because you can stream from anywhere with decent internet connection with no input lag issues than when you would use Remote Play from a long distance.

But you did not account for the fact that PS Plus Premium gives you access to a huge game catalog of games! Now also including old gen games from PS, PSP, PS3 and PS4 plus many amazing PS5 games.
A year of PS Plus Premium cost less than buying two PS5 games. So you only need to play two PS5 games a year to fully recoup your costs.

@sanderev Unless you have been living under a rock. Every console requires a subscription these days. Including Nintendo. Nothing is free anymore.

PS Premium is pretty much the same as XBOX Gamepass Ultimate. You get access to a huge catalog of games and able to Stream it from any device.
So it offers a hell lot more than just Cloud gaming option.

@sanderev That was at launch. Sony released a firmware update back in November already that added Cloud gaming ( PS streaming ).

I thought exactly like you when the Portal initially released and thought Sony was mad to just release a Remote Play handheld that depended on your PS5, while PS Premium includes Streaming (cloud gaming), but the Portal not supporting this.
It was the perfect dedicated Playstation Cloud streaming handheld, yet it did not support it.

But to Sony's credit, they listened to all the critique and feedback and released a steady stream of firmware updates, including adding Cloud streaming, which doesn't require your PS5 to be on and connected anymore.

@Ploppy Yeah that's a shame. Not every country is up to par with their internet offerings.

Here in Europe, especially up here in Scandinavia, we have excellent internet and almost full 5G mobile coverage now.

So that makes the Playstation Portal and excellent buy now. I am super happy with it.
To the point, that with how Nintendo is behaving recently and the whole crazy Switch 2 pricing. I am not even remotely interested in the Switch 2 now.
Way too expensive and my Switch OLED is still working perfectly and looking like new.

@Toastmaster This is just a bullying / scare tactic by Nintendo to scare the average person that doesn't know their rights.

Here in almost any country in Europe, that part of the terms of service won't hold a candle in any court!
It's a blatant consumer right violation and Nintendo knows it.

@KociolekDoSyta Not anymore. Sony messed up the launch of the Portal, as it only supported Remote Play at launch.
But Sony have since giving it steady firmware updates, actually listened to feedback and it now supports cloud gaming ( streaming ).

I actually bought the PS Portal recently and its amazing! Gorgeous 8inch screen with full blown built-in dual shock controller. Great battery life and super light weight!

For 200 bucks it's a bargain. Especially when you factor in the 90 bucks price tag of a PS5 dual shock controller.

@BTB20 Again! You mixing up modding and pirating.

There is a whole Switch modding community out there that doesn't mod to pirate, but mod to improve the experience.

There are youtube videos in how they add a larger battery, with larger housing, better fan and 3D print a custom dock with air cooling.
Then with the custom firmware they fully unlock the Tegra X1 chip, as the SoC is heavily underclocked on the Switch.
It only utilizes about 25-30% on handheld mode and 50% in docked mode.
So people managed to run Zelda: ToTK at a stable 60fps on their fully modded Switch console. Just with some extra cooling and modded firmware.
In comparison. Zelda:ToTK can't even manage a stable 30fps on a retail console! Lets not even talk about the disaster that is Pokemon Scarlet/Violet!

They are not stealing property nor pirating any games!

I don't think people complain about the lack of innovation with the Switch 2.

People complain about the high price of the console and the much higher price of games and accessories.

Here in Scandinavian countries we have to pay 650 euro for the base console and 750 euro for the Mario Kart World bundle.

New Switch games are 100-110 euro (current Switch 1 games are 60-70 euro).
The new Pro 2 controller is 120 euro as opposed to 90 euro for the Pro 1 controller.

Absolutely bonkers! I can buy the PS5 for 640 euro and Dual Shock controllers for 90 euro.
Sony received a huge backlash and critique for the high price on PS5 games that are 80-90 euro average.
People complained you had to pay a 10 euro upgrade fee to upgrade a PS4 version to PS5 version.

But here comes Nintendo that sells their games for 10-20 euro more than PS5/Xbox games, sells the Pro 2 controller for 30 euro more and ask 20 euro for Switch 2 game upgrades.

Nintendo was so succesful with the Switch, since the console was way cheaper than XBox and Playstation, their games fairly priced and lower than XBox and Playstation counter parts.
It was the family friendly go-to console for many with their accessible prices.

But right now, they raced to the top as the most expensive console, accessories and games on the market with the Switch 2!
They made Sony look like a saint now.

@DominionGamma How is modding stealing property?

Stealing property is called Piracy! You mixing up these two things.

That there are people out there modding console to then pirate games illegaly. Is a totally different thing.

Right now, now the DS/3DS system is no longer supported, I am actually thinking about modding one of my 3DS consoles, so I can rip all my game cartridges to the microSD card, so I can play all my games directly from my console, without having to constantly swap cartridges and so extend the life of both the console and the cartridges itself.
Believe it or not, this is actually one of the main reasons people mod console systems like these.
I am not stealing property nor pirating, since it's all games I already paid for and are in my possession!

@AmanPikon Anyone even pretending to accuse Digimon as being a response to Pokemon, are crazy and don't even understand the time it takes to design and develop a game, yet alone an entire physical TCG.

Both franchises were created and in development at the same time.
The TCG was their main focus, as an actual response to the success of Magic: The Gathering TCG and saw it as an opportunity in a new emerging market with great potential at that time.

What people don't even seem to understand, even today, is that the video games are still just a side business for both franchises.
For The Pokemon Company, the video games and TV series are just products to support their main product: Pokemon TCG!

If you look at the profit numbers. The amount of money TPC makes with the Pokemon TCG is obsene compared to the video games and TV series combined. It complete dwarfs their numbers.

People had a reason to be upset and outraged against Nintendo / TPC after the horribly botched release of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet!
A company that sits on billions of dollars in profit, unwilling to give Game Freak enough support to make a good Pokemon game!

That whole debacle is what actually caused the huge success of Palworld! And Nintendo only made it worse in the way they responded and their lies, deceit and utter refusal to fix their own damn Pokemon games! Up to this day!

TPC put more effort in their live service games, Pokemon Unite and the new Pokemon Digital TCG apps, then they do on their mainline Pokemon games. As it clearly makes them more money. That's all you need to know where their priority lies and that they only care about your wallet.