For purchasing it I think Nintendo and its retailers handled it fairly well. It was far better then the Xbox Series X and PS5 Launch though those issues were compounded by the release timing of those launches. But Best Buy and Gamestop by me had limited units on hand for those who forgot to preorder and no crazy insane line fights. And then the drops later Best Buy (the way I ended up getting mine) had an actual managed online queue instead of trying to F5 your way past it was actually felt competent and handled well. So as someone who didn't pre-order and didn't score one exactly at launch day I was still able to easily get one after the fact.
As for the device itself I am mixed. The hardware I think is solid for the most part. I would have liked a slightly thicker device to accommodate a bigger battery life and ergonomic. It felt weird to me that they decided the Switch 1 thickness should be the thickness for the Switch 2 given there is no compatibility of literally anything between the two needed. And why we didn't get an OLED screen out of the gate is beyond me. They know how to do it and I feel like there was enough room in the $450 budget that it would have made it justifiable. It feels like an entirely artificial decision made so that they can release a Switch 2 OLED at $500 that will just make people buy new ones. And the HDR performance of the LED is disappointing.
The games line-up is...I guess what I expected. I wish there was more proper Switch 2 patches for Switch 1 games (Persona 5 please we need a higher res pack I will even pay for that) and a Steam Deck esque like chart of what improvements there are for games would be nice or a way to check the resolution. I feel like most of the software side of things can be easily addressed and may just improve in time.
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Re: Talking Point: One Month On, How Did Nintendo's Switch 2 Launch Go?
For purchasing it I think Nintendo and its retailers handled it fairly well. It was far better then the Xbox Series X and PS5 Launch though those issues were compounded by the release timing of those launches. But Best Buy and Gamestop by me had limited units on hand for those who forgot to preorder and no crazy insane line fights. And then the drops later Best Buy (the way I ended up getting mine) had an actual managed online queue instead of trying to F5 your way past it was actually felt competent and handled well. So as someone who didn't pre-order and didn't score one exactly at launch day I was still able to easily get one after the fact.
As for the device itself I am mixed. The hardware I think is solid for the most part. I would have liked a slightly thicker device to accommodate a bigger battery life and ergonomic. It felt weird to me that they decided the Switch 1 thickness should be the thickness for the Switch 2 given there is no compatibility of literally anything between the two needed. And why we didn't get an OLED screen out of the gate is beyond me. They know how to do it and I feel like there was enough room in the $450 budget that it would have made it justifiable. It feels like an entirely artificial decision made so that they can release a Switch 2 OLED at $500 that will just make people buy new ones. And the HDR performance of the LED is disappointing.
The games line-up is...I guess what I expected. I wish there was more proper Switch 2 patches for Switch 1 games (Persona 5 please we need a higher res pack I will even pay for that) and a Steam Deck esque like chart of what improvements there are for games would be nice or a way to check the resolution. I feel like most of the software side of things can be easily addressed and may just improve in time.
Overall it was a decent launch IMO