I like how this article does not talk about the anti consumer practices engaged in by Nintendo, that might push some customers away from their consoles. /s Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA. There is already a switch in my household, but the price along with the ability to remotely brick the device, is what made our household pass on the switch 2. We bought a second steam deck instead.
I’m not really surprised. I kind of saw this coming with the price and how the sales started dropping after the launch.
I was talking to a friend about it and i just got brushed off by him saying “The numbers are too large too mean anything”. It’s crazy how people like him just buried their heads in the sand
Nintendo shot themselves in the foot by aggressively going after the modding and archival communities.
They will never get another cent of my money and I own over a dozen Nintendo consoles.
I own or owned every one of their consoles other than the Wii (though can play the games on the wii u). No more, between their pricing (especially on recycled content), wastefullness (all that excess plastic for a case that holds a tiny cart because a small box makes their prices even harder to stomach), and legal bs (going after modders, emulators, and the used game market via anti-piracy bricking depending on what the previous owner of the game did), fuck them.
Three reasons: 1) It’s too bloody expensive. 2) Most people are scared to spend money right now. 3) The USA as a global superpower, is morphing into something decidedly more sinister.
people should be buying guns and armor for their family and boycotting all this submissive entertainment culture until something changes. otherwise i kind of blame them for the current state of America. funding the enemies they claim to hate keeps them a cog in the machine the hurts humanity.
We’ve never been great. It’s just removing the veneer of respectability we gave ourselves and doubling down on the shittiest parts.
- The USA as a global superpower, is morphing into something decidedly more sinister.
Nintendo is a Japanese company…
That sells to the USA…
Which means exactly what?
Nothing counts, unless it sells, I guess.
…with a big customer pool in North America.
Which means exactly what?
Personally, I prefer not to be Nintendo because of Nintendo’s behavior, but the price is why they still struggle to sell these.
They sold a ton right out of the gate. Everyone that really wanted one already got one. After that, they need parents and grandparents to get them for the kids and that isn’t going to happen as much.
Nintendo was basically a “toy”. You could, for the most part, safely buy a Nintendo console for your kids at a somewhat reasonable price. (I know the OG consoles were a bit pricey).
You could buy your kid a handheld console for ~$200 or less. The Switch 1 was $300, but you could still get your kid a Lite for $200.
Now, the only option is a $450 Switch 2.
Switch 2 desperately needs a TV-only version. I imagine the manufacturing cost would be drastically lower.
No dock, no joycons, no battery, no LCD.
Just a console, power supply, controller and HDMI cord.
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Fuck Nintendo
I was a Nintendo kid growing up, so I’m biased. But I can’t even defend them anymore. Their uncompetitive prices and anti-consumer practices are completely out-of-touch. I hope they either start listening to their fans, or go away and allow their games to be sold on other platforms…
The Steam Deck is the better product anyway. Got one recently and damn is it good.
Same. I was able to get like 10 long-wishlisted games for ~$100 with the Steam Winter Sale, too. Nintendo would never.
Bro that’s my patient gaming technique! $10 games FTW!
What you got?
- Just Crow Things
- PowerWash Simulator
- Wanderstop
- Thank Goodness You’re Here!
- Night in the Woods
- Hello Kitty Island Adventure
- Cinnabunny
- Unbox the Room
- April Grove
and I guess no. 10 was a copy of Coral Island I was gifted, oops lol
At some point I still want LAN Party Adventures, and The Lonesome Guild but those will wait until the next sale. In the meantime I have plenty to sink my teeth (thumbs?) into!
Well I saw Pokemon Legends ZA for 48% off recently. Not that it‘s worth that much or that I would ever buy a Switch 2. I actually stumbled upon that sale randomly. But the fact it‘s on sale already speaks volumes. Nintendo is likely in panic mode.
i wonder if it has do with pokemon being slop for the past generation and this one too. the lack of quality of the pokemon games doesnt justify its high cost. also because game freak said this the future of all pokemon games.
Ain’t got those amazing Nintendo games though. Glhf finding a Mario Cart replacement that is actually as good.
Ain’t got those amazing Nintendo games though. Glhf finding a Mario Cart replacement that is actually as good.
This is not entirely true. Depending on the stance of the person regarding piracy. You can definitely play Mario Kart on the Steam Deck. Emulations for PS1 PS2, Switch 1 exist (there are more but these I know on the top of my head).
The Steam Deck can play nearly all Switch 1 titles through emulation. Yes, developers were taken down but the emulators do still work perfectly fine (I’m saying this as Steam Deck owner and using Emulators myself).
EDIT; noticed we are in the same instance. Now I’m curious whether you were serious or it was sarcasm…
IMO, Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is better than Mario Kart. I find it much more fun.
The Sonic Racing series is great but still isnt the same. Maybe nostalgia :)
Its so much fun! And my library of steam games already works on it.
I got emulators setup so I can even play switch games on it as well.
Which switch emulator is working well for you? I still have yuzu and ryujinx on mine but games are crashing when I try to load them and stuff
There are several yuzu and ryujinx forks floating around. For yuzu there’s citron, and eden-emu; for ryujinx there’s ryubing. Game compatibility varies so I suggest trying them all and see if any works.
I find the Steam Deck far too heavy and bulky unfortunately. I’d love a Switch sized handheld PC.
I love mine but I also agree that it’s a chunky boy. I’d absolutely get a Steam Deck Lite if Valve were ever to come out with one, even if it had weaker performance than the original.
Idk I picked it up and personally I felt the complete opposite. Everyone says its so massive and huge, I expected this massive bulky handheld but sadly its the opposite. Its big yeah but not really controller sized, my hands are too big for it so I’ll just stick to the steam controller (until the new one releases)
It might be, but if you care about the newest games, you either stick with the Switch 2, wait for a SD 2 or look elsewhere… The SD is getting closer to the Switch 1 state where modern games start to look more blurry, and if you want a hybrid device… Well, it is gonna show more.
Also for some stupid reasons SD availability sucks in several countries, like Mexico.
Most of “the newest games” are well within the spec of the Steam Deck. Of the 4 non-exclusive games nominated for GOTY at the Keighleys, they’ll all run on it just fine. Some of the biggest games of the year end up being the likes of Peak, Schedule I, or Megabonk, and not only are those games only available on PC (at least for a while), but they’re not even pushing the spec of the Steam Deck to its limit. With RAM pricing issues going on right now, high end studios are likely going to target a lower spec. And the companies that can afford to make a game that hits that higher spec are few and far between anyway, compared to the AA and indie studios that made most of the best games of the past few years.
With RAM pricing issues going on right now, high end studios are likely going to target a lower spec.
That is quite a positive thought that I would truly want to become real, let’s just wait and see I guess, that doesn’t change the fact that SD 2 is imminent though (I know that is obvious).
What about hybrid gaming? I don’t think anyone can agree that SD is better than the Switch 2 or any other handheld device in 2025 regarding that… Perhaps only in certain cases as locked awful framerate (for the Switch 2).
All of new gaming hardware is decidedly less imminent now that this pricing nonsense is going on. Even if the tech exists, no one thinks they can sell at what they’d have to charge for it. It’s going to be a rough near term future for gaming hardware before it eventually levels out. Reports are that consoles planned for 2027 are now looking like they’ll be pushed back.
I’m not super used to calling that “hybrid gaming”, but my wife seems to have no problem playing cozy games on the Steam Deck, almost exclusively on the TV when I didn’t take it with me on the go. And we’re once again back to the best games and the best graphics not being all that correlated. The other part is that even if a random gamer has a Steam Deck, it’s unlikely to be their only gaming PC, and if they want the power to produce that larger image at better frame rates at home, they’ll play on that other PC, and that game will run its best there. On Switch 2, that one device is your only option no matter what. That means that if you want to play one of those beefier titles from the Switch 1, they’re not going to run at better settings ever unless the developer explicitly upgrades them; even then, there’s often the Switch tax compared to buying the same game on PC.
I’m not trying to talk you down from a Switch 2 if that’s your preference, but if someone’s asking me for a recommendation for a gaming handheld, the Steam Deck is going to be what I tell them until I rule it out due to some other need. I definitely wouldn’t start with a Switch 2. The Deck just hits a compelling price with a good software experience and, perhaps most importantly, a library that dwarfs what Nintendo could ever hope to match by following the traditional console model.
From what I’ve heard, Expedition 33 runs like hot garbage. Even if you use something like Lossless Frames to use AI generated frames to fill in gaps and run at super low settings.
I played it all on desktop, but it looks like it got an update a month ago and is now Deck verified. Friends of mine played it on Deck before that and didn’t mention any complaints, but I wasn’t fishing for them either.
I got mine for 99 DKK including Mariokart because the shop selling it fucked up their discount. Best value I’ve ever gotten. XD
I got one for free because someone at an Amazon fulfillment center was off their game. Ordered some storage containers; one of them had Switch 2 in it. If Duskbloods wasn’t going to be an exclusive to the system, I wouldn’t have even kept it.
I’m keeping it around because at some point in the future the Switch 2 will get hacked, and boy am I going to have some sailing to do.
nintendo is having its PS3 moment
a comically overpriced console with few interesting exclusives made by an arrogant company high on the success of its predecessor
Don’t forget that rents their old games back to you, which is why they’re so against emulation.
Which is why I’m so for it
When I got my PS3 as a gift, I thought it was beautiful in its time, but no, it’s like the Switch 2 xD
Isn’t the Switch 2 is cheaper in today’s money than the PS3 was without a decade of inflation?
Edit: PS3 was 600€, adjusted for inflation (by some random online calculator) that’s about 900 today. So yeah, the Switch 2 is about 60% as expensive as the PS3 was.
How relevant is inflation when cost of living has gotten so inflated that the idea of home ownership went the way of renting. So if anything in today’s money eating costs can hurt the wallet even more with how essentials are eating up more disposable income.
People bring up inflation as though salaries have kept up like NBA salaries have kept up due to their strong union. But, for every day people salaries have stagnated in relation to cost of property, rent, utilities, and food.
“How relevant is inflation, considering there is so much inflation that…”
Inflation is the measure of how much buying power your money is worth. Wage stagnation is wages not keeping up with inflation. They are not the same thing.
Wage stagnation isn’t a result of inflation because inflation happens first. So yeah when working out the equivalent price of a product inflation needs to be taken into account but so does how much money everybody has.
If $1 in 2005 is worth $15 today, but I still only get $6 an hour then it isn’t correct to say that a product that cost $15 today is effectively the same as a product costing $1 in 2005 because it’s not taken into the fact that I don’t get more money.
Well… while the price of the Switch 2 certainly causes sticker shock, when you adjust for inflation it’s only about as expensive as the SNES was at launch… and is in fact cheaper then the NES was at launch. However, in the PS3’s case when adjusted for inflation it was about 1.5 times as expensive as the SNES at launch (for the 20 gb version, the 60 gb was double).
Now adjust for wage stagnation.
This tired old argument completely ignores the fact that consumer purchasing power was much higher back then. Everything costs a higher portion of our paychecks now, especially housing, healthcare, and education.
I would think what you can get today from a competitor for the same price or less is much more would be much more relevant than anything that occurred 40 years ago
(yes, the NES is 40 years old)
I bought the Switch 1 on launch and loved it, it was everything I was looking for on a console. However, every single joystick broke. I bought several joy con packs and they all drift heavily. Even the pro controller drifts. Nintendo Iberia refused to even repair them. They gave me the option to either replace them with a 20 euro discount or pay 20 euros for them to ship them back.
Awful product quality, awful support, zero accountability. Guess what, I’m spending my money elsewhere.
Doesn’t the new switch still use a control stick design that can suffer from drift, despite it being a solved problem?
looks it up Ah ffs, they probably didn’t because they thought replacing the mounting rack and slide with magnets was more important, and powerful magnets might interfere with the other sensors (though if the magnetic field isn’t moving, I think any effects could be compensated for).
They don’t want the controllers to have hall effect joysticks because they would out last the console, and they wouldn’t be able to sell replacements. Its not a cost issue in my opinion, the controllers are already in the high end price range.
You can test your theory though, you can replace switch joysticks with hall effect sticks. I found multiple sellers in a web search but haven’t used them myself.
I would be okay with defective controllers if Nintendo bothered to fix them. Through the entire lifespan of the console they sold controllers that would eventually drift. I own 3 pair of joy cons, they all drift. When sent for repair they were all deemed unrepairable, even those under warranty. That’s inexcusable.
In the new iteration of joycons they STILL don’t use TMR or hall effect sticks.
I don’t want to support this company.
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what does the switch 2 do that the first one doesn’t? other than have the ability to brick the device on you
Better performance and new exclusives.
I’m waiting until they get cheap on the second-hand markets before even considering buying one.
Better performance, mainly because the first one performed horribly.
Are there any exclusives that are worth it? The new Mario Cart got a soso rating for becoming another empty open world and other than the new Donkey Kong I can’t think of anything worth buying a new console.
And mouse controls which seemed like a useless feature, but proved to be a really awesome one!
Hardly any exclusives. Hardware is more and more meh with every release. We broke. Steam and GoG are so convenient I don’t even think about it. Nintendo will die a patent troll death.
The Switch 2 is the first console I’ve just outright skipped in… well… years now. I guess since the Wii U?
Just every piece of news about it as it was coming out made it sound less and less appealing…
$70 games (that never get discounted because Nintendo.)
Games aren’t “games”, they’re download keys.
Special SD cards that are more expensive.
Microphone support requires a subscription after 1 year.
Charging $10 for a hardware demo that should be included, like Desk Job on the Steam Deck.
And, like you say, the remote detonation option, which is burning legitimate players:
https://www.gadgetmatch.com/nintendo-switch-2-lawsuit-bricked-consoles/
Generally with new hardware it’s “Hey, what’s not to like?”
With the Switch 2 it’s more “What is there to like?”
i skipped the first new switch, due to pokemon swsh, never regretted it, and many accurately predicted how bad it is with pokemon.
The Wii made me absolutely rage because those consoles were region locked, preventing me from playing titles I had imported from other countries that weren’t published by Nintendo north America. I never spent money on Nintendo products after that. The rest of my family was still happy with Nintendo, and they have continued to purchase their consoles. I finally got my wife invested in PC gaming 2 years ago, and it warmed my bitter heart to hear she wanted a steam deck instead of the switch 2.
That was always the case for Nintendo’s home consoles, not like it was a new thing that started with the Wii. Switch was the first one to be region-free.
This was not the case for Nintendo consoles in the past. I imported plenty of NES, SNES, GC, GB, GBA, and DS carts that were published in Asia/Europe, but not published in the Americas, and had no issues playing them until the Wii. Those consoles I just mentioned were all region free.
NES and SNES were region-locked. In addition to an actual lockout chip, they even had different cartridge shapes so you couldn’t physically fit Famicom or Super Famicom games.
Handhelds were not (until DSi and 3DS), but I specifically said home consoles.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t region locking on the NES and SNES largely implemented via the shape of the cartridge? Frank Cifaldi and the VGHF just put out that NES history video, and it had some kind of authentication chip that could only be provided by Nintendo, and it was in the NES but not the Famicom. And on Gamecube, I seem to remember you needed an Action Replay to break the region locking, but I never dabbled in it myself.
I wasn’t importing famicom cartidges, I was importing NES cartidges that were not published in america.
Did you have a modded console? Without modification, the 10NES lockout chip prevents PAL cartridges from running on NTSC or vice versa. But it is possible to disable the chip to get around this.
NES, SNES, and GC were definitely region locked.
Too expensive, too enshittified for me to consider. All they had to do was not fuck this up and they would’ve had a guaranteed sale but I don’t ever see myself spending a cent on Nintendo ever again.
also pokemon console being trashed by gamefreak incensed alot of switch/nintendo fans too.
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How is either Switch not enshittified when you have to pay a monthly subscription to backup your saves?
you have to pay a monthly subscription to backup your saves
Jesus fuck. I hadn’t realized how bad things had gotten in Nintendo-land.
How long has Steam been backing up saves for? I can’t even remember.
they got the idea from pokemon games, how you need an app just store all the pokemon, plus another app for certain other features for the main pokemon game. before the switch/3ds transition, i believe you had to pay for “storing your excess pokemon” on a app.
Even in the days of memory cards you could back up saves to other memory cards…
Did they ever support that for free?
it is not enshittified … call it anti-consumer
Same difference?
It’s not enshittified because the Switch was already shit.
It’s funny. I feel like with the switch 2 Nintendo finally listened to the fans who were saying they just want an incremental improvement. Just make the switch with a better processor. But they really just got too greedy with it and made it an incremental improvement in the worst way possible. Paid online, $70 games which never go on sale, paid switch 2 upgrade packs, LCD screen, digital download physical games.
It’s an incremental upgrade done as horribly as possible, it feels like people are struggling right now and Nintendo is trying to extract every dollar out of customers then wonders why the console isn’t doing well.
For me it’s a hard sell because like at that price why wouldn’t I just buy a steam deck. I don’t have to buy any new games, I don’t have to pay for upgrade packs to have my games run on it, I don’t have to pay for online services. I’m not going to have to rebuy games if I buy a steam frame or steam machine. It also has seamless save transfers, and steam is famous for its sales.
It’s just funny because I feel like people were asking for a switch with more power but now that it’s here like why would you buy it over a steam deck.
Also to top it off Nintendo’s lawyers are aggressively going after emulators, streamers and modders. Why would I want to support a company so hostile to its own community
Yep, Switch 1 was much more interesting, and I still skipped it in favour of PC / Steam Deck.
Games aren’t “games”, they’re download keys.
Generally agree with your post, but a large majority of games really are games. If they’re a download key, it’s very clearly labelled on the box.
I love mine. The FPS boost alone in Zelda and Pokémon made it worth it for me. Cheaper than the GPU I want for my computer too. Then again, I went all in on the Switch in 2017 after skipping the Wii U, so more performance is fine with me. I do wish there was more stuff announced, though.
I skipped the Switch because I did get the Wii U. They abandoned that system too quickly due to poor sales so I was a little bitter. I almost went with the OLED, but decided to continue waiting since I had other systems and PC to play on. It’s the first Nintendo console I have ever skipped.
I did pick up the Switch 2, however, so I get to play all the games I missed over the years and any new ones. Glad I don’t have to wait so long on loading screens for Zelda like I did on the Wii U… which was painfully long.
My Switch 2 is pretty much strictly my Nintendo machine. And yeah, just have to wait for them to come out with more 1st party games. I usually buy 3rd party games on other systems because the graphics tend to be superior.
Oh yeah, watching my girlfriend play her Switch 1 now is agonizing. Her birthday is coming up and I think I know exactly what I’m going to be getting for her.
Games like Zelda now load so fast you can’t even see your stats on the loading screen. And ya know, that’s an okay problem to have.
“Never discounted” is just factually untrue, though. The biggest hitters don’t reach Steam-sale levels, sure, but I’m looking at $70 Tears of the Kingdom for $47 USD right now on Woot. I’ve purchased a fair number of Switch 1 games for around $40 in the last year and some (like Mario & Luigi Brothership and Super Mario RPG) went for as low as $25 USD around Black Friday.
Tears of the Kingdom for $47 USD
That’s the thing. Such being considered a ‘discount’ is why people say Nintendo doesn’t discount games; why the Nintendo consoles end up being quite expensive when compared with a Steam Deck, where games are on discount on the regular.
Not saying don’t enjoy the console. Just with prices like that, it’s hard to justify for many. gestures at OP’s article
I picked up Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot for my kid for Christmas. $60 still after coming out in 2023.
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/advance-wars-1-plus-2-re-boot-camp-switch/
(* “My kid” - He’s 29, he should be buying his own games! LOL.)
i was planning to get a the first switch, with pokemon dint because of how bad the quality it was, and due to them admitting all future POKEMON games are going to be this way was the biggest turn off.
A GameBoy Advance reboot? May I recommend EmuDeck? Works on every OS.
Yeah, but you don’t give pirated goods as gifts. 😉
I still have the OG Advance Wars carts for my GBA.
I didn’t buy it because fuck Nintendo. They treat their customers with such disrespect and disdain, a company that’s only bring held together by nostalgia alone. They’ve gotten into a cycle of seeing just how much money they can get while putting in no effort.
especially with pokemon games, its unforgivable how expensive they are for such a sloppily made genre, since swsh.
I didn’t get one because it’s too expensive.
Steam deck was a little pricey but it has a backlog of games going back like 50 years, and I already have a large library. Plus the games are cheaper.
