Is Switch 2 an Xbox One Situation? No
I’m not gonna lie, this blog has not been on my mind much in the past month. But as I happened to stop by again and see my most recent post about Xbox One, something occurred to me: I’ve seen a couple people making comparisons between Switch 2 and Xbox One. Maybe I should get some more use out of that research I did for that last post and write about it.
This isn’t the first time I’ve written a post based off some comment from some rando. You know me—against my better judgment, I often scroll through the internet and read the chatter. People will say anything, man.
Way back in early 2017, before the Switch launched, I’d see people predicting the console’s doom. “It’s gonna fail even worse than Wii U!” commented some random users on various websites. I wrote a post on a previous blog I had, saying, “No, I think it’ll at least do better than Wii U.” Well, that turned out to be the understatement of the decade. But really, who would’ve expected the Switch would do as well as it has?
Still, it’s never as easy as it sounds to pass one console’s success on to its successor, as we’ve seen with PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3, Wii to Wii U, and Xbox 360 to Xbox One. So of course people are going to predict doom for Nintendo once again.
Of course “doom” is quite an overstatement when you look at any of these consoles. PlayStation 3 stumbled out the gate but was a very successful console by the end of its life. Wii U sold poorly but it still lasted four full years and had some great exclusives. And Xbox One itself wasn’t a sales failure unless your criteria for success is surpassing or at least coming close to the success of the competition... which it IS, because this is the CONSOLE WARS, BABYYY.
With the original Switch, I feel like the random naysayers I saw were mostly just bored people who didn’t really have any interest in Nintendo and were saying the new product would fail simply because the previous one didn’t do great, the new one was conceptually similar to the previous one, and failure is kind of entertaining to watch. With Switch 2, however, there might be a bit more substance to what objectors are saying.
The main issue is the price. \$450 is a fair bit more expensive than the original Switch—but considering the 120 Hz 1080p screen, and the dock outputting 4K for certain games, many would consider this price within expectations.
What’s really caused sticker shock is the game pricing, particularly for Mario Kart World, which costs \$80. Nobody expected Nintendo to be the first in the current era to release a game whose base price is \$80.
Nintendo choosing not to announce pricing in the Direct but instead releasing it on their website afterwards caused a lot of confusion, and plenty of misinformation spread partially because some people are just bored and have nothing else to do but look for drama.
But the dust has well settled by now, and we can calmly say: yeah, that is an expensive game.
But what exactly is causing comparisons to Xbox One? Well, one aspect is these Game-Key Card things. We’ll talk about that in a minute.
But there’s another, less substantial cause of these comparisons, too. Remember when Don Mattrick said “We have a product for those without internet called Xbox 360”? Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser was asked about the high price of Switch 2, and he essentially said, “We know some won’t be able to afford it, but that’s why we’re continuing to support Switch 1.” I won’t deny that I thought about Mattrick’s statement when I read that—I mean I had just written a whole essay about Xbox One, so of course it was on my mind. But I mean… what do you want them to say when you ask them that stuff? All pricing decisions are made with the understanding that there will be some people who won’t buy it. Mattrick’s thing just seemed egregious because people were thinking, “You could just not require the console to always be online and then those people without internet could play Xbox One.” If the issue had been “We’re still going to make Xbox 360 games for those who can’t afford the new console yet” that would’ve been something else entirely. (Just for the sake of trivia: the only cross-gen Xbox 360-Xbox One games I remember were made by third parties).
So yeah, I don’t think that comment is really worth talking about any more than that.
Still, is there validity to the idea that Switch 2 is in a similar position as Xbox One? Let’s investigate.
The Price
Xbox One was \$500 at launch in 2013, and Nintendo Switch 2 is \$450 or \$500 for the bundle that comes with Mario Kart. Nintendo doomed?
Well, the Switch 2 is a bit pricey, but PS5 with the disc drive also launched at \$500 and that never had any trouble selling (the inability to meet demand thanks to the chip shortages in its early years was quite a problem though), so I can’t say I’m super worried by this. Now you might say “But PS5 has better graphics,” but the PS5 is not a portable device! Do you really expect a handheld to match it and still cost around the same? You can stream your PS5 to a handheld, yes, but that’s not the same thing, innit. (I’m American).
So like I mentioned before, I don’t think Switch 2’s price is unreasonable, considering the hardware. The screen is LCD, but it’s pretty nice—high refresh rate, 1080p, HDR. The chipset from Nvidia of course supports DLSS which I think could help this console punch way above its weight. The dock even has a fan in it, which was not the case for Switch 1. \$450? Not bad at all.
But we have to wonder if this price might scare away people who don’t pay much attention to tech. If you’re a non-enthusiast and you decide one day “I want to play Mario Kart,” and you look it up and find out the Switch is \$300, for a lot of people, that probably seems pretty reasonable. Switch 2 might be pushing things, though. People are going to hesitate a bit more with that \$450 price tag.
The games Nintendo is publishing for Switch are as kid-friendly as ever, but with these prices, I do wonder if Nintendo will lose some of that family-friendly appeal. But on the other hand, pretty much everything is more expensive than it used to be and maybe a lot of parents (wealthier ones at least) won’t question it? I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll be able to tell much about this at first, because it seems a lot of enthusiasts will be buying. The real question is what happens after that initial wave. If the price truly is too high, you’ll see that reflected in the sales numbers. And then there will hopefully be a price cut, right? That’d be nice for everyone.
Now, thinking back to Xbox One, how much did the price affect its fortunes? When the \$500 price was announced, from what I remember of that moment, I feel like people did wince, but it didn’t seem too terrible. The problem was, Sony stepped onstage hours later and said “PS4 is just \$400.” If Xbox One was a product that truly stood out on its own, maybe it could’ve gotten away with being more expensive, but its unique features were things most people didn’t really care about. Direct competition really killed its chances at \$500 (we’ll talk more about this in a moment).
Of course obviously with Nintendo Switch 2 the price we really gotta talk about is Mario Kart World’s. I don’t know of much precedent for this, other than cartridge games from the 90s where prices could vary significantly (some of those games were expensive man). Judging from the fact that Donkey Kong Bananza is \$70, it seems that \$70 is Nintendo’s standard game price now, which is the same number Xbox and PlayStation have generally done this generation (except Xbox just announced they’re going to start doing some \$80 games this holiday season. Whoops). For a game like Mario Kart World, however, Nintendo is saying, “Hey, this game is big and you all desperately want it, so we’re adding ten bucks to the price, just like we did for Tears of the Kingdom.” I think it was a terrible PR move to do that before letting people get used to most Nintendo Switch 2 games costing \$70, but at the end of the day… are people actually going to change their minds about buying it because of the price? I mean the game looks sweet.
If anything, the high price tag of the game encourages people to get the console bundle. You feel like you’re getting a deal that way.
(Hey but isn’t it interesting how Astro Bot is cheaper than other PS5 games despite being super fun and one of the only games I can compare to Super Mario Galaxy? Just a different pricing philosophy than Nintendo I guess).
One other kinda crazy aspect of Nintendo Switch 2 prices is these upgrade packs for Kirby and Mario Party. Both of these upgrades contain new content, so they’re basically DLC, and each costs \$20, which doesn’t actually seem crazy at all. Where it starts to look ugly, though, is when you see these Nintendo Switch 2 Editions they’re selling. Nintendo considers each of these a bundle consisting of the original game and the Switch 2 upgrade pack. Except the bundle is not discounted at all: the original Switch game still costs \$60, and the upgrade pack is still \$20, so… math. Just about every other publisher is happy to discount their game after a year on shelves. Heck, you used to see versions containing the full game and the DLC for just \$40, but Nintendo doesn’t do that. (I got Kirby on sale somewhere a while back, so at least there’s that for me).
The Competition (or lack thereof)
As I mentioned, one of the key points in Xbox One’s story is how it compared to its direct competitor, PlayStation 4. PS4 ended up being cheaper and a bit more powerful, and at E3 2013, Sony highlighted how, unlike Xbox One with its DRM scheme, PS4 required no internet connection and placed no restrictions on used games.
But here’s the thing about Nintendo Switch 2: the closest competitor to it right now is really just handheld PCs like the Steam Deck. Apparently, both Microsoft and Sony are looking to release handheld devices of their own in the future, but for now, Nintendo still has a unique space as a handheld console—and although Steam Deck is console-like to a degree, it is also a PC.
I talked about this in my other post about Switch 2, but gaming PCs really don’t seem to cover the exact same space as Switch. I will grant that there are probably PC gamers who may have been tempted to get Switch 2 who will instead say, “I have a Steam Deck, so why do I need that?”
But I dunno man. The PS5 keeps selling despite the slowed pace of new first-party releases. Game consoles are not a growing market, but they still have a large audience. There are still those who have no interest in fiddling with any sort of PC for the purpose of gaming. I just don’t think there’s going to be a sudden mass migration of console players to PC. I’m not denying the significant growth PC gaming has seen over time, and younger players are staying away from console more and more, but I’m just saying, console gaming is obviously not dead yet.
And remember, people buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games. “Bruh I can play them on an emulator” people say. First of all, do you realize it’s probably going to be years before a working Switch 2 emulator gets made? Second, I just don’t think people who aren’t nerds are interested in using an emulator. A lot of non-nerds don’t even know what you mean by “emulator.” It’s just not as big of a factor as some people online seem to think (always remember: the internet isn’t reality. Despite this I still am choosing topics based on random crap I saw online).
Now if you were to get a Steam Deck, the cheapest current model is just \$400, so that’s an advantage for Valve… though it doesn’t come with a dock (any USB-C dock will work of course) and I’m pretty sure Nintendo Switch 2 has better performance considering the internals are a few years old at this point. But I mean, Steam Deck is a PC, you gotta remember! It can do PC stuff! Also if you are willing to spend more, you can get the Steam Deck OLED—the Switch 2’s screen is an LCD, so that’s another win for Steam Deck.
I mean look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t get a Steam Deck or other handheld PC. I’m just saying that I don’t think these devices will have much impact on Nintendo’s new console. Time will prove me right or wrong.
In any case, the competition Xbox One faced was far more direct and had a huge impact. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 played a ton of the same games, had similar hardware capabilities, and launched around the same time. It could have turned out to be a fierce battle, but the mistakes Xbox made just tipped the scales heavily in PlayStation’s favor.
Lack of competition might give Switch 2 more leeway than Xbox One had. Switch has always had the benefit of uniqueness: because it’s a console-handheld hybrid, it appeals to many different types of gamers, even those who also already play on other systems. Obviously that doesn’t mean Nintendo is invincible, but I just don’t think competition from other gaming hardware is a huge factor here.
The Game-Key Card Thing
I don’t think the Game-Key Card thing is actually hard to understand. Some Switch 2 games are Game-Key Cards, which means the card is a key that lets you download and play a game. They are marked clearly as such, so you will know if you buy a physical game whether the game is actually on the card or not. The Nintendo support page explained this quite plainly, but some people online went around saying “None of the games are on the cartridges.” Actually, there are still games that can be played fully from the cartridge—but it is true that a lot of third-party games, as of now, are only releasing physically as Game-Key Cards.
Now what does this have to do with Xbox One? You may have already guessed, but quite a few people upon hearing about this setup were reminded of Xbox One’s abandoned DRM scheme.
Now, I reviewed those details for my recent post, obviously, and so I would say that this Switch 2 situation is actually more like the inverse of that one.
Xbox One discs were meant to be two things: a one-time key that ties a digital game license to an Xbox Live account, and an installation disc for the game (in other words, it has the actual game data, which is copied to the hard drive). Once it fulfills those purposes, you can pretty much throw the disc out if you don’t intend to ever install it from the disc again (I’m unsure if the digital licenses obtained from the discs would have allowed you to just download the games from online later, but I feel like they should’ve), but reselling or lending your game is a whole other issue. Xbox One was planned to be based totally on digital licenses, physical games not being playable without an online check-in and an Xbox Live account. Of course, Microsoft abandoned that plan after weathering a lot of fan backlash for a time.
Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are the inverse in the sense that they don’t have game data, but there are also no restrictions on reselling or lending them. You need to insert the Key Card anytime you want to play the game, just like a normal physical game. It doesn’t give your account a digital license. It is literally just a key. The actual game needs to be downloaded from the internet.
There is one huge, obvious similarity, of course: in both setups, you need the internet to play the game. With Switch 2, it’s for the download, and for the Xbox One plan that never came to fruition, you had to connect to the internet regularly so they know your account actually has the license for the game (kinda like when you use your Nintendo Online membership to play classic games on Switch). One positive for the Switch 2’s system is that you only need the internet the very first time you insert the game. And if you don’t have internet at home… perhaps you can download from someone else’s WiFi? It is a portable system, after all. Once the game is downloaded, all you need to play it is the card.
I can give props to Nintendo for actually finding a way for people to loan or trade in digital-only games, but I don’t think I would ever buy a Game-Key Card…well, unless it was a really good deal. Hmm, on second thought, maybe I will end up buying some eventually.
I will note that some Switch 1 games were also digital-only despite having boxes at retail. The difference is that those games offered codes for the e-Shop. These Game-Key Cards are meant to behave just like normal physical games… except for the part where, again, the actual game needs to be downloaded.
Nintendo is also introducing “Virtual Game Cards,” which they explained during a Nintendo Direct a week before the big Switch 2 Direct. It seems they’ve decided the simplest way to think about games is that everything is a card, whether it’s a physical or virtual card! I don’t really need to get into that, but I thought it was interesting and sort of cute in a weird way.
You know another misconception I’ve seen? Some people seem to think that PS4/PS5 discs just activate online downloads, making Game-Key Cards the exact same thing. In most cases, this isn’t true—the data is on the disc, but it needs to be installed.
I feel like the console makers didn’t explain installations to us well enough, unless you were someone who was really watching gaming news closely and was hanging on every word from Mark Cerny’s mouth. I honestly remember being surprised seeing a friend pop in a new PS4 game and having to wait a while. I was like, “…But we got the disc!”
But yeah, for almost every PlayStation game I’ve heard of, the game can install from a disc without internet, but usually devs already have a patch out you’ll want to download as well. Now, after installation—yeah, at that point, the disc is just a key. And if you have a PS4 disc but want to play the upgraded PS5 version you bought for \$10, then in that case, the disc really becomes the same thing as Game-Key Card (well still not exactly but you know what I mean)!
But to get back to Switch 2 itself—why are devs opting for Game-Key Cards anyway? It’s fair enough if the games are too big to fit on a card, but I know for a fact Bravely Default isn’t that big. Well, my guess would probably surprise no one at all, but uhhh, I think the answer is money.
Discs are a lot cheaper to make than cartridges. Tale as old as time, or at least as old as the PS1. Of course, discs also aren’t nearly as quick for a console to read as cartridges are. PS1 games were cheaper than N64 games, and they could store much more data than N64 games… but at least load times on N64 games were virtually nonexistent.
The Switch, of course, couldn’t do full-sized discs, and so it went for these super cool little cards. And like cartridges of the past, the read speed is quite good. So, Switch doesn’t need to install your cards, which is great, but they are costly to manufacture compared to the Blu-Ray discs used by other consoles. The higher capacity cards of Switch 2 have gotta be even more expensive to make, so ultimately it is not that surprising that Sega, Square Enix, and EA (Madden is coming back to Nintendo, baby!) are shying away from them.
Mario Kart World is in fact contained on the card, though, so if you are going to get the physical version, you should be able to save space on the console’s storage, at least. It’s not the only game to do so, of course, but I wonder how many publishers will opt for a true physical version in the future.
Anyway. That was a fun deep dive.
Even though I have seen negative comments about games not being on physical cards, I think most people would rather make comments about the Mario Kart price. The implications of turning discs into keys that unlock a digital license permanently tied to an online account seemed outrageous to gamers in 2013, but in 2025, as you’ve probably noticed, people are very comfortable with digital games. I still think the Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are better overall than that Xbox One plan, especially since it’s not every game, but you have to wonder what happens to all these games when the servers turn off someday.
The Gimmicks
Ok, nobody is actually making this comparison when they bring up Xbox One in relation to Nintendo Switch 2, but I am going to make it just for the sake of… uh… academia, I guess?
When it comes to gimmicks, the original Xbox One had TV pass-through and Kinect—and gamers didn’t care about that stuff! And I don’t know if any non-gamers would have ever cared enough about those gimmicks to want to pay \$500.
Nintendo is advertising Chat as one of Switch 2’s big features, and they believe in the feature so much they gave it a dedicated button on the controller. Yeah and smart TV remotes will have dedicated buttons for certain streaming apps but do you think I actually use those? But seriously, online voice chat is a great thing to have, but it’s not that exciting when it’s been around in some form for many years. I wouldn’t even really classify it as a gimmick, because no one can deny voice chat is useful. It’s just funny to see it as a key point in advertising I guess. The original Xbox had voice chat, you know!
To their credit, Nintendo seems to have really thought through how to make it a social experience. You can share your gameplay live with your friends, and if you connect a USB camera they’ll see your face.
I am honestly concerned about the fact that the microphone is in the console itself. Do you remember Wii Speak? I bought one of those for some reason. I don’t know why I ever thought I would have a chance to use it. Apparently it did a pretty bad job of blocking out TV noise. This version should be better, but I guess we’ll see when it comes out.
That’s enough about chat though.
Probably the most interesting of Switch 2’s other new features is Joy-Con mouse mode. It’s exactly as it sounds: you can use a Joy-Con as a mouse. I wouldn’t say I’m that excited about it, but I think it’s cool it’ll be an option.
Ultimately, Switch 2 is, mostly, more of the same, which is good. Nintendo is not losing focus on what worked.
Xbox One became a pretty standard console after some months on the market, but when Microsoft first revealed it, it was like they thought they were going to strike it rich by selling a fancy TV box to people. Nintendo spending a few minutes of a Direct on chat ain’t nothing compared to the thirty minutes spent on TV features in the console’s first reveal. It seemed to gamers like Microsoft was shifting focus away from the stuff they cared about. That’s one mistake Nintendo is certainly not repeating with Switch 2.
The Games
Look, as a video game company, you can make a lot of stupid decisions, but if you bring a few games people really want… well, you still might lose in sales to the competition, but the people who did buy the console will remember those games very fondly at least.
Sometimes I wonder where Nintendo Switch would be if it didn’t launch with Breath of the Wild—but it’s kind of a stupid question, because Nintendo would’ve come up with something sooner or later. They had Mario Kart 8 Deluxe soon after launch, followed by a steady stream of releases through the rest of the year. The hybrid console concept was an excellent one, but not many people are going to buy a product just for a concept—they need the games, and Nintendo prepared a strong lineup.
For Nintendo Switch 2, the company has the perfect plan. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is by far the best-selling Switch game. It just never seemed to stop selling. It’s like children are born and then they’re gifted a Switch with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at age 3, or something. So the obvious answer for Switch 2 is to launch with the next Mario Kart.
I always wondered where Nintendo could go from 8 when it feels like they’ve used all the tricks you could possibly imagine for a fantastical kart racing game. Flying, swimming, defying gravity. Their answer? Basically to go open world. And also let you play as the cow from Moo Moo Meadows.
I mean this game looks incredible.
But wait, won’t the price be an issue?
More Price Discussion!!!
So, a bunch of people on YouTube chatspammed “DROP THE PRICE” on Nintendo’s streams where they showed off Switch 2 games. Clearly the people are outraged and will not be buying this game!
Let me ask you this though: you ever see gamers actually successfully boycott something before? And “boycotting” something nobody wanted in the first place doesn’t count, if anyone out there is feeling delusional. I’m thinking more of the infamous “Boycott Modern Warfare 2” Steam group.
In 2011, Nintendo launched the 3DS at \$250. Sales were below expectations, and Nintendo soon cut the price. I can assure you that the price cut was not the result of people standing outside Nintendo headquarters telling them, “We really want this but we’re not gonna buy it until you lower the price!” It was the market’s natural reaction to a system that wasn’t yet offering enough to justify that price. The launch lineup just wasn’t that exciting for most people.
My read of the situation with Mario Kart World is that all the discussion about the price only proves there’s a lot of interest in the product.
And it seems to me like there are millions willing to spend \$70 on games already. I don’t know if an additional \$10 is going to be the breaking point for most of them. For those of us who have less to spend, it’s different, but it just seems like the wealthier portion of the audience is big enough and the demand for this game is high enough for it to sell.
So yes, frankly I think there are plenty of people ready to buy Mario Kart World even if they grumble (volcano).
Ok now back to the games
Mario Kart aside—to be honest, I did expect Nintendo to publish more than one big launch game. The only other brand new one they got is Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour for \$10, and everyone’s been shocked that it’s not a free pack-in title.
(Did you know right now they got a PS5 disc version that comes with Astro Bot for \$450? Plus I’m pretty sure it still comes with Astro’s Playroom too, so you’re getting two great games at a big discount! This isn’t sponsored, I just like Astro Bot).
To an extent, I think Nintendo is also relying on the upgrades they’re releasing for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Which, yes, I will be playing (I’m going to start a new BotW file).
Also, Gamecube games. Let’s go. I didn’t super expect Gamecube would be showing up on Switch 2, at least not at launch, so to see it was pretty exciting. It’s the main console of my childhood. Hopefully they get Melee on there soon. I’m also just happy I’ll be able to buy an official, faithfully recreated wireless Gamecube controller (and unlike the Wavebird, it has rumble, or at least I assume it does).
But uhhh yeah, as far as completely new games go, Mario Kart is the system-seller at launch, and based on the vibes around pre-orders, I think it’s already been doing well at that job.
Do you want to talk about Xbox One still? Are we still doing that concept? The whole premise of the post? Yeah we probably should.
In my Xbox One post, I said that the console’s launch lineup was pretty good. Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3, Ryse: Son of Rome, Killer Instinct, and more—a good quantity of Microsoft-published games. But how many of these are real system-sellers? Stuff that will have you instantly reaching for that pre-order button? I mean, PS3 owners who liked racing games didn’t need no Forza 5; they didn’t even need a PS4, because Gran Turismo 6 was coming out soon on PS3! But seriously, like I said in my other post, if you were buying an Xbox One at launch, there was stuff to play—but it wasn’t stuff that would really tempt someone on the fence to buy the console.
For me, Mario Kart World really does seem like that kind of system-seller game. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since Mario Kart 8 released that a hunger has grown. But man. 24 racers? Exploring this big world, driving from one track to another? Seems pretty fun!
But of course I am biased, and not everyone is into Mario Kart. I feel like most people who would consider buying a Switch at all are at least kind of into Mario Kart, but that’s not everyone.
So third-party publishers will have to pick up the slack on the launch lineup for the non-Mario Kart fans I guess.
We got Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut as an exclusive. Look, Yakuza 0 is one of my favorite games of all time. But as of now, I don’t really care about this version. Maybe the extra scenes are better than I’m expecting, and maybe the multiplayer is more fun than I’m expecting. But it’s going to take some convincing to get me to get this version on Switch 2. Maybe if they released a real physical version, am I right?
Now I’m gonna be honest here, there aren’t a lot of other exclusives on this thing day one. There’s a digital-only racing game for \$15 called Fast Fusion. There’s a new Rune Factory game, but that’s on Switch 1 and PC too. Oh and why is Bravely Default HD Remaster a Switch 2 exclusive anyway? Ah well, it’s something.
If you’re looking for non-exclusive stuff—like if you’re someone who hasn’t been playing on other platforms at all, or if you just want portable versions of some fairly recent games, there’s lots of stuff you might be interested in, like Street Fighter 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman, Kunitsu-Gami (I always said I needed to play this and I still haven’t), and more. Split Fiction is here and that just barely came out on other platforms.
Is it the world’s strongest launch lineup? No, but if you just have to have the console at launch, at least you’ll still have a vast library of Switch 1 games to play on it, and some of them are even getting free patches. Ain’t that nice? (Though there are compatibility issues with some games).
What really excites me is the fact that Donkey Kong Bananza is coming out a month later. This game just feels so creative, and the music we’ve heard so far sounds incredible. I expected a new 3D Mario, but instead we got this, and I’m thrilled (though I will probably go even crazier for 3D Mario because of my emotional attachment to those games).
Playing Metroid Prime 4 on Switch 2 at some point this year will be pretty awesome. Kirby Air Riders was a surprising announcement—I was never crazy about the original game, but I am hopeful about this one. Nintendo getting a new FromSoftware game as an exclusive was crazy, but the world’s excitement diminished upon learning it’s a multiplayer game. Still, it looks pretty cool, doesn’t it?
The promise of what’s to come is pretty darn strong. So at this point, I am not worried about Nintendo Switch 2’s game library.
Honestly, this will always be the biggest difference between any Nintendo console and Xbox One. You can almost always count on Nintendo to make some unique stuff you won’t find anywhere else. Xbox One though? The lack of strong exclusive software is one of the key stories people will remember about that console.
So look, while there may be people online who are upset about Nintendo’s prices and download-only games, kind of like how people were angry about Xbox One in 2013, these consoles and situations are so different.
When Microsoft first entered the console business, they showed they were serious: they made a powerful console and got lots of developers on board to make unique games.
Nintendo was struggling to keep up with the competition’s sales with Gamecube, even though it wasn’t lacking in power, so they decided to embrace a whole new strategy, hoping to reach millions of potential customers outside of the usual crowd of gamers. Microsoft stayed aggressive in the meantime, releasing Xbox 360 a year ahead of PlayStation 3. Then they watched as Sony foolishly persisted in releasing a very expensive console, leading many customers to buy the less expensive 360.
But after Microsoft enjoyed dominance against PlayStation in many regions for a couple years, they got complacent. They stopped worrying so much about getting new exclusives and instead just relied on a large handful of popular third-party games, with a first-party sequel thrown in every now and then. They behaved as if their players had committed to the Xbox brand forever, as if PlayStation could never win any of their customers over again. There was no sign of that old competitiveness where you’re always trying to get fresh exclusives that get gamers talking.
Instead the company seemed to have shifted focus to Kinect and, as we saw in 2013, TV. Their games pipeline suffered, and by the end of Xbox One, there just weren’t a ton of exclusives to look back on.
Nintendo though? Even if they’re not firing on all cylinders, I know they’re going to release something memorable eventually. Otherwise are they even Nintendo anymore?
I remember when I was first playing Wii Sports, I couldn’t help but think, as a youngster, that it was a little boring for Nintendo to have these normal tennis courts and bowling alleys compared to the colorful worlds they had built in the past. But really, there’s so much charm in the game. If you’ve played it, you probably remember some of the music. You remember the crowd going “Woowwwww!” in tennis. You remember tossing the ball backwards in bowling and making the crowd jump. Fun is imbued throughout the game in all these little ways.
I don’t think Nintendo has lost sight of what people expect for them. Now granted, some people did want to see a brand new concept for this console, because Nintendo has done a lot of unique concepts in the past 20-ish years. But come on. Seeing a new type of controller is not really why you go back to Nintendo. You’re there for the games. The Wii Remote controls aren’t really what made Mario Galaxy fun. And most Wii U games are just as good if not better without the screen on the Wii U GamePad.
So, as long as Nintendo is still focused on the games, I just can’t see this as being similar to Xbox One at all.
Now let’s get to the real question….
But is it a Wii U Situation?
Once upon time there was a console called Wii, and despite being a financial success, it started to have some problems. One problem was that most companies who weren’t Nintendo didn’t bother making many games for it. Eventually Nintendo created Wii U and said that third-parties were going to return. The console was “HD,” after all, and it had all the standard controller features (except the triggers weren’t analog). The controller also had a screen in the middle. It turned out that third-party developers didn’t really like making games for the console, because simply being “HD” doesn’t mean much if the CPU is too slow, but publishers didn’t want to bet against Nintendo too much after the Wii surprised them, so a bunch of them made launch titles for Wii U. Then the console released and the general public didn’t care about it, for various reasons.
Nintendo was hoping to repeat Wii’s dominance by seeking a brand new innovation. But the one they went with had limited gameplay potential and was difficult to explain.
The Wii U GamePad was kind of an attempt to please everyone: a novel device that might attract the masses in the same way Wii did, while also having all the controller features any modern game would require—the lack of such features having been a notable challenge for third-party developers on Wii.
But the uniqueness of the GamePad was difficult to understand, compared to the Wii Remote. It was a touch-screen controller—essentially a tablet, a type of device which had recently exploded in popularity. To the average person, it seemed like yet another add-on for the Wii, and not a particularly exciting one.
The best feature of Wii U was probably off-TV play, yet in commercials, Nintendo usually opted to try to show how fun the console was to play with friends and family (especially family, particularly the young kids in the family). The idea of a gamer playing in isolation on a small screen must have seemed antithetical to everything Nintendo had been about in advertising for the past console generation, yet fans absolutely loved the feature.
By sticking with the Wii name, Nintendo may have been trying to give the new console a boost from whatever momentum was left from the Wii fad—but truly, the Wii name didn’t carry much luster anymore by 2012. From my experience, teenage male gamers were actively repelled by it. And Wii customers who only bought one or two games after Wii Sports, if any, were not going to be drawn back in simply because a product with the Wii name released.
So, how is all that different from Nintendo’s current situation?
Wii U was not really an iterative console in the same way the Switch 2 is, despite keeping the Wii branding. A brand new concept with the Wii U GamePad (that customers in general don’t really understand) versus a straightforward improved version of a concept that already exists.
Nintendo’s choice to continue the Wii name for Wii U was probably meant to convey several things, like how Wii U continues in the philosophy of finding new ways to play video games, and it can use Wii controllers, and it can play all Wii games. The problem with a Wii sequel is that by 2012, gamers didn’t respect Wii, and non-gamers had mostly stopped being excited about it. Its sales had declined significantly. The Switch, on the other hand, has had strong sales for many years. There is no reason to abandon the brand name and risk confusing customers. So just because Wii U had a bad time when carrying over the Wii name, doesn’t mean the Switch 2 will.
On that note, another difference this time is the straightforward naming. Everyone who can count to 2 understands that Switch 2 is the console that comes after the first Switch. Which means it’s better. People didn’t know what Wii U was supposed to mean.
Ok, I know that for its launch Wii U had Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, Ninja Gaiden 3, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Black Ops II, Assassin’s Creed III, NBA 2K13, Darksiders II, the original Ubisoft game ZombiU, and others, before almost everybody left the next year, but you know, isn’t it kind of a weird lineup? Who wants to play Mass Effect 3 before at least playing 2? The third-party games on Switch 2 feel a bit more thought-out at least. Most of the games are critically acclaimed (which I would not say of all of those Wii U games), and none of them are sequels in story-heavy series (Yakuza 0 is a prequel and a good entry point). Street Fighter 6 comes with the fighter passes for years 1 and 2—boy, if only Nintendo would give me that much for just \$60! Hey can you believe Cyberpunk comes with the expansion and it’s still just \$70? Amazing—or rather, very normal, unless you’re Nintendo.
Anyway, I don’t know how many big third-party games will come to Switch 2 over time, but honestly, it feels like they have less to prove on that front compared to Wii. With Wii, maybe it’s because it was the first time Nintendo decided not to compete power-wise with their home console, but seeing almost every big multiplatform game that generation skip it hurt a little, as a fan. So with Wii U, initially it was like Nintendo was trying to convince us things would be different—except they ended up even worse. With Switch, I don’t know if we’ve just adjusted our expectations or what, but lack of third-party games never felt like as big of a problem. Switch got faithful ports—graphically downgraded, obviously, but faithful—of a decent number of PS4-generation games, while on Wii, outside of Activision’s biggest IPs, usually you’d just get spinoff alternatives of PS3-generation games at best. I guess there is a similarity with Switch 2 in the sense of “if you never played Arkham City you can play it now on Wii U,” but I just don’t see it as a sign of anything except that the Switch 2 is a solid upgrade in terms of power. I think the third-party situation will be similar to Switch 1, but maybe a bit better (and Microsoft promised the courts that Switch has to get Call of Duty, so ha).
I love Nintendo Land—specifically the five-player games in it—but if Mario Kart World lives up to my expectations, I think it singlehandedly gives Switch 2 a better launch lineup than Wii U. That’s putting a lot on that game, but you know what, launch isn’t everything, so either way, it’s fine. By the way, if you’re getting a Switch 2 at launch, don’t know what to play, have never played Yakuza 0 and don’t have another device to play it on… just play it.
We should have a good amount of releases this year. After Donkey Kong, at some point we’ll get Kirby Air Riders, Metroid Prime 4, Hyrule Warriors, and uh… Drag x Drive? We’re also getting the Kirby and Mario Party upgrades. Wii U had a bad software drought after launch, but I don’t think that will be the case for Switch 2’s first year.
Anyway no I am pretty sure this is not a Wii U situation at all.
But is it a PS3 situation???
Man I don’t know, I can’t compare it to every single console that wasn’t a hit right out the gate. Sure, you can see a parallel in the sense that PS2 was the most successful console ever, and PS3 was a console that was really expensive to make and for customers to buy. It had a bunch of ports which you wouldn’t even recognize today—like what hardware even uses this? It had a PS2 SOC built-in originally for backwards compatibility. The CPU used what they called the “Cell” architecture which was focused on multitasking, but developers found it painfully difficult to learn, and PS3 games tended to actually turn out worse than their Xbox 360 counterparts.
This may sound like me nerdily dumping a bunch of information I find interesting. And it is. But the point is that one superficial similarity doesn’t mean that you’re going to see a close repeat of history. There are so many differences.
Also the better model of PS3 was $599 in 2006 so Switch 2 is still pretty far from that.
Sony of course turned things around by cutting the price and releasing some real good games. They changed their marketing quite a bit, too.
If Switch 2 does prove to be too expensive to be a longterm hit, I am pretty sure there will be a price cut. But maybe I should mention the elephant in the room in all this pricing discussion: Economic uncertainty. There’s a lot of that.
As interesting as these comparisons can be, the reasons I think the Switch 2 is in a good position are pretty simple: it’s a good iteration on something people already like, and it has some games people want.
I’m not at all able to predict how pricing will affect sales, frankly—but I like just about everything else they’re doing!