Switch 2 Seems Like What I Asked For
Two years ago—almost to the day—I wrote on this very blog:
“I’d like to see Nintendo announce a successor [to Nintendo Switch] soon, because—well, it’s been six years! And a Switch with improved graphics would be cool. They don’t need to make something radically different. Just make a ‘Switch 2’ with improved hardware, and I’m sure people will buy it….
“Creating a hybrid console was clearly a brilliant move for Nintendo, and I had no idea in 2017 just how successful it would be. Nintendo has found their niche right now, and I can’t imagine them going too far outside of it in the near future.
“Yes, I say: make a Switch 2, Nintendo.”
I did not expect it would take so long for the successor to be announced, but on January 16, the day finally arrived.
It was actually pretty anticlimactic.
Because I enjoy following video game news, I was made aware of a bunch of leaks regarding Switch 2 in recent months. They said that this console was basically a bigger version of the Switch, except the controllers attach magnetically this time. And well, that was all true, so Nintendo’s surprise trailer drop (although even that wasn’t a complete surprise because the date of it was leaked as well), which was pretty low-key, wasn’t exactly shocking. But the trailer did briefly show footage of a new Mario Kart.
(I will say, when I heard the leak on this trailer, I was imagining a more upbeat trailer like Switch 1 got way back in 2016. You know, the one where all these young adults are out there living fun lives carrying their Nintendo Switch around everywhere? I thought we could tap into that energy again, but I admit there is no real need to this time. Back then, Nintendo had to show they were BACK, and they brought some swagger. But anyway).
Perhaps the biggest surprise was that they actually went with the straightforward and obvious name for the console. After Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS I think I became convinced any new console based on a previous console from them was going to have a weird name.
I kid—I’m actually not that surprised it’s called Nintendo Switch 2. That’s because I think Switch-era Nintendo is just different from Wii U-3DS-era Nintendo. I really believed they were going to just play it safe and smart this time, that they weren’t going to do something unnecessarily strange, and I was right.
I barely even played on my Switch last year, but I still root for Nintendo to sell well like I’m rooting for a baseball team.
Because Switch is in a unique position in the market, being less powerful and less expensive than the traditional home consoles—yet able to play big games like Breath of the Wild, even as a portable device—it’s been able to become one of the best-selling consoles ever.
Today there are devices like Steam Deck that serve a similar purpose, but I don’t believe they have slowed Switch down all that much yet. They serve an enthusiast market—the type of players who already play a lot of games on PC and want to play those same games on a handheld. I don’t see handheld PCs gaining as wide a reach as Switch in the near future, but I think it is possible they will take a bite out of Switch 2’s sales—just not a huge one.
Because Nintendo does continue to enjoy this nice spot in the market, it never made any sense to me to imagine they would throw out the Switch concept and try something completely different. So here we are. Nintendo Switch 2. The smart move.
Can I see a new 3D Mario yet? It’s what sold me on the first Switch, and I reckon if they’re going to release one this year I might as well play it as soon as I can.
Should Switch 2 be more innovative?
In response to both the leaks and the official announcement of Switch 2, I have seen some lamenting from a few regarding the iterative nature of the product. They know Nintendo as a company that releases innovative hardware—what happened?
I don’t share this sentiment at all, as you can probably tell.
For one, Nintendo probably does have a gimmick or two attached to Switch 2 they haven’t shown yet. Apparently, the Joy-Con can be used as a mouse this time, which they sort of showed in the trailer, but it wasn’t super clear. They’re not giving a full presentation until April 2. But even beyond that, it wouldn’t surprised me if the console does something quirky we wouldn’t have expected.
That aside though, I just don’t think it’s particularly sad if this console is iterative, and I think the idea that Nintendo consoles are always super innovative isn’t accurate.
Was the Game Boy Advance not simply a Game Boy with better graphics and more buttons? Was the Gamecube not basically a straightforward successor to the N64—better graphics, better controller, and discs instead of cartridges? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it took a lot of work and brilliance to build this hardware, but that’s not what people mean when they talk about Nintendo’s innovation, right?
The real innovation throughout their history of making video games is much more evident in the games themselves. Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda. You know the camera system in Super Mario 64? Nobody had figured out how to do something like that before. They didn’t invent the concept of 3D graphics in video games, but they were one of the first to figure out how to make games fun in 3D.
The reason Nintendo made Wii
But when people think of innovative and/or gimmicky Nintendo hardware, what they’re probably remembering is the past twenty years. They’re remembering the Wii, which Nintendo had codenamed Revolution. What was it that inspired Nintendo to launch a revolution? Had video game hardware simply gotten too boring? Did Nintendo feel like they had to bring some creativity to the market?
Well considering they are a company, and as a company they want to make money, I’m gonna say it wasn’t that simple.
I don’t deny that within Nintendo, creativity is highly valued, if their best games are any indication. But if Gamecube somehow been had been a PS2-level sales success, I guarantee the Wii would not exist. That’s just the reality of business. If something’s working, you don’t stop doing it.
Nintendo is not in the strongest position in the Gamecube era. Sony with their PlayStation 2 is more dominant than ever. Then mean old Microsoft comes in and launches Xbox, and it actually sells decently well thanks to that Halo game, among other factors. It’s nowhere near PS2’s sales, but it outsells Gamecube.
Meanwhile, the future doesn’t look too great for Nintendo either. Sony and Microsoft are of course going to create the next generation of consoles, and they’ll feature amazing HD graphics. It’ll be expensive, but they don’t mind. They can sell consoles at a loss. Sony is a movie and electronics and record company and a ton of other things, and Microsoft has a stranglehold on most of the IT and home computer world. They’re fine with selling consoles at a loss if it means selling a lot of games over time. But Nintendo only makes video games. (Well, they do get a good chunk of the revenue from all of Pokémon’s various merchandise of course, but they’re certainly no Sony or Microsoft). Do they really want to spend all the money to make another console that can go toe-to-toe graphically with the competition? Would they even be able to sell such a console at a competitive price without taking a loss (which Nintendo doesn’t like to do)? And would the core gamer audience even give the console a chance when they already preferred PlayStation or Xbox?
Well, people have been saying Nintendo would soon go the way of Sega ever since Sega went the way of Sega. (RIP Dreamcast). (Sega is thriving as a publisher today).
But this is where Nintendo sees another path. They know that they don’t have to compete on Xbox and PlayStation’s playing field anymore. They can do something different and reach a vast untapped market.
So they create Wii. As you probably already know, it has lower specs than Xbox 360 and PS3, but it has totally novel motion controls. It becomes a huge fad.
Yes, it was some brilliant thinking that led Nintendo to create Wii, but let’s not pretend they did it simply out of passion or something. They didn’t have much of a choice but to pursue an alternate strategy when they were facing two giants.
I still can’t fully explain Wii U
But what about Wii U?! They were on top of the world with Wii, yet Wii U was a flop!
Well actually, I wouldn’t say Nintendo was still on top of the world by the time they announced Wii U. Wii sales in fiscal year 2009 declined 21% from the previous year, which, as far as I can tell, was a pretty significant number. That was still a lot of consoles, but once sales started declining, they never rebounded. The Wii fad was passing.
Wii U was iterative in some ways—I mean, it has the Wii name and uses Wii Remotes for some of its games. The GamePad was also presented as quite a significant attraction, on the other hand, making the system feel new. In my mind, Nintendo was positioning the GamePad as the gimmick that would attract people the same way the Wii Remote did. That didn’t really work.
I think that situation is different from our present day in many ways, but part of me thinks that “Wii U but it comes with a pro controller and it has better specs and/or price than the actual Wii U because there is no GamePad and it’s also called Wii 2” would have fared a little better. I still think interest in Wii had faded to the point where this system wouldn’t have gotten much of a boost from the name, but at least the concept is a lot clearer to the average person, right?
The Switch, on the other hand, has been going for almost eight years and its sales have yet to truly fall off. Which is probably because its core concept is inherently useful, and people like Nintendo games. There is no need for Nintendo to come up with a huge gimmick like the Wii U GamePad, because they still have a market pretty much all to themselves.
I’m going to look pretty stupid if this thing flops though.
Gimmicks are rarely meaningful improvements
But yeah, instead of big gimmicks, Nintendo will bring some little gimmicks. Like how Sony made a controller with cool haptic feedback for the PlayStation 5, when the hardware is otherwise a stronger, faster version of the very successful PlayStation 4.
(Although again, that Joy-Con mouse thing could be pretty significant).
Now I know at the end of the day, some of us just want to see Nintendo do something weird for the entertainment factor. Even if the gimmick turns out completely useless beyond two weeks of novelty, people will still talk about it for a bit. Me, I just don’t really need that.
It’s like the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros from 2016 to 2021 (or whenever the last one was made). Cool-looking idea. Has a couple neat use cases. But not neat enough to replace the function keys! It’s a gimmick I don’t miss!
And why does the right Joy Con have an infrared camera? When have I ever used that? I didn’t play 1-2 Switch or Labo, ok?
See, the thing is, Nintendo still does make weird stuff like Labo. And more recently, Alarmo.
But you want their one and only console to be weirder? Nah, I just want it to have good games. Because that’s what I’m there for, at the end of the day.
3D Mario game 2025 please.