Switch 2 Sales Reportedly Struggled Over The Christmas Period
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.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/01/switch-2-sales-reportedly-struggled-over-the-christmas-periodOpen linkView original on lemmy.ca337
Comments208
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.
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.
Bro that’s my patient gaming technique! $10 games FTW!
What you got?
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!
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.
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)
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.
Ain't got those amazing Nintendo games though. Glhf finding a Mario Cart replacement that is actually as good.
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 :)
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…
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.
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.
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
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).
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)
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, 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.
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?"
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.
How is either Switch not enshittified when 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.
Even in the days of memory cards you could back up saves to other memory cards...
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.
Did they ever support that for free?
Same difference?
It's not enshittified because the Switch was already shit.
Yep, Switch 1 was much more interesting, and I still skipped it in favour of PC / Steam Deck.
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.
The point they are probably trying to make is with a key you don't own the game like you would with a hardware cartridge in older Nintendo systems. So you own nothing on the switch.
And the point I'm making is that only a handful of games are keys; the vast majority are still on the cart, same as the last system.
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.
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
“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.
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.)
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 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.
i skipped the first new switch, due to pokemon swsh, never regretted it, and many accurately predicted how bad it is with pokemon.
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.
AIn't nobody got no money.
It's a Switch, but they added a "2"
$80 for Mario Kart? At that price, we've got Mario Kart at home.
In all seriousness, the Nintendo Wii was REVOLUTIONARY when it came out. It was gangbusters when it released. It was $249, which is about $400 in today's money, but for a completely original and amazing new system. The Wii U wasn't exactly as revolutionary. It was a controller with a screen that you couldn't take with you. It was a flop.
The Switch was a modern equivalent of the Wii. It was new. It was different. It was a mobile gaming console.
The Switch 2 IS THE SWITCH. There is nothing new about it to the everyday consumer mom and dad. There are no cool new features. No cool new games. It doesn't justify itself or the cost to the sticky fingered kid next door who is content with Minecraft on the original Switch. Nintendo did what an American company led by shareholders would do and continued to do more of the same and will likely blame the consumer.
OMG this line got me 😂.
B-but you can buy an overpriced webcam to talk to your friends over spotty online voice chat. What other features could you possibly want?! (/s)
Nintendo invented FaceTime but shittier
Mario-Kart-at-home by the way: supertuxkart.net
Buy now for $0 and get Rocket-League-at-home for free on top!
(It's one of the game modes in SuperTuxKart. 🙃)
But yeah, $80 is kind of wild, even just because it's fundamentally still a cart game. You pretty much need a group to regularly play it with, otherwise you won't get your money's worth out of that.
I've seen this evolve over the years. Time to give it a shot.
I actually reinstalled it myself after writing that comment. 😅
I only really started to fully appreciate it, when I learned that drifting gives you a boost. So, if you're going around curves, you pretty much always want to drift, which then kicks your speed up once you stop drifting. Maintaining a higher speed than your car normally goes, is vital for beating the harder difficulties.
Same with Mario kart
I doubt the ability to brick your console remotely played too large of a part in this. It's far more likely the asking price combined with the general economic situation for the average consumer, combined with a worse screen and a lesser launch offering of titles. For my own biases, when you see how consoles have required online subscriptions and how your old games don't automatically run at higher settings when you buy the new machine, I wonder how much more gas in the tank consoles even have without some fundamental transformation.
Yeah, this is a bubble. I don't blame op for not liking that but the average consumer isn't even aware and wouldn't care anyway. Look at all the other shit the average consumer tolerates.
I agree also- just too expensive and no real improvements. I know two people with one. The one games a lot and he enjoys it but I don't know how often he plays it anymore compared to steam. The other family plays it but are starved for games.
Nice if you have the pocket change but fundamentally just a lot of money for a slightly upgraded switch with few dedicated games. Jmho.
The average consumer does not care about this. The biggest reasons for people to not buy a Switch 2 are 1) people don't have money and 2) lack of major first-party games. I waited months until I found a MKW bundle for $450 at a black Friday sale.
Once we get the next 3D Mario or Zelda, you can bet they will sell a lot of consoles.
Also steamdeck is amazing, and a lot of people who want a handheld just chose that one
steamdeck and switch 2 don't address the same audience at all imo
Since I'm one of the people who is on the fence about whether or not to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2 or to get myself an ROG Ally (I have $250 of gift cards for Target which don't sell the Steam Deck) so that I can play steam games on a handheld. I heartily disagree.
And it's Nintendo's anti-consumer policies that is making me hesitate on the Switch 2.
Not exactly, but overlap is significant. A bunch of people want Nintendo because they always did Nintendo and that's all they know, a bunch of people know that switch is something that kids want and so they get one, sure. But a bunch of people want to play some games lying on a couch or riding a metro or sitting in a queue at a dentist, and those people will at least google what exists on the market. This is an overlapped audience, and for a lot of them steam deck will be the obviously better choice.
They can if you install Linux on it and run a switch emu.
It already comes with Linux installed, and an emulator can be setup with five button presses and thirty seconds of waiting.
The base system is setup as immutable, but /home isn't, so aur isn't available out of the box, but flatpacks are for example
That's pretty rad. I don't have one to know the nuance.
I heard it was possible to install bazzite on the SteamDecks
SteamOS is an Arch Linux, basically, with some stuff pre-installed. The only big difference is that it's installed in immutable mode, but even that is not a big deal
Thanks for the clarification. I really want to pick one up. Might wait a bit for a SD2 I'm sure is a year or two out.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Steam Deck but it's an extension of Desktop build not a direct Switch competitor.
It's not a direct competitor, but they occupy the same niche while being a vastly superior product.
I don't think that's had much of an impact when Nintendo sold more Switch 2s at launch than Valve has manufactured Steam Decks over its entire lifespan. The Steam Deck is still an enthusiast product for a niche crowd, and will likely never be in direct competition with the big three.
It's a comparatively new product, but it's not like it's something unsuccessful. It's attached to Steam, that everyone who ever had a computer knows about, and everyone has a couple of games there, it's being talked about very positively everywhere, and they're repeatedly gained positive reputation over pro-consumer practices they regularly employ, and they somehow evading being put on blast for the child gambling industry they operate.
They're known among gamers, which is indeed niche crowd, but also a crowd that is important here. They don't have the cultural grasp on humanity as Nintendo, or other two, but all of them shitting the bed constantly and publicly, while Valve is catching wins all over the place.
The real point here is that they don't have the ability to manufacture at the scale of the big three. It literally can't be in direct competition.
It's not set in stone. They have money, they have demand. Scaling production is a bitch and a half, but it's not impossible to do
i suspect it also pokemon being popular, but hasnt been producing anything but slop has something to do with it too.
We're broke
Plus Nintendo anti consumer practices, fuck them for that
Also even for people who want they can just get a gaming handheld and then gain access to a bunch of games which rarely cost $80 even when they're brand new. Buying a Switch 2 just isn't a financially sensible decision for anyone regardless of how much money you have in your bank account
I'd argue it is financially sensible if you want one. Current price may be the lowest it's ever been, with increasing prices for RAM and storage. There's only so much stock they have bought previously.
They ain’t that broke.
No one cares about this console.
Gee could it possibly be because there's absolutely nothing compelling about the product? Everything about it is just crap.
It's overpriced for what it is, pretty much all of its features are gimmicks and do not demonstrably improve on the original, everyone knows their games are overpriced and never reduce in price, and if you breathe on it in the wrong way Nintendo will sue you for 1100 quadrillion dollars. What's not to love?
The biggest issue is the price. I remember a time when even the poorest kid in class had a Nintendo because it was cheap.
The last cheap Nintendo was the 2DS over a decade ago. Most parents are looking for cheap hardware with entertainment and there isn’t anything which comes close to it.
Even the switch lite is the same price as the PS3 bundle back in the day. And it came with 2 real controllers and a game.
i bought my 3ds(latest version) 10years ago, for ultramoon and sun. and never bought a swithc after that.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
I mean, what is even there to play that you can't play on Switch 1?
New Mario Kart? Donkey Kong whatever?
I'm sure they're good games, I just don't see someone who already owns a Switch buying a whole new system just for them
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.
Everyone not on Nintendo's bubble knew a while ago. The Switch 2 was being discounted in ways that no successful console would be, the PS5 outsold it in key markets, and third party software sales for the Switch 2 are abysmally low.
i suspect alot of them are buying it so they can have pirated games on it, and the pokemon games. with pokmeon being a slop on the console now.
No piracy on the Switch 2 (yet). And it will take a while before it happens. The Switch 1 was blown wide open by a leaked bootrom exploit, I doubt this SOC will repeat the same mistake
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.
I’ve been having a fantastic time with mine. Kirby Air Riders is an excellent sequel to one of my favorite childhood games. Cyberpunk went on an accidental super sale and I was able to get the complete edition for $17 USD. Fortnite doesn’t run like dogshit anymore. The console feels more sturdy and premium compared to Switch 1. An extra charging port on the top makes extended tabletop play possible now.
However I’ll always welcome headlines like this because the more Nintendo struggles, the better they get. Wii Sports was incredible and everyone had it. Switch 2 Welcome Tour should have never been a paid game and none of my S2 friends own it.
LOVE this take. I’m with kinkles.
I mean, it’s very expensive. If I were employed when it released I’d have probably gotten one, but there’s what like 2 games that are exclusive to it?
It can wait until I can afford one. Probably on sale.
Yeah that's the problem there's nothing really compelling for it. Plus they've done their classic Nintendo thing of take a great product and then just add a bunch of gimmicks and claim innovation e.g the mouse mode thing nobody cares about. Also them being tight about the controllers and not putting decent hall effect even though they know they have a problem. It just proves that they don't actually care about their customer base.
I'm not the target audience for the switch 2, but i honestly wouldn't buy it just because how shitty they are. They sold a tutorial game that should clearly be free. Donkey kong is like 80 dollars and just a month or 2 later they released a dlc for half the price. The games don't even seem to be good. Mario kart is mediocre at best, metroid is embarrassing. And the company itself is pretty embarrassing itself with their lawsuit crusades
pokemon got worst too, and its likely thier flagship game thats probably selling the most.
i was employed during the 1st switch launch(the one after oled) pokemon turned me off from the console game forever, also masuda made a point that pokemon will not get any better later on, because hes all burned out from the industry.
The main thing holding me back is the fact that it doesn’t have an OLED display. With the price hike between the original and 2, in my opinion it should’ve launched with an OLED as standard. When even cheap phones come with it, Nintendo has no excuse not to include one.
And the game prices also aren’t helping, I imagine. Not when the games themselves are lacklustre as well. The new Mario Kart should’ve been a system seller. But the people I know who own it, have reverted back to playing the previous version. That’s a baaaad look.
I’ll likely buy the Switch 2 when they launch an OLED and release a new Animal Crossing.
They do have an excuse.
they are banking on 10 and under nagging on thier parents to buy the game cosole, they may only play few times a year. this was pretty much the craze of YUGIOH cards early 2000s, and pokemon in that same time period.
Fuck Nintendo
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!
The games are prohibitively expensive.
Even if you calculate hours-of-entertainment-per-dollar-spent, it’s crazy expensive.
pokemon is likely thier flagship game, and the quality seems to have gone down with each new game coming out, per masuda, cant really justify a very expensive game like pokemon and a switch 2, besides pokemon has extra fees that comes with it too.
Insurance?
yea 300-400 for a new switch? plus a game that is 60-70$+ dlc is another 30$, and online play, and storage if your playing pokemon.
$400 a game 💀💀💀
if your paying pokemon, expect to pay double for what its worth due to all the DLC, online play, pokemon storage,,,,etc.
The same is true of PlayStation and Xbox too (and has been for a decade or more). At least in US, don't know about Europe. This is not to defend Nintendo, just saying that if that was the issue, it would effect all the consoles, and would have been effecting them for last many years. Average people don't even know about these, and many probably don't even care.
There might be more to this, but with the current economy, and consoles getting more expensive instead of cheaper as time goes on could be some of the reasons, IMO. And there weren't much holiday sales this year.
First year sales are also generally limited by supply, not demand, so it will be interesting to see how Switch 2 does in its second and third years, specially if we do get next PS and Xbox next year.
Didnt playstation do amazingly well?
It was the best selling console in the US this holiday season, but not sure how it's sales compared to previous years. It also was on a big discount which definitely helped.
A "big discount" which placed it around the price it launched at.
Not sure, I got the impression that all consoles sold worse than usual, but I didn't actually dig deep into it.
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/gaming-industry/despite-early-supply-issues-more-than-80-2-million-ps5-units-have-been-sold
Behind the ps4 in outright numbers given the same period of sales time.
Surprised they've done that well though. It's good but the ps4 still holds its own IMO.
General availability seems to imply that supply was not a constraint by the time we got to the holiday shopping season.
Oh yeah, that last lines were about Switch 2 doing record sales in first year, not about the holidays sales, should have made it clear.
I agree with all your points about holiday sales, but I am not sure if it means that it's momentum has slowed down or it just went down because of other expenses and stuff people wanted to buy over this period. Will be interesting if the sales go back up or if they keep going down.
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.
(Ex) Nintendo fan here. I've owned every Nintendo console and handheld since the NES (even the Virtual Boy!) Right after the Switch 2 announcement in April I got a Steam Deck and never looked back, and I love the thing. The list of cons for the Switch 2 is immense - the price of the hardware, the price of the software, Nintendo's extreme anti-consumer practices...in the past, Nintendo at least had cheap hardware going for it. No longer. The list of Switch 2 exclusive games, both released and announced, I'd even want to play is also minuscule. Mario Kart World (which doesn't look even remotely worth $80) and Donkey Kong Bananza are it so far. I thought it would be difficult to not be able to play new Nintendo games, but they've made it extremely easy so far. I'm good with either never playing them or playing them emulated many years from now. It's very clear that Nintendo has become just another soulless corporate game company.
I am so happy to see Nintendo fail.
I bought a Switch day 1, I bought a Switch Lite day 1, there are 2 other Switches in our family... there's no way in hell I'm ever getting a Switch 2 or any other product Nintendo makes.
It's early and there aren't a lot of heavy hitters yet. But for me, Kirby Air Riders alone was well worth it, I waited 22 years for this sequel and it delivered.
Man that game is tempting me to try to find a switch 2. I really want to play it but that's such s hefty price.
I have one, I like it as a slightly better switch, but, yeah. There's not a lot of reasons to get one for now.
Mario Kart World and Age of Imprisonment are disappointing, most of the other first party games are just upgrades of Switch games, including Prime 4 that's... Meh.
Bananza was a lot of fun, but it's not selling a whole console.
I can't justify spending $600 to get a slightly better Switch.
Neither do I, but it was about 450 where I live.
I have a big switch library, and my OG switch is not in the best of shapes. Also, I honestly expected better from Mario Kart.
So yeah, as I said, I'm not exactly advising anyone to get one right now. I'm just saying, it's more comfortable than the switch, it has one good exclusive game, and it runs some switch 1 games significantly better.
It IS $450 here for the console only. I was factoring in taxes, Nintendo Online, and a game or 2.
its all those excess fees coming along with buying the switch, and the game, +online features.
This is exactly the problem, weird policy quirks and better alternatives didn't help the situation but quite frankly there's no new content for the Switch 2, and the performance bump over the OG Switch is almost irrelevant because raw performance isn't the reason people buy Nintendo systems & games.
I doubt it's a common cause, but my impetus for boycotting Nintendo was Garry's Mod. They sent their lawyers after animators, who actually get people more interested in their games. Their litigious nonsense caught up with them that time.
I hope they struggle the company underground.
The unwashed console plebs can join the gamers with the Steam Machine/Deck and see what gaming is supposed to be like.
There's still shitty stuff happening, but you're a lot less beholden to specific companies over here.
There’s only two CPU companies that often inflate their prices. There’s 3 but really only 2 GPU companies that also often inflate prices.
Let’s not talk about RAM.
Also, don’t forget the multiple price fixing lawsuits that got a lot of attention.
You might not like consoles but the PC world is more overpriced and just as predatory as the console market. It’s just businesses being greedy.
Right, but again, you have choices in almost every piece of hardware.
Consoles lock you down a lot harder in this respect. You either but their hardware and possibly software, or you miss out on the whole thing.
And a lot of people, like a sibling of mine is just getting to the point of maturity where you figure out the brand you like is the bad guy and you don't want to give them money anymore, but you sorely miss the product itself.
Given how hard they're locked in, it's really hard for them to jump to a new platform. Not quite as bad as switching from Android to or from iPhone, but not super far off.
Personally I jumped out completely before I got invested in a digital console store, so I didn't have that problem. But the point is that they gotta completely start a new collection and paradigm.
Whereas if you one day have a huge problem with let's say, Steam, you can just opt to never buy from them again without losing access to your library, no matter what hardware you're running it on.
You can choose to never buy an Acer monitor, CoolerMaster PSU, or (insert other random examples) while still having a computer.
I mean it's impossible to really find "good" companies, but you can at least pick your lines in the sand with a lot more granularity than just consoles.
It's not perfect, but is still better than the big 3.
Plus no matter where you land with your choices, you will still have the same library.
Hah, we got a second deck, too.
My son got 2 Pokémon games and a dlc. Seems like there's plenty of life left in the Switch 1 for now, so no need to update.
When we got the switch 1, it actually sat unused for most of the first year. After a while we started to really enjoy it though. Maybe we'll get a switch 2 in a year.
and people who are pokemon fans, likely keep thier old consoles with the pokmeon games so they can play it again, and transfer older pokemon to the newer consoles too.
When can we own it ourself and mod it?
The first Switch had a unique form factor when it came out, now there are deck pcs that replicate it, even with detachable "joycons". Unless you want to play a handful of exclusive titles there is really no reason to buy it, especially since the old switch will now drop in price.
I don't know if I'll ever get one, and I play my Switch fairly regularly.
It is SO MUCH more expensive than anything undecided to play in my PC. And the exclusives aren't very compelling lately.
I'm going to get one at some point, because my OG Switch's battery swelled up so I got rid of it. It's more about being able to play my existing games, than being in any way excited about spending £70 on new ones. 😔
I wonder if it's because they had 10 million ready to go in June for launch so most people who wanted one got one then. Especially because it'll never go down in price, why wait until the holidays unless you have kids?
nintendo is likely banking on the parents to buy for the needy kids right on launch.
They haven't had a crossover hit yet. The Switch had at least 2. Breath of the Wild on Launch and Animal Crossing during COVID. Hoping Star Fox get's a major Breath of the Wild type jump for the series and maybe a new IP. Metroid would be good to have a new sub-series that changes up the formula for 3D adventure. Hopefully a new IP too
Yeah it's kind of a thing where the switch benefited from the failure of the Wii U while the Switch 2 is being hurt by the success of the Switch.
BOTW was available on the Wii U, but since so few people had one of those, it made sense to get a Switch to play it.
With the Switch 2 I feel like "Meh, I already have a Switch it doesn't seem like it's offering much more than what I already have". Also it's larger and when I want to use the Swtich hand held (mostly just when I'm on a plane) seems like that might be a pain in the ass. Also with the Switch 1 they eventually came out with a better OLED model, so I'll just keep playing the Switch 1 until they come out with something a little more compact and maybe with a better screen or whatever. Stick drift has been an issue for me so also want something with more reliable sticks.
Seems like I might be asking a lot, but for the price they're asking if I'm not getting what I want, then I'll stick with the Switch 1. It's fine.
I’m a ps player mainly because I got the PS1 to replace my Saturn and haven’t had many bad experiences with Sony so far, but I’m definitely looking forward to the upcoming stream machines and will probably get a Steam Deck sometime soon.
This is my shocked face: 😑
I bought one during black Friday. I'm not a big fan though.
All but the steamdeck, because there's no console exclusives any more and the switch can be emulated?
Personally, I like my PS5 because I don't really gaf what any games do with my PS5's kernel. It's my way to play games that I'd never touch on my PC (even before switching to Linux, kernel anti-cheat/DRM was a dealbreaker).
Actually kinda ironic because Sony is the company that made me not trust shit companies install on PCs for security purposes after their rootkit (also stopped using autoplay because of that). But between the three console options, Sony is the least shitty today.
That said, I'm not sure I'll be ever getting another console because I still do most of my gaming on my PC while those games collect dust.
I like my regular Switch (because it's jailbroken and I haven't ever paid Nintendo for any game on it) but I see no reason to ever get a Switch 2 when the Steam Deck exists.
Well yeah, it's expensive and they didn't put it on sale. This was obviously going to happen.
When I picked mine up (I knew I'd get one eventually and didn't want to risk the prices going up like they did for other consoles), I saw 5 people walking out of BestBuy with a PS5 for every Switch 2 that sold, and the numbers seem to support that the PS5 outsold the Switch 2 over the holiday period.
thats weird that there were that many people buying consoles at the same time. ...i dont even think theres 5 customers in bestbuy at the same time where i live, lol.
Well it was Black Friday when I went, so it was absolutely packed with people. I already bought a PS5 months earlier because I didn't want to wait for a sale, otherwise I probably would have picked that up too lol
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.
good
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
Needs more games. Next mainline Zelda or Mario and I'm in. Was never a DK fan and Mario kart isn't enough.
or tell gamefreak to get thier heads out of thier behinds and make a better pokemon game, and not try justify the slop as a 60$ game.
The price doesn't turn me off. But I'm very happy with my Steam Deck OLED. If Nintendo ever releases an OLED version, I'll consider it for the Nintendo exclusives, but right now there isn't a compelling reason. I barely pick up my Switch 1 anymore.
Gen z hates Nintendo for their bad business practices.
The Switch 2 is not expensive.
The people that think this are getting screwed by their jobs but they don’t want to think about their wage stagnating while their boss buys extra boats and houses.
Seriously though it costs the same as the last one did unless you’re in a country that voted in a TV presenter who promised to do a trade war.
Notice how I’m just getting down votes but zero comments with evidence. It’s just a bunch of emotional children upset that I don’t automatically join their “Nintendo bad” narrative.
I mean, it is kinda expensive, but that would be more tollerable for everyone if wages weren't stagnating to fund yachts.
It's not that expensive. It's similar in price to PS5 before it got a price increase, and trades raw performance for portability.
The real expensive part is new price point for first party games and prices of SD Express cards.
It’s not any more expensive than any other electronics.
It’s a brand new tablet with okay battery life, pretty good performance and some low quality Bluetooth controllers included. Nothing else on the market is comparable. It’s basically a portable PS4 for $500 which is nice.
I recently built a PC. I bought RAM for $190. A week later it was $300. Now it’s over $400. Somehow, a Switch 2 is crazy overpriced at $500. People upset at the Switch 2 price are mouth breathers.
its actually more expensive if you include all the fees with online play, subscription that is required, even moreso with things like pokemon, also DLCs.
Isn’t everything more expensive if you include the costs of buying more stuff needed to enjoy it? PC, Console, Car, House, Burger, etcetera.
Online play on the Switch is $20 a year. The fact that they charge for online play and save backups is bullshit but not anywhere as bad as people pretend.
Isn’t Pokémon like a regular game you only need to buy once?
Switch 2 - $500 Pokemon - $70 Pokémon DLC - $30 Online - $20
$620 to play Pokemon
I don’t play Pokémon but games with crazy fandoms (Diablo, CoD, Final Fantasy) always seem to get milked for every penny.