I only recently acquired a Nintendo Switch, the first one that is and I really like it although I don't really play it that much. I acquired it when I really wanted to play Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which is a fantastic game. I never really bothered to acquire a bunch of games because a local friend of mine already has a ton of them and is willing to get me borrow whatever I want.
I was never going to get the Switch 2 that is coming out I think later this year but when I heard the press release from Nintendo, I think a lot of people are going to bail on getting one as well.
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I don't even know a great deal about this thing other than the fact that it is significantly more powerful than the first Switch (as you would expect) and that they've made a couple of cool design improvements over the first one. Oh and it is backwards compatible and your entire Switch digital library will be transferable, which is also nice.
What's not so nice is the rather high price tag and the proposed price of the games are just absurd.
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Only 2 launch titles have been confirmed and well, these are always going to be popular as they are two of the most famous Nintendo-specific titles that the company has. So Mario cart is going to be nearly $90 and Donkey Kong is going to be $80.
This, in my mind, is simple fleecing of the target audience and taking advantage of your fans. I have been rather dedicated to certain Nintendo specific franchises in the past, most notably Zelda and Metroid who, as far as I know, have never been ported anywhere else and honestly, Nintendo needs to stick with this strategy lest there be no real reason to ever own a switch.
Sure, it comes in handy if you have a long road trip or flight ahead, but most people probably leave it locked up in the charging cradle and plugged up to their TV. I know I do.
Since even when the Switch 2 is released it will be much less powerful in terms of basically everything than the PS5 and this has frustrated a lot of people in the market for consoles as well. Nintendo can't claim that these things are really expensive to make in order to justify the price, they are simply charging a lot for it because they can get away with it. Can I afford $450? yeah I mean I guess so, but I will not be participating in this because I don't want to reward companies' greed with my patronage. There is already a massive movement to refuse to purchase the Switch until Nintendo reduces the price of both the console and the games. Charging near $100 for a single game is pretty crazy man!
This is dangerous territory for gamers, because if Nintendo is successful in this over-charging, it will only encourage others, such as Sony, to do the same thing. Sony tried to charge something crazy like $800 for the PS5 Pro but soon reduced it to $700 (which is still too much) after a lot of backlash from consumers.
I hear a lot of talk and see a lot of memes about people already starting (or having already done it) transitioning to Steam Deck and while I have only ever seen one of these, it is a seriously impressive machine. The budget version of this machine retails at $400 while and OLED version is as high as $1200.
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The problem with any console that isn't made by Nintendo though, is that they will never have Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games.
The fact that Nintendo cancelled their Pre-order date of April 9th for mysterious and unannounced reasons might be an indication that they intend to change their prices, and I really hope that is the case. The cost of the console really isn't anywhere near as much of an issue as what they are charging for the games and I know a great many friends that have already cancelled their plans for getting one.