Nintendo dun fucked up the Switch 2 announcement, and it's all about the money.
For the console itself, I don't think US$449.99 is a ridiculous price. It's high, and higher than most people including the never-right videogame industry analysts predicted. But for a brand new Nintendo system being released after years of higher-than-average inflation driven purely by corporate profit-mongering, combined with US President Shits-his-pants' tariffs that finally dripped down his pant legs and is pooling around his 3-inch lifts as of today, it's basically what I was expecting. This is because I'm smarter than anyone who calls themself a videogame industry analyst and doesn't immediately kill themself after.
But US$80 for the actual games truly is a ridiculous price. Not just for a videogame, but for a Nintendo game. Nintendo is notorious for over-inflating their game prices, but usually that amounts to releasing a game at the typical retail price and never dropping it. I remember seeing Pokémon Puzzle League for N64 at my local Walmart for CA$80 years after the GameCube launched, and I had to buy Super Smash Bros. Melee for full launch price right before the Wii launched. Nintendo clearly thinks their games are so good that they never warrant a price drop, and maybe they're right. If people will continue to pay launch price for Super Mario Strikers, why would they ever lower it? The fault really lies with gamers, who are, without exception, fucking morons.
Publishers are already pushing game prices higher, making US$70 the new normal, and Switch 2 games are starting even higher than that. This has people pissed off, and Nintendo clearly knew the price of both the system and the games wasn't going to be popular. Why else would they not include any sort of pricing info in the Nintendo Direct video itself? Their obvious shame keeps this from being a true "599 US dollars" moment, but the backlash regardless has has been just as bad and almost overshadowed the console announcement itself.
And that's just the beginning.
The pricing of Switch 2 upgrades for original Switch games is even worse, and is what makes this announcement not just on par with the unveiling of the Wii U, but much worse. Back in 2011, the casual players that Nintendo had courted throughout the Wii's life didn't know the Wii U was a new console marking a whole new generation—and thus a cutoff point for Wii software support—instead of just an optional update or peripheral like the Wii Balance Board. In 2025, I just watched an IGN preview of Metroid Prime 4 where two Gaming Industry Journalists™ weren't sure if the Switch 2 edition of the game would come with the Switch 2 version on the cartridge or just the Switch version and an upgrade code, or if the upgrade would still need to be purchased separately. Other Switch 1 games will have a $10 upgrade, and others still a $20 upgrade, or if you have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription you get a free upgrade for games like Tears of the Kingdom or something?
This is where Nintendo has really screwed up their messaging. They wanted people to be excited for their new console, and instead most of the articles being written about it are focused on the pricing confusion that Nintendo needlessly created themselves.
This is absolutely a failure of management. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata started in games development. He was in charge during the Wii and Wii U eras, and they were great. You can say what you want about the Wii U, but the only real problem with it was the marketing which resulted in poor initial sales, leading to poor software support and a vicious positive feedback loop. That just further cements how much of a developer Iwata was in my eyes, because no self-respecting software developer knows two shits about marketing.
The two presidents Nintendo has had since Iwata's death have no development experience between them. They're businessmen and that's it. When businessmen take control of a business of which they have no understanding as to the day-to-day work that goes on under them, what happens is stock values go up really fast because of savvy short-term business decisions (like releasing an over-priced console with over-priced games that idiot gamers will buy regardless because of brand loyalty), but then the business collapses in the long term because they've absolutely ruined their own products. By that point, however, the president and their boot-licking board members have already left the company with huge bonuses for their short-term gains and are off to ruin some other company.
I will undoubtedly buy a Switch 2, though, because I want to play the best possible version of Metroid Prime 4, so I'm not totally free of the Gamer Retardation. My only defense is that I was born stupid, but I'm still smarter than a videogame industry analyst.
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