I mean, go nuts. It will have cheaper games, a lot of the same cross-platform stuff and it trades blows on performance and display, from what I can see… but price isn’t really the biggest difference here.
The price reductions on the nintendo eshop aren’t really that enticing in comparison. So you have to pay pretty high prices for games or have to search on the second hand market to buy games cheaper.
On Steam, Gog and Epic you get good deals every day. Those crazy 1000+ game collections from Steam users aren’t there without reason. Games are often so cheap on Steam that you buy them even when you have 10 other games in the backlog you would rather play before.
Yeah, well, that’s not really a good thing in my book. You also arguably don’t need a thousand games you’re not gonna play. One of the things I’d like to see this gen on the Switch 2 is more curated discoverability and less shovelware.
I think your argument will make more or less sense depending on how the physical market eveolves. The price bump for physical is a bummer, but this generation it’s been very easy to find cheap physical copies, both new and used.
At the end of the day, PC handhelds are like PCs, you tend to pay more for the hardware (only the very cheapest LCD version of the Deck is cheaper than the Switch 2, and multiple specs are actually worse) and on consoles you get more affordable hardware but typically more expensive games, at least day one.
So at worst the Switch 2 is… you know, a console. The pricing of the hardware is by far the least egregious pricing choice in this whole thing. If anything, the Switch 2 feels weirdly standard for Nintendo’s typical strategy. They have a tendency to sell very old hardware at some profit instead of subsidizing it. This feels weirdly comparable to the PC handheld segment.
The Steam Deck is significantly cheaper when you take 🏴☠️ into account. Having cheaper hardware made having to deal with Nintendo’s walled garden worth it in the past. Plus the fact that there wasn’t anything else like the Switch when it launched.
Sure, anything is cheap if you don’t pay for software. Kinda not how we measure the value of the hardware.
I mean, by that metric, and considering how Nintendo’s software security has been, historically, the Switch 2 is probably going to get dirt cheap real soon, by your standards.
How open a platform is is high on the list of how I measure the value of hardware, but not how the general population does. I played my launch Switch way, way more after I jailbroke it. I was originally going to wait until the Switch 2 came out, but Nintendo pissed me off with their Yuzu crap last year. For most people that just wanna play games with less hassle, the Switch 2 compares much more favorably.
Yeah, sure, that’s always the case for consoles. I have no objection to that train of thought. If you want versatility and an open platform you’re going to be better off with a similarly specced PC handheld. At the cost of first party exclusives and a few other creature comforts, but if you’re only going to buy one device and that’s a priority that’s clearly the way to go.
Looking at it in general and in the market and just looking at the hardware they’re packing in, though, their proposition isn’t super overpriced. The part that is a bummer is they seem to be shifting that extra cost to other places with the subscription, generational upgrade packs, higher physical game prices and so on.
It is quite a shift from how Nintendo’s been doing things since the Wii. They were always the weaker hardware at a lower price guys, so this is quite a change in their philosophy. I saw you said as much in another comment. They’ll be competing more directly with Sony and Microsoft than they have since the Gamecube. I’ll be interested to see how selling at top dollar does for them in the particularly unstable global market we have now.
Yep. This is a shockingly… Playstationy proposition. First party games aside I would have not been surprised to see a Vita revival be this exact console. I mean, they’re basically shipping Bloodborne 2 and EyeToy.
The Steam Deck is… not significantly cheaper?
I mean, go nuts. It will have cheaper games, a lot of the same cross-platform stuff and it trades blows on performance and display, from what I can see… but price isn’t really the biggest difference here.
Maybe, but I already have a large game library and free online play, and can get new games for much cheaper.
The price reductions on the nintendo eshop aren’t really that enticing in comparison. So you have to pay pretty high prices for games or have to search on the second hand market to buy games cheaper.
On Steam, Gog and Epic you get good deals every day. Those crazy 1000+ game collections from Steam users aren’t there without reason. Games are often so cheap on Steam that you buy them even when you have 10 other games in the backlog you would rather play before.
Yeah, well, that’s not really a good thing in my book. You also arguably don’t need a thousand games you’re not gonna play. One of the things I’d like to see this gen on the Switch 2 is more curated discoverability and less shovelware.
I think your argument will make more or less sense depending on how the physical market eveolves. The price bump for physical is a bummer, but this generation it’s been very easy to find cheap physical copies, both new and used.
At the end of the day, PC handhelds are like PCs, you tend to pay more for the hardware (only the very cheapest LCD version of the Deck is cheaper than the Switch 2, and multiple specs are actually worse) and on consoles you get more affordable hardware but typically more expensive games, at least day one.
So at worst the Switch 2 is… you know, a console. The pricing of the hardware is by far the least egregious pricing choice in this whole thing. If anything, the Switch 2 feels weirdly standard for Nintendo’s typical strategy. They have a tendency to sell very old hardware at some profit instead of subsidizing it. This feels weirdly comparable to the PC handheld segment.
The Steam Deck is significantly cheaper when you take 🏴☠️ into account. Having cheaper hardware made having to deal with Nintendo’s walled garden worth it in the past. Plus the fact that there wasn’t anything else like the Switch when it launched.
Sure, anything is cheap if you don’t pay for software. Kinda not how we measure the value of the hardware.
I mean, by that metric, and considering how Nintendo’s software security has been, historically, the Switch 2 is probably going to get dirt cheap real soon, by your standards.
How open a platform is is high on the list of how I measure the value of hardware, but not how the general population does. I played my launch Switch way, way more after I jailbroke it. I was originally going to wait until the Switch 2 came out, but Nintendo pissed me off with their Yuzu crap last year. For most people that just wanna play games with less hassle, the Switch 2 compares much more favorably.
Yeah, sure, that’s always the case for consoles. I have no objection to that train of thought. If you want versatility and an open platform you’re going to be better off with a similarly specced PC handheld. At the cost of first party exclusives and a few other creature comforts, but if you’re only going to buy one device and that’s a priority that’s clearly the way to go.
Looking at it in general and in the market and just looking at the hardware they’re packing in, though, their proposition isn’t super overpriced. The part that is a bummer is they seem to be shifting that extra cost to other places with the subscription, generational upgrade packs, higher physical game prices and so on.
It is quite a shift from how Nintendo’s been doing things since the Wii. They were always the weaker hardware at a lower price guys, so this is quite a change in their philosophy. I saw you said as much in another comment. They’ll be competing more directly with Sony and Microsoft than they have since the Gamecube. I’ll be interested to see how selling at top dollar does for them in the particularly unstable global market we have now.
Yep. This is a shockingly… Playstationy proposition. First party games aside I would have not been surprised to see a Vita revival be this exact console. I mean, they’re basically shipping Bloodborne 2 and EyeToy.
Nintendo’s pricing themselves with the big boys again, let’s see how they do!