Back in the mid 2010s, I was absolutely thrilled with the announcement of the original Nintendo Switch, as I always enjoyed owning Nintendo’s portable consoles, but generally felt underwhelmed by their “big” console offerings. Finally, I had a portable machine that could also play the bigger Nintendo releases. It was the best of both worlds, and there wasn’t anything quite like it out there. The Nintendo Switch blew up because of its competitive advantage with its portability, and obviously because it had all of the biggest Nintendo games that people love. Playing games on the go is a lifesaver in so many ways, and this was now the absolute best way to do it.
Like any market where someone makes a lot of money, competitors finally arrived. In 2022, the Steam Deck was officially released, and the hype was through the roof. The general reviews for the Steam Deck were outstanding. People loved it. PlayStation came out with a slightly more limited portable option with its PlayStation Portal soon after. Microsoft is now also working on a portable Xbox device.
All of this means that Nintendo can no longer skate by as the only way to play games both on the go and on your TV. There are now competitors, and more on the way. Nintendo needs more than a gimmick with the release of its next console. It really needs the games as well.
But I never anticipated games to be a real problem for the Switch 2. I’ve been pretty much assuming that I will be buying a Switch 2 no matter what. I love almost any well-made video game and hate to miss out on any big release. Obviously, Nintendo games are only on Nintendo systems, and there is a Nintendo game in the running for being one of the most critically acclaimed games each year. Thus, not buying a Switch 2 would mean cutting myself off from one of the most significant developers in the industry.
The fact that a Switch 2 has felt so “must own” for me before I even knew anything about it has really affected me when it comes to buying a Steam Deck. I’ve thought long and hard about buying one for years now, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. Almost all of the games that I wanted to play on a Steam Deck were also available on the Switch. The Steam Deck was unquestionably better than my original Nintendo Switch in a multitude of ways, as you’d expect from something released 5 years later, but the investment never felt like it would pay off for me.
And once again, even with a Steam Deck, I’d still need the inevitable Switch 2 to get those Nintendo exclusive games anyway. So I might as well just wait and get a Switch 2.
Then, April 2nd, 2025 hit. This is the day that the Switch 2 was officially revealed.
It’s also the day that I realized that I should just go ahead and get a Steam Deck.
Sorry, Wheelchair Basketball Rocket League With A Mouse Ain’t Cutting It
As previously stated, with Nintendo’s portable advantage now eradicated, the main way the Switch 2 will be worth the price of admission is with its games. And at least with how things stand at the moment, it seems like it’ll probably be at least a year or more until the Switch 2 is even worth considering for anyone outside of the biggest Nintendo or Mario Kart diehard if we are just talking about playing brand new exclusive games.
The Switch 2 reveal was filled with seemingly one blockbuster game announcement after another. Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Split Fiction, and the upcoming Hades II were just a few of the games that were announced as coming to the system. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokemon Legends Z-A were also mentioned.
The only problem? All of these games are out, have been out for years, or are coming to the original Nintendo Switch.
I imagine this section of the presentation was incredibly exciting for someone who only uses a Nintendo Switch for their gaming. And there are a lot of people like that for sure. But I can’t imagine a lot of the people who would be watching a presentation like this are the more casual gamers that this might appeal to. And since this article is about why the Switch 2 presentation bombed for me personally, I can safely say that this section of the show did absolutely nothing for me.
Even the section of the show revealing Switch 2 exclusives ended up being pretty disappointing. My attention was absolutely piqued at a new game developed by FromSoftware, called Duskbloods, being a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. This was an absolutely stunning announcement. That excitement quickly died for me and many others when it was revealed that it would be a multiplayer game instead of a pure single-player experience. The reveals for Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bonanza were both pretty strong, but neither of those games looked like system sellers for me personally. The excitement waned even more so once the price tags of $80 and $70 for digital versions of those games were revealed after the show. To be fair, Mario Kart World can essentially be bought for $50 in the Switch 2 bundle, but its higher announced price point strikes me as a very bad omen for future major Nintendo releases.
Price Increases Are Especially Insulting From Nintendo
I’m not naive. I see the massive layoffs and soaring development costs across the games industry. There has already been tons of speculation about Grand Theft Auto 6 being an $80 or more game. Some analysts view that as a way for more games to start charging a similar price point. Price increases are inevitable for video games, and I think many of us have realized that they could come sooner than we think.
But look… I didn’t expect the game to breach the $80 dam to be fucking Mario Kart.
I’m admittedly not some massive Mario Kart fan. I enjoy the games for a week, and then I’m pretty content to move on. But let’s be real, this isn’t exactly a franchise that is the peak of artistry, production values, and storytelling. They don’t have to pay Ben Starr the big bucks to elaborately voice Bowser. $80 feels like a greedy move, and also very much one to clear the way to do this for more franchises.
And for a lot of those Nintendo franchises, they just don’t *feel* like the kind of games that are worth more money than what is currently being charged, fair or not. Hell, even the excellent Astro Bot, which is a game very much in the Nintendo mold, dropped for $60 last year. And that game has production values well beyond what I expect to see from any Nintendo game in the first year or two of the Switch 2. It’s especially bad if the extra price increases for physical copies of Switch games end up being true.
I was just fine with Tears of the Kingdom being $70, as I felt that Zelda had earned that price with the scope of the game and its many technical achievements. But paying more for Nintendo games than what its competitors are charging when those games will generally have way better production values feels insane for me personally.
For some, Nintendo franchises are worth that price. I totally get that. Nintendo still has a lot of creativity and makes games in a way that almost no one else does. They aren’t a cookie cutter developer. They are arguably the most innovative developer in the history of gaming.
But for me, it has been a long time since I played a Nintendo game that truly wowed me. There have been lots of 8/10 and even a few 8.5/10 Nintendo games for me in the past few years, but almost nothing they release these days reaches the peak of that year for me. My last Nintendo game that made a top 10 list of mine was Breath of the Wild back in 2017. (Shout out to Pikmin 4, Echoes of Wisdom, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder for being strong, honorable mentions in past years, though).
I like and even love plenty of Nintendo games, but the only big exclusives revealed so far are also the kinds of games that I would usually prefer to wait for a sale on. And with 95% of publishers, that discount would usually show up in a pretty reasonable amount of time. However, that is not the case with Nintendo. Nintendo games are almost never discounted, and the discounts are usually pretty meager.
Nintendo might be smart to be very stingy with their sales, but a price increase on a Nintendo game in particular means that you will almost never see that game for a dirt cheap price. Even years down the line. A price increase with non-Nintendo publishers is not even close to as significant as a price increase from Nintendo. A Nintendo price increase stings way more.
So, the combination of potentially only having a few true exclusives worth playing this year, and both at a larger price than I’d prefer to pay just doesn’t strike me as appealing.
omg I’m Still Gonna Buy A Nintendo Switch 2 Eventually OK?
Will this change? Almost inevitably. Give me a year or two, and perhaps more games get announced. Something that isn’t even currently announced will probably end up at a 93 on OpenCritic, and everyone will say it’s a must-play experience. At that point, I will sigh and feel a strange mixture of shame and excitement as I drop the $500+ on everything needed to play this hypothetical game.
As of this moment, it seems very unlikely that this will happen for me anytime soon. It could be a year or even two before I feel that sort of temptation. This is despite the fact that I respect a lot of the design enhancements made to the system as well (though the mouse thing seems absolutely worthless).
But in the meantime, I still have my original 2017 Nintendo Switch that I mostly use as a portable indie device. I don’t even have the OLED version. I am BEYOND due for an upgrade to my portable gaming device. I am buying a new portable system in the next few months one way or another.
So that decision seems to clearly come down to getting a Steam Deck or a Nintendo Switch 2. The specs for both seem relatively comparable, but my guess is that the Steam Deck will feel better to play based on my limited experience playing with a coworker’s Steam Deck a few times. Also, more importantly, I can get an OLED screen with the Steam Deck for a little bit more, which is just something that I badly need. Not having one sucks in so many situations, and the Switch 2 probably won’t have an OLED until a future version of it several years down the line.
Since Switch 2 isn’t offering anything from a gaming exclusive front, making the Steam Deck my primary indie device just seems like the right call. It feels like a more worthwhile device for what I plan on using it for, and I think it’ll be that way for a few years at least.
I Just Wanted To Bitch A Little
There’s a chance that I might feel silly around two years from now when I end up owning two different portable gaming devices. I don’t tend to game on the go all that much, so having two different portable consoles always felt like a complete waste for me. This is why I never bought a PSP or PS Vita. If I owned two portable game consoles, one of them probably wouldn’t get used for half a year in stretches. But with all of the value that the Steam Deck currently offers, and for what value I hope the Nintendo Switch 2 eventually provides, maybe they will compliment each other more than compete with each other. I can hope. Maybe by the time I buy a Switch 2, there will even be some MASSIVE 10% off sales on a few games that make buying some of them a bit more palatable.
Because as bad as this reveal was for me, I’m not delusional. I know one day the siren song will call for me, and I’ll line up to let Nintendo bully me into giving them money again. But damn it, I’m going to make them wait a little before I let them do it to me again. And I’m even going to grumble about it while I’m at it. Why would anyone start a blog if they weren’t going to occasionally use it as an outlet to bitch a little bit?
Tis my blog given right. And I appreciate any mysterious stranger that read this and decided to listen to me vent for a little while. Until we meet again.
Big Nerd Gaming 
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