Nintendo’s Switch 2 reveal felt like a lightning bolt delivered straight from Zeus himself for everyone except, well, most people. In fact, since the console – which fans have spent years clamoring for – looks so much like its predecessor, some analysts predict it’ll have trouble appealing to a general audience.
“I can imagine ‘normies’ being a bit confused,” gaming industry consultant Serkan Toto tells GamesRadar+. “The device is bigger than the original Switch, but not comically large. The form factor, button layout, and overall design are very similar to Switch 1, so I can imagine issues arising when potential mainstream buyers look at the new device.”
The Switch 2 is very likely to struggle, but this consultant’s reasoning is dumb as fuck, and belittlies average gamers as ‘normies’. His analysis of why it will struggle, and why the WiiU failed is off base. The average person doesn’t look at the PS5 and PS4 and go “but why, they look the same.”, they understand that its the updated version with imrpovements.
Nintendo is going to struggle due to:
- Handheld PC alternatives that outperform and have much larger game libraries for similar cost.
- Pissing off the emulation crowd
- Pissing off fans for fan project shutdowns
- Pissing off fans of Smash Bros Melee
- Joycon drift denial
- Stealing fan art.
- Failing to adapt to a rapidly changing gaming market.
- 500 other things.
If I were Nintendo, I’d be working quickly as possible to getting their virtual store available for Windows/Linux/Mac and developing a brand for the platform to feature games that reflected their consoles.
Bro like maybe 5 people care about anything you listed and 4 of them will still buy the switch 2
Yep. Hardly any of that registers as a blip on the mass market. People have been calling for Nintendo to give up on hardware and just make games for other platforms for decades. Then the DS line happened. And then the Wii. And then the Switch. Each one pushed the boundaries of what the gaming space could be, despite the spec nerds raging at the lack of horsepower.
Nintendo does a lot of shady shit, but once Sega exited the market they were the only true gaming company left in the console space. PlayStation? Xbox? Just a small part of larger corporate empires.
I’m fucking thrilled that Steam picked up on the hybrid format. Not everyone wants to screw around with maintaining a PC. I was in corporate IT for 25 years and want nothing to do with any of it anymore. Enormous PC game library, consolized experience, and a big push to Linux, all with the Deck? That’s awesome from every angle. It’s always good to have more options. And if they can sell a hundred million more units, Nintendo might start having a problem. Until then, I’m pretty sure they’re just going to continue to print money.
Your first point hit the mark, but boy did the rest drop off quick.
Those concerns are so super niche, I doubt they’ll be a big problem for Nintendo. I know it may not seem that way, but handheld PCs are not a widespread product.
Yet. There is a ton of models coming out, some more shown army CES, and the SteamOS news shows the direction of what low end gaming laptops are going to become over the next 2-5 years.
As an indsutry insider, I there is lots of people discussing this and more studios and publishers starting to look into the cost/benefit analysis of getting Steamdeck Verified.
Nintendo has been staunchly anti-emulation since even before the N64 launched, and it hasn’t hurt them yet.
I’m a proud Steam Deck owner, and I’ll be the first to admit that I predominantly use it to emulate my old games collection (PS1-3 & PSP), plus SNES out of sheer spite at Nintendo.
However, my relatively tech-savvy relatives (even those in their 20s), baulk at something as complex as SteamOS.
I think Nintendo’s safe for at least one more console generation, before the normies get on the portable-PC wagon.
Nintendo might struggle with a percentage of the hard-core gaming community for those reasons, but the general public does not care about (or is aware of) any of those things. Little Timmy and his parents have no fucking clue what a Yuzu is.
Bullshit
I’m interested to see how it lands. My family have zero interest as they’re happy with there switches, but as a techy person I’m really keen for the switch to get some much needed upgrades under the holds for the games progress sake. I suspect the first party launches that aren’t available on OG switch will be the decoded for some.
Yeah, people really have a big problem understanding “I’ll buy the latest, since it’s the best, number is bigger” . Concepts like “ok, all previous stuff works but new stuff only works here”. Such crazy concepts. The GBC was a flop because GB already existed.
If the graphics are a good enough upgrade I might pick one up. My current switch only gets used when a new Zelda game comes out (or I get nostalgic for some bowling)
I think with Nintendo’s attack on emulators and stuff, I’m going to finally crack my OG switch (the unpatchable one) and rip all of my games and buy a Steamdeck, honestly. I heard emulation there is great, and I’ve already backed up all of the emulators since before they were taken down.
If the Switch 2 is backwards compatible and can play the OG switch games; then we know exactly WHY they started the crackdown - because likely the same methods as before will work just fine against the Switch 2 as well.
I won’t pirate the games, but I don’t think I’m gonna worry about my old switch being banned from their online network any longer either. Especially after they shut down the old DS network.
I think Gen X parents and younger are familiar with how the newest edition of a computer is “better” than previous ones. I dont see this being an issue.
It also wasn’t an issue with the GB and DS lines, and the Switch notoriously follows the handheld pattern quite closely, so I don’t think this will be an issue.
Idiots. This isn’t the Wii U, it’ll be fine
Are there people that can afford stuff anymore?
I think people are familiar with numbers
Unlike Microsoft’s Xbox division
Calling people “normies” as if Nintendo products and video games in general aren’t mass market items.
Ick.
Of all the things you can say about the Switch 2’s name, ‘confusing’ isn’t one of them.
This bozo thinks it’s just gonna be a picture of the switch on the box instead of a huge mario kart graphic. Kids will ask for switch 2 and parents will buy switch 2. That’s the beginning and end of the decision making on getting it. It’s gonna be wildly sold out no matter how many Nintendo can get to retailers.
If “normies” are able to buy a Playstation 5 after having bought a PS4, 3, 2 and 1, Then I think Nintendo is going to be just fine.
If this was true the PlayStation 2, 3, 4 and 5 would have all failed.
They did all look very different from their predecessors though, especially the ps1 to ps2 jump was quite significant in terms of design.
Dunno, to my parents all consoles did look like cardboard boxes in the shop. What did clue them in, however, was the big number written behind the name.
Yeah that’s totally fair.
They’re all Nintendos anyway, what’s the difference?
The Apple IIe would never have caught on. Of course we all still use Windows 3.1 and do spreadsheets on Lotus 1-2-3 as we dont understand software generations either. /s
If parents weren’t confused by
Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox One Xbox Series S/X
Then the number 2 should be just fine.
I mean, they were. I have personally heard from people that couldn’t be bothered to understand the Xbox SKUs for the possibility of buying one because of how horribly Microsoft names things.
Yeah, I keep seeing articles like this, but a slightly different sized version of the same console isn’t a radical idea. It baffles me, this isn’t why the Wii U failed.
