My thoughts on the success of the Switch 2.

Honest Trailers rightly accuses Nintendo of exploiting nostalgia, and well, there's no defense for that. We're of the generation who ponied up for the dominant console platform of the day and/or watched our parents do it. Looking back at the NES and SNES, these were based on hardware already a decade old at release. If you knew that there was some satisfaction that could be had seeing the equivalent of a calculator provide a novel gaming experience. Things have changed quite a bit since then.

Competition heated up in the 16-bit era, and more recent hardware was brought into our lives. However, it was the next generation that upped the ante with newer, yet still outdated, hardware that transformed the landscape into something physically relatable. The next steps were only going to take us closer to more recent hardware, such as Microsoft's Xbox. An x86 processor in a gaming console? Unthinkable!

It crossed a threshold that we weren't coming back from, however. The hardware was recent enough to justify the expense, and it also set the stage for hardware that had to take a larger and more expensive technological step in order to give us noticeable improvements. It didn't take much to improve on the Playstation's visuals, but stepping up from the Xbox 360 was an order of magnitude in technological complexity.

When you've got to throw 10x the transistors of the previous generation at the problem, well...your bankbook is going to feel the strain. Nintendo has always been at the bottom of the barrel in one way or another, whether it's underpowered, undermarketed or underappreciated, they seem to be built to suffer. We could list the ways, but the Wii was a tidal shift for their future opportunities. They proved that they could reach everyone, if they could just achieve the balance of accessibility, performance and quality all at once.

The next step was a flub, but it was a move in the right direction. Nintendo found their stride in mobile gaming, and when ARM processing aged out like fine [insert consumable here], they had their target. Others proved that mobile gaming was viable, and Nintendo knew what to do. When the Switch came home fidelity wasn't the question, instead, accessibility was the answer. The Switch could do it all...pretty poorly.

And now we've got a system reaching for the stars with the actual processing power to give us everything we want. The Switch 2 is a mobile beast and is putting Valve's best effort to shame. The biggest PC gaming marketplace in the world? Oh please, Nintendo boasts, we've got Mario. Zelda, and a hot girl in power armour! What more do you need?

Nothing, actually. Sure, the Switch 2 is selling like hotcakes, and it might just top the OG Switch, but I'm bearish on that. Companies are getting savvy about the intent of consumers and turning it into profit. We're haggling with our real motivations against the marketing insight of big corporations who have their grubby paws all over our digital habits. It's creepy, and we're at a glaring disadvantage.

I know Nintendo's options were decided like a quicktime event, and I have absolutely zero pity for them, but I digress. The Switch 2/Pro/Plus/Enhanced/Whatever was always going to happen. When people line up day after day for your meals, if you have any desire to keep doing what you're doing, you don't change the menu. Nintendo discovered what we already know: Let the indies in, let the ecchi out, and start putting stuff on sale. Except your stuff. Nintendo has stated that they're out for profit now, and in my mind, that's it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Raising game prices hurts, and I've opted out of this generation for that and other reasons. My priorities are shifting. I'm older and not so dependent on youthful nostalgia. Wait, no, I'm a liar. James Gunn's new Superman was everything I wanted out of a Christopher Reeve-style Superman. I loved it. The difference is that it doesn't have the same physical demands on me that gaming does.

I said a while ago that the medical condition I had was near it's end. Oh, sweet summer child. I was quite wrong. I'm expected to be dealing with this for the next couple of years. Where I put my energy has to be more focused, and I'm gearing up to finish my Bachelor of Science in Marriage and Family studies this year. I'm also looking forward to an internship in the fall.

That's life. We all make adjustments for the sake of the hobbies that help sustain our personal wellbeing. Nothing wrong with that. However, these days I look more to the sort of things that provide hope and spiritual uplift. Gaming has its place in my life, and whether it is a deck of cards or a terribly outdated piece of computing hardware, I expect it will for a long time.

Looking at Nintendo's recent behaviour, however, has me nervous about their future. They appear to be on the Disney(tm) Approach To Market Dominance(tm). Vault the stuff that matters behind a paywall (at least), and store the rest until nostalgia is at peak want. In the meantime, crank up the quality of your first party titles. Squeeze that hardware until it bleeds. Then squeeze your customers until they...can't do it anymore.

We're fortunate to have a hobby that is so flexible, and Nintendo recognizes the core of gaming success: Community. Whether that community is family, friends or people to shout at online, thus it is. This is baked into the code of their corporate DNA, and many of their titles have oriented on that paradigm to varying degrees of success.

Nintendo isn't over, but when they embrace higher prices for whatever reason, they leave people behind. That's just how it is.

Tweet

Patreon

Most recent blog posts from Simon Woodington...
Touching Base Everything Matters I won't stop until I do

Feedback
No one has responded to this post yet.