uh oh! it's the switch 2

2025/01/16

it's been eight years. in a little under two months the nintendo switch will be literally eight years old. the announcement of a successor carries a lot of weight, since the nintendo switch alone managed to last for so long. this IS nintendo now, they invented the perfect device and now all they have to do is reiterate it.

i get wistful and self-reflective whenever i think back to the day i got my nintendo switch. i've been using the same one since april 2017, which i got with a copy of breath of the wild (as everyone had to), and it always felt like this radical, groundbreaking, hi-tech turn for nintendo to take. you could take the big new zelda game with you! you couldn't do that before the switch!!

eight years later i look at the switch with a little more cynicism though. it kind of directly caused the downfall of dedicated handheld games, making every release into either an uncomfortably high definition 3DS game or a downgraded PS4 game. as time passes it doesn't feel like any game really belongs on the switch, even the killer app breath of the wild was supposed to be a wii u game. and i think that's exactly why the console always felt sort of hollow for me.

in 2017 i wasn't anticipating the homogenization of videogame platforms we live in now-- i believe the switch contributed majorly to this new landscape we now live in, where you can get every new game on every platform and they're not typically tailored for individual hardware because it's more profitable to reach as many people as possible. it makes sense, and in many ways it's a good thing, but it always made the switch feel like a shell. games rarely feel right on this thing, they don't feel tactile, but i can play them and that's what matters i guess. what worries me about the switch 2 is that it'll prolong this feeling.

the switch 2 is an upgrade. it is just more of the switch. i don't know how i feel about that. i keep hearing about how people need switch games to perform better, and i can't deny that this is good for developers, but unless there's something bananas crazy hidden in those new magnetic joy-cons it seems like it'll just be more switch -- in the same way the PS5 is just a more powerful PS4.

i have a lot of bad feelings about the "technological plateau" we're seeing, where improvements exclusive to the overpriced PS5 PRO are incremental and hardly noticeable, but at least the switch 2 will (assumedly) be a tangible upgrade that allows more developers to port their games smoothly and without intense optimization methods. i just don't want it to be Basically A Portable PC, and i feel like they're going for the Basically A Portable PC angle by making this model revision look MORE like the steam deck, beefing up the size just enough that it'll probably be uncomfortable to hold for folks such as i with small hands.

i'm trapped here though -- obviously i don't NEED a switch 2, but as someone whose primary console of choice IS the switch (i love handheld play too much) it's only inevitable that i'll get it. additionally whatever software nintendo's got in the kitchen will undoubtedly be good And popular, as the one hardware competitor that still actually has exclusive games, so i'll most likely be sold on the new mario kart or the new zelda or hardware pushing third-party game or whatever they'll reveal in the april direct. i have cause to be excited, but right now i feel very neutral and sort of jaded by this news. i guess we all knew it was just gonna be a switch 2, and it is!

best case scenario it'll be a device i can finally play new final fantasy games on.