Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

They’ve got the weird shit covered still, apparently the joy cons in this gen can be used as mice.

Was heavily rumoured/leaked and this teaser video literally shows them gliding along a surface.

How Nintendo will leverage that functionality, who could honestly say, but that’s the genius of keeping a toy company mindset in an industry full of sports car company mindsets.

That last sentence is worth an essay of its own. Everyone else keeps pumping resources into being photo-realistic blah-blah-blah without nearly enough attention to "is this fun"?

Never forget, they had Rob the robot. And to my recollection, he only worked with Gyromite.

When you try weird shit you’re bound to have failures. Nintendo has a remarkable success rate with their weird shit, though.

One of my favorite video essay's on this is "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by Game Makers Toolkit [1]. It goes into when making a game, Nintendo first determines the mechanic they want to focus on; jumping, throwing a hat, shooting paint, etc and finding out how to make it fun, then building and iterating on the idea.

It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different.

1. https://youtu.be/2u6HTG8LuXQ

Strongly agreed. When I think of the best Nintendo products the words “fun” and “play” spring to mind.

AAA gaming on the other hand, either resembles sports, shallow short-form media, or Oscar-bait melodrama. Very little fun to be had.

What ever happened to fun and play?

As a mice or a air mouse. The smart tv stuff is limited by a remote control from 1980 (more or less, what changed?). I'd make lifestyle apps for the switch if they enable it.

the teaser also has a clear shot of the side and there's a sensor that looks identical to an optical mouse sensor. It seems really rough from an ergonomics perspective but maybe there are accessories for that. It could also go the way of the IR camera where it sees niche uses in a couple of random games but isn't really a staple of the console.

https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/509821/nintendo-sw...

I saw an interesting analysis years ago about whether or not the most powerful console 'won' in each generation (i.e. whether or not being the most powerful console of your generation leads to success).

Generally speaking, no, it doesn't actually affect things, and in several cases (e.g. the Game Boy, the Wii, and the Switch come to mind) the objectively 'worse' console (from a tech perspective) was more successful by a country mile.

As a mouse mouse. It seems to have an optical sensor on the inside edge (the side that attaches to the console) and the video shows the joy cons zooming around on that edge.

Fun doesn't map 1:1 into a trailer or a screenshot. Graphics do, voice acting, cutscenes, and big set pieces do.

A lot of that was necessary for Nintendo get away from the "it's a video game console" comparison after the video game market crash. That's why the NES looks like a VCR too.

I can't remember where I read this, but I came across someone talking about the fact that these AAA photo realistic games are hugely expensive to make, but if you look at what young people are spending their time playing, they're games like Fornite, Minecraft and Roblox. As soon as I read this, it clicked for me.

I have two teenagers (15 & 17) and this is exactly right. My son plays games all the time and although he's played Elden Ring and GTA and other games of that sort, over the years I would say 80% of his time has been Minecraft and this other 2D game with a platformer vibe whose name I forget that has procedurally generated maps. He's frequently calling me over to his computer to check out his latest architectural creation in Minecraft. I know it's not just him, because he plays multiplayer with his buddies as well, and again, a lot of it is these games with quite frankly primitive graphics. But they're fun!

I'm a huge Nintendo/Mario fan but I've recently been playing through Astro Bot on my PS5 and I must say, when you combine super fun mechanics with amazing graphics and performance, it's quite an experience! But there isn't nearly enough content like this on the non-Nintendo consoles, so point is definitely not lost on me.

It's interesting how many people see the Switch as being in its own category rather than acknowledging it as the winner of this console generation (which I completely agree it is).

Most people think the “console” battle is between PlayStation and Xbox, and that PlayStation is the winner.

This is probably a big win for PlayStation’s marketing team.

Singleplayer AAA gaming on top of all that feels like work, the older I got the less those games kept me playing because I don't want to spend 3 hours running errands to be rewarded with an item/spell/skill.

The melodramatic storylines are also pretty grating, there are a few games with good storytelling but most are some rehash of "this world has been destroyed/is in the process of being destroyed, in the aftermath a hero is about to rise and save it" so if the mechanics don't feel fun right from the get-go I lose interest completely.

The most fun I have with games are the ones with a very iterative game loop (roguelikes for example), or social/multiplayer games, anything with a lot of replayability, and the constant feeling of improvement is like crack to me.

A surprising example I re-discovered last year after only playing it for a while some 15 years ago is Trackmania, got even some friends hooked on it to play hot seating trying to beat each others time. The game loop is short and intense (about 1-2 minutes max), has a high skill ceiling, and you feel yourself getting better at a track each time you play it, nailing some very tricky part that felt impossible 30 min before is absurdly satisfying.

Ha. Since when does Nintendo care about ensuring functionality they add to their devices are leveraged? Other than first party games, and even that can be limited, almost no one ever implements the weird little functionality they add to their devices.

Also NES appeared before the US as a VCR design because well, American's loved VCRs

A mouse wood be very nice for Super Mario Maker!

I kinda think that way when buying. The Nintendo console is the Nintendo console. If you want what they do, you're buying it. The other two are where the competition is and where there's a decision of which one, not buy this single product or don't. They're much closer to being interchangeable than the Switch is with either of them.

> and this other 2D game with a platformer vibe whose name I forget that has procedurally generated maps.

Terraria?

My biggest problem is I'll finally get a chance to sink enough hours in to start something AAA, do maybe 4-10 hours over two or three days, and then have life get in the way and not touch it for a month or more... and completely forget how to play and WTF I was doing.

Some of my favorite UX features in newer games are automatically and contextually reminding you how the controls work when you pick it back up after a while, and quick story recaps or quest reminders on loading screens. I like to label those games "parent-friendly".

or the upcoming civ 7, or any number of games!

Money happened. The gaming industry produces more revenue than the movie industry and the music industry combined. Making a AAA is a $50-$100 million endeavor. At that scale, doing weird stuff because maybe it'll pay off is almost unconscionably risky. It's the same problem movies have, and it's the reason why indy films and indy games are so much more interesting.

This is probably a big, major effort by PlayStation’s marketing team to get people to think that

Personally I'd say both are true. They won the generation, but they did so by not bothering to fight directly with Playstation and Xbox. By basically ignoring them and having a distinct identity they won.

GMTK is popular, but he's mostly talking out of his ass. He's got zero industry experience and most gamedevs I know personally clown on his takes constantly. Unless he references specific Nintendo interviews where they talk about their design process, I have doubts about this video containing an accurate description of how Nintendo does things.

This framing only highlights either

A. Sony has an amazing marketing strategy where they can paint their #1 competitor as not even a competitor.

B. Xbox has a terrible product direction, where they are trying (failing) to beat Sony at being Sony instead of looking at the gaming industry and trying to create a product people want.

I think someone at Nintendo has a brother-in-law that owns an IR sensor manufacturer. Only explanation for that feature being in every right joycon.

> Terraria?

Yes!

At least in this video, all the interviews and documents that they base their claims/opinions on are listed in the description, so you can easily also peruse them if you doubt the interpretation.

I have this issue with TV and movies too. I have so many shows I want to finish but when I try I have no clue who anyone is or what’s going on. I either watch a recap or just give up instead of restarting.

Got any examples of a game doing recaps / control reminders? Curious to check them out

Not just Nintendo. The PlayStation 4 controller had that touchpad in the middle that also clicked in to act as a button. I played a lot of games that used it as a button (usually to open a map, or something) and don't remember a single game that used it as a touchpad.

Software, it can't be compared because of a unique catalogue. How would switch sales be impacted if Zelda was on the ps or Xbox?

Regarding B, the Xbox has always primarily been a strategy to put the Windows kernel in to every living room.

From there, it’s made sense that they would use pc-tier components rather than phone-tier as Nintendo is on.

I wouldn't say A because Nintendo hasn't bothered trying to compete with them. If they bothered and Sony still managed to be considered a separate category I would agree, but Nintendo appears to not care about them.

However I do think B is true. The only time they were able to go toe to toe with Sony was most of the 360 era when Sony got cocky and built a machine that was too complicated to work with relative to the value developers got out of that effort. Once Sony stopped doing that they've dominated Xbox (mind you the whiff on being too early proclaiming the digital era made it far far worse).

Likewise for the PS Vita's features such as the rear touchpad.

Microsoft is somewhat to blame for new controller features being underutilized because they're extremely reluctant to add anything to the Xbox controller. Motion control in particular stands out, the hardware isn't expensive and it's proven to be very useful in some types of game, but the lowest common denominator Xbox controller still doesn't have it so multi-platform games can't be designed around it. Especially multiplayer games with crossplay since you can't let some players have more precise inputs than others.

Focusing on tech or unoriginal production values (that's photo real! You don't need a great art director, you need a photo..) is appealing to companies because it's predictable vs the creative uncertainty and subjectivity of "fun".

I've seem some of his videos, but I'm not that familiar with GMTK. But they did release a game, and it was by all accounts "Very positive" /pretty good.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2685900/Mind_Over_Magnet/

Would be amusing if they just allowed it anyway and if you use an Xbox controller, you just suck at the game. Pressuring MS to add gyro.

It’s used very heavily for system functionality, such as with the onscreen keyboard. Not so often with the games.

It’s an expensive component and they brought it back for free he second gen so they must think it’s worth it

I play one game at a time for about a month and then move to the next. When I first played Mario Odyssey on my switch I was over the moon with how much pure fun it was compared to all the good looking and serious RPGs I played in the decade before. I had forgotten games can be this enjoyable. Nowadays I try to do these super fun games in between my souls-like sessions.

My biggest problem with AAA gaming is I waste a lot of time tuning graphics settings to keep games from crashing, and wait a lot for different sections of games to load. I miss the 90s era of snappy UIs.

I have a younger kid that's in Roblox a lot as well, and something I noticed the peer group do is have a facetime/voice call in the background so they can talk while they play. I like it better than watching them type chats.

Do they? I haven't seen a meaningful improvement in video game graphics for at least 5 years, maybe even 10.

His videos are great!

This plays out in ownership too, I know a small number of people with all 3 but a lot that have a Switch plus 1 of either a PS5 or an Xbox

This always made sense to me. Think of Super Mario Bros. No way you come up with something like that from a top-down design document. Probably slapped Mario on a screen, played with the physics a bunch, and threw a lot of different stuff at the wall to see what stuck before they came up with the final product.

> This is probably a big win for PlayStation’s marketing team.

I don't have any current Gen console (nor have I played one) but as a long-time tech market "interested observer" my understanding is that XBox had a bit less raw power last Gen and tried correcting this Gen and succeeded in having a bit more raw power than PS5. However, it apparently didn't matter to the market. So it seems to be another example like Betamax vs VHS, where the product with somewhat better technology didn't win because consumers found other factors more important. In modern game consoles, I assume those factors would be some mix of exclusive titles, compatibility with existing previous gen game libraries, marketing+brand perception and, more recently, the console's subscription game service.

It's interesting that Microsoft apparently didn't internalize this lesson, since Nintendo has been remained competitive for ~20 years by combining significantly weaker hardware with high-quality franchise games plus a clever differentiating factor (novel interaction (Wii) or portability (Switch). Of course, it would be wrong to conclude "CPU/GPU power doesn't matter" because it's more complex than comparing mips, flops, rops, etc. It also depends on how much, and how well, developers and game engines optimize for a platform's hardware.

Microsoft definitely learned their lesson about high-quality franchise games with their recent (and very costly) acquisition spree including Call of Duty. Although, to get anti-trust approval it can't be platform exclusive for at least a decade. I'm wondering if MSFT's claims that they're happy to be a games software company selling on all platforms may actually be true. If so, it may not bode well for the future of the XBox hardware business - which would be sad because more competition is generally better for consumers.

How is the Switch a competitor when it doesn't even play most games that you can find on Playstation or Steam?

I think Nintendo is- respectfully- in their own lane.

Due to the switch's low processing power, it can't run many AAA titles (for example Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty games etc.)

That's why it's considered its own category.

Part of the issue is Xbox segmented the market with the less powerful Series S and put constraints on releases needing to have feature parity between the two, quite a few devs have had issues with. It delayed Baldur’s Gate 3 for months until MS waived off the split screen co-op. Seems bizarre to chase power at hard and then make it harder for your devs to develop to it.

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/is-the-xbox-series-s-holdin...

This is such a trite take. Whenever I hear it, what comes to my mind is: "bro, do you even play games?".

The gaming industry is huge and gamers are varied. What is fun and play to one person is boring and vapid to another. I think Nintendo's first party titles are generally excellent, but I recognize that they're not for everyone. It's not like the rest of the industry is shuffling around going "boy, if only we could figure out how to make fun games".

It seems that you want to exclude Nintendo from AAA gaming, which is also weird. Their first party titles are developed by large teams with big budgets. They're not some scrappy startup making indie titles.

FWIW, the game that won Game of the Year at the most recent game awards is Astro Bot - an amazingly fun and playful (some would say Nintendo-esque) game that is a PlayStation 5 exclusive.

Most games are pretty bad, so this tracks I guess.

Need more Larians in the world.

The market penetration of the switch makes it harder for Sony to expand into the family/casual gaming space. That forces Sony to stick to the AAA lane (which is where their focus is) limiting their growth opportunities.

If the switch had been a failure, then a lot of households that currently have a switch (only) would have bought a different console and that would likely have been a PS5 (even if they held on to their previous generation console, and waited a couple of years until the PS5 price dropped below $500)

I have a PS4 and a Switch at home. The kids play the switch and occasionally play on the PS4. I can't justify buying a PS5 because there's only so much gaming time available, and family gaming is covered by the switch and my personal gaming is good enough on my PC. Take the switch out of the equation and that changes.

PS5 is winning the AAA console lane, no doubt. But Sony could have been making more money if they could also own a significant portion of the family console lane.

I can't tell you how much respect I have for this mindset. Like them burning a heap of money on Metroid Prime 4, for years, and then coming out with an announcement along the lines of "sorry guys, this sucks, so we've chucked it out and started again because we only do things right, see you in another 3-4 years when it's ready."

It pays dividends, because they just don't ship junk, so everything they DO ship sells extremely well.

I agree that the XBox senior leadership has made a series of critical strategic mistakes going back over a decade which have nerfed the otherwise generally quite good hardware, software, game and online service execution. Just with XBox One the long string of gaffes and fatal errors was... impressive.

* Going all-in on bundling the Kinect, a very costly depth camera interface peripheral, with every XBox.

* Committing to making XBox an "all-in-one entertainment system" by building in an expensive HDMI input capability to enable being an electronic program guide, digital video recorder, Blu-ray disc player, streaming TV service and music service. The Kinect camera peripheral also had a built-in IR blaster to control all your other living room devices.

* Announcing pervasive DRM that would tie game discs to the user's account, prevent reselling or lending game discs.

* Aggressively pre-announcing no backward compatibility with previous XBox games. A senior XBox exec apparently told the media (on the record), "If you're backwards compatible, you're backward."

While the last two mistakes were walked back before the console even shipped, building in & bundling costly hardware couldn't be walked back. Nor could the significant investment in developing operating system and application software to support electronic program guide, IR control, video streaming and recording. These large hardware and software investments certainly came at the cost of investing as much in hardware and software to better render games, play games and support game development. You can kind of understand why MSFT thought each of these things would be good for MSFT strategically, but they were all tone deaf in terms of what their market wanted and fatal distractions from the main business of being a good game console.

I hope someday a definitive case study will be written giving insight into how otherwise smart, experienced executives can make so many catastrophic strategic errors over such a long period of time.

I don't know that the Playstation 5 really plays in that market when the cheapest version is $450, so nearly $200 more expensive than the switch. Keeping the price down is part of how Nintendo owns that market, on top of their first party game lineup and the like.

The PlayStation also doesn't play most games on Steam. Exclusive games don't mean the platforms aren't competitors — back in the day platform exclusivity was even more of the norm than it is today, and yet the SNES and the Sega Genesis were clearly competitors, as were the original PlayStation and the N64.

Not sure about the original game but at least since the 3d age, Miyamoto is on record, saying that when making a new Mario game, one of the first steps is that is just fun to goof around with Mario alone in an empty flat void and mess with whatever new abilities they are thinking of giving him.

Don't forget Stack-Up! :P

I'd say your observation on hardware and software is quite accurate, except I don't agree PS is the one that's winning.

PS is suffering from decreasing fan loyalty due to the not-that-good subscription service and not-that-exclusive game titles. Also, their pace of new hardware seems to be off considering the half-dead PS VR2 or that streaming handheld thing. The way I see it, the subscription service is supposed to be a counterpart to MS's game pass or XGP; the handheld thing is most likely to be a compromise from current gen (PS5) performance and NS's pressure. But don't forget their legacy from previous generations, they have *the most* experiences in developing and publishing 3A titles, which is why PS is still my most played consoles.

On the other hand MS had the issue of XSS dragging XSX down (as mentioned above by others), and their hardware sales seems to be losing momentum due to "If I can play it on Windows why would I need a XBOX". But from their past doings I think MS is always on the chasing of "Combining their all platforms together". While Windows Phone might turn out to be a failure, XGP actually did succeed, thanks to the huge user base they have on Windows.

Whereas NS has the exclusive advantage of their cartoonish/pixelated artstyle. This alone, in my opinion, saves them a ton of money. Not saying the artstyle is worse than realistic ones, but the development cost is indeed much much lower. Not to mention it requires much less computing power to render, resulting in cheaper hardware products. Their console can't run 3A, but that is actually a smaller downside than some may think. Because cartoonish/pixelated game and smaller indie game is a huge market.

So... Though the 3 manufacturers are competing in the same game console market, they each found a smaller but more suitable target market for themselves. If there has to be a "winner", profit-wise, it should be NS undoubtedly. Just look at their hardware upgrade cycle and console/game sales/profit.

I find it interesting that we don’t see more “officially-licensed demakes” of AAA games being released for devices (the Switch; phones; old PCs) that can’t play the AAA version. It used to be very common (with e.g. SNES games getting simultaneous GB reinterpretations released with them.) But the only thing I can think of that did it in recent memory is Final Fantasy 15.

The “is this fun” part is the reason why I bought a Switch in the first place. Still the only console I’ve ever owned

I love the “just start playing” ethos of most Nintendo games. Reminds me of the games I used to play as a kid. No long story or exposition - just a game load screen and a start button

Astro Bot won game of the year because it had amazing graphics and physics and had Mario-tier fun. The team actually made a cryptic shout out to Nintendo at the award ceremony.

Nintendo has great games, but the resolution on TVs, even cheap ones, is outstanding now and it goes to waste using a Switch.

Playing a great game that also uses what the TV has on offer is really the best experience. If we get 4k and ray tracing on Switch I’ll be stoked.

Perhaps it was this, which I saw recently:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/arts/video-games-graphics...

There are some, like DOOM, but it’s not a lot. If Switch 2 can pull off PlayStation 4 quality I bet there’d be a bonanza of ports and some good money made.

I agree. Sony isn't winning the console market. In terms of both unit sales and combined hardware/software profitability, I think it's pretty clear Nintendo is doing best. Although, Sony might possibly net more total revenue due to higher priced hardware, from a Return on Capital perspective Nintendo is doing better.

I think Sony probably feels they are doing okay, although they think they should be doing better than they are. It's Microsoft's XBox business that I think is in long-term trouble. While they may be profitable at the moment (I don't follow it closely enough to know), the brand and forward trends aren't looking good. To me, the massive acquisition spree buying leading game companies was a very risky 'bet all the marbles' kind of move. It was so expensive that to justify it, they not only have to win but win big. It's a huge bet on making their Game Pass service not only grow but increasingly profitable. And it has to win PC gamers and console gamers with a unified service. Maybe it'll work but the high costs and constraints limit the number of ways they can win while the number of ways to lose remains vast.

You should have watched the video before you shat on it.

Yes, he references specific Nintendo interviews in the video. Frequently, in fact, and in detail.

Games used to take way less money and time to create, so it was viable to make 3-4 different versions of the same game for different platforms.

This is the right mindset. It makes your customers trust you.

Indeed I forgot Stack-Up!

Competition isn’t the secret sauce we pretend it is. There is power in non-competing and doing your own thing as well. You just have to know when to use either strategy.

Some stuff they have sells well: Smash, Zelda, Pokemon. Metroid sells a lot less well.

How does that relate to this discussion?

Interesting. Yea if the switch didn't exist I could see a re-attempt at the PSP (or the Vita? whatever that thing was).

But if you demake a game hard enough (i.e. really clamp down on the asset details, by using intentionally-stylized art rather than lower-quality realistic art, etc) then it doesn't need to take so much time and money to create the port. It can be a bounded added marginal cost.

Also, there are things a modern "parallel demake" (like FFXV Pocket Edition) can do to reuse certain types of assets from its AAA sibling, that in the previous era would have required remaking those assets from scratch. So a modern demake can actually be cheaper to produce in some ways.

For examples:

• You can just copy-and-paste the script and associated audio assets straight over, as anything can play audio clips.

• You can also copy over all the animation "choreography" scripting for NPCs and cinematics, with the particular named animation cues just mapping to different actual animations for the simplified models.

• Depending on how your AAA game models environments, you might even be able to export the abstract "level data" (what type of terrain goes where; basic geometry and material-type for meshes of buildings; placement of things like furniture and other large freestanding decor objects) from your AAA game engine, and then import it directly into your demake's game engine. (You'll then still need to run over everything to add new decor and details, make sure nothing is clipping, etc — but this is still a major speed-up.) IIRC this is how the recent third-party-implemented Pokemon titles [Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee and BD/SP] were implemented — they started with direct dumps and imports of the original games' level data into their engine.

Well, that's because this console has different hardware than the others, with it's own pros and cons. And that has happened in every console generation.

Nobody would say the Sega Saturn wasn’t a console because it couldn’t run Crash Bandicoot, or that the N64 wasn’t a console because it couldn’t run Final Fantasy VII.

The Switch may not run certain titles, but it can run other AAA, like DOOM, Mortal Kombat, No Man’s Sky, The Witcher 3 and more. Sure, those games may run better on more powerful hardware, but that hardware isn’t portable. That doesn’t make the Switch any less of a console.

Most AA and indie games are available on all platforms, and all the reeeeally popular ones like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Rocket League, etc.

Easily 80% or more of the catalog is the same across all consoles.

So why we define what a console is by those games that aren’t on the Switch’s catalog?

All 3 consoles are doing the same, they sell a closed hardware/software solution with access to a propetary storefront where they sell you games, the same games mostly. Their marketing may be directed to different demographics but at the end they all do the same and compete for the same market.

I do think they got it right, but Game Awards is 90% weighted towards games professionals/critics, so it's not very populist.

(Their award that is 100% consumer/gamer vote based goes to mobile games, because they bribe their audience to vote for it.)

Mostly true, but Everybody 1-2-Switch was pretty close to being junk though.