Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

It seems like the days of revolutionary consumer electronics are over.

This looks nice, for sure. But it’s really more of the same. Not surprising. It does surprise me that there’s such emphasis on it, though. There’s the name, of course, and then the entire video is based around “it’s the same thing but a little better.”

Game console updates used to be big deals. The SNES was a revolution. PS2 was huge. Now… PS5? What’s different from PS4, again? Is there a 6? What’s different about that?

I don’t blame Nintendo or the others. I have no idea what they could do here they would be revolutionary. I think the design space has just been thoroughly explored by now and that’s where we are.

This pattern repeats all over the place. TVs are maxed out, with better visual quality than people care about, and size limited by wall space. Computers get a little faster every year. This year’s phones are last year’s phones with a minor performance bump and slightly better cameras. And again, I don’t see what they can do better, and that’s probably how it has to be at this point.

But it’s still a little shocking to see a company lean so far into the theme of “we made incremental improvements to this thing we released 8 years ago.”

> But it’s still a little shocking to see a company lean so far into the theme of “we made incremental improvements to this thing we released 8 years ago.”

It's certainly more 'shocking' to see Nintendo do it than, say, Microsoft or Sony. But Nintendo hasn't always introduced huge new changes with a console bump — NES->SNES wasn't particularly revolutionary, and there were certainly no gimmicks there. I think it's a very understandable reaction to a) the Wii U b) the enormous success of the Switch

NES->SNES didn’t do much with the form factor or the controls, but technologically it was an enormous leap. That’s the sort of thing that just can’t happen anymore, since video game technology is pretty much maxed out. You can always make things a little bit prettier, or have a little better framerate, but nothing too interesting.

I suppose VR/AR is the one area where something big could still happen. The current state of the art there is far from the “mostly limited by the size of your wall” stage.

I feel like VR would have “happened with the masses” by now given that the quest is wireless, excellent quality, and cheap. Personally I think it did, and it’s a success, it’s just that it has a lower ceiling because it’s an awkward rectangle that you strap to your face.

There is also, IMO, a huge software quality problem with VR.

I am baffled as to why all the first person games don’t copy Alyx’s control scheme, it’s the only one that feels correct to use. The rest of the first person games feel awful to play, once you get past the gimmick of “wow cool”.

Music/rhythm games work really well for VR, but that’s always going to be a niche market. I play beat saber all the time, it’s fantastic.

Everything else seems to be sandbox games. Fucking sandbox games. They’re funny the first time, but you can only throw objects so many times before the magic is lost, you just wish there was an actual game there to play.

I love VR, and I hope developers continue to innovate with it, but it’s never going to overtake console gaming, it’s just too different.

I don’t get why we think AR is going to be any different for games. Why would I want to see my living room while playing a game? VR puts you in whole other worlds. It’s… that simple, I think.

Those limitations provide room for something revolutionary. Figure out how to do VR without a giant rectangle strapped to your face, figure out better controls, figure out motion sickness, and you’ll have a revolutionary device.

For AR, I’m not thinking games, but computing in general. Glasses (or better yet, contacts) that can overlay things on your field of view could be huge. That could be the thing to displace smartphones once this becomes possible and actually good.