The Switch 2 Is Having An Xbox Moment With Two Important Differences
Also: Trump tanks the economy, gamers rise up, and Bungie's Marathon resurfaces
Last week’s Nintendo Direct had a surprising number parallels to the 2013 Xbox One debut. Microsoft led with the console’s motion censing Kinect camera and cable TV set top box capabilities, features that were part of a plan to dominate the living room the same way the iPhone was dominating people’s pockets.
Those features turned out to be things that players didn’t care much about and Sony swooped in by making the PS4 cheaper and pitching it as being a gaming machine for gaming fans. Microsoft’s message was additionally hampered by lots of confusing messaging around an ever-worse sounding DRM initiate that would help people share digital games but completely destroy the used game market (the genesis of the how to share a PS4 game video that “won” Sony the generation).
Nintendo’s Switch 2 rollout followed a similar pattern. It spent a lot of time touting new Joy-Con mouse controls, a dedicated GameChat button for voice chat, and video sharing capability via web cam peripheral so players can show their faces while playing games. There are neat and interesting arguments to be made on behalf of each of these features, but my guess is that, at the end of the day, most people don’t care about them and they won’t be meaningfully implemented in most games, even Nintendo’s.
Then there was Nintendo’s needlessly obfuscatory rollout of the things people actually wanted to know about like how much the Switch 2 cost and how to play The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom at 60fps in 4K. Fans went looking for the info themselves and some ended up on Spain’s Nintendo Store which surprisingly listed Mario Kart World as €80 for the digital version and €90 physical for physical copies.
Since the Switch 2 Direct I have listened to 10+ hours of podcast recordings breaking down the reveal last week, all of them hastily recorded in the immediate aftermath of the event, and listened to tons of people raise the digital vs. physical price discrepancy question in real time without any clear answers because Nintendo never provided any (I emailed PR for clarification at 10:29 AM on April 2 and never heard back).
Eventually, U.S. retailers like Best Buy and others listed the physical version of Mario Kart World with no price discrepancy, but the physical and digital divide remains in Europe, including the UK where retailer GAME called it “a challenging” and a “tough message for a customer,” especially when it comes to one of the last predominantly physical game buying fanbases left out there.
Nintendo’s bad messaging bit it in the ass again over the weekend when it was discovered that physical copies of Switch 2 Edition are just the Switch version with an upgrade key. Buy Kirby and the Forgotten World for Switch 2 and you’re actually just getting the Switch game with a code, something that contradicted how Nintendo had framed the news in the Direct (“The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games you just saw will be available as both physical and digital versions.”) The source of the apparent confirmation? A random Nintendo support rep. [Update 1:57 p.m. ET: According to YouTuber Nintendo Prime, the My Nintendo Store informed him that Switch 2 Editions will actually come fully loaded on the physical cartridge. More confusion that underlines the larger point!]
But while there are clear similarities in the rollout, the Switch 2 departs from the Xbox One in two meaningful ways: the camera is optional and it has big exclusive games. That might have been enough to change the Xbox One’s fortunes and it will certainly make Nintendo’s new hardware mostly immune to any initial bad buzz.
It took Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor almost a year to get Sunset Overdrive. In that time Switch 2 will have Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hyrule Warriors: Imprisonment War, and The Duskbloods, not to mention superior versions of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
A few more thoughts on the Switch 2 reveal before we move on.
Nintendo’s strategy with the Switch 2, which will almost certainly sell less than its predecessor, seems to be to extract more revenue per fan per year with higher prices, similar to what Sony has done with the PS5. It just recently ditched a generous 5% cash-back discount on all digital purchases.
According to Nintendo’s 2021 business presentation, Switch is more popular among 40-year-olds than 10-year-olds. Nintendo products are an important entry point into console gaming for kids and pricing them even higher seems to risk pushing even more of them into free app rivals like YouTube and Roblox.
Higher prices also risks a lower attach rate. Instead of buying eight or nine games on average like they did on Switch, those on Switch 2 might only grab five or six. Third-parties and indies seem likely to be the biggest losers of Nintendo trying to take a larger piece of a shrinking pie.
There will never be another Wii U situation for Nintendo because after consolidating its handheld and home console lines every console will have multiple Pokémon games on it.
The way modern consoles make a lot of money is by collecting fees on third-party transactions. That traditionally consisted of digital game purchases, but increasingly means microtransactions. Better social features make Switch 2 more conducive to the types of live service hangs that generate social cosmetic purchases.
These games also require paid Switch Online subscriptions. This is why Nintendo wanted a multiplayer game from FromSoftware. The Switch 2 should also finally be powerful enough to run forever games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Rocket League (as as well as newcomers like Marvel Rivals) without major concessions.
There’s a Mario-sized hole in the Switch 2’s launch year lineup. I’m convinced Nintendo is waiting to reveal a 3D Mario coming sometime in the fall, maybe even within a week or two of Grand Theft Auto 6. It’ll probably be announced around not-E3 in June, a week or two after the Switch 2’s official launch. My pet theory is it’s Mario Galaxy 3 and Nintendo was teasing it at last week’s New York preview event.
Speaking of which, I left out one of the most important details in last week’s gossip about the event: Nintendo staff clapped for attendees every time they entered the Mario Kart demo room, whether they arriving for the first time or just coming back from the bathroom.
The Switch 2 cases are ugly as hell.
Trump take Switch
It feels incredibly quaint to be doing any commentary on the Switch 2 at all when pre-orders for it in the U.S. are currently on hold as Trump sends the world economy into free fall over a nonsensical tariff regime born out of a 17th century conception of global trade. So far he’s refusing to back down even in the face of panicking cable news anchors.
Taxes that would raise the price of Switch 2 and other gaming products by as much as around 30-45 percent are set to go into effect April 9, the day pre-orders were set to begin. Unless Trump reverses course, it won’t just be Nintendo fans in the U.S. that are screwed. The entire game industry would be set for unprecedented pain amid panic around the biggest economic recession in decades.
Long before the “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced, anti-Trump protests were scheduled to take place across the country on April 6. People marched against the ransacking of the federal government and the trampling of human of rights. Luigi was there. So was Pikachu. Also fake gamer memes. While the incoming economic damage will be devastating and widespread, gamers are currently at the vanguard of seeing all the shit they care about getting more expensive and taken out of their hands.
The only thing falling faster than the S&P 500 is Elon Musk’s favorability. He’s the first toxic asset of this new economic crisis, and seems likely to be jettisoned by the Trump admin at any moment. He can’t even play Path of Exiles 2 on his private jet without being obliterated in the online world chat. His actual gameplay wasn’t much better either. “This is like the level of play of a cat sitting on a controller lol,” one person wrote.
Marathon et al.
Bungie’s first “completely new project” in over a decade continues to look like it might be the most visually beautiful game the studio has ever produced. It’s a squad-based extraction loot shooter where players explore the “mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV” using disposable cybernetic bodies. In classic Destiny fashion, a gameplay trailer debut date of April 12 was revealed after players solved a series of ARG puzzles embedded in new teaser materials.
Marathon’s aesthetic (there’s a great breakdown here) is led by franchise art director Joseph Cross who was a lead concept designer at Bungie for years helping to shape Destiny’s melding of post-apocalyptic dilapidation and whimsical sci-fi idealism. He was also art director on Sony’s failed sci-fi live shooter Concord very early on but left amid disagreements with the game’s director about, among other things, that game’s art style.
Marathon’s radioactive color palette and ghostly tech sensibility have immediately grabbed players’ imaginations, but the durability of that vision will come down to whether modern Bungie can deliver on a complex PvPvE experience, interesting character progression, and an intriguing world that makes fans want to grind for hours on end.
Previous reporting by Insider Gaming suggests key distinctions for Marathon are slowly depleting oxygen tanks that put every mission on a timer and lightning quick load times to cut down on the friction of queuing up. Other reporting has pointed to some big internal development hurdles, including the firing of former director Chris Barrett in early 2024.
In some ways it feels like Bungie’s entire survival hinges on whether Marathon can recreate Destiny’s magic a decade ago following a brutal year of layoffs and restructurings after selling to Sony for over $3 billion. Not because the studio will be shutdown if it doesn’t, but because whatever is left of the Bungie mystique and legacy for modern fans will have evaporated, and potentially any meaningful creative leverage it still has within the broader PlayStation portfolio.
A few more things floating around in the gaming ether this week:
Microsoft has used generative-AI to hallucinate an entire fake version of Quake 2 and people hate it. PC Gamer did not mince words. Friends at the Table podcaster Austin Walker also has a great thread on the subject too.
Insider Gaming reports that Ubisoft is working on a Rainbow Six Siege XCOM-like, which Dead Game can corroborate. My understanding is its code name is Slice & Dice and the project is being led by Ghost Recon: Breakpoint game director Elie Benhamou. It’s one of the many interesting-sounding Ubisoft games that have struggled to see the light of day that I alluded to in last week’s newsletter.
Lots of old, seemingly canceled Nintendo games are leaking online, including one from Retro Studios called “Harmony” about a fairy character that can transform to solve puzzles, according to VGC.
The first interviews from last week’s Switch 2 event are coming out. VGC confirms it won’t have Hall Effect joysticks, Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen explains why Mario Kart World is $80 but won’t say who’s m making Donkey Kong Bananza, and big boss Doug Bowser claims tariffs aren’t why the Switch 2 costs $450, suggesting it is about to cost way, way more in the U.S.