I see a lot of people ragging on the switch and comparing it to the Steam Deck. I own both but
I’m gonna say this: they’re not even direct competitors. They don’t offer the same experiences at all.
The beauty of the Switch is the ease of use, modularity of control, and communal nature of it. Even if switch online sucks, playing with other switches or 8 people in the same room with certain games is unbelievably easy. The plug and play usability and every single game you can buy from the internal store just works.
Not to mention the dock is flawless and literally easy to use. For all its problems, the switch is a surprisingly well executed idea. There’s a reason they sold hundreds of millions of them.
Steam is catching up, but there’s still a ways to go between proton compatible games, connecting controllers, plugging into a dock without having to bend down and plug a cable etc. The Switch is simply put: easy.
That said, Nintendo is stupid for pricing the Switch 2 out of the “no brainer” casual gamer territory.
*in the USA
You can tell Americans think their country is the Internet, and the Internet is oriented for Americans.
You can still get a Steam Deck and save a ton of games.
The Switch 2 looks like absolute garbage so they can keep it.
My next console purchase with be a Steam Deck.
i have a steam deck and it’s awesome but it’s silly to think that it looks like garbage. the switch 2 looks pretty awesome.
I’ll probably get the Switch 2 eventually, but not for a year or two. I also have a Steam Deck, and they’re both great.
I’ll be interested to see a comparison between the Steam Deck and Switch 2 since the Switch 2 could have better performance (but probably comparable).
That’s the thing. It’s 2025. The Switch came out in 2017 and the Switch 2 is barely a step up from the Switch OLED. Which, BTW, isn’t even and option on the Switch 2. And 256 memory? Is that a joke? Plus their new scheme is to not have the games on the physical cartridge but to only have a key code on the cartridge that transfers to the console. And that’s not even looking and the drastically inflated price of the games. Not just new games but all the old ones are priced out at $80 to $90 a piece as well.
I delayed my preorder when I saw the bullshit price gouging for game prices.
Have you seen that nowhere is selling switch games for $90?
Look into it.
Looks like it has some promising titles but I don’t think price wise it can compete with the ryzen based handheld pcs like the steam deck etc. It doesn’t make much sense so far as I can tell but I’m still curious what titles it gets and how the battery life compares
No OLED screen at that price point was the deal-breaker for me.
Yeah I get that it’s obvious they are going to introduce an oled later. Very predictable imo and yeah if I ever buy one it’s going to be oled as well.
But yeah I’m at least waiting to see if the battery life is decent and what other titles it gets beforehand, right now I feel it has potential But at this moment in time I’d rather have a pc based handheld.
Yeah, bullshit. They’re just using tariffs to further increase the price.
100 bucks cheaper in Japan than any other region? 90 dollar games that never go on sale?
Get bent, Nintendo, I’ll stick to the steam deck and wait for emulation.
Someone doesn’t understand the full story. The Yen is weak. Super weak when compared to the US dollar. Hence the price difference for their country.
Additionally, those special consoles will be soft region locked. Only JP accounts can be added to them and will display Japanese only if the game supports that language.
Games never go on sale, what are you on about? We see Nintendo games go on sale frequently. Sorry they’re not the $5 dumpster trash that EA/Ubisoft shits out every year with their latest madden or CoD/Just Dance games riddled with bugs.
They should absolutely be selling their NES games for $5 or less instead of the original prices innthe 90s lol
Quit sucking corporate cock
Snap out of it fanboy
The Nordic prices are ridiculous though. It’s the equivalent of adding ~200 euro to the regular European price. I bet lots of people here are going to import from other EU countries
Power in Norway have said pre-orders have been “fantastisk bra”. So doesn’t seem the price bothers us.
Norway is richer on average though. Let’s see how sales go after the initial introduction
Tariffs causing price increase would be good for me politically
Nintendo going to suck trump dick so they can get the pricepoint they want.
No they won’t. They’ll just ship extra units to Canada and Mexico to account for fans going across the border to buy them.
Nintendo should open popup stores for the first year along the US border 😅.
This is a rare case where a piece of consumer electronics is going to be quite a bit cheaper in Australia compared to the USA! Usually stuff costs more in Australia.
The Switch is currently US$450 and will probably go up with tariffs. Meanwhile, it’s listed as AU$700 in Australia, which is AU$630 before tax (all advertised prices include tax), which is US$385.
I imagine this is going to happen for a lot of devices. I’m an Aussie living in the USA and I never thought I’d see the day when buying stuff in Australia would be cheaper. Australia has better consumer protection too, around things like repairs/refunds due to major issues even outside the warranty period.
In Europe it’s €385+taxes (all advertised prices must include tax) which is $425+tax, with two (mandatory) years of warranty included in price
I’ve got* no idea how this’ll work out. Nvidia is American.
Regardless of price, Nintendo is a shit legacy company that is riding on the coattails of the 90’s.
They never have games on steep discounts like their competitors, ensure emulations and artistic expressions are shut down immediately, and barely change shit to their flagship games such as Pokemon. They’re creatively stale and are blessed to have a rabid fan base who can’t see through it.
I got a switch since my kid brought grades home, but that’s the last piece of electronic device I’ll ever buy from Nintendo. This is someone who has played back in its heyday the N64.
People who ‘boycott’ and go back to buying what they boycotted because said company pushed out a halfass apology tweet deserve to lose their money.
Edit: lol at the Nintendo fan boys downvoting
What’s this boycott and half assed apology thing? I completely missed whatever that was.
They’re definitely creatively stale, but they’re also undeniably good at what they do. They have by far the best selling console of the last generation, and are the only console company to consistently post healthy profits on their operation.
Is it a bit naff that their next generation of games will almost certainly be yet another Zelda, yet another Mario, yet another Pokémon? Absolutely. But if their next Zelda game is yet another best-selling critically acclaimed success, who are we to say that they’ve got the wrong approach?
You seem to be missing the point, the Nintendo Switch is handily the most popular game console in US gaming history. It has officially sold more units than the PS2.
I’m sorry that you don’t appreciate the switch, it’s an amazing general purpose gaming console.
Switch is still behind PS2 and DS. Don’t think they’ll get that 3rd wind to get them across thr finish line for 1st place. Pandemic + AC releasing timing was a lightning in a bottle type of coincidence to help get the sales to the 150m mark.
Everything I can find still puts the switch behind not only ps2 but also the DS. Any chance you got a link?
It’s all right I wouldn’t say it’s groundbreaking. There are many portable computers including the steam deck that are far superior in terms of capability and openness.
Doesn’t think switch is groundbreaking. Proceeds to list handheld that wouldn’t exist without the Switch breaking that ground. lol
You’re going to need some evidence that that’s the case because my understanding is that Valve had been working on the steam deck for a while.
Hell the steam deck isn’t even the first handheld gaming computer, and the switch came out after the first handhelds, so even if Valve were influenced by the existence of the switch (which they weren’t), we would have still got the steam deck via other mechanisms.
Fucking PREACH!
Are we tired of winning yet America ?
most americans are tired, honestly. source: I am very fucking tired.
I am too and I’m also tired…
Still, almost half are OK and happy about this 😮💨
why do you think the rest of us are so tired?
Tbh I was tired way before any of this.
Are… Are we great again, yet?
The jury is still out it seems
Not until Nintendo picks up and moves to America.
Everyone pissing themselves over Nintendo not putting the price in the Direct when the reason why was pretty obvious, I thought.
In the US. Key part there is “in the US”. You guys deal with this nonsense. I intend to be playing my MSRP Vietnamese/Chinese console at launch, thankyouverymuch.
Hell, I’ll take whatever stock you don’t, maybe we can get a tenner or two shaved off the price. I’m sure the “let’s sneak in the exchange rate and pretend it’s VAT” thing is starting to look less appealing right about now.
The Chinese release of the Switch has like 18 games in total
You misunderstood, I said it’s Vietnamese/Chinese because that’s where a lot of the components are manufactured and why the tariffs are a problem for US distribution in particular but not for other regions.
The launch date for the US remains the same.
Well, yeah, but if the final store price is 750 instead of 450 the number of consoles allocated to the US market, let alone sold through, may be much lower.
Given that tariffs could be lifted at random, just like they were set, not even scalpers would want to buy tech that could drop in price dramatically any day.
Presumably the same tariffs will apply to PlayStations and Xboxes too (both made in China with components from Korea, and the former being a Japanese company).
Also, most PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
American gamers aren’t going to be overwhelmed with cheaper choices.
This is true. That said, presumably at least some of those have either a pre-existing install base they can keep selling digital games and services to or built-up stock.
Nintendo has zero Switch 2 units in US households and will be expected to honor preorder prices. Who knows how much stock they have in the US at this point. Probably next to zero.
US gamers won’t have cheaper choices to buy new hardware, but they sure will have the obvious choice of not spending money on unnecessary new toys at all. Especially because for how messed up gaming hardware is going to get there are going to be entire other market segments getting much worse that you don’t get to just opt out of.
This is atrocious timing for Nintendo. But hey, Europe has 450 million people and you weren’t going to sell 100 million Switches day one. Shave fifty euros off that sticker and I betcha some of them will take that unused US stock out of your hands and even buy some games on top.
Did anyone check with reddit to see if THIS story would be allowed to use one of the classic angry face Luigi Mario Kart gifs in response or are they still scared of that one?
Surprised Reddit just hasn’t shut down r/Nintendo since Spez and Musk are scared of a 5 letter word.
Did anyone check with reddit
Did anyone check with reddit
Blanket no on that one
Still scared.
Nope.
Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions. Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.
Wonder if the price of the console and even the cartridge games will change.
Cartridge games for the Switch 2 aren’t even cartridge games anymore, haven’t you heard? There’s no game on the cartridges just a passkey.
Yeah that’s a big no from me my last handheld console was the Vita and I felt even that was overpriced for games that were actually on the cartridge.
If everything is actually digital I’m simply not buying Sony killed my account with them because I didn’t login within 6 months and I’d actually bought games there so screw digital
I think they necessarily will. I can’t imagine retailers eating the lost margin.
Retailers won’t eat it all, consumers will
More like retailers won’t eat any of it and will take the opportunity to raise prices even more because they know consumers are expecting higher prices and they have pressure to retain or increase their margins to meet shareholder expectations.
Carts and console could very much change. Some estimates say up to 50% up.
Given that digital games will not this could make the Switch a de facto digital-only thing in the US.
I mean, assuming Trump isn’t beaten with a stick into submission in the next couple of weeks. We’ll see.
Either way, this situation is pretty damn funny to me. But then I do hate Nintendo for going against emulators and I won’t give them another cent ever.
He’s hanging out at a golf tournament today. I don’t think he’s feeling the pressure.
Absolutely. The console is manufactured in Vietnam, which now has a 46% tariff. I really doubt that Nintendo’s profit margin is high enough to allow them to just eat that cost.
Couldn’t they move it to another country first to reduce it a bit?
That would cost them enormous amounts of cash and hours of work just for one market.
There’s no point, the best option is just to ignore the US and let them pay more than the rest of the world, even if that means fewer sales.
Well does it cost them more or less than the tariff. That is pretty much the only question, its not that much work if it results in a lot of savings.
a lot of savings
Savings for who? If nothing is changed and manufacturers (and retailers) doesn’t make any kind of commercial gesture, the only ones paying more are the American consumers.
So moving the manufacture would be a saving for every Joe and Jane in the US, not Nintendo nor the ROTW.
Not moving the manufacture might be a loss of % in their US consumer base as prices will be too high there, but is it big enough to justify the enormous costs needed to move an entire industry workflow?
I don’t think so, specially when there is so many instability in the US politic, if you move to an other country at great cost and 2 weeks later a new tariff is declared (because why not), you moved everything for no reason but still lost your investment.
My belief is that no industry nor country will adapt, they will just increase the US market prices and keep on living like before with the ROTW. The only ones to suffer will be the American citizens and I’m sorry for them, but there is an all planet to trade with.
If you have a product that cost 500 with a markup of 50, but tariffs are pushing it to 750, it could easily be worth spending 50 to reduce tariffs to 650 and sell it at 700. You make just as much profit on each unit and you reduce the per unit cost which likely means more sales.
What?
You have a product that costs 450 to produce.
And you add a 50 markup so you are selling at 500.
Tariffs push that 500 up to 750. Which means a 50% tariff.So you remove your 50 markup and sell it at cost in that market. Which means a product at 450 with a 50% tariff will cost 675.
You don’t make any money on that sale. Fine, it’s a loss-leader. Hopefully you make up the profit of game sales and subscriptions. Which will also be tariffed.For a finished product, the tariff is applied to the selling cost. It doesn’t care about the value of the parts or the amount of markup.
A government isn’t going to pick through a device and apply Country of Origin tariffs on every part, or separate company profit from cost-of-product.If a company says a product is worth 500, that’s the amount the tariff is applied to.
I doubt Nintendo is going to eat the cost of tariffs.
It’s insane to. They could say “we will still launch at this price”, and have the us government cook up more tariffs or whatever. Then Nintendo is holding the bag, or has to renege on the price.
It would be smarter to mildly offset the cost. Like you say, knock $20-50 off but stipulate the final cost is subject to import duties.
I’d love them to say “well, you do you. This is the cost of the console. Your import duties are not out problem.” But I feel (despite their bullshit legal department) Nintendo is more passionate than that, and I think they will mildly reduce the price
Maybe! I’m sure there’s loopholes of some sort.
Dammm, the best part is everyone speculated that the price it’s at now was to predict and get ahead of tarrif pricing by already setting it higher. The fact that it’s not is scary.
I think the $450 USD was just keeping up with inflation.
$300 in March 2017 when the switch originally launched is equivalent to almost $400 today ($392 and some change). S2 is launching at $450, if they were only expecting 15%-ish tariffs then maybe, but it should then be cheaper outside of the US if tariffs were the only reason. Electronic component prices have gone up beyond inflation growth, I think it would be easier to blame it on that.
$80-90 games before tariffs sucks, but games have been $60 for as long as I can remember, and they’re only getting more expensive to make.
I would say it’s more that some studios are spending even more to make them, games don’t have to cost more to make as you can now make a lot more with a smaller team than you could 20 years ago.
Would tariffs apply to the games as well?
Physical copies if they are made outside the US, digital no iirc
Ahh so software can cross borders for free. Then presumably they can just rent a shed somewhere to write data to what ever storage media they use these days.
and some games arnt even worth 60$ to begin with
No, it’s one of the most expensive Nintendo consoles ever. Only beat by the NES and the SNES. Those released when prices were at all time highs for this stuff.
God damn everyone has heard this stupid ass argument and it just makes you stupid to repeat it. Shut up.
Do you not like reading the truth?
The market wasn’t expecting the tariffs to be as insane as they were — which is why it crashed. They had been expecting 10% maximums, not minimums.
Well we knew the price didn’t include the tarrifs when we saw Europe get absolutely crazy high prices. Higher than the US and a lot higher if we take into account the dollar tanking right now.
That was the first thing I thought of too.
